Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob
Speaker 1: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And of course it's vault
Speaker 1: time here on Weird House Cinema. This episode is about
Speaker 1: the movie Demon Night. It originally aired February. You're in
Speaker 1: for such a treat. You're gonna be dancing with Billy
Speaker 1: Zane in your dreams. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema. This is Rob and I'm Joe, and today
Speaker 1: we are going to unscramble the cable signal and tune
Speaker 1: into some Tales from the Crypt. That's right, Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: we have. We have another slice of nineties genre cinema
Speaker 1: for you this week, except this one's far cheaper than
Speaker 1: Free Jack Um, I think, ultimately a more enjoyable film.
Speaker 1: But it is, of course, the the initial cinematic spinoff
Speaker 1: of HBO's Tales from the Crypt. It is Tales from
Speaker 1: the Crypt Demon Night. From what that sounds right? It
Speaker 1: looks very mid nineties. Uh so, I guess this one
Speaker 1: and last week's are a little bit more mainstream than
Speaker 1: than we usually go. Yeah, yeah, they're they're more mainstream,
Speaker 1: but Demon Knight is also one. I mean, Free Jack
Speaker 1: is definitely a film that that did not perform to
Speaker 1: expectation and was kind of just thrown out there and
Speaker 1: died and was forgotten by many. Uh. Demon Knight is
Speaker 1: a film that I think also is, you know, we're
Speaker 1: talking about this before we started recording, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a little under underappreciated, though it certainly has its following
Speaker 1: and and you know continues to be popular to this day,
Speaker 1: but you don't you don't hear it championed that often
Speaker 1: as being like a great, uh piece of horror or
Speaker 1: horror comedy from the nineties. I guess it's hard to
Speaker 1: argue that it's great, but it is really fun. This
Speaker 1: is a really fun, r rated, frisky piece of horror comedy. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's essentially a siege movie. So the basic structure
Speaker 1: is pretty uh, pretty nailed down. You know, like you're
Speaker 1: gonna have characters go somewhere, they're gonna hold up there,
Speaker 1: and then things are gonna try and get in and
Speaker 1: get them. It's the basic Night of the Living Dead scenario.
Speaker 1: It's Night of the Living Dead, evil Dead assault on
Speaker 1: Precinct thirteen that that kind of thing. Yeah, so well,
Speaker 1: let's just jump right into the elevator pitch on this one,
Speaker 1: just now. This is the elevator pitch for the basic
Speaker 1: movie itself. The Unholy Demon Lords have six of the
Speaker 1: seven keys they need to drag the universe back into darkness,
Speaker 1: and the only thing standing in their way on planet
Speaker 1: Earth for that last key is one immortal drifter and
Speaker 1: a rag tag bunch of losers in a rundown hotel
Speaker 1: in the middle of the desert, uh huh, in a
Speaker 1: place called Wormwood, New Mexico. I looked it up. Not
Speaker 1: a real place. It sounds nice and biblical, though, which
Speaker 1: is good because there's a lot of biblical uh nonsense
Speaker 1: going on in this particular movie. Yeah, and this movie
Speaker 1: is just jammed with drifters. Yeah, yeah, it's it's all.
Speaker 1: It's braisically all drifters. I mean, and i've i've I've
Speaker 1: actually seen it discussed in the sense that it's like
Speaker 1: the meek shalling hair at the Earth, and this is
Speaker 1: the meek. These are all the sorts of losers that
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ himself would have hung out with in life.
Speaker 1: Maybe not Thomas Hayden Church, He's not that meek, but
Speaker 1: he's a scumbag in this. So yeah, that's true. So
Speaker 1: the Pharisees come to Jesus and they say, hey, you
Speaker 1: sit down to eat with the sinners and the tax
Speaker 1: collectors and even with Thomas Hayden Church. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's look ahead. Have just a little bit of the
Speaker 1: trailer audio here, and there's probably gonna be a little
Speaker 1: crip keeper in there. You have a little. Pictures is
Speaker 1: proud to present the motion picture directing debut of one
Speaker 1: of America's most talented and respected artists. Oh hello, kiddies,
Speaker 1: so glad you could join me, your pal, The Cryptie
Speaker 1: has gone Hollywood in a big way. I'm directing my
Speaker 1: first feature film, Care for a Little Shrink preview for
Speaker 1: my big Scream premiere. I wanted lots of suspense, special effects, sex, violence.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing you could really sink your
Speaker 1: teeth into. Fights, camera hatcha and ladies, if you think
Speaker 1: deep nights to browsing, yucky, thank you? All right? So yeah,
Speaker 1: basically the idea here with the whole Tale from the
Speaker 1: Crypt thing is, you know, Tales from the Crypt was
Speaker 1: was like the show on HBO back in the day,
Speaker 1: and We've talked about it on the show before here
Speaker 1: on like, um, some of our horror anthology specials around Halloween.
Speaker 1: You know, it's basically it's based on the old horror
Speaker 1: comics and each each little story in the horror comic
Speaker 1: would be about some horrible person getting their come upance,
Speaker 1: and so each episode of Tales from the Crypt generally
Speaker 1: revolves around that as well. Yeah. To me, the opening
Speaker 1: theme music of Tales from the Crypt, I think it's
Speaker 1: composed by Danny Elfman. It just sounds like the nineties,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like being a kid in the nineties
Speaker 1: trying to watch stuff that you're not allowed to watch.
Speaker 1: It's like it's the sound of I think we may
Speaker 1: have made this comparison before, but it's the sound of
Speaker 1: a scrambled cable channel that you don't get that shows
Speaker 1: are rated depravity all night and every day. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it really does. Um And I guess one of the
Speaker 1: interesting things about this is, like you can imagine the
Speaker 1: studios came in there, some folks behind the scenes were like, Hey,
Speaker 1: the show is really successful, we should do a movie.
Speaker 1: The thing is, Tales from the Crypt. It doesn't really
Speaker 1: lend itself well to that kind of format unless you're
Speaker 1: gonna do an anthology film with just a bunch of
Speaker 1: little stories. Um, much like the original tales from the
Speaker 1: Crypto film the nineteen seventy two anthology picture from Amaricus. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think I even knew that existed. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: has the crypt Keeper in it, but the crypt Keeper
Speaker 1: is played by Sir Ralph Richardson in like a hood.
Speaker 1: That's nice. Um. Yeah, But so, as you mentioned, the
Speaker 1: the standard format of the tales from the crypt episode, uh,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's some variation, but the most common
Speaker 1: format is that you have basically a sleazy salad of
Speaker 1: gratuitous gore and nudity in which a morally bankrupt person
Speaker 1: does something evil, they think they're going to get away
Speaker 1: with it, and then they get their just desserts via
Speaker 1: the the vengeful wrath of a monster, demon, ancient curse,
Speaker 1: haunted scarecrow, chainsaw freak or whatever. Yeah, it's in a way,
Speaker 1: it's it's like horror in a very simple form, fulfilling
Speaker 1: a societal need. You know, we need the villains in
Speaker 1: our world, in our life to suffer, and these little
Speaker 1: stories provide that suffering along with some you know gratuitous violence,
Speaker 1: maybe a little nudity, uh and and maybe a few
Speaker 1: laughs as well. A lot of gallows humor finds its
Speaker 1: way into these episodes, and a lot of puns. I mean,
Speaker 1: the crypt Keeper loves to make death related puns. That's right, because,
Speaker 1: of course, the big thing about the the HBO series
Speaker 1: is hosted by the crypt Keeper. This wonderful puppetry creation
Speaker 1: of a of a reanimated corpse that just gleefully uh
Speaker 1: takes you on this journey to hear all of these tales.
Speaker 1: You know who the crypt Keeper is. It's the preserved
Speaker 1: remains of Jeremy Bentham. I couldn't stop thinking about that
Speaker 1: this time. I mean, like god, that that rotten looking head.
Speaker 1: It's almost perfectly the crypt Keeper. Well, let let's start
Speaker 1: with the crypt Keeper talking about people involved in this one.
Speaker 1: The crypt Keeper's voice is, of course John Casser born
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty seven. Uh. He a longtime actor and
Speaker 1: voice actor, but he's most well known as the voice
Speaker 1: of the crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt on
Speaker 1: HBO from eighty nine through as well as the cartoon
Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypt Keeper three uh three Tales from
Speaker 1: the Crypt movies we'll get a touch on that in
Speaker 1: a bit, but basically, just uh, with the Crypt Keeper,
Speaker 1: we have a great voice coming together with an amazing puppet.
Speaker 1: At least for most appearances, and all this based on
Speaker 1: one of the EC comics horror hosts. You know. Other
Speaker 1: hosts included things like the Vault Keeper and the Old Witch,
Speaker 1: but those were just in the comic, right, They were
Speaker 1: not on on the TV series. I don't think so. Though.
Speaker 1: Occasionally the crypt Keeper has a guest that's not a
Speaker 1: corpse in those little segments. Um. Uh. And we'll touch
Speaker 1: on some of those examples as we go here. But
Speaker 1: of course in this movie Tales from the Crypt Demon Night,
Speaker 1: the crypt Keeper is just there to set things up
Speaker 1: to say, hey, we can hear it is for you
Speaker 1: a movie. Um. And the movie itself is pretty self contained. Uh.
Speaker 1: It has a few nods to tails from the through
Speaker 1: the crypt within it. Uh. But but but still, you
Speaker 1: could watch it in and on it on its own,
Speaker 1: without the intro or the outro, and you'd get it.
