WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: The Boogens 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:08.719 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.239 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.759 And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema, 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.160 we're going to be talking about the nineteen eighty one 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:27.320 American horror movie The Bugins, directed by James L. Conway, 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.720 starring Rebecca Balding and Fred McCarran. 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:31.400 Rob. 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.040 I think it's a bit of serendipity that you got 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:37.720 to watch this movie on an airplane on the way 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:41.479 back from actually being in some caverns like seen in 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:42.440 the movie The Buggins. 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:47.479 Well, yeah, as featured in The Buggins. Yes, actual caves, 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.640 which may come back to in some upcoming episodes of 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.000 Stuff to Blow Your Mind. But yeah, fresh off of 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.440 some adventures in some actual caves, I got to experience 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.400 these adventures in probably not actual caves. Yeah. 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:04.840 I read somewhere that the cave sets here or the 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.039 mine whatever, you know, the underground cavern sets were built 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:09.479 in a grocery store, I think. 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:11.400 Okay, but a look pretty good. 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:14.240 Yeah, But so you were on an airplane, maybe with 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.120 a head cold, watching The Buggins. That sounds like a 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:18.959 that's a mind space. 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.319 And clearly as the as the filmmakers intended, with me 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.679 occasionally having to like lean forward if there's like a 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.360 little bit of nudity in the film to keep the 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.880 people in the seats behind me from seeing it and 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:33.240 wondering what I'm watching, but not that there's a lot 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:34.160 of nudity in this one. 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:38.680 Yeah, So before you ask, yes, this is a movie, 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.560 I picked about eighty percent on the basis of the 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.880 title I came across. I'd never seen The Buggins before. Uh, 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.240 And I got to the title and I watched the trailer, 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.360 and the trailer is great because there's no narration for 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:55.280 most of it. It's just scenes from the movie, a 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.240 lot of screaming, you know, creature cam kind of looking 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.920 up from the floor, chasing people around. And then it 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.840 gets to the very end of the trailer and suddenly 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:06.640 a deep voice comes on. I don't know if it's 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.200 Don Lafontaine or whoever, but somebody comes on and says, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:14.720 there is no escape the Buggins. That's all. It's like, okay, 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:15.680 well you got to watch this. 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.639 Yeah. It's almost like he didn't really know exactly how 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.919 to land the Boogins. How he felt about that. I 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.680 don't know how I feel about the Buggins. It makes 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.320 me think of Boogers. It makes me think of Boogieman 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.800 and boogey Men. And I think when you first brought 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:33.840 this movie up, I had a moment where it's like, 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.280 is I confused this film with the Willies and maybe 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:40.080 to a certain extent, creepyzoids, Like there are a. 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:41.960 Few critters, a little bit of that critters. 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.079 Yeah, a lot of silly monster named films, but the 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:47.440 one i'd seen before, Munchies. 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:53.680 Yeah, is okay, very important question by your criteria. Is 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:59.560 the Buggins a Gromlin's film? No, No, okay. 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.160 Yeah, these are just I don't want to spoil too 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:03.840 much about the creatures, though. I guess at this point 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:05.440 we'll go ahead and just remind you if you want to, 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.600 if you want to experience the Buggins without any additional knowledge, 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:11.799 now's a good time to jump off and go watch 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:15.840 the Boogins. But otherwise we're going to spoil stuff. I 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.840 will say that the creatures and the Boogins, the titular Boogins, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.640 are not They're not clowning around. They are predatory monsters. 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.080 There's no mischief, there's no Grimlins quality they're they're not 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.440 making jokes. There are a lot of jokes in the film, 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:36.680 and there is mischief, but it's by the human characters. Yeah. 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:41.920 So The Buggins is a low budget I would have 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:46.080 to be honest and say slightly annoying, but in other 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:52.960 ways cozy and sort of adorable tunnel underground themed monster 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.440 movie set in the Colorado Rockies. 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.640 Yeah, I think that's a good read. I wasn't annoyed 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.920 by it. I guess my tolerance for annoyance and B 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.560 movies is pretty high at this point. 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.600 I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad time, Like 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:14.040 I really enjoyed The Buggins, but Roger I found moderately 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:15.560 too severely grading. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.040 Okay, I'll go with moderately, But maybe I was just 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.520 I was just really chilled out on the plane for 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.200 this one. But I do agree with the coziness. I 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.599 felt like this movie had a really strong seventies sitcom 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.880 sort of vibe, a little bit like sex comedy sitcom, 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.640 like basically Three's Company, except without a laugh track. I 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:36.720 think you could have dropped a laugh track in here 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.240 and a nineteen seventies early eighties audience would have known 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.600 how to react. And you also have no like don 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:46.160 knots or anything. Instead of don knots, you have killer 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.720 rubber monsters. But yeah, in its own way, this made 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.240 it kind of charming. He felt kind of safe with 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.080 these characters, even though these characters, as we will learn, 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:56.080 are not safe. 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.040 Yeah. So, the premise of The Buggins is a a 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.359 couple of young mine workers guys in their twenties named 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:08.120 Mark and Roger rent a cabin. While they're not like 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.440 experienced mine workers, they're doing a summer contract or something 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:15.960 to clean up an abandoned silver mine in the mountains 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.440 of Colorado, and they invite up to join them at 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.360 the cabin, a couple of lady friends and also a 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:28.240 very cute, very doomed, and very talented dog. We'll have 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:29.919 more to say about the dog as we go on, 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:32.359 But while they're there in the cabin and working in 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.960 the mines, the characters discover a bloodthirsty evil has been 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:41.960 unleashed from the caverns below. So we mentioned the cozy 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.440 vibe of the movie, and one way I would put 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.839 this is that, and several other critics have written this 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:49.799 I wasn't the first to notice it, but I agree 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:57.960 with this assessment. The Buggins blends two familiar horror movie aesthetics, 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.760 and those two aesthetics are on one and the wiggly 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.440 nineteen fifties creature feature moves like the crawling Eye or 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.360 Earth versus the Spider, think, a kind of goofy rubber 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:13.960 monster and a g whiz sensibility. It blends that on 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:16.240 the one hand, and then on the other hand, the 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:20.080 nineteen eighties teen slasher movie like Friday the Thirteenth or 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.800 prom Night. And I would say that the way these 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.920 pieces come together is that the movie has the structure 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:31.200 and setting of the post Halloween slasher film, but it 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:35.479 has the soul, the rubber soul, and the cozy quaintness 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:37.839 of the drive in monster movie. Do you get what 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:38.479 I'm saying there? 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.240 Absolutely? Yeah, Like it doesn't really have any of the 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:47.840 mild to severe sleeves of like an early eighties slasher picture. 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:53.240 And yeah, the characters have more of that like nineteen 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.520 fifties nineteen sixties heart to them. Yeah. 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:57.480 Well, and the weird thing is there is a character 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:02.280 who is I think explicitly supposed to have a sleazy connotation, 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.719 but it's kind of a Scooby Doo version. 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:05.480 Yeah. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.400 Yeah, it's very overt and silly. 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.440 Yeah yeah. You get the impression that he's maybe I'll talk. Yeah, 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:14.640 there's a lot. He talks a lot about how much 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.920 he wants to make the sex, but I don't think 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:19.320 it ever gets around to it. In this picture. 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.360 He does does well well. They're interrupted by the police 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.080 in the one scene where I don't know how far 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:24.400 they got. 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.400 Yeah, I don't know how much sexing actually occurred. It 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:30.240 seems like there was a definite cutoff plane and I'm 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:32.080 not sure they ever got it back around to picking 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:33.080 up where they left off. 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.880 So I looked into the reception history of The Boogins. 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:41.840 Did critics like the movie? Opinions seem mixed, But in 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:46.480 the July nineteen eighty two edition of the Twilight Zone magazine, 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:51.480 this movie got a humming endorsement from author Stephen King. 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.120 So Stephen King had stepped in to do guest film reviews. 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.840 I think the regular film critic was away for some reason, 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.360 and so he has a column in this issue of 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:06.360 Twilight Zone magazine called Digging the Buggins, in which he 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.920 called it quote a wildly energetic monster movie. Now, I 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.080 liked The Buggins, but I don't know if that's how 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:14.040 I would describe it. 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.760 Yeah, I think energetic is a stretch. It's pretty laid 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.640 back and relaxed for the most part. Yeah, so some 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.800 great scenes with tension to them, but yeah, even by 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.440 nineteen eighty one standards, I wouldn't say it's particularly energetic. 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:29.119 I mean, this is the same year that we got 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.680 the first Evil Dead film and Joe Dante's The Howling, 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:34.680 So yeah, those are. 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:39.760 Both much more energetic. Yeah, but there's a sort of 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.200 King's take, and haven't I wasn't able to find the 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.160 full text of this article. I don't think it's been 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.080 digitized online anywhere, but I found a blog post where 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.719 somebody was summarizing it, and they said that in this 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:58.920 film review, Stephen King scolds audiences for only wanting mad 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:03.319 slasher movies and for thinking themselves above a rubber monster. 