Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind, This is Rob
Speaker 1: Lamb and today we're gonna We're gonna go back to
Speaker 1: a much older episode of Weird House Cinema. This one
Speaker 1: originally published nine ten, twenty twenty one. It is gonna
Speaker 1: be our look at the nineteen eighty six film Spookies.
Speaker 1: This one's This one's very uneven. I think we described
Speaker 1: it at the time as being overstuffed and underdone, but
Speaker 1: it's still a heck of a lot of fun. So
Speaker 1: if you enjoy b movies with there are maybe a
Speaker 1: little rough around the edges, Spookies might just be the
Speaker 1: film for you.
Speaker 2: Let's jump right in.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick. And to set us up
Speaker 2: for the movie that we're gonna be talking about today,
Speaker 2: I wanted to discuss a problem that often arises when
Speaker 2: you're making a monster movie, and that is the problem
Speaker 2: of picking which kind of monster to commit to. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like maybe the family's going out to dinner and
Speaker 2: everybody's trying to decide, Oh, where should we go? You
Speaker 2: know somebody, you know, brother Daryl wants to go to
Speaker 2: the steakhouse, and Grandpa wants to go to the Mexican restaurant,
Speaker 2: and so forth. Everybody wants something different. They can't all
Speaker 2: have it at the same place unless you go to
Speaker 2: the king size buffet where you can get a little
Speaker 2: bit of everything on your plate. And that's what's going
Speaker 2: on with the movie today. They decided, why commit to
Speaker 2: just one kind of monster? You know, why make a
Speaker 2: movie just about a like monster baboon hag Bride or
Speaker 2: a little diminutive rubber merman goblin or fart zombies or
Speaker 2: a cast member from Cats that has a hook hand.
Speaker 2: What if you could just put them all in the
Speaker 2: same movie and let them all run wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is very much the case with the
Speaker 1: movie we're talking about here today. This is gonna be
Speaker 1: Spookies from nineteen eighty six, a great year for genre films,
Speaker 1: though I can't lay we can't credit Spookies for really
Speaker 1: being a part of that. This is this is not
Speaker 1: a great movie. This may be one of the worst
Speaker 1: movies we've we've discussed for Weird House, but you know,
Speaker 1: we're still gonna We're still gonna focus on the positives.
Speaker 1: It does have some positives, and I think the Monster
Speaker 1: Buffet is the big one, because you know, when you
Speaker 1: mentioned this, I was trying to think of other films
Speaker 1: that really hit the same caliber, you know, of just
Speaker 1: having multiple different types of monsters, and I mean I
Speaker 1: thought of Gremlins too, but then again, even though those
Speaker 1: are diverse types of Grimlins, they're still Grimlins. I thought
Speaker 1: of Monster Squad, but that is still a case where
Speaker 1: those are all like universal monsters that are that have
Speaker 1: been historically paired together, so it's not that weird. It's established.
Speaker 1: Or I thought of, say, Thirteen Ghosts. Both versions of it,
Speaker 1: but especially the later version of it was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. Had thirteen very different types of ghosts, but
Speaker 1: they were all still essentially ghosts.
Speaker 2: I keep meaning to watch that one, Rachel and I
Speaker 2: love those like late nineties terrible monster movie remakes, you know,
Speaker 2: the nineties what's it called House on Haunted Hill and
Speaker 2: all that, and thinking we're going to watch thirteen Ghosts.
Speaker 2: Maybe this is the year it is? It is. I've
Speaker 2: heard it's loud. It's the main descriptor I've heard applied
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: It's loud, it's got a good cast, and get some
Speaker 1: neat ghosts in it.
Speaker 2: But but okay, yeah, I see the point you're making.
Speaker 2: So yeah, monster Squad, and that combines all of the
Speaker 2: classic universal monsters into one thing. So you got like
Speaker 2: a an off brand creature from the Black Lagoon, you
Speaker 2: got a wolf Man, you got a Mummy, you got
Speaker 2: a Dracula, and so forth. But this one, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: like that. This is like a Monster Squad, but for
Speaker 2: obscure or previously unknown monsters or monsters that you would
Speaker 2: not think of is going in a monster movie. So
Speaker 2: it does have sort of sort of like dirt caked
Speaker 2: fart zombies that the just exude flatulence as they chase
Speaker 2: people around in a room. And it does have this
Speaker 2: like Baboon bride creature. It does have a like a
Speaker 2: lady who turns into a giant spider. I think maybe
Speaker 2: she's supposed to be a certain kind of yokai. But
Speaker 2: it's also got like a if you bought a one
Speaker 2: of those grim reapers that goes on your lawn for
Speaker 2: Halloween and raises the scythe up and down and goes
Speaker 2: ooh when people walk by. But it came to life
Speaker 2: and started attacking people. It has that, and it's also
Speaker 2: just got a.
Speaker 1: Jawa, yeah, sort of a yeah, kind of a child
Speaker 1: vampire Java running around.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's there's a lot of a lot of stuff here,
Speaker 1: and there's not really a good reason why it's all there.
Speaker 1: This is not a movie that's really concerned why people
Speaker 1: or monsters have any reason to be in the same
Speaker 1: place at the same time, and yet there they are.
Speaker 2: Well, this movie did get me thinking about one thing.
Speaker 2: I think maybe, maybe maybe the weird structure of this
Speaker 2: film gave me a sort of insight into a curiosity,
Speaker 2: a type of curiosity that powers the construction of certain
Speaker 2: horror movies. And it is I think the same type
Speaker 2: of curiosity that leads people to make those This might
Speaker 2: be overly nerdy and obscure, but have you ever seen
Speaker 2: those videos people make on the internet where they just
Speaker 2: take like some like real time strategy video game and
Speaker 2: they just keep pairing different kind of units from the
Speaker 2: game against each other and seeing which one wins. You
Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about. Yeah, Okay, so here's my
Speaker 2: you know, power Mechmarine versus the the Alien Screamer Queen,
Speaker 2: and you know which one will be victorious. You just
Speaker 2: do that one hundred times with the different types of units.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes eighties horror movies especially kind of work
Speaker 2: that way, but they work with a certain kind of
Speaker 2: monster or slasher and then with certain types of human
Speaker 2: stereotypes or personality archetypes. So it's like, what does a
Speaker 2: nerd versus hockey mask slasher look like? Or what does
Speaker 2: preppy rich kid versus merman grimlin look like? You know,
Speaker 2: it's like the bug fights, but with human stereotypes on
Speaker 2: one side and different types of monsters on the other.
Speaker 2: Does that make any sense? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can see that definitely being a part of
Speaker 1: the alchemy going into some of those pictures. But in
Speaker 1: this case it's not. This does not feel like the
Speaker 1: product of an alchemy lab. This seems like the lab
Speaker 1: has been ransacked and all the liquids are mixing together
Speaker 1: on the table and making random explosions.
Speaker 2: Oh, this movie does have some really good random explosions.
Speaker 2: You don't see him coming.
Speaker 1: No, so, spookies, I guess we should talk about what
Speaker 1: the basic Elevator Vader pitch here is. Basically, the plot,
Speaker 1: such as it exists, is that people, random people are
Speaker 1: drawn to a weird house in a graveyard where a
Speaker 1: warlock is trying to bring his bride back to life,
Speaker 1: and equally random monster's rampage through the shambles of what
Speaker 1: is essentially a kind of resurrected film. I also was
Speaker 1: thinking of it in terms of what if Troll Too
Speaker 1: had lacked vision and just featured more monsters.
Speaker 2: What if troll Too was more of a hodgepodge instead
Speaker 2: of like one one director's clear artistic vision realized to
Speaker 2: its fullest extent.
Speaker 1: Right, So yeah, I think for me this film was
Speaker 1: worse than Troll Too.
Speaker 2: This.
Speaker 1: I think this is the worst film we've looked at
Speaker 1: on Weird House, and I think ultimately I would like
Speaker 1: not to return to its level. But there's still some
Speaker 1: fun stuff to talk about here.
Speaker 2: Well wait, then, how did you end up on this one?
Speaker 2: What led you to Spooky's.
Speaker 1: I was familiar with the title, and I had signed
Speaker 1: up for Shutter to watch a previous film that we
Speaker 1: had covered. I forget which one, and I was slipping
Speaker 1: around and there was Spooky So I thought, well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to start watching it. Let's see what this is like. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's that's how it came to be, and oh
Speaker 1: in the other part this is important too. This was
Speaker 1: right before the Labor Day weekend, and I knew we
Speaker 1: had a shortened week coming up, and we were talking
Speaker 1: about doing another movie that I think we're going to
Speaker 1: be doing for next week that is a much better
Speaker 1: film and has some more I gotta know discuss it
Speaker 1: has some some plot points in it, they're going to
Speaker 1: be worth discussing more. And I thought, well, let's save
Speaker 1: that for next week when we have a little more time.