Speaker 1: So I guess the first person we should talk about
Speaker 1: is the director. This was directed by Ernest Dickerson. Dickerson
Speaker 1: was born in nineteen fifty one, and he was a
Speaker 1: classmate of Spike Lee at the Tisch School of the Arts,
Speaker 1: and so he went on to work as a frequent
Speaker 1: collaborator with Spike Lee as a cinematographer on various Spike
Speaker 1: Lee joints including School Days, Do the Right Thing, Moment
Speaker 1: Or Blues, Jungle Fever, and Malcolm X. He also worked
Speaker 1: as cinematographer on films from John Saylis, the film Brother
Speaker 1: from Another Planet, and Jonathan Demmi, and more recently, you
Speaker 1: might have noticed his name as a director on a
Speaker 1: number of TV projects, including multiple episodes of The Walking Dead,
Speaker 1: Tremay The Wire. He se like one of those TV
Speaker 1: directors that just works all the time, and he's also
Speaker 1: done a lot of work in the horror genre. He
Speaker 1: was He was cinematographer on the TV series Tales from
Speaker 1: the Dark Side, an anthology series, and while Demon Knight
Speaker 1: was his first horror or sci fi film as a director,
Speaker 1: he went on to direct Future Sport, which looks interesting,
Speaker 1: and the two thousand and one Snoop Dogg ghost movie Bones,
Speaker 1: which I haven't seen, but I was reading a little
Speaker 1: about and it it seems like it has its following,
Speaker 1: so maybe it's worth Yeah, Okay, I mean it's snoop
Speaker 1: is always entertaining, so so. Demon Knight, though, follows up
Speaker 1: on Dickerson's film Juice, which started Tupac Shakur, and also
Speaker 1: the exquisite film Surviving the Game. Do you remember this one, Joe,
Speaker 1: of course I do. Surviving the I don't think Surviving
Speaker 1: the Game is as good as Demon Night, as comparing
Speaker 1: Dickerson's violent thrillers here surviving, but one thing that is
Speaker 1: great about Surviving the Basically, it's an adaptation of the
Speaker 1: short story The Most Dangerous Game about a group of
Speaker 1: about like a rich guy on an island who hunts
Speaker 1: human beings for sport. Uh. This adapts that to the
Speaker 1: modern world, and it's a movie about a character named
Speaker 1: Mason played by iced T who is like homeless and depressed,
Speaker 1: and he gets offered a job by a guy who
Speaker 1: he meets somewhere I think maybe at a like a
Speaker 1: like a place where they're feeding the homeless, and he
Speaker 1: gets recruited for this job to be a wilderness guide
Speaker 1: for a bunch of rich dudes played by people like
Speaker 1: Rutger Howard, Charles Stutton, Gary Busey, F Murray Abraham, John C. McGinley.
Speaker 1: It is a real powerhouse cast, like every person who
Speaker 1: could have played like, you know, the cocaine king of
Speaker 1: the week in an eighties crime movie. Uh, they're one
Speaker 1: of these, one of the party of the hunters in
Speaker 1: this movie. And then of course the twist is once
Speaker 1: they get out in the woods there they tell I see, okay,
Speaker 1: well we're gonna hunt you now, but I see outsmarts
Speaker 1: them all. So I remember catching this one on Able,
Speaker 1: I think, and uh, and I remember finding it irresistible,
Speaker 1: just drawn right into it. Yeah, And I I gotta say,
Speaker 1: Iced Tea has a very weird charm in this movie.
Speaker 1: It's hard to describe exactly what it is, but he
Speaker 1: he plays a He plays a very rude and sympathetic
Speaker 1: protagonist as he's like chugging along through the forest while
Speaker 1: they're chasing him on a t v s. Yeah. So um.
Speaker 1: So it's some some notable films so from Dickerson there
Speaker 1: now coming back to Demon Night, Uh, there's a there's
Speaker 1: an excellent shout factory slash screen factory, uh blu ray
Speaker 1: of this film that came out, and that's that's what
Speaker 1: I watched for this. But it also includes some some
Speaker 1: really cool features, including interviews with Dickerson among others, and
Speaker 1: one of the things that came out of it, aside
Speaker 1: from him just being really chill and apparently easy to
Speaker 1: work with um and open to some of the lunear
Speaker 1: ideas that the actors brought to the table. Um, he
Speaker 1: was also a major force behind having a more diverse
Speaker 1: cast on this film, including the casting of African American
Speaker 1: actors Jada Pinkett, c. C. H. Pounder, and Mark David
Speaker 1: Kinnerlely who plays a very small part towards the end,
Speaker 1: but also presumably First Nations actor Gary Farmer, who will
Speaker 1: touch on here in a bit. And it's worth noticing
Speaker 1: that even our secondary minority characters in this film survive
Speaker 1: quite far into the picture right. The cliche long being
Speaker 1: that in many horror movies it is common for the
Speaker 1: cast to be all white except for one black character,
Speaker 1: and the black guy dies first. So so yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems that having having a black director at the at
Speaker 1: the front of this thing really helped out in that regard.
Speaker 1: For instance, the main character to character the Jada Pinkett
Speaker 1: plays Jada Pinkett Smith plays in this UM like that
Speaker 1: was I think the studio wanted Um. I forget which actor,
Speaker 1: but they wanted a white female actor for the role um,
Speaker 1: and he would he insisted on this, so and I
Speaker 1: think it's a better film for it. Yeah. Now the
Speaker 1: screenwriters on this were Ethan Rife, Cyrus Voris, uh and
Speaker 1: Mark Bishop. That this trio they had written a post
Speaker 1: apocalyptic movie called Escape from safe Haven in and that
Speaker 1: was directed by Bishop, and Bishop didn't didn't seem to
Speaker 1: go on to do much else in film, but Rife
Speaker 1: and Voris went on to do quite a lot, including
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight Kung Fu Panda. Yeah, they they
Speaker 1: wrote that, uh, and you'll find their names attached to
Speaker 1: anything involving Kung Fu Panda. They also wrote two thousand
Speaker 1: tens Robin Hood. That's the Ridley Scott version starring Russell Crowe.
Speaker 1: I didn't see um and Demon Knight was apparently a
Speaker 1: spec script that they had out there and people were
Speaker 1: you know, excited about it, and it got picked up
Speaker 1: by this Tales from the Crypt trilogy idea, like they were.
Speaker 1: The basic idea was like let's do three Tails from
Speaker 1: the Crypt films will find the screenplays and we'll we'll
Speaker 1: just you know, put to some Crypt Keeper at the beginning,
Speaker 1: some crypt Keeper at the end, and you got yourself
Speaker 1: a franchise. Now. Unfortunately, being a feature film instead of
Speaker 1: being made for TV, it does not have commercial breaks
Speaker 1: for the crypt Keeper to come in in the middle
Speaker 1: of the movie and comment about what's currently going on
Speaker 1: in the story. He's just at the beginning and the end.
Speaker 1: But even with the only the beginning and the end
Speaker 1: of Brackets, the crypt Keeper is a very welcome presence now.
Speaker 1: Apparently I was watching some of the making of and
Speaker 1: apparently there was some push and pull on the idea
Speaker 1: of like what the the movie itself was going to be.
Speaker 1: The screenwriters really thought, this is more of a hero movie,
Speaker 1: this is about a hero's journey, etcetera. And then everyone
Speaker 1: else was like, well, but it's a monster movie. It
Speaker 1: needs to be a monster movie. It's Tales from the Crypt.
Speaker 1: And then you know, ultimately goes back to what we
Speaker 1: said earlier, like this is not a come uppance film.
Speaker 1: It's not a film about a horrible person getting their
Speaker 1: come uppance. It ends up really being more of a
Speaker 1: hero's journey kind of a story with monsters, but with
Speaker 1: the Tales from the Crypt branding. But also I mean,
Speaker 1: I think Dickerson handles it exactly right, and that it
Speaker 1: is not overly serious in any way, Like it is
Speaker 1: a very loose, fun, frisky movie that does not ever
Speaker 1: stop to take itself too seriously. And the scenes that
Speaker 1: do get kind of serious addressing, like the you know,
Speaker 1: the recurring hero Boti for whatever those are, those are
Speaker 1: brief enough to be kind of welcome, and then it
Speaker 1: quickly gets back to goofy gory jokes. Absolutely, Well, let's
Speaker 1: start talking about some of these heroes. Um again, Jada Pinkett,
Speaker 1: who would become Jada Pinkett Smith later on she plays
Speaker 1: our hero. And this is um Jerry Jerry Line, Jerry Lynn,
Speaker 1: like jer Lyne Jerlen. It it's one of those where
Speaker 1: I got prepared for it to be pronounced a certain
Speaker 1: way and then it was not in the film. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: I think different characters in the movie pronounce her name
Speaker 1: different and you might say, hey, that's not consistent, but
Speaker 1: then hey, if you have you ever known somebody whose
Speaker 1: name as written could be pronounced different ways, people pronounce
Speaker 1: it different ways. But we're going with Jerlyne Jerylene. Okay, Jerylene.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna trying to be consistent. I may just say
Speaker 1: Jada pinkett Um anyway, Yep, she's in this. She had
Speaker 1: not yet married will Smith, but she was on the
Speaker 1: rise here. She was coming off of the Hughes Brothers
Speaker 1: Minister Society as well as Jason's lyric and she would
Speaker 1: apparently go on to like really break out. Uh in
Speaker 1: is the nutty Professor. Then she was in Scream to
Speaker 1: the Matrix sequels, just to name a few. I saw
Speaker 1: that she's going to be in the upcoming New Matrix movie,
Speaker 1: so I forget who her character is, but whoever she is,
Speaker 1: she must survive the third film. Yeah. Now, let's see,
Speaker 1: this is not a hero. This is our main antagonist
Speaker 1: in the film, but we have Billy Zane as the collector.
Speaker 1: Billy Zane is just wonderful in this movie. He is
Speaker 1: he's I mean, Zane has a very punchable face and
Speaker 1: a lot of roles and oh he's so punchable in
Speaker 1: this he's he he just he hands it up so
Speaker 1: much like he's great, playing like a smug, privileged s
Speaker 1: ob and in so many other films, I mean, especially
Speaker 1: Titanic comes to mind. Uh but yeah, he's he's like
Speaker 1: a loony Tunes character in this in all the right
Speaker 1: ways that would be in the appropriate Um, in the
Speaker 1: appropriate ways. He was just like a cartoon character. Oh well,
Speaker 1: you included a detail that he I think revealed in
Speaker 1: one of the making of features. You said you were
Speaker 1: watching that once. Once I read it, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's absolutely right, the one about a Laddin. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: he He says that he approached the role like he was, uh,
Speaker 1: playing the genie from a Laddin, except evil, And then
Speaker 1: you see it in everything. It's exactly what he's doing.
Speaker 1: He's almost Robin Williams, but a little bit less manic
Speaker 1: and more smooth, but smooth in a very sinister and
Speaker 1: silly way. He he's perfect in this role. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is This is apparently one of his favorite roles that
Speaker 1: he did, and yeah, he really shines in it. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, no matter what your opinion is of of
Speaker 1: Zane in general, you know he's he's been in some
Speaker 1: real some real stinkers for sure. Um. But yeah, this
Speaker 1: has just the right amount of Billy Zane. And oh
Speaker 1: and this was fun too. This was revealed one of
Speaker 1: the treats. This was apparently Zane's first film without a hairpiece.
Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, apparently he came in to meet Dickerson
Speaker 1: and he brought in like a little suitcase and he
Speaker 1: opened it up, uh, and he was completely bald, you know,
Speaker 1: and shaved down, and he showed him the hairpieces. He's like,
Speaker 1: which one do you want me to wear for the film,
Speaker 1: And Dickerson's like, I don't know. I like what you've
Speaker 1: got going on there, And so that's what they went with,
Speaker 1: which is bald, which yeah, um yeah, his bald head
Speaker 1: is exquisite. And I wonder if that inspired the scenes
Speaker 1: in the film where he's carrying around a suitcase or
Speaker 1: maybe that was part of the script anyway. I mean,
Speaker 1: he so we should say that in the movie we
Speaker 1: said he's the villain, but he is the titular demon Knight.
Speaker 1: He is a hell beast who's a kind of uh
Speaker 1: smooth talking prince of the Infernal Realms who wants to
Speaker 1: do some kind of apocalyptic magic and it involves him
Speaker 1: frequently getting out a suitcase and asking people to put
Speaker 1: a thing inside it. Right yeah, yeah, so he does
Speaker 1: have case around, so presumably a very similar suitcase that
Speaker 1: that held his many different hairs. Now you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of films listed as Billy Zane credits that almost
Speaker 1: none of which I had any idea Billy Zane was in.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he was in Back to the Future. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that he was in Night six is Critters.
Speaker 1: I had no clue on that one. Yeah, no idea. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess he really stood out. I guess one of
Speaker 1: the early roles where he really stood out would be
Speaker 1: the nine thriller Dead Calm, alongside Sam Neil and Nicole Kidman.
Speaker 1: And he's he's quite good in that. I've never seen it. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's good. It's a really really good, solid thriller. Huh.
Speaker 1: Was that the one where he plays like a he's
Speaker 1: like an evil guy on a boat. Yeah, it's a thrill.
Speaker 1: That's probably oversimplifying it, but yeah, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it forever, but I remember it as being
Speaker 1: quite good. Um, it's like you take the end of
Speaker 1: Cape Fear and make it a whole movie. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so. Yeah. Um. Zane of course did a
Speaker 1: lot of TV work as well. He was on Twin Peaks, Um,
Speaker 1: he was in the film Tombstone, And of course we
Speaker 1: can't forget his starring role in Nine Is the Phantom
Speaker 1: um because there was that whole period in the nineties
Speaker 1: when Hollywood decided that old timey characters like Dick Tracy
Speaker 1: and the Shadow were the next big thing, and that
Speaker 1: was a weird time. I kind of wait, so was
Speaker 1: the was the Phantom an old property that was being
Speaker 1: revived or was it a new property in the style
Speaker 1: of the old adventure cereals? The Phantom was an old character? Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh okay, yeah, I know the Shadow was. Didn't Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin play the Shadow? And there? Yeah, that one. I
Speaker 1: do not remember that one as being good, but it
Speaker 1: had Alec Baldwin and it was directed by Russell McKay.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure if I were to watch it again,
Speaker 1: I would I would find some some lovable, weird things
Speaker 1: in it, but I don't know. Uh, there are other
Speaker 1: Moquet films I would rather see. Now. I know you
Speaker 1: have unspeakable love for Dick Tracy. Do you want to
Speaker 1: talk about that? Uh? Well, I wouldn't say it's unspeakable
Speaker 1: love because I haven't seen it since I was a kid.
Speaker 1: But it it was one that was not as good
Speaker 1: as anticipated, perhaps, but it had such weird mobsters in it,
Speaker 1: Like all the mobsters. You know, in a way they're
Speaker 1: they're trying to create the kind of the rough characteratures
Speaker 1: of the of the of the old comic and in
Speaker 1: doing so, they created these monstrous mutant gangsters that were
Speaker 1: just you know, irresistible and also just so weird, Like
Speaker 1: it's so weird that the movies filled with them. Wasn't
Speaker 1: there one called little Face who had a huge head
Speaker 1: with a little face in the middle of it. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was Flat Top, and I think there was one
Speaker 1: called no Face who didn't have a face. There was
Speaker 1: one called the Brow was just this enormous grotesque brow.
Speaker 1: Like just tons of those type of characters, most of
Speaker 1: which they did nothing with. Most of them are just
Speaker 1: I think like they have like a good dozen of
Speaker 1: them that they kill in one scene just in passing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they just have like the Star Wars Cantina scene, but
Speaker 1: it's mutant mobsters. Yeah. So I feel like that kind
Speaker 1: of and me for traditional gangster films to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: because you're like, oh, well, you know, Godfather is good,
Speaker 1: but it didn't have any mutants in it. Oh. I
Speaker 1: like the Godfather is good, but yeah, but I'd like
Speaker 1: to see mutant gangsters come back. I feel like that's
Speaker 1: the that's the takeaway from Dick Tracy. I agree, a
Speaker 1: little bit more boiling acid version of The Godfather. All Right.
Speaker 1: We said that there was an immortal drifter in this film,
Speaker 1: and there is the character breaker played by the the
Speaker 1: always actually excellent William Sadler. Oh Man, William Sadler, he's
Speaker 1: got one of those faces, right, That's just he has
Speaker 1: an inherently evil looking face, which makes me assume that
Speaker 1: in reality he must be a nice guy, because I
Speaker 1: recall there being a bit about this in the novel
Speaker 1: Around the World in Eighty Days, which I haven't read
Speaker 1: since I was a kid, but I remember there's a
Speaker 1: part where a police detective is talking about how people
Speaker 1: who have criminal looking faces have no choice but to
Speaker 1: be honest, because you know, everybody looks at them and
Speaker 1: suspects there are criminal. It's only people who look very
Speaker 1: trustworthy who can really get away with great crime. Uh So,
Speaker 1: I don't know for sure, but but yeah, Saddler, he
Speaker 1: just has that face where he looks like a devil person.
Speaker 1: And there are other people like this who just kind
Speaker 1: of naturally look like a cartoon devil, like Malcolm McDowell
Speaker 1: kind of looks like a cartoon devil. Uh. There there's
Speaker 1: a prosperity Gospel TV preacher named Mike Murdoch who just
Speaker 1: looks like a cartoon demon. Well Sadler, Yeah, he definitely
Speaker 1: has that sort of face. Uh. He's played a fairly
Speaker 1: fairly diverse amount of roles. Um, I don't know, he
Speaker 1: does tend to sort of play you're rougher characters. He's
Speaker 1: he's played villains of differing varieties. Like he's definitely played
Speaker 1: the suit wearing villain, but he's also played the you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of uh, you know, dirt kicker kind of
Speaker 1: a villain as well. Um. For instance, he's he might
Speaker 1: be best known for his role as the Seventh Seal
Speaker 1: inspired death in the and Ted movie. Right, Yeah, the Reaper.
Speaker 1: They melvin him and uh. And also, interestingly enough, his
Speaker 1: rendition of that character shows up on Tales from the
Speaker 1: Crypt at one point, uh in the crypt Keeper sequence
Speaker 1: where he's like playing a game at chess with the
Speaker 1: crypt Keeper or something. But he was in shoshankredyption, he
Speaker 1: was in the second die Hard movie. Yeah, he's the guy.
Speaker 1: He's like the nude martial arts colonel I remember he's
Speaker 1: in the hotel room doing like naked yogur or something,
Speaker 1: and then he I think at some point he like
Speaker 1: punches out a TV screen. Um. He he was on
Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypt. He appeared in the UH in
Speaker 1: what I believe was the pilot episode The Man Who
Speaker 1: Was Death, and he also played the host of a
Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypt spinoff, the title of the Two
Speaker 1: Fisted Tales. This apparently wasn't picked up. They ended up
Speaker 1: just using the three episodes. I think that they shot
Speaker 1: using them as Tales from the Crypt episodes. But he
Speaker 1: had this whole persona of Mr Rush, a crazy old
Speaker 1: cowboy and a wheelchair, and if you look it up
Speaker 1: on YouTube you can find clips of it. It's like
Speaker 1: he's just completely over the top in the role as
Speaker 1: one should be. Oh yeah, William Sadler is always like
Speaker 1: a high tension cable, you know, He's like one of
Speaker 1: those like steel cables that a tram car rides along. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, throughout his career he's played very serious characters
Speaker 1: and he's played just real live wires. He seemed to
Speaker 1: have a tremendous amount of range there, but you don't
Speaker 1: see him. I guess playing in the hero as much,
Speaker 1: but in this in this one, because he's got an
Speaker 1: evil looking face. Yeah, but it works here because he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be he's a I mean, he's a guy
Speaker 1: on the very um you know, um Margins of of
Speaker 1: Law and Society. Yeah, alright. Some of the rest of
Speaker 1: the cast here, cc H Pounder we already mentioned. She
Speaker 1: plays a character Irene. She's a She's a talented actor,
Speaker 1: probably best known for her role on the Shield. She
Speaker 1: was an avatar, she was in RoboCop three and a
Speaker 1: lot of TV work. I think she does one of
Speaker 1: those big crime TV shows down, doesn't she like in
Speaker 1: C I S or something. I think so. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: that's the sort of show that she seemed to get
Speaker 1: a lot of work on. Now. Another character actor in
Speaker 1: this is uh somebody who recognize from previous episodes of
Speaker 1: A Weird House, and that is Dick Miller, who plays
Speaker 1: Uncle Willie. Yeah. Um, I would say this, whatever you
Speaker 1: expect of a Dick Miller character, you will get it
Speaker 1: from this film. He's not really playing against type or anything,
Speaker 1: but it's a substantial role. And I found out on
Speaker 1: the special features for this one. This was his first
Speaker 1: time in his entire career, in which he wore prosthetic makeup.
Speaker 1: I assume this is for the part where he turns
Speaker 1: into a demon, not for his regular regular appearance, because
Speaker 1: here he is, like you say, playing perfectly to type.
Speaker 1: He is just a whiskey guzzlin drifter. And there's some
Speaker 1: great drifter to drifter relations between him and William Sadler. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they have, they have some good scenes. Um, apparently Dick,
Speaker 1: like Dick Miller was, you know in all these old
Speaker 1: older films, these Corman films and all. So apparently the
Speaker 1: effects guys and Dickerson himself, they were just super were
Speaker 1: thrilled to have Dick Miller on the picture because you know,
Speaker 1: this is the guy who was in all those old
Speaker 1: films that that they grew up watching. So, uh, that's
Speaker 1: pretty You a vacuum salesman in a movie I saw
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Yeah, and you get taken
Speaker 1: down to the furnace by by the Marlboro man. It's
Speaker 1: like I've seen you die so many times, about one
Speaker 1: more time. Um, let's see Thomas Haden Churches in this
Speaker 1: plays a character named Roach. Um kind of Church is
Speaker 1: kind of like a younger handsomer William Sadler in some ways.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, in this movie. He so he plays this
Speaker 1: swaggering creep, but with a swaggering creep with a luxurious
Speaker 1: like Jethro tull roady hair. And he's also wearing a
Speaker 1: Trent Resiner style see through T shirt. Yeah yeah, he's
Speaker 1: he's absolutely hateable in this role and in all the
Speaker 1: right ways, Like he really really makes you hate this character. Uh.
