Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and we have
Speaker 1: a we have a weird one for you this week. Um,
Speaker 1: because and this is one that is weird in so
Speaker 1: many ways. Because sometimes the weird element of a weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema selection it's about like a weird monster, a
Speaker 1: weird character performance. Uh, this one has weirdness in its structure,
Speaker 1: it's in its values, it's a it's a strange film
Speaker 1: to behold. It is nineties seventies scream and Scream Again.
Speaker 1: I could not tell you what this movie was about
Speaker 1: until about fifteen minutes from the end. And then at
Speaker 1: the end there's a twist that really does kind of
Speaker 1: make sense of everything. But up until then, this is
Speaker 1: one of the most disjointed, confusing movies I have ever watched. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this movie throws you into the deep end and
Speaker 1: and it and it is gonna watch and see if
Speaker 1: you can swim. It's uh, you're in in a way
Speaker 1: to to a major degree. This film is such an
Speaker 1: immersive experience because of that, because you're it feels like
Speaker 1: the guardrails are off in terms of structure. Um, so
Speaker 1: I I greatly enjoyed this one. It's it's one that
Speaker 1: has a certain standing in the cult film status and
Speaker 1: among the movie enthusiasts for its weirdness. Uh. Ebert referred
Speaker 1: to this film is Goddard for the masses, though I'm
Speaker 1: not sure I completely understand what he's saying though, or
Speaker 1: think it's the best way to describe the film. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a hard one to nail down. And it's also
Speaker 1: one where, if you look at the way it's promoted,
Speaker 1: you're gonna go into this expecting, oh, it's we're gonna
Speaker 1: watch a horror film that has Vincent Price, Christopher Lee,
Speaker 1: and Peter Cushing in it. Um, well, let's see what
Speaker 1: this is about. But it's really not that. It's more
Speaker 1: of a conspiracy science fiction film starring a handful of
Speaker 1: lesser known actors with some cameos for the most part
Speaker 1: by these three individuals. I think I can understand what
Speaker 1: what he means by good art for the masses in that. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I guess good art is like French new wave cinema, right,
Speaker 1: like art films that are non traditional structures Uh, they're
Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna ask weird existential questions. They're gonna be
Speaker 1: of a different composition than the films you were used
Speaker 1: to before. And this is in that tradition. You could
Speaker 1: say it is structured like an art film. It is.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have an easy to follow linear plot like
Speaker 1: you would see in a standard genre thriller, which is
Speaker 1: what it sort of turns out to be in the end,
Speaker 1: even though like it takes you most of the length
Speaker 1: of the movie to figure that out. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: I and I don't I don't have much familiarity with
Speaker 1: with Goddard myself, but certainly when I compare this film
Speaker 1: to like pure artsy cinema, pure uh psychedelic cinema, there's
Speaker 1: there's almost like too much freedom in some of those
Speaker 1: type ventures where it just becomes a you know, fall
Speaker 1: from one weird sequence to the next. This one seems
Speaker 1: to be to have an intelligent structure. This film is
Speaker 1: like a slime mold making its way through a labyrinth.
Speaker 1: Um you know that there's some sort of logic involved
Speaker 1: in its path, or you trust that there is, but
Speaker 1: you're not at sure exactly like how this thing works
Speaker 1: without a brain. It's a It's a film that I
Speaker 1: would compare favorably to V three Psychomania. In some regards,
Speaker 1: you can't really compare anything directly to Psychomania, but I
Speaker 1: feel like it hits similar notes of the weird. You know. Now,
Speaker 1: Another thing this film has going for it is this
Speaker 1: is very much a Hollywood acid movie. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: a subject we covered on Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: a few years back. Yeah. The acid doesn't show up
Speaker 1: until about two thirds of the way through, but then
Speaker 1: it is the star of the third act. From there on,
Speaker 1: it's like acid in every scene. Right. And by acid,
Speaker 1: we don't mean psychedelic, we mean good old dissolving acid,
Speaker 1: a big vat acid. In fact, the wonderful um of
Speaker 1: a promise from the poster. The original poster for this
Speaker 1: film is triple distilled horror as powerful as a vat
Speaker 1: of boiling acid. Oh I'm glad they got it up
Speaker 1: to a boil. Yeah, you want to boil your acid
Speaker 1: from maximum uh destruction of organic tissues? Um. Without scream
Speaker 1: and scream again, there would be no Batman forever. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: this poster is pretty great because you also see a
Speaker 1: body dissolving an ascid it's it's a really really tight poster.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I put it on my wall,
Speaker 1: but it's it's pretty. It's pretty cool. I agree. But wait,
Speaker 1: what does triple distilled horror mean? Well, most of your
Speaker 1: horror movies are only um only go through a single
Speaker 1: or double distillation process. Joe, this film has been triple distilled.
Speaker 1: This is the crystal Skull Vodka of films. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I have no idea what this means. But
Speaker 1: it's a strong promlemse. I mean, that's really I think
Speaker 1: the ultimate. I love it when when a film is
Speaker 1: promoted as is something well beyond anything that can be
Speaker 1: tested or quantified. All right, Uh, I'm gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and mention where you can where you can watch this
Speaker 1: in case anyone out there has has heard the pitch
Speaker 1: and they're like, well I want in on this. Well,
Speaker 1: you can rent or purchase this film digitally most places.
Speaker 1: It's also out on DVD and Blu Ray from KL
Speaker 1: Studio Classics. It's Keno Lorber. They always do a great
Speaker 1: job with these. I watched it streaming myself. Yeah I
Speaker 1: did too. Now I think we should issue a disclaimer
Speaker 1: near the top. I guess I sort of already alluded
Speaker 1: to this, but our discussion will necessarily include spoilers for
Speaker 1: this movie because I think there's literally no way to
Speaker 1: talk about it that makes sense without spoiling the twist ending,
Speaker 1: because nothing makes sense until the twist ending, and then
Speaker 1: it kind of does so, so I don't know, like
Speaker 1: we we couldn't really have a coherent discussion of the
Speaker 1: themes or plot of the movie without spoiling it, if
Speaker 1: that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah, there's like, what can
Speaker 1: you say other than I was confused by this scene?
Speaker 1: And I will also advice We're about to listen to
Speaker 1: some trailer audio here, but I would advise against watching
Speaker 1: the trailer for this film before you go into it,
Speaker 1: because ultimately that's the feeling of being lost, of not
Speaker 1: knowing where you're going. I thought that was one of
Speaker 1: the best payoffs of this movie. Yeah, totally, all right,
Speaker 1: let's have to listen. She wasn't just murdered, if you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Job nobody snapped through a high
Speaker 1: tensile steel He didn't look all right, Well, shall we
Speaker 1: get into the people responsible for Scream and Scream again?
Speaker 1: We must? We have no choice? All right, Well, let's start.
Speaker 1: At the top of the director is Gordon Hessler, who
Speaker 1: lived through German born director of Danish and English heritage,
Speaker 1: who directed nineteen sixty nine The Oblong Box, nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: Cry of the Banshee Ones, Murders in the Room Morgue,
Speaker 1: and the nineteen seventy three Ray Harry Housing Extravaganza of
Speaker 1: the Golden Voyage of Sinbad, which starred John Philip Law,
Speaker 1: Caroline Monroe, and Tom Baker. I think Tom Baker plays
Speaker 1: a sore sorrow of some kind. John Phillip Waw is
Speaker 1: Sinbad um and uh, I don't remember who Carolyn Monroe
Speaker 1: isn't it? But yeah, this one, like all of the
Speaker 1: Ray Harry house in movies, has some excellent stop motion monsters.
Speaker 1: I don't know how well this one passes the modern
Speaker 1: cultural sensitivity test, but the stop motion effects are fantastic.