Speaker 1: Spookies is perhaps the right amount of movie for what
Speaker 1: we have time to put together.
Speaker 2: Okay, got another question. The title Spookies. Does it refer
Speaker 2: to the buffet of different kinds of monsters? Are they?
Speaker 2: Are they the titular spookies?
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess so.
Speaker 2: I mean I've never heard of spooky as a now
Speaker 2: and that's an adjective, right.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I think the title sometimes it makes me
Speaker 1: think of things like the jeepers creepers, or phrases like that,
Speaker 1: or the hebgb's or something where I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the idea is this film is supposed to give
Speaker 1: me the creepies like I have the creepies now because
Speaker 1: I watch this film, you mean the Spookies, the Spookies,
Speaker 1: what I say, the creepies, Okay, creepy Okay, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I have the Spookies because I watched the film.
Speaker 1: I don't know's that's as much as I could figure out.
Speaker 2: Well. I wondered also though, if it was if it's
Speaker 2: a little like short and kind of short cute word
Speaker 2: with an S at the end, because it's in the
Speaker 2: era of the Gromlins type movies, so you know, Grimlins,
Speaker 2: Critters and all that. If it was trying to cash
Speaker 2: in on that Goolies that sort of thing. Oh exactly
Speaker 2: did they think, Okay, we need something like that to
Speaker 2: get the people picking up the box in the video store?
Speaker 2: How about spookies? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was probably something like that. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's let's give everyone a taste of the trailer audio
Speaker 1: here so you'll know what you're getting into a little
Speaker 1: bit more.
Speaker 2: It's this supposed to be it's sort of like a
Speaker 2: Parcheesi game or something.
Speaker 4: I know what this is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never seen one like this before. It's
Speaker 1: Ouiji board. How do you play it? Don't you?
Speaker 2: Ney Dice? Is something you.
Speaker 4: Don't play Ouija board is a tool for communication, communication
Speaker 4: with the dead.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, one way you know this is going
Speaker 2: to be a really good movie is that it has
Speaker 2: three directors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and from the get go it apparently had
Speaker 1: two directors. Now, when you get into the production history
Speaker 1: of this film, we're not going to really get into
Speaker 1: it a lot. There's a whole documentary that is a
Speaker 1: special feature on the Vinegar Syndrome Blu ray for this
Speaker 1: and that feature is that that making of feature is
Speaker 1: longer than the film itself, has a lot of interviews
Speaker 1: and if you're if you're super into all the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty of the production of this sort of film, then
Speaker 1: I would say go check that out. But ultimately I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of it was maybe maybe too
Speaker 1: much for me. Like I ultimately I love a movie
Speaker 1: of this caliber, but I don't necessarily need all the
Speaker 1: ins and outs of how it is made. But you know,
Speaker 1: your mileage will vary. But essentially, the key factors to
Speaker 1: keep in mind here is you had you had these
Speaker 1: two directors. You had Thomas Dorin and you had Brendan Faulkner,
Speaker 1: and they were the initial directors and the producer was
Speaker 1: this guy Michael Lee, who was has been described as
Speaker 1: as like a video nasty millionaire who made a lot
Speaker 1: of money importing films into Britain during the period where
Speaker 1: a lot of these were banned. His company, I think
Speaker 1: was was vip Co Vipko, and he wanted to produce
Speaker 1: a film. These guys already had sort of a pre
Speaker 1: existing vision and then as a producer he had a
Speaker 1: certain amount of insight into what he wanted. They shot
Speaker 1: this film that was going to be titled Twisted Souls,
Speaker 1: and then that relationship fell apart and another director was
Speaker 1: brought in to finish it, and that's this director, Genie Joseph.
Speaker 1: She ended up directing additional footage and completing the picture.
Speaker 1: And so what we have on screen here is is
Speaker 1: one picture, but there you can tell where stuff was added.
Speaker 1: There's this whole additional plot.
Speaker 2: Where there are characters who you never see on screen together,
Speaker 2: so you can tell. I think what the framing narrative is.
Speaker 2: So if I understand correctly, the plot about the party
Speaker 2: kids who drive around in the woods and then end
Speaker 2: up at a house, a random house in the woods,
Speaker 2: go into the house and then are attacked by a
Speaker 2: buffet of different kinds of monsters. That was the original film.
Speaker 2: And then the framing there rative where there is an
Speaker 2: evil old warlock who is who is sacrificing people who
Speaker 2: wander into his house to the monsters in order to
Speaker 2: revive his dead bride. That is the framing narrative. Yep,
Speaker 2: that was that was later added to sort of boost
Speaker 2: this up to feature length, right.
Speaker 1: And you know, ultimately, like I said, I don't want
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into all the ins and
Speaker 1: outs of the production. I did watch the Future att
Speaker 1: but or the feature rather, it's it's pretty too long
Speaker 1: to be a feature at but I.
Speaker 2: Would say that the feature here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, I don't think the film was
Speaker 1: ever going to be good. This is not like this
Speaker 1: was on track to be something and and it was
Speaker 1: changing into something else. I don't think there's a case
Speaker 1: to be made for like release the Twisted Souls cut
Speaker 1: or anything of that nature. I don't. I think the
Speaker 1: film is as fun and memorable as it is because
Speaker 1: you have so much weird stuff going on, and you
Speaker 1: have these two different energy is involved in it. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it wouldn't be Spooky's if it wasn't this ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I gotta say it does make for some extremely funny moments,
Speaker 2: the inner cutting between the different plots, because first of all,
Speaker 2: it gives it an energy similar to Pod People, where
Speaker 2: it has at the beginning like the A, B and
Speaker 2: C plot, and it's frantically cutting back and forth between
Speaker 2: them at such a pace that you are constantly trying
Speaker 2: to figure out which movie you're in. But then also
Speaker 2: to stay on the mystery science theater theme for a second.
Speaker 2: It sometimes seems almost as if the Warlock in the
Speaker 2: framing narrative is sort of riffing the movie in the middle.
Speaker 2: So like the kids will be walking through the house
Speaker 2: and one of them will make a comment to say, like, wow,
Speaker 2: so the lights in this place still work, maybe somebody
Speaker 2: lives here, And then it'll cut to the Warlock a
Speaker 2: different room, different place. You're not even sure where he is,
Speaker 2: but he'll go someone does still live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a moment that I definitely laughed out
Speaker 1: loud out.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The resulting energy is weird and wonderful. It also feels
Speaker 1: a bit like the stuff with the Warlock that was added.
Speaker 1: It's like you decided to make a horror anthology, but
Speaker 1: you only had the one picture to draw upon, because
Speaker 1: there's certainly been cases where you have like different productions
Speaker 1: that were unfinished or were recut, and then you have
Speaker 1: them re released as part of a horror anthology with
Speaker 1: some sort of framing narrative in place. But in this case,
Speaker 1: it's just one the one picture.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's a framing narrative around one movie that
Speaker 2: was not going to make it to feature length. I'd
Speaker 2: say that core movie is what maybe sixty minutes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how much stuff
Speaker 1: got cut. I know some stuff got cut, but is
Speaker 1: it stuff that would have really that I really wanted
Speaker 1: to see instead of this wizard and his strange cat creature.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. All right, Well, let me go ahead
Speaker 1: and mention some of the other projects that some of
Speaker 1: the other folks were involved in here. So Thomas Durant
Speaker 1: again co director, co writer on the Twisted Souls portion
Speaker 1: of this. Interestingly enough, he was the voice of the
Speaker 1: monster in Devil's Express, starring Warhawk Tanzania. Ooh yeah, so
Speaker 1: I got to give him credit for that. He also
Speaker 1: worked on a spattering of other genre pictures. Brendon Faulkner,
Speaker 1: also the co director co writer on Twisted Souls, wrote
Speaker 1: and directed the nineteen ninety two film Killer Dead Jeanie Joseph,
Speaker 1: who finished the film. She wrote and directed the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven horflick Mind Benders.
Speaker 2: I have not seen this, but I looked it up.
Speaker 2: Apparently it's also known as Invasion of the Mind Benders,
Speaker 2: and the VHS cover definitely made me laugh out loud.
Speaker 2: So it says Invasion of the Mind Benders. And then
Speaker 2: it has like a lady on and she's shooting rays
Speaker 2: of light out of her eyeballs over a guy who's
Speaker 2: looking up enraptured at a bunch of clouds. And then
Speaker 2: next to it, it's got a tagline says controlling a
Speaker 2: mind is a dangerous thing.
Speaker 1: I like how this does look like a horror paperback
Speaker 1: from the eighties, so.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's got looks more like book art than
Speaker 2: movie art. And a plot description from IMDb on Mind
Speaker 2: Benders says, two teenagers notice a sudden change in their
Speaker 2: fellow students. No one is able to explain this zombie
Speaker 2: like behavior, which, at the command of an unseen alien,
Speaker 2: makes them punish transgressors with merciless violence.