Speaker 1: This was only his third film role though. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'd he'd go on to I mean he would, I
Speaker 1: think he don't. He'd been on the show Wings and
Speaker 1: that's what he was mainly known for. But he wouldn't
Speaker 1: of course, being Sideways and Spider Man three. Now the movie,
Speaker 1: of course, like any good horror movie, especially any good
Speaker 1: horror movie from the nineties, has its share of useless cops.
Speaker 1: And we have two useless cops in this one, one
Speaker 1: of which dies pretty soon. The other is the deputy
Speaker 1: deputy Bob Martel that that survives very long into the film.
Speaker 1: And this is this is played by character actor Gary Farmer.
Speaker 1: And here is your absolutely solid overdrawn at the Memory
Speaker 1: Bank connection. Because he was in overdrawn in the Memory Bank. Really,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that of course
Speaker 1: was American Playhouse. Um rendition of Overdrawn at the Memory
Speaker 1: Bank that starred Rawle Julia and he just has a small,
Speaker 1: ultimately kind of awkward role in it. Um. But he
Speaker 1: went on to be in a ton more more stuff.
Speaker 1: So he was born in fifty three. Uh, he's a
Speaker 1: Canadian First Nations actor and um, let's see something like.
Speaker 1: For instance, he went on to be in dead Man
Speaker 1: the Western with Jarmusch movie yea yeah, and then also
Speaker 1: in his film Ghost Dog Way of the Samurai. He
Speaker 1: actually plays the same character in those two films. He
Speaker 1: plays his character named Nobody. Okay. Yeah, And he was
Speaker 1: also apparently under consideration for the role of Dr Gonzo
Speaker 1: in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but but I
Speaker 1: didn't come together for some reason. Oh. That ultimately went
Speaker 1: to um, what's his name, Benicio del Toro, Yes, Benicio
Speaker 1: del Toro. Yes, Um, you know what. Actually, I should
Speaker 1: go back on what I said earlier, because I I
Speaker 1: said that this movie has useless cops and it is
Speaker 1: a very reliable trope of horror movies, especially like horror
Speaker 1: movies of the nineties. But it's it's pretty much always
Speaker 1: there that you can just count on cops to not
Speaker 1: be useful in them, you know, like you run up.
Speaker 1: You never have the scene where you run up to
Speaker 1: a cop and say, uh, there's a monster chasing us
Speaker 1: and they whip out their gun and say where get
Speaker 1: behind me? No, No, it's always like a calm out
Speaker 1: and missy and then there's just like a claw sticking
Speaker 1: through their face or something. Um. But in this movie, uh,
Speaker 1: Gary Farmer's deputy Bob. He actually he becomes more useful
Speaker 1: as the movie goes on, and then it's actually kind
Speaker 1: of heroic by the end. Yeah. Yeah, even even though
Speaker 1: he you know, as as a character actor, he has
Speaker 1: this kind of like bumbling quality to him, you know
Speaker 1: that plays well to comedy, and he does some good
Speaker 1: comedy in this. But yeah, he also they do more
Speaker 1: with the character than just have him fumble a gun
Speaker 1: and get killed by a monster. All right. Another interesting
Speaker 1: character we have in this is Charles Fleischer, who plays
Speaker 1: his character Wally. Um. I think this is a character.
Speaker 1: A lot of you may not not recognize his name,
Speaker 1: some of you may not even recognize a picture of him,
Speaker 1: but you would recognize his voice, at least one voice
Speaker 1: that he does because he was the voice of Roger Rabbit. Wow.
Speaker 1: And uh, outside of that, he often plays weirdos. He
Speaker 1: has a real kind of like weirdo look to him.
Speaker 1: You know, he plays that kind of character. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: he doesn't disappoint in this film. He plays another weirdo.
Speaker 1: He plays a very awkward guy in this movie. But
Speaker 1: but he's he's I've seen even a number of things.
Speaker 1: He had a fun role recurring role on Jonathan Ames
Speaker 1: TV series Blunt Talk. So he's always a treat when
Speaker 1: he shows up. But it doesn't seem he didn't show
Speaker 1: up a lot and things I watched. Now we know
Speaker 1: that Ernest Dickerson was himself cinematographer on on a bunch
Speaker 1: of other movies. So he's directing here. Who does the
Speaker 1: cinematography one Rick Boda or Bota b O t a
Speaker 1: um who went on to direct not one, not two,
Speaker 1: but three direct to video Hell Raisor sequels Right in
Speaker 1: a Row, Health Seeker, Debtor, and Hell World. I believe
Speaker 1: that's gonna be your numbers six, seven, and eight in
Speaker 1: the Hell Raizor series. I would say that is not
Speaker 1: a high point of the series. Um, but it's weird
Speaker 1: because so those are not very good Hell Razor movies.
Speaker 1: But I like his cinematography style in the movie. It's nothing, um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's nothing all that artistic, but it's very fluid.
Speaker 1: I mean like it's good in the sense that it's
Speaker 1: the kind of good filmmaking that you don't you're not
Speaker 1: thinking about technique. Yeah. Yeah, And it has some some
Speaker 1: nice use of gels in places that they kind of
Speaker 1: give it that tales from the crypt vibe without like
Speaker 1: overdoing it. Um, Like you see a similar thing done
Speaker 1: in uh what was Stephen king um creep Show, where
Speaker 1: there was also a homage to horror comics of old
Speaker 1: But there are scenes in that where they they just
Speaker 1: go crazy with the gels to create these kind of
Speaker 1: comic book colors, and there's a little of it in here,
Speaker 1: but it feels a lot a lot more restrained. So
Speaker 1: Hell World is the Evil Dead or not Evil Dead
Speaker 1: the the I've totally forgotten what it's called Hell Razor.
Speaker 1: Hell Hell World is the Hell Raisor movie where the
Speaker 1: tagline is evil goes online. Oh man, it's the one
Speaker 1: where they go to So I think it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be that the pinhead is in a computer or something,
Speaker 1: but then nobody ever really goes online in the movie.
Speaker 1: I was talking to my friend Chuck about this not
Speaker 1: too long. He pointed out that it's really a very
Speaker 1: offline movie. It's about a party people. People go to
Speaker 1: a big party at somebody's house and Pinhead starts killing him.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, well, yeah, I never saw any of those,
Speaker 1: those these three hell Raiser films in particular, but they
Speaker 1: all had Doug Bradley and then at least a little bit,
Speaker 1: so they have that going for him. I guess Hell
Speaker 1: World also has Lance Hendrickson. Oh yeah, yeah, Oh, I
Speaker 1: think I read about that where they were able they
Speaker 1: were able to get him for the role because he
Speaker 1: happened to be in I want to say, these were
Speaker 1: filmed in Romania, and he was in Romania already film
Speaker 1: filming some other role and they're like, hey, we can
Speaker 1: get Lance Henderson. He's got another day or two on
Speaker 1: his hotel room. And they did it perfect serendipity. Yeah. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: wen we mentioned that the cinematography of the movie is
Speaker 1: quite effective. It's uh, it's nothing too flashy, but it's
Speaker 1: fun and it's loose and it's very fluid and uh
Speaker 1: and you're you're just right in there in the action.
Speaker 1: I would say the same thing for the makeup effects
Speaker 1: in the movie, which are quite good. Yeah. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: the makeup and the monsters in this are great. And
Speaker 1: we have the Todd Masters Company to think for this.
Speaker 1: They did all the special makeup on the picture. They
Speaker 1: did the monsters, and Masters was ideal for this because
Speaker 1: he was a Tales from the Crypt veteran already at
Speaker 1: that point, and he's he's done a lot of film
Speaker 1: and TV work, uh, and he did a great job
Speaker 1: on the monsters in this film as well, from like
Speaker 1: a uh just from like a conceptual standpoint, because apparently
Speaker 1: in the early stages the monsters were going to be
Speaker 1: more zombie like or just kind of like possessed people,
Speaker 1: and he ended up pushing for a different design, a
Speaker 1: design that ultimately I think ended up being cheaper, which
Speaker 1: the studio liked. But it but it leaned heavily on
Speaker 1: body paint and lean actors uh in stilts with just
Speaker 1: prosthetic heads and uh some interesting like growing and tail
Speaker 1: features that will get to uh here in a bit.
Speaker 1: The monsters are terrific. But Masters has been involved in
Speaker 1: a number of different films that have great practical special
Speaker 1: effects like Necronomicon, Book of the Dead, Uh, Hell Raiser, Bludline,
Speaker 1: The Resurrected. The Resurrected is the the good Lovecraft movie
Speaker 1: that I was trying to remember in a previous episode. Um,
Speaker 1: he was in the fifth Nightmare on Elm Street movie.
Speaker 1: He was in Return of not In. He did the
Speaker 1: effects for the Return of Swamp Things, Slither Star Trek,
Speaker 1: First Contact. He did the borg stuff in that with
Speaker 1: the you know, the Borg queen. Uh, he was responsible
Speaker 1: for that. And apparently he's going to direct a movie
Speaker 1: according to IMDb, about giant leeches. So bringing the giant
Speaker 1: leeches back. I think they've been absent from cinema for
Speaker 1: what since the fifties or something. I'll bring them on.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I agree with everything you said. I really
Speaker 1: love the monster design in this movie. It's simple. They
Speaker 1: look great. They've got green, glowing eyes and mouths. It's excellent.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's jump into the film itself. Let's
Speaker 1: let's roll through the plot. Well, so, first of all,
Speaker 1: you have a class tails from the Crypt opening, which
Speaker 1: is you know, your Dolly shot through the cobwebby mansion,
Speaker 1: and then you go down a secret passageway into the
Speaker 1: dungeon and it looks like it's the layer of Dr
Speaker 1: faust Us. And then the crypt Keeper he pops up
Speaker 1: out of the coffin and cackles at you. And as
Speaker 1: I said before, all the sound effects here, it's the
Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypto music is playing, and then you
Speaker 1: get there, hey crypt keeper laugh. That is that is
Speaker 1: such a powerful auditory queue to nineties childhood mindset. I
Speaker 1: showed that just the opening to my son to see
Speaker 1: how he would dig it, and he did not dig it.
