Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob
Speaker 2: Lamb and you know, at this very moment Joe is away.
Speaker 2: So I reached out once more to Seth Nicholas Johnson
Speaker 2: of Rusty Needles Record Club to discuss a film here
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema. Seth, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me again, Always happy to return.
Speaker 2: Now, this is an interesting pick. This is not a
Speaker 2: film that I was familiar with at all. It is
Speaker 2: I guess you might describe it as an overlooked Jim
Speaker 2: the Year two thousand's Psycho Beach Party, a wonderfully campy
Speaker 2: comedy that takes the nineteen sixties beach Party movie by
Speaker 2: way of a little seventies horror and uses this to
Speaker 2: like a send up of gender norms, pop culture, astro turfing,
Speaker 2: of diverse Russian and more, while also just firmly committing
Speaker 2: to laughs. Seth, I had never even heard of this
Speaker 2: film before you brought it up in email. Could you
Speaker 2: share your history with this film?
Speaker 3: Like? Where did you?
Speaker 2: Where did you learn about this? Because I feel like
Speaker 2: this is one that it doesn't seem like it was
Speaker 2: appreciated as much when it came out, and it seems
Speaker 2: like it was ahead of its time, and it doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like it has the cult following it deserves.
Speaker 3: Agreed, Agreed on all counts. I have to give all
Speaker 3: credit to my wife. Back when her and I were
Speaker 3: first dating, we were living down in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 3: she told me how much she loved this movie. I
Speaker 3: also had never heard of it, and so on a
Speaker 3: date one night, we went on a little DVD hunt.
Speaker 3: We had to scour Los Angeles trying to find a
Speaker 3: copy of this. We eventually found a copy at one
Speaker 3: of the best record stores that ever existed in Meba Hollywood,
Speaker 3: And yeah, we watched it, and it immediately became just
Speaker 3: a perennial household favorite of ours, and we just watched
Speaker 3: it whenever we had the chance. And yeah, I have
Speaker 3: to ask her where she first heard of it, too,
Speaker 3: because this does seem like a chain of like, all right,
Speaker 3: who's the one person who knew someone who was like,
Speaker 3: you know, a grip on the movie, who told their
Speaker 3: friend and it just kind of continued on. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, there's there's quite a few people of
Speaker 3: note in this film too, So maybe that's kind of
Speaker 3: where she first came across it, but I'll ask her later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are a number of folks that
Speaker 2: are very talented folks in here that went on to
Speaker 2: some really great things. And also, I guess depending on
Speaker 2: how connected or into the off Broadway and ultimately Broadway
Speaker 2: a scene of the eighties and nineties you happen to be,
Speaker 2: you also might have a leg up on knowing about
Speaker 2: this movie. I guess the other main thing that might
Speaker 2: draw folks into this particular film is that it is
Speaker 2: a parody of sixties beach movies, and we're gonna have to,
Speaker 2: I think, unpack that for a lot of listeners. So
Speaker 2: we certainly have listeners out there who know the way
Speaker 2: around sixties beach movies. But I think even if you
Speaker 2: haven't watched a lot of them, you probably have some
Speaker 2: idea of what we're talking about here. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of common elements. Bikinis, romance, oftentine romance, there's comedy,
Speaker 2: there's surfers, there's rock and roll. Occasional appearances by other
Speaker 2: subsets of youth culture, you know, so pre hippie generally
Speaker 2: with beat nicks and greasers, maybe some bikers and more
Speaker 2: and Seth, I'm delighted that you have done a much
Speaker 2: deeper dive into the world of beach movies. Give us
Speaker 2: a little primary here on the beach movie so we
Speaker 2: can better appreciate what is being lampooned and subverted in
Speaker 2: this picture.
Speaker 3: Not too long ago, I went on quite the beach
Speaker 3: movie binge. I'm not sure kind of what got it
Speaker 3: in my head, but I decided that, like this entire
Speaker 3: genre was unexplored territory for me, and so I decided
Speaker 3: to watch them all. And first of all, there is
Speaker 3: a very specific, i guess, cinematic universe of beach movies
Speaker 3: that are primarily focused on the actors Frankie Avlon and
Speaker 3: an Nett Funicello. And I literally think if you pull
Speaker 3: up the Wikipedia page on this, it's probably something like
Speaker 3: twelve movies. And they just keep going and going and going,
Speaker 3: and they are so much better and so much stranger
Speaker 3: than I thought they would be. So, for example, here's
Speaker 3: the few of my favorites. There was one called Pajama
Speaker 3: Party from nineteen sixty four Tommy Kirk Old Disney actor
Speaker 3: favorite you know from like you know Old Yeller and
Speaker 3: many other hits. He plays a martian named Go Go
Speaker 3: who he is in an advanced scout for a Mars invasion,
Speaker 3: and of course he has to kind of disguise himself
Speaker 3: as like a local teenager and he kind of learns,
Speaker 3: you know, the fun of like being an earth teenager
Speaker 3: at the beach, and that ultimately, you know, dissuades him
Speaker 3: from destroying the Earth. Another one which I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people have heard of. It's such a ridiculous title.
Speaker 3: It's called Doctor Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. This is
Speaker 3: from nineteen sixty five, still the same film series. It
Speaker 3: stars Vincent Price as a mad scientist and he builds
Speaker 3: an army of female robots to rob rich, gullible men,
Speaker 3: and of course that ties into Frankie and Annette having
Speaker 3: their own melodrama as well. And well, one more I'll mention,
Speaker 3: let's see one more year later The Ghost in the
Speaker 3: Invisible Bikini from nineteen sixty six, again same film series.
Speaker 3: In this one, Boris Karloff is a ghost that needs
Speaker 3: to perform one good deed before he can finally get
Speaker 3: into heaven. These just they're the strangest franchise of films.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think Buster Keaton appears in nearly every
Speaker 3: single one of them for one reason or another. And
Speaker 3: there's also this reoccurring character I love he is. His
Speaker 3: name is Eric von Zipper, and he's the dim witted
Speaker 3: leader of a biker gang, and he is often referred
Speaker 3: to both outside and inside the movies as a middle
Speaker 3: aged teenage delinquent. And I think what what they were
Speaker 3: doing is in the sixties, the idea of the rebel
Speaker 3: without a cause, greaser motorcycle gang was now long in
Speaker 3: the tooth. So the concept was that, hey, what happens
Speaker 3: to all these what happens to the previous generations youth?
Speaker 3: Where does it go? Do they just stay? You know,
Speaker 3: these leather clad biker gangs that are gonna be middle
Speaker 3: aged teenage delinquents. And it's just I suppose, perhaps a
Speaker 3: subtle dig at their parents, perhaps, But it's a far
Speaker 3: better film series than I ever would have realized. And
Speaker 3: I'll throw in one more because I think it ties
Speaker 3: in directly to what we're talking about today. There's also
Speaker 3: a series all about Gidget. The first film was called
Speaker 3: Just Gidget, and then there were many many others which
Speaker 3: you can go into if you like. And this film
Speaker 3: is almost a direct Gidget parody, like all of the
Speaker 3: setup of her like befriending a gang of surfers who
Speaker 3: then give her like a cute scene nickname, and you know,
Speaker 3: falling in love with one of them, all that stuff,
Speaker 3: that's all pure the first Gidget film. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: would say in many ways, I when I first saw
Speaker 3: this movie, I had not seen Gidget. I had not
Speaker 3: seen any of the beach Party Frankie in Anette films,
Speaker 3: and so I just took this almost like as its
Speaker 3: own creation. I knew obviously the beach parties had existed,
Speaker 3: but after seeing those, I'm like, oh, this is nearly
Speaker 3: direct parody. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the original sort of brainstorm title for this
Speaker 2: of what would become Psycho Beach Party was Gidget Ghost Psychotic.
Speaker 3: And are you talking about I hope not getting too
Speaker 3: far ahead of us here, but talking about the original play,
Speaker 3: Is that correct? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, from what I read before it even really solidified
Speaker 2: as a play. Apparently Charles Bush, who will get into
Speaker 2: a lot of these shows they would do, they would
Speaker 2: put it on like a different show with you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of like diverse like drag elements, and other
Speaker 2: like comedic elements, and then they would sort of tease
Speaker 2: what the next one might be, but in kind of
Speaker 2: like almost kind of an arrested development, you know, closing
Speaker 2: credit style. It's not necessarily something they planned to produce.
Speaker 2: They would just be like, next next week's show is
Speaker 2: going to be a gidget goho psychotic And apparently they
Speaker 2: just once the idea was unleashed, they were like, oh,
Speaker 2: what if we did it, what would it consist of?
Speaker 2: And it grew from there.
Speaker 3: The only reason I knew this was a play originally
Speaker 3: was that at some point when I was looking it
Speaker 3: up online, I saw a poster for it that was
Speaker 3: not the film poster, but we had the same title
Speaker 3: Psycho Beach Party, but I believe the date said nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty seven, and I was so confused. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: was this based on something else? Did they perhaps originally
Speaker 3: make it in eighty seven, et cetera. And then as
Speaker 3: soon as I do a little bit of research and like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's all the same. It just at least this poster
Speaker 3: is from eighty seven because they were doing it that
Speaker 3: long ago. That's how long this play took to become
Speaker 3: a film. I'm sure you'll talk about that soon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that would have been the original run,
Speaker 2: the original off Broadway run, And if memory serves when
Speaker 2: I was looking around, I believe there have been more
Speaker 2: recent productions of it. I think one was either done
Speaker 2: in or came through Atlanta at some point, but again,
Speaker 2: it was totally off my radar at the time, so
Speaker 2: I didn't know about it.
Speaker 3: I'd be very curious to see a stage version of this.
Speaker 3: I honestly don't really know how they would do it.
Speaker 2: I think one of the great things to keep in
Speaker 2: mind about this movie's humor and perhaps sort of the
Speaker 2: origins of the play. I think it summed up well
Speaker 2: in actually a letterbox review that I ran across by
Speaker 2: the late Eli Hayes, who was a real prolific letterbox reviewer,
Speaker 2: and if you spend any amount of time on that website,
Speaker 2: you'll probably run across reviews that he did. So it's
Speaker 2: just a very brief write up, but he summarizes this
Speaker 2: film as being quote a relatively neglected, should be contemporary
Speaker 2: cult classic of burlesque, lampoonery and maximal camp. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously it's a very campy film. It gets
Speaker 2: into some subversive elements and some social commentary, but the
Speaker 2: laughs always come first, and I think the burlesque observation
Speaker 2: is key here as well. It's that kind of like
Speaker 2: at times body humor, but the pasties are on too,
Speaker 2: so it's not going too far, and it's again laughs first.
Speaker 3: That's very true. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2: Now, coming back just real quick to Gidget.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of experience with the beach
Speaker 2: movie a beach party movie genre myself, but when you
Speaker 2: start reading about it, everyone points to the gidget movies.