Speaker 1: All right, So most of the there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people involved in this. There's a lot of there's
Speaker 1: a lot of loving attention pay to the monsters, and
Speaker 1: we're ultimately not gonna be able to mention all of
Speaker 1: them by name, but I want to mention a few
Speaker 1: of them, as well as the the writers involved here.
Speaker 1: So Jennifer Aspinall was in the makeup department, went under
Speaker 1: work on a lot of projects including Westworld, Captain Marvel,
Speaker 1: and Saturday Night Live. There's a Frank m farrell who
Speaker 1: was one of the writers on the screenplay. He also
Speaker 1: produced nineteen eighty seven Street Trash. That's a melt movie
Speaker 1: that we've discussed before. Anne Bergund was a writer additional
Speaker 1: material plus costume design. She was also associate producer on
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four's The Mask, Yes, the one with Jim
Speaker 1: Carrey in a green cartoon face.
Speaker 2: So did Anne Bergund do the costumes in this, because
Speaker 2: we're gonna have some commentary on the costumes.
Speaker 1: She at least did some of them. But also you
Speaker 1: have this guy Tom Mulinelli who is credited with art direction,
Speaker 1: art department and costume design. This is another individual who
Speaker 1: worked on Street trash. Okay, there's a guy by the
Speaker 1: name of al magli O'schetti who plays Lewis Wilson in this.
Speaker 1: I don't remember which one Lewis Wilson was, but he
Speaker 1: also did special effects photography. He went on to do
Speaker 1: visual effects in a lot of big pictures including Star Trek,
Speaker 1: The Undiscovered Country, Water World, The T two Bill and
Speaker 1: Ted's Bogus Journey, The Adams Family, Jason Goes to Hell,
Speaker 1: and many others.
Speaker 2: Oh. In fact, so I see the connection to T
Speaker 2: two there. But the camera operator, the steadycam operator in
Speaker 2: this movie, j Michael Murrow, I think, also did steady
Speaker 2: cam for a lot of James Cameron movies, including Terminator two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is an individual that I believe Michael Weldon
Speaker 1: pointed out as being involved in this picture in his
Speaker 1: write up in one of the Psychotronic in the Psychotronic
Speaker 1: Video Guide or the Psychotronic Video Guide or the Guide
Speaker 1: to Film, I can't remember which one. Now, getting into
Speaker 1: the actors a little bit, there are a number of
Speaker 1: actors in this who didn't really have any other credits.
Speaker 1: But my favorite actor in this whole picture is Peter
Speaker 1: Ascillo Junior. He plays Rich is oh I would say,
Speaker 1: the richest character in this film. How would we describe him?
Speaker 1: He's the he's the cut up, He's.
Speaker 2: The He's a ham.
Speaker 1: He's a ham.
Speaker 2: He's a constant, glorious ham. He's a ham. Who's you
Speaker 2: get the sense that he's improvising a lot of his lines.
Speaker 2: There are scenes of just where where it feels like
Speaker 2: what happened is they just turn the camera on him
Speaker 2: and they're like, Rich, come on, you know, just riff
Speaker 2: a little bit. And so he'll like wander around kind
Speaker 2: of bumping into the other characters and be like, hey, hey,
Speaker 2: how's your sinuses and stuff like that. He also is
Speaker 2: plays a character who loves beer, and it's clear he
Speaker 2: loves beer because even after the monsters started attacking and
Speaker 2: all everything goes crazy, he's still always got his beer
Speaker 2: in his hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a lot of fun in this He's like
Speaker 1: this tall, mustachioed guy that was apparently in real life
Speaker 1: was just always on, just was always the goofy cut
Speaker 1: up and was much beloved, and so he brings that
Speaker 1: exact same energy to this role. His character, Rich has
Speaker 1: a puppet named Muk and so he's off. He's constantly
Speaker 1: interacting and harassing the other characters with this puppet. And
Speaker 1: he wears a T shirt that features an image of
Speaker 1: himself and the puppet Muke on it. Right, So he
Speaker 1: lived nineteen fifty three through twenty seventeen. He played an
Speaker 1: uncredited zombie and Down of the Dead, and then went
Speaker 1: on to do a lot of bit parts and things,
Speaker 1: often freaks and crazy, sometimes background work. I noticed he
Speaker 1: pops up even in an episode of thirty Rock playing
Speaker 1: paparazzi character, so you know, just somebody clicking a camera
Speaker 1: in the background. But then we also have this character Duke,
Speaker 1: who is Duke also interesting. How would you describe Duke
Speaker 1: to everyone?
Speaker 2: Duke is a fabulous bully. He's sort of the like
Speaker 2: tough guy, bad guy, bad boy of the group. It's
Speaker 2: hard to convey by describing, but a lot of the
Speaker 2: scenes with Duke in them have this bizarre rhythm and
Speaker 2: logic that you sort of get, You get a feel
Speaker 2: for as the movie goes on, but it can't really
Speaker 2: be compared to anything else I can think of. I'm
Speaker 2: going to try to describe one scene just to give
Speaker 2: you an idea of like of duke rhythm, and it
Speaker 2: goes like this, so like they're in the house and
Speaker 2: Duke just pulls a box off the shelf and he
Speaker 2: opens it and an amulet flies out of the box
Speaker 2: onto the floor. And then this other character named Carol
Speaker 2: picks up the amulet and she says, isn't it wonderful?
Speaker 2: And he goes, pretty damn weird. If you ask me,
Speaker 2: what is it? Art or something? Think it's worth any money?
Speaker 2: And then he, immediately from saying this line, turns his
Speaker 2: head to the side and sees a door that has
Speaker 2: just been behind him the whole time, and then he goes,
Speaker 2: what the hell is in here? And he starts jostling
Speaker 2: the lock frantically, and then he breaks a chair across
Speaker 2: the door and starts shoving a board into the door
Speaker 2: jam trying to pry it open. This is Duke energy.
Speaker 1: Would yes, yes, very much so he In my notes,
Speaker 1: I noted that he was essentially a discount Phonsie in
Speaker 1: a trash bag because he's wearing this weird costume.
Speaker 2: He's wearing plastic clothes like a shirt and pants that
Speaker 2: are they look like they're made from the same material
Speaker 2: material as like black heavy duty garbage bags.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know if it's like a workout
Speaker 1: thing or what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that that that is literally what
Speaker 2: it looks like it's made out of. And I yeah,
Speaker 2: I have no explanation.
Speaker 1: My one of my early theories watching this film was
Speaker 1: that he was perhaps like the frontman of a band
Speaker 1: or something, and that are the characters, the human characters
Speaker 1: in this film. It's essentially like a band and some
Speaker 1: hangers on and like maybe they're older producer. But this
Speaker 1: is a complete misread on my part because there's nothing
Speaker 1: to support that in the film. There's nothing to support
Speaker 1: any actual connections but between any of these human characters.
Speaker 2: Well, this gets you to something about the movie, which
Speaker 2: is that it has one of my absolute favorite horror
Speaker 2: movie tropes, which is the utterly implosable friend group. You know,
Speaker 2: many eighties movies especially have this. The eighties were the
Speaker 2: decade of the implausible friend group movie. Though you know,
Speaker 2: it still happens every now and then. But I think
Speaker 2: you probably know what I'm talking about. But if not,
Speaker 2: just picture this. Okay, so it's a horror movie. You
Speaker 2: got a group of friends hanging out. Maybe they're going
Speaker 2: to somebody's uncle's cabin in the woods, or they're driving
Speaker 2: around looking for a party as in this movie or
Speaker 2: something like that, and the group consists of people who
Speaker 2: would never in reality be hanging out together. What you
Speaker 2: usually get is either one or two of each teen
Speaker 2: subculture archetype that the movie wants to show, So you
Speaker 2: get like a jock, a nerd, a punk, a stoner,
Speaker 2: a preppie, rich kid, et cetera, instead of what you
Speaker 2: would imagine would happen in reality, which is you'd have
Speaker 2: like a group of jocks, or like a group of nerds,
Speaker 2: a group of stoners, and and that would be the
Speaker 2: friend group.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean sometimes I guess in your better films,
Speaker 1: you see a diverse group of people brought together by
Speaker 1: circumstances that then have to survive the monster. Oftentimes maybe yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like maybe it's uh, you know, it's stoners and greasers
Speaker 1: because they're both fleeing a storm or something and we're
Speaker 1: holding up in the same place and now we're have
Speaker 1: we now we have to fight goblins or something.
Speaker 2: Right, That's more like you'd get in a Night of
Speaker 2: the Living Dead. You know, different people are sort of
Speaker 2: driven into a house by the zombies attacking. It's not
Speaker 2: like they were all hanging out to begin with.