Speaker 1: There's one point where Sinbad's crew seems to that they
Speaker 1: fight like an animated statue that seems to be based
Speaker 1: on depictions of like Hindu gods with multiple arms, and
Speaker 1: these arms are all wielding swords during the fight. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're just monsters of plenty. It's it's fantastic. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got to see that one on the big screen at
Speaker 1: a drive in theater many years ago. Let's say Gordon
Speaker 1: Hessler directed a slew of things. He directed quite a
Speaker 1: bit of TV episodes of such shows as The Master,
Speaker 1: That's The Levan Cliff, Ninja Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents Chips
Speaker 1: and more. He also directed a nine five Ninja movie
Speaker 1: titled Pray for Death, starring eighties Ninja boom um star
Speaker 1: show Kasuki. I don't know this one, um, it's one
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've seen it in its entirety,
Speaker 1: but it has a very memorable VHS bit of box
Speaker 1: ar because it kind of looks like the Shredder from
Speaker 1: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and he's he's staring right at you,
Speaker 1: and you know that he's going to cut you with
Speaker 1: sharukins and stuff. So I remember this this VHS box
Speaker 1: aren't staring back at me when I was a kid. Oh,
Speaker 1: I just looked it up. Yes, the mask on his
Speaker 1: helmet looks like a piece of grilling equipment. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: has sort of a metal face mask going on, very
Speaker 1: very shredd Or esque. This seems like something there would
Speaker 1: be an infomercial on this face mask for it's it's
Speaker 1: how you see her salmon or something. So I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it myself. I don't think i've seen it. Possible
Speaker 1: I saw parts of it on TV at some point
Speaker 1: or another. But if anyone out there is a fan,
Speaker 1: let us know. All right, let's get to the writing year.
Speaker 1: The screenplay was written by Christopher Wicking, who through two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight a British screenwriter known for, uh, some
Speaker 1: of the films we listed already, We're gonna hear these
Speaker 1: titles again and again. Cry of the Band, Murder in
Speaker 1: the Room, Morgue, Blood from the Mummies, Tomb, Absolute Beginners.
Speaker 1: In Lady Chatterley's Lover, I read that despite the fact
Speaker 1: that this movie is based on a novel, a lot
Speaker 1: of the distinctive ideas and it actually come from the
Speaker 1: screenplay adaptation. Like I think a lot of the conspiracy
Speaker 1: elements that we discover at the end are actually more
Speaker 1: the screenplay than the book it was based on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the book it's based on is The Disoriented Man
Speaker 1: by Peter Saxon. Now you're probably wondering, well, who's this
Speaker 1: Peter Saxon guy, Well, he's nobody, he's not real it's
Speaker 1: just a pen name used by various thriller authors from
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties through the nineteen seventies, though I've read
Speaker 1: that The Disoriented Man in particular was mainly written by
Speaker 1: a writer by the name of Stephen D. Francis and
Speaker 1: edited by W. Howard Baker, who originated the Saxon brand
Speaker 1: of pulp. Ah. So, Peter Saxon is kind of a
Speaker 1: composite human built out of the parts of other humans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say that. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: into the cast on this one. But like I said earlier, though,
Speaker 1: this one's kind of weird because if you went by billing,
Speaker 1: you just start with Cushioning and Price and Lee. But
Speaker 1: they're not really the main characters. You don't spend a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of time with them for the most part,
Speaker 1: maybe Price more than the other two, but not to
Speaker 1: say they're not important, but they're not really the main characters.
Speaker 1: I want to start with the characters that we see
Speaker 1: more of in the film. All right, So first of all,
Speaker 1: we have, um, we have this character name Detective Belaviere,
Speaker 1: who is played by Alfred Marks, who of one through
Speaker 1: a British comic actor and entertainer who, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is pretty great in this is a tired, grumpy police
Speaker 1: detective who has seen it all twice, is tired of
Speaker 1: it all, um, and it's going to let you know
Speaker 1: about it. Yes, but he's this is a great performance
Speaker 1: because the character is he's this bellowing blow hard who
Speaker 1: has he's just always like dropping little comments about his
Speaker 1: police knowledge about what psychos are like and he um,
Speaker 1: he's got a great mustache. He's good in this role. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now interesting. This is probably his best known film role,
Speaker 1: but he did do a fair amount of TV and
Speaker 1: also appeared in such films as Fannie Hill and Ken
Speaker 1: Russell's seven film Valentino. Naming this character Belover, I thought
Speaker 1: it was a great choice. It's kind of Dickensian naming, right.
Speaker 1: It's it's one of those where the character's name just
Speaker 1: sounds like their personality. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't. He bellows
Speaker 1: a lot for sure. Now. The next character want to
Speaker 1: mention is this Dr David Sorrel, who is I guess
Speaker 1: as close to a central hero as we get in
Speaker 1: this film, though I wouldn't rate him as being tremendously
Speaker 1: effective at foiling evil. No. In fact, he almost seems
Speaker 1: to be tempted to collaborate with the evil at the
Speaker 1: very end, until he's like, wait, the person you were
Speaker 1: going to dismember is somebody I've met. Yeah, he's way
Speaker 1: more like you know, as as a hero in a
Speaker 1: film like this. You know, it's it's courtesy to listen
Speaker 1: to a villain monologue a little bit at least. I mean,
Speaker 1: it would be rude not to right, of course, but
Speaker 1: Dr Sorrel here, Yeah, he seems to listen a little
Speaker 1: bit too much and be a little bit too eager.
Speaker 1: Um He's like, no, no, yeah, absolutely, let's hear all
Speaker 1: about it. Price is giving a monologue like I am
Speaker 1: not evil when I build these people out of other
Speaker 1: people's body parts. Uh, And Sorrel is like, no, that
Speaker 1: sounds reasonable. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's fun. It's so
Speaker 1: this this actor, this is one of those guys that
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly who he looks like, but he
Speaker 1: looks like body else that I've seen in many more
Speaker 1: things than I think. That kind of messes with me
Speaker 1: a little bit. But the actor here is Christopher Matthews. Uh.
Speaker 1: Dates unknown as far as I could find, but active
Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty three through two thousand and six, mostly
Speaker 1: did TV were including roles on Dr Who, Space and
Speaker 1: East Enders. He also appears in nineteen seventies Scars of
Speaker 1: Dracula starring Christopher Lee and nineteen seventy one See No
Speaker 1: Evil starring Mia Pharaoh. I thought it was an interesting
Speaker 1: choice that he the character is technically supposed to be
Speaker 1: a medical examiner. I think we first meet him during
Speaker 1: an autopsy scene, and I couldn't understand why he just
Speaker 1: sort of becomes an assistant to the detective for the
Speaker 1: rest of the movie, like he's going to all the
Speaker 1: crime scenes. I I do love it when this happens
Speaker 1: in a film, um the generally a genre film of
Speaker 1: some sort, where somebody who should not be present at
Speaker 1: every stage of like a homicide investigation, just it just
Speaker 1: becomes baked into the investigation. They just they just hang
Speaker 1: out long enough and they're just part of it. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, you know what happens here. It's taking
Speaker 1: it too personal. He is he's he's taking it too
Speaker 1: personal for sure. Alright, Another another person, this is probably
Speaker 1: the closest thing we have to a central relatable character
Speaker 1: in the film is policewoman Helen Bradford, who is frequently
Speaker 1: just imperil due to the villains of the picture, but
Speaker 1: is very much a likable screen presence for the most part.
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, So she plays an officer who
Speaker 1: goes undercover because one of the multiple plot threads in
Speaker 1: this movie is, Hey, we've got some psychotic murderer who's
Speaker 1: just who's just killing women and drinking their blood. I
Speaker 1: know what we need to do. We need to put
Speaker 1: one of our officers undercover as a as a PARTI
Speaker 1: er at a London, uh psychedelic rock club, and then
Speaker 1: she will get picked up by the murderer and then
Speaker 1: we'll let the murderer drink her blood a little bit,
Speaker 1: and then eventually we'll get in there and do something
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, and Helen's like sure works through me. So.
Speaker 1: Helen is played by Judy Bloom, actor Stage, screen and
Speaker 1: two TV, who I think started off as a child
Speaker 1: actor based on her dates on IMDb. All right, Uh,
Speaker 1: despite all those wonderfully villainous names on the poster, Cushing,
Speaker 1: Lee and Price, Uh, it's ultimately an actor by the
Speaker 1: name of Marshall Jones that really plays I think in
Speaker 1: my opinion, the most frightening character in the picture. Uh,
Speaker 1: this guy by the name of Conrats. Yes, and I
Speaker 1: thought this actor was also very good. He has a
Speaker 1: kind of a void face, a face like a predatory
Speaker 1: bird of some kind. And uh and he and he
Speaker 1: uses it to great effect. He is he is much menace. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He has this, uh, this look on his face most
Speaker 1: of the movie where it's it's like he just thought
Speaker 1: of something funny. He could have said in the torture
Speaker 1: uh inquiry that he was conducting or lier in the day. Oh,
Speaker 1: I should have said, don't get too attached to it exactly.