Speaker 2: They kind of point to nineteen fifty nine's Gidget starring
Speaker 2: Sandra d who would go on to be in The
Speaker 2: Dunwich Horror, among other things. This was general This is
Speaker 2: generally regarded as the beginning of the beach movie crazy,
Speaker 2: and it spawned the sequels Gidget goes Hawaiian, Gidget goes
Speaker 2: to Rome, so that's where we get the natural continuation
Speaker 2: of that Gidget go Psychotic. There are also a couple
Speaker 2: of TV movies, but it goes on from there, like
Speaker 2: there are Elvis movies that are clearly beach party movies,
Speaker 2: and there are a There are also some other genre examples,
Speaker 2: two that come to mind for me, and these are
Speaker 2: the two that I had really seen before because they
Speaker 2: were on Mystery Science Theater. Three thousand would be nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty four as the Horror at Party Beach, which is
Speaker 2: both a beach party movie and a monster movie with
Speaker 2: ridiculous monster and a musical performance by the dell Airs.
Speaker 2: Another example that I really like is the nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: seven film Catalina Kaper, also featured on Mystery Science Theater.
Speaker 2: That one had Tommy Kirk in it and a musical
Speaker 2: number on the Beach by Little Richard. Pretty amazing, so
Speaker 2: that one's worth checking out, if for nothing else, for
Speaker 2: Tommy Kirk, for Little Richard, and I believe there's a
Speaker 2: scene where like surf dudes battle beat Nick, not beat Nicks,
Speaker 2: they battle greasers on the beach.
Speaker 3: So again that must have been a reoccurring theme of Hey,
Speaker 3: that that's your generation, mom and dad, we're on the
Speaker 3: beach now.
Speaker 2: And it does seem to I wonder if the subtext
Speaker 2: too there is kind of like, oh, the previous generations
Speaker 2: counterculture group, they never integrated, They're always going to be
Speaker 2: outsiders and maybe they're a little bit losers, you know.
Speaker 2: It kind of ties in with kind of like the
Speaker 2: straight laced veneer that you get in the mainstream sixties
Speaker 2: pictures of this this era before you know, the more
Speaker 2: counterculture hippie movement really becomes more standard.
Speaker 3: That's a good observation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well, let's go ahead and listen to
Speaker 2: the audio from the trailer for Psycho Beach Party. I
Speaker 2: guess we are the only ones watching the movie.
Speaker 3: These guys have only on their minds.
Speaker 1: Want a winner. Check with the splat person.
Speaker 2: He should I unpack my gongles. I intend to unpack my.
Speaker 3: Alright, guys, come on, that's an.
Speaker 2: I like to say this, but I think our little
Speaker 2: chicken maybe the butcher melody.
Speaker 3: Beach hardy till you drop dead.
Speaker 2: I hope you put some baccino that scratch.
Speaker 3: Psycho Beach Party.
Speaker 2: That's the most exciting story idea I've.
Speaker 3: Heard in years.
Speaker 2: Now. I'm not sure if we used all that, we
Speaker 2: might have had to cut a little of that out.
Speaker 2: Some of it might not have worked out of context.
Speaker 2: But hey, if you want to go watch Psycho Beach
Speaker 2: already before continuing with this episode. Fortunately, it is widely
Speaker 2: available for digital rental or purchase. It's currently streaming on
Speaker 2: TB I believe. If you don't, I think you have to,
Speaker 2: you know, deal with some ads. There. Also Strand Home
Speaker 2: Video put out a multi format disc in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: which of course includes the Blu Ray. I know there
Speaker 2: was a DVD director's commentary at some point because I've
Speaker 2: seen it reference, so I'm assuming it might be on
Speaker 2: that disc.
Speaker 3: I'm holding it right here in my hand, and yes,
Speaker 3: it is on this disc, and I've listened to it before,
Speaker 3: and you you got some nice insights on there. Oh cool?
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it just Charles Bush or is there
Speaker 2: someone else in there as well?
Speaker 3: I remember it being just Charles Bush. And this is
Speaker 3: the era of DVD also where they would be like, oh,
Speaker 3: we're including a fun music video and like original trail,
Speaker 3: you know, like the classic DVDs of the early early
Speaker 3: two thousands, where they weren't quite sure what to do
Speaker 3: with all that extra space on the disc. They just
Speaker 3: kind of filled it with stuff, you know, whatever was
Speaker 3: sitting around. I kind of like that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I bet that's a great commentary track because
Speaker 2: I didn't get to listen to that, but I did
Speaker 2: check out like an old nineteen ninety three fresh air
Speaker 2: Terry Gross interview with Bush.
Speaker 3: That was really cool.
Speaker 2: It was very short, but it was insightful. And I've
Speaker 2: got a few other things on YouTube where he's talking
Speaker 2: about his past and his projects and so forth.
Speaker 3: He's definitely had a pretty amazing career, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. All right, well, let's talk about the people involved here,
Speaker 2: starting at the top with the director. The director is
Speaker 2: Robert Lee King. I don't have a birth date on him,
Speaker 2: American writer and director whose father, Robert L. King, worked
Speaker 2: on the screenplay for the nineteen seventy two Disney film
Speaker 2: Now You See Him, Now You Don't, starring Kurt Russell
Speaker 2: and Caesar Romero. Robert Lee King. However, the sun here
Speaker 2: only has a handful of movie credits. Nineteen ninety one
Speaker 2: short titled The Disco Years, which he also wrote, two
Speaker 2: thousand and two She Gets What She Wants with Michael McKean,
Speaker 2: and he also co wrote that one. And then there's
Speaker 2: twenty Eleven's Bad Actress, which he directed. That one features
Speaker 2: Beth Broderick. More on her in a minute, and Ryan Hanson,
Speaker 2: who a lot of you know is Kyle from Party Down.
Speaker 2: All right, but then we come to the writing credit
Speaker 2: here for the screenplay, also the original play of which
Speaker 2: he adapted. This is Charles Busch, who've already been talking about.
Speaker 2: Born nineteen fifty four, writer, director, actor, and drag performer
Speaker 2: who initially made him a name for himself in off
Speaker 2: Broadway theater, often in drag performances, where he apparently initially
Speaker 2: found his voice.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 2: I listened to this nineteen ninety three Terry Gross interview
Speaker 2: with Bush, and in that and again, this is the
Speaker 2: way before the movie Psycho Beach Party comes out. But
Speaker 2: Psycho Beach Party does exist at that point. Unfortunately, at
Speaker 2: least in the clip I heard, Terry didn't get a
Speaker 2: chance to ask him about that production. But at any rate,
Speaker 2: in that interview he says that, Okay, he's doing like
Speaker 2: various characters on stage, and I think in like a
Speaker 2: one man show he was doing. But most of the
Speaker 2: male characters, he said, felt very locked down, very static,
Speaker 2: And it was in the female characters that he was
Speaker 2: able to really bring everything to life. And so that
Speaker 2: becomes like part of major part of his work moving forward.
Speaker 2: His first big off Broadway hit was nineteen eighty four's
Speaker 2: Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, a very provocative title that He
Speaker 2: says that the New York Times in their their advertisements
Speaker 2: for local theater, they were very hesitant or even refused
Speaker 2: to use the full title. He says, you could have
Speaker 2: called it vampires, lesbians or sodom and they would have
Speaker 2: been cool with it. But he put all of them
Speaker 2: together and it's gonna make people want to push the
Speaker 2: elite button.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 2: I've not seen this, and it hasn't been adapted, to
Speaker 2: my knowledge, into any kind of like film or TV property,
Speaker 2: but it's apparently a series of comedy skits throughout time
Speaker 2: about a pair of immortal vampires who keep encountering each other.
Speaker 2: So it's like, you know, biblical sodom all the way
Speaker 2: up through like mid eighties Las Vegas.
Speaker 3: I'd only heard of this because in an interview that
Speaker 3: I saw with Charles Bush, he was describing that this
Speaker 3: was the play that he was in the middle of
Speaker 3: actually performing and was already a success and already a hit.
Speaker 3: And then after they would finish their off Broadway performances
Speaker 3: of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, they would be invited to
Speaker 3: go perform like these little one act plays, like on
Speaker 3: tiny little stages, like just you know, a little hole
Speaker 3: in the wall type places, and because he loved stage
Speaker 3: time and loved to perform, he always said yes, he
Speaker 3: always took them up on it. And those little ideas
Speaker 3: there are eventually what turned into Psycho Beach Party. Nice Nice.
Speaker 2: So among the performances to follow coming out of Off
Speaker 2: Broadway Easte Performances and the like was this concept for
Speaker 2: gidget go psychotic. You know, I saw this interview where
Speaker 2: Bush says it, you know, initially wasn't fully developed or
Speaker 2: a full fledged idea, but just kind of a humorous teaser.
Speaker 2: But it then grows into Psycho Beach Party, which initially
Speaker 2: ran eighty seven through eighty nine, with Bush himself playing
Speaker 2: the role of Florence Chicklet Forrest, the gidget character here,
Speaker 2: and it was a hit with audiences. You know, it's campy,
Speaker 2: over the top, a send up of beach party movies,
Speaker 2: you know, has some social commentary in there and more.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: Bush also had some early TV and screen credits as
Speaker 2: an actor. Notably there's nineteen ninety three's Adams Family Values,
Speaker 2: in which we see him as in Drag as Countess
Speaker 2: cousin of Phasia DuBarry. I haven't seen this Adams Family
Speaker 2: movie in a long time. But you know, I looked
Speaker 2: up some stills and there she is, like standing in
Speaker 2: the background at a funeral perhaps, or it could be
Speaker 2: any other function since it's the Adams Family, right. He
Speaker 2: also was on Let's See nineteen ninety Wars, it Could
Speaker 2: Happen to You, nineteen ninety seven's Trouble on the Corner,
Speaker 2: and eight episodes of HBO's ODZ between nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 2: and two thousand. During this time, there were efforts to
Speaker 2: bring Psycho Beach Party to the screen, but it apparently
Speaker 2: took a long time, and it wasn't until two thousand
Speaker 2: that it finally comes out. You know, so late nineties
Speaker 2: before this thing finally begins to roll in earnest and
Speaker 2: then they end up shooting it in twenty one days,
Speaker 2: which pretty pretty tight schedule even for a film you
Speaker 2: know like this that you know, it doesn't have space
Speaker 2: stations or anything like that in it. They cranked it
Speaker 2: out in it and it looks good for.
Speaker 3: Sure, you know, even like we'll talk about this when
Speaker 3: we talked about the movie, even like little kind of
Speaker 3: just esthetic choices that are made throughout this film. Sure,
Speaker 3: it's not a high budget affair, but like the visual
Speaker 3: effects that are thrown in there, the sets, everything was
Speaker 3: done with care and with attention, even if it isn't
Speaker 3: a high budget film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's clearly a lot of love for the cinema
Speaker 2: of the time period that they're referencing, and even with
Speaker 2: a limited by you know, it's not one of these
Speaker 2: things where you watch it and you're like, this could
Speaker 2: just be mistaken for a product of the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: Like it's not, you know, it's not that level of recreation,
Speaker 2: but the homage is still very strong, and you totally
Speaker 2: get it. It's a it's a it's a great callback
Speaker 2: to those films now as we reference already. The film
Speaker 2: was seemingly not a hit. I don't think it made
Speaker 2: its money back. Critical reviews were also kind of mixed.