Speaker 1: Right, But in this film everyone was hanging out to
Speaker 1: begin with, and we're given no explanation why that would be.
Speaker 2: You know, And I think there are a number of
Speaker 2: reasons this happens. Number one is what I was talking
Speaker 2: about earlier. It's kind of the bug fights mentality, Like
Speaker 2: you want to see different human cultural archetypes being faced
Speaker 2: with violent struggle or extreme circumstances with that kind of
Speaker 2: like bug fights or video game unit versus unit mentality.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of a basic curiosity about like how
Speaker 2: does this one work? But there's another version of it.
Speaker 2: I think this is sort of there at the core too,
Speaker 2: which is that the dead teenager movies of the eighties
Speaker 2: are often, in essence clumsy and vulgar morality plays, and
Speaker 2: as such, in a way you get them trying to
Speaker 2: sort of recreate the dynamics of the Canterbury Tales. So
Speaker 2: whereas in the Canterbury Tales you might get the knight's
Speaker 2: tale and the partner's tale and the Wife of Bath,
Speaker 2: here you get the jock's tail and the punk's tale
Speaker 2: and the NERD's tale, and those are the little vignettes
Speaker 2: you see them them go through before they finally meet
Speaker 2: their end at the ultimate confrontation with the monster or
Speaker 2: mad slasher or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I would have liked to have seen Rich's tale. I
Speaker 1: guess we do see Rich's tale to a certain extent here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of Rich, I see Partner's tale sort
Speaker 2: of right, but also a Miller's tale, one one of
Speaker 2: the good humorous ones. But I totally agree with you.
Speaker 2: It works better when there is some kind of external
Speaker 2: circumstance that can assemble people who are not naturally friends.
Speaker 2: But in this movie, yes, it's just like, well, they're
Speaker 2: all hanging out together for no for no reason, they
Speaker 2: appear to hate each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's there's tension from the very beginning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we don't really know why there's. It's not explained.
Speaker 1: But it's the kind of tension that eventually erupts into
Speaker 1: a full fledged fist fight between two of the characters.
Speaker 1: In fact, between Duke and the older guy who I
Speaker 1: thought was maybe a manager of some sort. They have
Speaker 1: like an epic quiet man asque this fight.
Speaker 2: Yes, and.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure why it occurs.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that seems good. Oh and and like their
Speaker 2: girlfriends are They're just like watching them fight, and one
Speaker 2: of them is like, should we stop them? And the
Speaker 2: other one is basically like no, just let them go.
Speaker 1: And they've been beset by multiple monsters at this point.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's just not a good time for a fistfight.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, are you ready to talk a little more
Speaker 2: about the plot?
Speaker 1: Yes, such as it is, let's get into the plot.
Speaker 2: So one of the first things that had me laughing
Speaker 2: in this movie was, I know this was the title
Speaker 2: of the original film before it was recut and supplemented
Speaker 2: by the additional footage, but this credit was given to
Speaker 2: Twisted Souls inc Twisted Souls Incorporated. I don't know. That
Speaker 2: sounds like a tattoo company or something. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: what exactly, But so you get an opening on a graveyard.
Speaker 2: It's very ed wood style graveyard with some kind of
Speaker 2: flimsy looking tombstones, and then there is a stone crypt
Speaker 2: cover on one of the graves that starts throbbing, like
Speaker 2: it's stretching and deforming, and immediately I thought, oh, that's
Speaker 2: a nice special effect. I think that could be similar.
Speaker 2: There's a similar effect actually in the original Nightmare on
Speaker 2: ELM Street where you remember the scene where a character
Speaker 2: is lying on a bed dreaming and then on the
Speaker 2: wall behind them, like Freddy's head sort of stretches out
Speaker 2: through the wall. And I think, I'm not sure, but
Speaker 2: I think that was accomplished just by using like a sheet,
Speaker 2: a flexible sheet as the wall. And then so you know,
Speaker 2: the actor sticks their head in there and it looks
Speaker 2: like the wall is actually bending around some surface, some
Speaker 2: objects coming out of it. I think the same thing's
Speaker 2: probably going on with the grave here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a great scene in Nightmare. That was
Speaker 1: a great scene. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of
Speaker 1: this short story the Yellow Wallpaper.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, what was Spooky's actually based on an early
Speaker 2: script treatment by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I think I recall
Speaker 2: reading that somewhere. So we keep seeing this graveyard right
Speaker 2: out in front of the big white mansion. There's a
Speaker 2: big white mansion. It's the house for the movie. Looks
Speaker 2: kind of like the White House because it has these
Speaker 2: pillars out in the front.
Speaker 1: Well, it does have an interesting history because it turns
Speaker 1: out this is the John Jay Homestead.
Speaker 2: That's right, What a bizarre connection. So this Spooky the
Speaker 2: movie with fart Zombies was filmed at the ancestral home
Speaker 2: of John Jay, one of the US founding fathers, the
Speaker 2: first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, one of the
Speaker 2: authors of the Federalist papers. I didn't know this when
Speaker 2: I watched the movie, but it made me think back
Speaker 2: on it, and I'm like, could this be interpreted as
Speaker 2: containing any federalist propaganda? I couldn't. I couldn't really make
Speaker 2: that work. But anyway, so we'll keep seeing this as
Speaker 2: the setting. They show you a lot of the setting
Speaker 2: and then it cuts to this dude in white gloves
Speaker 2: sitting doctor claw style, so it's a high back chair.
Speaker 2: He's got his back to the camera, he's got his
Speaker 2: hand on a cane and white gloves. He's got a
Speaker 2: big old ring on and he is talking to a
Speaker 2: winter green coffin and he says, I conveyed no longer.
Speaker 2: The final foolish victims will be here very soon. So
Speaker 2: just doing a really excellent accent that kind of comes
Speaker 2: and goes. He doesn't always have the accent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not very consistent. There are times where it
Speaker 1: feels like it's fifty percent low pan and fifty percent
Speaker 1: major taught from.
Speaker 2: Raiders of the Lost Arc.
Speaker 1: You know, it's oh yeah, it kind of he's going
Speaker 1: for some sort of a German accent, like that's what
Speaker 1: he's aiming for, but there's a bit of drift to it.
Speaker 2: The vinyl foolish victims. Yeah, yeah, well, actually that may
Speaker 2: maybe that connects more thematically than I realized, because of
Speaker 2: course Duke does turn out to be wearing vinyl clothes,
Speaker 2: so at least one of the victims is vinyl in nature.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: But okay, so we get a read on the Warlocks plan.
Speaker 2: This guy is going to sacrifice victims in his house
Speaker 2: in order to resurrect his his wife, I think, and
Speaker 2: we're led to believe at the time that, like you know,
Speaker 2: they loved each other dearly, but she has long departed
Speaker 2: and she will soon be raised and they will be
Speaker 2: happy together forever.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's all right. So it seems that at
Speaker 1: this point in the thing, I'm like, like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's see how this occurs. Let's see how this happens.
Speaker 2: Then we cut to this might be movie B or
Speaker 2: movie C. At this point, we cut to a guy
Speaker 2: running around in the woods who looks like a cast
Speaker 2: member from Cats. He looks like a jellical cat going
Speaker 2: to the jellicle ball and he has a hook for
Speaker 2: a hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some sort of a weare cat with a hook
Speaker 1: for a hand in this kind of strange costume running
Speaker 1: around looking, you know, very creepy. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that these are you know, it's not thriller level
Speaker 1: of creature creation here, but it's pretty good and I
Speaker 1: am legitimately creeped out by this guy.
Speaker 2: Oh and we also get the cast member of Cats
Speaker 2: observing a kid with a backpack who's just wandering around
Speaker 2: by himself in the woods.
Speaker 1: Right, is this billy or is he just a billy?
Speaker 2: I think it's billy. Yeah, And then you get to
Speaker 2: Movie C, I think. And then in Movie C we
Speaker 2: meet our implausible friend group which are driving around the
Speaker 2: woods in two different cars. Car number one consist of
Speaker 2: a bad boy driver. This is Duke. He's wearing his
Speaker 2: black plastic clothes. He's being an aggressive jerk from moment one,
Speaker 2: just screaming at his passengers about spilling beer on the
Speaker 2: upholstery while he's sort of zipping around in the dark.
Speaker 2: And then you see car number two. The driver is
Speaker 2: this much older guy who reads as like the ultimate
Speaker 2: narc hanging out with these teens around him. He's wearing
Speaker 2: a suit and tie. He is at least fifteen years
Speaker 2: older than everyone else. I thought he was supposed to
Speaker 2: be somebody's dad, but I think he's just a member
Speaker 2: of this friend group who looks like he could be
Speaker 2: their dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's never explained, And based on some of
Speaker 1: the behind the scenes interviews that I saw, I don't
Speaker 1: think they knew either. This was not something where they
Speaker 1: cut out some scenes that explain something. No, it's just
Speaker 1: it's just this is what they was put together, and
Speaker 1: they had no idea whether connections were supposed to be.
