Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb. Joe is on parental leave, so I have
Speaker 1: a special guest co host for this episode. It is
Speaker 1: David Streepy, who co hosts the podcast Talking Tofu. Hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, Congratulations to Joe. I'm a long time stuffy
Speaker 1: And uh is that what you call your fans? Do
Speaker 1: de your fans have a I don't think they have
Speaker 1: a name that stuff mind these mind these mind these
Speaker 1: weird houses. Maybe maybe yeah, I don't know that they
Speaker 1: really call themselves anything. Do do fans of your podcasts
Speaker 1: call themselves something? We call them toeheads, but I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody who has self identified as a
Speaker 1: or you know, we we have fans, but I don't
Speaker 1: know that anybody's waving the toehead flag really loudly and
Speaker 1: proudly yet. But we're trying to get it in there.
Speaker 1: What's your quick uh you know, elevator pitch description of
Speaker 1: talking Tofu? Oh, well, so my wife and I are
Speaker 1: a couple of goblins when it comes to snacking. We're
Speaker 1: both vegans. We couldn't really find a fun podcast about
Speaker 1: vegan snacking, so we decided to make one ourselves. It's
Speaker 1: i'd say, snacking and whatever else is going on in
Speaker 1: our lives. Uh. We just finished a recording. We went
Speaker 1: to Universal Studios, Florida try out the vegan food there.
Speaker 1: It was mostly about the rides that we rode and
Speaker 1: the things that we encountered while we were there, a
Speaker 1: little bit about the food, but just having fun with
Speaker 1: our family. Uh. And and most episodes are kind of
Speaker 1: followed that that trend. It's a very funny podcast though,
Speaker 1: Thank you. There's a lot of laughter. Ah, you're too nice.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And you guys have done some movie episodes
Speaker 1: before as well. Uh talked about what are some of
Speaker 1: the movies you guys have chatted about. Let's see, we've
Speaker 1: done Scream three. I think we've done Scream too and
Speaker 1: Scream three, and because this is spooky season, you may
Speaker 1: expect Scream four to happen. We usually pair that with
Speaker 1: some vegan candy that will we'll go through and snack
Speaker 1: on while we recount the plot. We also do We've
Speaker 1: done When Harry Met Sally, which I had never seen before,
Speaker 1: which it's an amazing movie. Rob. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen it, this is the one with the big
Speaker 1: Foot in it. The sasquatch. Now that's Harry and Henderson's
Speaker 1: common misconception, very common misconception. That's the one I've seen.
Speaker 1: Not this one. You gotta see when Harry met Sally.
Speaker 1: We should have done when Harry met Sally for Spooky Season.
Speaker 1: Fantastic movie, though, you gotta, you gotta check it out.
Speaker 1: I know the rest of the world was already there.
Speaker 1: I was kind of late to the party. But it
Speaker 1: really holds up. So yeah, we'll do that. Uh, we've
Speaker 1: watched singles, the Cameron Crow movie from that's the grunge
Speaker 1: scene and Seattle. It's probably not a very accurate representation
Speaker 1: of the grunge scene in Seattle in nWo, but had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun with that one. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of all over the place. Things that one or
Speaker 1: the other of us have held deer in our hearts
Speaker 1: that the other one hasn't seen. Um. I think most
Speaker 1: recently we did Hackers from Johnny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie.
Speaker 1: Fantastic movie. I mean, there's the there's a good movie,
Speaker 1: there's a great movie. There's a fantastic movie. None of
Speaker 1: these are objective terms, really, but for me just really
Speaker 1: just hits me right right in the core. But hackers
Speaker 1: accurate when it comes to the the hacking lifestyle of
Speaker 1: the time period. Accurate. All computers on the inside look
Speaker 1: like city escapes drawn in green lines that you have
Speaker 1: to navigate through and find the right door to put
Speaker 1: the right icon into. Yes, now, speaking of being late
Speaker 1: to the party on films, the film we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about here today is The Gate. This is a
Speaker 1: film that I think we're both in the same boat
Speaker 1: on this one, right. We we both have memories of
Speaker 1: like at least some of the promotional materials for this film,
Speaker 1: but neither of us had seen it until now. That's right.
Speaker 1: I was really familiar with this one as a kid.
Speaker 1: I was pretty shy about scary movies as a kid,
Speaker 1: and particularly I remember getting specifically burned with Poltergeist because
Speaker 1: polter Geist I did see as a child, as an
Speaker 1: eight year old, It had a child in it, so
Speaker 1: I thought that it was okay for children, and that
Speaker 1: film is very not okay for children. Um, very not
Speaker 1: okay for children, not at all. I I too saw
Speaker 1: poulter Geist at at a very young age. It was
Speaker 1: one of these where I think my aunt had taped
Speaker 1: a bunch of movies off of HBO, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't even know how this ended up happening, but
Speaker 1: I ended up watching at least parts of Poulter Geist,
Speaker 1: and it just really scared the heck out of me.
Speaker 1: I just I would even just hearing. It was one
Speaker 1: of these things where whatever the movie was that was
Speaker 1: taped there, like three movies taped per vhs, and whatever
Speaker 1: was taped directly ahead of Poulter Guys was a family
Speaker 1: film of some time, and so you had to like
Speaker 1: to be super on your guard to stop the tape
Speaker 1: before the Poulter Guy's intro started playing, because that alone
Speaker 1: would create me out. I think Poulter Guist was one
Speaker 1: that really stuck out to me, not just as incorrect
Speaker 1: read that child means safe for children, but it was
Speaker 1: gross horror, it was, and and that was the first
Speaker 1: exposure that I had really had to gross out stuff
Speaker 1: being in a film. So I thought that horror movies
Speaker 1: were ghosts jumping out at you. I was a child.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I thought that it was just
Speaker 1: you know, haunted house things that that would scare you,
Speaker 1: but the grossness of it fascinated and terrified me. It
Speaker 1: was not I was not brave enough to overcome my
Speaker 1: terror to and old the fascination of it. And still
Speaker 1: it's one of those ones that to this day I
Speaker 1: can't really go back to, just because of how badly
Speaker 1: it scarred me as a child. But I guess my
Speaker 1: point being that around that time I was seeing the
Speaker 1: marketing for The Gate, I was seeing the marketing for House,
Speaker 1: which was another movie. I lump all of those together
Speaker 1: and kind of that not for me as a child,
Speaker 1: uh not for me kind of category. The trailer and
Speaker 1: the VHS art really stuck out to me and kind
Speaker 1: of reinforced the not for me nous of it. I
Speaker 1: think the and and um specifically the the poster art,
Speaker 1: the VHS cover art. It's very sinister, very dark. Does
Speaker 1: not seem like it's it's going to be for children.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to jump too far ahead. I
Speaker 1: don't know that this movie is for children, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely kid friendly, I think more than I was expecting.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry it's support The Gate is surprisingly kid friendly.
Speaker 1: And and yeah, that that comparison to polter Geist. I
Speaker 1: think is very apted. It feels in many ways like
Speaker 1: Polter Guys for kids. Like one of the things that
Speaker 1: I still find terrifying and terrifying and super weird about
Speaker 1: Poulter Guys, even looking back on it and having rewatched
Speaker 1: it as an adult, is that it seems like a
Speaker 1: movie where not just typical haunted house stuff happens, but
Speaker 1: like you, but you don't know what will happen. There
Speaker 1: seems to be no rules regarding what's going to jump
Speaker 1: out at you. Um, one second, it's somebody thinks their
Speaker 1: faces meat. Then then pizza is crawling around, and then
Speaker 1: some sort of extra dimensional dragon is climbing out of
Speaker 1: the wall or something. It's just whatever the effects team
Speaker 1: can think of is gonna come at you. And there's
Speaker 1: a similar vibe in The Gate. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: the kids in the Gate uh feel like like real
Speaker 1: central characters with with actual identities and relationships to each other,
Speaker 1: and the film doesn't have a mean of active in
Speaker 1: its relationship to those children, or presumably to the children
Speaker 1: that maybe watching the film. That's that's a good point,
Speaker 1: And I think a big difference for me would probably
Speaker 1: be the and Polt You Guys they they wanted you
Speaker 1: to either leave the house or they'd kill you. And
Speaker 1: the Gate, I'm not really sure what the Gate want
Speaker 1: or what the what the demons in the Gate want.
Speaker 1: They don't They only seem to want to get out
Speaker 1: of the Gate, and I guess I guess that's it.
Speaker 1: I guess they don't care who's in their path or
Speaker 1: what happens to the people in their path. But then
Speaker 1: they spend a lot of time with the people who
Speaker 1: are in their path, and and that kind of confuses
Speaker 1: me a little bit about it too. We'll discuss when
Speaker 1: we get into the plot. They do seem to have
Speaker 1: a couple of things they need to check off the
Speaker 1: Box and then maybe one big objective, but kind of
Speaker 1: a roundabout way to get there. Yeah, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like there's a solid plan that they can refer to.
Speaker 1: It's it's a lot of instinct. Yeah. I never saw
Speaker 1: this film as a kid. I remember seeing The Box sorry,
Speaker 1: weirdly enough, at some point I remember I watched the sequel,
Speaker 1: The Gate two on TV at some point in the nineties,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. And the main thing that sticks out to me,
Speaker 1: and that is that it features a lot of demonic
Speaker 1: wish granting, in which the thing that you wished for
Speaker 1: literally literally turns to poop, like the next day. So
Speaker 1: there's like a scene where the night before some awful
Speaker 1: teenager wish for a sports car and you know he's
Speaker 1: torn around all over the place in the sports car
Speaker 1: during the night. The next day there's just like an
Speaker 1: elephant's worth of poop in front of the house. And
Speaker 1: this happens multiple times. Well, I think, so, yeah, anything
Speaker 1: you wish for it turns to poop. What So I
Speaker 1: don't want to get too hung up on this, but
Speaker 1: is this the same big demon from the Gate one?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. The only thing I remember vaguely is
Speaker 1: the older Terry character and played by the same actor,
Speaker 1: like he's back in the sequel. Some of the creative
Speaker 1: team and the director of the same But the only
Speaker 1: thing I remember is demonic we should turned to poop
Speaker 1: the next morning. And you know, at the time, it
Speaker 1: was like, all right, well, that makes sense that that's
Speaker 1: the that's a that's a bull's eye of a premise.
Speaker 1: And I love the idea that this demon tried his
Speaker 1: best to get out of that gate legitimately in this
Speaker 1: episode or in this movie. But then in his retirement
Speaker 1: he just kind of became a trickster wish fulfillment, and
Speaker 1: and that was how he went out. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I can't really speak to the quality
Speaker 1: of Gate two, but I do admire that they went
Speaker 1: in a slightly different direction on it. They didn't just
Speaker 1: do the Gate again. But at any rate, Uh, the
Speaker 1: Gate too is a discussion for another time. We're here
Speaker 1: to talk about the Gate. So you mentioned that trailer.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and listen to that trailer audio right here. Great,
Speaker 1: there is a passage way to the most evil place.
Speaker 1: You can imagine a gate behind which the demons winked
Speaker 1: dig back what was one's things, And now someone has
Speaker 1: opened the gate as weird tearing sound, decomposed corns her
Speaker 1: dead father, who knows, tearing out by the hands and
Speaker 1: halling the fleece. You got demons. I mean, you guys
Speaker 1: are serious about that demon stuff. Demons were kind, you've
Speaker 1: been bad. They have great it's not truly alright, great trailer,
Speaker 1: probably not loyal to the actual tone of the film,
Speaker 1: but we have excellent narration by the great Percy Rodriguez,
Speaker 1: who lived through two thousand and seven. He was also
Speaker 1: an accomplished actor, but he did a ton of voiceovers
Speaker 1: for film trailers in the seventies and eighties, and his
Speaker 1: voice alone is to make is enough to make you think, well,
Speaker 1: this is not for children. Listen to this very scary
Speaker 1: adult talk about the gate on this. This reinforces the hey,
Speaker 1: this is not for me. It also really showcases some
Speaker 1: of the movie's biggest moments and gives you some of
Speaker 1: the biggest effects. It holds a few things back, but
Speaker 1: the overall tones very sinister. It's very dark. It seems
Speaker 1: paced as almost kind of a torturous movie like the
Speaker 1: It really showed as is the peril that the kids
Speaker 1: are all in and kind of their reaction to that peril. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: if I had the GBS hearing about this movie, this
Speaker 1: trailer definitely would have scared me away for good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of screaming kids, but you don't really
Speaker 1: see all the scenes of kids being strong in it,
Speaker 1: and there there are a lot of scenes where the
Speaker 1: kids are brave and and admirable in the film. But yeah,
Speaker 1: also it does spoil a lot of the big effects
Speaker 1: in the movie, So don't watch the trailer if you
Speaker 1: are looking to go into this one kind of fresh.
Speaker 1: I think the uh I was blessed with distance between
Speaker 1: the last time I had seen the trailer for this
Speaker 1: movie and actually watching the movie, because I came into
Speaker 1: it pretty cold and then rewatched the trailer after the fact,
Speaker 1: and I was really glad I did, because I was
Speaker 1: very surprised by how competent this movie is and by
Speaker 1: how much I enjoyed everything that happened in it, even
Speaker 1: though it wasn't what I was expecting it to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, before we get into the connections the people
Speaker 1: involved in this movie, Uh, where can you watch it? Well?
