Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. We just
Speaker 1: finished an episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind on
Speaker 1: cattle mutilation phenomenon on cattle mutilation, the cattle mutilation panic
Speaker 1: of the nineteen seventies. So I thought it made sense
Speaker 1: to dive into a little muto exploitation cinema here. As
Speaker 1: we discussed in the Suftable Your Mind episode, the cattle
Speaker 1: mutilation panic hit a peak around n And while exploitation
Speaker 1: and B cinema are generally pretty quick to get in
Speaker 1: there and uh comment on or exploit something like this
Speaker 1: for entertainment, uh, it seems like most of the pictures
Speaker 1: attempting to cash in on cattle mutilation panic didn't really
Speaker 1: come out until around nineteen eighty, which I guess maybe
Speaker 1: makes sense given, like you, how long it takes to
Speaker 1: get a film project together. Uh, and there may have
Speaker 1: been some earlier ones that I just couldn't come across.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, we're gonna be talking about a prime
Speaker 1: example of cattle mutilation exploitation cinema here. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about Graden Clark's nineteen eighty film The Return. Now,
Speaker 1: fans of Weird House Cinema may well recall that the
Speaker 1: very first episode of Weird House Cinema was another Graden
Speaker 1: Clark movie. It was also a Graden Clark alien movie
Speaker 1: called Without Warning, which in many ways prefigured the plot
Speaker 1: of Predator, except with a would you say, a less
Speaker 1: gritty looking alien, a little more kind of a a
Speaker 1: classic big head alien. Yeah, very outer limits the alien
Speaker 1: in that one. That was also a film that came
Speaker 1: out of nineteen eighty. That was also a film that
Speaker 1: had Martin Landau and and it was also a film
Speaker 1: that had a lot of shots that including like terror
Speaker 1: shots and horror scenes that take place broad daylight. Some
Speaker 1: were in the California countryside. This movie is supposed The
Speaker 1: Return is supposed to take place in New Mexico, but
Speaker 1: I believe they filmed everything in California, So you're looking
Speaker 1: at California in this film. Now, I'd say there's one
Speaker 1: major difference for me between Without Warning and The Return,
Speaker 1: and it's that Without Warning had Dean Cundy doing cinematography,
Speaker 1: which is always a treat for me. I you know,
Speaker 1: I I love his style, even in rather mundane shots.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to get into the real
Speaker 1: art house framing. Dean Cundy has a really punchy way
Speaker 1: of like establishing ambient locations and stuff, and so, uh
Speaker 1: so that was a great thing about Without Warning. He
Speaker 1: was not doing cinematography for the Return, but the cinematography
Speaker 1: is still pretty good for for a cattle mutilation alien flick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and it also makes sense given how successful the
Speaker 1: cinematographer for this film will go one to be. Uh
Speaker 1: And we'll get to that in a bit. But yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: the other thing about this film about the Return versus
Speaker 1: Without Warning is Without Warning was the pilot episode and
Speaker 1: first episode of Weird House Cinema back in October. So
Speaker 1: this is kind of uh it makes it it's extra
Speaker 1: special that we're doing a return to the work of
Speaker 1: Grad and Clark bringing it all back home. Now, speaking
Speaker 1: of the cattle mutilation subgenre of of motion pictures, I
Speaker 1: do want to at least briefly mentioned I'll probably come
Speaker 1: back to it a few times as well that Another
Speaker 1: notable film in this subgenre is Alan Rudolph's film Endangered Species,
Speaker 1: which I also watched recently. It's a pretty solid conspiracy thriller.
Speaker 1: It starred Robert Urich in featured performances by Paul Dooley,
Speaker 1: Peter Coyote, Hohyit Acton, and Dan Hedeia Dan. All right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not a big not a big role for Hedaya,
Speaker 1: but but he gets in there and and does Hedaya things,
Speaker 1: so it's, uh, it's pretty good. It's a film that
Speaker 1: falls very much on the government conspiracy end of things
Speaker 1: with cattle mutilation betrays it and I think it's about
Speaker 1: as believable terms as possible for the most part, Like
Speaker 1: it might be the most logical cattle mutilation movie you
Speaker 1: could ask for, and I think that's a big ask. Okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I can see that. So the Return, I
Speaker 1: guess we will spoil the ending of this movie eventually,
Speaker 1: so warning spoilers to come if if you're planning on
Speaker 1: seeing it and haven't. But the Return ends up more
Speaker 1: on the aliens side, and uh and that that that
Speaker 1: other one does the government conspiracy side. So there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of government conspiracy flare thrown into this one,
Speaker 1: though it's only it's only a hint. You never really
Speaker 1: know exactly how much government conspiracy there is in the
Speaker 1: return because we have like suits showing up in the
Speaker 1: third act and it has never explained how much they
Speaker 1: know or what they're trying to do. They're just sort
Speaker 1: of like there to start shooting at the protagonist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not really sewn into the fabric all that well,
Speaker 1: but then that can be said for a number of
Speaker 1: things in this field. Um, I will say one more
Speaker 1: thing about Endangered Species is that it, as with Alan
Speaker 1: Rudolph's Trouble in Mind, we also have some issues surrounding
Speaker 1: the male protagonist, and that the lead character played by
Speaker 1: Robert Uric is um he isn't as sketchy as the
Speaker 1: lead character in Trouble in Mind, but there's a fair
Speaker 1: amount of like noir esque masculine toxicity to the character
Speaker 1: that I do not think has aged well, So be
Speaker 1: advised to that if you check out Endangered Species. But again,
Speaker 1: still it's a pretty solid conspiracy thriller and if you
Speaker 1: want to watch a decent movie about cattle mutilation, it's
Speaker 1: a pretty good one to pick up. All right. Now,
Speaker 1: there are a couple other few other entries in the
Speaker 1: CMP cinema subgenre, but uh, let's see that most of
Speaker 1: them didn't really pop out at me. It looks like
Speaker 1: there's a movie from nineteen seventy nine titled night Wing
Speaker 1: that has David Warner and Stephen Mocked in it, so
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty good. And there's a low budget film
Speaker 1: called Mutilations, which looks like it has has developed sort
Speaker 1: of a following of due to it's like low budget.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, z grade goodness. I've not seen any
Speaker 1: of these other movies. So the Return is my first
Speaker 1: within this sub genre, and in a way, it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard for me to imagine improving upon this formula
Speaker 1: because it's just like, what if we just take a
Speaker 1: great cast, take the premise of cattle mutilation without actually
Speaker 1: making the movie all that Gorrian grows like this, This
Speaker 1: is not a bloody splatterfest for the most part. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: if you like movies where people walk up to a
Speaker 1: dead cow and talk about it in and direct sunlight, uh,
Speaker 1: this is the movie for you because we have multiple
Speaker 1: scenes like that. I think it also sort of blunts
Speaker 1: the squeamishness and grotesquery of the cattle mutilation when we
Speaker 1: discover that it is basically being performed by a small lightsaber.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, essentially a small surgical lightsaber. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it becomes clear that that is the the instrument being used,
Speaker 1: which I think is an This is one of the
Speaker 1: things I loved about the film, and once I realized
Speaker 1: that was going to be an element, and I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I am in especially when you see who's wielding the lightsaber.
Speaker 1: Uh it's pretty great and I think it's almost kind
Speaker 1: of surprising nobody's come back and done that again, like
Speaker 1: rural slasher film with alien surgical lightsaber. That's a great premise,
Speaker 1: Like it is weird. I love it. Well, it is
Speaker 1: here's something I'm psychologically curious about. Uh. I assumed that
Speaker 1: other people would probably feel the same way, but certainly,
Speaker 1: the way I reacted to this movie, the violence was
Speaker 1: a lot less icky and a lot less bothersome because
Speaker 1: it was being inflicted with a little lightsaber versus if
Speaker 1: it had just been done with like a knife or
Speaker 1: or you know, straightforward metal blade. Yeah, if nothing else,
Speaker 1: the limitations of effects and the effects are pretty good
Speaker 1: in this film, but the limitations of what you can
Speaker 1: do or should try to do with an effect like
Speaker 1: this in meant that you're not going to get big goopy,
Speaker 1: prolonged gore scenes like you would get potentially get in
Speaker 1: a slasher movie by other directors during this time period.
Speaker 1: Like it's not even really as gory as um as
Speaker 1: without warning. You know, we have lots of scenes of
Speaker 1: alien um you know, sucker weapons being pulled off of
Speaker 1: people's skin in that one. Oh yeah, alright. For so
Speaker 1: as far as elevator pitch for this one goes, um,
Speaker 1: I I had a hard time coming up with one
Speaker 1: that doesn't spoil the film. I was tempted to go
Speaker 1: with cattle mutilation the motion picture, but I also think
Speaker 1: upon reflection, it could be um, cattle mutilation colon uh misconnections,
Speaker 1: because ultimately it is about miss connections with cattle mutilation
Speaker 1: thrown in there. Well wait then, Robert, we're going to
Speaker 1: try not to spoil the film. Um. I mean I
Speaker 1: think at this point we could we could start spoiling it. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: this is one that I would advise do not watch
Speaker 1: the trailer in full for because the trailer for this
Speaker 1: one is amusing, but it's like shows you everything, and
Speaker 1: I feel like it does. This film does have some
Speaker 1: twists and turns up its sleeve. Um. You know, that's
Speaker 1: not it's not dependent upon those twists, but they are
Speaker 1: kind of fun to to, uh to take in organically. Well,
Speaker 1: let me turn my hand at an elevator pitch. Here
Speaker 1: it is an unhinged alcoholic cop and an uptight city
Speaker 1: dwelling scientist find the meaning of love when they come
Speaker 1: together to investigate the mutilation of livestock. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and here just part of the trailer. I
Speaker 1: think we're only gonna play like a minute of it here,
Speaker 1: but it'll give you a taste of what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Who will have the right to live on Earth? The return?