Speaker 1: Like he's a total total villain. But uh, Marshall Jones
Speaker 1: performance here like he has a he has a real
Speaker 1: physically imposing stature. Uh. You know, he looks like he
Speaker 1: towers over, perhaps naturally, most of the other actors in
Speaker 1: the in the picture. So yeah, I thought he was
Speaker 1: quite good in this. Um. This particular actor lived two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. Um appeared in the film's Cry of
Speaker 1: the Banshee in nineteen seventy Murders in the Room or
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one. UM, but this seems to be his
Speaker 1: his biggest role. Um. If you you know, when you
Speaker 1: look into the pictures he's he's been in, this is
Speaker 1: the one that seems to be best remembered, and it
Speaker 1: seems like the main one where he played a central villain.
Speaker 1: I don't know that he really played this sort of
Speaker 1: role in other pictures, but he excels here. He's some
Speaker 1: kind of high level functionary in an unnamed easter in
Speaker 1: European dictatorship. Yeah, that has this frightening trident as its icon.
Speaker 1: Uh and and and yeah, not not a trident like
Speaker 1: the like the flag of Barbados, like a scary one
Speaker 1: that looks like a devil's pitchfork. Yeah. Well, so I
Speaker 1: actually interpreted that as three arrows, but that would be
Speaker 1: weird imagery because a bit of symbology of the history
Speaker 1: of European politics. So the three arrows was a political
Speaker 1: symbol in uh, like I think nineteen twenties thirties Germany,
Speaker 1: but it was the symbol of like the social Democratic
Speaker 1: coalition that because the three arrows I think had something
Speaker 1: to do with the opposing Nazism, monarchism and communism. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: either way it would make sense because I think and
Speaker 1: I was reading that in the original novel it's it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be some sort of fictional German regime and
Speaker 1: they made it. They went a little more vague with
Speaker 1: it in the in the picture, which I ultimately like,
Speaker 1: it feels a lot more you know, kafka esque, to
Speaker 1: not have a particular name for this uh, this country.
Speaker 1: It's just the h and maybe it maybe doesn't even
Speaker 1: have a name, Like that's the degree of the of
Speaker 1: the totalitarianism here. It's just uh, this place where the
Speaker 1: trident flag or the triple arrow flag reins. All right.
Speaker 1: The next major name in this movie is Michael Gothard,
Speaker 1: who plays Keith Uh, the alleged vampire killer. Let's take
Speaker 1: your standard Mick Jagger type, but then creep if I him. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's pretty great because he's yeah, he's he's handsome, but
Speaker 1: in a dangerous way. You know, he's got that you
Speaker 1: don't completely trust him, and of course we're led to
Speaker 1: believe that he's killing people and uh and hunting them
Speaker 1: for sport. At a discos, he has this ridiculous uh
Speaker 1: what kind of way he described this shirt that he's wearing.
Speaker 1: It's like a purple pirate shirt. Yeah, he's wearing like
Speaker 1: a lavender shiny satin frilly shirt and he's wearing it
Speaker 1: through a chase sequence that takes up the middle third
Speaker 1: of the movie. So it's he's scrambling over rocks, jumping
Speaker 1: through windows of abandoned buildings and driving around London running
Speaker 1: cars off the road, all wearing this this purple satin shirt. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's a great, great performance. Um. Michael Gotthard,
Speaker 1: who ninety nine through two uh, went on to be
Speaker 1: known for a number of other films. This was apparently
Speaker 1: one of his big breakout roles. He'd previously been in
Speaker 1: some TV shows and a few films such as the
Speaker 1: West German drama Michael Cole host at Dae Rebel from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, which start David Warner. Um. But after
Speaker 1: this he went onto some really memorable roles, including the
Speaker 1: Demented Exorcist and witch Hunter Father Baret and Kin Russell's
Speaker 1: The Devils from nineteen seventy one. And then he also
Speaker 1: plays this, Um, I'm not sure is this a villain
Speaker 1: or a Hinchman Joe from Ones for Your Eye is
Speaker 1: only James Bond film. This was a late Roger Moore movie,
Speaker 1: and I think he plays an assassin in it, he's
Speaker 1: like a guy who Oh, now I'm afraid I'm remembering
Speaker 1: this wrong. I think he's a guy who like he
Speaker 1: like puts a rifle together out of a briefcase that
Speaker 1: he carries around. Oh, that's always a good bond villain
Speaker 1: move the character's name villain or hnchman. And I think
Speaker 1: you're right. I think it's more of an assassin. Character
Speaker 1: is Emil Leopold Locke. Uh. And I I've seen this movie,
Speaker 1: or at least a large chunk of it, But really
Speaker 1: the only thing that that really I remember from it
Speaker 1: our Gothard's signature spectacles in this because uh, he has these.
Speaker 1: Uh there's a curious shape to them. Uh. And apparently
Speaker 1: he insisted on wearing them. He was like, no, no,
Speaker 1: that this character needs something else. Um. And indeed this
Speaker 1: is also something you see in The Devils his character
Speaker 1: and that also has a pair of spectacles on. And
Speaker 1: there's something about Michael Gothard like he's he's he's a
Speaker 1: great character actor. Uh. He has been in a number
Speaker 1: of roles and rememberable, but these two roles that really
Speaker 1: stand out are ones where he wears kind of weird glasses.
Speaker 1: They just put him over the top. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: So in the Bond movie they're kind of octagons, and
Speaker 1: the way he's made up for the Bond role, he looks.
Speaker 1: He looks a little bit Jagger, still a little bit
Speaker 1: Kinski but all creep. Yeah. Meanwhile, in um, The Devil's
Speaker 1: I'd say he looks a little bit Warren Zevon, a
Speaker 1: little bit klaus Kinsky, you know. But but but strong
Speaker 1: Zevon vines here at least the just the boy the
Speaker 1: character looks, not so much the way he acts the
Speaker 1: glasses however, I'm I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable
Speaker 1: for a seventeenth century Frenchman to potentially have spectacles of
Speaker 1: some sort, But I don't think they would have looked
Speaker 1: this modern and stylish. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but
Speaker 1: I think this is more of an artistic choice. H
Speaker 1: Russell's part for The Devil's you don't you don't think this? Uh,
Speaker 1: this psychotic convent had a had a flower child here
Speaker 1: and there. Yeah yeah, um, but still very memorable role
Speaker 1: for sure. Um. He he had a number of other
Speaker 1: prominent roles. Uh. He appears in the nineteen seventies Three
Speaker 1: Musketeers movies. He pops up in Life Force, as well
Speaker 1: as a pair of Michael Caine movies of note, Jack
Speaker 1: the Ripper in the Last Valley. His last film before
Speaker 1: his untimely death was the T and T Frankenstein adaptation
Speaker 1: starring Patrick Bergen and Randy Quaid as the Monster. I've
Speaker 1: mentioned this film before on the show because I fondly
Speaker 1: remember watching it on T and T when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. I've got to see this sometimes. You bring
Speaker 1: it up every chance you get, this nest be worth it.
Speaker 1: Maybe we've we've at least jokingly talked about doing an
Speaker 1: entire month of Frankenstein movies sometimes. So who knows, Maybe
Speaker 1: we'll have to pull the trigger on that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you get Frankenstein meets the space Monster in there. Oh
Speaker 1: that's Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: All right. Um, we're not gonna spend as much time
Speaker 1: with these three, but yes, the three top build actors
Speaker 1: in this are Price, Lee, and Cushing. Let's start with
Speaker 1: Vincent Price because he plays his character Dr. Browning, which
Speaker 1: is probably, uh probably the most important of these three characters. Uh,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, certainly, I think this is
Speaker 1: the character that had maybe has the most memorable screen time.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's it's essentially a sort of Vincent Price role.