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.200 You know, he's sort of making the case that a 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.640 classic nineteen fifty style rubber monster is a beautiful thing. 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:11.360 And there I would agree. 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.839 Yeah, I would agree with that. I love Stephen King. 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.200 I'm never going to stop loving Stephen King, but I 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.600 will add that he has never been shy about going 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.560 all in on something that he loves if it's like it. 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.920 Certainly if it's a new adaptation of his own work 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:31.360 that he digs. But yeah, he can be very enthusiastic 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:33.640 about the things that he likes. 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.600 Now, one thing I thought would be worth discussing about 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.160 The Buggins before we get into talking about the cast 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:44.160 and crew is the production company that put it out. 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.679 So let's do a sidebar on Taft International Pictures. 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:52.599 Yeah, this is very fascinating. As I'll get into it, 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:54.480 I read I was reading a little bit about this 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:56.800 via Michael Weldon's Psychotronic Film Guides. 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.520 Okay, so my main source on this was an AV 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.800 Club review of The Boogins by Keith Phipps, which went 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.160 a bit into the history of this company. It wasn't 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.439 originally Taft International Pictures. It was previously known as Sun 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.920 Classic Pictures, but Son with two ends like the guitar 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:16.000 amplifier brand. 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.400 Mm hmm, yeah, because I believe if you only had 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.280 one in, it's an adult publisher. So they had They're like, 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:23.720 I put another in on there and then then they'll 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:25.200 know it's for family content. 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:30.960 So Phipps referred to Sun Classic Pictures as quote one 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:35.640 of the most profitably disreputable film distributors in cinematic history, 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:41.679 despite not being an adult content thing. Instead, they were 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:46.599 disreputable due to their track record of putting out factually 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:52.640 decrepit documentaries and running shameless advertising and putting together like 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.839 TV and radio promo spots for the movies that would 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.320 promise way too much, way more than these movies we're 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:01.720 going to deliver. You know, you'd get some kind of 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:06.600 low budget, dubious documentary and it would be sold as 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.880 like the most amazing revelation in film history and that 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:10.520 sort of thing. 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.320 Yeah, yeah, that's my understanding. So this is a Sun 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:19.280 Classics was a Utah based company dealt mostly in documentaries, 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:23.920 but again not classy documentaries, sensational nineteen seventies docs that 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:29.000 we'd rightfully identify as conspiracy theory and cryptic cryptic flicks 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:34.280 today really sort of the forerunners, the mind poisoning forerunners 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:39.000 of later day conspiracy thought, I would. 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:42.800 Say, yeah, the media arm of that. So some examples 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:48.160 that they did religiously themed documentaries and also conspiracy ones, 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:52.880 historical conspiracy things. So one, for example is a famous 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:56.160 one called In Search of Noah's Arc from nineteen seventy six, 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.360 a movie that famously claimed to have found the final 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.040 resting place of Noah's Ark on a mountain in Turkey. 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.120 There's another one they put out called Beyond and Back 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:07.920 from nineteen seventy eight, which is a movie about near 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.480 death experiences and it's talking about people who went to 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.200 the afterlife and then said they came back. Another one 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.640 is called In Search of Historic Jesus from nineteen seventy nine, 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.280 where in his review Phipps includes a quote from the 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.280 TV spots promoting this film. The quote is, there are 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.880 eighteen years of Jesus's life. The Bible doesn't account for 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.560 where did he spend those missing years. You'll find new 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:41.400 answers in this startling motion picture. Obviously you won't. But anyway, yes, 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.040 they were putting out documentary content of that sort, but 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:48.120 they also you mentioned family friendly programming. In the seventies, 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:52.160 Sun Classic made a lot of money putting out stuff 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.760 like the Life and Times of Grizzly Adams starring Dan Haggerty, 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.840 both the movie from nineteen seventy four and its TV spinoff, 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:00.280 and these were big hits. 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.880 Yeah. Yeah, they also did these sort of like you 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.440 almost get the sense of these were adaptations of classics 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:10.079 for like students to watch. They did a seventy nine 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.960 adaptation of the follow The House of Usher, and then 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.440 also and I think that one had Martin Landau in it, 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.600 and then a TV adaptation of Sleepy Hollow starring Jeff Goldbloom. 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.199 We'll come back to that one. That one actually won 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:24.320 some awards for them. 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:28.880 I wonder if it's similar to the Roger Korman thinking 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.240 and adapting Poe Like, well, if you're adapting classic literature, 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:36.520 you get the benefit of both. It's out of copyright protection, 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.720 so it's public domain. And then also this is something 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.160 that people might watch in schools, so you get some 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:47.200 automatic uptake because it is quote classic literature, you but 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.000 it's also horror, you know, so you can kind of 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:54.600 lean into the more exploitation elements if you want to. 