Speaker 1: I've been looking at the cattle mutilations on my own
Speaker 1: for some time. I noticed didn't say as the precise
Speaker 1: surgical cuts. Let's freaking everybody out, and none of the
Speaker 1: other animals will even go near it. Hell, there's not
Speaker 1: even any flies or ants on it. I won't be
Speaker 1: threatened on my land to help us on these cattle mutilations,
Speaker 1: some damn scientists. I don't know that the difference between
Speaker 1: the tower and us stairs telling us our presidents. I
Speaker 1: believe this trailer began with a line like who like
Speaker 1: who will have the right to live on Earth or
Speaker 1: something like that, which which is amazing because it has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the plot of the film. Um,
Speaker 1: who will own the title deed to Planet Earth? Uh? Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to watch this film as well, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's actually pretty easy to come by. I feel
Speaker 1: like when I was looking into this film months ago,
Speaker 1: it seems nobody had it streaming or I couldn't find
Speaker 1: it streaming. Video Drum didn't have a copy of it
Speaker 1: to rent here in Atlanta. So I bought the Blu
Speaker 1: ray from my believe Scorpion Entertainment. And it's a great disc,
Speaker 1: includes some extras and including a director's commentary. Uh. Great
Speaker 1: film quality, So it definitely looks good. But as of now, however,
Speaker 1: you can stream in lease in the United States, you
Speaker 1: can stream it on to b and Pluto TV. You
Speaker 1: can rent or purchase it digitally in most places. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh yeah. And if you do go to Video
Speaker 1: Drum in Atlanta, I'm probably gonna donate the disc to
Speaker 1: Video Drums so they can add it to their Grade
Speaker 1: and Clark collection. It belongs in a museum. Well, let's
Speaker 1: get into the people. Then let's talk briefly about Grade
Speaker 1: and Clark. We didn't talk about him in the previous
Speaker 1: episode of a Weird House that covered one of his films,
Speaker 1: But director borne Um also writer and early on an actor,
Speaker 1: best known for such films as Without Warning, The Return,
Speaker 1: Seven's Uninvited. That's a Killer Cat movies, durring George Kennedy, Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think I realized that was great. And Clark,
Speaker 1: that's the one with the killer mutant cat on a yacht. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it yet, but I hear hear great
Speaker 1: things about it. Oh, my lord, Rob whoever had the
Speaker 1: idea to set a killer cat movie on the open
Speaker 1: sea like with water, It's just amazing. He also directed
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine Angels Revenge and Jodan Baker movie Final
Speaker 1: Justice that a lot of MST three K fans will
Speaker 1: be familiar with. That is not the movie Final Sacrifice,
Speaker 1: which I always confuse it with. Not the one set
Speaker 1: in Canada with roused Ower. It's the one set in
Speaker 1: Malta with Joe Don. Baker is a dyspeptic sheriff. On
Speaker 1: the acting front, you'll find Clark and Will cameos in
Speaker 1: his own films, but he also had parts in the
Speaker 1: I'll see the nineteen sixty nine biker film Satan Sadist
Speaker 1: starring Russ Tamblin and nineteen seventies Hell's Bloody Devils. Uh.
Speaker 1: He also the screenplay for Satan's Sadists. That sounds like
Speaker 1: a joke title. They're trying to create a tongue twisters
Speaker 1: Satan sells Sadist down by the same shore. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: let's see. I he He had an interesting um filmography,
Speaker 1: working in various genres, and he directed his last film,
Speaker 1: Star Games in His autobiography was titled On the Cheap
Speaker 1: My Life in Low Budget Filmmaking. All right, well, I
Speaker 1: don't think I can vouch for the quality of Final Justice,
Speaker 1: but of his three earlier b horror movies, all three
Speaker 1: or a Fun Time, The Uninvited Without Warning and the
Speaker 1: Return thumbs up all around on those. Now, on the
Speaker 1: writing side of things, um, two of the prime writers
Speaker 1: on this we're Ken and Jim Wheat born nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty two, respectively, brothers who also wrote and
Speaker 1: directed five e Walks The Battle of Indoor, which we
Speaker 1: previously covered on the show. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: a movie I would single out for the quality of
Speaker 1: its writing, but Uh, I mean, how can you hate
Speaker 1: on Battle for Indoor. Yeah, it's a it's a fun
Speaker 1: right as now on Disney. Plus. Other screenplays of theirs
Speaker 1: include The Fly too. Um, yeah, that's that's generally that's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's an interesting film. Um and not not as
Speaker 1: it's It's not as good as this cronenbergs The Fly obviously,
Speaker 1: but it takes it fully embraces just being a monster movie,
Speaker 1: being like a really goopy, gross monster movie. Uh. They
Speaker 1: also wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street four. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that being the last arguably good one until
Speaker 1: a New Nightmare. Okay. They also did The Birds Too
Speaker 1: and two thousands Pitch Black. As such, you'll see their
Speaker 1: name on all the various Riddeck movies that have come out,
Speaker 1: like Chronicles of Riddeck, because they they wrote the screenplay
Speaker 1: for Pitch Black. Characters created by Yeah. Another writer credited
Speaker 1: on this one is Curtis birch Um, and he as
Speaker 1: an editor and producer who worked on various Clark films.
Speaker 1: But okay, this thriller film needs its own dashing hero.
Speaker 1: Who's going to be the cop who comes in to
Speaker 1: save the day. Well, it is of course going to
Speaker 1: be Jan Michael Vincent playing Wayne the Cop Jan Michael Vincent.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say strange casting choice. Uh something about him
Speaker 1: felt a little too handsome to play this this character
Speaker 1: who again is supposed to be a an out of
Speaker 1: control alcoholic cop. But I liked him anyway. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think it's a solid performance. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you can see why a lot of people wanted to
Speaker 1: be in the in the Jan Michael Vincent business, uh
Speaker 1: for a while there. Uh he live through nineteen handsome,
Speaker 1: very competent star actor of the seventies and eighties, known
Speaker 1: for such films as Bite the Bullet from seventy five,
Speaker 1: The Mechanic from seventy two, Vigilante Force from seventy six,
Speaker 1: and for the Airwolf TV movie and series spin off.
Speaker 1: He's a guy who who seems to have had his
Speaker 1: share of personal problems and later in life he had
Speaker 1: health problems as well. His last film was in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two. But but yeah, in this one, in
Speaker 1: some ways, it's a little the casting is a little
Speaker 1: bit odd, but you know, you buy him in every
Speaker 1: scene that he's in, so it uh, you know, he's
Speaker 1: one of there are a lot of performances in this
Speaker 1: in this movie where I would easily say, and this
Speaker 1: is not their best work. These people did better work
Speaker 1: outside of The Return. I haven't seen a lot of
Speaker 1: Jen Jen Michael Vincent's filmography, but it's a solid performance here.
Speaker 1: I can't follow him at all for the performance. I mean,
Speaker 1: he really sells. The scene where he shoots a guy's
Speaker 1: cassette tape player in a rage, Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: the That's a good scene to bring up, because, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a movie that I think presents various scenes
Speaker 1: that are are perhaps a challenge for actors like how
Speaker 1: do you how do you pull that scene off believably? Um?
Speaker 1: And he does it for the most part, and not
Speaker 1: everybody maybe is uh was able to pull off scenes
Speaker 1: like that in The Return? Now the Uh. The The
Speaker 1: other main character in this is Jennifer. She is the
Speaker 1: scientist and she's played by Civil Shepherd Born. I'm torn
Speaker 1: on what to say about this performance because on one hand,
Speaker 1: it does not feel like she's really uh. It does
Speaker 1: not feel like a super effortful performance like she's you know,
Speaker 1: really reaching down to pull out every emotion to put
Speaker 1: in this character. On the other hand, a simple. Shepherd
Speaker 1: has a has a very easy going charm, and even
Speaker 1: in scenes where she's not really doing much except kind
Speaker 1: of like looking bemuse at a cop who's acting weirdly. Uh,
Speaker 1: she she's very likable. Yeah, yeah, she's very likable. And
Speaker 1: I guess I wanted to like her performance more. I
Speaker 1: feel like the picture maybe just gives her fewer moments
Speaker 1: to really allow her her talents and her her natural
Speaker 1: charisma to shine through. I mean, there's nothing I have
Speaker 1: nothing to about her performance in this but um, you know,
Speaker 1: we just we know that that there are better examples
Speaker 1: of her work out there. And I like how she
Speaker 1: has her as you know, has her her fun Tennessee
Speaker 1: accent out she's playing a scientist. But you know, there's
Speaker 1: just it doesn't feel like it's like quite up there
Speaker 1: on the level you expected to be. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: the way her character is written, I think she's supposed
Speaker 1: to be somebody who never really gets ruffled, like she
Speaker 1: she just sort of like observes everything with a raised eyebrow,
Speaker 1: even when it's quite weird what she's observing. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I have to know when I when I think of
Speaker 1: simpile Shepherd, I generally My mind goes instantly to TV's
Speaker 1: Moonlighting from the nine eighties during Bruce Bruce Willis or
Speaker 1: you know, I think about I think she had a
Speaker 1: nineties TV series called Sybil, And I never watched any
Speaker 1: of these shows, but I just remember, especially Moonlighting being on.
Speaker 1: It was a move, was a show that came on
Speaker 1: and I knew who was in it. But she has
Speaker 1: has some far more impressive movies in her filmography. Her
Speaker 1: Her first film was Peter Bogdanovich's V one movie The
Speaker 1: Last Picture Show, alongside of great cast of actress such
Speaker 1: as Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Chloris Leachman, Ellen Burston, and
Speaker 1: Randy Quaid, with a screenplay by Larry McMurtry based on
Speaker 1: his own novel. I also either I didn't realize I
Speaker 1: had forgotten that she was in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver
Speaker 1: from Oh Yeah. She plays the campaign worker for Senator Palatine,
Speaker 1: who Travis Pickele is is trying to romance in a
Speaker 1: in a very awkward way. Yeah, it does not go well,
Speaker 1: as nothing goes well? Is that movie all right? Now?
Speaker 1: Someone who does give a great performance in this I
Speaker 1: thought anyway, is Martin Landau, who was was also in
Speaker 1: Without Warning, and in this he plays Niles Buchanan, the
Speaker 1: other local law enforcement agent. I think Technico c he's
Speaker 1: Jan Michael Vincent's boss. I think Buchanan. He goes by Buck.
