Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe mcformack. And
Speaker 3: today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to be
Speaker 3: looking at the nineteen eighty six science fiction horror comedy
Speaker 3: Terror Vision. I would call this movie a festival of
Speaker 3: bad taste.
Speaker 2: Yes, Terror Vision nineteen eighty six is a campy, cheesy,
Speaker 2: over the top send up of TV trash culture. And
Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons that I love it
Speaker 2: so much I didn't see this one back in the day.
Speaker 2: I only saw this in the last ten years or
Speaker 2: so for the first time. But I think it perfectly
Speaker 2: captures for me the feeling of watching tons of late
Speaker 2: night television in the nineteen nineties, especially the kind of
Speaker 2: stuff you'd encounter on USA Up All Night, which ran
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety eight, and other examples
Speaker 2: of late night programming. You never knew what sort of camp, sweeze,
Speaker 2: outrighte horror or just sheer weirdness you might encounter, and
Speaker 2: for better or worse, likely worse, you also used all
Speaker 2: of this content to sort of try and figure out
Speaker 2: how the world works.
Speaker 3: Oh no, that's a terrible way to figure out how
Speaker 3: the world works.
Speaker 2: I mean this it was it was the nineties. TV
Speaker 2: helped raise us, and you know, we trusted that it
Speaker 2: knew what it was doing. And I think that kind
Speaker 2: of energy is also spoofed somewhat.
Speaker 3: And in this picture, when I say it's a festival
Speaker 3: of bad taste, I mean that deliberately in that it
Speaker 3: seems like every element of the film was sort of
Speaker 3: intentionally selected to turn up the gain on tastelessness in
Speaker 3: whatever way it could, so like the monsters in it
Speaker 3: are intentionally gross. It does get into melt movie territory.
Speaker 3: There's just a lot of like ooh, is in kind
Speaker 3: of like barf inducing texture. In fact, even one of
Speaker 3: the characters looks at the monster and just says, he's
Speaker 3: so barfy. But then on top of that, the film
Speaker 3: is just full like a lot of the satire in
Speaker 3: it is visual satire. It like doesn't it's not even
Speaker 3: in the script. It's just like the way characters are
Speaker 3: dressed and the interior sets and everything are structured in
Speaker 3: such a way as to be maximally offensive to the eye,
Speaker 3: to your sense of like color coordination and generally to
Speaker 3: your sense of like cultural aesthetics or taste, like everything
Speaker 3: is gaudy and over the top, and in a way
Speaker 3: I think is meant to be a kind of I
Speaker 3: don't know exactly what this movie is going for. I
Speaker 3: don't know if it is a satire of American culture
Speaker 3: in the nineteen eighties or a satire of the way
Speaker 3: American culture is typically depicted on TV in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it can kind of be both
Speaker 2: when you get into this idea of here's the way
Speaker 2: things are depicted and then in media, and then that
Speaker 2: media is consumed, and then via consumption of that media,
Speaker 2: is it then reproduced in culture?
Speaker 3: Okay, well, yeah, and this movie is in many ways
Speaker 3: about media consumption. The primary thing people do in this
Speaker 3: movie is watch television and then in various ways become
Speaker 3: affected by what's on the television, sometimes literally, because what's
Speaker 3: on the television is a monster that comes out of
Speaker 3: the screen and then eats and replicates the body of Brampa.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yeah, it's it's a really fun send up,
Speaker 2: I believe, if if I remember correctly from some of
Speaker 2: the extras, Director Ted Nicolau said that he thinks of
Speaker 2: the set and visual feel of Terror Vision as an
Speaker 2: operatic Italian exaggeration of American culture, because, as we'll discuss,
Speaker 2: this was filmed in Rome, and so a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of the crew members were Italian filmmakers.
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting because I feel like I quite often
Speaker 3: able to detect even subdermal Italian influences in film, and
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have been able to tell you that about
Speaker 3: this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't say it has a particular Italian feel
Speaker 2: to it, but yeah, this one's a fun one. It's
Speaker 2: I think it's also what you might classify as a
Speaker 2: satellite TV panic movie. Movies are stories that use fantasy
Speaker 2: to explore the suddenly expansive reach of cable and satellite television,
Speaker 2: as well as the feeling of perhaps overchoice that may
Speaker 2: set in. I think the only other prime example of
Speaker 2: this subgenre, or perhaps sub subgenre is Stay Tuned from
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two that's directed by Peter Hyams of Time
Speaker 2: Coop Fame, starring John Ritter and Eugene Levy. And it's
Speaker 2: interesting that that movie's working title was also Terror Vision,
Speaker 2: and that one involved a family literally sucked into the
Speaker 2: world of TV programming. Been a long time since I've
Speaker 2: seen that one, but I think the family is perhaps
Speaker 2: more likable in that one. One thing that Ted Nicolau
Speaker 2: has said about the Family and Terror Vision is that, yes,
Speaker 2: they're all over the top stereotypes, and they're not supposed
Speaker 2: to be particularly likable because you want to feel okay
Speaker 2: when they all inevitably are eaten by the monster. Now
Speaker 2: in this movie, we're also going back to band camp
Speaker 2: because this is an Empire International picture, so it was
Speaker 2: produced by Charles Band and it was definitely developed title
Speaker 2: and poster first, and yeah, it was a shot back
Speaker 2: to back in Rome alongside nineteen eighty six is trove Man.
Speaker 3: When those Charles Band production tags with the flame textured
Speaker 3: lettering come on at the beginning of the movie, they
Speaker 3: are so evocative they make me feel like I am
Speaker 3: nineteen years old. I'm sitting on the carpeted floor in
Speaker 3: somebody's apartment living room. The fibers of the carpet are
Speaker 3: just sequinned with little yellow bits of popcorn, both fresh
Speaker 3: and fossilized. It's like one thirty five am. It's a Tuesday,
Speaker 3: and the movie is just starting.
Speaker 2: There you go, yeahs and by the light of the
Speaker 2: TV screen. My elevator pitch for this one, I think
Speaker 2: is satellite TV is bridging the gap between the dysfunctional
Speaker 2: American family and dysfunctional alien civilizations.
Speaker 3: Is the alien civilization dysfunctional? I feel like the most
Speaker 3: sympathetic character in the movie is actually the reptilian creature
Speaker 3: who comes through the television screen to try to help
Speaker 3: deal with the mess, but then it's murdered by a
Speaker 3: TV horror host.
Speaker 2: Yes, he is in a way the most likable character,
Speaker 2: the most noble character, but also he's trying to clean
Speaker 2: up his own whoopsie. You know, like, this is a
Speaker 2: culture that raises monstrous pets, and then when they get
Speaker 2: too big and two monsterus, they just like zap them
Speaker 2: across the universe and don't worry about them. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I might I might be applying reading too much dysfunction
Speaker 2: into their ways, but they kind of created this whole mess. Yeah.
Speaker 3: There may be some unethical elements in how the machinery
Speaker 3: of this alien civilization works, but the one alien we
Speaker 3: meet it does seem moderately well intentioned within the range
Speaker 3: of his freedom of action.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we'll see if he can pull pull it off.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and listen to part of the trailer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think JJ on this one. Let's just let's just
Speaker 2: have a little bit of it. This trailer feels a
Speaker 2: little long and definitely contains spoilers and visual spoilers. So
Speaker 2: if you're interested in watching this more or less spoiler free,
Speaker 2: I mean, we've already spoiled a few things, and it's
Speaker 2: it's the kind of film where you can go into
Speaker 2: it with spoilers and you're not going to really ruin
Speaker 2: your experience. But let's just get a part of this
Speaker 2: the trailer audio here.
Speaker 4: Intellectuals are Kyans, just a typical American family. The only
Speaker 4: thing they're missing is a pen. But have we got
Speaker 4: a surprise for that. You see, Stanley Putterman's new satellite
Speaker 4: TV has just gone on the bleak, and it's drawn
Speaker 4: in a creature from out of space. Like all new pets,
Speaker 4: this one's causing a little trouble around the house and
Speaker 4: he's eating the pottermans out of house and home in
Speaker 4: val It seems like this creature will eat anything little,
Speaker 4: just about anything.
Speaker 2: You would wrote amost SuDS and coolouse. This suns In
Speaker 2: to Metal. All Right, now, if you want to watch
Speaker 2: this movie in full before continuing the rest of the episode.