Speaker 2: It looks like and I'm not sure again that it's
Speaker 2: truly established the cult following that it's that it's that
Speaker 2: it deserves at least not to not to the degree
Speaker 2: that you know, it feels like it should have because
Speaker 2: you look at some of the I don't know, I
Speaker 2: feel like some of the elements here it strongly reminds
Speaker 2: me of me of say, John Waters movie or an
Speaker 2: episode of say Strangers with Candy, which is probably a
Speaker 2: solid comparison to be made there, given the time period
Speaker 2: and the sorts of humor you could get away with
Speaker 2: during during this period.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So it really feels like this one should be
Speaker 2: circulating more so to whatever small extent we can help
Speaker 2: raise awareness for Psycho Beach Party. Then, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: very much in favor.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's it's easy to watch things on
Speaker 3: too Be. Anyone can just pop open two Beat anytime
Speaker 3: watch something. Not an ad for two B, but I
Speaker 3: if they wanted to, I'd throw an ad for two B.
Speaker 3: Two Be's a great channel. I think I watched them
Speaker 3: more than any other streaming service these days. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's out there, it's available, and you don't
Speaker 2: have to watch it in some sort of degraded format
Speaker 2: or anything. Now, continuing on about Bush just a little bit,
Speaker 2: since he's, you know, sort of this the central dreamer
Speaker 2: here behind this for this project.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The same year, in two thousand, one of Bush's plays
Speaker 2: made its Broadway to debut with the Tale of the
Speaker 2: Allergist Wife. It was apparently a big hit, even earning
Speaker 2: him a tony nomination, and he won the Outer Critics
Speaker 2: Circle John Gasner Award for Outstanding Play.
Speaker 3: Right on that piece, I'd actually be pretty curious to
Speaker 3: see perhaps some more mainstream work from Bush, because this
Speaker 3: is the only piece of media I've consumed that he
Speaker 3: has written. I wonder if this same campy, off kilter
Speaker 3: take is just kind of prevalent throughout his work. I'd
Speaker 3: love to see more.
Speaker 2: Actually, I suspect so I think the basic premise of
Speaker 2: the Tale of the houris Wife is maybe less wacky,
Speaker 2: But I mean I assume that that the same sort
Speaker 2: of comedy is still present there right now. Film wise.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and three, Mark Ruckner directed an adaptation
Speaker 2: and Bush adapted it of his play Die, Mommy Die.
Speaker 2: This starred Bush, but it also had Natasha Leone and
Speaker 2: Jason Priestley. He pinned a Very Serious Person in two
Speaker 2: thousand and six, and in twenty twenty one he co wrote,
Speaker 2: co directed, and starred in the sixth reel his book
Speaker 2: Leading Lady, a Memoir of the most Unusual boy, release
Speaker 2: just last year.
Speaker 3: Oh that's fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's see. Let's get into the cast a
Speaker 2: bit here. So again, Bush played the role of Chick
Speaker 2: Lit in the original stage performance. But I've heard him
Speaker 2: acknowledging in a couple of different formats that, Okay, by
Speaker 2: the time they were actually able to make the movie,
Speaker 2: he felt like he was too old for the part,
Speaker 2: even though traditionally you have people who are too old
Speaker 2: for the part playing the teenagers and beach movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if I'm just doing the simple math in my head,
Speaker 3: he would have been thirty or so when he was
Speaker 3: performing Chicklets in the stage play, so he would have
Speaker 3: been over No, No, I guess a little under fifty ish,
Speaker 3: around fifty ish when this movie was in production.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he's said elsewhere that like, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: the role of chick Lit doesn't have to be a
Speaker 2: drag performance. It just that's how it worked out, right,
Speaker 2: So we end up with the excellent Lauren Ambrose playing
Speaker 2: Florence chick Lit forest Here born nineteen seventy eight. Just
Speaker 2: a delightful and energetic performance, just just absolutely perfect, delivering
Speaker 2: just this you know, get pitch perfect, g golly all
Speaker 2: American girl. While also, as we'll discuss, you know, she
Speaker 2: gets we get into these alternate personalities, and she's able
Speaker 2: to just really throw herself into those as well, and
Speaker 2: she gets to sing a little opera because Ambrose apparently
Speaker 2: is trained in opera. Now, a lot of you are
Speaker 2: going to be familiar with her from her work as
Speaker 2: Claire Fisher on HBO's Six Feet Under. She was great
Speaker 2: on that, and let's see. More recently, she acted in
Speaker 2: a couple of series that I haven't watched yet. One
Speaker 2: is the Apple series Servant and the highly regarded Yellowjacket series.
Speaker 2: Other credits include two thousand and nines Where the Wild
Speaker 2: Things Are, twenty eleven's Torchwood Mini series, and twenty twelve
Speaker 2: Sleepwalk with Me.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna throw in a couple others my personal favorites too.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety eight, she had a I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's actually a hit or just a hit with
Speaker 3: people who are children. In nineteen ninety eight, it's the
Speaker 3: high school graduation comedy can't hardly wait, a classic amongst
Speaker 3: my age group, but I don't know if it was
Speaker 3: just a flash in the pan or not. And more importantly,
Speaker 3: she plays the character Special Agent Einstein from The X
Speaker 3: Files during seasons ten and eleven. I don't know if
Speaker 3: this is absolutely true, but this is the way my
Speaker 3: wife and I always interpreted it that they were trying
Speaker 3: to make a backdoor pilot for basically, hey, what if
Speaker 3: you know Scold Mully, No, not Molly and Scolder, Scully
Speaker 3: and Molder, what if they left the show, could we
Speaker 3: replace them with two new actors and kind of like
Speaker 3: just keep the show going with like a brand new
Speaker 3: set of FBI agents because her character, Agent Liz Einstein,
Speaker 3: was absolutely a Scully replacement, Like it was just a
Speaker 3: redheaded young FBI agent who was very skeptical of everything
Speaker 3: she saw, et cetera, et cetera. And I really dug her.
Speaker 3: In fact, anyway, I could go on for X Files
Speaker 3: all day, but I'll skip past it. But between that
Speaker 3: role can't hardly wait six and six feet under. I
Speaker 3: have real affection for Lauren Ambrose. I think she's great now.
Speaker 2: X File season ten and eleven. Was this like original
Speaker 2: X Files run or is this like a return run?
Speaker 3: Yes, this would have been right at the new revival
Speaker 3: back in gosh, I don't even remember what year this was,
Speaker 3: but yeah, back when the X Files were just coming
Speaker 3: back and like the future of the X Files is
Speaker 3: an uncertain thing. They're only doing like six episodes per season.
Speaker 3: Et cetera, et cetera. I assume they were attempting to
Speaker 3: do a backdoor pilot to see what if these new
Speaker 3: characters continued on the show instead of having, you know,
Speaker 3: these actors who are clearly not as interested in sticking
Speaker 3: around and are too busy with their own careers. That
Speaker 3: was my guess. But anyway, I'm speculating entirely on that.
Speaker 2: Okay, it would have been The X Files and Next
Speaker 2: Generation or something.
Speaker 3: Exactly, which I definitely would have watched.
Speaker 2: All Right, Well, anyway, I'm interested to check it out
Speaker 2: because she's terrific in this just you know, she's awkward,
Speaker 2: she's she's confident, and she's able to really pour herself
Speaker 2: into these over the top alternate personalities as well, for sure.
Speaker 2: All right, who else is occupying this beach party world? Well,
Speaker 2: of course we have the surfers, and the leader of
Speaker 2: the surfers, the alpha, or so it seems on the beach,
Speaker 2: is Kanaka, played by Thomas Gibson born nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 2: This is Greg from Darman Greg, which ran a bunch
Speaker 2: of seasons twenty five through twenty sixteen. He was also
Speaker 2: on Chicago Hope, Actor of Stage, Screen and tv AT.
Speaker 2: Their credits include ninety twos Far and Away, ninety nine's
Speaker 2: Eyes Wide Shut, and two thousands The Flintstones in Viva
Speaker 2: Rock Vegas. I don't remember who he played in that one.
Speaker 3: I did see. I was doing some research on this
Speaker 3: movie and he was apparently filming Flintstones in Viva Rock
Speaker 3: Vegas simultaneously while he filmed this movie. And there were
Speaker 3: even one or two scenes that were supposed to be
Speaker 3: Kanaka scenes, but because he was busy in the Flintstones movie,
Speaker 3: they had to just give the scene to somebody else.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so he's good in this see he plays again.
Speaker 2: It's on one level, this is our you know, macho
Speaker 2: surfer alpha. But like I think most of the characters
Speaker 2: in this film, there's a buried web of desire that
Speaker 2: runs counter to gender stereotypes and social standards. Yeah, pretty
Speaker 2: much everyone in the film has some sort of like
Speaker 2: sexual or gender repression going on here.
Speaker 3: I would say the whole movie in many ways is
Speaker 3: intentionally queer coded. And there's basically, yeah, the whole concept
Speaker 3: of no matter what someone looks like on the outside,
Speaker 3: there's something inside of them that makes them other or
Speaker 3: perhaps just feel like an other and it being the
Speaker 3: repressed nineteen sixties. You know, hopefully the world has gotten
Speaker 3: better since then and people can express themselves a bit
Speaker 3: more freely, we hope.
Speaker 2: Yeah. At the same time, again, I'll stress that everything's
Speaker 2: played for laughs here, so you know that, don't go
Speaker 2: into it expecting like a really you know, in a
Speaker 2: deep contemplation of these themes. I mean, I think there
Speaker 2: is depth there, but also everything is played for laughs
Speaker 2: for sure. All right. We also have the character star
Speaker 2: Cat now Starkat is a SYCH dropout turned surfer dude
Speaker 2: who's very much a part of the Kanaka cult there
Speaker 2: on the beach, and he is played by Nicholas Brendan
Speaker 2: born nineteen seventy one. Yep, it's Xander from Buffy, the
Speaker 2: Heart and Soul of the Scooby Gang. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: fun performance. He gives it is all here. This was
Speaker 2: only his I think second film role, following Children of
Speaker 2: the Corn three in ninety five, and Buffy would have
Speaker 2: kicked off in ninety seven. So he's worked on plenty
Speaker 2: of other projects over the years, and it's still active,
Speaker 2: though I think mostly smaller productions.
Speaker 3: I wonder if he was the biggest star at the time. No,
Speaker 3: well no, Darbyn Greg right, no, no Starvin Greg hadn't
Speaker 3: started well no, no, anyway, he could have been.
Speaker 2: He might have been the biggest, the biggest star of
Speaker 2: the time. Yeah, because Buffy would have been in earnest
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 3: And some of these other actors who will mention very
Speaker 3: soon were not stars yet. So I think when I
Speaker 3: first saw this movie, he was the biggest star to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's see host we have Okay, we
Speaker 2: have a character by the name of Betina Barnes. This
Speaker 2: is a screen starlet who has run away from the
Speaker 2: studio system and her agents and so forth, and she's
Speaker 2: living incognito or trying to in a creepy old beach
Speaker 2: house with a dark history. And this character is played
Speaker 2: by Kimberly Davies born nineteen seventy three, active on screen
Speaker 2: from the mid nineties through twenty twelve, with credits that
Speaker 2: include small roles in nineteen ninety nine Stormcatcher in two
Speaker 2: thousand and ones made, as well as one shots in
Speaker 2: such TV shows as Silk Stockings and Friends. It seems
Speaker 2: like her longest gig, however, was two hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: seven episodes of the Australian soap opera Neighbors from ninety
Speaker 2: three through two thousand and five. So it's a pretty
Speaker 2: fun performance here.