Speaker 1: The gate is it was a fairly big release. It's
Speaker 1: widely available for digital purchase and rental everywhere. I streamed
Speaker 1: it as part of AMC Plus, but I think it's
Speaker 1: also available on some free streaming sites. And there's also
Speaker 1: a pretty stacked Blu ray edition that came out in
Speaker 1: seventeen and that's loaded with extras. It's amazing to me that, uh,
Speaker 1: such a lovingly curated blue ray would exist of this movie.
Speaker 1: It amazes me that there's a sequel to it and
Speaker 1: it you know, it strikes me as a largely forgotten
Speaker 1: film and that's clearly not the case. That's my misery
Speaker 1: to the of how of what his legacy is. All right,
Speaker 1: let's start at the top. The director is Taibor Talkatch
Speaker 1: born nineteen fifty four, Hungarian born director who kicked off
Speaker 1: his career with the eight Canadian dystopian rock opera Metal
Speaker 1: messiah Um. After this film, he did nins I, Madman,
Speaker 1: and The Gate Too. He directed four different episodes of
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties Outer Limits series Dave WHOA. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we've actually any of these. They include If
Speaker 1: These Walls Could Talk, The Voyage Home, White Light Forever,
Speaker 1: and Blood Brothers. The Voyage Homes sounds familiar, but that's
Speaker 1: also Star Trek movie, so I might just be thinking
Speaker 1: of that. His subsequent credits include a mix of TV
Speaker 1: episodes and eventually some sci fi original programming. Uh you
Speaker 1: know that Caliber film, including two thousand five Man Squito, which,
Speaker 1: at the time when it first came out, I think
Speaker 1: looked pretty bad, but we had no idea about how
Speaker 1: bad direct to sci fi channel movies would get. And
Speaker 1: you know I I today, I am committing to come
Speaker 1: back for your your Man Squito episode. I'm not brave
Speaker 1: enough yet I'm gonna get my courage up, all right.
Speaker 1: So that's the director. The writer is Michael Nankin born.
Speaker 1: Accomplished TV director, writer, and producer. He wrote seven Ruskies
Speaker 1: and episodes of TV shows such as Life goes On,
Speaker 1: Chica Hope, the nineties Flippers Show. As a director, he's
Speaker 1: done a ton of TV work, including episodes of Life
Speaker 1: Goes On, the Battlestar Galactica reboot, and one episode of
Speaker 1: The Good Lord Bird. And I think he also wrote
Speaker 1: I Madman as well. Huh. You know, it doesn't surprise
Speaker 1: me that he's predominantly a TV writer because I got
Speaker 1: a very TV vibe from the snappiness of the dialogue
Speaker 1: in this movie, especially the way that the children talked
Speaker 1: to each other. I thought was very authentic first of all,
Speaker 1: but also really snappy. Yeah. I don't clearly remember specific
Speaker 1: episodes of Life Goes On, but I think I watched
Speaker 1: some of it, and it was just that was a
Speaker 1: time during which I watched a lot of TV, so
Speaker 1: even if I didn't watch the show directly, I was
Speaker 1: very aware of it. And uh yeah, there was like
Speaker 1: there's a wholesomeness to that show that makes sense once
Speaker 1: you've watched The Gate all the way through. Otherwise you
Speaker 1: might think life goes on in the Gate. What could
Speaker 1: they possibly have in common? Well, you know, there's you
Speaker 1: get down to some of the character work. I think
Speaker 1: it makes sense. I think there's there's definitely a thread
Speaker 1: in the amount of care and respect given to a
Speaker 1: family dynamic, and especially the way that kids interact with
Speaker 1: each other, which is really difficult I think for an
Speaker 1: adult to write, Well, let's get into the kids. In fact,
Speaker 1: I don't have any data in here on the adult
Speaker 1: actors in the film. Uh, they all have just brief
Speaker 1: roles for the most part, mom and dad and dad
Speaker 1: and any any adult supervision is completely absent from the
Speaker 1: entire film, which was an interesting choice. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that the parents occupy maybe forty five seconds of screen time,
Speaker 1: and most of that time they are either punishing the
Speaker 1: children or bad mouthing the Glenn's friend to Glenn, which
Speaker 1: is just just bad behavior. Yeah, alright, well Glenn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Glenn is our central character, our main kid in this,
Speaker 1: and interestingly enough is played by Stephen Dorff. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: is the film debut of Stephen Dorff for nine. I
Speaker 1: think he's like twelve in this though he looks he
Speaker 1: looks even younger you by I am as even younger.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 1: the fact he has a very you know, he has
Speaker 1: a little bit of baby fat in his face, still
Speaker 1: has a you know, very childlike quality to his face. Definitely,
Speaker 1: twelve is a shock to me. I would have said eight,
Speaker 1: seven or eight. Now when we say the name Stephen Dorff.
Speaker 1: Most people out there probably familiar with him from such
Speaker 1: works as Uh His Blade. Of course, he plays the
Speaker 1: villainous Deacon Frost opposite Wesley Snipes in that film. He
Speaker 1: was in UH Stewart Gordon Space Truckers in nineties six.
Speaker 1: He did some bigger also some bigger roles in the
Speaker 1: early nineties, including the Power of One and Post Blade.
Speaker 1: He was in such films as John Waters Cecil Be
Speaker 1: Damned in two thousand is in a what I remember
Speaker 1: is being a terrible horror movie from two thousand and
Speaker 1: two Fear dot Com. I've never seen any of these movies.
Speaker 1: Having not seen Blade is one of my secret shames,
Speaker 1: so I'm glad to reveal it here for your listeners.
Speaker 1: I do need to correct, especially before you know the
Speaker 1: rebooted Blade comes out. Um, So, yeah, the The Gate
Speaker 1: is of my exposure to Stephen Dorf and and it's
Speaker 1: a good one. Now, prior to this, he he did
Speaker 1: have some rolls um on a few different TV shows,
Speaker 1: including the new Leave It to Beaver, Different Strokes, and
Speaker 1: in Love and War. I'm not familiar with that last one,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, he'd already gotten his feet a little
Speaker 1: bit wet in the whole child actor realm. And then
Speaker 1: he's off to the races as the star of the
Speaker 1: Gate and he does it competently. I can't. He carries
Speaker 1: so much of this movie. It's it's really hard to
Speaker 1: overstate how competent of an actor is in this one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's shocking, especially that there are times too where
Speaker 1: you he'll he'll act in a certain way and you
Speaker 1: can sort of see the grown up um Stephen Dorff
Speaker 1: through him, especially if you've seen other Stephen Dorf films
Speaker 1: and you're like, it's it's it's kind of weird. It's
Speaker 1: like staring through a time tunnel or something. All Right.
Speaker 1: So that's Glenn, the the the Brother, and then we
Speaker 1: also have Glenn's sister, al al Is played by Krista Denton.
Speaker 1: Born nineteen seventy two, and I think she has a
Speaker 1: great job in this too. She was only active from
Speaker 1: through nineteen nine. This is probably her most prominent role,
Speaker 1: but she also had some parts in Nive, the Bad
Speaker 1: Seed nine eight six is eight Million Ways to Die
Speaker 1: and some episodes of Silver Spoons Growing Pains, and the
Speaker 1: new Leave It to Beaver. Now. What I lack in
Speaker 1: Blade knowledge I make up for in the new Leave
Speaker 1: It to Beaver knowledge. I was pretty fond of this
Speaker 1: series as a child. It was on some syndication for
Speaker 1: it couldn't have been more than a summer or a
Speaker 1: summer at a fall. But when it was there, I
Speaker 1: was fascinated with the idea of reboots. I had obviously
Speaker 1: seen Leave It to Beaver on Nick at Night and
Speaker 1: was just fascinated by the fact that they could grow
Speaker 1: up and continued the series later, a premise that is
Speaker 1: just worn to shreds at this point with every show
Speaker 1: under the sun, the question of oh what would they
Speaker 1: be like now? You know, but back then it was
Speaker 1: still pretty novel. You know, you had your Return to Mayberry's,
Speaker 1: you had your new Leave It to Beaver, but this
Speaker 1: one to to take kind of a sidebar. It started
Speaker 1: in nine three as a two hour movie made for
Speaker 1: television called Still the Beaver. That movie, UH featured Ed
Speaker 1: Bigley Jr. Featured a young Corey Feldman not I don't
Speaker 1: think this was his first role or anything, but um,
Speaker 1: some pretty pretty star studded made for TV movie back then.
Speaker 1: You know they were to some actors from the original
Speaker 1: Leave It to Beaver, right, I think so. Yes, Jerry
Speaker 1: Mathers does reply reprise his role as the Beaver, and
Speaker 1: that's consistent with the series as well. Uh. Ed Baigley
Speaker 1: Junior Corey Feldman do not hang around for the series.
Speaker 1: I think the series doesn't happen until a couple of
Speaker 1: years later, mid to late eighties. So I think they
Speaker 1: rebooted the reboot kind of in that time, but it's
Speaker 1: all lumped under one new Leave It to Beaver umbrella.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that it went a hundred and two
Speaker 1: episodes four seasons, because I I remember I remember this existing.
Speaker 1: I remember having watched reruns of Leave It to Beaver
Speaker 1: on nickod Night. I remember parents and grandparents attesting to
Speaker 1: the fact that yes, this is a good show, and
Speaker 1: then I remember coming to them excited and saying, guess
Speaker 1: what leave it to? Beaver is back? And maybe it was.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit shocked that they weren't as
Speaker 1: excited as I was. I specifically remember an episode where
Speaker 1: there were a pair of tennis shoes that some child
Speaker 1: in the show really wanted I guess the Beaver's son
Speaker 1: or something, and they were called Earth Angels, and they
Speaker 1: would play that song Earth Angel every time he was
Speaker 1: lusting after these beautiful sneakers that had little wings on them.
Speaker 1: That's pretty great. That's pretty great. I think with the
Speaker 1: show like this, theft is really getting the elements together
Speaker 1: to make it. Once you've got that going, you can
Speaker 1: probably turn out a hundred and two episodes just as
Speaker 1: easy as you can do ten. All right, we have
Speaker 1: one more central child to get to here, and that
Speaker 1: is Terry. Terry is Glenn's friend. This is Glenn's best friend.
Speaker 1: Uh we we believe here, played by Louis Tripp, who
Speaker 1: was born three just a really pitch perfect performance as
Speaker 1: this awkward, nerdy eighties kid who's super into heavy metal
Speaker 1: and uh and also it's just just ready to research
Speaker 1: the heck out of a demonic problem once it emerges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's such a great casting choice. I think he's
Speaker 1: this from the parents view, he's this bad influence to Glenn,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't really look that stereotypical bad influence part.
Speaker 1: He definitely does kind of nudge Glenn in a more
Speaker 1: destructive direction and in a kind of rule breaky direction.
Speaker 1: Glenn probably would have gone there on his own though
Speaker 1: in a lot of these cases. Um, but he has
Speaker 1: the the awkwardness of a latch key kid who has
Speaker 1: yet to process some trauma from his past, which his
Speaker 1: mother died before the events of the movie, um, which
Speaker 1: kind of plays into the plot of it, and his dad.
Speaker 1: We just we see that he's not around. I don't
Speaker 1: think that we see him at all. So just a
Speaker 1: really specific character that he brings a lot to and
Speaker 1: delivers it really convincingly. Yeah. Yeah, he's he's really in
Speaker 1: a way. I feel like he's the he's right alongside Glenn.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's you can't discount and Glenn as being
Speaker 1: an essential part of the film, but the Terry's right
Speaker 1: there next to him right from the jump too. I
Speaker 1: think he sets a lot of the action into motion,
Speaker 1: and um, he seems to want to believe just in general,
Speaker 1: he seems to want to believe in something, and that
Speaker 1: desire to do that also helps push kind of the
Speaker 1: events of the of the movie forward and ultimately the
Speaker 1: solution to the problem. Yeah. Now you said that he
Speaker 1: was in the Gate too. Is he the star of
Speaker 1: the Gate too? Yeah? Yeah, he's the if memory serves correctly.
Speaker 1: And I did glance at some at a brief summary
Speaker 1: of the plot. I believe in the sequel, the ideas
Speaker 1: that Glenn has moved away and Terry is left there
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. He's a bit older. I think he's
Speaker 1: a full blown teenager by this point, so he's an
Speaker 1: awkwardine and then gets, you know, sucked into another demonic plot.
Speaker 1: Is it a different gate or is it the same gate?
Speaker 1: I don't know it meant, I mean, maybe the same gate,
Speaker 1: maybe different demons because now we have wishes involved, so
Speaker 1: maybe it's a different demonic scheme. I'm not sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's all from Hell, right, so maybe it's just different
Speaker 1: doors at the same house and different rooms in the
Speaker 1: same house, and different demon demonic inhabitants in those different rooms.
Speaker 1: But it's fascinating that, uh, that Terry is back at it.
Speaker 1: Good for him. Yeah, this this actor uh Lewis trip.
Speaker 1: He wasn't in much. He was again he was in
Speaker 1: the Gate and the Gate too. Obviously. He appeared on
Speaker 1: the seven Canadian psychic TV show Seeing Things, which started
Speaker 1: Louis del Grande. This is the if you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with him, this is the exploding head guy from Scanners.