Speaker 2: This is a film that was streaming years back. I
Speaker 2: think I saw it for the first time on Prime,
Speaker 2: back when they had a vast selection of strange films
Speaker 2: that you could just comb through. There's not a great
Speaker 2: streaming option for it as of this recording, but it
Speaker 2: is widely available on Blu Ray. You can actually get
Speaker 2: it as a DVD Blu Ray combo with the video
Speaker 2: Dead nineteen eighty seven, which otherwise has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with this film. But it's a nice, nice Blu Ray edition,
Speaker 2: good quality and has a nice thirty minute behind the
Speaker 2: scenes featurette. This worth watching as well. We rented it
Speaker 2: from Video Trump. All right, let's get into the connections here.
Speaker 2: The people who made this film. The writer and director
Speaker 2: is Ted Nicolau born nineteen forty nine, writer and director,
Speaker 2: probably best known for his work with Charles Band's Empire
Speaker 2: in Full Moon Pictures. He graduated from the University of
Speaker 2: Texas Film Program and worked as a sound recordist on
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Joe for You,
Speaker 2: I included a picture that I saw on Nicolao's Instagram
Speaker 2: account that shows him on the set of Texas Chainsaw
Speaker 2: Massacre with some recording equipment.
Speaker 3: See just chilling in the Sawyer family's living room here.
Speaker 2: I guess that's the porch. Looks like the porch. He's
Speaker 2: out chilling on the porch with the recording equipment. Well,
Speaker 2: I guess everyone's inside just sweating it out.
Speaker 3: He looks like Frank Zappa.
Speaker 2: Yet, well you know that Zappa will come up again
Speaker 2: in this episode. But yeah, really, yeah, yeah, he's got
Speaker 2: that cool mustache going on here. After this, he worked
Speaker 2: as an editor on such films as seventy nine's Tourist Trap,
Speaker 2: eighty one's Butcher Baker, nightmare Maker, Goolies and Trancers in
Speaker 2: eighty four, Robot Jocks in eighty nine, and Trancers two
Speaker 2: in ninety one. So at least a couple of films
Speaker 2: that we've watched.
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen Tourist Trap? That one is weird?
Speaker 2: Is this the one where people were buried up to
Speaker 2: their necks in the dirt or is this a different one?
Speaker 3: Maybe though I don't remember that element. It's a movie
Speaker 3: where it's sort of a Texas Chainsaw style movie where
Speaker 3: you know, some city kids come to the rural estate
Speaker 3: of a creepy guy in Texas. But the creepy guy
Speaker 3: is Chuck Connors, like he plays like a country music
Speaker 3: guy in The Blues Brothers.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, now that I look at it, I
Speaker 2: think I haven't seen Tourist Trap. I think I watched
Speaker 2: a riff track version of this years back. I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about some other film with the buried up to your
Speaker 2: neck situation. I'm thinking of Motel Hell by the Way
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty, which has Rory Calhoun in it. But
Speaker 2: that's one that I've never watched. But I remember my
Speaker 2: aunt explaining the plot to me when I was a
Speaker 2: very young child, and I was like horrified that such
Speaker 2: a film existed. So I think maybe that's kept me
Speaker 2: from seeing it, even though it is I think supposed
Speaker 2: to be a satire of things like the Texas chainsaw massacre.
Speaker 3: I just looked it up and Chuck Connors is not
Speaker 3: in The Blues Brothers, So I don't know why I
Speaker 3: said that earlier.
Speaker 2: Well, it's an extensive cast. Easy to get lost in
Speaker 2: the cast of that film.
Speaker 3: His wiki says that Chuck Connors did meet with leand
Speaker 3: Brezhnev at some point.
Speaker 2: Okay, well anyway, Ted Nikolau. His first writing and directing
Speaker 2: credit is nineteen eighty four as the Dungeon Master, followed
Speaker 2: by the Linda Blair movie Savage Island in eighty five.
Speaker 2: As we mentioned, he was brought in to bring Charles
Speaker 2: bands post and title idea to life with Terror Vision,
Speaker 2: and he pushed, but he got to create its direction
Speaker 2: from there, and so he pushed hard to take the
Speaker 2: concept into comedic and camp territory, and that's where we
Speaker 2: end up landing post Terror Vision, which was not a success.
Speaker 2: Upon release, he went on to direct Subspecies two and three.
Speaker 2: I've heard that Subspecies two is the best one, by
Speaker 2: the way, as well as Subspecies four and five. He
Speaker 2: also directed ninety two s Bad Channels, which touches on
Speaker 2: similar themes as TerrorVision, but with radio and music video.
Speaker 2: He also directed two thousand and four's Puppet Master Versus
Speaker 2: Demonic Toys.
Speaker 3: If he did another TV satire movie, I'd be kind
Speaker 3: of interested to see that one back to back the
Speaker 3: Bad Channels one there, because Terror Vision seems to simultaneously
Speaker 3: skewer American TV consumption and TV programming, but also skewers
Speaker 3: the critique of such like the characters who are going
Speaker 3: on about how bad television is are also made the
Speaker 3: subject of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I hope everyone understands the concept here that
Speaker 2: it's not a film that comes off as really judge
Speaker 2: or anything like. It's not so serious in its satire perhaps,
Speaker 2: and it is ultimately, you know, played for laughs and fun.
Speaker 2: Not at all.
Speaker 3: No, it is wacky and again a festival of bad taste.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about the family in this, a family
Speaker 2: that consists of a husband, a wife, a daughter, a son,
Speaker 2: and a grandfather that in this case lives with them.
Speaker 2: Kind of a structure that's very similar to that of
Speaker 2: the Simpsons.
Speaker 3: Ah okay, yes, except if Grandpa Simpson lived in a
Speaker 3: fallout shelter under the Simpsons house exactly.
Speaker 2: So let's start with the daughter, Susie Putterman played by
Speaker 2: Dianne Franklin born nineteen sixty two, iconic eighties teen actor
Speaker 2: who appeared in The The Last American Virgin and Amityville
Speaker 2: two in nineteen eighty two. She was in Better Off
Speaker 2: Dead and in nineteen eighty five, and also Bill and
Speaker 2: Ted's Excellent Adventure in eighty nine. She also did a
Speaker 2: fair amount of TV and has remained active to this
Speaker 2: day in various productions. Susie Petterman is an MTV eighties
Speaker 2: kid with I don't know, how would you how would
Speaker 2: you describe the fashions of Susie Putterman.
Speaker 3: Well, she's sort of a cross between I think what
Speaker 3: was considered, you know, pop music fashionable at the time,
Speaker 3: So the kind of dress of like Pat Benatar or
Speaker 3: Cindy Lauper, but then crossed with an actual Barbie doll,
Speaker 3: so very over the top, neon pink kind of clothing
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. And she also has really really
Speaker 3: big hair. Her hair extends I'd say at least ten
Speaker 3: inches off of her scalp.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Her her entire identity seems to be based on
Speaker 2: watching MTV, which again is perfect fits the theme perfectly.
Speaker 2: And Franklin is absolutely great in the role. Just the
Speaker 2: right amount of campyus it's over the top and also
Speaker 2: just a little bit green in all the right ways
Speaker 2: for a movie like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think she understood what was going on all right.
Speaker 2: Then we have the younger son, Sherman Putterman, played by
Speaker 2: Chad Allen born nineteen seventy four eighties child actor who
Speaker 2: also did a lot of TV. Voiced Charlie Brown on
Speaker 2: Happy New Year Charlie Brown in eighty six prior to
Speaker 2: this film, and his TV credits include such shows as
Speaker 2: Webster Tales from the Dark Side, Highway to Heaven, Punky Brewster,
Speaker 2: Star Trek, The Next Generation, and The Wonder Years. Sherman
Speaker 2: is essentially kind of a kid Rambo. He idolizes Grandpa
Speaker 2: and is into whatever Grandpa's into, because I guess part
Speaker 2: of it is that his actual parents are kind of
Speaker 2: completely checked out and chasing their own interests. Right.
Speaker 3: They are hedonistic, materialist eighties yuppies.
Speaker 2: All right, Well let's talk about them. The dad, Stan Putterman,
Speaker 2: is played by the excellent they always excellent Garrett Graham
Speaker 2: born nineteen forty nine. We've discussed Garrett Graham before, as
Speaker 2: he had a small but fun role in another great
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six horror comedy, Chop Mallugh.
Speaker 3: Was he just like a security guard in that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, a doomed security guard. I think he was doomed.
Speaker 2: I don't remember. He was very distracted.