Speaker 3: Definitely a spot on understanding of what the role is
Speaker 3: and then delivering that to the audience on the screen.
Speaker 2: All right. Also the Forest family, chick Litz family. They
Speaker 2: have a Swedish exchange student, a hot Swedish exchange student
Speaker 2: living with them, by the name of Lars, which is
Speaker 2: generally you know, played for I like everything played for laugh.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of exchange student humor here, and Lars
Speaker 2: is played by Matt Kessler. Born in seventy two, Kessler
Speaker 2: was active from mostly from ninety four through twenty ten,
Speaker 2: after which he retired from acting to pursue a career
Speaker 2: in science. I Believe I've read, with just a brief
Speaker 2: return for a guest shot on the TV series Grim
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen, but his credits include ninety four's Quiz Show,
Speaker 2: ninety six is Waiting for Guffman, ninety eight's The Last
Speaker 2: Days of Disco, two thousand Scream three, and Ooh this
Speaker 2: one kind of flew under my radar until the last minute.
Speaker 2: But he was in the two thousand Dune miniseries on
Speaker 2: Sci Fi in which he played fade Rotha Harkanan, so
Speaker 2: a major role in the Doom miniseries that I completely
Speaker 2: blinked on until the last minute.
Speaker 3: Here he was missing his horn rimmed glasses so we
Speaker 3: couldn't recognize him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the horn room glasses would have worked
Speaker 2: worked great in Dune. That mini series did have a
Speaker 2: lot of great costumes in it, but I don't remember
Speaker 2: this performance so much from it, but I've been very
Speaker 2: tempted to go back and check it out with all
Speaker 2: the Dune enthusiasm happening now. But it also has some
Speaker 2: i think rather rough cgi in it, so I'm a
Speaker 2: little hesitant.
Speaker 3: How far did that mini series gets into the book series.
Speaker 2: Well, they did Dune and then they came back and
Speaker 2: did one titled Children of Doune, which adapts the second book, Messiah,
Speaker 2: as well as the third book.
Speaker 3: Children of Dune. Okay, so they pretty much did just
Speaker 3: the original trilogy more or less.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, Yeah, the big the big hurdle is when
Speaker 2: you get to God Emperor of Dune with the giant
Speaker 2: sandworm human Space Emperor, and that's that's that's more of
Speaker 2: a hurdle we'll see how far they get with the
Speaker 2: current efforts.
Speaker 3: I feel like Dune is in many ways very similar
Speaker 3: to the Chronicles of Narnia, where many people want to
Speaker 3: attempt to adapt the whole thing and everyone runs out
Speaker 3: of gas after like two or three They're like, eh,
Speaker 3: you know what this is. This is getting to be
Speaker 3: a lot of work. We're just gonna stop now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's and anytime Dune is, I mean, Dune
Speaker 2: is is so successful. And again, I like, I just
Speaker 2: saw the other day on an article where there's studios
Speaker 2: are re looking at other Herbert novels. You know, they
Speaker 2: want to get in on that that huge Frank Herbert payday.
Speaker 2: But I'm also thinking it's like, all right, I haven't
Speaker 2: read all of Frank Herbert's other books, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, not everything is going to be Dune. Not
Speaker 2: everything in the Dune series is what you're expecting from Dune.
Speaker 3: But I would love it if Denis Villaneu actually completes
Speaker 3: the complete Dune saga. I can't for a second believe
Speaker 3: that he will, but I would love it if he did.
Speaker 3: I think that would be an incredible feats of filmmaking.
Speaker 2: I think Messiah is gonna happen. I hope so Dune
Speaker 2: part three, if you want to call it that, And
Speaker 2: if he gets that far, I will.
Speaker 3: Be very pleased. Agreed. Yeah, it'll at least feel like
Speaker 3: a complete story if he finishes Messiah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's see the rest of the cast.
Speaker 2: Oh no, there's Chicklet's mom. This is Missus Ruth Forrest,
Speaker 2: played by Beth Broderick, and it's interesting. One of her
Speaker 2: other key roles of note was playing Sabrina's mom on
Speaker 2: the ninety six through two thousand and three Sabrina the
Speaker 2: Teenage Witch series. She also directed three episodes of that show.
Speaker 2: She started out in her career I think more and
Speaker 2: more like Erotic Fair and then some sex comedies. There's
Speaker 2: a spoof of women's prison movies in their titled slam Girls,
Speaker 2: and then you know, this would have been early in
Speaker 2: mid eighties, before transitioning increasingly into TV roles. She also
Speaker 2: pops up in film. She's in nineteen nineties, The Bonfire,
Speaker 2: The Vanities, and Yeah. She acted in such TV shows
Speaker 2: as Murphy Brown, Hearts of Fire, The Five Missus Buchanans.
Speaker 2: She plays one of the Buchanans in that I think
Speaker 2: CSI Miami Lost Sharp Objects, which we'll come back to
Speaker 2: in a second, and two episodes of The Chilling Adventures
Speaker 2: of Sabrina. I believe these are crossover episodes in which
Speaker 2: they kind of like travel back to the previous adaptation.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: I watched quite a bit of that series, but I
Speaker 3: never finished it. I definitely never saw that, and that
Speaker 3: sounds fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't make it that far either, but was
Speaker 2: impressed with what I had seen.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: All right, we've been talking about people that went onto
Speaker 2: big things. One of them is Amy Adams, who plays
Speaker 2: marvel Anne, who is I guess she's kind of just
Speaker 2: not maybe not the Queen Bee of teenage social world,
Speaker 2: but she's up there. She's definitely one of the cool
Speaker 2: beach girls.
Speaker 3: As a very very side note from what I heard,
Speaker 3: marvel Anne on the original stage play was also a
Speaker 3: drag role, and I'm assuming just like when they adapted
Speaker 3: the whole play, they're like, oh this doesn't need to
Speaker 3: be drag either, Okay whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Charles Bush I saw in one interview where he's like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, part of me was like, oh, now I
Speaker 2: can finally get all my friends cast all my friends
Speaker 2: in this and then he's like, oh, no, we're all
Speaker 2: too old, but yeah, we have Amy Adams here born
Speaker 2: seventy four, six time Oscar nominee. This is only her
Speaker 2: second film or TV role. She started out in Dance
Speaker 2: in Theater and after this film did a lot of
Speaker 2: TV and smaller film roles, even popping up in one
Speaker 2: episode of Buffy. I don't remember her from that either,
Speaker 2: before hitting it big in Spielberg's two thousand and two
Speaker 2: film Catch Me If you Can. Subsequent movies include Let's
Speaker 2: See There's June Bug. That was two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: I think, two thousand and nine's Doubt, twenty eleven's The Fighter,
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen's The Master, twenty fourteen's American Hustle, twenty sixteen's
Speaker 2: The Arrival. In twenty nineteens Vice, she played Lois Lane
Speaker 2: in the DC Snyder Verse movies and was nominated for
Speaker 2: an Emmy for the twenty nineteen series Sharp Objects. So
Speaker 2: it's one of these you know, she's great in it,
Speaker 2: but it's also one of those roles that it's just
Speaker 2: interesting because you know how big she's going to become,
Speaker 2: and you can and you can see the tools already present.
Speaker 2: In her craft for sure. The queen Bee of the
Speaker 2: high school is played is Roda, played by Kathleen Robertson.
Speaker 2: This is a Canadian actress with a lot of TV
Speaker 2: and film credits, including a series regular role on season
Speaker 2: six of The Expanse. She was also in Bates Motel
Speaker 2: and earlier on a series called Maniac Mansion. All right,
Speaker 2: but okay, so I don't think we've really hinted at
Speaker 2: this yet, but this is a murder film as well.
Speaker 2: This is in addition to being a send up of
Speaker 2: sixties beach comedies, it's also a little bit of a
Speaker 2: send up of seventy slasher picks.
Speaker 3: Right. Oh, for sure, there's some Jello influences that are
Speaker 3: very very obvious, and I think perhaps too, I think
Speaker 3: there are some obvious like Scooby Doo references as well,
Speaker 3: where they've just heightened the what if Scooby Doo was
Speaker 3: a Jello film? I think that kind of ties into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so since we have crimes, we also don't have
Speaker 2: to have an investigator. That investigator is Captain Monica Stark
Speaker 2: played by Charles Bush. So, as we pointed out earlier,
Speaker 2: it considered himself too old at this point to convincingly
Speaker 2: play chicklet, So he wrote himself a new character, Captain
Speaker 2: Monica Stark, a no nonsense police investigator. And this is
Speaker 2: also very much a drag performance played for camp and
Speaker 2: for humor.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: In that ninety three Fresh Air interview, again predates this film,
Speaker 2: Bush stated that he thought, at least the time of
Speaker 2: drag performances is often falling into sort of two broad categories,
Speaker 2: like the beautiful and the stylish, and then something that's
Speaker 2: maybe a bit more intent intionally lurid. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if these classifications really hold true today, because i mean,
Speaker 2: I'm one hand. Drag performance has certainly always been a
Speaker 2: part of human performance culture, but it's also come a
Speaker 2: long way in American culture over the past few decades,
Speaker 2: and Bush played a big role in popularizing and elevating
Speaker 2: it early on. So at any rate, he said in
Speaker 2: ninety three that his performances, he felt fell somewhere in between.
Speaker 2: And I'd say I'd see Starkling's more classy, you know,
Speaker 2: more of a classic Hollywood feminine strength kind of a role,
Speaker 2: but of course again with lots of camp layered on,
Speaker 2: and ultimately for laughs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Oh and then of course it's a beach party movie,
Speaker 2: so the music is incredibly important, and Seth, you're you're
Speaker 2: more plugged into it, into the music scene than me,
Speaker 2: so you'll have to jump in and talk about some
Speaker 2: of these acts. You know more brought them than me.
Speaker 2: But the main score here is composed by being American
Speaker 2: musician and music producer who's been associated with a number
Speaker 2: of bands and tons of releases over the years, going
Speaker 2: back to at least the late seventies, of note being
Speaker 2: what the Ben Von Combo, the Ben Vn Quintet. His
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven album Rambler sixty five is apparently of note,
Speaker 2: as he recorded it entirely in his car, a nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five Rambler American. So were you familiar with Ben
Speaker 2: Vaughn prior to this picture.
Speaker 3: Only by name, not by something that I had personally
Speaker 3: listened to. But someone who I had personally listened to
Speaker 3: is also involved in this movie. But we'll get to
Speaker 3: that soon when it.