Speaker 1: The guy's head up, Oh my god, mustache, but he
Speaker 1: had a full uh like a pretty I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how long it went, but I remember it from my
Speaker 1: childhood when I lived in Canada that we had one
Speaker 1: TV channel and when Seeing Things came on, we would
Speaker 1: watch it. I do not remember this child showing up
Speaker 1: on the show, but I remember the show. I gotta
Speaker 1: check this show out. It seems like it's right at
Speaker 1: my alley. It had a really jazzy theme song. Nice
Speaker 1: all right. Now, there are two other kids that show
Speaker 1: up in the film. These are friends of Owls. They
Speaker 1: are the lead sisters, and they're they're worth noting that
Speaker 1: they're fun in the film. They're not central characters, but
Speaker 1: the actors who played them um are each in their
Speaker 1: own way pretty interesting. So first, there's Laurie Lee played
Speaker 1: by Kelly Rowan born five. This is a Canadian actor
Speaker 1: who was active up until I think two of them
Speaker 1: sixteen on screen and TV. She did a lot of
Speaker 1: TV work, but also had roles in Hook, Candy Man,
Speaker 1: Farewell to the Flesh, Assassins, also Lonesome Dove, The Outlaw Years,
Speaker 1: and The o C. Wow. I know that she's not
Speaker 1: responsible for this, but Farewell to the Flesh is a
Speaker 1: fantastic subtitle for a movie. She was also David not one,
Speaker 1: but two episodes of the nineties Outer Limits in Another
Speaker 1: Life and Virtual Future. Virtual Future apparently featured both Josh
Speaker 1: Brolin and David Warner. Wow. So there's a there's a
Speaker 1: lot of Outer Limits thread flowing through this cast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you well, you got Canadian actors. You a Canadian actors
Speaker 1: that were active in the nineties, and there's there's like
Speaker 1: a what s Champ maybe greater that they were on
Speaker 1: at least one episode of the Outer Limbs. That's true,
Speaker 1: it's a write of passage. Now the other least sister,
Speaker 1: Linda Lee, is played by Jennifer Irwin uh terrific Canadian
Speaker 1: actor who has started a ton of great stuff over
Speaker 1: the years, done guest spots and plenty of other shows.
Speaker 1: And we're talking some big name TV comedies and she's
Speaker 1: she's still very much active. Yeah, she is fantastic and everything.
Speaker 1: Every time she shows up, even if it's just for
Speaker 1: a scene, she feels like she's a regular. She really
Speaker 1: steals the scene every time. I know. We're most intimately
Speaker 1: from The Goldbergs, where she plays the across the street
Speaker 1: neighbor of the Goldbergs, the titular Goldberg's. The main character
Speaker 1: has his best friend who is the neighbor, and this
Speaker 1: is the mother of that best friend, and she and
Speaker 1: Beverly Goldberg, the mom, have a uh tough start to
Speaker 1: their relationship. They're kind of antagonistic to each other, but
Speaker 1: then become best friends. And she's a recurring character, just
Speaker 1: fantastic and really nails that dynamic. Yeah, yeah, she's If
Speaker 1: you're not sure out there who she is, um, you
Speaker 1: look her up, you'll recognize her instantly, especially if you've
Speaker 1: watched such shows as uh TVs, the Canadian TV show
Speaker 1: Slings and Arrows, Eastbound and Down, Halt and Catch Fire, Superstore,
Speaker 1: Eye Zombie, And she said guest roles on such shows
Speaker 1: as Better Off, Ted Party, Down Ship's Creek Hacks and
Speaker 1: Physical so She's popped up all over the place and
Speaker 1: is really delightful and everything. She said. Definitely, but this
Speaker 1: was only her third role, so so she's super young
Speaker 1: in this. She's if if you didn't look her up,
Speaker 1: you might think, well should that actor looks kind of familiar,
Speaker 1: but I can't really place her. I think that was
Speaker 1: the situation I was in watching this was I kind
Speaker 1: of had to be reminded that this was her. She's
Speaker 1: so much younger than the roles that I remember her in.
Speaker 1: All Right, Getting a little bit behind the scenes here,
Speaker 1: this this movie. If you watch the trailer, if you
Speaker 1: actually watch it, you'll realize this is an effects movie.
Speaker 1: I went into it not expecting it to be just
Speaker 1: wall to wall amazing special effects, but it is. It
Speaker 1: is a showcase for the effects work as much as
Speaker 1: it is anything else. And I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: a bad way. I mean that it's the full gallery
Speaker 1: of what you can do with stop mission, what you
Speaker 1: can do with force, perspective, the whole gamut. Now, uh,
Speaker 1: there's a whole crew at working on this one, obviously,
Speaker 1: but the main visual effects credit here goes to Randall
Speaker 1: William Cook for one American Special Effects wizard and director.
Speaker 1: They really put together. He and his team really put
Speaker 1: together just so many strange and wonderful effects of varying
Speaker 1: things that really the poltergeist uh system of you. You
Speaker 1: never know what's gonna come at you. It might be
Speaker 1: a horrific body horror effect. It might be a zombie
Speaker 1: or one of the showcases of this film, tiny demons
Speaker 1: running all over the place. Yeah, and being dismembered and
Speaker 1: turning into little wormy bits that reconstitute Yes. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: wormy bits are a lot of fun. So Cook He
Speaker 1: has been involved in just a ton of great horror
Speaker 1: sci fi special effects film over the years. Um. I
Speaker 1: mean some when I say great, sometimes they're a little
Speaker 1: on the cheap side, but they're they're in films where
Speaker 1: you still love the effects. Like for instance, he worked
Speaker 1: on a Laser Blast, which is a film that it's
Speaker 1: not a great film, but it has just charming and
Speaker 1: lovable special effects. Yeah. The effects are not the reason
Speaker 1: that the film is bad by a long shot, and
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways there what redeemed the film. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: To a similar extent, he was in que the Wing Serpent,
Speaker 1: but also he was on the crew anyway for such
Speaker 1: films as The Thing, Ghostbusters two thousand and ten, Fright Night, Poltergeist,
Speaker 1: Too Highway to Hell, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Speaker 1: It doesn't surprise me at all that he's involved with
Speaker 1: these big titles, seeing what what was pulled off in
Speaker 1: this movie, and his credits kind of go all over
Speaker 1: the place to For instance, he directed one episode of
Speaker 1: TVs Life Goes On, which we already mentioned. He also
Speaker 1: did a movie. He directed a film from nineties six
Speaker 1: titled Demon in a in the Bottle. I had to
Speaker 1: look this one up. I was not familiar with it,
Speaker 1: but apparently it was the product of a one time
Speaker 1: deal between Disney and full Moon Entertainment Charles band Uh
Speaker 1: production house. He acted in the Demon in the Bottle
Speaker 1: movie as well, and he also has cameos in a
Speaker 1: weird film title Dr Calighari, which has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the Cabinet of Dr Calighari, but is instead more
Speaker 1: of an erotic peewee's playhouse sort of the art film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a weird one. But then he also
Speaker 1: has roles essentially cameos in in King Kong and The
Speaker 1: Fellowship of the Ring, So you never know where this
Speaker 1: Guy's Gonna Pop Up. And finally, the music in this
Speaker 1: film really solid atmospheric electronic score by Michael Hohenig and J.
Speaker 1: Peter Robinson totally agree. I think the ambience score here
Speaker 1: is or the synthesized ambience score, is one of the
Speaker 1: standouts for this For me. It really nails the tone
Speaker 1: just right right from the jump and really just accentuates
Speaker 1: all of those moments just the way you think that
Speaker 1: they would and and really just elevates the entire movie. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this one. I don't know for me personally, this would
Speaker 1: be a like a stands on its own sort of
Speaker 1: score that I would just like listen to and jam
Speaker 1: out too. But it's one that just works perfectly with
Speaker 1: the film. You can listen to it on its own
Speaker 1: and jam out to it. It's I think it's streaming
Speaker 1: most places, and they're there even been a literally at
Speaker 1: least one special vinyl edition I saw online that has
Speaker 1: like a pink vinyl record and the sleeve is made
Speaker 1: to where it doesn't feature the movies art yet symbols
Speaker 1: a very important heavy metal record that is a prop
Speaker 1: and a plot piece in the film. I wonder if
Speaker 1: it has all of the ku trauma of the album too,
Speaker 1: with kind of the lore and the deep stuff that
Speaker 1: helps solve the problems. Yeah, the the the Evil Book
Speaker 1: of Demonology, and that's just a part of the record release.
Speaker 1: I think you mean the Dark Book, the Dark Book, Yes,
Speaker 1: the Bible for Demon's right, all right? Well, well briefly Uh.
Speaker 1: Michael Hohnig Born two, German composer who briefly toured with
Speaker 1: Tangerine Dream in ninety five. So I assume that he's
Speaker 1: responsible for the synthier parts of the score. Uh. He
Speaker 1: was a synth performer on One's Galaxy of Terror and
Speaker 1: other scores include The Max Headroom Show, The Blob, and
Speaker 1: he also worked on video game boulders Gate and It's
Speaker 1: two thousand sequel. Oh wow nice, Yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 1: I said it before. It's hard to overstate how effective
Speaker 1: the scent is it creating the vibe in this movie
Speaker 1: from the beginning. The other guy involved, J Peter Robinson Born.
Speaker 1: I suspect that he's may be responsible for the the
Speaker 1: more traditional aspects of the film. Just going off on
Speaker 1: a limb here, I suspect he was responsible for the
Speaker 1: more traditional aspects of the score, just looking at the
Speaker 1: other films that he did. He did. He has composer
Speaker 1: credits on English Composer. He worked on such films as
Speaker 1: Return of the Living Dead, to Cocktail, Blind Fury, which
Speaker 1: is a weird, weird film. That one. It's one where
Speaker 1: Rudger Howard is a blind man. I believe Wayne's world
Speaker 1: in Sino Man, New Nightmare, Mind Ripper, and many more. Wow,
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder probably this is the case, uh,
Speaker 1: that he wrote the metal song that is so pivotal
Speaker 1: to the plot, as well as maybe the party music
Speaker 1: from the Teen Party. I sound like such an old
Speaker 1: band calling it the teen Party. Now I was able
Speaker 1: to I d one of the Teen Party songs will
Speaker 1: come back to that one nice. All right. Well, let's
Speaker 1: let's get into the plot of this one. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: how do we kick this one off? Dave? Alright, So,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've made this clear yet, but
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a pretty big fan of the synth music
Speaker 1: and the opening credits. You get this ambient chime that
Speaker 1: just really for me. It tells me your home, You're
Speaker 1: you're in a good place. Enjoy the next eighties some
Speaker 1: odd minutes. Uh, and and it takes us right into
Speaker 1: kind of a I guess it's spoiling it out of
Speaker 1: the gate to call it a dream sequence, but it
Speaker 1: starts out pretty dark. You know, a lot of films
Speaker 1: like this, I think would would maybe spend more time
Speaker 1: establishing a real world dynamic I'm thinking of. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of films like The Never Ending Story and so forth,
Speaker 1: where you get to see, like what is day to
Speaker 1: day life like for this child or these children, and
Speaker 1: then let's throw them into the supernatural. But this film
Speaker 1: just kicks off right inside of a dream. We see
Speaker 1: Glenn walking around, right, he's he's checking out. We see
Speaker 1: his bedroom, yeah, I think he he walks into his
Speaker 1: front door and the house is empty. It's an amazing house.
Speaker 1: It's actually a real house that they shot this in
Speaker 1: amazing gorgeous decor. And then he walks into what's basically
Speaker 1: my dream bedroom from the eighties, which you know, there
Speaker 1: are colored desk lamps, those metallic desk lamps that have
Speaker 1: different colors to them. Uh, there're orange sheer curtains. There's
Speaker 1: this white metallic furniture, like a desk that's made out
Speaker 1: of a white metal. It's just very it's it's like
Speaker 1: a catalog shot and my heart that and the ambient chimes.
Speaker 1: My heart was soaring at this point. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, Dave, but as a former child, I'm always
Speaker 1: instantly interested in a little bit judge when any show,
Speaker 1: regardless of time period, presents us with a child's bedroom, uh,
Speaker 1: because it's always fascinating to sort of pick it apart,
Speaker 1: like which details that have either sloppily or lovingly been added,
Speaker 1: which ones feel authentic, which ones are branded, which ones
Speaker 1: are like noticed some of them. Occasionally see something where
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I specifically remember that generic poster from
Speaker 1: Getty Images. I know that you just bought the rights
Speaker 1: to use that or it's like free to use. None
Speaker 1: of these are things that a child would actually have
Speaker 1: hanging in the room. Yeah, I think sometimes you get that, uh,
Speaker 1: like what an interior designer at Sears would do for
Speaker 1: one of those model bedrooms that they're trying to sell
Speaker 1: you the furniture pieces within. You get that vibe a lot.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, books that are just encyclopedias that are neatly
Speaker 1: stacked on a on a desk, or like you said,
Speaker 1: posters that are essentially clip art from that time, or
Speaker 1: sometimes you get. You know, I don't have a specific
Speaker 1: example of this offhand, but you get a snapshot of
Speaker 1: what the director's room would have been. But were they
Speaker 1: a child, And I think you see that maybe in
Speaker 1: Terri's room, which is almost skipping ahead a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it's almost over disheveled in terms of messiness. But
Speaker 1: I will tell you as a father myself, my child's
Speaker 1: room does get close to that stage sometimes. Yeah, same
Speaker 1: as the as as the father of a young boy.
