Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
Speaker 2: And today's Weird House Cinema selection is, Oh, this is
Speaker 2: just b movie caviare I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 2: what you thought of a joke. You had seen it previously,
Speaker 2: if I'm not mistaken. I watched it for the first
Speaker 2: time in the last couple of weeks. Watched it on
Speaker 2: an airplane, and I was just overwhelmed by the glory
Speaker 2: of howling to your Sister is a Werewolf from nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty five.
Speaker 3: I had seen it before, but didn't remember a lot
Speaker 3: about it. This is one I think I kind of
Speaker 3: watched in the early twenties haze of just like I'd
Speaker 3: go with my friend to the local you know, used
Speaker 3: book d CD and DVD store, and we'd get like
Speaker 3: an armload of ninety nine cent bad DVDs and just
Speaker 3: kind of watch them one after another. And this was
Speaker 3: one of those. I remember a few things about it.
Speaker 3: I remember it being weird. I think I remembered Christopher
Speaker 3: Lee's bizarre outfit in the scene where he goes to
Speaker 3: the club, which we'll have to talk about later, and
Speaker 3: it's hard to forget the vibes of Sybil Danning presiding
Speaker 3: over the rituals in the film. I much commented upon
Speaker 3: kind of aura this movie has. In fact, in his
Speaker 3: one star review of this film, Roger Ebert singled out
Speaker 3: the Sybil Danning's ability to preside over rituals as one
Speaker 3: of the best things about the movie. And I have
Speaker 3: to agree there certainly one of the most memorable things
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't think he completely liked the film, but
Speaker 2: he certainly liked her performance in it. And I don't
Speaker 2: know you can tell when Ebert. Sometimes Ebert would give
Speaker 2: a review like this, and you know it'd be a
Speaker 2: low star rating, but you could tell he loved it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was one of those. It's like, objectively, I
Speaker 3: must say it is a bad film, but most of
Speaker 3: what he had to say about it seemed kind of
Speaker 3: amused and pleased.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because it is. This one's rough around the edges.
Speaker 2: It is you know, it's definitely lower budget, but it's
Speaker 2: it's trying really hard. It's throwing everything at the wall,
Speaker 2: it's laying in its teeth it's thrashing its head from
Speaker 2: side to side, and it refuses to let go. H
Speaker 2: that's that's Howling too, That's it, that's its vibe. It's
Speaker 2: a new wave horror party and all the werewolves are invited.
Speaker 3: It is. I think this movie would be more remembered
Speaker 3: for its weirdness if it were not directly followed by
Speaker 3: Howling three the Marsupials, which is perhaps even weirder. It's
Speaker 3: almost like, uh, this movie, this movie would be more
Speaker 3: of a beacon of absurdity if not having if not
Speaker 3: for having been immediately one opt yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, same director came back, Phelipe Mora, who will talk
Speaker 2: about it in a minute, came back and made the
Speaker 2: Howling three, doubling down on all the weirdness, making it
Speaker 2: a firmly assy weird film and in a way that yeah,
Speaker 2: really and it almost kind of overshines the genuine weirdness
Speaker 2: of this picture. But yeah, but Howling two is not
Speaker 2: to be overlooked, at least if your taste aligns with
Speaker 2: ours when it comes to B films. So The Howling
Speaker 2: two is, of course a sequel to the nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: one Joe Dante film The Howling, which I believe we
Speaker 2: both watched almost in tandem not too long ago. I
Speaker 2: think we were talking about covering it for Weird House
Speaker 2: Cinema and then we kind of moved on to something else.
Speaker 2: And I think it's largely because The Howling is a
Speaker 2: really solid werewolf movie with amazing special effects, some great
Speaker 2: practical special effects, and it also has some Joe Dante
Speaker 2: Looney Tunes weirdness in there and you know, kind of
Speaker 2: like appropriate brushstrokes, solids of humor. Yeah, a great sense
Speaker 2: of humor in the correct balance, solid cast, solid w
Speaker 2: one writing, incredible practical world effects, like I said, and
Speaker 2: all that for a two million dollar budget. So in
Speaker 2: a way it was like great film, but not necessarily
Speaker 2: the greatest Weird House Cinema selection. But The Howling definitely made,
Speaker 2: but made a box office splash, made a lot of money,
Speaker 2: entertained a lot of people, certified hit, and again solid
Speaker 2: monster film that I would say balance is a kind
Speaker 2: of kind of like, on one hand, psycho sexual aspirations
Speaker 2: alongside those again sort of looney tune Joe Dante moments
Speaker 2: that you've come to expect from his filmography and the effects. Again,
Speaker 2: the effects alone on the Howling give it a special
Speaker 2: place in horror history. You have those Rob Boteine effects
Speaker 2: that are just amazing, very good. So Howling two follows
Speaker 2: up on all of this. It's going to continue the party,
Speaker 2: but with a small still a small budget. I think
Speaker 2: it's one of these cases where the budget's technically larger,
Speaker 2: but when you you know year to year, it's maybe
Speaker 2: a little bit lower. In this time, there's no Joe Dante,
Speaker 2: he'd moved on to direct Grimlins, no script doctoring from
Speaker 2: John Sales this time, and also you don't have Rob
Speaker 2: Botein doing his special effects. Now, those special effects in
Speaker 2: Howling To are still great, with a number of caveats,
Speaker 2: a number of limitations because for the most part they're
Speaker 2: shooting far from the Hollywood home base. Here, effects and
Speaker 2: props were boxed up sent to then Czechoslovakia for the
Speaker 2: majority of the shoot. I was actually watching some extras
Speaker 2: on the Blu Ray that I'm going to reference here
Speaker 2: in a minute, an interview with Steve Johnson, who we've
Speaker 2: talked about on the show before he was There are
Speaker 2: a number of talented affects people on Howling To, but
Speaker 2: Steve Johnson was the guy that they sent to out
Speaker 2: in the field to the then Czechoslovakia set and the
Speaker 2: locations to make everything happen, to open up boxes that
Speaker 2: had been shipped from from Hollywood with props and effects
Speaker 2: pieces that had in many cases not and completed yet
Speaker 2: or famously at least, the allegation is that some of
Speaker 2: the werewolf costumes were actually just leftover ape costumes from
Speaker 2: the Planet of the Apes television series and they're like, here,
Speaker 2: you go, do your best with it. And luckily you
Speaker 2: had some very scrappy effects guys out in the field
Speaker 2: who were up for the challenge, and they're like, all right,
Speaker 2: let's finish these things. Let's put it together. Let's make
Speaker 2: it work with what we got.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know what score you would get if
Speaker 3: you were just looking at the werewolf costumes and makeup
Speaker 3: effects in the movie in full direct lighting and getting
Speaker 3: a really good look at them, the way that you
Speaker 3: do get a good look at the werewolf effects in
Speaker 3: the original Howling, but the way the movie deploys them,
Speaker 3: I think you end up with with kind of a
Speaker 3: B plus on makeup effects here, because usually you are
Speaker 3: not getting a good square look at the at the costumes.
Speaker 3: There will be a lot of use of shadow of obscures,
Speaker 3: your you know, obscure furry silhouettes coming through the trees
Speaker 3: and stuff, some of which actually look quite nice. Overall,
Speaker 3: the movie is not a masterclass in cinematography, but occasionally
Speaker 3: there was a shot where I was like, well, that
Speaker 3: looks great, that's spooky.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking particularly of some of the use of the
Speaker 3: wooded locations, like the overgrown cemetery. There's some very nice
Speaker 3: shots of where wolves creeping through the trees there that
Speaker 3: I was like, that could be an excellent movie and
Speaker 3: it would fit right in. The Other thing that this
Speaker 3: movie does is a lot of extreme close ups of
Speaker 3: were wolves. So when a wolf where wolf is about
Speaker 3: to attack, you will get extreme close up of teeth
Speaker 3: and snout and fur that look pretty good. Uh, And
Speaker 3: then you don't get a whole lot of full perspective shots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's a great observation here.
Speaker 2: And it also helps that a lot of the film
Speaker 2: is concerned with the road to full on were wolf mode,
Speaker 2: so it's about people changing into and what we're doing
Speaker 2: while we're changing. So it allows us to dwell less
Speaker 2: on like the full wolf form in many cases, but
Speaker 2: in general, I would say that, Yeah, if the Howling
Speaker 2: was the first child that achieved great things on account
Speaker 2: of its own merits and hard work, Howling two is
Speaker 2: kind of like the second child who quickly who knows
Speaker 2: from the get go that it doesn't have the talent
Speaker 2: of the older sibling, but instead decides to just absolutely
Speaker 2: act out and prove just how much of a freak
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 3: Marsha, Marsha, Marshah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it achieves this marvelously, marvelously, And
Speaker 2: though your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for
Speaker 2: B movie weirdness. Now I have to add, I don't
Speaker 2: think I saw any of the Howling films when I
Speaker 2: was young, but I do remember their terrific poster and
Speaker 2: VHS box art, and the posters would be in the
Speaker 2: video rental stores as well. The first three, in particular,
Speaker 2: are all really great. The original Howling had this it
Speaker 2: looks like a woman with wolf claws clawing her way
Speaker 2: out of a I don't know, like a paper sack
Speaker 2: or something, or maybe it's supposed to be flesh. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then Howling two we have another wolf and woman
Speaker 2: clawing through the poster itself, and I believe this is
Speaker 2: supposed to be Civil Banning's character, the were wolf queen
Speaker 2: striba right, steer bus, steer bus. Sorry, I'm further away
Speaker 2: from my notes than usual. So some of the letters
Speaker 2: and a smaller printer are playing tricks on me. Yes,
Speaker 2: Stirba the were Wolf Queen, and then Howling three aka
Speaker 2: Howling three the Marsupials. At least the poster I grew
Speaker 2: up seeing on the walls doesn't really lean on the
Speaker 2: Marsupial thing too much and just shows like a ferocious
Speaker 2: wear creature again clawing through the poster or the VHS
Speaker 2: box art. The were wolves in the Howling movies, this
Speaker 2: initial trilogy anyway, it's implied that they are going to
Speaker 2: come out of the media and attack you. That's the
Speaker 2: kind of experience you can expect. And as a child,
Speaker 2: I was like, that looks like too much for me,
Speaker 2: too much wearable faction for me.