Speaker 2: Comes to scores for Ben Vaughn. Weirdly enough, one of
Speaker 2: the earliest credited scores ninety six is a Sue Hart
Speaker 2: produced and co written Hong Kong action film titled Black Masks,
Speaker 2: directed by Danny Lee and starring Jet Lee. He's one
Speaker 2: of like three credit composers on that. But I think
Speaker 2: this has more to do with music changes made for
Speaker 2: release in the UK and in the US, so I'm
Speaker 2: going to mark that one is uncertain. But his scores
Speaker 2: certainly go back to ninety seven's Lewis and Clark and George,
Speaker 2: then Psycho Beach Party, and you followed this up with
Speaker 2: work on TV's Third Rock from the Sun, that seventies show,
Speaker 2: that eighty show and Grounded for Life makes sense now.
Speaker 2: The soundtrack is also of note here. The film score
Speaker 2: features several tracks by Love Strait Jackets, who also appear
Speaker 2: in the film. They get to perform at the titular
Speaker 2: beach party that happens late in the picture, you know,
Speaker 2: very much in the style of you know, having Little
Speaker 2: Richard pop up in your your old beach party movie.
Speaker 2: And other artists featured on the soundtrack include man Or
Speaker 2: Astro Man, The Fathoms, The Halibuts, four Piece Suit, and
Speaker 2: the Hillbilly Soul Surfers.
Speaker 3: I would say Low Straight Jackets is a band I'm
Speaker 3: very familiar with. They've been around for such a long
Speaker 3: time now. I think they have somewhere around thirteen or
Speaker 3: fourteen albums at this point, and it's just, you know,
Speaker 3: it's such a fun genre, and you know, being a
Speaker 3: beach rock surf rock band, just kind of deciding that
Speaker 3: that's the route you're gonna go down. In many ways,
Speaker 3: it seems very limiting, but I think in many ways
Speaker 3: it's also very liberating that once you're kind of in
Speaker 3: that realm, you can just kind of like mess around
Speaker 3: all you want as long as you kind of hit
Speaker 3: certain like, you know, as long as you have like
Speaker 3: certain tropes that you revisit every once in a while,
Speaker 3: everything else is free game. And a quick shout out
Speaker 3: to an Atlanta based surf rock band, I really like
Speaker 3: the Mystery Men very very good. Yeah, yeah, yea.
Speaker 2: I guess, like you said, it's kind of a decision
Speaker 2: to never be You're never gonna go after like super
Speaker 2: mainstream popularity. But if you succeed in this genre, you're
Speaker 2: gonna have You're gonna have a place moving forward. You're
Speaker 2: always people are gonna keep coming back to you for
Speaker 2: this particular sound, this particular vibe, and.
Speaker 3: I think it never quite reached the level of like
Speaker 3: mainstream success that turned it into something that could kind
Speaker 3: of like fall by the wayside, like for example, it
Speaker 3: took something like SKA. SKA suddenly became mainstream popular at
Speaker 3: one point, and therefore there was a backlash and suddenly
Speaker 3: people hated SCAT. Come on, how could you hate SCA?
Speaker 3: But it happened thanks too many you know, swing dances
Speaker 3: and too many gap commercials and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: So that being the case, surf rock never really got
Speaker 3: that like mainstream success, and so therefore it's always just
Speaker 3: kind of like been this like casual fun thing that
Speaker 3: everybody likes in the background, just for funnel throughout. Another
Speaker 3: surf rock band I really love this is a band
Speaker 3: called La Louse La Luz and they're from Seattle, and
Speaker 3: they are often called surf Noir, which is very fun,
Speaker 3: very very very slow. I mean, honestly, just picture what
Speaker 3: you think surf music out of Seattle would sound like.
Speaker 3: That's what they sound like, kind of sad, depressed beach music.
Speaker 2: That's a great point on SKA. You know, I hadn't
Speaker 2: thought about this before, but I listened to a number
Speaker 2: of the channels on Soma FM, which anyone out there
Speaker 2: if you want a nice alternative to mainstream radio without
Speaker 2: ads in multiple music genres. Some of them is a mainstay.
Speaker 2: I love them and I try to support them, but
Speaker 2: they'll occasionally, you know, they'll they'll sneak some SKA into
Speaker 2: if he's one of their channels or or one of
Speaker 2: their sub shows, and yeah, there is. I hadn't really
Speaker 2: thought about it, but there is this kind of sense
Speaker 2: where like SKA was just ragged on so much that
Speaker 2: to enjoy it you kind of have to sneak it
Speaker 2: in under the radar, sometimes alongside like you know, sort
Speaker 2: of other reggae inspire.
Speaker 3: Genres, right right, But you know, people can't deny, you know,
Speaker 3: the specials are amazing, so is you know, uh Operation Ivy,
Speaker 3: you know, like like there's some amazing perennial hit SKA
Speaker 3: out there. I actually, I'll throw out another little plug.
Speaker 3: There was an amazing little documentary I saw called I
Speaker 3: want to say it's called pick It Up. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: google that to make sure real quick, but it was.
Speaker 3: It was really good actually, And also I'll throw out
Speaker 3: a quick little plug. There's a documentary I saw not
Speaker 3: too long ago called pick It Up SCA in the nineties,
Speaker 3: and it goes through all of like the stages between
Speaker 3: like you know, first wave SKA, second wave SCA, third
Speaker 3: wave SKA and it's like backlash against that and hopefully
Speaker 3: what's coming now, which is fourth wave SKA and hey,
Speaker 3: another plug for someone who's not paying me. It's on
Speaker 3: Tooby go watch it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I When it comes to surf music,
Speaker 2: I do listen to a little bit of surf music
Speaker 2: here and there on Soma FM, but I'm not really
Speaker 2: familiar with a lot of the band specifically. I do
Speaker 2: occasionally like look up and see who's playing. I know
Speaker 2: the Blue Hawaiians are featured a lot there, but so
Speaker 2: they probably were playing jackets as well. I listened to
Speaker 2: a bunch of them while working on the notes for
Speaker 2: this episode, and in particular I was really taken with
Speaker 2: a great horror themed surf album from twenty thirteen titled
Speaker 2: Mondo Zombie Boogaloo. They're one of three artists on there.
Speaker 2: There's the Flesh Tones, Southern Culture on the Skids, and
Speaker 2: lots straight Jackets and it's a lot of fun. There
Speaker 2: are tracks of I think Southern Culture on the Skids
Speaker 2: has a track about the Tingler on there. I know
Speaker 2: that song yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Tingler Blues, I think
Speaker 2: Southern culture on the skids. By the way, their first
Speaker 2: EP was nineteen eighty four's Voodoo Beach Party, so they
Speaker 2: have a little bit of that beach party DNA as well.
Speaker 3: Very nice.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's let's jump into the plot of
Speaker 2: the film. I don't think we're gonna go blow for
Speaker 2: blow on everything here, but there's a lot of fun
Speaker 2: stuff to talk about. Well, let's go to the Psycho
Speaker 2: Beach Party.
Speaker 3: All right. In the very beginning, we are already in
Speaker 3: a movie, in a movie. We don't know that yet,
Speaker 3: but we are. The screen is black and white. We
Speaker 3: are in uh, what seems like a oh, I'm going
Speaker 3: to say, like a late fifties you know, kind of
Speaker 3: like schlocky b movie drive in film. And it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: We're in a fifties diner where we see a greaser
Speaker 3: man trying to talk to the woman that he loves,
Speaker 3: who can he can only see her face. She's a
Speaker 3: what is a pizza what are those called when you
Speaker 3: serve people food waitress? A pizza waitress.
Speaker 2: But she's like, there's like a tiny window, right, She's
Speaker 2: in the back and it's almost like she's been if
Speaker 2: you're familiar with bow not bower birds, hornbills the way
Speaker 2: a male hornbill will put the female hornbill like in
Speaker 2: the tree and like fill in, so the feeds her
Speaker 2: through a tiny hole. It's like that kind of vibe.
Speaker 2: It's strange.
Speaker 3: It's like she's like behind the register at the front
Speaker 3: of a diner, except there's a huge partition that blocked
Speaker 3: off everything except her face. And this man cannot hold
Speaker 3: back his affection and his need to see her, so
Speaker 3: he tears down the partition, and oh no, she is
Speaker 3: a three headed mutant. And the two other heads are
Speaker 3: the fakest heads you've ever seen. They are essentially rubber
Speaker 3: Halloween masks, just kind of like glued to each shoulder.
Speaker 3: And we now see that this is a film within
Speaker 3: a film, and we are at a drive in, and
Speaker 3: we are going to be introduced to some characters in
Speaker 3: pretty quick succession. At this drive in, we see little
Speaker 3: glimpses of what happens on the screen, and we'll get
Speaker 3: to know this character who's playing on the screen a
Speaker 3: little bit later. But yeah, suddenly her two heads are
Speaker 3: gone and she's a giant attack of the fifty foot
Speaker 3: woman style monster, and like where'd her heads go? I
Speaker 3: always wondered that, like why when she got bigger, did
Speaker 3: she lose the other two heads?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I guess in a way, it's kind
Speaker 2: of reminding you that nobody here except for let and
Speaker 2: her friend are actually here to see the movie. Everyone
Speaker 2: is here to at least make out, So it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter that that everything is out of whack on the screen.
Speaker 2: But again, it's mostly played for last. But I also
Speaker 2: kind of like the the tableau here at the beginning
Speaker 2: of like here's this guy and you know, he's having
Speaker 2: to look through this little screen to see this the
Speaker 2: woman that he's in love with. It's like you can
Speaker 2: only you know, view her through this like thin window,
Speaker 2: this thin frame. And then when that frame is torn away,
Speaker 2: it's too much for him, like he loses his mind,
Speaker 2: she goes on a rampage. Like It's probably like a
Speaker 2: nice way to summarize sort of the shackles of nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties and or just general mainstream American culture as seen
Speaker 2: by people by everyone who has any any kind of
Speaker 2: inclination to break free from those confines.
Speaker 3: That's a good interpretation. I like it. So, as you mentioned,
Speaker 3: we have our protagonist Florence aka chick Lit. I'm sure
Speaker 3: we will call her both throughout our discussion here, but yeah,
Speaker 3: Florence and chick Lit are the same person. However, at
Speaker 3: this point in the movie, she is not chick Lit yet.
Speaker 3: She is just Florence. She's there with her friend, I
Speaker 3: forget her nerdy friend's name, but anyway, her Dean I believe,
Speaker 3: played by Danny Wheeler Nice Burdeen. Yes, So Florence and
Speaker 3: her very nerdy friend Berdein are at this drive in,
Speaker 3: and as you mentioned, they're the only ones. They're not
Speaker 3: on dates. They're just two friends trying to watch the
Speaker 3: movie while everyone else is making out around them and
Speaker 3: being very sexually charged, et cetera, et cetera. So they
Speaker 3: are frustrated with this situation in general. But as Florence
Speaker 3: goes up to the concession stand, we do get a
Speaker 3: quick kind of introduction to many little characters all over
Speaker 3: the place. We see this gang of surfers hanging out
Speaker 3: in one car. We see our main Xander character. He
Speaker 3: is on a date with some girlfriend of their school.
Speaker 3: We meet the popular girl Marvel, and she is very
Speaker 3: enticed with this boy. She doesn't know the Xander character.