Speaker 1: So his character Niles Buchanan, I think the Buck is
Speaker 1: the buque in Buchanan. So Buck is the marshal and
Speaker 1: Jan Michael Vincent is the deputy marshal. Yeah. He he
Speaker 1: seems to be having the time of his life in
Speaker 1: this row, or at least it seems that way it was.
Speaker 1: It's a very fun performance. In Without Warning, he plays
Speaker 1: a like a deranged recluse. Uh and uh and and
Speaker 1: it's fun in that picture as well. But in this
Speaker 1: he plays a character that is um a lot more
Speaker 1: comedic without being just to throwaway comedic character. Like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of One thing you can say about Martin
Speaker 1: Landau has always had a very expressive face, and he
Speaker 1: really gets to use that face in this film. There
Speaker 1: are a couple of funny scenes in this movie between
Speaker 1: like Martin Landau and Jan Michael Vincent that are are
Speaker 1: so are funny in such a naturalistic way. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they were improvised by the actors or if they
Speaker 1: were actually on page, I would just say that's unusually
Speaker 1: good writing in those scenes in particular, like the the
Speaker 1: hilarious doughnut beer monologue scene or the uh or the
Speaker 1: you know, we're just a couple of Yahoo cops in
Speaker 1: a jerkwater town scene like those are good. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some good little scenes between the two of them.
Speaker 1: And and again I think I think these two actors,
Speaker 1: jam Michael Vincent and Martin Landau are the ones that
Speaker 1: did really come off the best in this film. Like
Speaker 1: if this was your only example of these actors and
Speaker 1: what they were capable of, you'd be like, well, these
Speaker 1: guys are great. I want more buddy cop movies with
Speaker 1: with these two. Now, we talked about Martin Landau on
Speaker 1: the previous episode A good but of course uh. He's
Speaker 1: perhaps best remembered for his Academy Award winning performance as
Speaker 1: Bella Llegosti and Tim Burton's ed Wood from ninety four.
Speaker 1: He also had memorable roles in north By Northwest from
Speaker 1: fifty nine, Cleopatra from sixty three, and he did a
Speaker 1: lot of TV work, including roles on the original Outer Limits,
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone mission, Impossible and of course space. I
Speaker 1: love of Martin Landau. I remember there's a really great
Speaker 1: classic Twilight Zone episode where he plays like a I think,
Speaker 1: like a defect or in a hotel room and he's
Speaker 1: been told that there's a secret bomb planet somewhere in
Speaker 1: his hotel room and he has to find it. I
Speaker 1: remember that episode really stuck out at me. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he's also just unforgettable as Bella Legosie and Edwood. Now
Speaker 1: playing Jennifer's dad, Dr Kramer is Raymond Burr, who lived
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen through. Uh yeah, he's he's her boss at
Speaker 1: the at SSR, the Science Place. Um he is. Burr
Speaker 1: is best known for roles in Rear Window, Godzilla, Godzilla
Speaker 1: nine eight five, and TV's Ironside and Perry Mason. But uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I would say this is probably not
Speaker 1: his best work. It's a it's a very dry performance,
Speaker 1: nothing bad about it. But it's uh yeah, it's it's there.
Speaker 1: Uh it's it's it's, it's it's I don't really don't
Speaker 1: know what to say about it. He shows up, he
Speaker 1: lays down some plot, lays down some technobabble, and then
Speaker 1: kind of wanders off. I found him amusing. His character
Speaker 1: in this movie reminds me of the psychiatrist who does
Speaker 1: the spankological protocol on ned Flanders. You know, May God
Speaker 1: have mercy on us all. Yeah, there are some fun
Speaker 1: scenes with him, like the scene where he gets to
Speaker 1: go out and look at a cattle mutilation. He's like
Speaker 1: he's taking notes in the rancher is just getting more
Speaker 1: and more irate about everything, and he's like he's just
Speaker 1: completely non phased by the whole thing. Well, there's a
Speaker 1: great exchange. The rancher is like, I, I, you know
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell me this is an attack by a scavenger.
Speaker 1: I've seen every type of scavenger and predator in the
Speaker 1: entire world, and I know what they do. And then
Speaker 1: Raymond Burr is just like, it is scientifically impossible that
Speaker 1: you have seen every attack by a predator scavenger. I
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah, yeah, that was definitely a laughout lot
Speaker 1: moment for me. When they're also a couple of funny
Speaker 1: parts where he just shows up on announced, like it
Speaker 1: cuts to him and he's in the room and I
Speaker 1: don't know why. It was just like Raymond Burr incoming.
Speaker 1: It was very funny. Now we also have a very noticeable,
Speaker 1: very recognizable character actor in this U playing the deranged
Speaker 1: prospect or that that spoiler, uh we find out is
Speaker 1: the one utilizing a lightsaber in the in the New
Speaker 1: Mexico Wilderness, played by Vincent Schiavelli, who lived ninety eight
Speaker 1: through two thousand and five. You've seen this guy in
Speaker 1: a thousand different movies. Yeah. Yeah, he's tons of work
Speaker 1: over the over the years during his career. One of
Speaker 1: his first big roles was that of Frederickson in One
Speaker 1: Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which of course has a
Speaker 1: diverse cast of weird character actors who would go on
Speaker 1: to uh to very noteworthy films, including Brad Dorriff. I
Speaker 1: don't remember if he was exactly this character, but I
Speaker 1: think he was associated with the with On Smallberries and
Speaker 1: the John Smallberry scene of the Adventures of Buck Rubonds.
Speaker 1: I yeah, yeah, he's definitely in that from four. He's
Speaker 1: also in Amadeus from eighty four, which I forgot about. Uh,
Speaker 1: He's in Batman Returns. He's in ninety five Lord of
Speaker 1: Illusions from Clive Barker. He's in Ghost from nine plays
Speaker 1: a Ghost, and I do remember this role he's in
Speaker 1: seven's Tomorrow Never Dies, the James Bond film, he has
Speaker 1: a brief role as a Hinchman who I think is
Speaker 1: going to interrogate Bond but then doesn't get to. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they build him up as like a master
Speaker 1: torture guy, but then he just gets immediately dispatched by Bond.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's a he's a character actor who I
Speaker 1: think was often great and small doses like that. Um.
Speaker 1: He was in one of my favorite Tales from the
Speaker 1: Crypt episodes, more than Mess from ninety one. But he
Speaker 1: also showed up on shows like Highlanders, Star Trek, the
Speaker 1: Next Generation, and a side show episode of The X Files.
Speaker 1: Do you remember this one, Joe? This one had like
Speaker 1: Jim Rose and the Enigma in it. Okay, Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: I have to say that for for Vincent Chivelli, I
Speaker 1: don't think the return is one of his better roles.
Speaker 1: I think he's he's still physically imposing enough. He's not
Speaker 1: unsympathetic in these in some of these areas in the
Speaker 1: film where you're supposed to feel sympathy for him, But
Speaker 1: I don't know, and maybe it's just not the performance itself,
Speaker 1: but the choice is made around that performance. He is
Speaker 1: kind of inscrutable in this movie. He doesn't talk for
Speaker 1: most of it. Yeah, but the main thing required of
Speaker 1: him in the film is to is to look very
Speaker 1: threatening as he stands there with a worrying, glowing electric
Speaker 1: toothbrush slash lightsaber when he's about to to to muto
Speaker 1: somebody and uh, and he does that quite well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing I didn't realize about him is that he
Speaker 1: was also a food writer. And he won the two
Speaker 1: thousand and one James Beer Journalism Award for his article
Speaker 1: Sicilian Summers, published in the Los Angeles Times. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can still pull it up. It's a it's available. It's
Speaker 1: not behind like an ad barrier or anything. I want
Speaker 1: to read, just an excerpt from it here. Quote. In
Speaker 1: the center of the of the vineyard is an ancient
Speaker 1: hazel nut tree. A collection of battered outdoor chairs is
Speaker 1: nestled in its shade. We all settled in conversation meanders,
Speaker 1: and our breathing slows like the balmy afternoon breeze. We
Speaker 1: fall into our naps, content and grateful for the gifts
Speaker 1: of this piece of earth. One last cast member we mentioned,
Speaker 1: the rancher who's ranting about about scientists on his land
Speaker 1: and about the cattle mutilations. This rancher the main rancher,
Speaker 1: and this is played by Neville Brand who is also
Speaker 1: in Without Warning. The is a you know this guy
Speaker 1: as a face you recognize because really rugged, tough guy face.
Speaker 1: So he played a lot of cowboys and heavies in
Speaker 1: his time, a lot of TV westerns and some classic
Speaker 1: war movies like fifty three Stalog seventeen in nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: Toura Tora Tora also did his share of B movies
Speaker 1: later in his career. Now we talked about the cinematographer
Speaker 1: being noteworthy in this not being um Dean Cutty, but
Speaker 1: being in this case Daniel Pearl, who was born nineteen
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, depending on the source, pretty famous cinematographer
Speaker 1: in music video circles at least, but he also had
Speaker 1: previously worked on nineteen seventy four is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, I went on to work mostly in
Speaker 1: music videos and some some big name music videos. Even
Speaker 1: as recently as like the last couple of years, he's
Speaker 1: been the cinematographer on major music videos. So even as
Speaker 1: like the music video world has perhaps gotten a lot
Speaker 1: smaller since the nineteen eighties, like he still seems to
Speaker 1: be a big part of it. He also worked on
Speaker 1: the occasional film and concluding Aliens Versus Predator Requiem from
Speaker 1: Twenties two thousand and seven, two thousand and nine, Friday
Speaker 1: the Thirteenth reboot, as well as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Speaker 1: remake from two thousand and three. Oh well, I'd say
Speaker 1: both of those two thousands franchise reboots are movies I
Speaker 1: don't really love, but the cinematography is pretty good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And finally, the music on this one is from Dan Wyman.
Speaker 1: Uh Yeah, the music it's pretty good in this one.