Speaker 3: But did you notice how across the three posters the
Speaker 3: material that is being slashed through changes, so you said,
Speaker 3: in the first poster, it's this opaque, leathery looking maybe
Speaker 3: it's like vellum or something. It's like an opaque kind
Speaker 3: of tan material that's being slashed through. And the second one,
Speaker 3: Queen steerba here is slashing through like darkness itself, cutting
Speaker 3: through this black void to come out from beyond it.
Speaker 3: There's almost something kind of metaphysical about that. And then
Speaker 3: in the third one, the worlf is slashing through a
Speaker 3: translucent gossamer sheet, almost like implying something kind of of
Speaker 3: a bedtime nightgown feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and then that wor wolf looks really wild,
Speaker 2: like there's no bargaining with that werewolf. So check out
Speaker 2: those posters if you get a chance. But yeah, this
Speaker 2: film is a glorious mess. And to be clear, you know,
Speaker 2: well ahead of us getting into the plot, there are
Speaker 2: plenty of big and small things in this film that
Speaker 2: just don't add up, like scene to scene that don't
Speaker 2: make sense, and then also larger issues of plot and
Speaker 2: character relationship where you have to do a fair amount
Speaker 2: of mental gymnastics to even attain a sort of head
Speaker 2: canon that lets everything keep stay halfway stable.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Another thing that's funny about this movie is the
Speaker 3: awkward the awkwardness in the dialogue. Again, this is not
Speaker 3: a John salescript. There you can like follow what the
Speaker 3: characters are saying in the dialogue like it all kind
Speaker 3: of makes sense, but frequently I was noticing that the
Speaker 3: conversation does not feel human, like there are these unnatural
Speaker 3: patterns of information flow where people either state things much
Speaker 3: too suddenly without naturalistic hesitation or preparation, or they restate
Speaker 3: things that don't make any sense to say again, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it'll be fun to call some examples of
Speaker 2: this when we get into the plot. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a terrifically fun film. It embraces its cheesy B
Speaker 2: movie vibes. It delivers some cool monster scenes, like we've
Speaker 2: been saying, hammer esque Gothic vibes that are really nice.
Speaker 2: Filmed in an actual castle. So the castle scenes, especially
Speaker 2: a lot of candle candle lighting and all, I thought
Speaker 2: looked pretty great. And also you have some neat elements
Speaker 2: of werewolf eroticism that I think are pretty interesting. As
Speaker 2: I've discussed on the show before, I tend to tire
Speaker 2: of werewolf media that airs too masculine, and I love
Speaker 2: even a shallow exploration of feminine lacanthropy and so general listeners,
Speaker 2: we are in the shallow end of the pool on
Speaker 2: this one, but there's still a great deal of fun
Speaker 2: splashing around in those waters.
Speaker 3: No, it's true, this one is very much about werewolf ladies.
Speaker 3: And yeah, we've talked about this on the show multiple
Speaker 3: times before, but a lot of werewolf media to emphasize
Speaker 3: kind of especially bipedal wear wolves as like V shaped musclemen. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but here, Yeah, there's a different take. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, when it comes to the elevator pitch for this
Speaker 2: one for want for starters, I don't think I can
Speaker 2: really top what it actually said on the VHS boxes,
Speaker 2: and that is the rocking, shocking new wave of horror.
Speaker 2: Pretty great. And then I also saw an interview where
Speaker 2: Feliet Moore, the director, called this film the Hammer movie
Speaker 2: they never made, which I think is pretty good because
Speaker 2: it is there are a lot of elements to the plot,
Speaker 2: into the setting that do feel very Hammer horror Gothic,
Speaker 2: but clearly taking it in directions that hammer horror films
Speaker 2: tended not to go well.
Speaker 3: It feels more like the later Hammer films, the seventies
Speaker 3: Hammer films that were leaning more into the erotic elements
Speaker 3: and got a little zanier in the different plot elements
Speaker 3: they would throw together, and it just feels like taking
Speaker 3: that sensibility and extending it even further in to the eighties,
Speaker 3: so it's seventies hammer horror, but with punk new wave
Speaker 3: eighties noss.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, all right. Well, if you're wondering, hey, how
Speaker 2: can I watch The Howling Too, Well, it's widely available
Speaker 2: at this point. For my first viewing, I watched it
Speaker 2: on a streaming service on an airplane, which this was
Speaker 2: always this is a sort of film. It's a fun
Speaker 2: exercise of Yeah, when the werewolves start getting naked, you
Speaker 2: have to sort of like lean over and watch it,
Speaker 2: kind of huddle positions so you don't alarm anyone behind you.
Speaker 2: But it was a pretty fun flight viewing. And then
Speaker 2: my subsequent viewing of it came via the excellent Vinegar
Speaker 2: syndrome Blu ray. This one right here comes with loads
Speaker 2: of extras. I really enjoyed it. This one's going in
Speaker 2: the collection for sure.
Speaker 3: Wait, was The Howling Too? You mean one of the
Speaker 3: films that was selected by the airline service the stream
Speaker 3: on the Okay, you had it on your own device.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I pre downloaded it so that I had it
Speaker 2: on my phone and then I could watch it. And
Speaker 2: generally I'll do a mix. I have a little little
Speaker 2: cardboard stand. I can set it on on the little
Speaker 2: tray table, watch it that way, and if things get
Speaker 2: a little violin or a little spicy, then I can,
Speaker 2: you know, I can sort of lean over it and
Speaker 2: make sure I have a little more privacy on those scenes.
Speaker 3: It would be amazing if there was an in flight
Speaker 3: streaming service that catered to our taste that, you know,
Speaker 3: sometimes those selections on the airplane get they're very mainstream.
Speaker 3: A lot of like recent big budget movies that somehow
Speaker 3: I never even heard of, and it's like every you know,
Speaker 3: multi hundred million dollar movie that came out two years
Speaker 3: before that I didn't know existed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I have some good experience. I
Speaker 2: think I did watch in Godzilla for the first time
Speaker 2: on an airplane. That was pretty great. Sometimes they'll have
Speaker 2: some older films, just depending on who you're flying with. Sometimes,
Speaker 2: you know, especially if you're using a foreign airlines, you
Speaker 2: get some remarkable insight into contemporary foreign pictures. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I do wish there were more Werewolf films available on
Speaker 2: these and certainly more B films because generally, I don't know,
Speaker 2: when I'm on an airplane, I need some solid distraction.
Speaker 2: I'm more inclined to watch Franken Hooker than I am
Speaker 2: to watch whatever is nominated for an OSCAR this year.
Speaker 2: Though we do have some delightfully weird films nominated for
Speaker 2: Oscars this year.
Speaker 3: I have not kept tracks, so I do you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll have to talk after the mics are off,
Speaker 2: because there are a couple of really good ones that
Speaker 2: I like. All right, let's get into the cast and
Speaker 2: crew here. So we've mentioned him already, but Felipe Mora
Speaker 2: is the director here. Born nineteen forty nine, French born
Speaker 2: Australian director whose first big feature film was Mad Dog
Speaker 2: Morgan in seventy six that starred Dennis Hopper. Then came
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two as The Beast Within starring Ronnie Cox.
Speaker 2: Have you seen this one, Joe?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. Wait a minute. That's not a
Speaker 3: remake of the Beast with Five Fingers?
Speaker 2: Is it? No? This is I haven't seen it either,
Speaker 2: but it's it seems pretty dark, pretty bonkers, and I
Speaker 2: think people turn into cicadas in it. That's based on
Speaker 2: what I was like. There's some sort of beast transformation,
Speaker 2: but I think it leans more insect than Wolf.
Speaker 3: Okay, I gotta check that out, and it's got Kohagen. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2: So he followed this film up with the by all
Speaker 2: accounts bonkers pop musical comedy The Return of Captain Invincible
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two. This one stars Alan Arkin and
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee and Christopher I don't know about Alan Arkin,
Speaker 2: but Christopher Lee definitely sings in this one, so we
Speaker 2: may have to come back.
Speaker 3: Be Still my Heart.
Speaker 2: Then came the nineteen eighty three bald eagle conservation action
Speaker 2: film A Breed Apart, starring Rugger Howard Powers Booth, Kathleen Turner,
Speaker 2: and Donald Pleasants.
Speaker 3: It's a bald eagle conservation action film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think people. I haven't seen this one, but
Speaker 2: it's like, I'm assuming Donald Pleasants is trying to eagle
Speaker 2: eggs perhaps to eat, and I'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 2: guess that Powers Booth is the guy that he has
Speaker 2: hired to do this.
Speaker 3: He's a poacher for hire, and Rutgar Howard speaks for
Speaker 3: the Eagles. That's for Lore Acts of the Eagles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely from that period where Howard is like, I
Speaker 2: only play good guys. I don't play bad guys. I
Speaker 2: want to save some bald eagles. So Kathleen Turner is
Speaker 2: I'm guessing a conservationist and love interest. I think we
Speaker 2: probably predicted the whole screenplay right there.
Speaker 3: I think, so, okay, But after this, do we get
Speaker 3: to Howling Two?
Speaker 2: We do Howling too, as we're talking about now, followed
Speaker 2: up by the eighty six war slash crime drama Death
Speaker 2: of a Soldier, and then he comes back to Howling
Speaker 2: Country with the legendarily weird Howling three of the Marsupials,
Speaker 2: and at this point in his career, yes, it is
Speaker 2: time to direct a Christopher Walken movie. Eighty nine's communion
Speaker 2: that this is one a number of you are going
Speaker 2: to be familiar with, an alien abduction drama about the
Speaker 2: Wolfen and the Hunger, author Whitley Striber, featuring a memorable
Speaker 2: dance number between Walkin's character, you know, playing the author
Speaker 2: and gray aliens. It's it's one of these that I've
Speaker 2: never seen this one in full. I've only seen segments
Speaker 2: of it, but those segments are pretty spectacular.