Speaker 3: I don't think I've seen a movie Garrett Graham was
Speaker 3: in where he survived.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he plays a lot of like mid or early
Speaker 2: horror film death characters. I think but Yeah. Is was
Speaker 2: an American stage, television and film actor with a knack
Speaker 2: for camp. He appeared in four different Brian to Palm
Speaker 2: of films, most notably nineteen seventy four is Phantom of
Speaker 2: the Paradise, in which he plays Beef. Graham's other credits
Speaker 2: include nineteen seventy seven's Demon Seed, eighty six is Rat Boy,
Speaker 2: eighty seven's It's a Live three Island of the Alive
Speaker 2: Police Academy six in nineteen eighty nine, and he plays
Speaker 2: the titular Bud in Chud two Bud the Chud, also
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty nine. He's in Child's Play two from
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety and he did. He has numerous TV credits
Speaker 2: as well, including I Mean All Sorts of Stuff, multiple Tracks, Shit, Weird, Science,
Speaker 2: Law and Order, and one Tales from the Crypt episode
Speaker 2: The Man Who Is Death. His last credit was in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: This character Stan is egocentric, hedonistic, seeking of pleasure and adulation,
Speaker 3: and he wants to be respected for his skills at
Speaker 3: assembling do it yourself home electronics installations, especially the new
Speaker 3: satellite Dish.
Speaker 2: Now playing his wife. The mom. Raquel Putterman is Mary
Speaker 2: Warrenoff born nineteen forty three, another camp and genre legend
Speaker 2: that we also mentioned in Chopping Mom because she has
Speaker 2: a very small part in that. She started out as
Speaker 2: a Warhol superstar what back in the sixties, I believe,
Speaker 2: and acted in a ton of B movies, especially Corman films.
Speaker 2: She also did a lot of TV and stage work.
Speaker 2: I always smile when she shows up in a film
Speaker 2: because she's generally an absolute delight. She often appeared in
Speaker 2: films alongside friend and fellow actor Paul Martel, her director
Speaker 2: and co star in nineteen eighty two's Eating Raoul. Her
Speaker 2: other credits include seventy five's Death Race two thousand, which
Speaker 2: is a very fun, kind of wacky Corman race movie
Speaker 2: like Racing Across the Desert, nineteen seventy nine's Rock and
Speaker 2: Roll High School, and nineteen eighty four's Night of the Comet.
Speaker 2: She did one episode of The Monster's Horror Anthology TV show,
Speaker 2: and she still occasionally acts. She was in two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine's House of the.
Speaker 3: Devil, Mary Warnow's great I always love to see her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in this she's an aerobics enthusiast and general self
Speaker 2: absorbed mom. Apparently she was called in to read for
Speaker 2: the role of Medusa, who will get to in a bit,
Speaker 2: but then campaigned for the role of the mother instead
Speaker 2: and she got it, and yeah, I think she's great
Speaker 2: in this role, all right. And then we have Grandpa
Speaker 2: Putterman played by Bert Remsen, who have nineteen twenty five
Speaker 2: through nineteen ninety nine American character actor with a lot
Speaker 2: of credits, a lot of TV credits, a lot of
Speaker 2: them like war in Westerns going back to the early
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties. He pops up in such films as fifty
Speaker 2: nine's Port Chop Hill, fifty nine's Destination Space, He's in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five's Nashville, he's in nineteen ninety's Dick Tracy,
Speaker 2: he's in The Bodyguard from ninety two, and he's in
Speaker 2: Maverick from ninety four. Like I say, his TV credits
Speaker 2: are just really extensive and include things like the original
Speaker 2: Outer Limits but also the Andy Griffith Show. Grandpa in
Speaker 2: this film is a kooky conspiracy nuts survivalist who again
Speaker 2: lives in the family's fallout shelter beneath the house, and
Speaker 2: he's a he's an enthusiastic advocate of regenerated lizard tail jerky.
Speaker 3: You know, I thought it was interesting that this is
Speaker 3: a character who I would not be surprised to see
Speaker 3: in a wacky satirical film of today. But I don't know,
Speaker 3: he seems kind of ahead of his time. I guess
Speaker 3: there were like apocalypse preppers in the eighties too, but
Speaker 3: I don't know that it seems like a less volent
Speaker 3: trope from that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, now we mentioned Susie Petterman. Well, Susie
Speaker 2: has a boyfriend. Her boyfriend is O D, which is
Speaker 2: not an Irish name. As the character this chuck about
Speaker 2: this in the film, but it's the initials O D
Speaker 2: played by John Grys born nineteen fifty seven. Many of
Speaker 2: you probably know John Gry's best as Uncle Rico in
Speaker 2: two thousand and four as Napoleon Dynamite. He's great in that,
Speaker 2: but he's been a fun, weird presence in TV and
Speaker 2: film for a long time. Prior to Terror Vision, he
Speaker 2: did various teen movies, including Real Genius in eighty five.
Speaker 2: Other credits include Running Scared in eighty six. He pops
Speaker 2: up in Monster Squad in eighty seven, Fright Night two
Speaker 2: in eighty eight, The Grifters in nineteen ninety, Men in
Speaker 2: Black in ninety seven, Taken Three in twenty fourteen, and
Speaker 2: his TV credits include such shows as The nineties Outer Limits,
Speaker 2: Sons of Anarchy, Lost, Creep Corp. LC, and The White Lotus.
Speaker 2: So he's all over the place.
Speaker 3: He is in The White Lotus, he's he's the wolf
Speaker 3: Man in Monster Squad, he's okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 3: you know what, great respect to him in Terror Vision
Speaker 3: because much like Diane Franklin, like he gets what's going on,
Speaker 3: and in his case, he does not hold back at all.
Speaker 3: He just like goes into this role teeth first.
Speaker 2: Yeah. On the extras on the disk they interview him
Speaker 2: and he's like, yeah, I would. We were just all in.
Speaker 2: But at a time or two I'd come up to
Speaker 2: Ted Nicolau and it be like, Ted, am I am
Speaker 2: I doing too much?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 2: Am I going? Is it this too over the top?
Speaker 2: And Nikola would be like, no, No, it's perfect, it's perfect.
Speaker 2: Keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 4: More.
Speaker 3: Spittle should be flying out of your mouth every line
Speaker 3: you deliver.
Speaker 2: All right, now we're getting into just a we're gonna try.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try and grow a little shorter on these.
Speaker 2: But we have some other bit characters here. There's a
Speaker 2: character named Spiro who shows up with his girlfriend Cherry.
Speaker 2: Spiro is played by Alejandro Ray, who lived nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: through nineteen eighty seven. Argentinian born actor and occasional TV director,
Speaker 2: active back into the nineteen fifties. Did a lot of
Speaker 2: TV in Westerns, did seventy eight episodes of The Flying Nun,
Speaker 2: an episode of Night Gallery pops up in nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: the Ninth Figuration, and you better know he did an
Speaker 2: episode of The Love Book.
Speaker 3: He's doing an episode of The Love Boat in this movie.
Speaker 2: He is. Yeah, I guess he's supposed to be an insensitive,
Speaker 2: over the top Euroster stereotype, specifically like a Greek stereotype.
Speaker 2: I guess. I suppose there's the fact that Nicolau I
Speaker 2: assume of Greek descent. I don't know, but yeah, Spiro
Speaker 2: and his girlfriend Cherry are adventurous lovers who have been
Speaker 2: invited to the Spiderman Home. Cherry is played by Randy
Speaker 2: Brooks born nineteen fifty four. She did a lot of
Speaker 2: action and crime oriented TV work. She was in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three's The Man with Two Brains and nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: six is Hamburger the Motion Picture. She also has a
Speaker 2: bit part in the Michael Crichton written and directed film
Speaker 2: Looker from nineteen eighty one. Oh.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I ever even heard of that.
Speaker 3: But what is Hamburger the Motion Picture? Is that like
Speaker 3: a McDonald's tie in thing.
Speaker 2: It's not what I'm familiar with. It looks like one
Speaker 2: of these like over the top comedy films of the
Speaker 2: time that either didn't resonate then and certainly hasn't continued
Speaker 2: to resonate now. Like you never hear, I never hear
Speaker 2: anything about it. Maybe it's great, but I've never seen it.
Speaker 3: Oh, I just looked it up. Okay, it says it
Speaker 3: is one of the nineteen eighties teen sex comedy movies.
Speaker 2: All Right, there you go.
Speaker 3: Not a not a wonderful genre that people love revisiting
Speaker 3: this and the poster is just repulsive. It's just like
Speaker 3: a bunch of people inside a Hamburger bun.
Speaker 2: It it was acceptable in the eighties. But anyway, we
Speaker 2: mentioned there was going to be a Medusa in this.
Speaker 2: We do have a character named Medusa played by Jennifer
Speaker 2: Richards born nineteen forty eight Pleasure. Essentially, this is a
Speaker 2: late night horror host in the vein of Elvira. She
Speaker 2: in this film. She also seems to have a nine
Speaker 2: hundred number you can call, which also is like spot
Speaker 2: on for memories of watching late night television, you know,
Speaker 2: particularly in the nineties or I guess the late eighties.