Speaker 1: You'd expect some sort of deranged scientist or doctor, but
Speaker 1: with some fun twists that set the role apart. He
Speaker 1: does a beard in this movie. Yeah, And and ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about how he says to the
Speaker 1: to our our doctor character. He tells him I'm not evil, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and and we kind of buy into it,
Speaker 1: like he's not acting completely evil though he's doing some
Speaker 1: very um bizarre and um questionable things. Well yeah, mean,
Speaker 1: he openly admits to doing a lot of murder and stuff,
Speaker 1: but he he seems to think that it's all for
Speaker 1: the greater good. The greater good being replacing humans with
Speaker 1: like super beings made by experimental surgeries. Yeah. Yeah. Ultimately, ultimately,
Speaker 1: like the big reveal is that there is a secret organization,
Speaker 1: multinational organization, working in the shadows to build new people
Speaker 1: out of the parts of regular humans and thus create
Speaker 1: kind of super people who will continue to carry on
Speaker 1: this conspiracy in order to make a better world. I
Speaker 1: think in an earlier draft of this, we discover at
Speaker 1: the end that that it's actually aliens controlling the whole thing,
Speaker 1: But then that was taken out, and I'm ultimately glad
Speaker 1: they did because if it had just been aliens, yes,
Speaker 1: it would have maybe made more sense. But this movie
Speaker 1: is so cryptic and confusing getting to the final scenes
Speaker 1: that I like that a lot of that mystery remains
Speaker 1: that were left trying to ponder, like what what does
Speaker 1: this mean? Like what is a composite person? And why
Speaker 1: in the context of this film are they so different?
Speaker 1: Why are they why do they seem to have super intelligence?
Speaker 1: When we saw where the brain come came from, there's
Speaker 1: no indication that you did anything to the brain and
Speaker 1: combined parts of a brain. No, you were just gonna
Speaker 1: get Judy's brain and put it in here. By the
Speaker 1: same token, how does it make them super strong when
Speaker 1: they're just taking one arm off of a jogger and
Speaker 1: one arm off of a cop and putting them on
Speaker 1: a different body, Like was it just like, oh, this
Speaker 1: jogger happened to have the strongest arm in the world,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna use that, you know, Like where does
Speaker 1: the super strength come from? Yeah? Yeah, A lot of
Speaker 1: questions remain. Now I won't I won't get into into prices,
Speaker 1: bio too much here because we've talked about We talked
Speaker 1: about them previously on The Abominable Doctor Fibes pricelet of
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven. Famous for such films as The Tingler, The House,
Speaker 1: and Honor It Hill. He also did a lot of
Speaker 1: fun TV roles. He was on Night Gallery, he did
Speaker 1: The Muppet Show, and he did TV commercials for a
Speaker 1: number of brand ends, including the No Jelly Candy Bar.
Speaker 1: Is it now a recurring segment than any time we
Speaker 1: do a price movie we have to review at least
Speaker 1: one price commercial. Yes, I think it should be. It's
Speaker 1: it's part of his legacy, and the no Jelly Candy
Speaker 1: Bar does not disappoint. It's basically a Vincent Price talking
Speaker 1: head commercial, like a lot of these are. But I
Speaker 1: was really intrigued by the product here. I had to
Speaker 1: I was reading about it on collecting candy dot com. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a post about it with a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: images from the marketing campaign. It's a bar from the
Speaker 1: makers of Almond Joy and Mounds that seemed to be
Speaker 1: it's marketing itself at a at a at a client
Speaker 1: base that I'm not sure really existed. People who were
Speaker 1: fed up with their being jelly in their peanut butter
Speaker 1: theme snack bars and candy bars. They were like, why
Speaker 1: do they keep putting jelly in here? I want one
Speaker 1: that's no jelly, that's just peanut butter. This this is
Speaker 1: the commercial, the pitch. He holds up the bar and
Speaker 1: he's like, if you have children, you know the they
Speaker 1: love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We must dispense with
Speaker 1: that wretched jelly. Was this a thing? I it just
Speaker 1: seems it doesn't make much sense to me, Like, uh,
Speaker 1: and what are you making? I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like where do you Was there a jelly shortage that
Speaker 1: made jelly really expensive at the time, Yeah, or maybe
Speaker 1: like just the peanut butter lobbying group was trying to
Speaker 1: like bad mouth the jelly group because they want more
Speaker 1: peanut butter on those sandwiches and not jelly. So they're
Speaker 1: probably saying stuff like, well, you know what, jelly is
Speaker 1: just full of sugar, unlike peanut butter. Slab it on.
Speaker 1: They're they're making up the difference with jelly. They're they're
Speaker 1: cutting into our profits. Yeah. So I don't know if
Speaker 1: anyone I have no moment I think this was this
Speaker 1: is a bar that was well done as a product
Speaker 1: by the time I was born. So if anyone out
Speaker 1: there remembers the No Jelly Candy bar and can tell
Speaker 1: us what it was like, let us know that. Again.
Speaker 1: This collecting Candy dot Com blog post on it's pretty
Speaker 1: interesting because there's all sorts of strange promotional material, including
Speaker 1: a what is it like yes to Nixon, no to
Speaker 1: jelly pan that one would wear? Wow. Uh So, based
Speaker 1: on my extensive deep research on the No Jelly Candy Bar,
Speaker 1: I don't think that it was actually just straight up
Speaker 1: peanut butter in that candy bar. I think it was
Speaker 1: more like what you would get inside of a Reese's cup. Okay,
Speaker 1: so sort of like I don't know what you call
Speaker 1: that Pete candy peanut butter stuff. At any rate, it's
Speaker 1: a mystery. I'm not entirely convinced that the No Jelly
Speaker 1: Candy bar isn't actually part of the composite uh conspiracy
Speaker 1: that is uh that is described in this film. Alright,
Speaker 1: moving on Christopher Lee who lived in this as well. Um,
Speaker 1: obviously we've talked about Christopher Lee on the show before.
Speaker 1: This is Dracula, This is Saramon, This is Count Dooku. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a guy who's in a ton of Hammer
Speaker 1: horror movies, and in this film he plays a mysterious
Speaker 1: UK government official. I think Christopher Lee's plotline was the
Speaker 1: most confusing of all of them to me until towards
Speaker 1: the end. Yeah. Yeah, but it all comes together. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I would say little he's good in this. This
Speaker 1: is a role that plays to his strengths. Yeah, calm confidence.
Speaker 1: He's not quite as as there's not as much twinkle
Speaker 1: in the eye as he is when he's Lord's Summer Isle,
Speaker 1: but it's a similar kind of thing he is. He
Speaker 1: is overseeing some kind of secret process of depravity with
Speaker 1: great jollity. Yes. And then finally we have Peter Cushing,
Speaker 1: who often through and he plays a major Heinrich Benedict. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a small but fun role where he plays
Speaker 1: a higher ranking intelligence operative in that strange European trident country. Um.
Speaker 1: We we've profiled Cushing at greater depth in the past,
Speaker 1: I believe in our shock Waves episode. But yeah, another
Speaker 1: another horror legend. This is uh Dr Frankenstein. This is
Speaker 1: Grand mof Tar Tarkan. Um. He has no scenes with
Speaker 1: Lee or Price in the film. Uh, he's he's tightly
Speaker 1: contained within this uh, this mysterious European country. It's pretty
Speaker 1: much just a cameo and it's it's one of a
Speaker 1: series of scenes where Marshall Jones, the Conrads character, just
Speaker 1: kills his boss. I think this happens like three different
Speaker 1: times in the movie. He goes into a meeting with
Speaker 1: his boss and then within minutes that boss is dead. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has a he has a signature move which will
Speaker 1: describe here shortly. Um, a couple of quick, fun and
Speaker 1: useless facts here. This is one of only three films
Speaker 1: to feature both Price and Lee. It's one of only
Speaker 1: four films to feature Cushing and Price. Lee and Cushing
Speaker 1: appeared in the same film and estimated twenty four times. However,
Speaker 1: going back as far as Laurence Olivier's adaptation of Hamlet,
Speaker 1: in which Cushing played Ostrich and Lee played a palace
Speaker 1: guard in an uncredited role, and I believe the only
Speaker 1: other film to feature all three of these gentlemen was
Speaker 1: House of Long Shadows from three, which also has John
Speaker 1: Carradeine in it to boot, but doesn't every movie I
Speaker 1: have John Krradeine in it I'm sure in this alright,
Speaker 1: Let's let's get to the music, because the music is
Speaker 1: worth worth talking about. Um not, I have to say
Speaker 1: not so much. The score. Uh. The score is by
Speaker 1: David Whittaker, who lived one through two thousand and twelve
Speaker 1: and English composer who scored such films as Dr Jackal
Speaker 1: and Sister Hyde, Vampire Circus, and The Sword and the Sorcerer.