Speaker 3: Do I understand correctly that the author here claimed this
Speaker 3: was a true story?
Speaker 2: That is my loose understanding of it. I'm not a
Speaker 2: I'm not a big expert on his accounts, but it's
Speaker 2: my understanding that this is supposed to be his. I
Speaker 2: think his he allegedly has actual experiences with aliens. Take
Speaker 2: that for he has had paranormal experiences, and those are
Speaker 2: depicted to some extent in his in Communion.
Speaker 3: I was asking what he claimed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll have to come back. Maybe we'll
Speaker 2: cover communion in the future and we can break that
Speaker 2: down a little bit more. But it's my understanding the Yeah,
Speaker 2: he famously wrote about where wolves and vampires, but believe
Speaker 2: in either of those, but the matter was different concerning aliens.
Speaker 2: Let's see. As for our director here, Phelipe Moura, still active,
Speaker 2: still busting out films, one of the more recent ones,
Speaker 2: and by that I mean the last three or four decades.
Speaker 2: He did one call ninety six called Pterodactyl Women from
Speaker 2: Beverly Hills. But it doesn't look like he's slowing down.
Speaker 2: Looks like he still has a number of projects coming together. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, Coming to the writing, we have Gary Brandner.
Speaker 2: He has original novel and screenplay credit here. So he
Speaker 2: lived nineteen thirty through twenty thirteen and he was an
Speaker 2: American horror author, best known for his trilogy of Howling novels.
Speaker 2: These are the novels that were two varying degrees the
Speaker 2: basis for the Howling movies, and they came out in
Speaker 2: seventy seven, seventy nine, and eighty five. I was looking online.
Speaker 2: If you get your books digitally these days, you can
Speaker 2: get all three original Howling novels in a single volume
Speaker 2: and you can give that as an e book.
Speaker 3: But he was, I'm just I maybe I'll be proven wrong,
Speaker 3: but this movie does not feel to me like it
Speaker 3: was closely based on a novel.
Speaker 2: I do not believe it was, even though he apparently
Speaker 2: did the initial adaptation. But it's one of those situations
Speaker 2: where you know, his first novel was adapted. He wasn't
Speaker 2: involved into the Howling, and then when they were making
Speaker 2: the Howling too, they were like, all right, we're gonna
Speaker 2: bring him on board. He's the author, let's have him
Speaker 2: do the adaptation. But then it goes through a couple
Speaker 2: of different adaptation cycles where they're like, all right, we're
Speaker 2: going to do it, but we have to shoot it
Speaker 2: in If memory serves, they were going to shoot it
Speaker 2: in Spain at one point and so he you know,
Speaker 2: and these are the budgetary constraints, and he had made
Speaker 2: those changes, and then more changes occurred, and at some
Speaker 2: point he just steps off the project, and you know,
Speaker 2: it gets passed on to a different screenwriter who were
Speaker 2: about to get to But yeah, Brander was really prolific.
Speaker 2: Let's see the Howling for the original Nightmare is said
Speaker 2: to be a more faithful adaptation of his original book,
Speaker 2: and other adaptations of his written work include nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: eight Cameron's Closet and the nineteen eighty nine TV movie
Speaker 2: From the Dead of Night that was based on his
Speaker 2: novel Walkers. But yeah, he wrote good at least a
Speaker 2: couple a dozen horror novels back in the day. And
Speaker 2: I think he even maybe it was The Howling had
Speaker 2: a if I'm not mistaken that Howling might have had
Speaker 2: at least in one of its printings had a Stephen
Speaker 2: King blurb on the cover.
Speaker 3: M So, I don't remember if I have seen the
Speaker 3: Howlings four, five, and six. I know I've seen one, two, three, seven,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen seven. Seven is the one in the
Speaker 3: American Southwest with like Cowboy.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I haven't heard what I've seen one, two, three,
Speaker 2: and five. I've seen the one that's the Freaks that
Speaker 2: has Bruce Payne is a vampire in it.
Speaker 3: I don't remember if I've seen that. I don't recall it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a time when the Howling movies were
Speaker 2: kind of they were just part of the like the
Speaker 2: cable wasteland that you would encounter late at night. So
Speaker 2: I think that's I saw. Some of my spotty viewing
Speaker 2: of Howling films came from there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's possible four, five, and six have been on
Speaker 3: in rooms where I was, but I don't think I
Speaker 3: have paid attention to those movies.
Speaker 2: The actual screenplay credit here goes to Robert Sarno. Sarno
Speaker 2: is responsible for the vast majority of the script we
Speaker 2: have here. His only other writing credit on the databases
Speaker 2: is ninety five's Decoy, an action film starring Peter Weller
Speaker 2: and Robert Patrick. So we get RoboCop and Terminator two
Speaker 2: coming together. I don't know what they're doing. I think
Speaker 2: it's just like a mercenary action picture.
Speaker 3: It's about duck hunting.
Speaker 2: Maybe. So all right, let's get into the cast. Top
Speaker 2: billing here is Christopher Lee playing Stefan, the were wolf, hunter.
Speaker 3: Stefan. His name is Stefan Crossco, which I dare you
Speaker 3: not to accidentally say Chrisco, especially since his name is Christoph.
Speaker 2: Yes, Stephan Crossco, and sometimes they call him Crossco. Sometimes
Speaker 2: they refer to him by his last name, sometimes by
Speaker 2: his first name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but to Queen Steerba, he is Stephan, because we
Speaker 3: will learn that they have it. There's a history between them.
Speaker 2: Yes, Christopher Lee, of course legend I lived nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: two through twenty fifteen. This is our eighth Christopher Lee
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema, putting him in the lead
Speaker 2: currently of actors whose films we've covered thus far in
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. And of course we don't have to
Speaker 2: We don't have to tell you who Christopher Lee was.
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee was Dracula, he was Sorrowman. He was Lord
Speaker 2: summer Isle. He was Count Dooku, he was King Haggard,
Speaker 2: and many more, always bringing a smoldering, dignified presence to
Speaker 2: even the shakiest of projects, and more than proving his
Speaker 2: worth as an actor in the roles that allowed him
Speaker 2: to really shake things up and stand out, so an
Speaker 2: all time great, to be sure.
Speaker 3: Bringing Christopher Lee into your movie is kind of like
Speaker 3: lighting a candle in a room. You know, whatever else
Speaker 3: is in the room, the room might have some tacky decor,
Speaker 3: it might have some you know, plastic everywhere, but once
Speaker 3: you light a candle, something in the room does feel
Speaker 3: a little more connected with the ancient and the spiritual
Speaker 3: and the powerful. It becomes more dignified and sacred by
Speaker 3: the presence of candlelight. Christopher Lee is like that. He
Speaker 3: of course fits right in with a good script and
Speaker 3: you know, in his kind of horror and gothic horror
Speaker 3: and high fantasy settings. But bring him even into a
Speaker 3: more plastic environment and he becomes the candle light that
Speaker 3: dignifies and mystifies it somewhat.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. There are plenty of examples in this film
Speaker 2: where he's providing voiceover narration, or it's you know, an
Speaker 2: actual scene interaction between characters, and you're like, you're buying
Speaker 2: into what he's laying down. You're like, yeah, yeah, Lee,
Speaker 2: he is right, like the dawn of the Werewolf is
Speaker 2: nearly here, and it's backed up by biblical evidence. If
Speaker 2: you take two seconds to analyze any of it, you're like,
Speaker 2: that was nonsense. But Lee makes us believe, at least
Speaker 2: in the moment.
Speaker 3: There were a number of his scenes in this movie
Speaker 3: where the first time I watched them, I was just
Speaker 3: kind of like, oh, okay, I was trying to follow.
Speaker 3: And then when I went back to make notes and
Speaker 3: I typed out the words that he had said, I
Speaker 3: was like, what the part about when they get We're
Speaker 3: gonna have to discuss his allegation that Queen Steerba is
Speaker 3: going to reverse the process of evolution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, raises so many questions that are not answered.
Speaker 2: One of the fun questions to always answer regarding an
Speaker 2: actor of this stature and with so many credits and
Speaker 2: him film like this is like, where was he in
Speaker 2: his career? I think we might generally say that these
Speaker 2: were the Hollywood years. This like the eighties and into
Speaker 2: the nineties. These were years when I'm to understand Lee
Speaker 2: had moved to Hollywood, he was making a determined effort
Speaker 2: to put behind him Hammer horror, and you know, thinking
Speaker 2: that it was limiting his options back home. And he
Speaker 2: was appearing in a number of number of different sorts
Speaker 2: of films. There were some, you know, some fantasy films,
Speaker 2: various comedies, so to a certain extent, he was kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, stretching his legs a little bit and trying
Speaker 2: on different sorts of roles. But I don't know, there
Speaker 2: are a lot of films in this period that are
Speaker 2: kind of forgettable. There are some standouts like eighty Two's
Speaker 2: of the Last Unicorn, in which he is the voice
Speaker 2: of King Haggard who has captured all of the unicorns.
Speaker 2: Pretty great role. And then even into the nineties, I mean,
Speaker 2: you get things like Grimlin's two, during which he apparently
Speaker 2: apologized to Joe Dante for the Howling two, which I
Speaker 2: think is unnecessary. I think Dante Dante gets it, but
Speaker 2: you know, and then there's like The Rainbow Thief, but
Speaker 2: in some other curios. But really it's not until Fellowship
Speaker 2: of the Ring in two thousand and one that it
Speaker 2: seems to me that Lee like really sort of comes
Speaker 2: back into full stature and people begin to really take
Speaker 2: note of him again. And you know, I'm not just
Speaker 2: say that every everything he's in after that point is golden,
Speaker 2: but you kind of see this later portion of his
Speaker 2: career that has a number of standouts in it.
Speaker 3: He experienced a marvelous resurrection of his career in the
Speaker 3: early two thousands due to Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it almost feels at times like
Speaker 2: the people knew that the Lord of the Rings was
Speaker 2: coming one way or another. And I think a number
Speaker 2: of people knew that this is the only guy who
Speaker 2: can play Soomon.