Speaker 3: We slowly, not slowly, we briefly pass by the Swedish
Speaker 3: exchange student, who of course knows Florence, and we meet
Speaker 3: him briefly. It's actually kind of fascinating because they quickly
Speaker 3: throw you into all of this. It's not a traditional
Speaker 3: structure for introducing characters. It's very much just like almost
Speaker 3: like an overture to the film we're about to see
Speaker 3: with very little, like hand holding, very little. There's plenty
Speaker 3: of exposition, but it's not traditional exposition. It's just it's
Speaker 3: almost just like a pile of exposition that you are
Speaker 3: expected to kind of sift through and catch up quickly.
Speaker 3: And it works, It works just fine. Yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 3: we are given a very subtle hint during this scene
Speaker 3: of the character. Florence suddenly goes into a bit of
Speaker 3: a trance, and then more or less she just kind
Speaker 3: of like disappears from the scene. We aren't really sure
Speaker 3: what's happening, what's going on, It's just we know something
Speaker 3: happened to Florence when she was up at the hot
Speaker 3: dog concession stand at this drive in theater. Then very
Speaker 3: quickly afterwards, we see that someone has been murdered.
Speaker 2: That's right, first murder of the film, and it won't.
Speaker 3: Be the last, absolutely not. And what we'll get more
Speaker 3: into the reasons for these murders later on, but at first,
Speaker 3: all we know is that someone has been murdered. So
Speaker 3: now we are thrown into the opening credits and it
Speaker 3: is a go go dancer, and that's exactly what you need.
Speaker 3: Surf music and a go go dancer while the opening
Speaker 3: credits go on. It kind of reminds me of like
Speaker 3: the opening credits for like do the right thing, you know,
Speaker 3: or like Rosie Perez is dancing along to it. It's
Speaker 3: that kind of just extended solo dancer over music while
Speaker 3: you are being introduced to all the actors and directors
Speaker 3: and and whatnot.
Speaker 2: It's very aggressive. She is dancing right at you, daring
Speaker 2: at you the.
Speaker 3: Viewer, much like Rosie Perez and do the right thing.
Speaker 3: Then we are back and suddenly there is an investigation
Speaker 3: going on. We see the police captain investigating the murder
Speaker 3: along with a uniform cop and it's all very I guess,
Speaker 3: it's all very procedural, like there's nothing like had the
Speaker 3: ordinary that's going on, but it's all everything is everything
Speaker 3: that we explain throughout this whole movie is going to
Speaker 3: be very tongue in cheek, very intentionally corny. But here's
Speaker 3: the compliment I can give to this entire movie, which
Speaker 3: I really think is outstanding. Everybody's giving the same level
Speaker 3: of a corny delivery. Therefore, it's clearly intentional. Everything is
Speaker 3: happening in a very molded, very directed way, and therefore
Speaker 3: it works perfectly. Like to compare it to something that
Speaker 3: doesn't work, think about the movie Batman and Robin Right,
Speaker 3: the Joel Schumacher second Batman movie from him. That movie
Speaker 3: is incredible if you only watch Uma Thurman playing a
Speaker 3: Batman sixty six character like she she understood the assignment.
Speaker 3: She got it. Uma Thurman delivered the Batman sixty six
Speaker 3: character that I think Joel Schumacher was looking for, whereas,
Speaker 3: you know, no offense to every other actor in the movie.
Speaker 3: They did not. You know, George what's his name, George
Speaker 3: Clinton played Batman in that movie. Cloney, Yeah, thank you,
Speaker 3: George Clooney. He was absolutely playing as like a jaded
Speaker 3: ninety Hollywood star, like that's not the role. He needed
Speaker 3: to be Adam West in that film, and he didn't. Anyway,
Speaker 3: Everyone in this film knows that it's Batman sixty six.
Speaker 3: Everyone is camping it up, all giving the same style
Speaker 3: of delivery, and it's really wonderful. This is going to
Speaker 3: be a bit of a strange association, but I do
Speaker 3: mean it. This movie is almost a trauma film, but
Speaker 3: it's like a G rated trauma film, which by comparison,
Speaker 3: is still in R but compared to trauma, it never
Speaker 3: goes that extreme, but it's still it feels like a
Speaker 3: gentle light trauma film for the family. That's what it
Speaker 3: feels like. The pasties are on exactly. Yeah, the bur
Speaker 3: last click you mentioned, so the murder investigation is happening
Speaker 3: in the background throughout this film. We will we will
Speaker 3: check in more with the police captain as things go on.
Speaker 3: But Florence and Burden are now at the beach and
Speaker 3: Florence sees all the surfers and she decides that she
Speaker 3: really wants to be a surfer. You know, she wants
Speaker 3: to go do this, but everyone is telling her she
Speaker 3: can't because of her gender. They're saying, no, you can't surf,
Speaker 3: you're a girl. Get out of here. And ultimately she
Speaker 3: goes up to this same group of gosh I has
Speaker 3: to call them a gang a crew. Yeah, I suppose
Speaker 3: a surf crew is the best word for them. None
Speaker 3: of them are particularly intimidating. This is where I'm gonna
Speaker 3: keep calling him Xander. This is where Xander and all
Speaker 3: his surf friends are all hanging out. Gosh, I want
Speaker 3: to say, there's like five of them, and they're all
Speaker 3: more or less, you know, the same kind of guy.
Speaker 3: So they inform her that they're definitely not gonna teach
Speaker 3: her how to serve. Florence because they're like boss, the
Speaker 3: like the head surf bum. The Great Kanaka would think
Speaker 3: that they were, you know, being completely ridiculous if they
Speaker 3: were teaching some girl how to surf. So Florence, being
Speaker 3: a driven female protagonist, goes no, no, no, I will
Speaker 3: go talk to the Great Kanaka and I will convince
Speaker 3: him to teach me how to surf because I am driven.
Speaker 3: So she goes off. She's being very proactive when she
Speaker 3: goes and finds the Great Kanaka in his very archetypical
Speaker 3: surf bum shack. Then when she goes in there, he
Speaker 3: gives the same reaction at first, go away, go away,
Speaker 3: get out of here. You know, I'm not interested in
Speaker 3: like hanging out with like a teenage girl and teaching
Speaker 3: her how to serf. This is ridiculous because I think
Speaker 3: even in this context her his character, the Great Kanaka
Speaker 3: is supposed to probably be in his oh thirties at
Speaker 3: least right late twenties, early thirties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he's the king of the beach here, and
Speaker 2: so he's been around probably a bit too long, literally
Speaker 2: taky shack on the beach.
Speaker 3: For sure, and so therefore he's like, no, get out
Speaker 3: of here, I'm not going to teach you. But then
Speaker 3: at this point we see another one of these spells
Speaker 3: that Florence experiences a bit of a blackout but a
Speaker 3: bit of a something. We still aren't quite sure what's
Speaker 3: going on, but what was teased at in the earlier scene.
Speaker 3: And suddenly we see that she has thrown herself into
Speaker 3: a completely different personality named Anne Bowman, and Bowman is
Speaker 3: now in charge, and Anne Bowman is a is a
Speaker 3: no nonsense, you know gosh in many ways that is
Speaker 3: referenced later very much a dominatrix type role, very much
Speaker 3: an I'm in charge, shut up, I'm getting my way.
Speaker 3: I'm in Bowman, you know, Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Very much an old Hollywood kind of vibe too, like
Speaker 2: that kind of like an old Hollywood vixen vibe, but
Speaker 2: with these with these kinky corners as well, where she's like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna what if I put you on a leash
Speaker 2: and walk you down the beach? And he's excited and
Speaker 2: terrified by this at the same time, but he's like, like, like,
Speaker 2: that would be great.
Speaker 3: What would the guys say? Though, it's almost like a
Speaker 3: Tululah Bankhead performance, very very big and yeah, no no,
Speaker 3: so yeah, he has no interest in Florence, but a Bowman, Hey,
Speaker 3: this is great. So he decides he will keep her around.
Speaker 3: He will teach her, not because he likes Florence, but
Speaker 3: because he likes Anne Bowman, this alternate personality of hers
Speaker 3: that is somewhere deep inside of her. So this continues,
Speaker 3: and it's confusing. No one really knows how to deal
Speaker 3: with this, including the audience. But he brings her down
Speaker 3: to the beach and shows her to the guys and goes, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: we're hanging out with her. She's gonna she's gonna be
Speaker 3: a part of our crew and we're gonna do this. Uh.
Speaker 3: She learns how she's introduced to, you know, the gang,
Speaker 3: and everything's going fine, but quickly they still tease her
Speaker 3: for for for being a girl, for not being very
Speaker 3: good at surfing yet to all that stuff, and they
Speaker 3: give her the nickname of chick Lit because yeah, she's
Speaker 3: a chick, but she's not even a full chick. She's
Speaker 3: a chick flat.
Speaker 2: And of course obviously it sounds a bit like Gidget,
Speaker 2: so it works. We also get all these great scenes
Speaker 2: of the actual surfing, which I couldn't get enough of
Speaker 2: because it's like, it's, I guess this is in keeping
Speaker 2: with the old beach movies, right, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: combination of actual beach surfing footage and then these totally
Speaker 2: fake blue or green screen sequences, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's it's all completely phony and very fun.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, she embraces it. She goes, yeah, I'll
Speaker 3: be chick Lit. You know, I'm in for this. This
Speaker 3: is this is gonna be fun. Uh So, now at
Speaker 3: this point we're starting to kind of sow the seeds
Speaker 3: of what's going to come as like the murder mystery
Speaker 3: aspect of this, and Florence aka Chicklet aka and Bowman
Speaker 3: is definitely like the first, let's say, potential killer. They
Speaker 3: set up several, well a few potential killers, and Florence
Speaker 3: is definitely the first one, with her discussing how when
Speaker 3: she goes into these alternate personalities, the Florence character blacks out. Basically,
Speaker 3: she goes through these spells of not knowing what's happening
Speaker 3: at all. Therefore she could be doing anything during that time.
Speaker 3: So not even Florence herself knows if she is this
Speaker 3: potential killer that the police captain is investigating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she didn't even know why it occurs. We the viewer,
Speaker 2: we quickly realize that it seems to be triggered by
Speaker 2: sexism to a large degree. But then also we eventually
Speaker 2: realize and Kanaka realizes this is a little bit later on.
Speaker 2: Am I be getting hit myself here? But it's something
Speaker 2: about circle patterns as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a triggering method that kind of kicks
Speaker 3: off from multiple personalities, of which she has at least
Speaker 3: three or four. I think we definitely see around four
Speaker 3: of them, but perhaps more in like rapid succession at
Speaker 3: some points.
Speaker 2: Yeah, an Bowman's the main one, but there's another one
Speaker 2: that I think she says is based on like a
Speaker 2: cashier at the local grocery store.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, a strong willed woman.
Speaker 2: And I don't I kind of get the impression there
Speaker 2: might have been more in the original stage version of this,
Speaker 2: because again Bush's specialty was like multiple.