Speaker 1: Like you see that energy where it's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: really like the image on this box of Pokemon cards.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna take this box, flatten it, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to tape it to the wall because I want
Speaker 1: to look at it exactly. So yeah, I I buy
Speaker 1: Glenn's room as well, though, and you get and it's
Speaker 1: a great peek into the personality of a child, and
Speaker 1: if it's executed right in the film, we see that
Speaker 1: Glenn is he's clearly into like a little bit of
Speaker 1: sports here and there, and there's a baseball you know,
Speaker 1: very you know, typical American kid in that. But also
Speaker 1: it becomes very clear that Glenn is a total rocket nerd.
Speaker 1: He is super into NASA he's almost always wearing a
Speaker 1: NASA jacket. Yeah, Glenn is. He's a rules guy, He's
Speaker 1: an orderly guy. He frequently wants to call mom and
Speaker 1: Dad throughout the movie as things get worse and work,
Speaker 1: which I think is very sweet. Uh. And he does
Speaker 1: have this jacket that is patched with NASA patches, And
Speaker 1: at first I thought that he was specific kind of
Speaker 1: kid like, like you said, a real NASA buff, but
Speaker 1: I learned throughout the movie that his sister Al also
Speaker 1: has the same jacket and they they both have it
Speaker 1: because they launched the rockets together and that was kind
Speaker 1: of their commonality that was had deteriorated at the start
Speaker 1: of the film. Yeah, they they the film builds up
Speaker 1: over time you realize, Yeah, they have this sweet relationship,
Speaker 1: though they also are at each others throats at times,
Speaker 1: so you totally buy the sibling relationship. Yeah, definitely. And
Speaker 1: there's also this element of Al being a little bit older,
Speaker 1: starting to hang out with teens, starting to gravitate away
Speaker 1: from that family dynamic, and you see that in the
Speaker 1: interactions with the whole family. But you really see how
Speaker 1: that impacts Glenn specifically and how left behind he feels,
Speaker 1: even as the events of the movie and the gate
Speaker 1: opening or unfolding, he still feels a little bit of
Speaker 1: that distance from now coming back to the whole dream sequence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Glenn's wandering around this empty house. He goes into the backyard,
Speaker 1: he climbs into the treehouse. It's in the black backyard.
Speaker 1: He ascends into the treehouse, and then lightning strikes it,
Speaker 1: the causing the treehouse to collapse. And then of course
Speaker 1: he wakes up. He hears chainsaws or buzz saws running,
Speaker 1: and then when he looks out the window, Oh, it
Speaker 1: looks like the tree was actually struck by lightning and
Speaker 1: was completely destroyed. Workmen are clearing everything away. And I
Speaker 1: thought this was neat to in two different ways, because
Speaker 1: on one hand, this felt very like on par with
Speaker 1: the childhood experience, where important things like the destruction of
Speaker 1: a treehouse occur when you're asleep, and then when you
Speaker 1: wake up or look out the back then adults have
Speaker 1: already tended to it. Adults are already on the scene
Speaker 1: dealing with it, and you're just like, I wonder whether
Speaker 1: that was about But then also like symbolically, yeah, that
Speaker 1: there's this innocence of childhood threatened imagery. That's clear in
Speaker 1: all of this. The tree house is the iconic fortress
Speaker 1: of childhood freedom and it was just destroyed by I guess,
Speaker 1: like a literal act of God here. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: terror of being in a tree house in a tree
Speaker 1: that is falling over, it's not even it's worse than
Speaker 1: being in a tree that's falling over. You're in a
Speaker 1: structure inside of it. And I can't imagine feeling more
Speaker 1: helpless than that. I do think from a narrative perspective,
Speaker 1: I was scratching my head pretty early on about did
Speaker 1: this happen while he was asleep? Had this Was it
Speaker 1: just a coincidence that had happened while he was dreaming
Speaker 1: about it? Did he cause this to happen by dreaming
Speaker 1: about it? The parallel between what was happening in the
Speaker 1: dream and what was happening in life while he was
Speaker 1: asleep kind of confused me a little bit. And there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of both sides ng the line that
Speaker 1: this movie does in that regard throughout, And on the
Speaker 1: one hand, I think it is a little bit puzzling
Speaker 1: as a choice, But on the other hand, I kind
Speaker 1: of like the ambiguity of it because it's a question
Speaker 1: that doesn't need to be answered, and a lot of
Speaker 1: what is going on with these children and what these
Speaker 1: children are facing, it shouldn't have an explanation. Children should
Speaker 1: not know exactly what the situation that no human would
Speaker 1: you know. And I think it's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: brave choice in that light to to play into that
Speaker 1: a little bit. What one one quick note I want
Speaker 1: to point out this wasn't party music, but there is
Speaker 1: a music video playing in the dream and we see
Speaker 1: a clip of the music video for No Pressure by
Speaker 1: Canadian new wave performer Eva Everything This is single. She
Speaker 1: had four album titled boob Tube and she went on
Speaker 1: to be a science communicator and producer. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not super familiar with with this because I wasn't I
Speaker 1: don't think I was watching any of these these particular shows,
Speaker 1: but it looked like she was involved in something that
Speaker 1: was kind of like Channel one that we had in
Speaker 1: the stay Ate something like that. Yeah, I'm not familiar
Speaker 1: with her. What I'm looking at this album cover now
Speaker 1: and it's got a very aha vibe with a little
Speaker 1: splash of color across the eyes and an otherwise black
Speaker 1: and white picture. It's very very cool, and and I
Speaker 1: was digging the video. Alright, so back in we're in
Speaker 1: the Waking World now, and we stay in the Waking
Speaker 1: World for the rest of the film, and uh, it's
Speaker 1: not long before we finally actually meet Glenn's friend Carry.
Speaker 1: Let's describe Terry oh Man. Terry rules first, First, and foremost,
Speaker 1: Terry Rules. Terry's got you know, these dark rimmed glasses.
Speaker 1: It's got short hair. He's this lanky kid. Uh. Masters
Speaker 1: of the Universe T shirt, leather jacket. I keep wanting
Speaker 1: to uh, is it a leather jacket or is it
Speaker 1: a leather vest I keep thinking of it as a vest.
Speaker 1: I think there's a costume change. I think when we
Speaker 1: first see him, it's a leather jacket with a patch
Speaker 1: on the back for the English heavy metal band Venom.
Speaker 1: And later he's wearing like a Jeane jack it vest
Speaker 1: thing and that has I think a patch for the
Speaker 1: Canadian metal band Killer Dwarfs. Wow, so somebody knew their
Speaker 1: stuff when they were putting this outfit together. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: right off the bat we realize, yeah, Terry's interested very
Speaker 1: much so in heavy metal. Uh. And then we learned
Speaker 1: later a little bit into demonology via the heavy metal Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, without getting too ahead of ourselves,
Speaker 1: I really do like how this movie flips the satanic
Speaker 1: panic angle of the time and turns the satanic panic
Speaker 1: into what saves these kids and presumably the world is
Speaker 1: using these demonic lyrics to undo a curse. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: in many of these the metal splitation films of the era,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, the dangerous metal band is bringing demonology
Speaker 1: to the children, and he gets some in all sorts
Speaker 1: of trouble. But in but in this film, as we
Speaker 1: find out, no, the metal rockers are actually wise wizards
Speaker 1: who have given us the tools for our own liberation
Speaker 1: and and and are actually teaching us how to defeat
Speaker 1: the demons well may and they do it pretty deliberately too,
Speaker 1: by minutes long and narration at the end of a
Speaker 1: song that is just an incantation basically all right, but
Speaker 1: before the demons show up, we we get we we
Speaker 1: have to deal with g odes because basically the way
Speaker 1: the whole ball gets running here is as the workmen
Speaker 1: are hauling the tree pieces away, Glenn spots a g
Speaker 1: ode in the roots, you know, like you often see, well,
Speaker 1: maybe not often see a geode, but sometimes you'll see
Speaker 1: the roots of an uprooted tree gripping a stone. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's always kind of weird and neat, and in this
Speaker 1: case it's a g ode. So he and Terry realized, well,
Speaker 1: they're probably more g odes in that now filled in hole.
Speaker 1: Let's go dig around in there and get some more.
Speaker 1: And they find one the size of a beach ball.
Speaker 1: And there's this great exchange where they like, they find
Speaker 1: this geode and they're both like, we're rich this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what their sense of the market value
Speaker 1: of gds is, or if they're near a renaissance fair
Speaker 1: or a flea market or something like that that might
Speaker 1: give them an inflated sense of what they could do
Speaker 1: with the g O. But I I did have to
Speaker 1: posit at this point because you know what's coming. They're
Speaker 1: standing at a hole, they're pulling out these rare crystals.
Speaker 1: They're excited about it. So I paused it and looked
Speaker 1: at the time stamp. This is six minutes into the
Speaker 1: movie and we're already at the demonic hole in the ground.
Speaker 1: We've already seen a scary nightmare. We've already seen Glenn
Speaker 1: in peril falling over in the tree. I mean this,
Speaker 1: this movie wastes no time. That's great. Yeah, you get
Speaker 1: right to the gate. It's called the gate. It's not
Speaker 1: the road or the path to the gate. Uh. Here
Speaker 1: we are literally at the action point. That's right. So
Speaker 1: is this the point that Al comes out and she's
Speaker 1: bringing a bunch of trash out to the trash canners?
Speaker 1: This is that later in the movie. It's basically that
Speaker 1: she's bringing the rockets out that defined kind of her
Speaker 1: childhood relationship with Glenn and is tossing them in the trash.
Speaker 1: Glenn's upset about out that because she was going to
Speaker 1: save them for him, and her comment is, well, they've
Speaker 1: been sitting there for months and you haven't touched them,
Speaker 1: so I'm getting rid of them. He kind of digs
Speaker 1: through them, and I think does take one out. But
Speaker 1: that's kind of your first realization. You saw the jacket
Speaker 1: with the patches. Now you're seeing that he has a
Speaker 1: love of rockets that he shared with Al, and that
Speaker 1: that love is no longer shared. I have to admit
Speaker 1: that I didn't pay enough attention to this the first
Speaker 1: time I watched it, because I think part of it
Speaker 1: is with movies like this, usually it doesn't matter. This
Speaker 1: is not real. Character development is not really important. It's
Speaker 1: just about moving character from point A to point B.
Speaker 1: But no, this is actually all building to something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a really loving effort to tie these characters
Speaker 1: family stories together in a way that did you know
Speaker 1: I had an older sister, She's four years older than me.
Speaker 1: I definitely went through these emotions as she was growing
Speaker 1: into being a teenager, spending less time with the family,
Speaker 1: spending more time with her friends, and and feeling those
Speaker 1: feelings that Glenn was feeling. We didn't shoot rockets together,
Speaker 1: but I can imagine, you know what that shared interest
Speaker 1: is that kind of morphs into just your interest, and
Speaker 1: it has a different taste and a different feel. So
Speaker 1: I think Terry talks Glenn into lighting off one of
Speaker 1: the rockets. Glenn, I believe, says, I'm not supposed to
Speaker 1: do that, but Terry encourages him to do that. He
Speaker 1: does it, and it zings off into the house and
Speaker 1: leaves kind of a burned stain in the side of
Speaker 1: the house, and I believe that gets Glenn into trouble
Speaker 1: with mom and Dad, who show up to parent for
Speaker 1: for a good sixty to seventy seconds and they're quick
Speaker 1: to throw Glenn under the bus. Has been a bad influence, right, Well,
Speaker 1: I think that the dad explains to Terry, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: this happens at a different point, but Glenn is talking
Speaker 1: to his dad. He's he tells him a story that
Speaker 1: Terry told him about a workman and that was trapped
Speaker 1: in the walls of the house when they were building
Speaker 1: the house, and that the dad since kneels down to
Speaker 1: Glenn and says, yeah, Terry has some problems. Just a
Speaker 1: very dismissive and the dad had to have known what
Speaker 1: that kid's history was, you know, And and to be
Speaker 1: that insensitive is really a insensitive but be really on
Speaker 1: point with a lot of the parenting from that era too,
Speaker 1: so it's not so so disparate. But whatever it is,
Speaker 1: it's insensitive to Terry, and it's not very thoughtful of
Speaker 1: glenn state of mind either, especially regarding his friend. And
Speaker 1: I think it's at this point that we learned that, hey,
Speaker 1: mom and dad really want to go out of town.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what they're going out of town for,
Speaker 1: but they want to do it. But they're having second
Speaker 1: thoughts about it because Glenn is being bad um, But
Speaker 1: Al the sister is quick to jump in and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: look I got this. I can can, I can can.