Speaker 2: And there's immediately a rivalry between this guy. We find
Speaker 2: out his name is Peter, and Duke. The drivers of
Speaker 2: the two cars don't like each other. Peter is talking
Speaker 2: about Duke. He says, I told you we shouldn't have
Speaker 2: followed him. First. He starts a fight at that party,
Speaker 2: gets us all thrown out, embarrasses the hell out of us.
Speaker 2: Then he gets us lost out here in the middle
Speaker 2: of nowhere. So I guess Duke's calling the shots. They're
Speaker 2: all just they're riding for Duke. And Duke. Duke is
Speaker 2: not is not proving his worth. Duke is leading them astray.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it's so ridiculous. I can't even begin
Speaker 1: to follow it. I guess part of it is the
Speaker 1: problem of having this many monsters in a film. You
Speaker 1: need not one, but two car loads of people to
Speaker 1: serve as victims, and then you get this kind of
Speaker 1: a situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that's true. Some some movies get around
Speaker 2: that with a van.
Speaker 1: That's true, or just hey, yeah, just have two groups.
Speaker 1: You know, there's the one van, there's the other. I mean,
Speaker 1: troll Too sort of managed this right, sure, or the family,
Speaker 1: and then you had the like the boyfriend and his
Speaker 1: crew that were coming in another vehicle.
Speaker 2: They don't have to know each other before they get
Speaker 2: to the house. If you just want to serve them
Speaker 2: up to a buffet of monsters, they could just both
Speaker 2: arrive at the house.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess they just wanted to have lots
Speaker 1: of dynamic dialogue between all of these people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then so then we cut back to Billy.
Speaker 2: I guess this is movie two or b B plot.
Speaker 2: He's in the woods eating a snack cake by himself,
Speaker 2: and then he gets startled by a guy wearing a
Speaker 2: denim tuxedo who's like, hey, give an old man a light,
Speaker 2: and it's very creepy, U though the guy's not old.
Speaker 2: And then the kid gives him a light. Why does
Speaker 2: this kid kid have a lighter? I don't know. And
Speaker 2: then the guys like go home, and the kid's like, no,
Speaker 2: I have plans, big plans. And it turns out his
Speaker 2: parents forgot his thirteenth birthday and that's why he ran
Speaker 2: away from home. So he's just running around in the woods.
Speaker 2: And then the kid walks away from the guy, and
Speaker 2: then the guy in the woods as the kid walks away,
Speaker 2: is just immediately killed by the jellicle cat. He gets
Speaker 2: like slashes on his face, like while the kid is
Speaker 2: still in frame walking away.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's such a weird series of events because
Speaker 1: it's yet this kid runaway kid, you know, running into
Speaker 1: a drifter in a way that feels like sort of
Speaker 1: a Slice of Americana kind of tail, right, But then
Speaker 1: the drifter is just just torn to pieces by the
Speaker 1: by the wear cat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then so we get a bunch more stuff
Speaker 2: with the which plot the A plot I guess or
Speaker 2: B plot the one with the warlock trying to resurrect
Speaker 2: his wife. We start seeing his face and I got man,
Speaker 2: this is a dry, dry warlock. His face is just
Speaker 2: caked with some kind of powder. He needs moisturizer.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: It's bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But we also get to see his his wife in
Speaker 2: the coffin and she kind of looks like a blonde
Speaker 2: Winona rider. Yeah. But eventually we cut back to the party,
Speaker 2: party boys, the party kids in the cars. They're they're
Speaker 2: driving around. Eventually they they get blocked by an obstruction
Speaker 2: in the road. I think, I think bust for Jones
Speaker 2: throws a tree branch on the road in front of
Speaker 2: Duke's car and then they have to stop and move it.
Speaker 2: And Peter, mister Nark, gets out of his car and
Speaker 2: he's like, listen, Duke, we've been driving around for two
Speaker 2: hours in circles, getting nowhere fast. And then Duke says, right,
Speaker 2: let's get out of this place. And then I wrote
Speaker 2: this exchange down because this was good. Peter says, what
Speaker 2: are we doing now? Duke says, we're partying. Man, something
Speaker 2: you're too old to appreciate. Huh. If any of you
Speaker 2: people want to come have some fun, come with us,
Speaker 2: and then Peter says, this is ridiculous. Do you even
Speaker 2: know where you're going? And Duke says, yeah, I'm going nuts.
Speaker 2: I'm going nuts because I got to stand here and listen.
Speaker 1: To you so snappy, so snappy. That's some man it
Speaker 1: material right there.
Speaker 2: That's like a sit back from the typewriter and kind
Speaker 2: of like.
Speaker 1: Go ah, yeah, all right. But we come back to
Speaker 1: the kid. We come back to Billy wandering around. He's
Speaker 1: going to find the White House as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wanders around, he finds the White House. He
Speaker 2: goes inside, of course, because you know horror movie logic,
Speaker 2: you just come across what appears to be an abandoned
Speaker 2: house that is not your house, and you just go in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's you know, we've talked
Speaker 1: about tales. So many old tales involved leaving the trail
Speaker 1: or you know, entering into the wild place where you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to go, and in stories that involve a
Speaker 1: haunted house. And essentially this is a haunted house picture.
Speaker 1: It's just haunted with random monsters instead of ghosts. It's
Speaker 1: like people are drawn to it. People will find a
Speaker 1: reason to go into that haunted house, be it for
Speaker 1: shelter or for treasure or in this case with with
Speaker 1: with the main characters, for the potentiality of partying.
Speaker 2: Right. Uh and and actually the kid also goes into
Speaker 2: the house with the for with partying in mind. Yes,
Speaker 2: because apparently so his parents forgot it was his birthday.
Speaker 2: That's why he ran away from home. He wanders into
Speaker 2: the house. Uh, they're oh at this point, there's also
Speaker 2: this is when we start seeing a jawa running around
Speaker 2: just like a like a child in a in a
Speaker 2: brown hooded cloak. But anyway, Billy the kid, he is
Speaker 2: in the house and he walks into a room full
Speaker 2: of birthday party streamers and sad half inflated balloons, and
Speaker 2: he goes cool. He says, hey, a surprise party, so
Speaker 2: he didn't forget after all, This is really great. So
Speaker 2: the again, the logic of this is that this boy
Speaker 2: thinks his parents threw him a surprise birthday party in
Speaker 2: a random house that he walked into in the woods.
Speaker 2: And then he opens a box that he thinks contains
Speaker 2: a bowling ball, but in fact it's a head and
Speaker 2: it is the Warlock's head, and he goes Happy birthday.
Speaker 2: Billy moahahaha, And yeah, of course there you go.
Speaker 1: But between the old warlock, who we find out his
Speaker 1: name is Creon, Creon, Yeah Creon and Billy please, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have this kind of discount Mike and the tall
Speaker 1: Man vibe from Phantasm. Yeah, yeah, creepy old man who's
Speaker 1: mysterious and seems to command supernatural powers. And oh and
Speaker 1: there's of course there are jawa s creatures in both films,
Speaker 1: though of course Phantasm is on certainly on several levels
Speaker 1: ahead of this. Yeah, an order of magnitude or two
Speaker 1: above Spookies in terms of quality.
Speaker 2: But the thing you can always say on behalf of Spookyes,
Speaker 2: is Spookyes has more variety. Yes, you know, the Phantasm
Speaker 2: may have like three or so interesting kinds of monsters,
Speaker 2: Spookyes has at least nine. Right, So of course, eventually
Speaker 2: the party kids arrive at the house and they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: here's a house. Let's go inside and see if there's
Speaker 2: a party. This is not the only I gotta say,
Speaker 2: this is not the only movie where this happens. This
Speaker 2: is sort of standard eighties horror movie logic. You just
Speaker 2: arrive at a place and you think they're might be
Speaker 2: a party there, and so you go inside and try
Speaker 2: to party.
Speaker 1: Right, And I think Rich has brought like snacks and beer, right,
Speaker 1: that's another part of it. So they have brought a
Speaker 1: certain amount of party with them.
Speaker 2: He has red stripe, and he has chips, and he's
Speaker 2: consuming them in almost every scene from here on out.
Speaker 1: He's ultimately an optimist. He was like, this is not
Speaker 1: the party we intended to go to, but we're going
Speaker 1: to have a party here. We are going to enjoy
Speaker 1: ourselves in this just obviously haunted house.