Speaker 3: And who else could have been Samon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, They're like, just keep him active, keep him acting
Speaker 2: and things that are gonna you know, keep him limber.
Speaker 2: But we need we need to contain his energy, we
Speaker 2: need to prepare him, we need to hold on to
Speaker 2: him and keep him with us until we can make
Speaker 2: these movies. M all right. So that's Christopher Lee easily
Speaker 2: the best act during this film, but not the only actor.
Speaker 2: Moving through some of the other human characters. We can
Speaker 2: argue to what degree Stephan is human or mortal? A
Speaker 2: number of questions there. But we have Jenny and Ben.
Speaker 2: These are our two human protagonists, really, and.
Speaker 3: God bless them. You know they're trying.
Speaker 2: I mean they're sandwiched in here between Christopher Lee, Sybil Danning,
Speaker 2: and a whole bunch of were wolves and they're doing
Speaker 2: their best. And you know, at least with Ben, the
Speaker 2: character of Ben, he does stand out. We'll get to
Speaker 2: him the second but first Jenny, played by Annie McEnroe
Speaker 2: born nineteen fifty five, American actress with some fun genre
Speaker 2: credits here, beginning with the TV movie Snowbeast in seventy seven.
Speaker 3: Have you seen that one?
Speaker 2: I haven't. I've heard good things about it, though. This
Speaker 2: one is one that I think there's a lot of
Speaker 2: excitement about recently.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, I don't know what the recent excitement is.
Speaker 3: I just know because I saw it on I think VHS,
Speaker 3: probably a long long time ago. It's like a so
Speaker 3: the idea is it so a rip off of Jaws.
Speaker 3: It's like the structure of Jaws, but with a yetti
Speaker 3: instead of a shark.
Speaker 2: There you go. Ok it sounds great.
Speaker 3: But what was the recent news about it?
Speaker 2: I think it just received new attention. I can't remember.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what form it took. It might have
Speaker 2: taken the form of a wrist track coverage, or maybe
Speaker 2: it was like just a You know, some of these
Speaker 2: films will get a new DVD Blu Ray release and
Speaker 2: people will get excited about them again, unless I'm confusing
Speaker 2: it with another snow based horror movie, which is possible.
Speaker 3: Okay, well I have to come back to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So McEnroe follows this up with such films as
Speaker 2: Oliver Stone's The Hand in eighty one, Battle Truck in
Speaker 2: eighty two. She followed up Howling two with a cameo
Speaker 2: in Michael Mann's Manhunter And That was in eighty six,
Speaker 2: and then a supporting role in David Byrne's True Stories.
Speaker 2: She also has a performer credit in That Wall Street
Speaker 2: in eighty seven, Beatlejuice in eighty eight. She's the real
Speaker 2: litter in That enrolls in several subsequent Oliver Stone films.
Speaker 2: She met her husband, producer Edward R. Press And on
Speaker 2: the set of The Hand.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, just earlier, I asked a movie. I
Speaker 3: asked if a movie was a remake of Beast with
Speaker 3: Five Fingers. But Oliver Stone's The Hand is a remake
Speaker 3: of Beast with Five Fingers.
Speaker 2: Essentially, right. Yeah, it's a disembodied hand slash transplant movie. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I must have seen this in the notes and subconsciously
Speaker 3: been thinking about it or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one I've wanted to revisit for a while.
Speaker 2: That one. That's probably one of my favorite Oliver Stone films.
Speaker 3: I mean no offense to Annie McEnroe. She seems great,
Speaker 3: but a kind of bewildered performance in the movie. I
Speaker 3: think she's just getting through it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And then we have Ben, and Ben is
Speaker 2: played by B movie action powerhouse Reb Brown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, speaking of bewildering but a frequently bewildering action star.
Speaker 3: I have suggested on the show before that we sometimes
Speaker 3: just do a Reb Brown film festival series because he
Speaker 3: is in so many weird B movies. He's in the
Speaker 3: Italian leather diaper barbarian movie Your Hunter from the Future,
Speaker 3: directed by Antonio Margheriti, which is no. I think he
Speaker 3: made a movie we've done on the show before. Was
Speaker 3: it a cannibal Apocalypse? Is that right?
Speaker 2: Was that the Margeriti film? I know we have covered too,
Speaker 2: think so yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: And Reb Brown was also in a ripoff of Predator
Speaker 3: I think maybe an Italian Filipino ripoff of Predator called
Speaker 3: Robo war Ye, which that one is not especially watchable.
Speaker 3: A lot of it's just kind of boring, like commandos
Speaker 3: walking around in the jungle, but there are some very
Speaker 3: funny parts in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Reb Brown is He's the for my taste anyway,
Speaker 2: the perfect sort of B movie muscle bound action hero
Speaker 2: because you have that nice combination of Yes, he's big
Speaker 2: and muscly and objectively handsome, but he is also awkward
Speaker 2: on screen. Yes, in this film especially. I mean it's
Speaker 2: in the and I love him. I don't mean any
Speaker 2: of this as a dig. Like, if you give me
Speaker 2: the choice between Reb Brown and I don't know the
Speaker 2: Barbarian Brothers or I don't know even any number of
Speaker 2: very competent muscle actors, I'm going to say, please put
Speaker 2: Reb Brown in there, because he is entertaining.
Speaker 3: Always love a Reb Brown performance, even though it is frequently,
Speaker 3: as I said, bewildering. A lot of strange choices in
Speaker 3: the line delivery is just kind of why did he
Speaker 3: have that inflection? I don't know, but they kept it,
Speaker 3: and it's I'm glad they did.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean a lot of people are going to
Speaker 2: know him best from the nineteen eighty eight sci fi
Speaker 2: epics Space Mutiny, which was riffed on MS two three K.
Speaker 2: That was the one that co starred John Philip Law,
Speaker 2: Cameron Mitchell, and Reb's wife Sissy Cameron.
Speaker 3: And he's blast hard cheese. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So many scenes in that film are him firing a
Speaker 2: weapon and letting out just this primal scream like that's
Speaker 2: just bewildering. It's just bewildering. And he gets to do
Speaker 2: that all the time in this movie as well.
Speaker 3: Shoots the gun, either before or after he shoots the gun,
Speaker 3: or before or after he charges in to tackle someone
Speaker 3: gravelly high pitched shriek, which is kind of his signature
Speaker 3: move that really distinguished him from the other meat meat
Speaker 3: based musclemen of the time. Like, you know, Red Brown
Speaker 3: is never going to be as big a movie star
Speaker 3: as Arnold or Stallone, but they do not shriek like this.
Speaker 3: You will remember him because he's the only one that shrieks.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yeah, he's so he's tremendous. Inness loved him.
Speaker 2: Let's see, I'll briefly mentioned a few of the things
Speaker 2: he was in. He's Captain America twice on TV.
Speaker 3: I've thought we should maybe do one of these, one
Speaker 3: of the alternative Captain America movies from before the Marvel renaissance.
Speaker 3: There are actually multiple ones. There is the one directed
Speaker 3: by Albert Pyune that has JD. Saliner's son and that
Speaker 3: Captain America Captain America, and then there are also the
Speaker 3: Red Brown ones, which I haven't seen. The Red Brown ones,
Speaker 3: but I'm very interested.
Speaker 2: One of them has Christopher Lee in it, presumably is
Speaker 2: the villain, so it looks good. He did a lot
Speaker 2: of TV work. He was on stuff like The Love
Speaker 2: Boat Three's Company back in the day. Yeah. He followed
Speaker 2: up Halloween two with Death of a Soldier, which I
Speaker 2: mentioned previously, and yeah, just been in a ton of
Speaker 2: a ton of action films over the years and then
Speaker 2: occasionally shows up in stuff like he has a minor
Speaker 2: role in nineteen ninety one's Flight of the Intruder. But
Speaker 2: you don't want Red Brown in a minor role. You
Speaker 2: want in front center. And that's what this film offers.
Speaker 2: All right. Moving on, Yeah, let's talk about Sybil Danning,
Speaker 2: who plays Sturba in this film. The Werewolf Queen born
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty Austrian American b movie queen of the seventies
Speaker 2: and eighties. We've talked about her before in our episode
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties Battle Beyond the Stars and nineteen eighty three's Hercules.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, Yeah, I definitely remembered her from Battle beyond
Speaker 3: the Stars, in which she plays a kind of gleaming
Speaker 3: armored angel alien.
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, her costumes and these films are often extravagant
Speaker 2: and amazing, and the same is true of this film
Speaker 2: as Volk We'll get to.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean When I say a
Speaker 3: Sybil Danning performance, she often seems to be performing in
Speaker 3: a costume from a different film. Yes, yes, does that
Speaker 3: make it's the case in this one too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, she had a designated costume designer on this film.
Speaker 2: This was, in fact Peter Mitchell. His credit is Costume
Speaker 2: Designer Sibyl Danning. He was an Australian fashion designer turned
Speaker 2: costume designer for Australian ballets, operas and theatrical productions before
Speaker 2: making the move to la where he was working at
Speaker 2: the time. And so all of her costumes were designed,
Speaker 2: fitted multiple times and then shipped out to then Czechoslovakia
Speaker 2: for the shoot.
Speaker 3: So, her character in this movie is supposed to be
Speaker 3: like an ancient vampire queen, and the first time we
Speaker 3: see her, she's dressed in an old kind of crone's
Speaker 3: robe before she has a magical sort of vampiric rejuvenation
Speaker 3: process go through. But so when we first see her,
Speaker 3: it seems like she's in line with this old world aesthetic.
Speaker 3: She's like a witch from the Middle Ages or something.
Speaker 3: But then she spends i don't know, the other sixty
Speaker 3: percent of the movie wearing like a fim Darth Vader outfit. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a like a very feminine body shape, emphasizing black
Speaker 3: leather and metal pieces. Robotic kind of design.
Speaker 2: Yeah, made from real leather, real brass, and gives her
Speaker 2: the look like she just came off of a runway. Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: You can't think to her about where this costume came from,
Speaker 2: but she does look pretty fabulous in it. So Danning
Speaker 2: started out in erotic and sexploitation films of the seventies.