Speaker 1: I can take care of Glenn, I can take care
Speaker 1: of myself. I can take care of the house. You
Speaker 1: guys go, Everything's gonna be fine. Yeah. I think that
Speaker 1: there's a babysitter that they reference that maybe they should call,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to remember her name. It becomes a
Speaker 1: pretty miss Vandergriff is her name, and it becomes a
Speaker 1: pretty clever through line throughout when uh, much later, when
Speaker 1: things are all just going to shambles, I believe he says, uh,
Speaker 1: I wish Ms Mrs vander Griff was here and just
Speaker 1: a fantastic call back to at this moment, this decision. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish that the the the parent approved auth already
Speaker 1: figure we're here because we cannot handle it. We cannot
Speaker 1: handle it. But the whole time she's like no, like
Speaker 1: like he we There are multiple times later in the
Speaker 1: film where things are getting progressively worse, He's like we
Speaker 1: should call mom and dad, and Al's very clear and like, no,
Speaker 1: we do not have to bring mom and dad into this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's at this point she has already kind of ditched
Speaker 1: the family to go off and hang out with her
Speaker 1: teen friends to go shopping. Uh. You can tell that
Speaker 1: she's got teen ideas in mind with what to do
Speaker 1: with an empty house, and that is borne out almost
Speaker 1: instantly once the parents go out of town and she
Speaker 1: throws a party. I thought that this party could have
Speaker 1: been just a full blowout nineteen eighties high school party scene.
Speaker 1: But I was struck by the balance of beer and cigarettes,
Speaker 1: which is happening. But also there's a lot of soda
Speaker 1: and bowls of chips set out, and something very childish
Speaker 1: about that too. And it really showed how at that
Speaker 1: age and and I think Al at this point has
Speaker 1: shown a little bit of remorse for leaving Glenn high
Speaker 1: and dry and kind of comes back to include him
Speaker 1: a little bit. It shows how she's not really completely
Speaker 1: there like the other teens are, yet she there's still
Speaker 1: a little bit of kid left in her and and
Speaker 1: it's still a little bit of that bridge still the
Speaker 1: party of a lot of great eighties hair hit with
Speaker 1: some eighties fashion. The dog Angus, there's the sweet old
Speaker 1: dog that the family. He has is going around helping
Speaker 1: himself to some of the human food. The human snacks
Speaker 1: that are left laying about, and the boys not at
Speaker 1: the party. Terry wants to be in the party, but
Speaker 1: Glenn's got them up in the room. He knows that
Speaker 1: Al doesn't want him down at the party. Terry's trying
Speaker 1: to talk him into it. They're working on this g o.
Speaker 1: Terry can't crack it for some reason, and then Glenn
Speaker 1: takes a shot at it and succeeds almost instantly cracks
Speaker 1: open and let's out kind of a sigh of gas. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like purple smoke, purple lights. When they start looking
Speaker 1: at it, it's sparkly like like geodes typically are, but
Speaker 1: it's it's it's purple light, sparkly like it's emitting its
Speaker 1: own light. And then also it seems to have left
Speaker 1: some sort of satanic message on their magic slate that
Speaker 1: they have. They're the one where you pull up the
Speaker 1: uh the I don't even know they still have these around,
Speaker 1: but they were. They were definitely a big part of
Speaker 1: my childhood. Yeah, it's like that flimsy layer of plastic
Speaker 1: that you can write a message into and it'll kind
Speaker 1: of magnetize. That's the wrong word, but stick with something darker.
Speaker 1: Underneath it. Yeah, it barely works. It was we I
Speaker 1: remember loving these, and you could they were sometimes branded
Speaker 1: with different TV shows and whatnot, that they barely worked.
Speaker 1: Anything you'd write in it or drawn it would kind
Speaker 1: of like unstick and become unclear. So really, the demons
Speaker 1: here trying to reach out and converse with humans through
Speaker 1: this medium. It was a poor choice. Yeah, it barely works. Here.
Speaker 1: You can barely make out that there is an incantation.
Speaker 1: I kept thinking that one of the kids had written
Speaker 1: something and just done a bad job at it. But
Speaker 1: it is the demon speech. They picked the objectively the
Speaker 1: worst tool to communicate with. Meanwhile, downstairs, the party has
Speaker 1: uh has gone on to the next level, which is
Speaker 1: is storytelling. Yeah, they they're the camera pans across and
Speaker 1: there's a group of about twenty teenagers sitting around listening
Speaker 1: to one teenager tell a scary story, which is like
Speaker 1: a camp fire style scary story, not even a specifically
Speaker 1: or related to them or related to their lives, just
Speaker 1: a very kind of hokey scary story. Candle light all
Speaker 1: over the room. Uh, these these party animals who are
Speaker 1: throwing down so hard just moments ago, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: what the transition would have been to candle light scary
Speaker 1: story time, but that's where they are, yeah, because there
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be a clear leader of the party
Speaker 1: and we don't see al commanding them all right story time,
Speaker 1: But the next time we check in with them, Uh,
Speaker 1: they've moved on to attempting levitation. And it gets a
Speaker 1: pretty plot oriented here because one of the jockey r
Speaker 1: teens that they can't get him to levitate, and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: let's get He sees Glenn and Terry coming by. It's like,
Speaker 1: let's make him do it. Let's get the little guy,
Speaker 1: and uh, he agrees, but he gets scary pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: Like this is where we get into that weird area
Speaker 1: of and we have to ask the question is Glenn magic?
Speaker 1: Because Glenn actually does levitate and he ends up hanging
Speaker 1: onto a light. The light breaks and it's scary and
Speaker 1: Glenn runs off crying. Yeah, he goes like full Wonka
Speaker 1: with the lifting drinks and like you can't stop, and
Speaker 1: keeps kind of going up and going up, and then
Speaker 1: does break the glass, which I guess breaks the spell somehow,
Speaker 1: falls down, gets really embarrassed and cries, which again, like
Speaker 1: the way he plays these these childlike moments, the way
Speaker 1: he plays his excitement at being asked to come and
Speaker 1: participate in the levitation, They're so authentic and he does
Speaker 1: such a great job at delivering those. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: this was the point in the film where I really
Speaker 1: started realizing that when you have the moment of him crying, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, like a child, but also kind of unlike
Speaker 1: action oriented child characters in movies typically of this caliber, uh,
Speaker 1: they seem to really take the take him seriously, come together. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: so he's up in his room crying, Allan Terry come
Speaker 1: up to sort of talk him down. H Glenn says,
Speaker 1: I want to call mom and dad, and all insist
Speaker 1: that it's not necessary. But me, I'm watching this and
Speaker 1: as a parent, I'm thinking, no, you shouldn't call mom
Speaker 1: and dad, Like lights have been broken at this point. Uh,
Speaker 1: mom and d should be called. But how overrules it?
Speaker 1: And I think Glenn speaks to this, but the focus
Speaker 1: is so not on the fact that this child has
Speaker 1: levitated off of the ground up to the ceiling, like
Speaker 1: nobody else acknowledges or it seems to care about that.
Speaker 1: And to me, that is like, don't just call your parents, like,
Speaker 1: everybody's gotta go. We gotta get everybody out of this house.
Speaker 1: We've got to get over to Mrs vander Griff's house,
Speaker 1: get away from that situation. And it, you know, it
Speaker 1: speaks to this recurring sentiment that I that I had
Speaker 1: throughout the movie of what are these demons trying to do?
Speaker 1: Are these just the effects of opening the gate and
Speaker 1: they're just being a little bit more of a ethereal
Speaker 1: state to the world around the house, or are they
Speaker 1: trying to be scared? Are they trying to be manipulated?
Speaker 1: Is something intentional happening to them? Yeah? Yeah, And we
Speaker 1: we never get a real and it's kind of nice
Speaker 1: that we keep it ambiguous. Nobody ever, like it would
Speaker 1: have been a different type of film if what's her name,
Speaker 1: Mrs Vanderbeek, Mrs Vandergriff, Mr Vandergriff were to show up
Speaker 1: at one point and it turns out she's actually like
Speaker 1: a Mary Poppins demon fighter and she's like, look, the
Speaker 1: demons are trying to inspire your fear, which they feed
Speaker 1: off off, and then they use the interview the fear
Speaker 1: to open the gate. And then she's like, you know,
Speaker 1: killed by a demon before she gets help. But we
Speaker 1: don't get that, and then I kind of like that
Speaker 1: we don't. Yeah, yeah, I think it. It leaves it
Speaker 1: a lot more ambiguous, but also just leave space for fun.
Speaker 1: And that's what this movie delivers. And when you think fun,
Speaker 1: you think sleepovers, and we get the first of many
Speaker 1: sleepovers at this point. Yeah, Terry wakes up. Uh. I
Speaker 1: believe Terry is the first to wake up. Correct, Terry
Speaker 1: sleeping over? Like it's kind of like Owl's solution is like,
Speaker 1: we're not going to call mom and dad, but you know,
Speaker 1: Terry can sleep over. There's a very cool effect happening
Speaker 1: at the transition to the scene where it is the
Speaker 1: moths that are surrounding the bugsapper outside of the window
Speaker 1: or being projected onto the wall of the bedroom, and
Speaker 1: it's stop motion effect that's really really effective. It makes
Speaker 1: the moths look enormous. Uh, and it really Chef's kiss
Speaker 1: to that one. Yeah. Yeah, something unsettling is happening, and
Speaker 1: you see it reflected in in in nature before things
Speaker 1: start getting really weird, and then they get really weird
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Yeah, Terry has dreams of his mother. I
Speaker 1: think he wakes up and and here's her calling him,
Speaker 1: I think goes downstairs opens and she yeah, she walks
Speaker 1: in and it's like an angelic scene where she's there's
Speaker 1: like smoke and white light and she holds up her
Speaker 1: arms and she's like like, Terry, I'm back, and he
Speaker 1: uh engages in a awkwardly long embraced with his mother
Speaker 1: where they spin around. And then I believe that the
Speaker 1: Glenn and Al wake up and do they hear something?
Speaker 1: Do they for some reason? They get up and they
Speaker 1: come out to investigate. There's like a sound, and then
Speaker 1: there's like stuff moving around in the walls, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like for Krueger style where it's like poking
Speaker 1: up the walls and and uh, like the walls were
Speaker 1: made out of rubber, and so everything's getting freaky, and
Speaker 1: so Glenn and Al come out or Glenn comes out,
Speaker 1: Al hears this, or Al comes out or he wakes
Speaker 1: out up and then there's Glenn down there, um and well,
Speaker 1: and then then he gets even weirder. Yeah, they call
Speaker 1: his name and he kind of snaps out of his
Speaker 1: dream or sleep and realizes that he's holding Angus the
Speaker 1: dog in his arms. And this is the point where
Speaker 1: I'll confess to being a little bit confused. He throws
Speaker 1: the dog down because he's surprised that it's not his mother. Justifiable.
Speaker 1: The dog is dead, and I cannot figure out was
Speaker 1: Angus dead while Terry was holding him? Did Terry throwing
Speaker 1: Angus down kill him? I'm not even gonna get into
Speaker 1: at what point was Angus in the situation, because I
Speaker 1: don't think Angus opened the door and walked in on
Speaker 1: two hind legs, you know. I imagine that that Terry
Speaker 1: picked Angus up at some point to at the point
Speaker 1: he needed to hug something would be my take on it.
Speaker 1: But but what are your thoughts? Did did Terry accidentally
Speaker 1: kill the dog? Or was the dog dead? Slash? Did
Speaker 1: the demon kill the dog? I Am absolutely not gonna
Speaker 1: lump this one on Terry. I think it had to
Speaker 1: be the demon. Um Nobody blames Terry for this in
Speaker 1: the film later on, when they're talking about Glenn's like
Speaker 1: Angus was super old. He they don't live much longer
Speaker 1: than this anyway, So other than that, they don't really
Speaker 1: engage with the whole scenario too much. But either way
Speaker 1: that the dog is the dog is dead. And I
Speaker 1: will say that I know a lot of people do
Speaker 1: not want to watch a film and which the dog dies,
Speaker 1: at least in this film, when the dog dies, like
Speaker 1: like everything else we've been discussing, they take it seriously
Speaker 1: like it's people are affected by it. It's actually part
Speaker 1: of the plot and it's not just like, let's shock
Speaker 1: that audience by having a monster eat a dog. That's right.
Speaker 1: They don't spend a lot of time showing it either.
Speaker 1: I think they There is a weird bit where Al's
Speaker 1: boyfriend or suitor offers to take the dog to be
Speaker 1: cremated or buried, but cannot do it, and he's kind
Speaker 1: of carrying the dog around in a blanket this entire time,
Speaker 1: puts it in the front seat of the car, tries
Speaker 1: to drive it uh to the animal shelter or the
Speaker 1: animal hospital, and then it's closed and has to drive back.
Speaker 1: We're not there yet, but I agree they do do
Speaker 1: it very sensitively and delicately, and most of all, they
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time on how Glenn feels about
Speaker 1: it and how upset he is by this. And again
Speaker 1: he's like, look, how the dog has died. We should
Speaker 1: call mom and dad and she's like, no, no need
Speaker 1: to call mom and dad. And again I'm thinking is
Speaker 1: especially as the parents like, no, you call up my
Speaker 1: my dad, like the light is broken, the dog is dead.
Speaker 1: Calm mom and dad and at least let them know,
Speaker 1: because I think for a while there I'm not even
Speaker 1: clear that there. I was like, what they do with
Speaker 1: the dog? Is he in the freezer? You don't? It
Speaker 1: becomes clear later that that one of the teen friends
Speaker 1: has been tasked with taking the dog unceremoniously to the
Speaker 1: like the animal shelter or the or whatever, to have
Speaker 1: it disposed of, and to be quick about it because
Speaker 1: they're going to the beach and they want him to
Speaker 1: join them at the beach sooner than later. So it's
Speaker 1: a weird friendly gesture. It's weird that Al isn't going
Speaker 1: with him on this trip, uh, And it's weird that
Speaker 1: they want him to be quick about it. It is
Speaker 1: a little bit strange how removed Al is from the situation.