Speaker 1: It's it's more traditional at times to score, but gets
Speaker 1: more synth, synthy and great and weirder and some of
Speaker 1: the weirder moments in the film. H Wyman also scored
Speaker 1: Without Warning and later scored the films The Dead Pit
Speaker 1: from eight nine and The Lawnmower Man from He is
Speaker 1: credited as the orchestrator on John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct thirteen,
Speaker 1: Halloween and The Fog. He was also the score supervisor
Speaker 1: on nine Apocalypse Now and get this, he literally wrote
Speaker 1: the book on the MG Synthesizer because he wrote the
Speaker 1: principal manual on the MG Synthesizer analog on the MOG
Speaker 1: Modular Analog synthesizer for Robert mug and the New Orleans
Speaker 1: Music Company. Wow, that is a truly impressive claim to fame.
Speaker 1: There's a great image I found online and it's of
Speaker 1: Wyman and Carpenter. Uh, black and white photo of them
Speaker 1: in this like synth tech gear layer with you know,
Speaker 1: just wall alls of of synthesizers and various uh you know,
Speaker 1: by our standards, in an old fashioned recording equipment. There's
Speaker 1: a monitor on the wall. It looks looks amazing all
Speaker 1: these reel to reels behind them. Yeah, yeah, just jamming
Speaker 1: do I see in a scilloscope? Be all right, let's
Speaker 1: get into the plot of this baby, okay, doke. First
Speaker 1: thing I have to say, uh, is about the menu,
Speaker 1: the top menu in the Blu ray that you gave me, Rob.
Speaker 1: It is funny. It looks like a birthday party invitation
Speaker 1: made by a fifth grader in word perfect in nineteen
Speaker 1: I I feel like I made things that looked like this. Uh.
Speaker 1: The way that the characters images are are on it.
Speaker 1: It has a very uh dragon drop click art quality,
Speaker 1: and it's I don't know what the font for the
Speaker 1: menu options is, but it looks almost kind of like
Speaker 1: comic sands. Yeah, I mean having a great menu on
Speaker 1: a on a blue ray is it's a there's a
Speaker 1: fine art to it. You don't see it pulled off
Speaker 1: a lot. Oh No, I'm saying this is a great menu.
Speaker 1: I would not change a single thing, no notes whatsoever.
Speaker 1: I like the word perfect vibe. But then you push
Speaker 1: play on this baby, and you go into the movie
Speaker 1: and we we run a really on a roll there
Speaker 1: for a while with movies that started off in outer
Speaker 1: space in the orbit of the Earth. And I think
Speaker 1: in the last episode of Weird House you were bemoaning
Speaker 1: the fact that we didn't get that again. Well, uh, surprise,
Speaker 1: we're back in space. Of course, we're in space. We
Speaker 1: get some you know, the credits are in blue starfield
Speaker 1: in the background. The credits have a certain crulish quality
Speaker 1: to them. Uh. And then we see a flying saucer
Speaker 1: right at the beginning, So there's no hiding that under
Speaker 1: a bushold it's not going to be an alien reveal.
Speaker 1: At the end of the very first thing we see
Speaker 1: as a spaceship. Yeah, but once the crulishness subsides, we
Speaker 1: do go down to planet Earth. And what it's not
Speaker 1: the planet Earth of present day nineteen eighty, it's the
Speaker 1: planet Earth of years past. Yeah, it must be the
Speaker 1: I guess the late nine. Yeah. So we see where
Speaker 1: it's like a street on a you know, New Mexico town,
Speaker 1: late at night, and we see a you know, fifties
Speaker 1: style tank of a car pull up to the curb,
Speaker 1: and uh, a guy and a young kid get out.
Speaker 1: And what I thought is, so the kid is dressed
Speaker 1: up like a cowboy, and he's got a little a
Speaker 1: little cap gun. You remember those toy guns with the
Speaker 1: strips of caps that had the hammer, and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had those when I was a kid, and this
Speaker 1: kid's got one of those. And so he's having a ball,
Speaker 1: I guess, with this cap gun. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if he was just like slamming those things off in
Speaker 1: the back seat of the car while his dad was driving.
Speaker 1: That sounds really annoying, but anyway, so in fact, maybe
Speaker 1: this is what brought on the stop that we arrived at,
Speaker 1: which is that they get out of the car. And
Speaker 1: what I assumed at first was the dad was going inside,
Speaker 1: I don't know, the tractor supply store or something to
Speaker 1: take care of some business. But instead we find out
Speaker 1: the building he's going into is a bar, and he's
Speaker 1: just haveing his kid wait outside while he has a
Speaker 1: few beers. Meanwhile, across the street, a car pulls up
Speaker 1: to a gas station and a young girl gets out.
Speaker 1: She's about the same age as the boy, and so
Speaker 1: they're both standing on sidewalks on the opposite side of
Speaker 1: the street. And then what's this? Is this a UFO
Speaker 1: flying up in the air above them, And that's right,
Speaker 1: it's boy meets girl. Boy meets UFO. Girl meets UFO.
Speaker 1: UFO deeply scans them with hovering lights, and then they
Speaker 1: stare up into this kind of uh this like red
Speaker 1: vortex or these you know, lines that are approaching some
Speaker 1: kind of animated horizon. And then the UFO finishes its
Speaker 1: business and flies away. I really like the approach to
Speaker 1: the UFO effects in this film, and they're pretty ambitious,
Speaker 1: I think, and for the most part I love them.
Speaker 1: We see either one of two things. It's either dazzling
Speaker 1: lights that move in strange ways, or a glimpse in
Speaker 1: almost kind of ethereal vessel that leaves some ambiguity regarding
Speaker 1: its mechanical or organic nature, and when it beams people
Speaker 1: and things, we get more dazzling lights that kind of
Speaker 1: move around, we get red liquidity effects and uh a
Speaker 1: sort of take on the like a two thousand one
Speaker 1: esque stargate uh, you know, psychedelic LightScape sequence. And I
Speaker 1: think it mostly works. It's slightly giggle inducing at times,
Speaker 1: especially when you see the reaction shots from the humans involved,
Speaker 1: but I admire what they were going for here. They
Speaker 1: were going through something that was a little bit more dreamy,
Speaker 1: a little bit more on the almost religious side of things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the dreamy stuff works. You can see it's
Speaker 1: almost like that when we see it from when we
Speaker 1: see the scene from the side, it's clearly a spaceship
Speaker 1: hovering above the kids. But when you look up into
Speaker 1: the light in the spaceship, it's like you're no longer
Speaker 1: looking at an object. Instead you are looking through a
Speaker 1: kind of gateway into another realm. But the ship here
Speaker 1: is not just in town to visit this random boy
Speaker 1: and this random girl, uh, in this random town. They
Speaker 1: also are here to visit a random prospect or out
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. Right, this UFO has business
Speaker 1: with Vincent Chiavelli. So Schiavelli is playing a prospector who's
Speaker 1: in a cave and he's just knocking on the wall
Speaker 1: of the cave with a pick axe, singing the battle
Speaker 1: him in the Republic, and the UFO pulls up outside
Speaker 1: the cave. His dog runs off to bark at it.
Speaker 1: He goes off and stares into it. He also gets
Speaker 1: sort of hypnotized by the by the converging red horizons
Speaker 1: of light, and then he collapses on the floor. And
Speaker 1: you're like, what's going on? Did Vincentivelli die? I mean,
Speaker 1: his dog doesn't seem harmed by it, but he I
Speaker 1: don't know, something happened to him. Yeah, the dog seems
Speaker 1: concerned though. The dogs like, what what happened? There was
Speaker 1: there were lights and then he fell over. Yeah. Then hey,
Speaker 1: let's skip ahead about twenty five years. Yeah. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: skipped forward to the modern day, late nineteen seventies or
Speaker 1: perhaps nineteen eighty itself here in America to find out
Speaker 1: what all these characters have gotten up to since that
Speaker 1: fateful day back in the late fifties. That's right. So
Speaker 1: the two kids who saw the UFO are all grown up.
Speaker 1: And we also see Vincent Chiavelli again who and he
Speaker 1: is approximately three point five years younger than in the
Speaker 1: opening scene. But so we meet Sybil Shepherd and she
Speaker 1: is playing Jennifer who. I think this is supposed to
Speaker 1: be not clear in the movie, but it is clear.
Speaker 1: It's just obvious who these characters are. So it's clear
Speaker 1: she's the girl from the opening scene. Yeah, they make
Speaker 1: a point in this movie. They kind of like build
Speaker 1: up to the reveal that these adults were the you know,
Speaker 1: in their realization obviously their realization that they are the
Speaker 1: kids from earlier in the film, but you know it
Speaker 1: the whole time. There's no mystery in the in the
Speaker 1: way the film instructured, absolutely zero mystery. It's totally obvious.
Speaker 1: So this is the girl from the opening and now
Speaker 1: she's working for some kind of shadowy company. We see
Speaker 1: a modern shot of a city. She's up in a
Speaker 1: skyscraper and she is a scientist now and she's working
Speaker 1: for some kind of technical company that has something to
Speaker 1: do with saddle lights that is managed by her father,
Speaker 1: who is Raymond Burr, the Spancological protocol guy. And she's
Speaker 1: been analyzing aerial photos of someplace near Alama Gordo, New Mexico,
Speaker 1: and she has found anomalies in these photographs and she
Speaker 1: wants to go investigate the anomalies to figure out what's
Speaker 1: going on there. I don't know if I was being
Speaker 1: dense or if the movie just really is not clear
Speaker 1: about exactly what it is she's investigating, like what the
Speaker 1: anomaly represents. It's just like these readings are off the charts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought it was. It was kind of vague to
Speaker 1: something to do with also like interference in the creation
Speaker 1: of photographs. Oh. And then also for some reason, there's
Speaker 1: some creep in the office who keeps hitting on her
Speaker 1: and she just kind of keeps pushing him away. Um,
Speaker 1: and he's like, why don't you go on a date
Speaker 1: with me? Yeah, And he's like, you can't send her
Speaker 1: out in the field alone. I should go with her.