Speaker 2: Richard's credits include a fair amount of TV, including Night Court,
Speaker 2: Mama's Family, and Star Trek The Next Generation.
Speaker 3: Another teeth first performance. She's just like chomping the scenery.
Speaker 3: She's doing great.
Speaker 2: Speaking of teeth, we also have funny Carl Davis in this.
Speaker 2: He plays his character Norton, who's the satellite dish guy.
Speaker 2: I think most people know him from his most culturally
Speaker 2: important role, and that is playing Rabbit in Transfers too.
Speaker 3: You know, I was thinking where would more people know
Speaker 3: him from, and it would probably be he's like the
Speaker 3: guy who complains about his food at the Judge Reinhold's
Speaker 3: restaurant in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And I guess
Speaker 3: he's also in Filma and Louise. Don't remember what he
Speaker 3: is in that he but he Yeah. When I was like,
Speaker 3: I recognize this guy. What do I recognize him from?
Speaker 3: It was transfers To. He's the what like, he's a
Speaker 3: hospital orderly who helps one of Jack Death's reincarnated time
Speaker 3: travel wives escape from an institution controlled by the bad guys.
Speaker 2: I believe that's it. I believe you nailed it, Joe. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I would say Sonny Carl Davis is probably recognized for
Speaker 2: films like Filma and Luise and Fast Times at Richmond High,
Speaker 2: but he is known for playing Rabbit, specifically in transfers To.
Speaker 2: But this character also came back in multiple Evil Bong movies,
Speaker 2: so you know there's a whole He has an expanded
Speaker 2: role within the Charles Band expanded cinematic universe. Right now,
Speaker 2: going behind the scenes, we have to mention that John
Speaker 2: Carl Beechler worked on this this film Born. He lived
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty two through twenty nineteen. A practical special effects
Speaker 2: and makeup legend.
Speaker 3: John Carl Beckler to make slime. He liked to make
Speaker 3: like makeup effects and creature models and stuff that were
Speaker 3: covered in some sort of mucus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a lot of mucus to go around
Speaker 2: in this film. He's come up on the show before
Speaker 2: because he did special effects on nineteen eighty six The Eliminators,
Speaker 2: which I guess wasn't particularly mucusy, But he also worked
Speaker 2: on nineteen eighty nine's Arena, which definitely had its sheriff mucus.
Speaker 3: The Eliminators was the Bayou Betty movie, and the Arena
Speaker 3: was the one where the guy fights people. He fights aliens.
Speaker 3: He like has boxing matches with giant crickets.
Speaker 2: That's right. Beekler worked on a number of cult classic
Speaker 2: horror films, including eighty five's Reanimator eighty six Is From Beyond,
Speaker 2: both very drippy movies. Just yeah, a master of flesh
Speaker 2: and blood in films like this. He also had a
Speaker 2: great career as a director, filming eighty six's trollll So
Speaker 2: at the time of this movie, he was editing Troll
Speaker 2: at night because they had just wrapped and he was
Speaker 2: shooting this during the day, working on special effects on
Speaker 2: this during the day. All in Rome, let's see. He
Speaker 2: also directed eighty seven Cellar Dweller. He directed Friday the
Speaker 2: Thirteenth and New Blood, and also nineteen nineties Goolies Go
Speaker 2: to College, just to name a few. What are the
Speaker 2: Goolies major in toilet studies?
Speaker 3: Sure, he did the Friday the Thirteenth movie with the
Speaker 3: psychic girl in it. It's the one that's Jason versus
Speaker 3: the girl who has Telekinesis.
Speaker 2: That one's great? I love that one. It's one of
Speaker 2: the best. Yeah, and Jason looks at his best in that.
Speaker 2: It's just amazing.
Speaker 3: Look, agreed, that's the first Kane Hodder movie and has
Speaker 3: one of the best Jason costume designs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely well. In this he designed and built the
Speaker 2: Hungry Beast, which we'll explain in the pit, based on
Speaker 2: some ideas from Ted Nicolau. Apparently they wanted a monster
Speaker 2: that looked horrifying and stupid at the same time. I
Speaker 2: think they nailed it all right. Quick note on the
Speaker 2: music here, So the score is by Richard Band. This
Speaker 2: is Charles Band's brother born nineteen fifty three, who has
Speaker 2: just worked extensively on Empire and Full Moon Pictures. So
Speaker 2: just you know, if you can name a Full Moon picture,
Speaker 2: he probably scored it. The score here is aggressively campy
Speaker 2: and kooky, but effective. Apparently Nicolau was originally in talks
Speaker 2: with both the Cramps and Frank Zappa about possibly scoring
Speaker 2: the film, but and they didn't approach band at first
Speaker 2: because they weren't sure he was going to be able
Speaker 2: to really ratchet up the camp, but he accepted the challenge,
Speaker 2: and I think it works pretty well.
Speaker 3: Wow, I could see the Cramps or Frank Zappa being
Speaker 3: perfect for this that. Yeah, both make sense.
Speaker 2: But then they were able to bring in on the
Speaker 2: soundtrack the American art rock band The Fibonaccis, who wrote
Speaker 2: and recorded five tracks for the film, including off the
Speaker 2: excellent theme song. They came out of the Los Angeles
Speaker 2: art punk scene and were from eighty one through eighty eight,
Speaker 2: and then I think they came back together in ninety two. Briefly.
Speaker 2: Their songs pop up on another of a number of
Speaker 2: sort of indie films, on eighty two's Android eighty seven
Speaker 2: slam Dance and lead to vocalist Maggie Song also acted
Speaker 2: in another eighties weird camp art horror film of note,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine's Doctor Caligari has nothing to do with
Speaker 2: the cabinet Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, and I'm not sure
Speaker 2: it's right for weird House, but it is a trip
Speaker 2: if you were interested in that sort of film. Let's
Speaker 2: hear just a taste of the theme song terror Vision
Speaker 2: by the Fibonaccis. Give us a legal limit on this one.
Speaker 2: JJ I love it. I'm not sure if we got
Speaker 2: to hear much of the lyrics there, but they're pretty
Speaker 2: great and they're like they're really on message. Here, cold
Speaker 2: October night, Mom and Dad asleep, creeping as their bedroom door.
Speaker 2: I hear the cries of sheep. I dance by the
Speaker 2: light of the TV screen all night long. I watched
Speaker 2: the Medusa's eyes turn green. But my own reflection I've
Speaker 2: never seen love it.
Speaker 3: Oh Okay, maybe I'm reading too deep into this, but
Speaker 3: the cries of sheep is that so on one hand,
Speaker 3: you could say that is like it's just a spooky
Speaker 3: horror image sheep are being led to the slaughter, but
Speaker 3: also it's like, ah, we are all sheep watching the
Speaker 3: TV and just you know, doing whatever, reproducing whatever activities
Speaker 3: we see on the screen. But also the line about
Speaker 3: Medusa's eyes turned green. But my own reflection I've never
Speaker 3: seen again. Am I reading too much into it that
Speaker 3: this is saying like the because we are able to
Speaker 3: just sort of like hypnotize ourselves with constant media, we
Speaker 3: like never have time to self reflect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I think it's fair. I think
Speaker 2: it's okay, a fair analysis. If you happen to be
Speaker 2: a vinyl collector, you can get the original soundtrack and
Speaker 2: score on vinyl from a company I'm not familiar with,
Speaker 2: wr WTFWW Records, but it includes both the Richard Bands
Speaker 2: score and those five tracks by the zibanachis all right, Joe, Well,
Speaker 2: shall we go ahead and bang on the satellite dish
Speaker 2: and tune into the plot? Right?
Speaker 3: So, I don't think it would make sense to cover
Speaker 3: every scene in the plot like we do with some
Speaker 3: movies here, because this is more of a wacky satirical film,
Speaker 3: So I don't know, it feels weird to do a
Speaker 3: full scene by scene recap, but I think we will
Speaker 3: zoom in pretty close on like the opening.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So after those flame textured Charles Band production tags go away,
Speaker 3: the movie opens on a miniature model planet surface set
Speaker 3: and there is a dark blue alien sky, a red
Speaker 3: gas giant looming over the horizon, and a bunch of
Speaker 3: towers and monuments and various structures cover and greebles. And
Speaker 3: I always love this kind of thing, love a model
Speaker 3: planet surface.
Speaker 2: Yeah you can. You can definitely spot a piece of
Speaker 2: USS Enterprise model kit in there upside down. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think there are also some vacuum cleaner attachment parts
Speaker 3: that have and spray painted silver.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Nice.
Speaker 3: And then we get a little key at the bottom.