Speaker 1: She doesn't seem nearly as upset about this as Glenna does. Uh.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's because she doesn't want to think about
Speaker 1: these things that are happening. Kind of Stephen king it
Speaker 1: level of grown ups not thinking about this the same
Speaker 1: way that a kid is. But again she's on that
Speaker 1: bridge between childhood and being a grown up, so she's
Speaker 1: on and off with her sensitivity to it. Yeah and
Speaker 1: and yeah. Sometimes something strange or traumatic happens, you gotta
Speaker 1: get your mind off of it, which is what this
Speaker 1: is what Glenn does. Because we Glenn go home, we
Speaker 1: get to see Glun's home. At this point. We see
Speaker 1: that it is a wreck. The living room is just
Speaker 1: like in the kitchen just has stuff everywhere. There's cold
Speaker 1: pizza out and he just grabs the slice and eats it,
Speaker 1: presumably for dinner, and we get the idea that like
Speaker 1: this is kind of par for the course these days.
Speaker 1: Um home. Home is not maybe not all that great
Speaker 1: for Glenn at the moment, But then he goes to
Speaker 1: his room and it is a glorious site. We described
Speaker 1: a little bit already, but it's trans transformers, optimist prime
Speaker 1: kite hanging from the ceiling, heavy metal posters on the walls,
Speaker 1: many of which appear to be real. I do get
Speaker 1: kind of a clip art vibe from some things that
Speaker 1: are on the wall, but for the most part it's believable.
Speaker 1: And he even has a handmade banner back there that
Speaker 1: just says metal. I think the thing that really says
Speaker 1: the most about his character to me is the posters
Speaker 1: on top of posters, which is a very genuine kid
Speaker 1: thing of Hey, I like these, and I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: another one up and it's gonna cover a quarter of it.
Speaker 1: But that's okay. It's gonna be at an angle. But
Speaker 1: this is the band I really like at this moment.
Speaker 1: I don't not like the band that it's covering, So
Speaker 1: it just kind of becomes this ever growing patchwork of stuff.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just a filthy room. He's jumping up and
Speaker 1: down on the bed, rocking out, listening to some metal.
Speaker 1: Do we know the name of this band? Um? I
Speaker 1: think this is supposed to be the fictitious band Sacrifice
Speaker 1: or Sacrifice. It's s a c R I F y X.
Speaker 1: The album is the Dark Book because we see him
Speaker 1: handling it. But wait, at first, he just he throws
Speaker 1: a blanket over, like a rainbow blanket over his shoulders,
Speaker 1: and he's rocking out and he's he's lips sinking to
Speaker 1: all the cool metal voiceover stuff in it. But then
Speaker 1: it begins to dawn on him. It's like there's something
Speaker 1: in these lyrics. It's matching up with what is going
Speaker 1: on in the neighborhood here. This is what that's going
Speaker 1: on over at Glenn's house. He busts out that that
Speaker 1: Sacrifice album and the record booklet for the Dark Book
Speaker 1: is the Dark Book. It's like basically a tone of
Speaker 1: demonology that's just ready to go in the vinyl record.
Speaker 1: Just imagine put it yourselves in the in the in
Speaker 1: the shoes of whatever necromancer or or wizard this was
Speaker 1: who wrote this demonic tone of how to presumably both
Speaker 1: release and seal these demonic enterities. And you call it
Speaker 1: the Dark Book, like it's the Dark Book. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be the only dark book that ever exists. Well, maybe
Speaker 1: it's translated from the Latin. It sounds coolers Latin, you know, right,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a dark book in Latin, and they acknowledge
Speaker 1: that they would be more and that this was just
Speaker 1: one of them. Yeah, it's also not very long if
Speaker 1: you can fit it inside of a vinyl record. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe there's just Ultimately, the demon summoning ritual is a
Speaker 1: lot more simplistic in this um in this film, because
Speaker 1: it can be actually accidentally done. The demonic realm is
Speaker 1: kind of a unitask thing is there's just one demonic realm,
Speaker 1: one demon and like a can opener, there's one tool
Speaker 1: to summon and seal it. So at this point in
Speaker 1: the film, they're like a few different things going on
Speaker 1: at once. Um we uh, we have the team dude
Speaker 1: that's taking the dead dog's body around trying to drop
Speaker 1: it off an animal control. Like we said, he comes
Speaker 1: back to the house with it because they won't take it.
Speaker 1: Nobody seems to be home. But then he sees he
Speaker 1: sees that hole in the backyard, and we don't see
Speaker 1: him do it, but then we later see that the
Speaker 1: the hole has been filled in. Um, so presumably he
Speaker 1: dumps the dog in there, but he does a nice
Speaker 1: job laying the sad back in place using the sad squares.
Speaker 1: So it's not as as lazy and act as you
Speaker 1: might think. I do wanna you know, I have in
Speaker 1: my notes here at this point in the film, and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's in this scene or a
Speaker 1: scene that that we just went past. But you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the kids insults to each other pretty unacceptable,
Speaker 1: pretty unforgivable then and now. But one that that shines
Speaker 1: through is quote buzz off clown face, which is delivered directly.
Speaker 1: I think Glenn says it to one of the sisters,
Speaker 1: and it said so sincerely and so earnestly, And it's
Speaker 1: such a quaint, charming, but but no less sharp and
Speaker 1: cutting insult that I had to make a note of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the kids are in the teams are downright mean with
Speaker 1: their insults at times. But yeah, certainly some of these
Speaker 1: insults that are thrown by the kids have not stood
Speaker 1: the test of time. That's right, that's right. Um. So
Speaker 1: Glenn's at home alone, he looks out and he sees
Speaker 1: that the hole is back, and then they pulled some
Speaker 1: wood over it. Yeah, that treehouse. They're like, well, let's
Speaker 1: cover it up. Yeah. I don't understand. I guess that's
Speaker 1: to keep things from falling into it. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: happening while Eric is bringing the dog back, right, So
Speaker 1: we're getting kind of a split back and forth between
Speaker 1: the two of them. Uh. This is where Terry is
Speaker 1: talking to Glenn about the Dark Book and kind of
Speaker 1: onboarding him to the concepts. And this is where again
Speaker 1: Chef's kiss. He puts the record on and plays it backwards.
Speaker 1: And when you play the record backwards. It tells you
Speaker 1: how to seal presumably the whole, how to seal the gate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's a wonderful scene in Glenn's This isn't the basement. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is Terry's basement, right or is this Glenn's basement?
Speaker 1: I think it's Glenn's basement. Okay, Yeah, there's like a
Speaker 1: drum kit down there, but more metal posters, like all
Speaker 1: the metal posters that didn't fit in his room or
Speaker 1: down here, and he's walking him through everything. He's given
Speaker 1: him the full pitch on this band about how they
Speaker 1: were really deep into demonology and they had this thing
Speaker 1: called the Dark Book quote that's like the Bible for demons,
Speaker 1: and this is where they got all their lyrics from.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's this They really stressed that this particular
Speaker 1: metal band sacrifice or sacrifice. Um, yeah, it's entually. They're
Speaker 1: wise wizards who are giving us information on how to
Speaker 1: not only summon the old gods but also how to
Speaker 1: defeat them. That's right, that's right. Um, it's just that simple.
Speaker 1: And it's as simple as writing a song with forward
Speaker 1: sounding lyrics that makes sense but also work as backwards
Speaker 1: sounding lyrics that actually in part information, difficult, difficult to
Speaker 1: follow information. So at this point, with their newfound exorcism
Speaker 1: skills from having listening to the listen to this album
Speaker 1: once and read the liner notes, Glenn and Terry they
Speaker 1: go back to the pit. They like, let's go ahead,
Speaker 1: let's see this puppy up. Uh and uh, and so
Speaker 1: they start reading some stuff, reciting some stuff. Al walks up,
Speaker 1: she's suspicious of this whole affair. But then we transition
Speaker 1: into this kind of sweet moment where we we we
Speaker 1: were we had the understanding that Al was going to
Speaker 1: go to the beach with their friends, but instead she
Speaker 1: reveals that no, she's she's not going to go to
Speaker 1: the beach, and she has a gift that she gives Glenn,
Speaker 1: this thoughtful gift that of course turns out to be
Speaker 1: more rocket stuff. And so we this kind brings back, uh,
Speaker 1: this bond between them. Uh. This is some nice uh,
Speaker 1: some sweet stuff going on in this scene. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: And they they launched the rocket right after that. And
Speaker 1: again as a testament to all the craziness that's going on,
Speaker 1: all the weird stuff that's going on, this hole that
Speaker 1: keeps appearing in the backyard, the levitation, this dead dog,
Speaker 1: and they're able to just kind of shrug it all
Speaker 1: off and have a really kid moment where they're launching
Speaker 1: the rocket together. At this scene, Al does have the
Speaker 1: rocket patch jacket on as well, so they're both kind
Speaker 1: of in uniform, just like the picture that Glenn looks
Speaker 1: at on the wall earlier in the movie. It's a
Speaker 1: very sweet moment. Now, pretty much from this we transitioned
Speaker 1: to Al, Terry, and Glenn playing cards later that night.
Speaker 1: But then the Lea sisters come over. So even though
Speaker 1: the beach party was canceled, the Lee sisters decided to
Speaker 1: come over and hang out. It looks like there's gonna be.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be yet yet again. More sleepovers, this time
Speaker 1: dueling sleepovers. Belief sisters doing a sleepover with Al and
Speaker 1: the interior and Glenn doing a sleepover. Of course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there there's a scene where Glenn and Terry A are
Speaker 1: messing around in the parents closet and just just a
Speaker 1: rifle shotgun in the closet that Glenn's picking up and
Speaker 1: winging around. And again very of the time, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: but so so Bizarres. Yeah, there's a lot, a lot
Speaker 1: to be dissected about that theme for sure. Uh, certainly
Speaker 1: kind of horrifying to modern viewers. It's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: they've gone straight to the gun, Dad's gun in the closet. Uh.
Speaker 1: This will of course be a plot element later on,
Speaker 1: but we have, but we've established it for now. One
Speaker 1: thing that we kind of glossed over when Glenn, when
Speaker 1: Terry was onboarding Glenn into the Dark Book and the
Speaker 1: contents of the Dark Book, is that we do see
Speaker 1: what I keep referring to in my notes as the minions. Uh,
Speaker 1: not those minions, guys, but actually little humanoid creatures that
Speaker 1: are probably what ankle now shin shinn hide to Kneehi,
Speaker 1: probably about that. Uh, that's the first that we see
Speaker 1: them kind of recorded in some official record. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: these little um. I often refer to creatures like this
Speaker 1: as gromlins because they're sort of generic grimlins. But but
Speaker 1: these guys, these guys are tremendous. They're one of the
Speaker 1: my favorite effects from the screen. We see more and
Speaker 1: more of them as the film proceeds. They're little homunculi
Speaker 1: dudes with with like glassy eyes and little little vampire
Speaker 1: mouths and pointed ears, their hairless and the effects here.
Speaker 1: You might expect creatures like this to be created via
Speaker 1: stop motion, but instead it's a forced perspective stuff. For
Speaker 1: the most part, I think there's a puppet here and there,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, we're looking at multiple costumes
Speaker 1: worn by presumably full sized adult humans that are then
Speaker 1: made to look like tiny, scampering, squealing creatures. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's a combination of the stop motion that
Speaker 1: a combination of well, no, it's the same combination stop motion,
Speaker 1: and then there's a little bit of forced perspective with
Speaker 1: humans and costumes, and then there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: that projection that you see a lot of in Ghostbusters
Speaker 1: or other other other worldly effects. And I think the
Speaker 1: projection really stood out to me because once you see
Speaker 1: something like that, it's hard to unsee it. But to
Speaker 1: stop motion in the rubber suits force perspective, I found
Speaker 1: myself trying to figure out which was which in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases. And that's that's good effects. And if
Speaker 1: you ask me, I think if you're if you're even
Speaker 1: hesitating to to be able to tell the difference between
Speaker 1: the two, they've done their job really, really well. And
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll be back to back shots of uh, stop motion, Gromlin.
Speaker 1: I like that better than Minion. Uh taken right next
Speaker 1: to a human in the costume looking through large stair banisters.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty seamless. I like it.
Speaker 1: So a lot of a lot of weird stuff is happening,
Speaker 1: like this is the night where everything goes haywire. Uh.
Speaker 1: So a lot of different things start start occurring, a
Speaker 1: lot of weird stuff. So something's creeping around the house.