Speaker 2: She was a model turned actress, but steadily worked her
Speaker 2: way into more mainstream pictures like seventy two's Bluebeard and
Speaker 2: the Gallo, The Red Queen Kills seven seven Times. Sorry
Speaker 2: had a page jump there, The Red Red Queen Kills
Speaker 2: seven Times. Do you know this one, Joe?
Speaker 3: I've seen it, but I forgot she was in it.
Speaker 3: It's been a while since I've seen it. This is
Speaker 3: one of those it's a very jallo title. It's a
Speaker 3: whole sentence.
Speaker 2: There's a nice interview with her on the Vinegar Syndrome
Speaker 2: disc and she points out that this kind of like
Speaker 2: jump from European cinema, like European low budget cinema to
Speaker 2: bigger budget Hollywood affairs meant that she no longer had
Speaker 2: to apply her own makeup using a mirror hanging on
Speaker 2: a tree, which was a fun, fun example that she
Speaker 2: drew here. Like even with a film like Howling Too,
Speaker 2: she's in an example, she's in a case, she's in
Speaker 2: a film where she's getting professional makeup and professional costume design.
Speaker 3: One thing I have read about Sybil Danning is it
Speaker 3: seems like she had a great sense of humor about
Speaker 3: being in ridiculous B movies, not somebody who was like,
Speaker 3: you know, annoyed or thought that this was beneath her.
Speaker 3: It's like she thinks this is hilarious and just having
Speaker 3: a great time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she was. The extras for this. She was
Speaker 2: talking about like it was just super fun to play
Speaker 2: Queen of the Werewolves and just embody this this feminine
Speaker 2: character that has all of this power, gets to wear
Speaker 2: all of these cool outfits. So yeah, a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: There's one little story that she shares too. Apparently she
Speaker 2: showed up on set with a swollen eye from a
Speaker 2: spa mishap, like spa oil got in her eye, and
Speaker 2: this is a scene where she's gonna wear that brass
Speaker 2: and leather outfit, and she's like, you can't film me,
Speaker 2: like look in my eyes. This looks horrible. But Felipe
Speaker 2: More of the directors like, a, we can't lose any
Speaker 2: time on this and we can't burn a day of shooting.
Speaker 2: But then he says, let's get you some sunglasses and
Speaker 2: gets these pair of sunglasses four and she's like, well,
Speaker 2: what a thousand year old werewolf queen? Where are these?
Speaker 2: Like does this make sense? And More reportedly told her, Sybil,
Speaker 2: you're the queen of the werewolves. You can do whatever
Speaker 2: the hell you like. So I like that. But yeah,
Speaker 2: she has a ton of great credits. She was in
Speaker 2: The Three Musketeers in seventy three and it's seventy four
Speaker 2: sequel that I think we're filmed back to back. Those
Speaker 2: film featured Christopher Lee as well. She appeared in God's
Speaker 2: Gun in seventy six, starring Lee van Cleef Believe that's
Speaker 2: a spaghetti western. And amid all of this, she continued
Speaker 2: to appear in various genre films like eighty three's Chained Heat,
Speaker 2: a women's prison film with Linda Blair and John Vernon,
Speaker 2: fred Olin Ray's The Tomb in eighty six, which we
Speaker 2: might come back for The Phantom Empire in eighty eight.
Speaker 2: I believe that's also fred Olin Ray, and then a
Speaker 2: number of action films that kind of round out her
Speaker 2: main period of on screen activity. Eighty six is The
Speaker 2: Panther Squad, which she co produced and starred in, and
Speaker 2: La Bounty in eighty nine, which she co produced, co wrote,
Speaker 2: and starred in opposite Wingshuser. Oh Wings all right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: the late Wingshuser rip. And she's remained active as a
Speaker 2: producer and occasionally has acted, including in rob Zombies, were Wolf,
Speaker 2: Women of the ss Ground Grindhouse trailer, and she was
Speaker 2: also at least has some sort of a small role
Speaker 2: in his two thousand and seven Halloween remake.
Speaker 3: Oh, I haven't seen that since it came out. I
Speaker 3: forgot she was in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well again, As Roger Ebert said, no one presides over
Speaker 3: a ritual quite like Sybil Danning, and I think he's
Speaker 3: absolutely right. She she just seems born to like stand
Speaker 3: like this while the magic is going on, and people are,
Speaker 3: you know, kneeling before her.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, some great ceremonies in this one.
Speaker 3: However, we should point out that this movie does not
Speaker 3: only have one great werewolf woman villain. There's another one
Speaker 3: played by Marsha Hunt.
Speaker 2: That's right, playing Marianne. We've talked about Marshall Hunt before
Speaker 2: on the show because she was in well, she was
Speaker 2: in a few different films, so she was an eighty
Speaker 2: Two's the Sender, eighty threes, Never Say Never Again, but
Speaker 2: also Dracula AD nineteen seventy two, which of course starred
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee. Ah yeah, okay, yeah, so she was a model.
Speaker 2: It is Slash was a model, singer, actor, author, editor,
Speaker 2: and she was also famously in a relationship with Nick
Speaker 2: Jagger and the two had a daughter together.
Speaker 3: She also seems to really have a great sense of
Speaker 3: humor about what's going on here and does not hold back,
Speaker 3: plays up her like werewolf transformations and all that to
Speaker 3: the extent that the makeup effects can keep up. But yeah,
Speaker 3: she's great.
Speaker 2: She's good. She has some pretty good makeup in this one,
Speaker 2: though when she starts changing.
Speaker 3: Well, there are parts where she's not even like fully
Speaker 3: wolf mode. Like there's this shot of her kind of
Speaker 3: halfway there, like where her face is starting to change
Speaker 3: and she's just kind of looking back and forth and snarling,
Speaker 3: and they use the same shot like three different times
Speaker 3: in the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's also good at just embodying the wolf
Speaker 2: even when she's she hasn't started transforming yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she does a great howl, like standing in the
Speaker 3: middle of this empty warehouse, and that's great.
Speaker 2: We also have a male werewolf in the mix. We
Speaker 2: have Vlad, played by jud Omen born nineteen forty, American actor,
Speaker 2: best known for roles in eighty four's Red Red Dawn,
Speaker 2: eighty five's Peewee's Big Adventure, and also David Lynch's Done.
Speaker 2: We devoted two whole episodes of Weird House Cinema to
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty four adaptation of Doune, and the cast,
Speaker 2: of course, is so stacked that I don't think we
Speaker 2: even really properly mentioned Omen in that. But he played
Speaker 2: the Fremen Jamas in that, the one that Paul must
Speaker 2: overcome in single combat as he is entering into Fremen culture.
Speaker 3: Oh, I forgot about that. Okay, Yeah, but in this, Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's a werewolf here named Vlad. Who is I would
Speaker 3: say the other main werewolf apart from Stierba and Marianna.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think he's like Stierba's second in command
Speaker 2: sort of.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But anyway omens credits go, they go all the way
Speaker 2: back to an uncredited role in seventy three Serpico, with
Speaker 2: TV and film roles going up through I believe two
Speaker 2: thousand and five. His other films include eighty nine's Chud
Speaker 2: two Bud, The Chud, and The greens doll Man. And
Speaker 2: let's see just a couple of other quick references of
Speaker 2: people in this We have Ferdy Maine playing Earl. He
Speaker 2: lived nineteen sixteen through nineteen eighty eight. German born characteristic actor,
Speaker 2: best known for roles and the Fearless Vampire Killers in
Speaker 2: sixty seven where Eagles Dare in sixty eight, Conan the
Speaker 2: Destroyer in eighty four and eighty six is Pirates. Often
Speaker 2: played Germanic baddies and or vampires of sorts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I like his look as a henchman because
Speaker 3: he's not like a meaty muscle guy. He almost comes
Speaker 3: off as a professorial henchman.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then again, this film was shot a lot
Speaker 2: of it was shot in then Czechoslovakia, and we do
Speaker 2: have a number of check actors that have roles, including
Speaker 2: a diminutive check actor diminutive in height but not in talent,
Speaker 2: Yuri Critinar. I hope I'm saying that correctly. Critinar. He
Speaker 2: lived nineteen forty seven through twenty fifteen, and he plays
Speaker 2: this character. He's a good guy Vasili right, Vasila Yasila. Yeah,
Speaker 2: good guy and eventually some bad things are going to
Speaker 2: happen to him. But a fun role here. His credits
Speaker 2: go back to sixty nine and include such Check films
Speaker 2: as seventy three's Three Wishes for Cinderella and Jan schunk
Speaker 2: Meyer's Lunacy in two thousand and five, and even a
Speaker 2: count Bathory movie Bathory Countess of Blood from two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, alongside some other foreign productions that were filmed
Speaker 2: in then Czechoslovakia or later in the Czech Republic, including
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: As Amadaeis, he is involved in. I think both of
Speaker 3: the two creepiest scenes in the movie, both his death
Speaker 3: and his ignominious resurrection scene are like the actually scariest
Speaker 3: things in here.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. And then finally, the score. The score is
Speaker 2: pretty great here, and it is by Stephen W. Parsons
Speaker 2: born nineteen fifty one British rocker, composer, songwriter and record producer,
Speaker 2: best known outside of film for his work with the
Speaker 2: band Sharks, but he was also involved in various other
Speaker 2: bands and performs this movie's excellent theme song Howling with
Speaker 2: the band Babble, which I think was assembled for this
Speaker 2: picture out of some frequent collaborators of his.
Speaker 3: Okay, and so you actually see the band perform the
Speaker 3: song on stage in a scene in the film, and
Speaker 3: then you get to hear the song about eight more
Speaker 3: times before the whole guys get over. They play it
Speaker 3: so so much.
Speaker 2: It's one of these where I'm like, I hope you
Speaker 2: like the theme song because you're gonna hear it a lot,
Speaker 2: but you're gonna hear it so much you're probably gonna
Speaker 2: love it by the end. It's gonna win you over.