Speaker 1: He found it. He found it. They found it frightening,
Speaker 1: and he did not want any part of it. That's
Speaker 1: probably all for the best. This movie is not for kids.
Speaker 1: And I'm not to say he was traumatized by it
Speaker 1: or anything, but I was like, you want to check
Speaker 1: this out for Halloween and he's like, okay, sure, and
Speaker 1: then he saw it and he's like, no, thank you. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we even mentioned this before, but
Speaker 1: the movie starts with an opening segment that is not
Speaker 1: connected to the rest of the plot. I guess we
Speaker 1: did mention that the were brackets, but it starts you
Speaker 1: off in media rez with with stuff going on with
Speaker 1: other characters you like paying up And uh, it's on
Speaker 1: the scene of a woman reclining in lingerie talking on
Speaker 1: the phone about how she has just murdered her husband,
Speaker 1: like his bloody clothes are still all over the place,
Speaker 1: and he's and we see he's downstairs dissolving in a
Speaker 1: tub of acid in the basement, and she's talking to
Speaker 1: her lover on the phone about how much they're going
Speaker 1: to enjoy spending all of the dead guy's money. And uh, then,
Speaker 1: of course, pretty much immediately the tub corpse wakes up,
Speaker 1: and then it climbs the stairs and it has a
Speaker 1: hatchet in its hand and it charges in on her
Speaker 1: in a psycho style scene where she's in the bathtub
Speaker 1: and he's like ah, And then we get a cut, cut, cut,
Speaker 1: and it turns out it's a movie within a movie.
Speaker 1: The corpseman is being played by John Laraquette, which is
Speaker 1: just excellent. Wait did we already talk about John Laraquette.
Speaker 1: We didn't, but of course he's He's most famous, or
Speaker 1: at least for older TV viewers, for being the lawyer
Speaker 1: What was the name of Felding on Night Court? I
Speaker 1: never saw Night Court hand Fielding I'm sorry. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: also plays a lawyer at some point on the West Wing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he played a lot of characters like that. But for
Speaker 1: horror fans, he of course with the narrator on the
Speaker 1: original Texas Chainsaw Masker, that opening scroll that sets the
Speaker 1: tone for the film, and he did that at least
Speaker 1: in the follow up in Texas Chansaw Masker too. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if if he did any of the sequels
Speaker 1: beyond that. I think he did, but most notably that
Speaker 1: first one though, really the first thing you hear in
Speaker 1: that that picture, he's good at playing a kind of
Speaker 1: like a thundering, conceited, pompous wind bag exactly. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's That's everything that he played to a t. But
Speaker 1: in this movie, it's funny because he's just got this
Speaker 1: bit part where he plays an actor playing a tub
Speaker 1: corpse who's about to hatch it his his scheming ex
Speaker 1: wife to death. And then but it turns out it's
Speaker 1: a movie within a movie, and then we pan up
Speaker 1: on the crypt keeper who's sitting in the director's chair,
Speaker 1: so imagine Jeremy Bentham's preserved remains and start he starts
Speaker 1: screaming at John Laraquette about how he can't act at all.
Speaker 1: He's like, you're no Gory Cooper, You're not even a
Speaker 1: Robert Deadford. And it was an ambitious bit of special
Speaker 1: effects here, because they clearly had a live actor doing
Speaker 1: some sort of like green screen head and then they
Speaker 1: put the puppeteered crypt Keeper head over that in post
Speaker 1: so it looks and it looks maybe a tiny bit rough.
Speaker 1: You can tell there's some some ambitious special effects going
Speaker 1: on here, but it's still amusing, which makes sense. You know,
Speaker 1: this is Tales from the Crypt the movie. You should
Speaker 1: go for it right, right, And it's great because so
Speaker 1: this opening film within a film thing is is perfect.
Speaker 1: It is a Tales from the Crypt episode. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a ceed tale in which a bad person gets
Speaker 1: what's coming to them. But so then of course we
Speaker 1: get the crypt Keeper introducing the main story. He's you know,
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what he says, but he makes
Speaker 1: a bunch of puns and then he's like, I call
Speaker 1: this one demon night, and then we cut to the
Speaker 1: opening credits over a car cruising on a dark desert
Speaker 1: highway with the most perfect nine soundtrack choice. That's right,
Speaker 1: it's filters hey Man Nice Shot, which is also in
Speaker 1: the trailer, I think, which I think, this is just mandatory.
Speaker 1: This was just us law that if you had a
Speaker 1: film that came out in you had to use hey
Speaker 1: Man Nice Shot. Yeah, I was. It was hard to
Speaker 1: contain the laughter while that was going on. And then
Speaker 1: of course we see William Sadler driving uh and he's
Speaker 1: you know, looking over his shoulder as if pursued by
Speaker 1: the hounds of hell. But no, it's even worse. It's
Speaker 1: Billy Zane and a cowboy hat. And it's very funny
Speaker 1: when it first reveals Billy Zane smirking face in the
Speaker 1: in the car that's chasing William Sadler, And so William
Speaker 1: Sadler starts to run out of gas on this desert
Speaker 1: highway and there is a highway showdown slash shootout, like
Speaker 1: Billy Zane's riding up on him, and William Sadler gets
Speaker 1: out a rifle it's like a lever action rifle, and
Speaker 1: start shooting at Billy Zane's car. Eventually, the car catches
Speaker 1: on fire, but Billy Zane, undeterred, just rams straight into
Speaker 1: Saddler's car. Sadler gets out of it. At the last second,
Speaker 1: and there's this huge fiery ramming explosion. So William Sadler
Speaker 1: escapes the flaming wreckage. And I guess we're supposed to assume,
Speaker 1: as as the naive audience, that Billy Zane has been
Speaker 1: killed in the explosion, I guess, But why would we
Speaker 1: actually believe that? I mean, would it make sense for
Speaker 1: Billy Zane to be killed? And it doesn't, does it.
Speaker 1: But William Sadler he looks at his palm and he
Speaker 1: sees a bunch of dots. I think they're a little
Speaker 1: like star tattoos on his palm, and some of them
Speaker 1: are glowing and others are not. And then he just
Speaker 1: sort of ambles on through the night. He's got he's
Speaker 1: got drifter energy, he's got places to be. Apocalypse is
Speaker 1: too for event, right, and so he he ambles on
Speaker 1: into Wormwood, New Mexico, again not a real place, and
Speaker 1: and goes up to a diner called the Halfway House
Speaker 1: Cafe and immediately starts trying to jack cars, Like he
Speaker 1: gets out of a butterfly knife and is sticking it
Speaker 1: in the key hole of a car outside in the
Speaker 1: parking lot, and a kid comes out and He's like, Hey,
Speaker 1: are you stealing my daddy's car, And he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just testing the lock. Wormwood, New Mexico seems like
Speaker 1: a very interesting place because not only do they have drifters,
Speaker 1: it seems to be exclusively populated by drifters, Like I
Speaker 1: want to meet other drifters that make up this town,
Speaker 1: like Mayor Drifter and the rest of the post office,
Speaker 1: like everybody is kind of like a a suspect drifter
Speaker 1: type character. It's a drifter community. The like the characters
Speaker 1: in the town who are not drifters, they're written in
Speaker 1: such a way that they're like one decision away from
Speaker 1: being a drifter. Yeah. I mean we all are, really,
Speaker 1: but but especially these characters. So anyway, a bunch of
Speaker 1: people run out of the diner. I think one of
Speaker 1: the people who runs out as Thomas Hayden Church. But
Speaker 1: a bunch of people run out and then they run
Speaker 1: William Sadler off, So he's chased off into the night
Speaker 1: where he is into Dick Miller as an old drunk,
Speaker 1: and they share some whiskey and commiserate for a bit,
Speaker 1: and then Dick Miller tells him that, Hey, I know
Speaker 1: a place where you can bed down for the night,
Speaker 1: and so they're funneling him towards this old church. You
Speaker 1: can immediately tell the sort of plot mechanics that are
Speaker 1: happening here. We're saving all of the characters into this
Speaker 1: one fortress location. Now, fun fact about this location, Uh,
Speaker 1: it looks really great, loose phenomenal. But when they went
Speaker 1: to to put the film together, Dickerson particularly did not
Speaker 1: want to film at night and have like really long
Speaker 1: nights of shoots for the casting crew. So that was
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that instead they got an airplane
Speaker 1: hangar and in it they built that building and the
Speaker 1: immediate surroundings like in its entirety so that they could
Speaker 1: just film during the day at their leisure and have
Speaker 1: complete control over the lighting. But there was one issue
Speaker 1: pigeons had were we're already living in there in the
Speaker 1: airplane hangar, and you know how pigeons are They they're
Speaker 1: constantly making noise and making these pigeon noises. So they
Speaker 1: couldn't get rid of the pigeons. But what they ended
Speaker 1: up doing is every time before they would roll the
Speaker 1: roll the camera, before they you know, say action, they
Speaker 1: would fire off blank. They would fire off a gun
Speaker 1: in order to frighten the pigeons and get them to
Speaker 1: shut up, so they could they could have this window
Speaker 1: of time in which they could film before the pigeons
Speaker 1: started their ruckets. Again. Oh, that's funny. Somehow I feel
Speaker 1: like I could kind of sense that it was that
Speaker 1: it was indoor for outdoor, even though that's a fast expanse,
Speaker 1: like you can't see the walls of the airplane hanger
Speaker 1: or anything. But um, that's good. And I think I've
Speaker 1: said this on the show before. I for some reason
Speaker 1: always really enjoy a good indoor for outdoor set. Well.
Speaker 1: It can make a very surreal environment, you know. And
Speaker 1: it makes sense for this film because the only exteriors
Speaker 1: we have are this loathsome former church in the middle
Speaker 1: of a desert at the end of the world, and
Speaker 1: then one flashback to the Crucifixion. So yeah, so it
Speaker 1: makes sense that that we have this alien environment created
Speaker 1: by shooting everything inside of an airplane hare exactly. But so,
Speaker 1: what what is this church? Dick Miller explains to us
Speaker 1: that it it's a church that isn't a church anymore.
Speaker 1: He says they decommissioned it in the fifties due to
Speaker 1: lack of interest. That's that's the official terminology on the
Speaker 1: decommissioning form, right, Yeah, it was like interest on who's
Speaker 1: part like on the Preacher there, or I think it's
Speaker 1: the town. It's just you know, it's just a bunch
Speaker 1: of drifters, just like I'm not interested in that reverend.