Speaker 3: Characters, right, Yeah, I feel like there was at least
Speaker 3: one that was speaking Spanish. I feel like there was
Speaker 3: at least one that was an opera singer that you
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier. Yeah, there were a few in there, but
Speaker 3: and Bowman is the main one for sure. So we're
Speaker 3: back at the beach, and this is setting up more characters.
Speaker 3: There's like this spooky old beach house that has like
Speaker 3: a lot of rumors about it, and they see that
Speaker 3: there's this beautiful who is staying in this what's considered
Speaker 3: to be like a cursed house. It turns out that
Speaker 3: it's Betina Barnes, the actress that played the three headed
Speaker 3: woman in that drive in movie. From the beginning of
Speaker 3: the film, she is renting this house and staying there,
Speaker 3: and she's staying a bit incognito, just trying to like,
Speaker 3: you know, have like a nice separation from her Hollywood life.
Speaker 3: But she very quickly befriends the surf crew and more
Speaker 3: specifically Burdeen is that's her name, Yes, the nerd friend
Speaker 3: of Florence. She's feeling a bit neglected by Florence with
Speaker 3: her finding her new friends with the surf crew, so
Speaker 3: Berdein becomes like the Gal Friday, the assistant personal assistant
Speaker 3: to Beatina Barnes. And so that's setting up like another
Speaker 3: like you know, b story happening throughout this movie. So
Speaker 3: lots of clues, lots of backstories, lots of setting up
Speaker 3: all these different little threads and potential red herrings, et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera. But ultimately we are setting up four killers. Okay,
Speaker 3: we're going to kind of skip the middle of the
Speaker 3: Scooby Doo episode and kind of kind of get towards
Speaker 3: closer to the end. The four killers that are being
Speaker 3: set up. I mentioned Florence, I mentioned Betina Barnes. They
Speaker 3: never really give Betina Barnes much of like a motive.
Speaker 3: It's just basically that she's like an outsider, that she
Speaker 3: is just like like she by coincidence, has arrived around
Speaker 3: the same time these murders are happening. The other character
Speaker 3: is Florence's mom. We only see these little bits and
Speaker 3: pieces of her, but she's strongly implied to be a
Speaker 3: killer just because she's quite the stickler, quite quite regimented,
Speaker 3: which ties into the kind of victims we are getting,
Speaker 3: which I'll get into soon. Yeah. Then the fourth and
Speaker 3: last is the Great Kanaka. Once again, barely any reasons
Speaker 3: are given why the Great Kanaka is considered a suspect
Speaker 3: in this but the Captain is definitely investigating him as
Speaker 3: one of the four potential killers. I suppose it's just
Speaker 3: because he's a loner on the beach and he could
Speaker 3: kind of like get away with whatever he wants, et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera. We also see in a flashback that he's
Speaker 3: a former police officer and he was the partner of
Speaker 3: the police captain and they had a romantic relationship that
Speaker 3: fell apart because of her ambition to raise higher and
Speaker 3: blah blah blah and not just be a housewife and
Speaker 3: all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's not There's not a love triangle in
Speaker 2: this film. It's more of like a love cat's cradle
Speaker 2: because we have chick lit kind of pursuing starcat Aka Xander,
Speaker 2: and Xander is pursuing marvel Ann and I believe dating her,
Speaker 2: but also like all the male characters are enraptured by
Speaker 2: Betina Barnes, right, And and then we have Anne Bowman,
Speaker 2: the an Bowman personality is in this sexually dominating again
Speaker 2: played for comedy relationship with Kanaka. And then, like you said,
Speaker 2: we learn that Kanaka was previously in a steamy relationship
Speaker 2: with Captain Monica Stark. So there's there's a lot of
Speaker 2: intricacy to this scenario.
Speaker 3: And to make it even more complex, because why not
Speaker 3: two of the members of the surf crew are clearly
Speaker 3: in love with each other. Oh yeah, and at every
Speaker 3: opportunity they will oil each other up and wrestle on
Speaker 3: the beach, and you know, it's revealed they're somewhat aware.
Speaker 3: They're like like they they almost want to tell each
Speaker 3: other they love each other. They almost want to just
Speaker 3: be a couple. But you know, it's it being the
Speaker 3: repressed nineteen sixties. They haven't quite found a way to
Speaker 3: get there yet. But it's it is funny. They're homoerotic
Speaker 3: wrestling on the pose. Yes, just just it comes out
Speaker 3: of nowhere. It just lasts for a very long time,
Speaker 3: and we even see later on, Like I said, this
Speaker 3: whole movie is very queer coded. Bettina attempts a kiss
Speaker 3: with Florence pretty late into the film as well, and
Speaker 3: it does seem, like you said, a cat's cradle. Everyone
Speaker 3: wants something, and everyone's a little repressed, and no one
Speaker 3: can quite just say what they want. No one can
Speaker 3: can quite just kind of get there and be honest
Speaker 3: and communicate openly and in many ways just kind of
Speaker 3: be themselves. That's that's not really in anyone's DNA at
Speaker 3: this point in this story. So more more kills are happening,
Speaker 3: and during each of these murders it's very jollo and
Speaker 3: by that I mean all we see is that the
Speaker 3: camera is the killer's perspective, and we see a gloved
Speaker 3: hand performing these deeds, whether it be a stabbing with
Speaker 3: like a butcher's knife, or whether it be a gosh,
Speaker 3: what's what are some other murders, they're all pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't even remember if we see the method
Speaker 2: necessarily in like Rhoda's murder, the wheelchair bound sort of
Speaker 2: queen Bee of the high school social scene, but like
Speaker 2: she's just we see her in the next scene is
Speaker 2: like they found her body. Her head very faith looking
Speaker 2: is just on top of the one of the wheels
Speaker 2: of the wheelchair spinning in circles.
Speaker 3: That's that's right, And so this is a great time
Speaker 3: to talk about the kill counts and the reasons why s. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you mentioned Roda. Roda is like, honestly, she's like the
Speaker 3: school mean girl more or less. Like I would say,
Speaker 3: anytime you talk to her, she's going to say something
Speaker 3: cutting and insulting to anyone who she's talking to. She's
Speaker 3: not a nice woman at all. And then we have
Speaker 3: let's see, one of the beach guys has psoriasis, and
Speaker 3: the only way we know that is because he's the
Speaker 3: one who's always wearing a T shirt because he's embarrassed.
Speaker 3: And then the other one is this other guy who
Speaker 3: there are many references to his testicles. That's just like
Speaker 3: he's like psychic through his testicles or something. It's many
Speaker 3: references are made to this that don't quite make sense,
Speaker 3: and I don't think it's supposed to. And then we
Speaker 3: had the woman from the drive in at the beginning.
Speaker 3: So those four are the four victims that we are
Speaker 3: given throughout this film. What the police captain discovers is
Speaker 3: that each victim has some sort of like biological otherness
Speaker 3: to them, something is making them not the average American
Speaker 3: straightforward person, which of course seems to be like this
Speaker 3: ongoing theme about here is that, you know, what's the appearance,
Speaker 3: what's the facade, what are we really? What are we inside?
Speaker 3: Et cetera. So the first victim from the drive in,
Speaker 3: she had a hairlip, the second victim, as I mentioned,
Speaker 3: he had psoriasis, the third victim he only had one testicle.
Speaker 3: And then the fourth victim, as you mentioned, Robert, she
Speaker 3: was in a wheelchair. So so there was something quote
Speaker 3: unquote wrong with them, and by wrong in the eyes
Speaker 3: of the killer, just means not average, not perfect.
Speaker 2: So we're looking for someone Monica Stark in particular, Captain
Speaker 2: Monica Stark is looking for somebody who is really down
Speaker 2: on outsiders, on anyone that's not fitting the thin definition
Speaker 2: of what a a quote unquote normal person should be
Speaker 2: in this, you know, this sixty cinematic film world. And
Speaker 2: of course that means that chick Lit's mom is pretty
Speaker 2: high up on the suspect list. And for me, as
Speaker 2: a viewer, like you know, if this war were indeed
Speaker 2: an Italian horror film, I would be like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: it's chick lit, right, we were investing this much time
Speaker 2: in someone's mental illness, like they're probably going to be
Speaker 2: the killer unless you go for the twist. But it's
Speaker 2: probably going to be her, but not in this film,
Speaker 2: Like we like chick lit too much. I feel like
Speaker 2: she's safe. But the mother seems to be the prime
Speaker 2: suspect that they're building up. And so that's where I
Speaker 2: thought it was going.
Speaker 3: And ultimately the police agreed with you. At a point
Speaker 3: later on in the film, all these killings have happened,
Speaker 3: all of the set up, all these red herrings, everything's
Speaker 3: going on, Like I said, very Scooby do. If you
Speaker 3: like Scooby Doo, you'll like this. The police eventually arrest
Speaker 3: Florence's mother. They go, no, you are the killer. We
Speaker 3: know that you've done all these things. That's it. You're
Speaker 3: going to jail. And it all kind of I would say,
Speaker 3: it fully pieces together, but like all the puzzle pieces
Speaker 3: kind of formed together. So Florence has like this memory
Speaker 3: of herself when she was younger, where her mom like
Speaker 3: you know, she liked to like, you know, meet the
Speaker 3: sailors at the port and like, you know, I guess
Speaker 3: just be promiscuous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but she was a patriot.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's true. She was a patriot in her promiscuity
Speaker 3: and all of this, I guess just had like a
Speaker 3: sort of an effect on Florence as a child. Ultimately
Speaker 3: she was pushed aside often so where mother could go
Speaker 3: off and be a patriot. And so this led to
Speaker 3: a traumatic event that happened in Florence's very very very
Speaker 3: young childhood that she had completely blocked out, which was
Speaker 3: that her and her little brother, which we didn't even
Speaker 3: know she had, were playing on the swings. Florence, I guess,
Speaker 3: pushed him too hard and she went over the top
Speaker 3: of the bar and just flew off like a bottle
Speaker 3: rocket like it definitely the most ridiculous death in this fiel.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, this is played so over the top and
Speaker 2: for laughs, is this is not a pet cemetery in
Speaker 2: this sequence? This is more like a scene from Matilda.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know, it's looney Tunes for sure. I
Speaker 3: think there are literal smoke lines from the boy flying
Speaker 3: off the swing set. So yes, she accidentally was involved
Speaker 3: in her little brother's death and this affected her and
Speaker 3: I think perhaps kicked off this whole multiple personalities disorder
Speaker 3: for her that she was repressing these memories and hopefully
Speaker 3: blocking them out as a way to deal with them.
Speaker 3: So this is all sad, and she's worried about this,
Speaker 3: and her mom has just been arrested. Like a lot's
Speaker 3: going on. She's not having a great evening. So I'm
Speaker 3: not sure if you all remember early on we mentioned
Speaker 3: that there is a Swedish exchange student staying in the
Speaker 3: house with them. His name is Lars. Lars goes here,
Speaker 3: I'll drive you home, Florence, come on, let's get out
Speaker 3: of here, so that they leave, and oh, we got
Speaker 3: some twists coming. Big twist, Lars is the killer. Spoilers,
Speaker 3: I'll take that back. Spoilers, Lars is the killer. And
Speaker 3: ultimately it turns out that when we were referencing that
Speaker 3: beach house earlier in this film, the one that was
Speaker 3: like cursed, that there was a big murder spree that
Speaker 3: happened there where very Michael Meyers esque. It was the
Speaker 3: young son who was fed up with all of the
Speaker 3: what he viewed as like weaknesses in his family, all
Speaker 3: the abnormalities, like I believe what did they say, like
Speaker 3: you know, one was deaf or something like that, Like
Speaker 3: each family member had a non average, you know, physical thing,
Speaker 3: and he hated that. He just wanted to be normal.