Speaker 1: It's an it's a perfectly acceptable score. I can't say
Speaker 1: anything too bad about it. But also I've already forgotten
Speaker 1: most of it. I don't know. The music kind of
Speaker 1: made an impression on me, and not just the rock music,
Speaker 1: which I know you're about to get to, but the
Speaker 1: background music kind of works because of the it heightens
Speaker 1: the absurdity of the movie. Like there is a scene
Speaker 1: where character wakes up to find like parts of his
Speaker 1: body have been cut off, and it's not giving you,
Speaker 1: like you know, minor chord music stings, the scary orchestral music. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's groovy lounge music just chugging along during that part.
Speaker 1: Doom doom, doom, doom, doom, doom doom. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: I than it does work to establish a groovy late
Speaker 1: sixties nineteen seventy kind of tone, I guess. But speaking
Speaker 1: of which, let's get to the theme music. Yes, this
Speaker 1: is one of those those delicious movies that has a
Speaker 1: theme song in which somebody sings the title of the song. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is Scream and Scream again performed by the amen corner.
Speaker 1: This is Welsh garage psych at its best. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a group. I had to look about. Their only
Speaker 1: active from nineteen sixty six through nineteen sixty nine, so
Speaker 1: this movie may have may have done it. This could
Speaker 1: have been what did the group in as far as
Speaker 1: I know. But uh, they also appear in the movie.
Speaker 1: You see them in the nightclub performing this song while
Speaker 1: our Vampire Killers stalking about. And uh, the two individuals
Speaker 1: of note in it, Uh, that's Andy Fairweather Low as
Speaker 1: the front man, a Welsh guitarist who went on to
Speaker 1: tour with the likes of Roger Waters and Eric Clapton.
Speaker 1: And then the keyboard player is Welsh Welsh musician Blue
Speaker 1: Weaver born seven and he's worked as a session player
Speaker 1: for the likes of The b Gs and The Pet
Speaker 1: Shop Boys over the years. Wow, it's so kind of neat. Uh.
Speaker 1: If possible, we'll have to clear this with seth. It'd
Speaker 1: be nice to hear just a little bit of this,
Speaker 1: uh this groovy bit of theme music. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get into the plot of this. Let's let's tightly summarize
Speaker 1: the plot to Scream and Scream Again. That is not possible.
Speaker 1: There is no way to really explain the plot of
Speaker 1: Scream and Scream Again. You just need to watch the movie.
Speaker 1: So instead, I suggest let's talk about some things that
Speaker 1: happen in the movie. Uh So, the first thing we see,
Speaker 1: we we pull up on is this supposed to be
Speaker 1: in London at somewhere in England. See we see red
Speaker 1: double decker buses with ads for Crisp apples on them.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it is London, because we see London transit
Speaker 1: on the side of the bus, and we see a jogger.
Speaker 1: I think get off one of the busses. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the first confusing things in the movie is
Speaker 1: here's this jogger and they freeze framing and then they
Speaker 1: put up starring Vincent Price, and I'm like, that's not
Speaker 1: Vincent Price. What are you doing? Movie? That's great? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not Vincent Price at all. It's a young guy
Speaker 1: who has a face that kind of looks like George C. Scott,
Speaker 1: you know, he always looks like he's about to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um uh Mr President, Uh No, it's just a jogger
Speaker 1: wearing a tank top and and some short orange shorts
Speaker 1: and he's jogging in a I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: got the same energy off this rob but he looks
Speaker 1: to me very uncomfortable and distressed throughout his entire jog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess he does. But then he's running around, he
Speaker 1: runs through a field, he collapses, and then we cut
Speaker 1: to a totally different place. He wakes up and he's like,
Speaker 1: where am I? And he's in a hospital bed and
Speaker 1: uh so he's laying there. He seems to be thirsty.
Speaker 1: A nurse comes in. She gives him like a tube
Speaker 1: of water to drink, and then he pulls back the
Speaker 1: blankets on his hospital bed. After the nurse leaves, and
Speaker 1: he realizes that his leg is missing, and he screams. So,
Speaker 1: I guess this is the first scream of scream and
Speaker 1: scream again, because he will scream many more times. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It appears that his leg has been surgically removed in
Speaker 1: this operating theater where he's being helped and so this
Speaker 1: scene will be repeated almost exactly like four more times
Speaker 1: because we just come back and see all of his
Speaker 1: various body parts disappear and then he screams. Then, seemingly
Speaker 1: unrelated to this, there is this other plot taking place
Speaker 1: in this country where there's some kind of totalitarian symbology
Speaker 1: all around these tridents or arrows. This is with Marshall Jones.
Speaker 1: He's wearing kind of a military uniform and he's taking me.
Speaker 1: I honestly, I had trouble following what was happening in
Speaker 1: this subplot. It's just, you know, he goes around. He'll
Speaker 1: take a meeting with some kind of other government official,
Speaker 1: and they'll talk about oh, you know these uh some
Speaker 1: kind of military hardware or some kind of espionage situation,
Speaker 1: and then at the end of the meeting, he does
Speaker 1: the vulcan neck pinch on this other person, usually somebody
Speaker 1: who seems to be his boss, and then they go,
Speaker 1: blood comes out of their mouth and they die. In retrospect,
Speaker 1: knowing what we know by the end of the film,
Speaker 1: I mean, is he kind of maybe like working his
Speaker 1: way up through the ranks VM, I think that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he's like killing various bosses or rivals and
Speaker 1: and becoming some kind of supreme commander within this totalitarian system.
Speaker 1: Then also within this place where we see all these
Speaker 1: these arrow or trident symbols. There's a scene where there's
Speaker 1: just a guy and a lady running through a field
Speaker 1: and then they get chased down by a jeep full
Speaker 1: of soldiers and then they get caught, and then the
Speaker 1: guy is taken to a prison and there are there
Speaker 1: is what is implied to be like torture and interrogation. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not we don't have to watch a torture scene
Speaker 1: in this movie, but yes, it's heavily implied that he's
Speaker 1: about to torture, and then afterwards he gets dressed down
Speaker 1: for torturing. Mystery about it. He's got bosses who come
Speaker 1: to come to the Conrads character in there, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're using too much torture. That's just a little bit
Speaker 1: over the line with torture. And then he's like okay,
Speaker 1: point taken, uh, and then neck pinches them and they die. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is that the Peter Cushing scene. That's that's rather
Speaker 1: nice because like there's a scene to set it up
Speaker 1: where but then we get the we get Peter Cushing's
Speaker 1: character and Conrads together and he's like, it's like, it's
Speaker 1: just too much torture, my boy, we have to worry
Speaker 1: about optics with this regime. And uh, I'm sorry, you're done.
Speaker 1: You're through through with without the door with you. And
Speaker 1: then he gets the claw and that's it for Cushing's character. Well,
Speaker 1: wouldn't have Cushing put the paperwork in motion before that meeting?
Speaker 1: You would think, so, yeah, well this is It becomes
Speaker 1: more and more clear that that Conrads is perhaps a
Speaker 1: bit rogue, right, because because at first it seems like
Speaker 1: that whatever he's doing, it's entirely going to take place
Speaker 1: within this uh, this fictional nation. But no, he eventually
Speaker 1: sets uh sets Sale. That's really set Sale. How does
Speaker 1: he travel? We don't see it. I don't think he
Speaker 1: just suddenly shows up in London towards the end of
Speaker 1: the movie. Yeah, he catches wind of this whole vampire
Speaker 1: killer thing and perhaps some other stuff and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: I gotta go there now and start clawing people. Oh oh,
Speaker 1: but okay. So this brings us to what I would
Speaker 1: say is the dominant plot thread of the movie, The
Speaker 1: Vampire Killer plot. So we meet Uh, we meet Belavar,
Speaker 1: the police inspector, and uh and several other police officers
Speaker 1: who start tracking a series of brutal murders. There are
Speaker 1: murders in which women are being attacked by an unknown
Speaker 1: assailant and he and there and they're like appear drained
Speaker 1: of all blood. So one of the first victims, it
Speaker 1: turns out, is a is an employee of Vincent Prices,
Speaker 1: and this leads the police to Vincent Price's house and
Speaker 1: this is the scene where we first meet him and
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, what about this employee of yours? Can
Speaker 1: you shed any light on what's going on? And he's
Speaker 1: like no, but don't suspect me. Does anything of consequence
Speaker 1: happened in this first meeting or is it basically just
Speaker 1: to introduce Price? Basically I just entroduce Price. Uh this Uh, nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing really happens. In fact, you kind of forget about
Speaker 1: it until Vincent Price just kind of pops up again
Speaker 1: later and you're like, oh this character. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: so this is also where the medical examiner gets involved.