Speaker 1: A window in Glenn's room explodes, uh like something like
Speaker 1: some forces busted in. So he wakes up Al. I
Speaker 1: think the least sisters get up now, or maybe they
Speaker 1: stay asleep for a little while, but they go and
Speaker 1: wake up Terry, and we get this switch this uh
Speaker 1: this uh this scene where they're trying to wake up Terry,
Speaker 1: and then Terry walks up behind them and he's like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: what's up, And we get that Nightmare reveal that oh
Speaker 1: it's the dead dog Angus in the bed in Terry's place,
Speaker 1: But Terry's there in the room with them all through
Speaker 1: your screaming, and then nightmare monster hands reach out from
Speaker 1: under the bed and start grabbing their ankles and they're
Speaker 1: trying to pull al under and it's a really scary
Speaker 1: scene out of nowhere. Yeah, it's it's a perfect one
Speaker 1: to punch of you think this is the impactful moment
Speaker 1: when they realize that it's the dog and that somehow
Speaker 1: the dog is back. Even backing up little bit more,
Speaker 1: it's really impactful moment when the moths are attacking the
Speaker 1: window and the window shatters. Yeah. Yeah, and then you
Speaker 1: come up and see Terry, but it's not really Terry,
Speaker 1: it's Angus. There's a shock moment at that and then
Speaker 1: at that moment the hands reach out and grab her
Speaker 1: and it really is a one to three punch that
Speaker 1: it's thrilling. And so the least sisters are up at
Speaker 1: this point. It's and they realize what needs they need
Speaker 1: to do, need to get out of this house, so
Speaker 1: they run for the front door. They they're actually going
Speaker 1: out the front door, and then seemingly Mom and Dad
Speaker 1: show up, but it's not Mom and Dad. These are
Speaker 1: clearly uh, demonic doubles of Mom and dad. Uh. And
Speaker 1: when who is it? Is it Glenn or is it
Speaker 1: Awl that runs up to Dad here? So Glenn runs
Speaker 1: up to him, and the reason that I remember this
Speaker 1: is this kind of kicked off a little bit of
Speaker 1: the wish fulfillment thing that you're referencing in in the
Speaker 1: Gate to. Uh. Terry got it a little bit earlier
Speaker 1: with his mom during in the Dream, and Glen's getting
Speaker 1: it a lit a bit now because he's been wanting
Speaker 1: to call Mom and Dad this entire movie, and now
Speaker 1: he comes out on the door and sees them. He's
Speaker 1: so excited that he runs up to them and pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: I mean, they can't keep this charade up for very long. Uh.
Speaker 1: The dad's voice transform. He kind of does up you've
Speaker 1: been bad and grabs Glenn and and tries to squeeze him,
Speaker 1: choke him. I think it's choked like that when like
Speaker 1: reaches up touches his face and like Dad's face immediately
Speaker 1: collapses into a stream of pus. It's it's horrifying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it kind of folds inward on itself. Pus comes out
Speaker 1: of it. He drops Glenn. Glenn backs away from it,
Speaker 1: and then his head falls off. The Dad's head falls
Speaker 1: off and shatters on the sidewalk, which just an amazing,
Speaker 1: amazing effect. Yeah, they went nuts with these effects above
Speaker 1: and beyond. But the kids at this point realize, oh
Speaker 1: loue better turn around, so they run back into the house.
Speaker 1: But the house is also where the monsters are, so
Speaker 1: they go for the back door, and when they're heading
Speaker 1: out the back door, that when the Gromlins the little
Speaker 1: Homunculi attack and we get the first of many tremendously
Speaker 1: fun scenes with these little guys scampering around. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it. That's we get to see him in the flesh. Literally.
Speaker 1: The combo of stop motion and reprojection is really strong
Speaker 1: in the sequence. Uh. One of their arms gets cut
Speaker 1: off in a door when the door is shutting. The
Speaker 1: shot is in the trailer. You see the arm kind
Speaker 1: of descend down the crack, fall onto the floor, and
Speaker 1: then turn into kind of these little stop motion worms
Speaker 1: that kind of skitter off um off of off camera.
Speaker 1: They seem like, I want to say, there was a
Speaker 1: Sesame Street sequence that had these little clamation worms on them, Uh,
Speaker 1: the same similar type of effect, but all white, all
Speaker 1: the same color as the Gromlin and presumably going to
Speaker 1: reform the Gromlins somewhere else. Uh was the other other
Speaker 1: strange things happened? They the phone rings, they pick it up,
Speaker 1: but it's a demon prank call again, we get that
Speaker 1: dad voice going, you've been bad, and then the phone melts. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I love that you've been bad part because it's
Speaker 1: such a great demonic exaggeration of a very simplified childhood
Speaker 1: fear of of both doing something bad, having done something bad,
Speaker 1: but then being caught and and having your parents disappointed
Speaker 1: or mad at you over it. It's also a line
Speaker 1: that Sloth uses against Mow for Telly and Goonies, which
Speaker 1: happened a couple of came out a couple of years
Speaker 1: before this, and I kept wondering if that was a
Speaker 1: reference to it. I think it's a stretch for it
Speaker 1: to actually be. But that phrase you've been bad is
Speaker 1: a very short, strong and powerful one that works really
Speaker 1: well in both movies. Well, at this point in the
Speaker 1: film that the kids realized, okay, well we tried running
Speaker 1: out the front door, didn't work. Tried going out the
Speaker 1: back door, didn't work. We've got to close the gate.
Speaker 1: So really, without much more terrying about, the kid's head
Speaker 1: out back to deal with the gate. The least sisters
Speaker 1: are initially with them, and then they bail. They realized, well,
Speaker 1: this sounds a bit too dangerous and word side characters.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go back again. Um. So they get
Speaker 1: to the gate. The gate opens, its spewing purple smoke
Speaker 1: and light. Terry tries reading the Bible at it a
Speaker 1: little bit. They got a Bible out of one of
Speaker 1: the drawers in the house and it seems to be working,
Speaker 1: but then the whole swallows Terry up and we get
Speaker 1: another homuncular attack sequence where Terry is attacked by tiny
Speaker 1: demons in the whole. They're climbing on him, they're fighting him.
Speaker 1: They're swarming over him and pull him on it, pulling
Speaker 1: on his legs as he's trying to climb back out.
Speaker 1: That's right. I do wanna point out a small movie
Speaker 1: flub here in this scene is that Terry is reading
Speaker 1: the Bible. He he doesn't know what to read. He's saying,
Speaker 1: you know, he's asking for suggestions, and they're saying, just
Speaker 1: read anything. And so he reads from Genesis, which you know,
Speaker 1: in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,
Speaker 1: which okay, yeah, you're gonna pull a random line like,
Speaker 1: go for it. But the book he's holding, he's halfway through,
Speaker 1: and we all know that Genesis is the first book
Speaker 1: in the Bible, and that this is on the first
Speaker 1: page of the first book in the Bible. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ding these guys a little bit. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: hurt their overall score, but just know that that somebody's
Speaker 1: watching this sort of thing unless they had to the
Speaker 1: route one of those reverse books where um Old Testament
Speaker 1: comes after New Testament. I don't, right, Yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a revised standard. Yeah, but yeah. The minions start to
Speaker 1: swarm Terry while he's in the hole, and this is
Speaker 1: a pretty intense moment um, particularly for Terry. I might
Speaker 1: be naive, but I had in my mind maybe we're
Speaker 1: misunderstanding these Gromlins. I know, I'm going back and forth
Speaker 1: between millions and Gromlins. I just can't get the millions
Speaker 1: label out of my head. But I thought maybe we
Speaker 1: were misunderstanding these guys. Maybe there's a chance that they're
Speaker 1: helpful or something like that, which is like a wrinkle
Speaker 1: that they would bring into a horror movie nowadays. You know, like, no,
Speaker 1: the humans were the monsters, but now they proved themselves
Speaker 1: out to be monsters for the first time. In this
Speaker 1: scene where they are actively biting Terry, they're chewing into
Speaker 1: his flesh. They're chewing into his neck. He's like fending
Speaker 1: them off, away from them, but their numbers are increasing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: luckily Alan Glenn are able to get a rope and
Speaker 1: throw it down the whole car. He's able to fight
Speaker 1: him off a good bed. He stomps one of the Uh.
Speaker 1: The creature is pretty good. Uh. They get him back
Speaker 1: up out of the pit. They read a little more
Speaker 1: Bible at the pit, and then they just go ahead
Speaker 1: and pitch the whole book in and it explodes like
Speaker 1: a hand grenade for the moment, like they won. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it closes back up magically, and their sod there too,
Speaker 1: I think. Don't quote me on that, but they jump
Speaker 1: up and down in celebration on top of the hole
Speaker 1: to Hell that has just closed up. And I get
Speaker 1: that their kids and that they're not thinking this all
Speaker 1: the way through it, but they've been pretty competent so far.
Speaker 1: It's like, maybe give it a little bit of clearance
Speaker 1: and give it some time to to cool and settle in.
Speaker 1: That's the advice I give my son. I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: if you ever open up a pit to hell and
Speaker 1: you successfully close it up with an explosive Bible don't
Speaker 1: just start stomping. Can't be one who to resent sure
Speaker 1: that it's close, give it thirty to forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: go have a snack and see if you still want
Speaker 1: to jump on the hole in celebration, and then go
Speaker 1: for it. So they go back inside. Eventually they find
Speaker 1: the Lee sisters hiding in the closet, which I was
Speaker 1: relieved by, you know, and not that we're super attached them,
Speaker 1: but it's nice that they were not murdered by tiny
Speaker 1: creatures offscreen. Um comically huge layers of garlic around their
Speaker 1: necks and they're holding kitchen tools and kind of a
Speaker 1: cross in front of them. Very funny scene, Very funny,
Speaker 1: but also it made me think, like how much garlic
Speaker 1: does this family keep? I feel like I've got We've
Speaker 1: got maybe two pieces of garlic in the house at
Speaker 1: a time that this is like like like three dozen
Speaker 1: garlic heads in here, easily thirty to forty heads of garlic.
Speaker 1: So they get them out and then well more teen
Speaker 1: boys appear. They have shown up with beer ready to
Speaker 1: part al. Wisely just sends everybody home. She's like, I've
Speaker 1: had enough surprises for one night. Everybody has to go home.
Speaker 1: No parties are taking place, and they begrudgingly agree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and really, you know, docs some cool points from her
Speaker 1: which the teens make clear and she does not care about,
Speaker 1: which good on al. You know, she's finally kind of
Speaker 1: realizing what's important. And you know, I might suggest she's
Speaker 1: growing more than they are. Yeah, I think so. I mean,
Speaker 1: it took an actual portal to hell opening up in
Speaker 1: the backyard, but but still growth appreciated and seeing your
Speaker 1: father's face caved in and rolling off of his body.
Speaker 1: But of course it's not over yet. Things are not
Speaker 1: gonna end that simply. Uh. Later on Glenn and Terry
Speaker 1: they're hanging out, I think in the din Uh, they're
Speaker 1: kind of horsing around with the g od. It bangs
Speaker 1: into the wall. Suddenly the wall erupts and this dead
Speaker 1: workman is hanging half out of the wall. This is
Speaker 1: the workman from Terry's story about someone workman being sealed
Speaker 1: up dead in the walls of the house. That's right,
Speaker 1: And this is where Terry reveals that he made that
Speaker 1: story up, which again another wish fulfillment kind of manifesting.
Speaker 1: This is less of a wish but more of an
Speaker 1: idea that was in his head made real. Uh, and
Speaker 1: Terry gets taken. Yeah, the creature comes alive. It's a
Speaker 1: zombie grabs Terry, pulls him into the wall, and then
Speaker 1: the wall seals up. So at this point it's just
Speaker 1: Alan Glenn. They get attacked by the by the workman.
Speaker 1: They call him the zombie creature again. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: great scene where they're cornered by the workman. Al throws
Speaker 1: a boom box at it, hits him, hits the creature
Speaker 1: in the head, nail or nails him in the face.
Speaker 1: He falls over and immediately shatters into a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of these tiny demons are just running around. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's an amazing scene again in the trailer. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that he's made up of them. Again. I don't
Speaker 1: want them to explain it to me, but I do
Speaker 1: want an answer. You know, I'm living in that dual space.
Speaker 1: So at this point they're like, okay, well we gotta
Speaker 1: go for that gun. Let's get Dad's guns. So they
Speaker 1: go to the closet. But at this point two things
Speaker 1: happen in quick succession. That zombie demon Terry attacks, like
Speaker 1: Terry's head coming out and biting at him. So Al
Speaker 1: comes in and stabs Zombie Terry in the ice socket
Speaker 1: with a Barbie doll leg So good, so good. This
Speaker 1: is for me scariest moment of the of the film,
Speaker 1: that he's poking his head out there, that he is
Speaker 1: actually biting, that he has then attacked, that the kids
Speaker 1: have to attack their own friend. It's just terrifying stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the Barbie doll leg part of it is like
Speaker 1: knowing the baby Barbie doll legs are a little weird, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, we both had sisters, so they both were
Speaker 1: around Barbie dolls and they have that weird thing where
Speaker 1: it's like the Barbie doll kind of has like flesh
Speaker 1: and bone and it has it's it's rigid yet soft,
Speaker 1: And somehow the idea of it going into an ice
Speaker 1: socket feels more impactful than than if if if the
Speaker 1: zombie Terry had been stabbed with literally anything right, and
Speaker 1: the fact that the Barbie's legs and feet are pretty
Speaker 1: firm and solid, and that those feat in particular are pointy,
Speaker 1: that you know, I had a note that it really
Speaker 1: shows the tone of the movie and the the intended
Speaker 1: audience of the movie that this is all pulled up.
Speaker 1: You never see the barbie go into the eye, you
Speaker 1: see the wind up, you hear the impact, and then
Speaker 1: you see the blood soaked barbie like and the resulting
Speaker 1: stabbed I but you never get it's a punch that's
Speaker 1: intentionally pulled to be mindful to the audience, and I
Speaker 1: think it's a really thoughtful one and characterized by many
Speaker 1: other moments in the movie as well. Now, shortly after
Speaker 1: this occurs, the workman shows back up again, more chaos.