Speaker 1: And Dad's like, you learn how to be in the
Speaker 1: field by being in the field. She can take it,
Speaker 1: she can handle it. So that the end of the
Speaker 1: story and we don't think we ever see the creep again.
Speaker 1: I think we see the creep later, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: become not significant to the plot. So I don't know
Speaker 1: what the point of the creep was, all right, So
Speaker 1: that's our girl, our little girl, all grown up now
Speaker 1: a science woman. But then we also find out what
Speaker 1: has become of the boy, right, the boy has become
Speaker 1: Jane Michael Vincent. He is now a beer chugging cop.
Speaker 1: It's early in the morning, but he is clearly several
Speaker 1: bottles in he's sitting in his squad car. He is.
Speaker 1: When he finishes a glass bottle of beer, he throws
Speaker 1: it at a pile of glass bottles that he has made.
Speaker 1: This cop loves littering, by the way, he never stops
Speaker 1: throwing containers into the bushes. But so, yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: obviously just been sitting in his police car drinking. And
Speaker 1: then suddenly a chase sequence kicks up because somebody else's
Speaker 1: joy riding, and it's some ranch guys and and a
Speaker 1: ranch lady, and they're driving around really fast, also drinking,
Speaker 1: and so he peels off after them, and there's a
Speaker 1: chase scene and he eventually runs them down in a
Speaker 1: like the driveway of a ranch. I think they drive
Speaker 1: straight through a gate, like a wooden gate and destroy it.
Speaker 1: He goes up to the car and tries to give
Speaker 1: him what for, but the the guy in the car
Speaker 1: is like, my daddy owns this ranch. You can't do
Speaker 1: anything to me because of my daddy, to which Jane
Speaker 1: Michael Vincent responds by shooting out the car radio. This
Speaker 1: is the scene where he gets mad and he just
Speaker 1: blasts the cassette player and and that's basically when Buck
Speaker 1: shows up. Martin Landau pulls up as Buck, and at
Speaker 1: first you you think, Okay, he's gonna be the sensible one,
Speaker 1: and he is the sensible one comparatively, but uh yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he shows up to sort of chill things out
Speaker 1: a little bit and get everybody to back down from
Speaker 1: their stance, or to try to with his outfit and
Speaker 1: the way he's got everything, like his facial hair and
Speaker 1: everything in this movie, do you think they were going
Speaker 1: for a little bit of a Levan Cliff as angel
Speaker 1: ized look with Martin Landau here? I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: in some scenes, but like but clearly he's playing in
Speaker 1: the character out for laughs in others. But again it
Speaker 1: does you could wonder, like how much of that was
Speaker 1: organic these scenes where they're shooting the bold about donuts
Speaker 1: and beer, did they just add those in because you know,
Speaker 1: there was a good chemistry and they had some funny
Speaker 1: stuff to say. And if so, does that end up
Speaker 1: changing the calibration of this character. But then again, Buck
Speaker 1: does have a lot of goofy lines later on the film,
Speaker 1: so maybe it was just always part of the characterization.
Speaker 1: I think there are multiple scenes where Jane Michael Vincent
Speaker 1: is really behaving in an inappropriate way and Martin Landau's
Speaker 1: character defuses the situation by enticing him to come to
Speaker 1: a bar with him. Yeah, so he's not like, let's
Speaker 1: shut down all the destructive behavior. Let's just shut down
Speaker 1: this particular destructive behavior and maybe put that energy into
Speaker 1: this other form of behavior. Is right around here where
Speaker 1: we get the scene with Vincent Chiavelli where he's sitting
Speaker 1: on a hill and then he just starts yelling why
Speaker 1: are you doing this? Why? We get a little little
Speaker 1: flashes of him and what he's up to. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: here I think we start getting a little more flavor
Speaker 1: of life. We just see like Jim Michael Vincent and
Speaker 1: Martin Landau hanging out in a diner, where I think
Speaker 1: that's just that that is the local hangout. It's the
Speaker 1: watering hole. It's where everybody has a little bit of
Speaker 1: a little bit of colorful character interaction, joking around and stuff. There.
Speaker 1: Martin Landau gives a great speech somewhere in here about
Speaker 1: strips of bacon. Do you remember that this is the
Speaker 1: scene that should have earned him an oscar before he
Speaker 1: did the bell lego? See that. He has a monologue
Speaker 1: about how he was at the restaurant and he ordered
Speaker 1: the breakfast plate, and they were supposed to bring him
Speaker 1: three strips of bacon, but there were only two when
Speaker 1: he gets in a big fight with the cook and
Speaker 1: then eventually discovers that two strips of bacon are stuck
Speaker 1: together as if they were one strip. It's such a
Speaker 1: boring story, and you would be bored out of your
Speaker 1: mind if anyone in your own life told you this story,
Speaker 1: no matter how much you loved them. And yet Martin
Speaker 1: Lantop makes it amusing in this picture. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a real gym. Also a thing
Speaker 1: that I noticed, Jane Michael Vincent's police car is a
Speaker 1: station wagon. I mean, I guess there is such a
Speaker 1: thing as a police station wagon, but it looked funny
Speaker 1: to me. Uh and I tried to figure out what
Speaker 1: design it was. I think I nailed it down. I
Speaker 1: believe he's driving an AMC Eagle, which I will admit
Speaker 1: is one of the more aggressive station wagon designs. But
Speaker 1: I still found it funny. I didn't really notice the
Speaker 1: car all that much, not when they're sitting still. Anyway.
Speaker 1: There's some some vehicular stuff that happens later on, that's right. Oh,
Speaker 1: and so Simbil Shepherd, she is out in the field, uh,
Speaker 1: researching the anomalies that she discovered from aerial photographs, and
Speaker 1: she is driving down the highway coming into town. And
Speaker 1: oh the town is I think it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: near Alama Gordo, but it's not Alma Gordo. It is
Speaker 1: a town called what is it Little Creek? Is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so. So she's driving into Little Creek and
Speaker 1: she her car gets attacked in the dark by Vincentiavelli's dog. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This this dog is very inconsistent throughout the film because
Speaker 1: there are some scenes where the dog is like just
Speaker 1: super attack mode, like I'm gonna jump on a car
Speaker 1: and attack it. I'm gonna attack this person, But other
Speaker 1: times just sitting around like this, like a sweet good boy, uh,
Speaker 1: just watching things occur. So it's it's really unclear exactly
Speaker 1: how we're supposed to take this dog. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: dog attack causes her to wreck her car, and this
Speaker 1: is her first meeting with adult Jan Michael Vincent, So, uh,
Speaker 1: what's the actual character's named? Wayne? Was Wayne and Jennifer.
Speaker 1: So Wayne hears her crash her car and so he
Speaker 1: leaves the bar and goes to investigate, and he what
Speaker 1: does he do in the scene, He for some reason,
Speaker 1: he gets in her car and he's like, let's see
Speaker 1: if it's working all right, and then he like peels
Speaker 1: out in it and does some donuts or something. Here
Speaker 1: he drives in reverse really fast and then uh, and
Speaker 1: then he drives it back to her and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's okay, And she's like, what am I supposed to applaud?
Speaker 1: And these are some of the scenes where I think
Speaker 1: Sybil Shepherd's uh vibe is good. Here she she's very
Speaker 1: unimpressed with the local local deputy Marshal Jan Michael Vincent. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously they're gonna fall in love later, you know that
Speaker 1: from the get go, that's just a movie like this
Speaker 1: is gonna work but at this point they are from
Speaker 1: different worlds and they do not see eye to eye
Speaker 1: and what is quote unquote cool. But anyway, she's there
Speaker 1: in town to plant some meters, like she's these little
Speaker 1: boxes that measure something measure I think they say radiation
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know, something else. Just they take
Speaker 1: some readings. And then she's also going around taking photos
Speaker 1: of things, and she takes some photos of a rock
Speaker 1: that has weird markings on it, and then she facses
Speaker 1: that photo back to the home office where all the
Speaker 1: scientists are hanging out with Raymond Burr, and they're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: what's going on with the weird marking on this rock.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to analyze this. Yeah, in a scene
Speaker 1: where she's on the phone with them whilst faxing at
Speaker 1: the same time. Yes, I don't know. It's not the
Speaker 1: way fax machines worked when I used them several years ago.
Speaker 1: But maybe they worked like this in some cases. Uh
Speaker 1: in n Well, it seems like the phone is attached
Speaker 1: to the fax machine she's used. I don't know how
Speaker 1: that works, so I'm not gonna try to comment on it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it's a feature of fax machines
Speaker 1: that I just did not know existed, and I could
Speaker 1: have been doing that the whole time. But the scientists,
Speaker 1: by the way that they're acting shady about these pictures,
Speaker 1: they seem to be up to no good. We get
Speaker 1: a scene where I think Wayne and Jennifer are sort
Speaker 1: of remembering that maybe they met when they were kids,
Speaker 1: but they're not sure yet, and that maybe maybe it
Speaker 1: was here, because there's a part where Jennifer like stands
Speaker 1: at the gas station where she was when she was
Speaker 1: a kid and saw the UFO and Jane Michael Vincent
Speaker 1: is across the street, and then she just says to herself,
Speaker 1: she goes, it can't be possible, and then she calls
Speaker 1: up her dad on the phone and she's like, Daddy,
Speaker 1: remember those wonderful lights I saw in the sky when
Speaker 1: I was a child? It was here? And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just a coincidence. Now. Next, there is a
Speaker 1: breakfast scene at the diner where where Wayne is ordering
Speaker 1: a couple of breakfast rolls and a six pack to go.