Speaker 1: Dr Serell or sorel Uh He's so he's originally in
Speaker 1: these autopsy scenes of of the murder victims, but he
Speaker 1: gets wrapped up in the police investigation itself and starts
Speaker 1: being along for uh, these these chases and all this
Speaker 1: stuff and what a chase. What a chase it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's lead up to that because this is wow,
Speaker 1: this movie has such a chase seed. So, because these
Speaker 1: murders keep happening, the police decide, well, we're gonna set
Speaker 1: up a sting operation and we're gonna get Officer Bradford here,
Speaker 1: Helen Bradford. She's going to pretend to just be like
Speaker 1: a lady party in at the club, and we're going
Speaker 1: to see if she gets murdered by this by the
Speaker 1: vampire killer, which, by the way, apparently they just have
Speaker 1: her party all night because when eventually she is picked
Speaker 1: up by the vampire killer and they leave the club,
Speaker 1: it's just broad daylight, like not like not like don
Speaker 1: but it feels like it's noon exactly. Yeah, they come
Speaker 1: out and this shocked me as well. So inside I
Speaker 1: think I think that that Welsh rock group is playing
Speaker 1: or somebody like them is playing. Uh, you know, we're
Speaker 1: getting the songs. And then they come out the door
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's just bright sunlight. And then they get
Speaker 1: into uh the vampire killer sports car. I think the
Speaker 1: character's name is Keith, the creepy looking guy. Yeah, I don't, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't. We don't find out for later. But this
Speaker 1: is is Keith. Yeah, and we've seen him. We've seen
Speaker 1: seen him murder other women that he had picked up
Speaker 1: at the club before. Uh so, so we know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. And then the cops, of course, are
Speaker 1: bumbling du faces and they take way too long to
Speaker 1: intervene while he is drinking Bradford's blood. But they get
Speaker 1: there just in time. She's not killed. So they like
Speaker 1: pull him out of the car and you think, okay,
Speaker 1: well he's caught now, but no, something strange happens. Instead,
Speaker 1: they get Michael Gothard out of the car and they say,
Speaker 1: you're caught now, but he has super strength or something.
Speaker 1: It's out of nowhere. We've seen no indication of this before. Really,
Speaker 1: he like fights them all off and he runs away,
Speaker 1: and this begins a chase sequence that involves driving, It
Speaker 1: involves running, It involves hiding, It involves climbing, It involves
Speaker 1: mountain climbing, It involves boiling yourself in acid. This is
Speaker 1: a chase sequence that goes on for I would guess
Speaker 1: literally twenty minutes, right, and you keep thinking it's over too, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: they got him, and then something will happen and he's
Speaker 1: on the move again, and we just hope that all
Speaker 1: of our police officers are able to catch their breath
Speaker 1: a little bit before they take after him, because again,
Speaker 1: Keith seems to have supernatural uh strength and agility and endurance.
Speaker 1: He's able to do things that humans cannot it should
Speaker 1: not be able to do his basically Spiderman, and a
Speaker 1: few of these scenes and I wanted to compare this
Speaker 1: to the fight scene between Roddy Piper and Keith David
Speaker 1: in the John Carpenter movie They Live, which is an amazing,
Speaker 1: hilarious scene, and this chase scene was a lot like it, because,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's something that just mounts in uh
Speaker 1: in in hilarious absurdity because of how long it goes on,
Speaker 1: but not just because of how long it goes on,
Speaker 1: because of the fact that it repeatedly stops and you
Speaker 1: think it's over and then it starts again, so you know,
Speaker 1: and they Live, they're they're they're like punching, punching, body
Speaker 1: slam body slam and they stop and talk for a
Speaker 1: minute and you're like, okay, well, what's happening now, and
Speaker 1: then one of them will just throw another plush and
Speaker 1: it starts up. This chase is exactly like this. They
Speaker 1: catch him and they're like okay, and then he like
Speaker 1: rips his own arm off to get out of the
Speaker 1: handcuffs and runs again and again, all this broad daylight too,
Speaker 1: which somehow adds to that absurdity because it's it feels
Speaker 1: like he can't and actually get away and hide as well,
Speaker 1: especially when they get to the scene where they've cornered
Speaker 1: him against the side of a mountain with all these
Speaker 1: loose rocks, and he just starts taking straight his way,
Speaker 1: is going straight up the mountain, kind of like Spider
Speaker 1: Man a few times, just crazy speed, and the cops
Speaker 1: are just watching him. And then eventually he like tires
Speaker 1: out or slips and falls all the way back down
Speaker 1: the mountain again. But how does this whole chase end? Well, strangely,
Speaker 1: Michael Gothard ends up in his in his satin purple shirt,
Speaker 1: leading the cops on a chase that ends at Vincent
Speaker 1: Price's house. Remember Vincent Price from earlier that random guy. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: that he shows up at his house and he goes
Speaker 1: into a barn on the estate and he lifts up
Speaker 1: like a like a you know, trap door on the
Speaker 1: ground in the floor of the barn and jumps into
Speaker 1: some kind of pool underneath the trap door, which turns
Speaker 1: out to be acid. Like a cop reaches in to
Speaker 1: try to issue out of there, and it burns his arm.
Speaker 1: So he has apparently just plunged himself into Hollywood acid, right,
Speaker 1: and then they even mentioned it's like, well that cop
Speaker 1: is gonna lose that arm now, so this is this
Speaker 1: is powerful acid. There's no not even any attempt to
Speaker 1: try and like fish Keith's body out of here. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's it for Keith. He's gone completely gone. Ye wouldn't
Speaker 1: they get like a metal pole or something. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: later we see that there Vincent Price's character does have
Speaker 1: a poll for just like shoving things down into the
Speaker 1: acid V. But that's where we go now, like suddenly
Speaker 1: they're they're watching this, You're looking down in the yellow
Speaker 1: acid of V that has just dissolved, and even Keith
Speaker 1: has just burned a police officer's arm. And then Vincent
Speaker 1: Price just kind of wanders up behind them and that
Speaker 1: does doesn't even say anything, he's just kind of like
Speaker 1: and he explains it right there. They're like, well, why
Speaker 1: do you have this tub of of body dissolving acid
Speaker 1: in your house? And he's like, oh, yeah, I've got
Speaker 1: a story about the up. Yeah. Basically it's that he
Speaker 1: does cancer research and uh. And yet remember, folks, always
Speaker 1: store your medical waste disposal vats of boiling acid responsibly,
Speaker 1: preferably in a trap door in one of your outbuildings.
Speaker 1: This is just standard practice. I know we have some
Speaker 1: some researchers and doctors out there listening to the show.
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys don't know how it is. You
Speaker 1: just you gotta have a vat of boiling acid around
Speaker 1: in case you need to dissolve any medical waste. When
Speaker 1: your grandkids come over, you've got to remind him don't
Speaker 1: play around the acid. Yeah, no running near the acid.
Speaker 1: So they see the the investigators seem more or less
Speaker 1: satisfied with this story, despite the fact that he has
Speaker 1: also linked to the location at least is linked to
Speaker 1: an earlier murder. Uh. And they're like, well, how do
Speaker 1: you know Keith, Like how come like Keith clearly killed
Speaker 1: somebody who worked for you, and then he came back
Speaker 1: here to throw himself into a vat of acid. Invincent
Speaker 1: Prices characters like, well, you know the mind of the psychopath,
Speaker 1: it has typically has a lot of guilt involved and
Speaker 1: um a little very high threshold of the pain. And
Speaker 1: they're like that it checks out. Yeah, suicide by acid
Speaker 1: matches the enormity of the crime. Oh it's good. But
Speaker 1: oh but they're like, but we still have a clue.