Speaker 1: But so yeah, it turns into it turns out to
Speaker 1: be this boarding house. It's like a desert hotel sort of,
Speaker 1: and it's it's like we said, it's like the evil
Speaker 1: Dead cabin for the movie the Fortress of Order that
Speaker 1: will collect the characters and then fall under attack. It's
Speaker 1: the supernatural alumo. Oh and then meanwhile we also see
Speaker 1: that Billy Zane is hooking up with police, Like the
Speaker 1: police are investigating the crash on the on the highway.
Speaker 1: The cars are on fire. They're like, nobody could have
Speaker 1: survived that. Those cars hit each other going a hundred
Speaker 1: miles per hour, which we saw that opening scene they
Speaker 1: were not going a hundred miles an hour, but whatever.
Speaker 1: Um so. But then Billy Zane just sort of like
Speaker 1: walks out from behind the flaming car and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's up, And they're all like, oh, I didn't think
Speaker 1: you could have survived that. But so he explains to
Speaker 1: them that he was chasing a man who stole something,
Speaker 1: and so they're like, well, we'll help you find him,
Speaker 1: and so Zane therefore enlists the police on his team. Initially, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just so ding dang charming, they just can't say no. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: I have to say that the film does a great
Speaker 1: job setting all this up there and there's no wasted
Speaker 1: motion really and getting us from here into our siege
Speaker 1: location and beginning to establish the rules for everything. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the characters are mostly there to fulfill basic
Speaker 1: tropes in the story, you know again, like the bumbling cop, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: But that you know that, I feel like it comes
Speaker 1: together rather rather well and also ultimately surprises you with
Speaker 1: a few choices in terms of like who survives and
Speaker 1: who doesn't. Yeah, totally alright, we got everybody more or
Speaker 1: less bottled up inside this this old building. Who are characters? Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna remember all of them, but so the
Speaker 1: main ones, I guess. You've got William Sadler as as
Speaker 1: this guy who will find out his named breaker. He's
Speaker 1: the drifter. You've got Jada Pinkett playing Jerlyne, who is uh,
Speaker 1: she is somebody who I think formerly was in prison
Speaker 1: and now she's working for the boarding house on work release. Um.
Speaker 1: Then you've got cc H Pounder who is playing Irene,
Speaker 1: who is the owner proprietor of the boarding house. You've
Speaker 1: got Cordelia who is a prostitute. You've got Wally who
Speaker 1: is a male carrier. You've got Thomas Hayden Church. I
Speaker 1: don't remember his character's name, but he's the creep. He's
Speaker 1: the he's roach roach right. Yeah, he's like the cook
Speaker 1: at the diner who is just a a nasty backstab
Speaker 1: and woman Hayte and Creep, and then a few others. Well,
Speaker 1: you got uncle Wally in there. Oh do we not
Speaker 1: already talked about uncle We talked about uncle Uncle Willie.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's stick Miller. Yeah. And then uh, and
Speaker 1: then we'll have the police and then oh and there's
Speaker 1: a kid who shows up later, I think, but that
Speaker 1: that's basically it. That's it, Okay. I thought I may
Speaker 1: have forgotten somebody. There's a great scene when we're sort
Speaker 1: of just getting to know all the characters. There's a
Speaker 1: scene of Breaker eating this food on the table. It's
Speaker 1: just bright green slop. It looks like the slime that
Speaker 1: they used to have on Nickelodeon. Uh, it was just
Speaker 1: bright green liquid that he's eating with a spoon and
Speaker 1: he slathers it and catch up. Yeah, but he's happy
Speaker 1: to get it. He's just he's clearly Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: eventually the police arrived with Billy Zane in response to
Speaker 1: a report of an attempted car theft. I think that
Speaker 1: was William Sadler trying to jack the car with his
Speaker 1: knife earlier. And as soon as Billy Zane arrives and
Speaker 1: sees William sad Lear in the sporting house, it is
Speaker 1: just like this, like the you know, the lights go
Speaker 1: off and he's sicking the cops on him. They've got
Speaker 1: they've got William Sadler and cuffs, and Zane is looking
Speaker 1: for what Breaker stole, which is an antiquity of some kind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's gonna be our our main plot element here.
Speaker 1: They we're get to do in a bit. This is
Speaker 1: the key. This is the thing that the demons want
Speaker 1: and that the mortals in the universe absolutely cannot let
Speaker 1: fall into their hands. Right, And then Dick Miller sells
Speaker 1: him out. I felt betrayed. They've got him in the cuffs.
Speaker 1: They're They're like, where is the thing? They've been looking
Speaker 1: around for it. I think they come across Thomas Hayden
Speaker 1: Church and in the middle of some kind of sex
Speaker 1: act that involves him getting hooked up to a car battery.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he has a great line, didn't He's like,
Speaker 1: manipples are burning. Yeah, I think he says they're smoking, smoking.
Speaker 1: Man nipples are smoking. Yeah, it's good. I hope it's
Speaker 1: in his reel. Oh, it's got to be. But yeah.
Speaker 1: Eventually they they've looked all over for this thing. They
Speaker 1: can't find it. Then Dick Miller sells him out. He
Speaker 1: sells out Breaker. He's like, hey, actually, the artifact is
Speaker 1: just here under the table where everybody's standing, um, and
Speaker 1: it's some kind of key, but it's also like a
Speaker 1: bottle filled with some liquid, and Billy Zane won't touch it.
Speaker 1: It's clear something very significant is going on. What he
Speaker 1: wants is for Dick Miller to pour out its contents
Speaker 1: and then put it into a suitcase for him, and
Speaker 1: Breaker tells him not to do it, and they argue
Speaker 1: back and forth, and eventually the cops are like, Ah,
Speaker 1: to hell with it. Both of the cars from this
Speaker 1: car crash were stolen. You're both going to jail and
Speaker 1: we'll figure it out later. So they try to take
Speaker 1: Sadler and Zane off to jail. But then Zane, I
Speaker 1: think the switch flips and he comes off the leash
Speaker 1: with an excellent punch right through the sheriff's head. Through
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's said Ricky Oh style, Yeah, except unlike Ricky Oh,
Speaker 1: he's got this wonderful awkwardness of the head being stuck
Speaker 1: on his fest on his arm, so it's like having
Speaker 1: to try and get that off of his hand. It's
Speaker 1: pretty great, yeah, And then all hell breaks loose. Uh,
Speaker 1: Billy fights to get the key, breaker burns him with it,
Speaker 1: so it's like a vampire with a crucifix, you know.
Speaker 1: If you touch the key to his face, it seems
Speaker 1: to burn him. And then Billy Saying flies out the
Speaker 1: window and then stands there while everybody watches him, and
Speaker 1: he pierces his palm with a fingernail, bleeds a bunch
Speaker 1: of green blood all over the place, and the drops
Speaker 1: of his green blood on the earth make an army
Speaker 1: of demons to attack the house. He throws a nice
Speaker 1: hissy fit first though there's a there's a great but yeah,
Speaker 1: then he starts summoning in the monsters, and man, if
Speaker 1: you if you weren't already on board with this, once
Speaker 1: the monsters pop out in this film, you're really good
Speaker 1: to go, because these are some great monsters. Again, these
Speaker 1: are like they're They're unlike most monsters I've seen in
Speaker 1: other films. They're like these ghastly gaunt grave walker types
Speaker 1: but with also with the with the glowing green eyes
Speaker 1: that we mentioned, but also like piercings in places, but
Speaker 1: but not in like a punk sense, and it's like
Speaker 1: a seemly like antique sense, like their creatures of another
Speaker 1: time even you know, so they have I feel like
Speaker 1: they play against expectations in the of the typical demon
Speaker 1: and zombie trope, like like the jewelry you might find
Speaker 1: in like an ancient grave or something, you know, like
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt or something who or something. Yeah, they have
Speaker 1: kind of a gin quality to them, and they have
Speaker 1: a great silhouette to them. You know. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like when you think of um like having a good logo,
Speaker 1: they say, well, it has to be able to work
Speaker 1: in black and white, or you think of like a
Speaker 1: iconic characters like Darth Vader, you can recognize him by
Speaker 1: his silhouette, and these monsters cut a really signature silhouette,
Speaker 1: which is key because they're often just should you see
Speaker 1: some great close ups of them, but they're often just
Speaker 1: in the background, in the in the shadows, kind of
Speaker 1: creeping about and all. Yeah, and that's that's great also
Speaker 1: because they provide a sort of textural setting that really
Speaker 1: allows Billy Zane to shine because Billy Zane is the
Speaker 1: front man doing his uh, doing his his funny stick.
Speaker 1: He's like a you know, a burless comedian or something,
Speaker 1: and then he's got the green eyed goblins all slinking
Speaker 1: around behind him to back him up there his chorus line. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh.
Speaker 1: Now on the feature, at one cool thing they mentioned,
Speaker 1: I mentioned how like basically these are these these outfits
Speaker 1: depend heavily on just body painting, like slender actors. Um,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of like skin involved, and they're stilts.
Speaker 1: But then they have an awesome prosthetic head that looks
Speaker 1: kind of like a you know, demonic pickled pig or something. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then they then they have this uh, they're they're
Speaker 1: growing in there. They're they're they're that that area is
Speaker 1: covered up, and they have these tails, uh, these like
Speaker 1: stunted tails that wag and apparently those were radio controlled
Speaker 1: and the actors had to stow the battery like high
Speaker 1: up between their legs. So it was quite a demanding
Speaker 1: role of you know, still battery between your leg big
Speaker 1: piece of prosthetics over your head. But the end result
Speaker 1: looks tremendous. I totally agree. So so once these monsters
Speaker 1: are in play and Billy Zanes outside trying to cause trouble,
Speaker 1: we've got scenes of William Sadler running around the house
Speaker 1: trying to seal up the openings, like seal up the
Speaker 1: doors and windows with blood from this key. And then
Speaker 1: we get flashbacks of the Crucifixion of Jesus involving green
Speaker 1: eyed demons and lightning strikes. Yeah. Yeah, And again they
Speaker 1: have a has an excellent otherworldly feel to it, like
Speaker 1: this could be the Crucifixion on an alien world, which
Speaker 1: especially since it seems a bit different, because I mean,
Speaker 1: some of you, m you've ever went to Sunday School,
Speaker 1: and you know, you ever read your Bible, you probably
Speaker 1: don't remember the hooded demons that are showing up and
Speaker 1: chasing people around at the foot of the cross. But
Speaker 1: it happens here. History is written by the victors, you know.