Speaker 2: You have no choice. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really gets in there, and it almost becomes
Speaker 3: this kind of background hum in the film, like you
Speaker 3: kind of stop noticing when Babel is playing again.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Parsons had never composed a film score before,
Speaker 2: but he cites Giorgio Moroder is a prime influence on
Speaker 2: the electro electronic stylings that are present here, with obvious
Speaker 2: new wave flavors as well. Parsons would go on to
Speaker 2: score numerous projects, including eighty nine's Food of the Gods
Speaker 2: Too and Hey nineteen ninety two Split Second, which we
Speaker 2: previously discussed on Weird House Cinema, a score that was
Speaker 2: allegedly selected over a Windy Carlos score if you can
Speaker 2: believe it.
Speaker 3: Wow, I have vague memories of that, but yeah, that's
Speaker 3: a strange choice. But yeah, how to describe this song
Speaker 3: by Babel that you keep hearing. I'd say it's the
Speaker 3: center of a venda diagram of Devo, Oingo Boingo and
Speaker 3: the Damned. So it has that new wave sensibility, a
Speaker 3: little bit of punk, a little bit of electronic. Does
Speaker 3: they play a key tar?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah apparently apparently the concert scene they
Speaker 2: shot in Czechoslovakia, but they had to like fly in
Speaker 2: a bunch of la garbage to properly illiterate, some of
Speaker 2: which got confiscated before it could enter. Like I think
Speaker 2: they were trying to bring in some playboys to be
Speaker 2: on the on the ground and they're like, no, can't
Speaker 2: bring this in a quick note on the locations here, again,
Speaker 2: much of the film's charm I think, I think comes
Speaker 2: from the great Czech locations and sets, like we see
Speaker 2: this castle at one point, we see Prague's medieval astronomical clock.
Speaker 2: And on top of this, we do have some scenes
Speaker 2: that were shot in the US, most for some reshoots
Speaker 2: and so forth. Most notably, Frank Lloyd writes in his
Speaker 2: house in la a home that has been featured in
Speaker 2: various films, including fifty nine's House on Haunted Hill and
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two's Blade Runner.
Speaker 3: Hmm, okay, is this Christopher Lee's house in the movie
Speaker 3: with the textured columns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can see those columns with that like signature,
Speaker 2: kind of like cube square repeating square pattern.
Speaker 3: There's a maze carved into the columns. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 3: are you ready to talk about the plot.
Speaker 2: Let's get into it. Let's make sense of it. Let's
Speaker 2: justify the ways of God demand here.
Speaker 3: We will make sense of it. We begin in outer
Speaker 3: space with the voice of Christopher Lee ringing in our ears.
Speaker 3: He says, for it is written, the inhabitants of the
Speaker 3: earth have been made drunk with her blood. And then
Speaker 3: at this point, an image of Christopher Lee in a
Speaker 3: suit and tie fades in superimposed on the starfield. He
Speaker 3: looks kind of like he's giving prepared remarks. He's like
Speaker 3: reading from a book or something, but of course it's
Speaker 3: just like you know, book of revelation stuff. Also, there
Speaker 3: is a skeleton hanging out behind him. Do you notice
Speaker 3: that just at his elbow, a skeleton.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So he goes on and I saw her sit upon
Speaker 3: the hairy beast, and she held forth a golden chalice
Speaker 3: full of the filthiness of her fornications, and upon her
Speaker 3: forehead was written, Behold, I am the Great Mother of
Speaker 3: Harlot's and all abominations of the Earth. So there's your
Speaker 3: your book of revelation stuff. Have we talked about recently?
Speaker 3: Why how come every horror movie that quotes the Bible
Speaker 3: it's always got to be the Book of Revelation. Why
Speaker 3: should do a horror movie that quotes the Sermon on
Speaker 3: the Mount or something.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's where all the wacky cryptic stuff is
Speaker 2: not all of the wacky cryptics.
Speaker 3: But I'm not I should have phrased that differently. It's
Speaker 3: not surprising why you go there, That's where a lot
Speaker 3: of the most ominous and dangerous sounding stuff is you know,
Speaker 3: the Yeah, the cryptic and monstrous imagery. I just feel
Speaker 3: like I'm it's played out, you know. Yeah, we've heard
Speaker 3: from the Book of Revelation and horror movies before. Let's
Speaker 3: let's let's source somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now does where do we see him holding the
Speaker 2: Book of Revelation here?
Speaker 3: Or is that I don't remember. I don't remember what
Speaker 3: we see. He's clearly reading from something.
Speaker 2: Okay, at some point I believe he's reading from Revelation,
Speaker 2: but it's the middle of the book, so I don't
Speaker 2: know which Bible this is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the one that had a lot of
Speaker 3: extra stuff, Yeah, the bonus chapters. So from here we
Speaker 3: go into what I thought was a breathtakingly ugly credit
Speaker 3: sequence because the text on the screen is in this
Speaker 3: zany font where the letters are read with blue outlines,
Speaker 3: so it looks almost like a three D effect, but
Speaker 3: this is not a three D movie. And also, in
Speaker 3: whatever font this is, the t's look like c's So
Speaker 3: this movie is scarring Christopher Lee or scarring Chris Koeperlee.
Speaker 3: And the credits music is this very eighties rock song.
Speaker 3: I guess this is probably the Babbel song. I made
Speaker 3: this note before we got to the Babbel scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, yeah, we hear the Babbel theme song a lot,
Speaker 2: so very likely, and I would agree this this is
Speaker 2: kind of an ugly way to start the picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the imagery here, I mean, the background image
Speaker 3: is kind of interesting. It's a montage of European castles
Speaker 3: and old mansions and these flashes of disturbing art, Like
Speaker 3: one of the close ups is a kind of copycat
Speaker 3: of Goya's painting of Saturn devouring his son, a bunch
Speaker 3: of somber faces and themes of witchcraft. Then we cut
Speaker 3: to and text on screen says Los Angeles, California, USA.
Speaker 3: Glad we know it's the one in USA, and then
Speaker 3: text on the screen after this as City of the Angels.
Speaker 2: And none of this is AP style guide.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So we go to an LA cathedral and join
Speaker 3: the congregation for a funeral where the priest is giving
Speaker 3: a eulogy that begins with the statement the death of
Speaker 3: anyone is a sad occasion. It feels kind of impersonal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like this one's supposed to be especially sad
Speaker 2: because this is our funeral.
Speaker 3: Come on, Also, this LA based priest has a British accent.
Speaker 3: He kind of sounds like Eric Idol, And I did
Speaker 3: not recognize the style of the vestments he's wearing. It
Speaker 3: looks kind of like an old time e Quaker outfit.
Speaker 3: So I don't know if that's a denomination. I don't
Speaker 3: know what the priests normally look like in But so,
Speaker 3: the funeral here is for a person named Karen White,
Speaker 3: who was the main character of the first Howling film,
Speaker 3: played by d Wallace. The corpse here is not d Wallace,
Speaker 3: it's somebody else playing this character, and the priest explains
Speaker 3: that she was murdered in the prime of her life,
Speaker 3: and then the eulogy takes a turn. He says it
Speaker 3: is small consolation for her family and friends, but it
Speaker 3: is a sign of the terrible times we live in,
Speaker 3: that the anonymous of violence characterizing our cities can claim
Speaker 3: the life of a human being for no reason at all.
Speaker 3: It's just just what everybody wants at their funeral, like
Speaker 3: a strident jeremiad against this six ad world. So anyway,
Speaker 3: while father in Law and Order here keeps blabbing, we
Speaker 3: pan over the crowd and we see several characters, the
Speaker 3: first one that automatically sticks out is Reb Brown. He's
Speaker 3: sitting in a pew between some much older people, and
Speaker 3: he is a whole head taller than everybody around him.
Speaker 3: He's wearing a western style blazer with a bowlow tie.
Speaker 3: And this is going to be the character Ben White,
Speaker 3: who is Karen's brother. He's some kind of wild West
Speaker 3: Montana lawman who has come into town for his sister's funeral.
Speaker 3: The camera also stops a couple of times to focus
Speaker 3: on a woman in the audience played by Annie McEnroe.
Speaker 3: This will be the character Jenny Templeton. She is a
Speaker 3: journalist who worked with Karen at the local LA news station.
Speaker 3: And then, finally, standing in the back of the church,
Speaker 3: we see Christopher Lee. There's no skeleton beside him now,
Speaker 3: he's just standing there behind the congregation, looking very solemn,
Speaker 3: staring at the floor. The priest's eulogy goes on to
Speaker 3: make the following points. He says, there's no way to
Speaker 3: bring Karen back from the dead. Usually do they specify that,
Speaker 3: But then he says her death. Says, however, her death
Speaker 3: might prove useful in that it causes us all to
Speaker 3: reflect on our lives, to believe in the power of
Speaker 3: love and to rid our thoughts, rid our hearts of
Speaker 3: all thoughts of hate. M okay, I just I have
Speaker 3: notes for this guy. He needs to work on his eulogizing.
Speaker 3: But then the whole church says amen, and I like
Speaker 3: how I think the third time they say amen, you
Speaker 3: can distinctly hear Christopher Lee's voice saying amen, like an
Speaker 3: octave below everybody else. Paul bearers carry the coffin away
Speaker 3: and they deposit it in some kind of crypt But
Speaker 3: the moment the coffin is shut up so no one
Speaker 3: else can see, we get a shot inside the coffin
Speaker 3: and Karen's eyes suddenly pop open.
Speaker 2: Oh, this is when I think we begin to connect
Speaker 2: the dots. This is the titular sister Yea, and she
Speaker 2: is Awarewolf. There you go, I think, So maybe somebody
Speaker 2: will clarify that for us later in the picture.
Speaker 3: Oh, they'll clarify a few times in the next scene.
Speaker 3: So we cut to the crowd at the cemetery leaving
Speaker 3: the funeral service, And at first I didn't know where
Speaker 3: the cemetery location was. As soon as I saw it,
Speaker 3: I was thinking I would be really surprised if this
Speaker 3: was actually shot in La. It's actually quite beautiful. It's
Speaker 3: this heavily overgrown forest graveyard with old headstones and monuments
Speaker 3: covered in vines, so it's very green and shady, with
Speaker 3: this full tree canopy overhead. There's ivy on all the
Speaker 3: tree trunks, a dappled sunlight coming through its beautiful environment.