Speaker 1: We can figure out who this guy was because we
Speaker 1: still have his hand because earlier, after he fell off
Speaker 1: the mountain, the cops handcuffed him to a car. Then
Speaker 1: he ripped his own hand off to escape, and they
Speaker 1: still have the hand, right, And Vincent Brice's character is
Speaker 1: a little shocked and perhaps a little worried about this
Speaker 1: because when we hold not all of Keith was dissolved,
Speaker 1: that's right. So they go there, the medical examiners are
Speaker 1: looking at the hand and I didn't fully understand this
Speaker 1: that they try to explain. They're like, the hand, it's
Speaker 1: not human or it's not organic. And then the cops
Speaker 1: are like, what do you mean by that? And they say, well,
Speaker 1: it's not exactly artificial. It's synthetic, but I didn't understand
Speaker 1: the distinction they were making. Yeah, this didn't make a
Speaker 1: lot of sense because we later find out, yeah, that
Speaker 1: this is about repurposing of parts of making entirely new
Speaker 1: people out of pieces harvested from other humans. There's no
Speaker 1: indication that there are synthetic parts in the process. Or
Speaker 1: maybe there are and they just don't tell us about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, anyway, someone ends up breaking into
Speaker 1: the morgue or the police station wherever it is to
Speaker 1: steal the hand from from evidence, and that they store
Speaker 1: it in a really secure location. It appears to be
Speaker 1: on a pillar in the middle of a room. Didn't
Speaker 1: they put they put something over it when they're like
Speaker 1: or maybe there wasn't they just shut they shut the
Speaker 1: door to the room. Yeah, I think it's literally that's it.
Speaker 1: They shut the door into the room, which is like
Speaker 1: glass French doors. Um. But literally, the severed hand in
Speaker 1: evidence is just on like a platform on a pillar
Speaker 1: in the middle of the room, and somebody breaks into
Speaker 1: steal it, and wouldn't you know it, the person who
Speaker 1: breaks into steal it is that nurse we saw earlier
Speaker 1: in the movie who was repeatedly coming into the room
Speaker 1: of the guy who was getting amputated and and screamed,
Speaker 1: screamed again, that's right, coming together it is. And so
Speaker 1: this is when things start being like, oh, maybe it
Speaker 1: will make sense the end. Uh oh, And and somebody
Speaker 1: comes in to be like, hey, you can't take that hand,
Speaker 1: and the nurse just slaps the person so hard it
Speaker 1: kills them. Meanwhile, our our the closest thing this movie
Speaker 1: has to a hero, Our our young blonde medical examinator,
Speaker 1: examinator examiner guy. He's like, hey, what's going on with
Speaker 1: this case? And the police tell him, well, the case
Speaker 1: is closed. You know, Keith jumped into the acid and
Speaker 1: that's that. But he's not satisfied. He's taken it too personal.
Speaker 1: He wants to know what's going on with the hand um.
Speaker 1: So ultimately he and Bradford, the undercover officer who got
Speaker 1: her blood drank by Michael Gothard, they go to Vincent
Speaker 1: Price's house together. That's they start. Basically, He's like, you
Speaker 1: stay in the car. I'm going to go in and
Speaker 1: find the hand. If something bad happens, just hank the
Speaker 1: horn and I'll come back. Or if I don't come back,
Speaker 1: call the police, and so he goes in. He looks around,
Speaker 1: doesn't find anything. Here's the hawk comes back out, cars
Speaker 1: gone books goes back in. Meanwhile, we get some resolution
Speaker 1: on the political plot. So we see, uh, we see Conrads,
Speaker 1: the creepy guy from the from the totalitarian state. He
Speaker 1: somehow gets in touch with Christopher Lee and Christopher Lee. Uh.
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee appears to be some kind of British agent.
Speaker 1: The Conrads is from this other country. They clearly have
Speaker 1: an existing relationship and they may be involved in some
Speaker 1: kind of double dealing or conspiracy. We're not sure exactly what.
Speaker 1: But they meet up in Conrads is like, okay, we've
Speaker 1: captured one of your spies. So finally we're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: the guy who's getting chased in the other country earlier, Uh,
Speaker 1: he was like a pilot of a secret spy plane.
Speaker 1: And he says, you know, it could be very embarrassing
Speaker 1: for the British government if if this were to get out.
Speaker 1: So here's what we'll do. We'll give him back to you,
Speaker 1: or we'll just eliminate him, whatever you want, as long
Speaker 1: as you give me all of the police files on
Speaker 1: the so called vampire murders, and here finally this is
Speaker 1: connecting to that plot line, and Christopher Lee's character is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that works, let's do it. Yeah. So Conrads uh, he
Speaker 1: goes and he gets all the files that he needs.
Speaker 1: He poses as a sociologist doing research on psychos and uh,
Speaker 1: I say that because the movie repeatedly it like it
Speaker 1: refers to psycho as a known police phenomenon. And it
Speaker 1: seems like there's gonna be a clean break here because
Speaker 1: we we we have we have our our our chief investigator.
Speaker 1: Here um Bellivar pop in and he's like, oh, here
Speaker 1: you go. Here's here's all the documents. You can look
Speaker 1: at him in the next room. And he is to
Speaker 1: leave and Conrads is like, oh no, I'm I'm taking
Speaker 1: them with me, and he's like, Nope, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: So he gets the claw the vulcan neck pinch once again,
Speaker 1: and oh Bellaver is dead now. Yeah, but now there's
Speaker 1: nothing standing in his way. So he takes all these
Speaker 1: documents and I can't remember we see him destroy them,
Speaker 1: but it's later revealed that, yeah, he just destroyed all
Speaker 1: of it. So here we come to the finale. The
Speaker 1: finale is the young medical examinator. Why do I keep
Speaker 1: saying examinator, the young medical examiner? Uh? Surrel. He goes
Speaker 1: back to Vincent Price's house and he's looking around, Um
Speaker 1: does he what? What? What happens? Actually I can't remember
Speaker 1: how he ends up. Does he get captured? Does he
Speaker 1: just sneak in? He just sneaks in? I think he
Speaker 1: just sneaks in, Yeah, and just kind of runs into them, right,
Speaker 1: And Vincent Price's character, the strange doctor, is just kind
Speaker 1: of like, hey, you seem curious. How would you like
Speaker 1: a tour? And he's like, yes, please, yes. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: I really liked the way this monologue was written for
Speaker 1: Price because he actually explains why he's monologueing. He's like,
Speaker 1: I have to do all this in secret. I'm very
Speaker 1: proud of my work, but because it's I don't get
Speaker 1: to talk to anybody, I never get a chance to
Speaker 1: show off. So I'm just excited to tell you about it.
Speaker 1: And this is also really a point in the movie
Speaker 1: where I just felt like we had gone past midnight,
Speaker 1: like there was there were no rules anymore, there was
Speaker 1: no telling where this film was going to actually go,
Speaker 1: which I found rather exciting. Yes, yes, totally. So here
Speaker 1: we finally get the full plot explained with visual demonstrations,
Speaker 1: and it is that Vincent Price and some other unnamed
Speaker 1: co conspirators in other countries are employing secret new surgical
Speaker 1: techniques to create new humans, composite humans built out of
Speaker 1: the parts of these murder victims, and and that Michael
Speaker 1: Gothard Keith, the murderer, was one of his composites, was
Speaker 1: like the first, uh, composite human he built with like
Speaker 1: brain with its own brain function. And the nurse and
Speaker 1: like other servants in Vincent Price's house are also composite humans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're all composite humans with super strength are in
Speaker 1: on this conspiracy. Um. Again, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: questions you might ask about, like how this is supposed
Speaker 1: to work and all, But it takes me back to
Speaker 1: the scene where Conrads is talking to Christopher Lee's character
Speaker 1: and he's like, look, I'm not going to explain to
Speaker 1: you what's going on. You wouldn't believe me if I did,
Speaker 1: and so we have to kind of trust him on that, Like,
Speaker 1: whatever the particulars are, it's it's above us mere humans
Speaker 1: to understand. Yes, though I think it's interesting in that
Speaker 1: it's unlike normal mad scientist uh plot revealed, because normally
Speaker 1: the mad scientist reveals himself to be working alone and says,
Speaker 1: I am the only person who has discovered something and
Speaker 1: I want to do that thing. And of course it's
Speaker 1: something with horrifying implications. That's all the case here, except
Speaker 1: Price reveals he is sort of in con intact with
Speaker 1: other people doing this around the world. It's a conspiracy plot.