Speaker 1: The demons lost that struggle, so they got written out
Speaker 1: of the story. This is funny because it made me
Speaker 1: think about what is the best gold Gotha scene ever
Speaker 1: in a horror movie? And another one that occurred to
Speaker 1: me is Layer of the White Worm by Ken Russell,
Speaker 1: which is an awesomely weird movie that we may have
Speaker 1: to cover on here someday. Oh yeah, yeah, that one
Speaker 1: has a good one. I feel like maybe there's at
Speaker 1: least one other Kin Russell film that has a crucifixion
Speaker 1: scene in it doesn't show up in US, well maybe
Speaker 1: in The Devil's but also in the Altered States. Oh,
Speaker 1: the one where William Hurd is sort of playing our
Speaker 1: Gordon Wasson or or maybe he's playing what's his name, Uh,
Speaker 1: the guy you did an episode about, Oh, John C. Lily. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that one has a weird crucifixion in it.
Speaker 1: There's also an excellent otherworldly crucifixion scene in uh The
Speaker 1: Ninth Configuration, the film directed by William Peter Bladdie, and
Speaker 1: written by him based on one of his novels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that one. That's a weird film we could discuss,
Speaker 1: and it's got some great performances in it. So after
Speaker 1: this part where the demons are set loose, the rest
Speaker 1: of the movie, Uh, you could say it becomes less structured,
Speaker 1: I guess, because it's just sort of like a you know,
Speaker 1: you get different sort of vignettes within the supernatural demon siege,
Speaker 1: Like you get uh, Billy Zane issuing hallucinatory temptations to
Speaker 1: various characters in the boarding house. Uh. And then often
Speaker 1: this temptation scene will be followed by demon possession of
Speaker 1: the person, and then there will be attacks by monsters,
Speaker 1: humans attempting to escape, and and so forth. Uh. And
Speaker 1: more flashbacks about the backstory of the key. We we
Speaker 1: we get to see Breaker in World War One. It
Speaker 1: seems looking exactly the same age he's in the trenches.
Speaker 1: A buddy of his gets killed somehow and is bleeding
Speaker 1: all over the place, and the guy's like, now you
Speaker 1: are the chosen one, and and the I guess the
Speaker 1: the memory of the Crucifixion of Jesus gets like downloaded
Speaker 1: into William Sadler's brain. Yeah, and he's now part of
Speaker 1: this lineage of immortals that have to protect the key
Speaker 1: and carry it through time. Right, And eventually Breaker has
Speaker 1: to exp playing this to all the other characters and
Speaker 1: they're like, wow, that's interesting. You're the chosen one across
Speaker 1: time and you've been alive since World War One. And
Speaker 1: Thomas Hayden Church, who I just realized earlier his his
Speaker 1: initials are THHC. But anyway, he comes up. So he's
Speaker 1: been a jerk the entire time so far. He's been,
Speaker 1: you know, acting cowardly and cruel to others. And after
Speaker 1: this story he comes up to a Breaker and he's like, wow,
Speaker 1: I really admire what you did. I was wrong about you. Uh.
Speaker 1: But then, of course, what he's really trying to do
Speaker 1: is get Breaker to let his guard down so he
Speaker 1: can double cross him, and he swipes the key from him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now he swiped the key. Meanwhile, the temptations continue because
Speaker 1: even though Billy Zane and his demon minions are stuck
Speaker 1: outside for the most part, uh, he can reach out
Speaker 1: to your mind and tempt you, uh last temptation of
Speaker 1: Christ style with something you want. And some of the
Speaker 1: these make for some nice fun little sequences. For instance,
Speaker 1: when he's tempting Jada pink Its character, um it's it's
Speaker 1: the this is the sequence where it's like in um
Speaker 1: it feels like it's in a parking garage and there's
Speaker 1: this weird scene of of her face on a screen
Speaker 1: and they're like demon hands on the other side pressing
Speaker 1: against it. And then when that rips open, she's she
Speaker 1: sees this image of breakers breaker like being torn apart
Speaker 1: by the creatures of them eating his entrails. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: he's I think Billy stands tempting her with the idea
Speaker 1: that she that he could make her like rich and
Speaker 1: famous world. Yeah, she'll see the world. Oh, it's like
Speaker 1: it's like the vivid you know what's they'll like to
Speaker 1: see the world. And it seems jay to Pinkett really
Speaker 1: would like to see the world. Like she's interested in
Speaker 1: this temptation, though she doesn't fall for it. She's got
Speaker 1: the heroic constitution, uh to to resist the temptation. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what what would that What would that saving
Speaker 1: throw be in d N D well, I guess that
Speaker 1: would be they'd be like a wisdom saving throw. Okay,
Speaker 1: so maybe a charisma I don't know, depends how you played.
Speaker 1: Probably wisdom. She succeeds on the wisdom saving throw. She
Speaker 1: resists the temptation. But what he's tempting her with is like,
Speaker 1: it's not exactly clear, but it seems to suggest like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could have your face on the cover of magazines
Speaker 1: and you could travel to all the capitals of the
Speaker 1: world and see Rome and everything. Wouldn't you like that? Oh?
Speaker 1: And the whole time, the Grave digg Is track Suicide
Speaker 1: is playing, which is a just a great beat in
Speaker 1: the background. Yeah, that's an awesome song. I don't does
Speaker 1: it ever get to the part with lyrics? I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think they use that much of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they just use the intro. You gotta be looking for
Speaker 1: it to notice it. But yeah, that is a great beat.
Speaker 1: It does not get to the part about confront an
Speaker 1: alligator let it eat your raw. Oh man. But there
Speaker 1: are other temptations scenes as well, right, oh, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of them. There's the temptation of Dick Miller
Speaker 1: is great because his is quite different. His is a
Speaker 1: world of beautiful naked women offering him bottles of scotch,
Speaker 1: and then he's just sort of like wanders through this
Speaker 1: this crowd of ladies being like, try mine, and holds
Speaker 1: up but they're all holding identical bottles of Scotch, I think.
Speaker 1: And then he goes up maybe maybe Dick Miller just
Speaker 1: dedicated to one brand. I couldn't tell what brand it was.
Speaker 1: They've got the labels turned away. Um. But then he
Speaker 1: he goes up to a bar, and then it turns
Speaker 1: out Billy Zane is the bartender in this temptation dream
Speaker 1: and he so he's a friendly bartender who offers him booze.
Speaker 1: But I think is also supposed to be Hunter S. Thompson.
Speaker 1: Was I mistaken here? No? I think you're right. It's
Speaker 1: very very much a Hunter S Thompson. Look he has
Speaker 1: going on behind the bar there. Yeah, and again it's
Speaker 1: it's it is Billy Zane is an evil um genie
Speaker 1: from the Disney movie Aladdin. Here and in a way
Speaker 1: it works really well. I can't remember what Billy Zane says,
Speaker 1: and maybe something about the golf shoes, but but it works.
Speaker 1: Oh but anyway, this leads to, you know, as the
Speaker 1: standard sequences, somebody has a temptation, they succumb to the temptation.
Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, I want I want what you are
Speaker 1: putting down. Billy Zane um and Dick Miller obviously wants this,
Speaker 1: and so he turns into a demon and attacks some
Speaker 1: of the characters. I don't remember all who, but I
Speaker 1: think maybe he's fighting with Jada Pinkett and and with
Speaker 1: William Sadler and and somehow his head gets cut off
Speaker 1: and uh. And there's a great scene where they the
Speaker 1: demons are vulnerable in their eyes. The way you can
Speaker 1: put a demon down is to like shoot it in
Speaker 1: the green eyeballs. And so the way they stopped Dick
Speaker 1: Miller's severed head from continually commanding his body to attack
Speaker 1: them is one of the characters grabs his head and
Speaker 1: shoves it into the antler of a mounted stag. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's some great iye violence to the demons in this film. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's also a great scene where Billy Zane is wheeling
Speaker 1: and dealing with Thomas Hayden Church because I remember thc is.
Speaker 1: He's been like, hey, I've got the key, I stole it.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll give it to you if you let
Speaker 1: me escape. And so they're they're talking about their deal. Uh,
Speaker 1: and Billy Zane is just walking on sunshine. He is
Speaker 1: so light on his feet and frisky and exciting. Yeah
Speaker 1: he is. It's it's another great scene. And it's and
Speaker 1: you know exactly what's going to happen, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's it's delightful. This is a scene in which it's
Speaker 1: it's like Tales from the Crypt classic again, because you
Speaker 1: have a horrible character that's gonna make making this choice.
Speaker 1: You think he's gonna get away, but no, he's not
Speaker 1: gonna get away with it because he's gonna be double
Speaker 1: crossed by Billy Zane. He barely makes it down the
Speaker 1: stairs before he says, actually, I lied, You're not gonna
Speaker 1: make it away safe, and all the demons turn on
Speaker 1: Thomas Hayden Church and terry his character to pieces. The
Speaker 1: next thing that was really funny was that there is
Speaker 1: a scene of the next Temptation scene is of the
Speaker 1: kid Billy where he has turned into a violent maniac
Speaker 1: by reading a copy of the Tales from the Crypt
Speaker 1: comic book. I like that because on one hand, it
Speaker 1: does it is the idea of like the corrupting comic book,
Speaker 1: but it also made me think, you know, with the adults,
Speaker 1: Billy Zane's character of the collector, He's like, what have
Speaker 1: I offered you? Travel? What have I offered you all
Speaker 1: the beautiful women in booze in the world, But for
Speaker 1: a kid, He's like, what have I just literally turned
Speaker 1: you into a bloodthirsty monster? Would you be down for that?
Speaker 1: And kids like, yes, yes, I vote yes, let's do
Speaker 1: exactly at then, and that's what happens, pure honesty. I
Speaker 1: love it now. As the characters, it's the kind of
Speaker 1: standard thing where in one of these supernatural fortress siege
Speaker 1: movies where the characters are continually driven further and further
Speaker 1: into retreat, like further back into the bailey or whatever,
Speaker 1: and so at this point they end up retreating to
Speaker 1: the attic, and at each point of retreat there's some
Speaker 1: kind of battle that goes on, and uh, we we
Speaker 1: get some chances for characters to actually be like courageous
Speaker 1: and be heroes. So, uh, Deputy Bob and Irene at
Speaker 1: one point like suicide bomb a bunch of the demons
Speaker 1: with a vestimate out of grenades. Yeah, they didn't watch
Speaker 1: an Aliens wheight, did they? Yes, they pull a Basquez
Speaker 1: and it's kind of sweet. Yeah, it is, of course,
Speaker 1: breaker bites it as well there after, Yeah, he gets maimed,
Speaker 1: and then of course he's like, oh oh they got me,
Speaker 1: they got me, you gotta become the new Chosen One
Speaker 1: to Jada Pinkett and she's like what it she? I
Speaker 1: guess she like catches his blood I think in the key,
Speaker 1: and it's just understood that yep, from now on she's
Speaker 1: just going to be immortal and and carrying this key around.