Speaker 3: He wanted everyone to be normal, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera. So he killed his whole family and he
Speaker 3: went on the lamb. So he's continued this that this
Speaker 3: has been his serial killer thing that he's been doing.
Speaker 3: His real name is Larry, He's not from Sweden. This
Speaker 3: is a whole facade. Now. He thought Florence was a
Speaker 3: perfectly average, normal American girl, and that's what he is
Speaker 3: fine with. He wants everyone to be normal. But in
Speaker 3: the revelation that she has a multiple personality disorder, he
Speaker 3: now has to kill Florence too. So now it's a
Speaker 3: big chase that they end up at the drive in again.
Speaker 3: I love the symmetry of the film starting at the
Speaker 3: drive in and ending at the drive in, very very
Speaker 3: nice filmmaking there, and you know, chase and chasing, running, running,
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff, and Lars is he falls
Speaker 3: off the top of the drive in screen and falls
Speaker 3: to his death. Everything is resolved, happy ending, right, Everyone's
Speaker 3: everyone's happy. This is all I think.
Speaker 2: Monica like shoots him off of it. It's like she's
Speaker 2: up there too.
Speaker 3: Right, So yeah, it's it's a it's a whole action
Speaker 3: running around scene. But yeah, there we go, happy ending.
Speaker 3: The killer has been dealt with. But wait, twist, this
Speaker 3: entire film was a delusion inside Florence's head. She is
Speaker 3: in a modern mental health institute and she is receiving
Speaker 3: electroshock therapy. She's looking around at her and everyone around
Speaker 3: her are characters that are inside of this psycho beach
Speaker 3: party story, like I believe Roda was like the nurse
Speaker 3: who was like applying the electrodes, and we get a
Speaker 3: bit of a wizard of Oz like oh and you
Speaker 3: were there, and you were there. We got one of
Speaker 3: those moments. And then twist, twist, twist. It turns out
Speaker 3: this is a movie in a movie in a movie,
Speaker 3: and we see a couple of youths at a modern
Speaker 3: drive in watching this film, the film of Florence inside
Speaker 3: the mental institute. So they're upset about this. They're like,
Speaker 3: what's it was all a dream? What a terrible ending?
Speaker 3: This is corny, And then we are treated with a
Speaker 3: final scare in which Anne Bowman jumps out of the
Speaker 3: back seed of their car wielding a butcher knife. Yea
Speaker 3: then we cut to the go Go Dan serum, we
Speaker 3: get some credits. I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just to drive home that this was all
Speaker 2: about laughs guys. Yeah, and I also I do love
Speaker 2: that the initial twist of like, oh no, it's the
Speaker 2: electroshock scenario. It does seem to reference, of course overtly
Speaker 2: the Wizard of Oz that they and you were there
Speaker 2: and you were there, but also nineteen eighty five's Returned
Speaker 2: to Oz, in which electroshock therapy is plays a major
Speaker 2: plot point in the you know, the non Oz portions
Speaker 2: of the film. Yeah, so yeah, they they ended with laughs,
Speaker 2: end it very broadly and ridiculously, you know, repeat yourself.
Speaker 2: It's just a show that's sort of a feel. But yeah,
Speaker 2: this one was. This was such a fun film, you know,
Speaker 2: never a dull moment, a lot of a lot of laughs,
Speaker 2: and not everything necessarily lands. And this is I think
Speaker 2: I've got to come back to the Strangers with Candy compare,
Speaker 2: and you know, like this is this is again a
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties like late eighties comedy that was adapted to
Speaker 2: a two thousand comedy film. So not all the comedy,
Speaker 2: especially since it's you know, it's kind of burless dragstyle
Speaker 2: humor of the time period. Not everything's going to necessarily
Speaker 2: translate as well to for modern viewers, but for the
Speaker 2: most part it works really well. And yeah, if you're
Speaker 2: if you're a fan of things like Strangers with Candy,
Speaker 2: if you're a fan of John Waters films and anything
Speaker 2: like that, I highly recommend it. I think it's a
Speaker 2: really fun flick.
Speaker 3: It definitely deserves a larger audience. So even if you
Speaker 3: listener want to be just one more person who has
Speaker 3: said that they've seen Psycho Beach Party, I recommend that
Speaker 3: you do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, if you're fans in any of the actors
Speaker 2: are creatives involved here, are definitely worth looking them up.
Speaker 2: And if you just just want to want a surf movie,
Speaker 2: you just want to go to a beach party, and
Speaker 2: we do get a beach party. Late. We didn't really
Speaker 2: talk about this much, but this is this whole scene
Speaker 2: where there the surfers are going to do a virgin
Speaker 2: sacrifice to some sort of a god, and of course
Speaker 2: chick Lit ends up she's going to be the virgin sacrifice,
Speaker 2: but then goes into Ann Bowman mode mid sacrifice, and
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, and Bowman's not a virgin. We can't
Speaker 2: do this shuts the whole thing down.
Speaker 3: And there's of course a dance off between Tina Barnes
Speaker 3: and marvel Anne, which is really wonderful. I mean, like
Speaker 3: all the tropes from a beach movie are in here,
Speaker 3: and yeah, we skipped over pretty much all of the middle.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot to enjoy and have unfold for you,
Speaker 3: even if you've heard our description.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you know the spoiler, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Does not really depend on.
Speaker 3: Knowing or not knowing this, I mean it is it
Speaker 3: does feel actually like like I said, very Scooby Doo
Speaker 3: and like, wait, who's the killer that person that we
Speaker 3: saw once an hour ago?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it doesn't really factor in. I think. I
Speaker 3: think the way they discover it is they see a
Speaker 3: picture of the child who you used to live in
Speaker 3: the house and they get out a felt tip pen
Speaker 3: and draw the horn rimmed glasses. Yeah, fars I have
Speaker 3: the photoco like it's him, so good, so good.
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, Steph, Well, I've got I got a
Speaker 2: two part question for you. First of all, on Rusty
Speaker 2: Needles Record Club, have you ever discussed surf beach party music?
Speaker 2: And either way what have you been talking about recently
Speaker 2: on Rusty Needles Record Club and where can folks.
Speaker 3: Listen to it? Yes, we have discussed surf and beach
Speaker 3: music in particular around let's see what have been around
Speaker 3: Halloween of this last year. One of the things I
Speaker 3: love about the nineteen sixties is that a lot of
Speaker 3: trends happened around the same time, and so they all
Speaker 3: kind of overlapped. Like you know, there was there was
Speaker 3: a monster craze in the nineteen sixties at the same
Speaker 3: time that there was a beach craze happening. So there
Speaker 3: are a lot of gosh, what's what's the word for it,
Speaker 3: I guess synergies. And so we were covering a lot
Speaker 3: of the the monster craze, beach music and surf music
Speaker 3: from the nineteen sixties this last October, and gosh, it's fun.
Speaker 3: It's such a fun, fun genre. In fact, as long
Speaker 3: as I'm talking about sixties movie monster surf music, I
Speaker 3: will mention one of my favorite compilations of that era.
Speaker 3: It's a three disc set called Halloween Nuggets Monster Sixties
Speaker 3: A Go Go Oh. It's like every novelty sixties surf
Speaker 3: monster song that's ever existed all in one collection. It's incredible.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah check that out. Halloween Nuggets, Monster Sixties
Speaker 3: A go go have a good time.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I just looked this up. This this does
Speaker 2: look amazing.
Speaker 3: It's really good and if you can't track that down.
Speaker 3: It was very much inspired by these series of compilations
Speaker 3: called Lux and Ivy's Favorites, which was just a fan
Speaker 3: made compilation of all the music that Lux and Ivy
Speaker 3: from the Cramps really enjoy. There are I think eighteen
Speaker 3: volumes of it at this point. Another place you can
Speaker 3: get really good just kind of like spooky out there,
Speaker 3: like psychobilly and like surf music. So yeah, anyway, if
Speaker 3: you like music, talk, that's what I do on Rusty
Speaker 3: Needles Record Club every week. And what have we been
Speaker 3: up to lately? To answer your other question, Robert, we
Speaker 3: are currently doing a alphabetical trip through the record store
Speaker 3: where each week we are going one letter deeper into
Speaker 3: the alphabet and we're trading between our listeners, myself and
Speaker 3: my co host and deciding which album is next. So
Speaker 3: let's see. We did o Toboke Beaver this last week,
Speaker 3: an incredible punk band from Japan. I believe next week
Speaker 3: we're doing the Pete's Dragon soundtrack, which is utterly ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, and the ultimate goal. If you've never heard
Speaker 3: my show before, Rusty Needles Record Club is a show
Speaker 3: where I am going to listen to every single album
Speaker 3: that has ever existed. I am greedy in my music
Speaker 3: consumption and I must hear it all and then I
Speaker 3: must talk about it with my friends, because that's what
Speaker 3: I enjoy doing. So so far, so good, so far.
Speaker 3: I am on track to listen to every album ever made.
Speaker 3: We do one episode per week, every Friday, and it
Speaker 3: is one album per episode, and it's a fun time
Speaker 3: and ultimately we are very genre agnostic, and it's just
Speaker 3: about being a music fan. It's about loving all music
Speaker 3: and wanting to hear everything that's ever been So that's
Speaker 3: that's Rusty Needles Record Club. It's a fun series.
Speaker 2: It's a noble suit and yeah, I encourage the listeners to,
Speaker 2: if nothing else, check in and just take a look,
Speaker 2: because whatever genre you're into, there's a very good chance
Speaker 2: you guys have touched on it at one point or another.
Speaker 3: Very true. We want it all, we'll cover it all
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: Well, Seth, thanks for coming on the show. Again and
Speaker 2: chatting about movies. I'm sure we'll ask you back again
Speaker 2: in the future. Here just a reminder to everybody out there,
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema occurs Fridays in the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind podcast Feed. Podcast Feed is primarily concerned with
Speaker 2: science and culture, but on Fridays we set aside most
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. If you want a list of all
Speaker 2: the movies we've covered thus far, as well as sometimes
Speaker 2: a peek ahead at what's coming out next, go to
Speaker 2: letterbox dot com. It's l E T T E R
Speaker 2: B O x D dot com. Our user profile on
Speaker 2: there is weird House, and there is in fact a list,
Speaker 2: and it's fun to interact with. If you can, you know,
Speaker 2: divide things up by genre a decade, and just in general,
Speaker 2: you know, you can give your own little reviews and
Speaker 2: cataloging and wish lists for films that you've watched or
Speaker 2: wished to watch in the future. Thanks as always to
Speaker 2: jj Possway the excellent Jjpossway for producing this show, and
Speaker 2: if you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 2: can email Joe and myself at contact at Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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