Speaker 2: Then there's a weird sequence after this where the catman
Speaker 2: chases Billy birthday boy Billy around, chases him outside, and
Speaker 2: then like buries him alive. I think, yes, like this
Speaker 2: bar scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like watching this for the first time and not
Speaker 1: really knowing anything about the production, you're thinking, well, Billy's
Speaker 1: going to be around for a while. But no, the
Speaker 1: wear a cat ambushes him like like massacures his face
Speaker 1: like squatt, you know, just I don't know if he
Speaker 1: uses the hook or just his cat claws, but swipes
Speaker 1: him across the face. There's blood. Billy falls into a
Speaker 1: doug grave and then the cat starts burying him alive
Speaker 1: and buries him alive and you never see Billy again.
Speaker 3: What.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this plot line does not return. It's just like
Speaker 2: a like thirteen year old child does get killed like
Speaker 2: at the beginning of this movie, and then it doesn't
Speaker 2: connect to anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't connect anything, like speak you don't have
Speaker 1: your you don't have a child, be your sort of
Speaker 1: throwaway victim unless there are other child characters involved and
Speaker 1: they have a relationship with that child, or you know,
Speaker 1: the adults have a relationship with that child. It generally
Speaker 1: needs to mean something for that to take place, and
Speaker 1: in this movie it means absolutely nothing.
Speaker 2: It just seems like an idea somebody started having and
Speaker 2: then they just got there like, oh, okay, I don't
Speaker 2: know where I'm going with that. I'm done with that,
Speaker 2: onto other things.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Of course this was part of the bit that
Speaker 1: was filmed afterwards to complete the film, so we can
Speaker 1: ultimately excuse it that way. But when the context of
Speaker 1: the film itself as as a solid, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of cohesive viewing experience, it's it's very alarming.
Speaker 2: Okay, So now you've got the party kids in the house,
Speaker 2: and I guess maybe we should mention who all of
Speaker 2: them are, because again, like, clearly you're supposed to be
Speaker 2: getting I think, a list of types, you know, your archetypes.
Speaker 2: So you've got Duke. He's the bad boy, he's the
Speaker 2: he's the tough guy, bully, wearing plastic bad boy clothes.
Speaker 2: And then Duke's girlfriend's name is Linda. She's his long
Speaker 2: suffering girlfriend, and she's dressed in these bright eighties colors
Speaker 2: and spins a lot of the movie rolling her eyes
Speaker 2: at Duke's behavior. You know, it's just kind of like, oh, brother,
Speaker 2: that's our Duke.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then you've got Peter, the you know, the seventy five
Speaker 2: year old accountant, who I guess maybe you might think
Speaker 2: was one of the protagonists. At first, I thought the
Speaker 2: protagonist of the film was going to be Peter's girlfriend, Megan,
Speaker 2: because she at least initially has that sensible protagonist energy
Speaker 2: in a horror movie with the group like this. But
Speaker 2: I notice more and more as the movie goes on
Speaker 2: that that evaporates, and then she mainly becomes characterized by
Speaker 2: like just making statements of fatalistic despair. She just says
Speaker 2: things like there's no escape. Every one of us is
Speaker 2: going to die.
Speaker 1: Wow. So she starts out as the Sigourney Weaver potential
Speaker 1: Sigourney Weaver the picture and becomes the Bill Paxton of
Speaker 1: the picture.
Speaker 2: Yes, Meghan, Yeah, the Descent of Megan. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: a supremely positive and optimistic force within the film is Rich,
Speaker 2: the jokester who's got a puppet who loves beer and chips,
Speaker 2: and he just sort of like he bumbles through every scene.
Speaker 2: There are moments where he shows flashes of fear, but
Speaker 2: there are other times where he's being attacked by a
Speaker 2: monster and he's just like, yeah, okay, come on, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're going to kill me, bring it on. And
Speaker 2: then we got a couple of characters named Adrian and Day.
Speaker 2: Adrian is I think supposed to be a British fancy
Speaker 2: fashion lady wearing this like cool cream colored jacket, and
Speaker 2: her boyfriend Dave is like also I think supposed to
Speaker 2: be a kind of like fancy rich guy. He's an
Speaker 2: allergic man with sinus problems. He's wearing a khaki jacket.
Speaker 2: I think these two are supposed to be fussy and fancy.
Speaker 2: They're like rich city people who are just over it
Speaker 2: and they want to get a cab back to Soho
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, they're kind of what the what are the
Speaker 1: characters in Christmas Vacation Todd and Margo, they're sort of
Speaker 1: the Todd and Margo of this.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Yeah, they're kind of like American psycho people.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now she's played by Charlotte Alexandria, who is a
Speaker 1: French actor who apparently did a lot of fairly diverse
Speaker 1: smattering of film in Europe before coming over and playing this.
Speaker 1: And in the documentary they mentioned I haven't seen this
Speaker 1: actually verified anywhere, but they said that she played the
Speaker 1: Virgin Mary in the Life of Brian.
Speaker 2: Hmm, okay, but I don't know about that. And then
Speaker 2: the last two people there is Carol, who's got curly
Speaker 2: blonde hair and seems like maybe she is of like
Speaker 2: a spiritual persuasion. You get the vibe like she could
Speaker 2: do your horoscope, I think. And then you've got Carol's boyfriend, Lewis,
Speaker 2: who has no characteristics that I could identify except that
Speaker 2: he wears denim and I think he's played by somebody
Speaker 2: who did some effects for the movie.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, definitely, And there's a lot of that in this,
Speaker 1: especially when you get into the monsters. People in the
Speaker 1: monster suits are not are not necessarily designated actors. They
Speaker 1: are also involved in other parts of the production.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so here's where you get into that scene
Speaker 2: I talked about earlier where they're just like finding things
Speaker 2: and Duke is just continually turning his attention from one
Speaker 2: destructive project to another. He's like prying open doors and
Speaker 2: smashing stuff. And at one point somebody's like, Duke, stop
Speaker 2: doing that, and he goes like, I don't care about
Speaker 2: this old creep joint. But he gets the door open
Speaker 2: and he gets attacked by a desiccated corpse. It just
Speaker 2: like a corpse falls out of the closet and he's like, nah,
Speaker 2: it's fake.
Speaker 1: The thing about that corpse, this is just so this Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is just a scene where the corpse falls out
Speaker 1: of the closet on him. But later on in the
Speaker 1: film we see that this corpse is completely articulated and
Speaker 1: can be brought to life. There's so much love and
Speaker 1: detail that went into the creation of the various monsters
Speaker 1: in this so I will say that that is That's
Speaker 1: the best thing I can say about this film is that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of love went into the creation of these
Speaker 1: various zombies and corpses and monsters and grim reapers of
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2: You know it has. So after this, they get into
Speaker 2: a wijaboard scene, and this is sort of when all
Speaker 2: hell breaks loose, right Like they start they find a
Speaker 2: wig aboard. Of course, Carol is the one who's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I know how this thing works. It is a tool,
Speaker 2: she says, it's not a game, it's a tool the
Speaker 2: dead can reach out to us. And so they play
Speaker 2: with the wig aboard and the Warlock ends up telling
Speaker 2: them answers to questions through it, like they ask, will
Speaker 2: we ever leave this house? And he says no, and
Speaker 2: then and then the warlock transforms Carol into a demon
Speaker 2: by making a vein on his forehead throb and the
Speaker 2: camera zooms in on the vein on his forehead, and
Speaker 2: then Carol turns into like one of the demons from
Speaker 2: Evil Dead.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, it's it's overtly Evil Dead ask and oh,
Speaker 1: and I should point out that the Ouiji board has
Speaker 1: pictures of the various monsters on it, So I think
Speaker 1: the Ouiji board is supposed to be involved in the
Speaker 1: summoning or unleashing of this various monster, but we don't
Speaker 1: know exactly how or why that is the case.
Speaker 2: One thing I found funny is that the warlock in
Speaker 2: this movie keeps making chess metaphors for what he's doing,
Speaker 2: and they're often inappropriate or I don't see how they
Speaker 2: apply to what he's talking about. Like he's like, it's
Speaker 2: just like a game of chess, but he's referring to
Speaker 2: trap everybody in a house. Yeah, do you have to
Speaker 2: trap your opponent? I mean, I guess you you form
Speaker 2: traps for people in jail. I don't know. It didn't
Speaker 2: seem super applicable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I don't think there's even enough. There aren't
Speaker 1: quite enough monsters to be an entire chess set anyway, right,
Speaker 1: But it's close, it's actually pretty close.
Speaker 2: But here's where you get to the standard. You know,
Speaker 2: you probably if you've seen horror movies before, you know
Speaker 2: the format. After this, the the you know, all hell
Speaker 2: breaks loose. Various monsters are unleashed, and the party crew
Speaker 2: barricade themselves inside the house and they're gonna of course
Speaker 2: split up and get attacked one by one by different
Speaker 2: types of monsters. I like how after they first barricade
Speaker 2: themselves inside, Peter, the older guy, he it seems he
Speaker 2: recognizes they've reached this point in the plot and then
Speaker 2: explains as much. He pretty much says, for the rest
Speaker 2: of the movie, we will now be picked off one
Speaker 2: by one.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And so they split up, like Duke and Linda go
Speaker 2: one way, and they end up encountering some zombies that
Speaker 2: keep far. We can talk about that if you want.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what to make of that scene. And
Speaker 2: Peter and Meghan and Rich go another way, Dave and
Speaker 2: Adrianne stay put. They encounter some grimlins.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, so let's talk about those fart zombies.