Speaker 3: So I went and did a little digging online to
Speaker 3: see if I could figure out where this was. I
Speaker 3: am not positive, but I think this might be a
Speaker 3: place called Olshawnee or Olshanya Cemetery in Prague, which has
Speaker 3: a very romantic, overgrown appearance.
Speaker 2: Rob.
Speaker 3: I put a couple of pictures of this cemetery in
Speaker 3: the outline for you to look at. It has a
Speaker 3: similar appearance. So I think this is where it is.
Speaker 3: And it would make sense because the movie was largely
Speaker 3: shot in Prague, even though this part is supposed to
Speaker 3: be set in La.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Another example of how they really benefit from some
Speaker 2: of these locations.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So as the people are walking away from the mausoleum,
Speaker 3: we close in on two of them. It's Jenny who
Speaker 3: he saw at the funeral, and then another man, I
Speaker 3: guess her news editor, and he's saying, quote, I just
Speaker 3: phoned the station. The police leaked the story that six
Speaker 3: bodies were found mauled and killed by either wild dogs
Speaker 3: or coyotes. The coroner said that the marks found on
Speaker 3: the bodies were made by canine teeth. I want you
Speaker 3: to cover the story. Meet your film crew out at
Speaker 3: the Hollywood Reservoir. And the first time I saw it,
Speaker 3: I was just like, Okay, this is a weird thing
Speaker 3: to talk about at a funeral. But then on my rewatch,
Speaker 3: I was like, wait, he got a call from the
Speaker 3: police with these hot leaks at the mausoleum. That's where
Speaker 3: they're coming from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what's the editor doing out in the field.
Speaker 2: Usually the editors back at the Newsha.
Speaker 3: So wherever the phone was. This is a weird time,
Speaker 3: place and manner in which to get a TV news assignment.
Speaker 3: But the weirdness continues with this awkward dialogue. So after this,
Speaker 3: Ginny turns and she sees Christopher Lee talking to Reb
Speaker 3: Brown again. Reb Brown is playing Karen's brother Ben, and
Speaker 3: Christopher Lee says to him, almost whispering, your sister is alive.
Speaker 3: Ben says, are you sick, buddy? My sister's dead. And
Speaker 3: then Christopher Lee says it is her immortal soul which
Speaker 3: is in very grave danger. Ben says, I just buried
Speaker 3: my sister. Please leave me alone.
Speaker 2: One of the all time great cinematic pairings, Christopher Lee
Speaker 2: and Reb Brown amazing.
Speaker 3: So Christopher Lee gives Ben his card and tells him
Speaker 3: to call him later, and then Ben tells him, with
Speaker 3: evident irritation, to get out of here. So christpher Lee leaves,
Speaker 3: and then Jenny the journalist approaches Ben the law man
Speaker 3: and asks to see the card. She reads out loud.
Speaker 3: Stefan crossco a cult investigator. He's got cards printed up
Speaker 3: to say that. And that made me think, how do
Speaker 3: I get a job as an occult investigator?
Speaker 2: I think you can become one, and today it's entirely
Speaker 2: self employed, I would imagine.
Speaker 3: I guess maybe you have to be independently wealthy. You
Speaker 3: get the sense that Chris Frilly comes from money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there might be some sort of verification process like there,
Speaker 2: you know, you have to pass the online quiz or something.
Speaker 2: But I think it's probably pretty easy to become one,
Speaker 2: a little harder to make a living out of it.
Speaker 3: The licensing may be a bit of a headache. Let's see,
Speaker 3: so everybody's filing out of the cemetery, and here we
Speaker 3: meet a couple of other characters who stand aside watching
Speaker 3: them go. One is an older man in his seventies
Speaker 3: who's gaunt, with a white beard and dark circles under
Speaker 3: his eyes. He's wearing a flat cap and black leather gloves,
Speaker 3: holding a slightly withered bouquet. And this character we will
Speaker 3: later find out is called Earla.
Speaker 2: Earla. I may have caught him Earl earlier.
Speaker 3: Ear Well, it looks like could be Earl, but I
Speaker 3: think it's like a Germanic pronunciation, Earla. And then next
Speaker 3: to him is a beautiful woman of about forty with long,
Speaker 3: voluminous hair, wearing a black dress and a black lace
Speaker 3: veil over her eyes. She stands watching the people and
Speaker 3: she's kind of sneering, curling her lip at them a bit.
Speaker 3: This is the character Marianna, played by Marcia Hunt, and
Speaker 3: it's like, if you haven't seen this movie before, do
Speaker 3: you think these two characters are gonna be were wolves?
Speaker 3: And Earla leans over to Marianna and says it's Stefan,
Speaker 3: and they both snort unhappily. So they are familiar with
Speaker 3: his work, so they do not approve.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like how they they're setting him up though
Speaker 2: that like, this is not just a were wolf hunter
Speaker 2: or an or un occult investigator. This is a true
Speaker 2: enemy of the lichen thropes, and they they seem very
Speaker 2: they seem very fearful of him and take his threat
Speaker 2: very seriously.
Speaker 3: I feel like this scene would make more sense if
Speaker 3: Stefan had come from out of town to this funeral,
Speaker 3: but he's just La based, which is odd. So Jenny
Speaker 3: runs out after Christopher Lee and confronts him awkwardly through
Speaker 3: a wrought iron gate to ask him what he knows
Speaker 3: about Karen's death. Stephan says, I know that she is
Speaker 3: a werewolf, then walks away. And then there is a
Speaker 3: scene that happens many times in this film where a
Speaker 3: character tells another character what a different character just said.
Speaker 3: So Jenny tells Ben about the exchange. He doesn't believe it,
Speaker 3: and then suddenly we cut to inside Karen's coffin and
Speaker 3: she is screaming and scratching at the wood. Then we're
Speaker 3: going to cut to the club. This is the music
Speaker 3: club scene we talked about earlier. This scene is a
Speaker 3: lot the plot relevant thing here is that there are
Speaker 3: these three creep hooligans who are hanging out at a
Speaker 3: music club. And it's that thing we've talked about before
Speaker 3: from movies from the eighties, like you get this in
Speaker 3: Return of the Living Dead, where it's a group of
Speaker 3: people but each one is dressed as a different fashion subculture. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you've got three guys together and like one is
Speaker 3: a punk, one is a rocker, and one is new wave.
Speaker 3: But they're all creep hooligans. They're hanging out watching the band.
Speaker 3: They start talking to Marianna, who's there at the bar.
Speaker 3: She's the sneering lady from the funeral. They start making
Speaker 3: some vulgar passes at her and she's like, hey, I
Speaker 3: like these vulgar passes. I'm going to invite you to
Speaker 3: a second location. So they all join me warehouse and
Speaker 3: we'll see what happens. Yeah, they all leave together. But
Speaker 3: also here we're seeing the band perform. The band is
Speaker 3: again called Babbel. They're this new wave band. The song
Speaker 3: is called the Howling. I already sort of described the
Speaker 3: sound of it earlier. But they're up there jumping around
Speaker 3: on stage. The main singer is doing some he's got
Speaker 3: one of these like nerd rock star personas where he's
Speaker 3: wearing sunglasses and a new wave suit. He's got kind
Speaker 3: of goofy looking curly hair, and he's just jumping up
Speaker 3: and down, mugging at the at the audience. The lines
Speaker 3: that we here repeated a lot. In the song. The
Speaker 3: chorus goes like, howling, howling, since the world.
Speaker 2: Began ancient werewolf's all right, now, did you get the
Speaker 2: sense that is he werewolf? Is this a werewolf band?
Speaker 2: Did they work for Steerba?
Speaker 3: Unclear?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So later in the film, they, through editing, create
Speaker 3: the impression that this band is playing at Steerba's castle,
Speaker 3: but they're just showing footage of the same scene of
Speaker 3: them playing at the club.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, yeah, in the moment, it does make
Speaker 2: it seem like they're there, but yeah, the editing in
Speaker 2: this film is wild. We'll just cut to some close
Speaker 2: up on a werewolf transforming and then back to what's
Speaker 2: actually happening.
Speaker 3: So most of the band here, they're all wearing sunglasses.
Speaker 3: I think maybe the key tar player is not, but
Speaker 3: the rest of them are wearing sunglasses. A lot of
Speaker 3: the people in the audience are wearing sunglasses. And then
Speaker 3: suddenly in the back of the club, we see Christopher
Speaker 3: Lee standing next to a light up Budweiser display and
Speaker 3: he acquiring his own sunglasses, almost like you have to
Speaker 3: have them to be admitted to the club. You know,
Speaker 3: these are our loner pair. So this lady's leaning across
Speaker 3: the counter putting sunglasses on his face. Not sure exactly
Speaker 3: what's going on there. But apart from the sunglasses, Christopher
Speaker 3: Ly's outfit here is bizarre. When you add the sunglasses in,
Speaker 3: he has a cyber snowboarding style. It is an outfit
Speaker 3: so far beneath Christopher Lely's dignity. It's almost all inspiring.
Speaker 3: It's like Sir Ian McKellen in cargo shorts and an
Speaker 3: ICP shirt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are like venice beat sunglasses. These are like
Speaker 2: they think those of you who are as old as
Speaker 2: I am, think about the back of the future to
Speaker 2: sunglasses you would get at Pizza Hut. That's the vibe here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. They are radical, rad tubular.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you got to have them to hang out
Speaker 2: in this club.
Speaker 3: Also, I like all the clearly fake graffiti on the
Speaker 3: walls here. It just does not feel like organic graffiti
Speaker 3: that somebody would leave up. That organic graffiti tends to
Speaker 3: be more personalized and obscure. It points away to different
Speaker 3: things that you would have to understand or know. Instead,
Speaker 3: the graffiti on the walls in this place says things
Speaker 3: like alien sex.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, some clear fake graffiti yeah again. The case
Speaker 2: here is that they they had to recreate an LA
Speaker 2: like slimy punk scene in then Czechoslovakia using whatever garbage
Speaker 2: they were able to ship in and whatever they were
Speaker 2: able to put together, you know, on location.