Speaker 1: I believe the shotgun goes off, but then the workman
Speaker 1: grabs Al and drags her away into the wall, into
Speaker 1: the closet wall, and now both of them are gone.
Speaker 1: It's only Lynn. And earlier in the picture it was said, well,
Speaker 1: you know the demons, the old gods, they only need
Speaker 1: to sack human sacrifices in order to fully open the gate. Well,
Speaker 1: now it looks like they have to human sacrifices, so
Speaker 1: things are not looking great. That's right, and you get
Speaker 1: what for my money, is probably the most impressive set
Speaker 1: piece of the film, which is Glenn running across this
Speaker 1: large living room floor of this, like I said earlier, amazing,
Speaker 1: amazing looking house, and that whole floor opens up as
Speaker 1: he runs across it, and we see that the entire
Speaker 1: kind of footprint of the house practically is now the
Speaker 1: gate and a purple light is coming out of it. Again,
Speaker 1: that shot is in the trailer. Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: this away, but yeah, and in this we're getting into
Speaker 1: the final showdown because at this point I think Glenn
Speaker 1: seems to realize he's gonna need that big rocket, and uh,
Speaker 1: the demon little demons are swarming all over the place.
Speaker 1: And then this is when the giant Demon Lord arrives.
Speaker 1: We saw a drawing or a wood cut off in
Speaker 1: the liner notes to that that heavy metal album in
Speaker 1: the Dark book. But now he has arrived and he
Speaker 1: looks tremendous. This is like a stop motion creature that
Speaker 1: it looks very very original, but also seems like it
Speaker 1: is like a like a fifth level mega evolution. All
Speaker 1: of the little demons and Ray Harry Howsing would be
Speaker 1: proud of this thing. This thing looks great. Totally agree.
Speaker 1: He looks like a leveled up version of one of
Speaker 1: those Gromlins. He's got twice the eyes, twice the arms.
Speaker 1: The second set of arms are much smaller than the
Speaker 1: first time. Is just a lot of thought went into
Speaker 1: this creature and the articulations of this creature and the
Speaker 1: way that he emerges in arises out of the hole
Speaker 1: is just an effect that it works just so well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's like the showdown with the big demon and Glenn.
Speaker 1: It like grabs Glenn and then weirdly it marks him.
Speaker 1: It like it touches him, and an eyeball opens and
Speaker 1: Glenn's palm, which is really well done effect. And and
Speaker 1: it's also just a real shame because Carrie has been
Speaker 1: taken away and Terry would have loved this. This is
Speaker 1: all get out. Uh and then the demon leaves him.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the demons like, hey, you you
Speaker 1: had a hand in this. Uh, so here you get
Speaker 1: a special demon gift from me and you get to
Speaker 1: live to see the new demon world I get. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe he's going to be an ambassador. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what again. What the thing that I couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out was was the demon rewarding Glenn? Was the demon
Speaker 1: marking Glenn said that he could see through that I
Speaker 1: that's now in Glenn's hand. All we know is that
Speaker 1: Glenn was spared. The demon retreated and Glenn looks down
Speaker 1: and he's just revolted, revolted by this eye that's in
Speaker 1: his hand, which I agree, amazing effect. I don't know
Speaker 1: how many times I can say amazing effect during this episode,
Speaker 1: because but there truly are so many amazing effects here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in different different realms, Like this is a different
Speaker 1: style effect than anything I think we've seen thus far.
Speaker 1: It's it's weird, I said. It reminds me a bit
Speaker 1: of the Stephen King's story. I Am the Doorway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know where the guy comes back with with eyeballs
Speaker 1: opening up in his hands, and this is a way
Speaker 1: for alien entities to to see through him. That's right.
Speaker 1: And I think that that, to me suggested that Glenn
Speaker 1: was maybe now a minion of the dark One, the
Speaker 1: larger demon, and maybe we're was serving as his eyes
Speaker 1: at least in that space, and that was why he
Speaker 1: felt like he was no longer needed and retreated. But
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty revolting, and it's a very convincing. I
Speaker 1: can figure out these other effects. I can't figure this
Speaker 1: one out. I don't know how they pulled this one off,
Speaker 1: all right. So we get down to the final bit here.
Speaker 1: So the Great Purple Vortex is rising up out of
Speaker 1: the pit. The demons are submending their control over the earth.
Speaker 1: Only Glenn can stop them, one assumes, so he if
Speaker 1: I remember this correctly, the way it goes down as
Speaker 1: he stabs the palm eyeball, presumably to call the big
Speaker 1: Demon back. Big Demon comes back, is on his way back. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Glenn is setting up the launcher for the rocket, this
Speaker 1: big rocket from the closet, but also using part of
Speaker 1: a rocket kit that Al gave him. Uh. He's scrambling
Speaker 1: for batteries, you know, kind of like the classic must
Speaker 1: reloaded the last second bit from a from an action film,
Speaker 1: and I suspense. The demon Lord returns and Glenn fires
Speaker 1: the rocket into it. And this is great too, because
Speaker 1: the rocket has been cemented in the picture already. Is
Speaker 1: this it's kind of this thing. This represents this loving
Speaker 1: bond between the siblings. It's uh, so it makes sense
Speaker 1: within the context of the film that it's not just
Speaker 1: a random child weapon. This is not just kid Rambo
Speaker 1: fighting off a demon like this is something that represents uh,
Speaker 1: bonds of love and truth that would naturally slay a demon.
Speaker 1: And it does just blows the demon all to glowing pieces. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I loved this sequence. I do have to admit that
Speaker 1: this is where the movie started to lose me a
Speaker 1: little bit, this concept of this being the solution to
Speaker 1: the problem. I was on board with the demonic incantation.
Speaker 1: I would have been on board with them finding a
Speaker 1: way to more articulately work that into a message of
Speaker 1: love and light. I think I like the idea of
Speaker 1: a symbol of love and the shared bond and how
Speaker 1: well they seated that being what saves them. But for
Speaker 1: some reason it lost that connective tissue at that point
Speaker 1: for me and just felt like a very convenient way
Speaker 1: to end the movie. Um but regardless, it works, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean narratively it worked. It saved the world. All
Speaker 1: the weird purple weather stuff goes away, that the pit
Speaker 1: seals back up, and then well, every everyone's still alive.
Speaker 1: Al shows back up. Here's Terry, uh so Alter, here
Speaker 1: and Glenn are all reunited. The house is wrecked. The
Speaker 1: parents are not going to be crazy about this, but
Speaker 1: we get the sweet scene where you know, everybody's still
Speaker 1: okay and they have successfully defeated the demon. I do
Speaker 1: want to point out that when the demon explodes, there's
Speaker 1: a hilarious explosion scene where Glenn is held out of
Speaker 1: the house end over end overhead in a projection effect,
Speaker 1: but literally pin wheels out of the house and lands
Speaker 1: to safety. We get one final scene to where we
Speaker 1: see the backyard, We see the place where the pit was,
Speaker 1: and there's like, there's a sapling growing up there, you know,
Speaker 1: the like the the tree that was there before is
Speaker 1: being regrown. And there is Angus, the dog still alive,
Speaker 1: carrying a shoe around, and it's it's sweet, it's nice
Speaker 1: that the dog didn't actually die but is back, but
Speaker 1: on this and the same level. And I didn't think
Speaker 1: about this till the second time I was watching parts
Speaker 1: of the film. I was like, oh, well, this this
Speaker 1: scene is also very disconnected from the rest of the movie,
Speaker 1: almost as if a test audience thought it was sad
Speaker 1: that the dog truly died, and they're like, let's just
Speaker 1: bring the dog back. We don't need any of the
Speaker 1: kids for this scene. We'll just shoot the dog in
Speaker 1: the same backyard. But either way we'll take it. A
Speaker 1: wholesome music plays in the crest role. I think that
Speaker 1: it makes as much sense as anything else. If too
Speaker 1: human sack prefaces were needed for the demon to enter
Speaker 1: the realm, then Al and Terry should be dead. Uh.
Speaker 1: Through that same lens, the dogs should be dead. They're
Speaker 1: all alive. I'm happy that they're all alive, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, but something doesn't add up here. It's not
Speaker 1: where they revived. Where they I mean, Angus had to be,
Speaker 1: so presumably Al and Terry are. It's asking a lot
Speaker 1: of questions that a child audience isn't really going to
Speaker 1: want to or be prepared to answer. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of a wash at that point. And like I said,
Speaker 1: for such a thoughtful movie to have kind of that
Speaker 1: gap of of logic there at the end again, not
Speaker 1: of how the magic works or how the necromancy works,
Speaker 1: or how the gate works itself, but why everything turned
Speaker 1: out great at the end of it. It feels like
Speaker 1: it just couldn't find a way to do it, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I gotta I gotta take a another ding
Speaker 1: for that, But it's not gonna affect its overall score.
Speaker 1: I think. There's also the final line that Glenn mentions
Speaker 1: too both Terry and Al as the camera pans away,
Speaker 1: is you're my best buddies, and that's the That's it.
Speaker 1: That's the Yeah, they cranked the wholesomeness up all the
Speaker 1: way and the news music is really um, it's sweet.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost sickeningly sweet at this point. But but
Speaker 1: let it, let it slide, Let it slide. It's kind
Speaker 1: of nice that a movie like this ends on a
Speaker 1: good note. The house is still all jacked up. The
Speaker 1: parents have not returned yet, so there is kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know if that gets addressed in the sequel
Speaker 1: what the parents thought about the state of the house
Speaker 1: when they got back. But there's a reckoning coming that
Speaker 1: we the audience are no longer a part of because
Speaker 1: we've seen the happy ending. The best buddies are all survived,
Speaker 1: Angus has been brought back to life, and the gate
Speaker 1: theoretically is closed until all right, well, uh this was
Speaker 1: the gate. Yeah, this is a This is a pretty
Speaker 1: fun one, pretty pretty sweet movie. I think holds up
Speaker 1: pretty well outside of a few bits of colorful and
Speaker 1: offensive language from the children. That that that I guess
Speaker 1: flew okay in the in the late eighties, but definitely
Speaker 1: it's not okay today, So that that would be my
Speaker 1: main reservation about say, letting children watch this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so I ran into a similar instance trying
Speaker 1: to show Bill and Ted's bogus journey to my son
Speaker 1: recently within the past year or two, and there are
Speaker 1: some insults that are along the same line as as
Speaker 1: are used here that are just unacceptable. And the lift
Speaker 1: of having to explain that to a child is you
Speaker 1: don't want it, you know. Yeah, but I think this. God,
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't tell you enough how much I
Speaker 1: enjoyed watching this movie, how great it was, how fun
Speaker 1: it was, how deeply I connected with the characters in
Speaker 1: the movie, more so than I would expect from a
Speaker 1: horror movie, let alone, you know, a kid's movie. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's just really really thoughtfully and tastefully done. Absolutely, I agree,
Speaker 1: And it's it's been fun chatting about the movie with you. Yeah. Likewise,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go and close it out here before
Speaker 1: we go, Uh, tell usone one more time? Where what
Speaker 1: do you find talk Talking Tofu? Alright, so you can
Speaker 1: find Talking Tofu wherever you get your podcasts um it's
Speaker 1: You can also reach out to us on Twitter and
Speaker 1: Instagram at Talking Tofu pod. Uh. You can also find
Speaker 1: me aad line leader on Instagram and Twitter. If you
Speaker 1: want to uh and yeah, I think if you if
Speaker 1: you want to hear us jabber on about snacks. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we even eat snacks on Mike. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are really into that sort of thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: come check us out. We'll have a lot of fun awesome. Well.
Speaker 1: I'll remind everyone out there that Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind is primarily a science podcast, but on Fridays we
Speaker 1: do Weird House Cinema, and that's our time to set
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film.
Speaker 1: If you want to follow the movies that are covered here,
Speaker 1: I blog about them at some mute music dot com.
Speaker 1: But also if you use letterbox dot com, that's l
Speaker 1: E T T E R B o x D dot com.
Speaker 1: We have an account there weird House, and you can
Speaker 1: see all the films laid out there that we've covered,
Speaker 1: and sometimes a peek at what's to come. Um. If
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with with me, uh
Speaker 1: and and or Joe, you can email us at contact.
Speaker 1: It's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com And if
Speaker 1: you have anything you want to say to Dave through
Speaker 1: that email, I'll forward it to them. But also I
Speaker 1: believe you guys have a have one talk in Tofu
Speaker 1: pod at gmail dot com. It's t A l k
Speaker 1: I n t O f U p O D at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. And I do want to remind everyone
Speaker 1: talking Tofu it's t A l k I n um apostrophe, right,
Speaker 1: and then to Yeah, it's a little advice to people
Speaker 1: who are naming podcasts. Don't get silly with the language
Speaker 1: or leave off critical letters because it really does make
Speaker 1: it just that much more difficult to get in touch
Speaker 1: with somebody. But that's correct. It's talking without the G,
Speaker 1: talking without the G. All right, Well, thanks as always
Speaker 1: to Seth Nicholas Johnson for producing this show. And yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to reach out, just email me at contact.
Speaker 1: It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.