Speaker 3: It says Planet Pluton Sanitation Department, and then there's a pause,
Speaker 3: and then the third line appears. It says mutant creature
Speaker 3: disposal unit. That got to laugh out of me. I
Speaker 3: don't know that that was good. That's just like very specific.
Speaker 3: So then we cut inside straight to an extreme close
Speaker 3: up of this disgusting face. It's sort of like a
Speaker 3: sentient slice of burned pizza, some gross, wet red wall
Speaker 3: of skinless flesh with a single eyeball and a mouth
Speaker 3: with barracu to teeth, and it is gargling at us.
Speaker 3: Then we pull back and revealed that this face is
Speaker 3: behind some kind of glass shield, and then there is
Speaker 3: a humanoid alien with a scaly reptilian head banging on
Speaker 3: the glass, and the humanoid alien moves over to a
Speaker 3: control panel and yanks a lever which apparently incinerates the
Speaker 3: wall of pizza monster behind the glass. You know, some
Speaker 3: kind of energy fills the room. I guess like they
Speaker 3: tried to do in the Green Slime to you know,
Speaker 3: incinerate the the green slime that was clinging to the
Speaker 3: suits that the astronauts brought back with them from the asteroid.
Speaker 3: But much like in the Green Slime, it doesn't work.
Speaker 3: Instead of the creature being incinerated, we see a tower
Speaker 3: kind of shoot out a little bullet of electricity into
Speaker 3: space and it flies around and then bounces between planets
Speaker 3: like a pinball in a pinball cabinet, you know, hitting
Speaker 3: the bumpers, and then it finally comes straight at the
Speaker 3: screen and I think this means that the Pea entity
Speaker 3: is coming to Earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems like what's going to happen. And you know,
Speaker 2: this is one of those films where they they showed
Speaker 2: us the monster immediately, which I think works in two
Speaker 2: ways for this film. For starters, the monster looks great,
Speaker 2: Bee cler hit it out of the park here with
Speaker 2: the Hungry Beast. But also the sort of movie this is.
Speaker 2: This is not a movie that is built around the
Speaker 2: suspense of what will the monster look like?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because this is this is not a horror movie.
Speaker 3: This is a comedy movie using the conventions of horror,
Speaker 3: and you know, keeping the keeping the monsters form more
Speaker 3: secret I think works better for the purpose of suspense.
Speaker 3: There's something that is funnier about showing the monster right
Speaker 3: at the beginning. Then we go to Earth and we
Speaker 3: meet our core family. We already talked about these characters,
Speaker 3: but briefly, there is Stan the father. That's Garrett Graham.
Speaker 3: When you first meet him, he is fiddling with the
Speaker 3: install it yourself satellite TV antenna that he just bought.
Speaker 3: I think this is picking up on You know, this
Speaker 3: movie is not alone in this that there is a
Speaker 3: common trope in eighties movies of the suburban dad who
Speaker 3: loves to takes great pride in installing expensive electronics himself,
Speaker 3: you know, in his new sound system or in setting
Speaker 3: up the new television and so forth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's at once overconfident in his own abilities to
Speaker 2: tinker with this stuff, but also has no patience for it.
Speaker 2: And that is also very demanding of the expertise that's
Speaker 2: called in to actually fix it.
Speaker 3: Oh right, which is why we've got Sunny Carl Davis
Speaker 3: just like standing there nearby. At first, I thought like, Okay,
Speaker 3: is this guy supposed to be like a friend or
Speaker 3: a neighbor of Garrett Graham's. But no, he is the
Speaker 3: television antenna repair guy and he's standing there drinking drinking
Speaker 3: beers out of Garrett Graham's fridge.
Speaker 2: Oh not just any beers there, Heine's. They're Heinekens. This
Speaker 2: this movie seems to have been sponsored by Heineken.
Speaker 3: They say the word heinee of at least ten times times.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, if it's funny once, just keep doing it.
Speaker 3: It'll be funny the seventh time you talk about guzzling
Speaker 3: a heini Yeah.
Speaker 2: We also have to note like at this point, we're
Speaker 2: outside the house. We'll get to talk about the interior
Speaker 2: of the house in a minute, but just outside, it's
Speaker 2: clear that this was an interior set that was created
Speaker 2: to look like, you know, the outside of this house
Speaker 2: probably somewhere in suburban California. But it has this just
Speaker 2: wonderful look because on one hand, it doesn't feel one
Speaker 2: hundred percent fake. You know, it doesn't feel completely phony.
Speaker 2: It feels accurate, but it also feels artificial enough that
Speaker 2: we really get into this this wonderful zone that you know,
Speaker 2: I would compare it to some of the films of
Speaker 2: say Tim Burton artificial satirical America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I would not have thought of that comparison,
Speaker 3: but yeah, the Tim Burton thing, it has a kind
Speaker 3: of Edward Scissorhands quality to the satirical picture painted of
Speaker 3: subourban America, except it is a little less precious, not
Speaker 3: a little, a lot less precious and more wacky and disgusting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now inside the house we meet Raquel, that's the mother
Speaker 3: played by Mary Warrenov and she's trying to do her aerobics.
Speaker 3: This is another thing that I feel like there are
Speaker 3: a million movies that have the you know, the wealthy
Speaker 3: suburban mom from the eighties who's constantly wearing an aerobics
Speaker 3: outfit and doing aerobics along with like a TV program.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, absolute stereotype.
Speaker 3: Here stereotypes continue with the daughter Suzig and she's dressed.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a Pat Benatar kind of thing. There's spandex,
Speaker 3: a pink sweater, you know, like thirty different necklaces and
Speaker 3: beads and bracelets, multicolored hairdo that comes way up off
Speaker 3: the top of her head, big big hair. The son Sherman.
Speaker 3: He likes to play army. You know, that's his whole personality. Basically,
Speaker 3: he likes to run around with toy guns, and then
Speaker 3: later in the movie, it turns out his grandfather has
Speaker 3: turned has trained him how to use like grenades and
Speaker 3: real machine guns.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and I guess Gramps has done most of
Speaker 2: the raising of the child, as Dad is too interested
Speaker 2: in his own pursuits.
Speaker 3: Yes, when we first meet Gramps, he comes through the
Speaker 3: front door muttering about some conspiracy involving U two spy planes,
Speaker 3: and he's carrying a sign about eating lizards to survive
Speaker 3: the apocalypse. And we understand that Gramps's day job is
Speaker 3: that he stands on a street corner downtown with this
Speaker 3: sign and yells at people and hands out pamphlets about
Speaker 3: the end of the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he's wearing this ridiculous outfit. There's like a
Speaker 2: military uniform with plastic lizards glued to it and stuff.
Speaker 2: It's so over the top, it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Now, well, Garrett Graham is working on the satellite dish.
Speaker 3: Suddenly there was a giant bolt of lightning from space
Speaker 3: and it comes down into the satellite dish. Somehow it
Speaker 3: fixes the satellite dish and now the TV's working all right.
Speaker 3: And so there's a scene where all the men they're
Speaker 3: like holding this remote control for the TV, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, the size is bigger than a laptop would be.
Speaker 3: Now it's got all these dials and controls on it,
Speaker 3: and they're flipping around to enjoy their own favorite channels.
Speaker 3: So for a bit they watch like a martial arts movie,
Speaker 3: and then they tune into just footage of like troops
Speaker 3: marching around from some historical thing, and the Gramps is like, oh,
Speaker 3: the troop movements. We've got to watch this. For some reason,
Speaker 3: they just as a whole family stand there and watch
Speaker 3: pornography for a minute. And then oh, and then they
Speaker 3: turned that the daughter's requests. They put it on MTV
Speaker 3: and it's some Nigel Toughnell type heavy metal singer going
Speaker 3: like eh, And of course Susie is really into it,
Speaker 3: but also Mary Warnov she's like, this is wrong. He's
Speaker 3: so nasty, but clearly she is into heavy metal also secretly.
Speaker 3: Now Grams does not like MTV. He says it is
Speaker 3: brain rot, it is the intellectual conspiracy, and he you know,
Speaker 3: changes the channel, which ends up being turned to what
Speaker 3: is the MEDUSA program. It's called Medusa's midnight horror thon, which,
Speaker 3: as you said earlier, Rob is an Elvira style comedically
Speaker 3: seductive horror host.
Speaker 2: Elvira, the Mistress of the Dark being the character portrayed
Speaker 2: by Cassandra Peterson. That's a campy, over the top, voluptuous
Speaker 2: kind of like Queen of the Night. You could compare
Speaker 2: this character Elvira to Vampira of decades prior, who, of course,
Speaker 2: pops up in the excellent Edwood movie Plan nine from
Speaker 2: Outer Space.