Speaker 1: But before that happens, we see a cowboy sitting at
Speaker 1: a table eating his breakfast and he puts about six
Speaker 1: quarts of Ketchup on two fried eggs. I nearly gagged. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he eats the first egg just hole. So if
Speaker 1: you if if you have an aversion to uh scenes
Speaker 1: of Friday egg eating in motion pictures, Uh, this is
Speaker 1: this is one to to skip over. This is one
Speaker 1: too fast forward through for sure. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I like Ketchup and I like eggs, but watching Ketchup
Speaker 1: go on eggs gives me intense dysphoria. Oh oh oh,
Speaker 1: but this is the first part. This scene is the
Speaker 1: first time in the movie we actually hear anything about
Speaker 1: cattle mutilation, despite it being such a big part of
Speaker 1: the film him here on out. I mean, they let
Speaker 1: you get a solid twenty thirty minutes in before it
Speaker 1: comes up at all. Yeah, and it just kind of
Speaker 1: comes up casually, right, It's like, Hey, they're also cattle
Speaker 1: mutilations going on. How about that? Well, the waitress at
Speaker 1: the diner brings it up, but she's like flirting with
Speaker 1: Jane Michael Vincent when she does. She you know, she's
Speaker 1: being kind of cute see at him, and she's like, hey,
Speaker 1: what do you think about that cattle mutilation? But anyway,
Speaker 1: this leads to to Wayne and Jennifer meeting up at
Speaker 1: the diner h and they talk about the investigations that
Speaker 1: she's doing, and he says something like he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: not used to lady scientists running through the streets of
Speaker 1: my town and uh so, okay whatever. But then the
Speaker 1: what I have in my notes after this is Daddy incoming.
Speaker 1: Raymond Daddy Burr drops into the diner like an orbital
Speaker 1: kinetic weapon. He's just suddenly standing there. I think he's
Speaker 1: even shot from below, so he's like this imposing figure
Speaker 1: blocking the sunlight. We had no indication that he was coming.
Speaker 1: He's just here now, yeah, yeah, looming large. And so
Speaker 1: this goes straight to the cattle mutilation scene. Like they
Speaker 1: they go to a some ranch land where there's a
Speaker 1: creek and there's a dead cow, and one of the
Speaker 1: deputies is investigating the carcass, and Raymond Burr is very
Speaker 1: interested in the subject of cattle muto, so he's sitting
Speaker 1: there taking notes in his notebook. Meanwhile, the deputy who's
Speaker 1: trying to take photos of the of the situation, the
Speaker 1: photos won't come out right there, like blurred in the middle,
Speaker 1: or they've got these big white smudges on them. And
Speaker 1: in fact, that's much like the photos taken of this
Speaker 1: location from orbit that Sybil Shepherd had earlier were So
Speaker 1: what's going on here? And this is where we have
Speaker 1: that argument between Raymond Burr and the rancher where he's like,
Speaker 1: I've seen every kind of attack there is. You're gonna
Speaker 1: come up here and tell me my business, and Raymond
Speaker 1: Burr is like, it is impossible. You've seen every kind
Speaker 1: of attack. Oh, and then David Crosby rides up and
Speaker 1: tells them there's been more. You know, it's not really him,
Speaker 1: but it is a guy who looks remarkably like him
Speaker 1: and his nevill brand show up at this point to
Speaker 1: gripe at them. Oh no, he's already here. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: the rancher. He's mad. Now here's where we're starting some
Speaker 1: slasher stuff that hasn't really happened so far in the movie.
Speaker 1: We get a shoe salesman and his wife and they're
Speaker 1: doing dude ranch stuff. They're out riding horses on the
Speaker 1: trail and the shoe salesman guy is trying to pretend
Speaker 1: to be a macho cowboy in front of his wife.
Speaker 1: He's like, I know things about cows. Look at those
Speaker 1: cows down there. I'm going to go up to them,
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, maybe you better not, and he's like,
Speaker 1: don't be silly, Cow's head grass. They are not carnivorous.
Speaker 1: But when he approaches them, oh, Vincentiavelli's down there, what's
Speaker 1: he getting up to? There's like a worrying noise. He's
Speaker 1: trying to investigate what that could be. And and it
Speaker 1: turns out Vincent Giavelli is hiding behind a cow holding
Speaker 1: a device that looks like a glowing purple electric toothbrush,
Speaker 1: h kind of a dagger sized version of the mace
Speaker 1: window lightsaber. It's making the buzzing noise. Vincent is clearly
Speaker 1: doing some cattle mutilation for some reason. And then oh,
Speaker 1: he attacks the dude ranch guy and he breaks over
Speaker 1: the barrier into human muto. Yeah, though the dude ranch
Speaker 1: guy at first it is like, oh, sorry to disturb
Speaker 1: you carry on with your obvious cowboys stuff here, but yeah,
Speaker 1: then he is, um, he's lightsabered. So after this there's
Speaker 1: a chase scene where he's chasing Mrs Dude Ranch and
Speaker 1: then she does a really impressive stunt fall where she
Speaker 1: rolls down a hill there are a couple of pretty
Speaker 1: impressive stunt falls in this movie. Somebody's rolling down an
Speaker 1: actual hill in slow motion. But this gives way to
Speaker 1: the scene with Buck and Wayne driving in the police
Speaker 1: car and the discourse on beer can holes and donuts. Rob,
Speaker 1: would you like to explain, I was just this scene
Speaker 1: where Jay Michael Vincent is driving and uh, Martin Landau's
Speaker 1: character Buck has a don't on in one hand and
Speaker 1: a cannabier in the other, and he's bemoaning the fact
Speaker 1: that you can't the hole in the opening in the
Speaker 1: top of the beer can. He's not large enough to
Speaker 1: permit the dunking of the donut, but he demonstrates that
Speaker 1: he's still able to cope by like dribbling some of
Speaker 1: the beer onto the donut before he eats it. And
Speaker 1: it's just another ridiculous food based monologue in this film
Speaker 1: for Martin Landau. He has chocolate icing on his face
Speaker 1: the entire time he's doing this. By the way, yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: but so they're driving along and they just happened to
Speaker 1: come across the dude ranch people. They find the dead
Speaker 1: shoe salesman guy, and this scene is so funny. Martin
Speaker 1: Landau goes and looks at the guy, and then I
Speaker 1: wrote down his quote. He says, well, it's a mute,
Speaker 1: but this time it ain't cattle mute. It's humans. There's
Speaker 1: human mutilations now, just like it's like, not only does
Speaker 1: he point out that the body they're looking at as
Speaker 1: a human, but he says it twice. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: he says, we're gonna get into this. We're going to
Speaker 1: find out who or what's doing it, if it's Satanists
Speaker 1: or even aliens. We're going to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, and he's excited too. It's not like
Speaker 1: something terrible is happening in our community and we need
Speaker 1: to stop it before it gets worse. It's like, let's go,
Speaker 1: let's get into it. I'm ready. Oh, he's so excited,
Speaker 1: but Jen Michael Vincent comes back with some some humbling reality.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, we're just a couple of Yahoo cops
Speaker 1: from a jerkwater town. We are not about to have
Speaker 1: the means to investigate something like this. And then Buck says,
Speaker 1: come on way, you know, I I want to prove my theory,
Speaker 1: Like what which one was his theory? He just cast
Speaker 1: out too drastically different ideas about what this could be, right,
Speaker 1: is that the theory maybe his theory is that it's
Speaker 1: aliens or Satanists. Yeah, I don't know. It's at least
Speaker 1: still at the hypothesis stage at this point. Now, there's
Speaker 1: some stuff that goes on with the ranchers don't like
Speaker 1: Sybil Shephard. They think that her scientific instruments are causing
Speaker 1: cattle mutilations, so they like attack her. Later that night,
Speaker 1: the hothead cattle creeps are trying to assault her in
Speaker 1: the rain to say like, we don't know what you're doing,
Speaker 1: but it's killing our cattle, and she's like no, and
Speaker 1: one of them, I think literally says to her, you
Speaker 1: can't get away from us, lady scientist. But then just
Speaker 1: when they're about to I don't know, beat her up
Speaker 1: or something, Jane Michael Vincent arrives and he beats them up,
Speaker 1: and then the ranch daddy arrives and then he's like,
Speaker 1: I never raised my sons to hit women. And so
Speaker 1: the situation is diffused, but clearly the ranch daddy is
Speaker 1: still mad at civil Shepherd because he does think that
Speaker 1: her wicked science must be causing the cattle deaths. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's not backing down from that, he's like, he's like,
Speaker 1: I apologize for my son attacking Yeah, but now you
Speaker 1: need to apologize for muting my cows and and so
Speaker 1: we don't. Actually we're not really able to diffuse the
Speaker 1: situation all that much. But hey, so we've been waiting
Speaker 1: the whole movie. It's like when our civil Shepherd and
Speaker 1: Jane Michael Vincent to fall in love. Well, here's where
Speaker 1: we get it. So they go home together. She's really
Speaker 1: impressed by looking at all the books on his shelf.
Speaker 1: It's full of like Arthur C. Clark science, science fiction
Speaker 1: and astronomy books, but also crank UFO literature. And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: are you impressed that this this dumb cop is actually
Speaker 1: so smart? And she's essentially like yeah, kind of. And
Speaker 1: here's the scene where we find out that, you know,
Speaker 1: Wayne's been into this stuff ever since he was a
Speaker 1: little kid, and uh, could could it be that he
Speaker 1: was the cap gun cowboys she saw out in the
Speaker 1: street that night with the UFO you know what it is?
Speaker 1: They discover it in this scene. Oh, but not not
Speaker 1: before she says that she would like a beer and
Speaker 1: he goes it's in the refrigerator. And then she's like,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get it for me? And then
Speaker 1: he's like light or real. I was slightly disappointed we
Speaker 1: didn't get to see in the refrigerator. Those are often
Speaker 1: fun where it was like, how are they going to
Speaker 1: represent the the current life status of a particular character
Speaker 1: by showing me the on dense of the fridge. I
Speaker 1: would say the Bachelor refrigerator is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: film cliches. I think this one would have had um,
Speaker 1: mostly beer. Um, I guess mostly quote unquote real beer
Speaker 1: with a few light beer sprinkled in there. Um, gotta
Speaker 1: be some sort of gross leftovers of some sort, like maybe, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this town would have pizza, but
Speaker 1: it's something some sort of fast food that's that's maybe
Speaker 1: not even in a container, but just setting in there
Speaker 1: on on one of the grills. Well, i'd say the
Speaker 1: biggest movie Bachelor refrigerator content cliche is the old Chinese
Speaker 1: food takeout boxes. But I don't think they have Chinese
Speaker 1: restaurants in Little Creek. Yeah, sometimes in there like a
Speaker 1: single apple or something where it's kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: that he was going to turn his life around that
Speaker 1: week and he bought that apple, but he still hasn't
Speaker 1: gotten around to eating it. Yeah, well, in any case,
Speaker 1: we don't see it. Instead, we see them honcky talk
Speaker 1: dancing together. There is a honkey talk dancing scene that
Speaker 1: will take your breath away. But somehow this give way
Speaker 1: to them establishing firmly the UFO connection. They're like, it
Speaker 1: was you. Yeah, it was you. I saw him too.