Speaker 1: They're credited as being the Muckmen. Even though they don't
Speaker 1: look particularly mucky. They look very dry to me, like
Speaker 1: sort of dried dog biscuit mummies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, crumbling and short, short, short crust.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's in a basement and they are wine
Speaker 1: casts and ultimately they're defeated by melting them with wine,
Speaker 1: which is when the effect looks pretty good, I have
Speaker 1: to say. And the muckman don't look bad, but clearly,
Speaker 1: at some point in post production, and I think the
Speaker 1: making up gets into this a little bit, they decided, well,
Speaker 1: let's add fart noises, and I think The rationale was
Speaker 1: they look kind of swamp thingy, so maybe swamp equals
Speaker 1: he equals fart noises. Yeah, but it also reminds me
Speaker 1: of some behind the scenes stuff I heard about the
Speaker 1: cartoon Invader Zim where they were talking about putting together
Speaker 1: a scene and if they didn't feel like the scene
Speaker 1: was funny enough, they would just keep adding sound effects
Speaker 1: to it until they were satisfied. And so that's what
Speaker 1: this felt like to me, Like they were thinking, this
Speaker 1: needs something, this needs something else. Maybe the answer is
Speaker 1: fart noises.
Speaker 2: It also reminds me of something I think I recall
Speaker 2: Stephen King writing years ago about how when he's writing
Speaker 2: a scene and he's trying to make it really scary
Speaker 2: and he can tell it's just not scary, and he
Speaker 2: doesn't he can't figure out how to make it work.
Speaker 2: Then he just dials up the grossness factor. It's sort
Speaker 2: of like to salvage something that he can't otherwise figure
Speaker 2: out how to make work, just make it disgusting.
Speaker 1: Right, And so that's what they go for here. I
Speaker 1: don't think it works. It just comes off as as
Speaker 1: kind of awkward and dumb. But I have to say
Speaker 1: the muckmen themselves. I don't think they look bad. I
Speaker 1: think they look pretty good, which is, you know the
Speaker 1: same thing i'd say for most of the creatures in
Speaker 1: this Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd say that's the best thing about the movie
Speaker 2: is at least a solid two thirds of the monsters
Speaker 2: look great.
Speaker 1: And you never know what you're gonna get. It's just it.
Speaker 1: It'll be totally unexpected.
Speaker 2: So another kind of encounter we get is that the rich,
Speaker 2: fussy people, Dave and Adrian, they're they're they're sort of
Speaker 2: being catty at each other. They're at each other's throats,
Speaker 2: and then they get groblin. They oh, yeah, wait, sorry,
Speaker 2: is the term gromlin or groblin?
Speaker 1: I say gromlin, but it's a made up word, so
Speaker 1: you can certainly say groblin instead.
Speaker 2: No, no, I want to respect your your your terminology here, gromblin. Yes,
Speaker 2: So they get Gromlin. They get attacked by a little
Speaker 2: green rubber grimlin merman with a like fish gator tail,
Speaker 2: and there is a long scene of Adrian fighting the
Speaker 2: Gromlins while synth Funeral Music plays music choice very weird.
Speaker 2: It's like a shopping mall version of Mozart's Requiem. While
Speaker 2: she's struggling with this little rubber critter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a it's it's it's actually not a bad scene.
Speaker 1: Like she she's good in this fighting making it. It's
Speaker 1: one of these where a person is often fighting a
Speaker 1: puppet or fighting just a prop, you know, and acting
Speaker 1: like it's attacking them. But she she does a good
Speaker 1: job with the scene. And then also ultimately the Gromlin
Speaker 1: looks pretty good. Yet it's well designed. It it's not
Speaker 1: like it's not hobgoblins level. It's maybe a little above that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd say above hobgoblins, definitely below grimlins. Maybe on
Speaker 2: the level of ghoulies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it's at some point in here we get
Speaker 2: an update on the Warlock framing narrative, which which is
Speaker 2: this probably won't be all that surprising, But it turns
Speaker 2: out the lady in the coffin, who is being revived
Speaker 2: by the evil magic of the Warlock, does not want
Speaker 2: to come back from the dead. She does not like
Speaker 2: the Warlock guy, and she was just fine with her
Speaker 2: eternal slumber, not interested in his his satanic, you know,
Speaker 2: magical deal, and she's just like, get me out of here.
Speaker 1: Sometimes dead is better, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, but to mention some of the other monster scenes,
Speaker 2: which which are mostly pretty great. So Adrianne gets attacked
Speaker 2: by those who she beats the Gromlin she like hits
Speaker 2: it with the fire poker I think, and crushes it
Speaker 2: with a bookshelf or something, ye, and then she runs off.
Speaker 2: Then she gets attacked by a different creature. This time
Speaker 2: it is the creature from the Electric Intestine's Lagoon. Very
Speaker 2: nice looking monster, very.
Speaker 1: Mute, sy, very creative. I don't I can't think of
Speaker 1: another film where a monster uses like belly tentacles to
Speaker 1: not only grab but also electrocute a victim and in
Speaker 1: doing so melt her face off with like a stop
Speaker 1: motion effect, which is really nice.
Speaker 2: There's another monster we get to see I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: like the the zombie baboon bride Hag, which is where
Speaker 2: the warlock lady escapes or you know, the Warlock's bride
Speaker 2: escapes and she gets away from him, wanders into some
Speaker 2: catacombs and then she gets attacked by this baboon creature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, puppeteer is clearly in shot in the lower left
Speaker 1: hand corner of the screen at one point, but yeah,
Speaker 1: still still a fun sequence. Nice, but probably one of
Speaker 1: the ultimately one of the weaker looking puppet creatures that
Speaker 1: we encounter, and also one that doesn't I really don't
Speaker 1: know what exactly they are you going for here?
Speaker 2: Now? Somehow, as you mentioned earlier, Duke and Peter end
Speaker 2: up in a fist fight. The characters reunite. Megan's like, well,
Speaker 2: we're all going to die and that's just how it is.
Speaker 2: And Duke is like, I want to fight, and Peter's
Speaker 2: like okay, bucko, and so they just start slugging it out.
Speaker 2: And does this fight end with Duke dead? I don't recall.
Speaker 1: I do not remember either. Yeah, I don't remember what
Speaker 1: actually kills Duke.
Speaker 2: I think the Grim Reaper does. Oh yeah, because the
Speaker 2: great Yeah, like a statue of the Grim Reaper comes
Speaker 2: to life and then it attacks them. I think it
Speaker 2: kills Duke and Peter. The old guy literally dives right
Speaker 2: through a closed door like busts strike he does.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I mean it's all in ball. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: always insane enough when someone like throws himself through glass
Speaker 1: in one of these films, which yeah, I mean people
Speaker 1: can and do throw themselves through glass sometimes if the
Speaker 1: circumstance is right, but in movies it takes on an
Speaker 1: entirely different air. People often pop up completely unscathed. They
Speaker 1: do it with just on the fly, without a lot
Speaker 1: of thought. But in this case, it's not even a window.
Speaker 1: It's a wooden door.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a nice detail.
Speaker 1: Fortunately made completely out of bals of wood.
Speaker 2: The jokester rich At some point you thought he was
Speaker 2: gonna get killed earlier by one of the evil dead zombies,
Speaker 2: but then he just keeps wandering around with his beer
Speaker 2: and his chips, and he eventually wanders into it like
Speaker 2: a lady leads him into a cave, and then she
Speaker 2: transforms into a giant spider So I think she's supposed
Speaker 2: to be like a like a spider woman creature of
Speaker 2: some type, and she she sucks all his fluids out,
Speaker 2: which is a nice effect.
Speaker 1: It is. It's a nice effect. It's a fun sequence,
Speaker 1: but also one that raises questions about sort of the
Speaker 1: the energy economy of this film, because a lot of
Speaker 1: work went into this. They have like a custom Spider
Speaker 1: Woman layer there there's a different actor playing this sort
Speaker 1: of Japanese Joragumo spider woman, and she doesn't just she
Speaker 1: doesn't just like you know, suddenly reveal oh she has
Speaker 1: half a spider face or suddenly she's a spider.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: There there's like five stages to this transformation, each one
Speaker 1: involving some either impressive or ambitious practical effects. So and
Speaker 1: that's not even counting the rich head that is then
Speaker 1: deflated like a balloon when he sucked dry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it likes so much like the content is
Speaker 2: severely like eyebrow raising but really great effects. But likewise,
Speaker 2: with the very next scene, which is the Grim Reaper
Speaker 2: fight on the balcony, like the old guy Peter ends
Speaker 2: up fighting this, it is just death personified with the scythe.