Speaker 3: At one point, I think Vampira tried to sue Elvira
Speaker 3: for stealing her act, but I don't know how that
Speaker 3: court case worked out.
Speaker 2: We love them both, We're not going to choose sides now.
Speaker 3: Of course, Gramps turns into the cartoon wolf when Medusa
Speaker 3: comes on TV. You know, his eye as are shooting
Speaker 3: six feet out of his head, and he comes up
Speaker 3: with a way of rationalizing why it's okay to keep
Speaker 3: watching this even though you know the MTV was brain rot.
Speaker 3: He says, war stories and horror movies are educational. You know,
Speaker 3: they're survival oriented. And I loved this because it reminds
Speaker 3: me of one of my favorite bits of real world
Speaker 3: video ever, which if you've never seen this before, you
Speaker 3: should look it up. It is a nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 3: reported segment by a local news station in Fort Worth,
Speaker 3: Texas about the release of Ridley Scott's Alien, where they've
Speaker 3: got a reporter on the ground interviewing people coming out
Speaker 3: of the movie theater who have just watched Daien, including
Speaker 3: people who brought their small children with them, and so
Speaker 3: they're like asking, kids, you know, did you like was
Speaker 3: the movie scary? Did you like it? So they talked
Speaker 3: to this one boy and he's like, uh, yeah, it
Speaker 3: was scary. Yeah, I'm glad I saw it. But then
Speaker 3: they go up to this father who is there with
Speaker 3: his wife and an elementary school age son, and the
Speaker 3: reporter goes, are you sorry, sir you brought your son
Speaker 3: along to see Alien? And the father is like, no, ma'am,
Speaker 3: I think he needs to know that things like this
Speaker 3: could happen in life. No, ma'am, I think you should
Speaker 3: have seen it.
Speaker 4: There's something that he needs to know that things could
Speaker 4: like that could happen in life. You know.
Speaker 2: I mean, on one hand, this is true. I mean,
Speaker 2: Alien is a story that you can learn something from,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: To be fair to Yeah, okay, I don't know about
Speaker 3: things like this could happen depends on how loose you
Speaker 3: are with things like this, But yeah, there are good
Speaker 3: lessons in Alien, like, for example, if they had just
Speaker 3: listened to Ripley and followed quarantine, none of this would
Speaker 3: have ever happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just follow protocol. An Alien is essentially a shake
Speaker 2: hands with danger in space like this is what happens
Speaker 2: when you don't follow protocol. Xenomorph run loud but.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Gramp's seems to take the same attitude. In Terror
Speaker 3: Vision MTV may be degeneracy, but lusty horror movies are educational.
Speaker 3: The events of Terror Vision are contingencies that.
Speaker 2: Should be prepared for absolutely.
Speaker 3: At some point here there is a scene where the
Speaker 3: parents meet Ode, who is Susie's boyfriend. And again this
Speaker 3: is Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite and he is in
Speaker 3: full heavy metal gear. You know, he's got all the
Speaker 3: leather and the studs, and he's got long hair, and
Speaker 3: he is very bill and ted in personality.
Speaker 2: Dude, Yeah, he's got chains. He's got a band shirt.
Speaker 2: I think it says wasp like wasp on it. I'm
Speaker 2: is this a real band? I really am not sure.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe it's his band, because we also
Speaker 2: learned that he is a genius musician.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we hear a bit of his band later,
Speaker 3: not really enough to make an impression because they start
Speaker 3: playing it for the monster later and the monster just
Speaker 3: destroys the speakers. But anyway, they first see okay, their
Speaker 3: daughter's got a heavy metal boyfriend, and they're all horrified.
Speaker 3: But then it seems like they're trying to impress him,
Speaker 3: which makes sense because Od is cool. You know. While
Speaker 3: while waiting for Susie to get ready, he starts doing
Speaker 3: air guitar by himself to no music except the squealing
Speaker 3: of a lizard battle on the TV. So, like Gramps
Speaker 3: and Sherman are watching Robot Monster. It's robot and it's
Speaker 3: that scene where the lizards fight. But I wonder if
Speaker 3: you noticed this, rob they're watching Robot Monster, but not
Speaker 3: with original audio. It looks like it's a version of
Speaker 3: the movie that has been redubbed. I don't know if
Speaker 3: that was a rights thing or what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, but I did notice that that
Speaker 2: they they clearly redubbed it for use here could have
Speaker 2: been audio quality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So at one point, while they're in the living
Speaker 3: room there. Odie looks at Gramps and he goes, hey,
Speaker 3: oh dude, what you eaten? And yeah, he says, lizard
Speaker 3: tale jerky want to stick And he says, no, thanks,
Speaker 3: I just pigged out. But anyway, here we get an
Speaker 3: opportunity for Gramps to describe his theory, handing od one
Speaker 3: of his pamphlets. His theory is that lizard tails are
Speaker 3: the perfect regenerating food source, because he says, you eat
Speaker 3: the tail, the lizard don't give a hoot. He just
Speaker 3: grows a new one. Then you eat that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure this actually works in real life,
Speaker 2: but no, you know. But then again, one gets the
Speaker 2: impression that that grandpa here has signed up for a
Speaker 2: number of ideas that don't actually work in real life.
Speaker 2: He's again clearly into a lot of conspiracy thinking.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Garrett Graham and Mary warrenov are having a conversation
Speaker 3: about the daughter's boyfriend and they're like, why do kids
Speaker 3: dress like that? You know, Ode doesn't he know how
Speaker 3: ridiculous he looks? And this is while Garrett Graham is
Speaker 3: putting on his like swinger seduction outfit, which is a
Speaker 3: shirt with a huge collar opened down to like the
Speaker 3: his stomach and wearing a bunch of gold chains.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the costuming is always on point. Earlier, when
Speaker 2: he's working on the satellite dish, he has an ascot. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's great.
Speaker 3: There's also somewhere in here on the TV there's a
Speaker 3: TV commercial for a TV called the Super TV, the
Speaker 3: Super Television, which is shown rotating on a TV screen
Speaker 3: on the TV screen, so the TV is showing a
Speaker 3: TV that is showing a TV and they're all the
Speaker 3: same TV.
Speaker 2: Just a blissful holy moment.
Speaker 3: The plot really gets going when Gramps tries to change
Speaker 3: the channel again. He wants to look at like the
Speaker 3: troop movements again so called. I think this looks like
Speaker 3: these are just like old fascist newsreels or something. I
Speaker 3: don't know what they are. But he ends up tuning
Speaker 3: into the wrong thing. He's tuning into a monster. There's
Speaker 3: just like a claw and belching sounds and an eyeball
Speaker 3: on the TV screen. And they watched that for a while,
Speaker 3: but it seems to be kind of boring because like
Speaker 3: nothing's happening. It's just a monster there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is, of course the hungry base that has
Speaker 2: been zapped here from across the galaxy, and it's just
Speaker 2: sort of hanging out somehow on the other side of
Speaker 2: the TV screen.
Speaker 3: Now before it actually emerges from the TV. At some
Speaker 3: point they end up watching part of another real movie,
Speaker 3: so they were doing Robot Monster earlier. Later they're watching
Speaker 3: The Giant Claw, which is a sort of American kaiju
Speaker 3: movie from nineteen fifty seven about a large bird from
Speaker 3: outer space that attacks airplanes.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's a Sam Katzman production, same producer of
Speaker 2: a Creature with the Adam Brain. Oh okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: But anyway, I guess even the Giant Claw cannot hold
Speaker 3: their attention. So Gram's and Sherman fall asleep watching TV,
Speaker 3: and then while they're asleep, a slime covered tentacle monster
Speaker 3: slithers out of the screen of the TV, just like
Speaker 3: the girl in the Ring and is now in three
Speaker 3: dimensional reality.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, and the Hungry Beast here is just amazing,
Speaker 2: absolutely fantastic practical effects monster. It's a morphous and thang
Speaker 2: like as in John Carpenter's The Thing, but at the
Speaker 2: same time has just a completely bonker's look to it,
Speaker 2: like there's some perhaps some rat think qualities. There also
Speaker 2: qualities of just a big, happy dog, which will become
Speaker 2: more apparent later on in the picture. Key appendages, if
Speaker 2: we can call them, that seem to be an eyeball tentacle,
Speaker 2: a claw tentacle, and a tongue like a big, fleshy
Speaker 2: tongue that is rather amorphous, but also can kind of
Speaker 2: form a secondary face and mouth for biting people.
Speaker 3: Now, Gramps and Sherman have some encounters with this monster.