Speaker 1: We we saw the UFO together. So now they're they're
Speaker 1: just bonded for life. Meanwhile, there's some more kind of
Speaker 1: perfunctory just uh cattle mudo violence, like the ranch boys
Speaker 1: go out hunting for the measuring instruments on their land
Speaker 1: and they get attacked by the prospector of Vincent Chiavelli
Speaker 1: who lightsabers them, and so there's more human muto and uh, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Raymond Burr back in the home office. I guess he
Speaker 1: has left Little Creek and gone back to the big city,
Speaker 1: wherever that is, And we get a terrifically out of
Speaker 1: nowhere techno battles. I remember thinking that, like, they have
Speaker 1: not laid the groundwork for him to suddenly be talking
Speaker 1: about how the crystal structure of this rock is an
Speaker 1: exact map of our solar system and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to try to reproduce the whole thing,
Speaker 1: but he says, a bunch of stuff. There's a scene
Speaker 1: after this where Wayne and Jennifer are investigating one of
Speaker 1: her measuring devices and they see a mutilated cow nearby
Speaker 1: and they go to check that out, but end up
Speaker 1: in a shootout with a ranch hand, and the ranch
Speaker 1: hand ends up tumbling down a hill. Another tumble stunt,
Speaker 1: but this one ends with a head plunge straight into
Speaker 1: an open cow torso, so he straight up does the
Speaker 1: tauntons sleeping bag, but by accident. Yeah, because there's a
Speaker 1: mutilated cat cow at the bottom of the hill and
Speaker 1: just like tumble tumble PLoP. I think we don't quite
Speaker 1: see it. It's not as gross as it sounds, but
Speaker 1: it is pretty funny, and he's not dead. He gets
Speaker 1: out of the cow and he's like he's all covered
Speaker 1: with with semi believable cow blood. Now we're building up
Speaker 1: to the big reveal, which is that at some point
Speaker 1: Buck Martin Landau ends up heading up into the mountains
Speaker 1: to the prospector's shack to pick up one of the
Speaker 1: metering units for Sybil Shepherd and so he goes up
Speaker 1: to the shack and he knocks on the door and
Speaker 1: there's nobody home. So he looks around inside and discovers
Speaker 1: inside the shack there is a secret passage going into
Speaker 1: a cave full of burning torches. He picks up a
Speaker 1: torch and he explores down the cavern and it ends
Speaker 1: in a purple portal. There's like an animated vortex that
Speaker 1: is swirling into nothingness and and and a dancing display
Speaker 1: of colors. And he's looking at it, like what's going on?
Speaker 1: But then he hears something. Somebody's coming in. So Buck
Speaker 1: hides and Vincent Chiavelli walks in and he walks up
Speaker 1: to the vortex and because he says, here you go,
Speaker 1: and he chucks a cow organ into the vortex. I
Speaker 1: read that the vortex here was created with practical effects,
Speaker 1: by the way, and it looks it looks pretty darn good. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like it. So Buck confronts the prospector with a gun.
Speaker 1: He says, know what you're doing. You're taking organs from
Speaker 1: cattle are most important food supply, that's what he says,
Speaker 1: and sending them back to your masters. But then he
Speaker 1: looks down at the Bucket that the Prospector has brought
Speaker 1: in and he says, that's not a cow organ, that's
Speaker 1: a human hand. You're using human organs. You're under arrest.
Speaker 1: But then you know what's going to happen at this point,
Speaker 1: and it's heartbreaking for such a fun character. But no,
Speaker 1: big nobody has been able to get the drop on
Speaker 1: our our lightsaber wielding rural slasher prospector here, because he
Speaker 1: instantly whips out that lightsaber weapon and disarms Martin landaut
Speaker 1: like literally cuts his arm off Star Wars style and
Speaker 1: throws it into the vortex. Yeah, fed to whatever is
Speaker 1: on the other side. For whatever reasons, this is happening.
Speaker 1: It's happening again, right, So buck unfortunately succumbs to death
Speaker 1: by Muto. Now, meanwhile, I mentioned earlier that there's this
Speaker 1: stuff about the FEDS there, their government agents there, and
Speaker 1: I could not tell what they actually knew or what
Speaker 1: they were up to. We just see these suits in
Speaker 1: town and we've been warned by another character that they've
Speaker 1: been asking around about Wayne and Jennifer and the Feds.
Speaker 1: Uh say, the Feds are like on the phone with
Speaker 1: somebody and they're like, well, sir, the deputy and the
Speaker 1: scientists have come across information that could be misinterpreted by
Speaker 1: the media, Yes, sir, right away. And then they hang up,
Speaker 1: and we don't know who they're talking to or what
Speaker 1: they're gonna do. They basically just seem to exist to
Speaker 1: chase our heroes around a little bit before the final confrontation, right,
Speaker 1: and I guess we're basically at the final confrontation or
Speaker 1: in the final stretch. So, like the prospect Or suddenly
Speaker 1: confronts Wayne and Jennifer at a motel and he seems
Speaker 1: very anguished. Actually, he's like, I tried to scare you away,
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't go. I just want to be left alone.
Speaker 1: But it ends with well, first of all, I would say,
Speaker 1: I don't understand what this was about, but this scene
Speaker 1: had extremely jarring cuts between like full daylight shots and
Speaker 1: really dark shots. Did you understand what this was about?
Speaker 1: Not at all? Well, for whatever reason, they end up fighting,
Speaker 1: and so it's like jan Michael Vincent with a two
Speaker 1: by four versus Vincent Chiavelli with a toothbrush sized lightsaber,
Speaker 1: and they're fighting it out. At one point, Sheavelli like
Speaker 1: knocks down a pillar of a lattice roof and that
Speaker 1: falls on Jan Michael Vincent. Uh. And then the scene
Speaker 1: ends with a frame that had hilarious composition. So I
Speaker 1: actually took a picture of my TV screen and added
Speaker 1: it to the document. Here where the Feds run up
Speaker 1: and point a gun at Jan Michael Vincent, but there's
Speaker 1: also another deputy standing there, and he's wearing a like
Speaker 1: a red uh Kentucky Fried Chicken colonel style bow tie
Speaker 1: with the like dangles on it. I don't know what
Speaker 1: you call that style of tie. It's it's very funny.
Speaker 1: This gives way to a big chase sequence where the
Speaker 1: Feds are trying to kill Jan Michael Vincent. One point. Uh.
Speaker 1: He he gets a I think he steals a motorcycle
Speaker 1: from a motorcycle store and jumps it through a plate
Speaker 1: glass window. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of motorcycle stunts started
Speaker 1: happening in the later part of this film, you know,
Speaker 1: going through the window here, and he'll go through something
Speaker 1: else in a bit. Yeah. And meanwhile, Vincent Sheavelli ta
Speaker 1: take Sybil Shephard back to the portal with the vortex,
Speaker 1: and he's got her there and he says, he does
Speaker 1: a monologue, He's like I've done everything they wanted. All
Speaker 1: of these years, they were supposed to keep track of us,
Speaker 1: and they needed me. It ain't fair. But now that
Speaker 1: she's here, they won't need me anymore. And I think
Speaker 1: the idea is he like he for many years, has
Speaker 1: truly actually not aged at all because the vortex has
Speaker 1: given him anti aging properties to aid in his alien servitude.
Speaker 1: And now he's afraid that the aliens are sort of
Speaker 1: retiring him and they're going to use Sybil Shepherd to
Speaker 1: do his job. Now did you understand it that way? Um? Roughly,
Speaker 1: But this is the part where the movie really gets confusing.
Speaker 1: And I'm normally pretty quick to be able to sort
Speaker 1: of form a theory or a little headcannon about what's
Speaker 1: going on in a movie like this, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of all over the place. I mean at this point,
Speaker 1: not counting anything that comes after. I guess we're supposed
Speaker 1: to think the aliens came to him in the late
Speaker 1: fifties and said, hey, you're the chosen one. Now here
Speaker 1: is a tiny lightsaber. We want cow parts, not the
Speaker 1: good parts, just the weird parts. Bring them to this
Speaker 1: cave and throw them into this portal in regular intervals.
Speaker 1: And if you do that then we'll grant you like
Speaker 1: eternal youth. And I guess he's like, this is a
Speaker 1: sweet gig, and now he's afraid that gig is about
Speaker 1: to be passed on to someone who is I don't don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine she's going to do a
Speaker 1: better job at this. I mean he has experience at
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah, he's been doing a great job from
Speaker 1: what I can tell. Yeah, but so for some reason
Speaker 1: he's mad at her, and so he tries to use
Speaker 1: the lightsaber to kill her, but for some reason it
Speaker 1: is unable to harm her. He like stabs her with it,
Speaker 1: but it does not harm her at all. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: she is special. She has chosen. Uh what does it mean?
Speaker 1: We'll continue to have to try and make sense of that.
Speaker 1: So there's more Moto stunts. Jane Michael Vincent does the stunts,
Speaker 1: and then he ends up up in the cave and
Speaker 1: unfortunately he has to fight Vincent Savelli's dog. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't want seems where he human has to punch
Speaker 1: a dog. Come on, Yeah, yeah, and the dog doesn't die.