Speaker 1: This is one that definitely reminded me of the Key
Speaker 1: and Peel Grimlins two pitch meeting skit. There's the one
Speaker 1: where the guy recommends that Hulk Hogan be in the
Speaker 1: picture and they're like, WHOA hold the phone, you're talking
Speaker 1: Hulk Hogan pro wrestler. It's similar to that. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna put the Grim Reaper in this. The personification
Speaker 1: of death a highly symbolic character that is very rarely
Speaker 1: actually incorporated into some sort of a film. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are examples of this, obviously, including stuff like Bill
Speaker 1: and Tad or I guess with the Final Destination films
Speaker 1: to a certain extent without that character like really appearing
Speaker 1: on the screen. But for the most part, like the
Speaker 1: Grim Reaper is, is not a physical entity that you
Speaker 1: talk about people encountering, unless you're dealing with a property
Speaker 1: that is being fairly satirical or extremely symbolic.
Speaker 2: Well wait, sorry, thinking back to the Final Destination movies,
Speaker 2: does Tony Todd actually play the Grim Reaper or just
Speaker 2: a guy who knows about the Grim Reaper? Oh?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure on this. I have a very vague
Speaker 1: memory of these films, and I don't think I saw
Speaker 1: all of them. Tony Todd, of course, as the actor
Speaker 1: played Candy Man, yeah, and is a great actor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't remember if he's just kind of the wise
Speaker 1: man who knows the ways of death or his death embodied.
Speaker 2: I recall, like several of those movies have a scene
Speaker 2: where the characters go and they meet him and they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: what's up, And he's like and he tells them like
Speaker 2: facts about death. He's like, I don't know, He's just like,
Speaker 2: did you know. I recall in the first one, he
Speaker 2: refers to the Grim Reaper as a mac daddy.
Speaker 1: Really yeh yeah, Now is Tony Todd I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Is Tony Todd wearing like a black robe? Does he
Speaker 1: have like a scythe pin on his shirt or anything?
Speaker 2: I don't recall the capacity in which he has encountered
Speaker 2: in the later films. In the first film, I think
Speaker 2: he plays a guy who is interpreted as a mortuary worker.
Speaker 2: Like they break into a morgue where one of the
Speaker 2: people is being kept, and he's just there and he
Speaker 2: tells them facts about death and then tells them that
Speaker 2: like they can't escape death because death is a mac Daddy.
Speaker 2: Well this, I mean, it's a great cameo. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This Grim Reaper, however, can be defeated. And the way
Speaker 1: they defeat him is pretty hilarious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they like knock it. So Peter I think, punches
Speaker 2: him or somehow knocks him off the balcony and then
Speaker 2: he explodes, just like explodes in a giant fireball, like
Speaker 2: he's made of gasoline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a truck that has gone off a cliff
Speaker 1: in an action film or a Mad Max movie or something,
Speaker 1: and then just burst into a just a big fireball
Speaker 1: at the bottom. That's what death does when you knock
Speaker 1: him off a roof.
Speaker 2: So there's some more just sort of like wrapping up
Speaker 2: the plot kind of stuff. There is a scene at
Speaker 2: the end that I got to say, as much as
Speaker 2: I enjoyed some of the monster scenes early on, the
Speaker 2: ending scene was excruciating. It just goes on and on
Speaker 2: and on. It's basically a chase where the woman who
Speaker 2: has been awoken from her eternal slumber by the sacrifices
Speaker 2: within the house and is trying to escape her like
Speaker 2: evil warlock husband. She runs out of the house and
Speaker 2: then zombies keep attacking her and she just keeps running
Speaker 2: from them, and it's playing this driving synth music that's
Speaker 2: kind of like good and getting you pumped up at first,
Speaker 2: but then it just goes on and on and on
Speaker 2: and on, and I thought I was gonna start screaming.
Speaker 1: Yeah this I had a similar experience like I've been.
Speaker 1: I was kind of really more enthusiastic about these monsters
Speaker 1: and some of the acting, but then this whole sequence
Speaker 1: hits and I begin to feel like a little weird,
Speaker 1: like a little nauseous, you know, like like it was
Speaker 1: it was getting psychedelic in the ad sense, like this
Speaker 1: scene is the brown acid, you know, right, yes, And
Speaker 1: it did seem to go. I don't think it's actually
Speaker 1: that long. I think it's maybe it's less than ten minutes,
Speaker 1: but who it just feels it's just dragging. It really drags.
Speaker 1: And then basically at the end we get our nice
Speaker 1: like sort of crazy dark ending where Creon finally comes
Speaker 1: bursting up through that grave, the pulsating grave from the
Speaker 1: beginning of the film, he's laughing maniacally. We cut to
Speaker 1: the Jaha child laughing maniacally, and then freeze frame on
Speaker 1: Creon laughing, and that's it, roll credits.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and that's Spookies. Spookies. You know, I can't
Speaker 2: stop thinking about your comparison of the Grim Reaper with
Speaker 2: the Hulkster from the Key and Peel Skit. Something about
Speaker 2: that is connecting very strongly for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna have the Grim Reaper
Speaker 1: in your picture, like I mean, I hate to criticize
Speaker 1: the one thing that really works about this film, the
Speaker 1: monster buffet. Like the Grim Reaper doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: on the buffet. He like he needs to be an
Speaker 1: entree that you order special, like maybe you have a
Speaker 1: side item with that, but for the most part, like
Speaker 1: this is the Grim Reaper. He's a big deal. He
Speaker 1: needs to be your big bad instead of just one
Speaker 1: of the random things summoned by the Ouiji board. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be part of the buffet, but at
Speaker 2: least needs to be a special part of the buffet.
Speaker 2: So it's not just like one more thing you scoop
Speaker 2: out of a steam tray. It is. It's the roast
Speaker 2: beef carving station, you know. It's like the special the
Speaker 2: end point. It's like this is where the real stuff is.
Speaker 1: However, I will say the Grim Reaper looks pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Like all these you can question why these monsters are
Speaker 1: in it, but ultimately all the monsters are pretty fun
Speaker 1: to look at on screen when they show up. Some
Speaker 1: of them look great, some of them look ambitious but interesting.
Speaker 1: They are ultimately the stars of this picture.
Speaker 2: I want to be a RepA maniac, have fun with
Speaker 2: my family and friends.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, is there anything you know? Sometimes we
Speaker 1: do a deeper read of some of the things, some
Speaker 1: of the aspects of a particular film, but this this
Speaker 1: film's kind of like a it's like a meta material
Speaker 1: that resist any stain or or water, of beads of
Speaker 1: fixing to it. Everything just runs off of it. There's
Speaker 1: not a There aren't a lot of deep thoughts we
Speaker 1: can really have about Spookies. But that's all right.
Speaker 2: It wicks away cognition.
Speaker 1: It does. Yeah, don't watch this film if you want
Speaker 1: to want to have deep thoughts about virtually anything. But
Speaker 1: if you want to see some some kind of groovy monsters,
Speaker 1: it's worth taking a look at. Which leads to our
Speaker 1: next point, where can you watch Spookies? Well again, Vinegar
Speaker 1: Syndrome put out an awesome blu ray of the movie,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a hardcore spooky fan. That's what you
Speaker 1: need to pick up. It's a four K restoration from
Speaker 1: the thirty five millimeters original camera negative pack full of
Speaker 1: special bonuses. But you can also stream this film via
Speaker 1: Shutter or a GMC. Yes, American Movie Classics, because this
Speaker 1: is Spookies after all.
Speaker 2: Is there a Criterion Collection edition? And I'm sorry I
Speaker 2: keep making that joke.
Speaker 1: Vinegar Syndrome is your Criterion edition for films like this.
Speaker 2: I promise I'll stop now.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close
Speaker 1: the tomb on this one and try and see it
Speaker 1: shut But certainly we'll be back with another Weird House
Speaker 1: Cinema episode next Friday. I believe we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about a film of superior quality, both objectively and
Speaker 1: subjectively speaking. But in the meantime you can check out
Speaker 1: all these episodes of Weird House Cinema that publish on
Speaker 1: Fridays and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed
Speaker 1: We are primarily a science podcast, but we set aside
Speaker 1: most of the science on Fridays to discuss a weird film.
Speaker 1: Core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, or on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, Artifact on Wednesday and on Monday. We
Speaker 1: do listener mail rerun on the weekend.
Speaker 2: Huge Things, As always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 2: say hello, you can email us at contact at Stuffdblow
Speaker 2: your Mind dot com.
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