Speaker 3: They get scared by it. Grams is convinced that it
Speaker 3: was not a monster but a burglar, because he says,
Speaker 3: quote sometimes them burglars wear halle Ween masks, and they
Speaker 3: go to Grandpa's fallout shelter to arm themselves. Meanwhile, Norton,
Speaker 3: the satellite dish repair man, comes back. This is Sunny
Speaker 3: Carl Davis again. He's rooting around trying to fix the
Speaker 3: satellite dish. He finds that the electronics box connected to
Speaker 3: the base of the dish has overflowed with a sort
Speaker 3: of coal slaw of alien slime and guts.
Speaker 2: So he starts cleaning that out and you know what's
Speaker 2: going to happen.
Speaker 3: That's right, poor rabbit is doomed here. He gets I
Speaker 3: think he is the first person eaten by the alien.
Speaker 2: As it should be, as God wills it, And.
Speaker 3: So here we're into a kind of general rampage. Middle
Speaker 3: third of the movie. We do see the monster eat
Speaker 3: Gramps at some point. What exactly is the process here?
Speaker 3: It's sort of complicated. First, it puts the clamps on Gramps,
Speaker 3: so it has a claw that's sort of a clamp
Speaker 3: style claw, squeezes Grandpa's head and then folds his head
Speaker 3: in half, and there is blood squirting everywhere, but I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's supposed to be blood. It's not red.
Speaker 3: It is a green liquid leaking out of a Grandpa's head.
Speaker 3: So I guess the monster somehow turns his blood green
Speaker 3: or is the green liquid coming from the monster?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. It's kind of like a trolled
Speaker 2: toification perhaps.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Then Graham's disintegrates. He melts into a green puddle
Speaker 3: on the floor, So melt movie status confirmed. And then
Speaker 3: the monster starts vacuuming up the green slime and Grandpa's clothes,
Speaker 3: but then spits out his dog tags and then Sherman
Speaker 3: runs into the room just in time to see the
Speaker 3: monster before it shockwarps into the television.
Speaker 2: I have to add this whole death scene is all
Speaker 2: the more shocking because it was done on wall to
Speaker 2: wall carpeting, you know, like that just makes it all
Speaker 2: the more worse. How are you gonna ever get that
Speaker 2: slime up out of there?
Speaker 3: Well, that is the thing. There are scenes of the
Speaker 3: movie where I just kept recently noticing anew the work
Speaker 3: that must have gone into making this house set the
Speaker 3: gaudiest house in history. So there is like a combination
Speaker 3: of neon and pastel color schemes like neon and pastel
Speaker 3: upholstery on the furniture, just gold stuff everywhere, erotic artworks
Speaker 3: on every wall, not good artworks, like tasteless erotic paintings
Speaker 3: all over the place. It is kind of a Vegas
Speaker 3: strip Easter egg themed marl Lago. And they keep calling
Speaker 3: it the Pleasure Dome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that sums it up. But yeah, to your point,
Speaker 2: you keep seeing new details, new bits of art, new
Speaker 2: curios on the shelf, and so forth. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 2: of love and attention went into creating this monstrosity of
Speaker 2: a house.
Speaker 3: So some other things go on in here. Sherman calls
Speaker 3: the cops, but they do not want to come and help.
Speaker 3: At this point, At some point later in the movie,
Speaker 3: a cop does come to the house, just to get
Speaker 3: eaten by the monster. Of course, as as is canon
Speaker 3: in all films of this sort, At some point also
Speaker 3: Stan and Raquel come home with their dates and their
Speaker 3: their whole thing is they are into swinging, so they
Speaker 3: bring a couple home to swing with, and then there
Speaker 3: are there are some funny elements to this whole romantic
Speaker 3: farce subplot, like Stan trying to be as attractive as
Speaker 3: he can is. Garrett Graham is quite funny in that
Speaker 3: there are also some painfully unfunny things that haven't aged well,
Speaker 3: that are just like a misunderstanding about Spiro, the guy
Speaker 3: they bring home, being bisexual and interested in Stan, which
Speaker 3: they did not understand, and that's like, that's pretty cringey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, though, I guess if I'm being generous, most of
Speaker 2: the a good portion of the cringe seems to be
Speaker 2: placed on Garrett Graham's character for getting riled up over
Speaker 2: the whole situation.
Speaker 3: That's true, Like, I think a lot of other films
Speaker 3: of this time would have made Spiro the target of
Speaker 3: all the jokes in this thing, But actually more Garret
Speaker 3: Graham is that the target of the jokes, I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I will add the erotic jacuzzi room also
Speaker 2: starts paying off when the monster gets in to the
Speaker 2: pool and starts eating people whilst pretending to be some
Speaker 2: of the people that it is eaten.
Speaker 3: That's right, So it eats both of the guest swingers
Speaker 3: in the jacuzzi room and then also eats the two
Speaker 3: main parents in the jacuzzi room. So all adults eaten, now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which it's kind of fit. It's like the
Speaker 2: kids were kind of on their own anyway, without a
Speaker 2: lot of guidance from the parental units and Grandpa, and
Speaker 2: now they truly are on their own. The parents have
Speaker 2: been completely consumed by the stuff that came out of
Speaker 2: the television. Mmmm.
Speaker 3: Ah, yeah, it's a metaphor. I see, Yeah, it's deep.
Speaker 3: This movie real's deep. So at some point Sherman tries
Speaker 3: to explain this is before the parents get eaten. When
Speaker 3: Mary Warrenov comes home and finds him up and running around,
Speaker 3: she's like, get you know, get in bed, but he's
Speaker 3: trying to explain, No, a monster came out of the
Speaker 3: TV and it ate Grandpa, and she's not interested in that,
Speaker 3: but she is mad about the puddle of slime on
Speaker 3: the living room floor, and there was a line that
Speaker 3: really made me laugh because of I guess how it
Speaker 3: was phrased, as Sherman says something like that's what Grandpa
Speaker 3: turned into. Another funny scene from before All the Adults
Speaker 3: Get Eaten is when Garrett Graham is showing off his
Speaker 3: erotic jacuzzi room to the new friends and he's like
Speaker 3: bragging about his sound system he installed in the room
Speaker 3: and the supposedly Roman artworks on the walls, and there
Speaker 3: is a Meanwhile, there's a reptile alien silently making imploring
Speaker 3: gestures on the TV screen behind them, and then finally
Speaker 3: the sound comes on on the TV and the guy's
Speaker 3: going like, people of Earth, you must destroy your satellite
Speaker 3: receivers and keep your televisions deactivated for two hundred years,
Speaker 3: and going on with all this stuff, and then the
Speaker 3: swingers who have come to the house are basically like,
Speaker 3: what is this movie? It is making me feel very erotic.
Speaker 2: I love that the alien is telling them to turn
Speaker 2: the TVs off for two centuries, like it would have
Speaker 2: been you know, it would have still been satirical if
Speaker 2: they were like people of Earth, you can be saved
Speaker 2: if you just turn your TVs off for twenty four hours,
Speaker 2: because obviously we're not going to do that. I won't
Speaker 2: do it, but to make it two hundred years, that's perfect.
Speaker 3: Now, there are some funny bits in here. One thing
Speaker 3: is that the Hungry Beast that comes out of the
Speaker 3: TV after it eats people, it can sort of replicate them,
Speaker 3: so it's like the thing in a way, and so
Speaker 3: at some point replicates Grandpa. And there's a part where
Speaker 3: Mary Warrenov is like yelling down into the bunker to
Speaker 3: find Grandpa, and the monster recreates Grandpa's face and pokes
Speaker 3: it out from behind a wall and it's just dripping
Speaker 3: with ooze, and Mary Warrenov doesn't notice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess the joke here is that, yes, the
Speaker 2: Hungry Beast is not a great impersonator, but everyone in
Speaker 2: the world of this film is so self absorbed that
Speaker 2: no one really noticed. They're just like, oh, I guess
Speaker 2: that is Grandpa. I guess that is a mom, dad
Speaker 2: and their friends. You know, nobody questions it. Now at
Speaker 2: this point, again, adults are out the out of the picture.
Speaker 2: It's just the youth who are left to stand up
Speaker 2: to the monster. And you might expect the film to
Speaker 2: take the sort of predictable, you know, battle direction here
Speaker 2: where Okay, now the kids, the youth have to band
Speaker 2: together to fight the monster. It seems like it's going
Speaker 2: to maybe go that way or the movie's gonna end
Speaker 2: prematurely one or the other. But we end up going
Speaker 2: in a different direction. We end up going in an
Speaker 2: et direction.
Speaker 3: That's right, because what are the youth going to do
Speaker 3: when when a monstrous entity comes from the television? They're
Speaker 3: going to make an unholy alliance with it?