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:59.000 So a lot of so definitely some family friendly content. Yeah, 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:03.440 some dubious documentary work that is at times promoting things 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:09.040 like ancient aliens and also attempting to use scientific information 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:14.560 to prop up Christian theology. So an interesting company here. 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:19.000 But apart from the content Phipps pointed out how in 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:25.080 the seventies, Sun prospered through very particular marketing and distribution tactics. 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:30.120 So Sun used a distribution tactic known as four walling, 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.280 where instead of the normal method you would use when 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.440 you release a film of splitting box office sales with 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:41.720 the venue that's showing the film instead the distributor. In 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.320 four walling, the distributor would pay movie theaters a flat 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:49.080 fee to rent them out for a particular time, and 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.360 then the distributor would keep one hundred percent of the 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.600 ticket sales. And so Sun would do this, but instead 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:00.360 of releasing everywhere at once, they would target specific market. 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:02.840 So they might go to a you know, a small 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:06.920 town or rural local media market, rent out the local 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.760 theaters to show their movie, keep one hundred percent of 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.720 the ticket sales, and then just flood the local TV 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:18.280 and radio waves with an advertising campaign. And then they 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.480 would keep one hundred percent of the ticket sales, you know, 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.360 by funneling everybody in town into the theater to see 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:24.240 this Bible movie. 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:26.880 Yeah, and everyone has to know about the historic Jesus 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:28.320 because it's all we're hearing about. 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.920 And apparently they made pretty good money this way now. 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.840 For some reason, I wasn't sure about what caused this shift. 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.840 Maybe you had some information on this. But by about 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:43.400 nineteen seventy nine or eighty, something shifted and Sun which 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.920 had at this point adopted the new name of Taft 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.760 International Pictures, I think were they maybe acquired by another company. 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.760 It's my understanding that they were acquired at this point 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:59.640 by Taft Broadcasting, which it actually ties back to Published, 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:05.600 a public company that was owned by the brother of 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:10.600 Howard Taff, So it has some roots to it, Okay, 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:12.400 presidential roots, if you will. 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:18.200 So this company around the year nineteen eighty shifted from 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:23.080 making family entertainment like Grizzly Adams and religious documentaries and 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:28.000 conspiracy stuff too, science fiction and R rated horror. So 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.520 in the year nineteen eighty they released the sci fi 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:35.720 thriller Hangar eighteen with Darren McGavin of Oh I'm blanking 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.960 on the name of the show Culchak. 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.760 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, The Nightstalker. 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:45.320 And also had Robert Vaughan from Battle Beyond the Stars 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.360 and the movies we've talked about. I think Hangar eighteen 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.080 was featured on a very early episode of Mystery Science 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.000 Theater three thousand. I don't know if you've seen this one. 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:56.280 I don't think I've seen that one, but that sounds right. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.840 So that's nineteen eighty and then in nineteen eighty one 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.800 we get there are rated horror extravaganza The Buggins. 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:05.480 Yeah. One of the things that Michael Weldon points out 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.600 is that this was a lot raunchier than previous fare 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.960 from some classics. But I have to stress, like only 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:17.480 mildly ron raunchy compared to family films and rather tame documentaries. 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.199 I guess because it's like, yeah, there's a butt at 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.280 one point, what more can you say? Some talk of 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.320 sex and some amount of blood, a little bit of gore, 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.280 but nothing crazy, certainly by today's standards. 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.520 Though I did want to say I think the part 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.000 of the movie where we see a butt is one 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:37.800 of the funniest moments in the film because of a 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:42.840 cinematography choice where the camera does almost a crash zoom 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.960 on the butt, like it's the shining and there's a 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.240 bloody haget, except it's just somebody's butt. 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.760 I do not remember this particular zoom all that well. 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:52.600 I think this is probably a part of in my 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:54.480 viewing where I was kind of like hunching over to 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.360 make sure that the people behind me weren't questioning my viewing. 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:00.160 Habits scandalizing the family. 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:04.919 Yeah. Yeah, So technically this was not their first horror venture, 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.040 because you know I mentioned follow the House of Usher, 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.679 but it certainly would not be their last either. They 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:12.400 would go on to have a hand in the production 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.840 of nineteen eighty three's Kujo, nineteen eighty seven's The Monster Squad, 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.120 as well as nineteen eighty sevens The Running Man, which 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.040 of course was another loose Stephen King adaptation. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.159 Okay, that is interesting. All three of these movies have 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:30.040 their fans. I think, you know, these are not totally 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:31.879 disregarded in horror history. 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.080 Yeah. I mean, I have to admit I've never seen 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.320 Kujo or read Kujo, so I don't have a lot 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.920 to say about that. Grew up with The Running Man, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.520 you know, it's pretty wild. The Monster Squad recently rewatched. 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.320 I have mixed thoughts about it, but yeah, does have 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:48.320 great monsters in it. 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.160 Yeah. Now, one thing I think we need to address 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.199 in the beginning here is the title The Boogins. We 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.680 have been assuming, and I think we'll continue to assume 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:03.320 in the episode that the buggins is the name of 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.119 the type of creature that attacks that we have to 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.000 that's just an inference on our part, because the movie 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:14.480 doesn't say that. I think the word buggins is said 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.720 one time in the film, and it is said by 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.480 John Lormer's character as he is like collapsing to die 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.480 in a cave, and he just says buogin and it's 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.240 not clear exactly what he means, but it's while these 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.720 monsters are attacking, So I think it's got And there's 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:33.240 an s at the end of the word, so it's 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.200 like plural. So it's like, I think this has got 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.000 to be the name of the monsters. But I was 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.200 trying to get some clarity on where this word comes from, 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.520 what it means. I can't source this to anything really solid, 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.879 but at least in the IMDb trivia page, they say 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.520 that the buggins is not actually a term from the 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.520 mining world. It's not a monster of folklore or anything. 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.520 It is a word that was, as far as he knows, 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:03.119 invented by the screen writer David O'Malley quote using the 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:07.280 word boogieman as its root. His original title for the movie, 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:09.000 though it had already been used. 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:14.720 Okay, so can't call it a boogeyman called Buggins instead, Yeah, 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:17.040 which I don't know. Again, kind of a silly name. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.639 It does, at least, you know, for us modern viewers, 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.320 it makes us think of things like gremlins. It sounds 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:27.000 a little war full of whimsy than it actually is, because, again, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.480 as we'll find out, these are just predatory monsters from 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:30.880 the deep. 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.920 A few other things that different reviewers have noted about 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:47.560 the film that I also found notable inexplicable relationship with 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.240 the one dog in the movie. So, the characters in 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:55.760 the film have an extremely cute dog named Tiger, and 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.960 all they ever do is complain about how they don't 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:01.720 like Tiger and what a burden he is. I've never 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.600 heard people be this hard on a dog before, and 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.520 it's especially weird because the dog is very lovable and 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.119 a really good dog. Actor like, this dog is hitting 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:14.959 his marks, he pulls reaction shots for the camera. Tiger 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:15.720 is amazing. 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:20.399 Tiger is great. Yeah, Unfortunately, we have no idea the 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:22.600 name of this actual dog. Maybe the dog's name is 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:24.320 Tiger as well, but it's not one of these K 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.720 nine actors that is credited but it's an amazing performance, Yeah, 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:33.000 hitting his mark, reaction shots, a lot of screen time. Really, 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.760 we get like lots of scenes in which Tiger is 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:40.439 exploring the old house and then is having encounters with 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:42.679 the monster before we really get to see it. So 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.040 I would say, arguably the best the best performance in 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.400 the picture. And that's not and I'm not even doing 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:50.399 saying that to try and like shame the the human 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.600 actors here, Like Tiger is just that good. 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.919 Another thing that basically every reviewer makes a note of 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.879 is the weirdness of the character. Roger and I agree. 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:06.840 I think this has to be the single horniest character 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:11.840 ever written. Almost every single line of dialogue this character 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.160 speaks is about how he is ready for sex. 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:16.280 Yeah, it's true. 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.080 Like while he's at work, while he's doing anything, that's 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:20.240 what he's talking about. 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:22.520 Yeah. The the actor playing him, who will get to 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:24.480 in a bed, has this kind of kind of a 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:26.760 Dana Carvey vibe to him, Like it's a little bit 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.240 like Dana Carvey and it has that that like how 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.439 like how sleazy can a Dana Carvey character be that 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:36.680 sort of thing? So he ends up feeling, you know, fairly, 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.800 you know, he's fairly likable, Like, even though he keeps 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:42.919 talking about how he wants to have sex and he's 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:46.360