Speaker 1: It has that going for it at least, But but
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's very inconsistent with this dog. Sometimes this
Speaker 1: dog is attacking people. Other times the dogs just like
Speaker 1: sheepishly watching things from underneath the table. So um, it's
Speaker 1: it's all over the place. But okay, So here's where
Speaker 1: things get even more convincing. We like a new layer
Speaker 1: of interpretation. Uh j m V makes it up there
Speaker 1: and he reunites with the Sibyl Shepherd, and Sybil Shepherd
Speaker 1: says to him, we were chosen, all of us, even him,
Speaker 1: I think, referring to the Prospector. But he wasn't supposed
Speaker 1: to kill anyone. It wasn't meant for evil. I know that, okay,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't explain how she knows this or what
Speaker 1: this exactly means. So this is where we started getting
Speaker 1: this idea that the Prospector has just been misinterpreting alien
Speaker 1: directives this whole time, which I mean, I've got to
Speaker 1: sympathize with him at this point, like he's devoted last
Speaker 1: twenty years of his life or so to mutilating cattle
Speaker 1: and feeding a vortex underground. Um, you know, at the
Speaker 1: expense of his career, and but for what, Just because
Speaker 1: the aliens didn't get the verbage right in the signal
Speaker 1: they were being beaming into his brain. And if they
Speaker 1: didn't want him to do this, what's he supposed to
Speaker 1: been doing this whole time? And why hasn't there been
Speaker 1: any course correction on the part of the aliens? And
Speaker 1: what is there? Just a big pile of of cow
Speaker 1: parts building up on the other end of this portal
Speaker 1: on some alien world and they're like, should we do
Speaker 1: something about this? And they're like, well, it would be
Speaker 1: rude to do something now. We should just well let
Speaker 1: him keep doing it. And you know, in another twenty
Speaker 1: years that girl that we looked at will do something
Speaker 1: about it. I you know, I could see this really
Speaker 1: working as a plot where there are aliens and they've
Speaker 1: given humans instructions, but the humans don't understand the instructions correctly,
Speaker 1: so they're just doing absolutely useless stuff because they think
Speaker 1: incorrectly it's what the aliens want. That doesn't really come
Speaker 1: through except in this possible interpretation of what to make
Speaker 1: of the ending here. But if you if you promised
Speaker 1: a movie more thoroughly on that, I think that could
Speaker 1: be great. Yeah, I can see that working. Like if
Speaker 1: you had a movie where somebody has been given alien
Speaker 1: signals to build something and the aliens really want them
Speaker 1: to build a communicator, but instead the person receiving the
Speaker 1: signals is just making weird art. Um you know that
Speaker 1: are are not even weird art, but just like add
Speaker 1: art instead. But they feel like it's divinely inspired because
Speaker 1: the aliens are giving it to them. Like, I can
Speaker 1: see that working, okay, but the ending gets even more
Speaker 1: confusing after that, Jay Michael Vincent Sibil Shepherd gets sucked
Speaker 1: into the portal together, and then we see them in
Speaker 1: a padded white room together as if they are in
Speaker 1: a mental hospital like that was. It's a weird flash
Speaker 1: scene because it does look like a mental hospital, except
Speaker 1: they're in the same room to each with each other,
Speaker 1: like holding each other, which I think is generally not
Speaker 1: what you see in scenes like this that are depicting
Speaker 1: mental institutions. And also it's clearly a human room. It's
Speaker 1: not like a white alien room like you might expect,
Speaker 1: like the White Room and Phantasm for example. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I don't know what to deal with that is. But
Speaker 1: then they don't stay there. After that, there are more
Speaker 1: lights in the sky and then we see Raymond Burr.
Speaker 1: I guess oh, I think I forgot to mention Raymond
Speaker 1: Burr and all his scientists buddies like flew into town
Speaker 1: because of the readings they were getting out of computer
Speaker 1: and they fly in to town. So then you're seeing
Speaker 1: Raymond Burr standing there and he's like looking up at
Speaker 1: the sky watching passing UFOs and he's got tears in
Speaker 1: his eyes. Yeah, that was that reminds me of of
Speaker 1: a previous weird scene though, where they were they were
Speaker 1: crunching the numbers and then he's like, get the chopp already,
Speaker 1: we're going to New Mexico. But he was just in
Speaker 1: New Mexico. So it's like he kind of expected his
Speaker 1: underlings to be like, so you mean we just want
Speaker 1: to go back like you were there yesterday? We do, yeah,
Speaker 1: where you were a few scenes ago. Yeah. Something feels
Speaker 1: very out of order about that, Like it almost feels
Speaker 1: like maybe he wasn't supposed to be in those scenes
Speaker 1: in New Mexico earlier on, but they I don't know.
Speaker 1: So the portal has eaten the prospector at this point, right, Yes, Oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot what happened to him? Yeah, I guess I
Speaker 1: think she like sabers him in the face. He says
Speaker 1: some more stuff, you know, more sort of sympathetic, like
Speaker 1: I had it wrong things, but then he gets sucked
Speaker 1: into the portal. Uh they get white roomed back via
Speaker 1: the UFO deposited back on the earth. That's right. Yes,
Speaker 1: Then they're standing back on the earth. So we don't
Speaker 1: know how long they were gone, but they've been like
Speaker 1: beamed down and they're back in their original clothes, just
Speaker 1: standing by the prospect or. Shack. I think they're just
Speaker 1: standing out on the mountain. Uh. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to make of that at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like why were these three individuals chosen? Why was the
Speaker 1: prospect or feeding animal parts to a portal in a cave?
Speaker 1: How exactly did he get the surgical lightsaber? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: what was his What was the actual alien intent if
Speaker 1: they didn't want him to do those things he was doing?
Speaker 1: And why did they choose them? Were they chosen to
Speaker 1: stop the prospector from doing the things that the aliens
Speaker 1: accidentally told him to do. I just don't get it,
Speaker 1: or I feel like it's only one big trope away
Speaker 1: from making sense, Like you need like a like a
Speaker 1: like a fateful space baby, like these two are supposed
Speaker 1: to be the parents of the future messiah that the
Speaker 1: Aliens send to bring peace to the planet, you know,
Speaker 1: trot something out like that, because as it stands, I
Speaker 1: just have no idea what the Aliens wanted out of this,
Speaker 1: what they got out of it. In the end um
Speaker 1: though our heroes do save the day. I guess though,
Speaker 1: if you want to do a completely incomprehensible freak out ending,
Speaker 1: you could do an ending like, uh, like the Phase
Speaker 1: four one where it's like human viewers cannot even comprehend
Speaker 1: what the new ant civilization is going to be like,
Speaker 1: so we just get abstract art. Uh. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: down with that, but this one, it feels it doesn't
Speaker 1: lean hard enough into just like incomprehensible freak out for
Speaker 1: for that to make sense as an ending, because they
Speaker 1: just end up being beamed back to Earth and it's
Speaker 1: happily ever after. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure how to tell. It feels confusing and uh
Speaker 1: and hard to stitch together at the end um and
Speaker 1: and I'm not even sure what I change about it,
Speaker 1: because if I would, if you were to change something
Speaker 1: about it, you would have to make definite decisions that
Speaker 1: the movie didn't seem to make so I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I feel like one thing that would have helped it
Speaker 1: is if you definitely go clearer on the idea that
Speaker 1: Vincent Chiavelli misunderstood the instructions he was given by the aliens,
Speaker 1: and if there were you wouldn't have to be super
Speaker 1: explicit about it. But if there was even some kind
Speaker 1: of hint as to what their actual intentions had been,
Speaker 1: what did he misunderstand, I feel like that could have
Speaker 1: made it all kind of work better. Yeah, Like even
Speaker 1: if it was even if you didn't reveal it, if
Speaker 1: you just had a scene where like civil Shepherd hands
Speaker 1: the lightsaber item to jam Michael Vincent character and they're like,
Speaker 1: now we have the real together, we have the true
Speaker 1: uh signal. Now we know what to do. Let's go
Speaker 1: out into the world and do it. You don't even
Speaker 1: have to say what it's going to be, but at
Speaker 1: least that gives us the idea. It's like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is this is true course correction here and now we're
Speaker 1: on the right track. Oh. Like they get the lightsaber
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, we were supposed to use this
Speaker 1: on the on seattle, not on cattle. That I understand
Speaker 1: we were supposed to use this to make cows, not
Speaker 1: take cows apart. This was alien plan. I don't know, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a cow synthesis device. Again, it's just hard to
Speaker 1: have like what was the original instruction and then how
Speaker 1: did it get so garbled that this was the end result? Uh?
Speaker 1: Where the It's like, we want you to wander around
Speaker 1: the countryside, uh, cutting open cattle and bringing us um
Speaker 1: some of the more useless parts. Throw it into the portal.
Speaker 1: Where does the portal go? So? I guess to the
Speaker 1: home planet, but we we just don't know. Second film
Speaker 1: in a row with an alien portal though, so we
Speaker 1: have that going for us. Oh well, baffling ending aside.
Speaker 1: I I did really enjoy the return, and I enjoyed
Speaker 1: talking about it. Yeah, yeah, this is a fun one,
Speaker 1: and I think, yeah, if you're if you're a fan
Speaker 1: of movies of this caliber, it's definitely worth worth picking
Speaker 1: up taking a look at. And it it ties in nicely.
Speaker 1: This was a nice, nice example of a we don't
Speaker 1: do this a lot, but having a subject on stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. That also ties into the film
Speaker 1: we're talking about in a weird house. Yeah, and uh, yeah.
Speaker 1: On that note, I'll go ahead and remind everybody that
Speaker 1: we are primarily a science podcast. Here it's Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, But on Fridays we put aside most
Speaker 1: serious concerns and we just talk about a weird film
Speaker 1: with Weird House Cinema. If you want to follow the
Speaker 1: movies that we talk about on Weird House Cinema, you
Speaker 1: can go to one of two places. There is the
Speaker 1: Samuda Music Blog, where I do blogs posts about the
Speaker 1: movies we cover. But also if you use letterbox, that's
Speaker 1: L E T T E R B O x D
Speaker 1: dot com. We have a profile there. Our profile is
Speaker 1: weird House and we have a list of all the
Speaker 1: films that we've covered on Weird House Cinema, and sometimes
Speaker 1: we'll also go ahead and include a listing of the
Speaker 1: next film in case you want to watch ahead huge
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hell,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.