Speaker 2: That's right, it's about to eat O D O D
Speaker 2: puts his arms up, you know, like ah, and as
Speaker 2: he does so, the monster stops for a second. The
Speaker 2: monster pauses. The monster's looking at those like studs and chains,
Speaker 2: and we get the monsters flashback to its alien master
Speaker 2: in some distant part of the universe being nice to it,
Speaker 2: raising it, giving it treats, and suddenly he's pacified. The
Speaker 2: hungry beast is pacified.
Speaker 3: Right, So the Beast's humanoid alien friend had gloves that
Speaker 3: were like heavy metal leather studs. Yes, perfect, I mean
Speaker 3: it is sweet actually.
Speaker 2: Because again, they designed this creature so well that he
Speaker 2: is monstrous and horrific, but also kind of looks like
Speaker 2: a big, stupid, happy dog too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Od he says he looked at my studs and
Speaker 3: cooled out. This dude's into metal. This is also the
Speaker 3: part where Susie is like, he's so barfie.
Speaker 2: He is very Barfye.
Speaker 3: But they go about teaching the Barfee monster the ways
Speaker 3: of Earth. So they're feeding him food, and I thought
Speaker 3: it was funny that all of the food they feed
Speaker 3: him is like hyper processed food that comes in plastic
Speaker 3: boxes or cardboard boxes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I could have missed something, but
Speaker 2: I think the joke too is that he doesn't the
Speaker 2: hungry beast doesn't actually want to eat the food. He
Speaker 2: just wants to eat the packaging, like he just he
Speaker 2: wants to eat garbage.
Speaker 3: Yeah. They also teach him about music. They play Od's
Speaker 3: music for him, but he like kicks, like stabs a
Speaker 3: tentacle into one of the speakers and all that. They
Speaker 3: teach the monster about TV, of course, the most important
Speaker 3: invention on Earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so for a little bit it seems like they're,
Speaker 2: you know, they're pacifying the monster, they're making friends with
Speaker 2: the monster. But as it turns out, like this is
Speaker 2: not going to work. They can only pacify the beast
Speaker 2: for so long. The beast is is unpredictable, and we
Speaker 2: eventually learned that this is why he was disposed of.
Speaker 2: This is why he was essentially loaded into a teleporter
Speaker 2: and beamed across the universe. And this is where Pluthar
Speaker 2: shows up to save the day. This is, I believe,
Speaker 2: the same alien we see at the beginning of the
Speaker 2: picture disposing of the mutant. This is the same alien
Speaker 2: that has been visible on the TV transmission saying people
Speaker 2: of Earth, you must turn off your televisions for two centuries.
Speaker 2: But now he has appeared in person, beamed through the
Speaker 2: television into the living room, and he's wearing like a
Speaker 2: spacesuit so that he can withstand Earth's atmosphere. And you know,
Speaker 2: he spent the whole picture trying to warn them about
Speaker 2: this monster and about the thread and how dangerous this
Speaker 2: organism is. And now he's here and he's like, I
Speaker 2: am here to help you. Let me help you. And
Speaker 2: he even offers to resurrect the dead family members. Though
Speaker 2: I thought this was this hilarious, he does add that
Speaker 2: they will have to live in special aquariums. They are
Speaker 2: genetically resurrected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but here we get the intersection with another plot
Speaker 3: thread that's been developing. Wait did we even mention the
Speaker 3: thing about Medusa yet? I don't think we did.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, so they called the cops. The cops
Speaker 2: showed up and the cop was killed by the monster. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they need someone. They were like, well, let's call Medusa.
Speaker 2: She's into this stuff and she's a part of our
Speaker 2: lives because she's on television. Let's call her. They want
Speaker 2: to make money. I think, oh, that's right. This is
Speaker 2: when they have seemingly befriended the creature and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's make some money. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Susie calls up Medusa on the you know, the
Speaker 3: TV horror host, the Alvira type lady, and says, I've
Speaker 3: got something really scary for you that would be great
Speaker 3: for your show. You know, give us some money and
Speaker 3: and and you can have it, trying to sell the
Speaker 3: monster to her, and Medusa is initially not interested. She
Speaker 3: says she has several parties to go to, but they're like, well,
Speaker 3: here's our address. You know, you can come by our
Speaker 3: party later if you want to check out what we've
Speaker 3: got to show.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 3: So you don't think Medusa is going to actually come
Speaker 3: to their house, but I guess she does. Maybe those
Speaker 3: other parties she went to were really lame.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't know for sure, but she shows up.
Speaker 2: She leaves her producer I think, in the vehicle, and
Speaker 2: she comes in and she sees Pluthar talking to the children,
Speaker 2: to the youths here, and he has like some sort
Speaker 2: of a ray gun in his hand. So she decides
Speaker 2: to save the day. Like her noble act is to
Speaker 2: come up behind Pluthar and uh and and bash in
Speaker 2: his dome that that like acrylic or glass dome that
Speaker 2: is around his head. Bashes that in and then we
Speaker 2: get this great scene where Pluthar's helmet depressurizes and his
Speaker 2: head explodes inside it. So he here we go, this
Speaker 2: was the one guy who could have saved everyone. Uh,
Speaker 2: and now he's dead. He's sorta in the He's kind
Speaker 2: of the Milton Arbogast of this picture.
Speaker 3: The detective from Psycho. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And Medusa's like, hey, yeah, you're welcome. I just saved you.
Speaker 2: But of course she has not saved anyone. The monster
Speaker 2: proceeds to eat absolutely everybody, and so the ending of
Speaker 2: the picture we get. For the ending of the picture,
Speaker 2: we get this classic The nightmare continues slash spreads. Ending
Speaker 2: the hungry beast has eaten everyone in the house and
Speaker 2: some it's taken on the form of Medusa sort of. Again,
Speaker 2: it's not that the creature's not that good at mimicking
Speaker 2: human beings, and it's mimicking of Medusa is just really awful.
Speaker 2: It's only about half there. But again, people in this
Speaker 2: world are completely self absorbed and not very attentive. So
Speaker 2: she climbs in the back of her producer's vehicle and
Speaker 2: she's like, let's go back to the TV station, and
Speaker 2: so that's where they're headed, inevitably to spread more terror
Speaker 2: vision across the earth. Cure the music, yep, tervision, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it's played for Kookie laughs, and I love it despite
Speaker 2: the fact that all of our characters died and perished
Speaker 2: in the belly of a monster.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a kind of perfect bogeyman figure in that regard.
Speaker 3: So it's like, you know, kids, if you don't turn
Speaker 3: off the TV in time, you will know what it
Speaker 3: is to roast in the depths of a slore this day.
Speaker 2: All right, So that is terror vision again. I think
Speaker 2: a pretty pretty fabulous and fun bit of weird cinema
Speaker 2: from the mid nineteen eighties didn't make much of a splash,
Speaker 2: I think when it came out, but has developed a
Speaker 2: cult following overtime.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think if this basic plot element were
Speaker 3: used today, what it would be. A monster gets beamed
Speaker 3: through TikTok.
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, they would probably it would probably be
Speaker 2: some sort of a social media thing, right, that would
Speaker 2: be the main commentary. That's the TV is less of
Speaker 2: the idiot box and now the idiot box is the
Speaker 2: thing in our hands.
Speaker 3: I mean they're both still idiot boxing.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's still lots of idiots stay to go around
Speaker 2: in media. But yeah, I guess we'd have to take
Speaker 2: a slightly different form and satellite it's not really the
Speaker 2: satellite now, it would be the Internet. So it would
Speaker 2: be the hungry beast crawling through the Internet, and each
Speaker 2: character would be like a different stereotype of how obsessed
Speaker 2: we are with different corners of the Internet. But it
Speaker 2: wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be the same terror vision.
Speaker 2: All right, well, we're going to go ahead and close
Speaker 2: it out there, but just to remind you Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast with core
Speaker 2: episodes on Tuesday and Thursdays. On Mondays we do a
Speaker 2: listener mail. On Wednesday's we do a short form Monster
Speaker 2: Factor Artifact episode, but on Fridays we set aside most
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just watch a weird movie on Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema. And if you want a list of all
Speaker 2: the movies we've covered over the year as well, you
Speaker 2: can look in a couple of places. I blog about
Speaker 2: these at simmutemusic dot com. But also if you go
Speaker 2: to letterbox dot com, it's l E T T E
Speaker 2: R B o x D dot com. You'll find our
Speaker 2: username there. We are Weird House, and we have a
Speaker 2: list there of all the movies we've covered so far,
Speaker 2: and sometimes there's a glimpse ahead of what's coming up next.
Speaker 2: We're we're in reruns next week, but the week after
Speaker 2: that we do have a film picked out and you'll
Speaker 2: see a hint of that on the letterboxed list.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello.
Speaker 3: You can email us at contact Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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