Speaker 1: But then then Billy Zane comes in for one final
Speaker 1: showdown with with Jada and uh so, and I gotta say,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the scene, he's got on sunglasses
Speaker 1: that make him look like Riddick, but but kind of
Speaker 1: like Riddic. Yeah, wait, what kind of Riddick like pre
Speaker 1: Riddic this the Riddic didn't exist yet, right, Oh, I
Speaker 1: guess not. Yeah, like maybe Vin Diesel. Eventually he saw
Speaker 1: Dimon nine. He's like that that's the look I'm gonna
Speaker 1: steal exactly. No, I'm not saying they're imitating Ridic Riddic.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying he does look like him. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: look kind of like, yeah, almost like wrap around goggles. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But there's another temptation scene where I guess he's trying
Speaker 1: once again. I think he's trying to convince Jeralne to
Speaker 1: marry him. I didn't exactly follow what was going to Basically,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, I've won this point. I'm gonna kill you,
Speaker 1: but if I could turn you instead, if I could,
Speaker 1: you know, if you marry me, then I'm even more
Speaker 1: of a success back home in the in the hells.
Speaker 1: So he's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot the moon.
Speaker 1: I'm going for it. You know, he's he's filling on
Speaker 1: top of it, and uh so he makes the offer, yeah,
Speaker 1: and Billy saying he is on broiler mode. In the scene,
Speaker 1: he is like the energy is electric. And there's a
Speaker 1: part where infernal lightning erupts out of his groin. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's explained why he's just been like
Speaker 1: talking and then like lightning shoots out of his crotch.
Speaker 1: That was in the featurets. It was mentioned that this
Speaker 1: was Zane's idea for the character, and Dickerson was like,
Speaker 1: let's do it, let's roll with it, let's give it
Speaker 1: a shot. Good choice. Um, And then there's a good
Speaker 1: climax that involves Jada Pinkett. The whole time that she
Speaker 1: somehow has gotten William Sadler's blood in her mouth, and
Speaker 1: the whole time Billy Zane is like asking her, well,
Speaker 1: what do you say? He's trying to get her to
Speaker 1: say something, and she won't. And then it's revealed that, oh,
Speaker 1: she hasn't said anything because she still has the blood
Speaker 1: in her mouth, the blood of Christ, I believe somehow. Okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, we can go ahead and talk about about
Speaker 1: this real quick. The idea is that this key with
Speaker 1: the special glass container portion of it, are they it
Speaker 1: was used to collect the blood of Christ at the
Speaker 1: crucifixion and yeah, yeah, and there's still a little Jesus
Speaker 1: blood in there, but it's been replenished with other people's blood,
Speaker 1: especially the blood of the Chosen Ones, over time. And
Speaker 1: so I'm not sure how the genetics of that works
Speaker 1: out or if that's important for holy blood, uh you know,
Speaker 1: hurting demons, but that's apparently how it's supposed to work, right,
Speaker 1: And so she's got this blood in her mouth and
Speaker 1: what do you know, she spits it all over Billy
Speaker 1: Zane's face and that that defeats him in the end. Yeah, great, Milt,
Speaker 1: it's a great death scene. Because he melts a little bit,
Speaker 1: then he turns into a puppet, he turns into a giant,
Speaker 1: skeletal demon, and then he explodes. They just do all
Speaker 1: the things like the f X team just they had
Speaker 1: no chill on this film. They're just a hundred miles
Speaker 1: an hour the whole time. And so I guess we're
Speaker 1: just going to assume that now Jada Pinkett is gonna
Speaker 1: live for eighty years or whatever until eventually she has
Speaker 1: to find the next chosen One to put her blood
Speaker 1: into so they can go on preventing Billy Zane from
Speaker 1: taking over the world. Where I guess it's not Billy Zane.
Speaker 1: I think he's destroyed. There's just gonna be a new
Speaker 1: collector from Hell chasing her around, right, And we see
Speaker 1: him at the end because she gets on a bus
Speaker 1: and when she gets on she does the thing with
Speaker 1: the blood that's done throughout the film where you form
Speaker 1: a seal that the demons cannot cross. And then this
Speaker 1: other guy that has a briefcase for the key, he
Speaker 1: sees it and he's like, no, I'll wait on the
Speaker 1: next bus. And so the chase continues, and and it
Speaker 1: potentially sets up a sequel that we never got. But man,
Speaker 1: I think it would have been good, would have been
Speaker 1: far preferable to Bordello of Blood, which was the actual
Speaker 1: tales from the Trip film to follow. I never saw
Speaker 1: a Bordello of Blood, but I remember a when I
Speaker 1: was in elementary school, a friend of mine telling me
Speaker 1: about how his mom had a copy of that movie
Speaker 1: on on VHS, and I was like, I did not
Speaker 1: know what bordello meant and I and I knew nothing
Speaker 1: of of Dennis Miller. I mean, well, yeah, it definitely
Speaker 1: has Dennis Miller in it. I never saw that one.
Speaker 1: There was even a third one that was I think
Speaker 1: is even less worth seeing. I think it may have
Speaker 1: Tim Curry in it, but it's like a New Orleans
Speaker 1: zombie kind of a thing. How could a movie with
Speaker 1: Tim Curry be not worth seeing. I don't know. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't. It doesn't. I just don't. It doesn't call
Speaker 1: out to me. Maybe other folks have have seen it
Speaker 1: and they can tell us how it is. But I
Speaker 1: also understand that like some releases of it didn't even
Speaker 1: have the crypt Keeper sequences on it. They released it
Speaker 1: as its own thing, and then other versions they put
Speaker 1: the crypt Keeper back on but it's also not really
Speaker 1: top shelf crypt Keeper puppetry going on. So it just
Speaker 1: sounds it sounds like it would be sad to watch.
Speaker 1: I'd rather stick with Demon and I it and like
Speaker 1: the really great tales from the Crypt episodes. Okay, now, um,
Speaker 1: in turns, we'll Larry talked to a good bit here
Speaker 1: about the monsters and so forth. I guess it is
Speaker 1: worth noting that we do have holy relics that or
Speaker 1: at least alleged to contain the blood of Christ. I
Speaker 1: was looking around a little bit. There are a couple
Speaker 1: of relics of the Holy blood. Um, there's one in
Speaker 1: the Basilica of Saint Andrea. There's one that at least
Speaker 1: was at some point in Westminster in England. There's the
Speaker 1: relic of the Precious Blood in vine Gotten Abbey in Germany.
Speaker 1: Uh So, the idea of this key containing the blood
Speaker 1: is it does seem to be based on actual holy
Speaker 1: relics that allegedly contain holy blood. Yeah. I think also
Speaker 1: this ties into the to the grail legend, like the
Speaker 1: idea that at the death of Christ that Joseph of
Speaker 1: Arimathea held a grail that caught the blood of Jesus
Speaker 1: stripping from the cross, and that somehow later he brought
Speaker 1: with him like containers of blood to other places. I
Speaker 1: think like that that's part of the local Glastonbury legend
Speaker 1: in Britain. Now. I don't know if any of these
Speaker 1: have actually been used against demons though, but perhaps perhaps, Man,
Speaker 1: there's so much they could have done with a sequel though,
Speaker 1: you know, they could have had a thing where all right,
Speaker 1: she's on the run as always, the demons are after
Speaker 1: but then where does she wind up a genetics laboratory?
Speaker 1: What do they want to do? They want to use
Speaker 1: the precious blood in the in the key. They want
Speaker 1: to try and clone Jesus or something, and then that
Speaker 1: becomes a whole plot element. But then he'd be a
Speaker 1: mutant because he'd be like part Jesus, but then also
Speaker 1: part William Sadler and part Jaya Pinkett. William Sadler is
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ in Demon Night too. There's still time. There's
Speaker 1: still time, Ernest Dickerson, if you're listening, please make it.
Speaker 1: I will watch it. I will. I will take all
Speaker 1: my friends to see it. I will as well. All right, well, um,
Speaker 1: before we close out, I just want to I'll mention
Speaker 1: again that you can rent or buy this one digitally
Speaker 1: most places these days. But that twenty of teen Blu
Speaker 1: ray release from shout Factory screen Factory import uh is
Speaker 1: really slick and it's loaded with cool content. So if
Speaker 1: you're a Demon Night fan, that's worth picking up. If
Speaker 1: you're a Demon Yeah, we rented our copy from Video Drum,
Speaker 1: the last video store here in Atlanta, Georgia. So if
Speaker 1: you live in Atlanta, uh, go check out Video Drum.
Speaker 1: It's great. And if you don't, look them up online
Speaker 1: because you can buy some of their cool merch. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they got great T shirts and stuff. Oh. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say that the T shirt I'm wearing right now
Speaker 1: is one of theirs. It's not, but it could be.
Speaker 1: It's of their style. Oh oh, I see it. It
Speaker 1: says Herzog and then it has the Danzig logo. Nice
Speaker 1: Rachel got me this one? All right? Uh? Well, anything
Speaker 1: else we need to say about Demon Night before we
Speaker 1: we close the crypt down this one? I think that
Speaker 1: wraps it up. But I just say again, great fun. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As always, we'd love to hear from everyone out there.
Speaker 1: Do you have do you have memories of seeing this
Speaker 1: when it came out. We're discovering it later on. Uh.
Speaker 1: Do you have particular episodes of Tales from the Crypt
Speaker 1: that we're your favorite. Uh, we'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: you about that as well, or just any of the
Speaker 1: other elements in this be it Holy Blood or really
Speaker 1: cool demons. Uh, it's all on the table. Dick Miller
Speaker 1: movies that we should add to the list. Let us know.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out other
Speaker 1: episodes of Weird House Cinema, it publishes every Friday in
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. Also, I
Speaker 1: try to put up a blog post about the Weird
Speaker 1: House series at Samoda music dot com. That's s E
Speaker 1: m U t A Music dot com. It's just my
Speaker 1: own personal blog. We don't have anywhere else to put
Speaker 1: blog type content these days, so I'm just slapping it
Speaker 1: up over there. Long. May you slap blogging and slapping
Speaker 1: huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. UH. If you would like to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind dot com Stuff to Blow Your
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