Speaker 1: They're they're like, we're working together, though it seems like
Speaker 1: they don't really know each other. They only have minimal
Speaker 1: contact because later Conrads comes in and he is clearly
Speaker 1: part of this conspiracy with Vincent Price, but they've never
Speaker 1: met before. He doesn't recognize him when he sees him. Yes,
Speaker 1: I identify himself. Yeah, and that yeah. I think that
Speaker 1: something is rather interesting about it as well, because there's
Speaker 1: no there doesn't seem to be any mastermind behind it all.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a you know, a headless organization, uh,
Speaker 1: totally noncentralized. And Conrads character shows up though, and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: the vampire killer thing has gotten way out of hand. Uh.
Speaker 1: Not only did Keith need to be destroyed, not only
Speaker 1: did did did the documents about Keith need to be destroyed?
Speaker 1: But I actually he didn't need to go ahead and
Speaker 1: shut down everything you've got going on here and including
Speaker 1: your helpers, including you, including you, Vincent Price, You're gonna
Speaker 1: go in the acid. So the rest of the movie
Speaker 1: is various things going in the asset. Yeah, because Conrads
Speaker 1: and Vincent Price's character they start fighting, and it's this
Speaker 1: is actually I never expected to see a fight sequence
Speaker 1: with with Vincent Price. Uh, that's so so good. Like
Speaker 1: I was like rooting for him because ultimately Conrads is
Speaker 1: just absolutely villainous, whereas at least Vincent Price thinks he's
Speaker 1: the good guy. So I'm gonna I'm gonna side with him.
Speaker 1: And so it looks like he's going to succumb to
Speaker 1: the claw, and then he fights back and fights out
Speaker 1: of the claw, and you're like, yeah, go Vincent Price. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the characters are equally villainous, but Vincent Price
Speaker 1: is Vincent Price, so you know, yeah, so I was
Speaker 1: rooting for him too, so that yeah, it's it's evil
Speaker 1: spy versus evil spy and they're fighting and who wins.
Speaker 1: It's Vincent Price. He beats Conrads and he puts him
Speaker 1: in the acid. But then oh oh, another another party
Speaker 1: shows up and it is Christopher Lee. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: strolls in very cool, very much in command, and there's
Speaker 1: this wonderful saying there. There are several different scenes in
Speaker 1: the picture that are creatively shot, but especially this one
Speaker 1: where um, he ultimately ends up sort of hypnotizing Vincent
Speaker 1: Price's character. We get this weird shot that kind of
Speaker 1: goes up and below Vincent Price's face with kind of
Speaker 1: a black background, and then he's in the acid. But
Speaker 1: now it's also clear that Christopher Lee is part of
Speaker 1: this conspiracy as well, and he must also be a composite.
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever say that, but he's got
Speaker 1: the super strength as well, so he's got to be
Speaker 1: part of it. Um. So it doesn't seem the conspiracy
Speaker 1: is defeated in the end. It just seems that these
Speaker 1: two guys Christopher Sorry Conrads and and Dr browning Vincent
Speaker 1: Price's character, well, they get destroyed, but the overall conspiracy
Speaker 1: seems to have been saved by one of its members,
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee. Yeah. And they have several lines that allude
Speaker 1: to the fact that the conspiracy again is is not centralized,
Speaker 1: and so there's room for sort of heresies within the
Speaker 1: conspiracy roads within the conspiracy. So what while Conrads seems
Speaker 1: to have the opinion that like, well, this is not
Speaker 1: working in a free democratic society, the conspiracy is much
Speaker 1: further along back where I come from and uh and
Speaker 1: tried in Sylvania or wherever um. And meanwhile, uh, Vincent
Speaker 1: Price's character has has been this sort of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: rosier glasses view of things about how you know, what
Speaker 1: we're gonna We need to cut out the bad parts,
Speaker 1: you know, and we need to make sure we're we're
Speaker 1: getting rid of the bad composite people. But ultimately we're
Speaker 1: in the right going in the right direction. But we
Speaker 1: need to, you know, stop the bad parts of the
Speaker 1: plot before it gets goes too far. Meanwhile, Christopher Lee's
Speaker 1: character like he like basically says, no, it's too late
Speaker 1: for all that, Like we're we're on the train to
Speaker 1: uh to uh to horror and in tyranny, and uh,
Speaker 1: there's no turning back. And I'm not only am I
Speaker 1: not going to stand in it's in it's way, I
Speaker 1: am going to ensure that it happens right. So he
Speaker 1: disposes of the rest and then he walks out and
Speaker 1: are are sort of human heroes, or at least implied
Speaker 1: human heroes. Dr Sorrel and uh an officer Bradford. They
Speaker 1: are alive and they have escaped because Bradford again was
Speaker 1: gonna be was going to be dismembered by Vincent Price.
Speaker 1: But then Sorrel intervened and and like he got her
Speaker 1: out of there, and they escaped, and they get into
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee's car with Christopher Lee's like, you know, I'll
Speaker 1: give you a ride. But um, the ending, I don't
Speaker 1: know what you made of this. The two humans were
Speaker 1: kind of smiling at Christopher Lee as if like they
Speaker 1: knew what was going on and they were in on
Speaker 1: it or something, But that wouldn't make any sense given
Speaker 1: the rest of the plot. I think they were just
Speaker 1: trusting in him, not realizing that he is at the
Speaker 1: heart of all the conspiracy as well. They're just yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just really happy the government's here. But but they
Speaker 1: do ended on a nice kind of ambiguous note that's
Speaker 1: not too doomy. It's not just like and then he
Speaker 1: cut up our our hero uh and and and the
Speaker 1: women he saved uh No it's it's it's more ambiguous
Speaker 1: than that, but it but some doom is definitely, definitely implied.
Speaker 1: It is a short term happy ending, but long term
Speaker 1: ominous ending. Yeah. Yeah, And once it really hits, once
Speaker 1: it sinks in, not only do you scream, but then
Speaker 1: you scream a second time, and then about six more times,
Speaker 1: and it's six more, just just to make sure, I
Speaker 1: mean again, this movie is tripled distilled. This movie is
Speaker 1: so strange and so unique, and I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: what exactly I mean. I guess it's mostly the structure
Speaker 1: and the fact that it's so baffling for so long
Speaker 1: is the main thing about it. Uh, that that really
Speaker 1: makes it so unusual and striking, And the fact that
Speaker 1: it can be baffling for so long and actually makes
Speaker 1: sense at the end. Yeah, And you ultimately end up
Speaker 1: in a place where the plot holes become features. They
Speaker 1: become spaces for mystery that work well in a picture
Speaker 1: like this. And that chase scene is gonna stick with
Speaker 1: me for years. I'm going to be thinking back to
Speaker 1: Michael Gothard in that purple shirt, climbing the mountain and
Speaker 1: then ripping his arm off. It's so good, So yeah,
Speaker 1: This is a really fun picture that invites interpretations. So
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from anyone out there who has
Speaker 1: seen it, uh, either you know, back in the old
Speaker 1: days or has seen it recently. We'd love to hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts on how things shake out in the movie.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you're familiar with the book and can schime
Speaker 1: in on that as well. I'm sure it's great literature.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, the Saxon brand. All right, Well, Weird
Speaker 1: How Cinema publishes every Friday in the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind podcast feed. That's our time to set aside
Speaker 1: most serious concerns, most scientific topics and so forth and
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film. And yeah, this was
Speaker 1: a weird one. This was a fun one. We hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed it as well. Uh, if you want to
Speaker 1: find blog posts about these episodes, I put up some
Speaker 1: casual blogs over at some mood to music dot com,
Speaker 1: and we have a letterboxed account for Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: You can look that up. I think what our user
Speaker 1: name there is weird House, and I try and keep
Speaker 1: that updated with what we've covered and sometimes what we're
Speaker 1: about to cover. Huge thanks, as always to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.