Speaker 3: So the three creeps leave the club with Mariana and
Speaker 3: with another woman, and they drive apparently all night until
Speaker 3: they reach a dilapidated empty industrial building looks like it
Speaker 3: might be an old foundry or something, and Mariana goes inside. First,
Speaker 3: she stands in the middle of the big main room
Speaker 3: and starts wolf howling just out out o wooing, and
Speaker 3: then elsewhere we see a close up on some human
Speaker 3: ears that suddenly grow hairy and start becoming pointed. So
Speaker 3: I think Marianna is coming into the place and howling
Speaker 3: at other werewolves there to activate their werewolf mode. So
Speaker 3: the creeps follow inside, Marianna teases them, they turn nasty
Speaker 3: and they start making threats at her, and then in
Speaker 3: a hilarious twist, someone from off screen starts chucking objects
Speaker 3: at the creeps, like the new wave guy named Deacon
Speaker 3: gets a bottle smashed on his head and then one
Speaker 3: of the other guys is in the middle of saying like, oh,
Speaker 3: you shouldn't make Deacon mad, and he gets pelted with
Speaker 3: this big piece of pipe. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love that the werewolves have ranged attacks in this.
Speaker 2: You know, they don't come in like like hunting wolves. First,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be a They're gonna just throw a bunch
Speaker 2: of crap at you. I love it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Then they go in for the bites. Yeah. So these
Speaker 3: guys get their weapons out. Deacon has a switchblade and
Speaker 3: the other guy's twirling a chain, so they're going into
Speaker 3: battle mode. But are these guys they're going to stand
Speaker 3: up to were wolf power? Obviously not so. Deacon tries
Speaker 3: to chase down Marianna, but when he finds her, she
Speaker 3: has now partially transformed into a wolf. She attacks him,
Speaker 3: and then his friends see his severed hand fall to
Speaker 3: the floor, still gripping the switchblade. The two other guys
Speaker 3: and the lady they start to freak out and scatter,
Speaker 3: but they can't escape. One by one, they get chased
Speaker 3: down and mulled by the wolf pack. One of them
Speaker 3: gets knocked off the roof of the factory, another gets
Speaker 3: hit by a falling box, and of course, all through
Speaker 3: the scene we're hearing the song again, the same song
Speaker 3: by Babbel.
Speaker 2: But this is pretty good. This is just were wolves
Speaker 2: eating human scum for the most part.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, so by horror movie logic, it should have
Speaker 3: known better. Yeah, So anyway, let's pay a visit to
Speaker 3: the occult Investigator. So Ben and Jenny are driving together.
Speaker 3: I don't know why they're riding together. Now, do these
Speaker 3: people previously know each other? I don't think. So they're
Speaker 3: driving together up a winding road in the hills, and
Speaker 3: we hear their conversation. They are heading out to meet
Speaker 3: Stefan Steffan Crossco. Ben is like, why do you want
Speaker 3: to talk to this crack pot? But he's already in
Speaker 3: the car on the way there, and Jenny says, because
Speaker 3: he knows something about Karen and because quote, it might
Speaker 3: be an incredible story. I guess, like for the news.
Speaker 3: Multiple times in this movie there are lines where that
Speaker 3: suggests that Jenny is involved in this story at all,
Speaker 3: because she has journalism related ambitions, but the performance does
Speaker 3: not sell these ambitions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and do we see her take notes? Do we
Speaker 2: see her quotes or anything?
Speaker 3: Not at all. There's no journalism being done except I guess,
Speaker 3: well except I guess in the scene where she's talking
Speaker 3: to Stefan, But I don't recall her taking notes there either.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyway, maybe she's just vibe journalism, you know, I'll
Speaker 3: get a basic idea of So they go to his
Speaker 3: house and on the way there they have more conversations
Speaker 3: before they meet him, and the dialogue is full of
Speaker 3: awkward exposition for the benefit of the viewer. At one point,
Speaker 3: Jenny says, look, Ben, why don't you just go back
Speaker 3: to your sheriff's office in Montana? And he responds drawing
Speaker 3: his service revolver. He like pulls out a revolver and
Speaker 3: he says something else. Country boys know, when the varmints
Speaker 3: start knocking off the chickens, we start knocking off the varmints.
Speaker 3: And I was like, wait a minute, does he believe
Speaker 3: in the werewolves or not?
Speaker 2: If not, was he talking about Yeah, yeah, he's just
Speaker 2: talking about killing a bunch of people. I guess if
Speaker 2: he's not, If he's not come to believe in werewolves
Speaker 2: by this point.
Speaker 3: But what people would he be talking about?
Speaker 2: Whoever gets in his way? I don't know, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: pulled out a revolver.
Speaker 3: So also, there's just general wardrobe weirdness in this movie.
Speaker 3: I mean, so Christopher Lee, his wardrobe is pretty. He's
Speaker 3: just wearing a dark suit the whole time, but they've
Speaker 3: got reb brown in the denim tuxedo, so he's wearing
Speaker 3: a red gingham shirt, and then the whole movie from
Speaker 3: here on he's wearing blue jeans and a matching blue
Speaker 3: denim jacket, so he's just this column of blue.
Speaker 2: The budget was probably spent mostly on Sibyl's wardrobe. Yeah,
Speaker 2: everyone else, you know, you get what you get.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Any McEnroe's outfit is also strange and interesting. She's
Speaker 3: wearing a blue necktie and this red sweater vest that
Speaker 3: like is open in the front but joined at the waist.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I've ever seen a garment like
Speaker 3: that before, so I'm not even I don't know what
Speaker 3: that's called. But so, yeah, interesting costume choices for everyone involved. Basically, So,
Speaker 3: Jinny and Ben head into Crossco's house, where he invites
Speaker 3: them to sit in his living room full of candles
Speaker 3: and chemistry beakers, occult tomes, skeletons, prosthetic monster heads. It's
Speaker 3: just like sm Savini stopped by and brought his brought
Speaker 3: all his heads with him. It's got a bunch of
Speaker 3: tape recording and playback equipment, and he makes a pitch
Speaker 3: to them. He shows them a silver or no, he
Speaker 3: shows them like a wooden cigarette case full of silver bullets,
Speaker 3: and he tells them that Karen was killed by bullets
Speaker 3: like these. Quote. Unfortunately they were removed during the autopsy,
Speaker 3: and as a result, she can never rest in peace.
Speaker 2: Classic mistake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this is the same logic that's in play
Speaker 3: in at least a couple of the Paul Nashy Werewolf
Speaker 3: movies where he gets shot by a silver bullet and
Speaker 3: then there's a medical examination, the silver bullets are removed,
Speaker 3: and then Valdemar Doninski can wake up and rampage again.
Speaker 3: I know this is exactly what happens at the beginning
Speaker 3: of the Werewolf versus the Vampire Women, and I recall
Speaker 3: at least another one of the least saying things. Yea,
Speaker 3: the same thing happens Anyway, When Crossco reiterates that Karen
Speaker 3: was a werewolf, Ben l laughs at him and suggests
Speaker 3: he is insane, but Crossco becomes deadly serious, and he says,
Speaker 3: even now there are great numbers of werewolves living secretly
Speaker 3: among us. Your sister was working on a story about
Speaker 3: one such group and was transformed.
Speaker 2: And if we did mention already, they are referring to
Speaker 2: what happened in the first Howling movie. There is this
Speaker 2: connection between the two films.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we'll get to more in just a second here.
Speaker 3: But so he explains that after Karen became infected by
Speaker 3: a werewolf fight, she intentionally arranged to be killed with
Speaker 3: a silver bullet on camera so that she could escape
Speaker 3: her cursed fate. And I guess so that also people
Speaker 3: could see what was happening. But now that the silver
Speaker 3: has been taken out her, she's damned once again, and
Speaker 3: the only way that they can help help her achieve
Speaker 3: rest is with a spike to the heart. Also to
Speaker 3: convince the two of them, Crossco plays the secret videotape
Speaker 3: of Karen's final nightly news show. Also, every time Christopher
Speaker 3: Lee says the name Karen, he pronounces it like kaw Red,
Speaker 3: like it's a fantasy name from Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 3: Like he doesn't just say like Karen. So this is
Speaker 3: the videotape of kaw Reds last night where so she's
Speaker 3: a news anchor. She's seated behind the desk. She starts
Speaker 3: going wolf mode and then somebody shoots her. And this
Speaker 3: is indeed how the previous movie ended. And there's a
Speaker 3: stinger kind of at the end, like a humorous ending
Speaker 3: after that, because it's broadcast, like everybody sees it on
Speaker 3: their TVs. But then people are just like, ah, they'll
Speaker 3: do any gimmick with special effects these days. Nobody believes it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then also while they're watching the videotape of the
Speaker 3: werewolf on the news, reb Brown starts tearing up. And
Speaker 3: after this, chrispher Lee shows them a bunch of what
Speaker 3: looked like surveillance camera photos of the character Marianna, and
Speaker 3: he explains that this woman who is at car Red's
Speaker 3: funeral is a were wolf too, and they say she's
Speaker 3: especially vicious, even more dangerous than most were wolves because
Speaker 3: she is immune to silver. First, that's like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: silver is like the one thing we know will definitely
Speaker 3: work to kill a were wolf. So how can you
Speaker 3: beat her if she's immune to silver. There's one thing
Speaker 3: that can stop her, titanium. It's a different metal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it's playing with this logic that like
Speaker 2: titanium is this is super metal. It's like, if silver
Speaker 2: can't do it, you got to turn to titanium. I
Speaker 2: don't know are there other metals on the periodic table
Speaker 2: that would work. I don't know. We don't get any
Speaker 2: answers here.
Speaker 3: I don't know the relative price or rarity of these metals,
Speaker 3: but it would seem to me it can't be that
Speaker 3: much harder to get a titanium weapon made than a
Speaker 3: silver weapon.
Speaker 2: The only metal that can kill this werewolf is a
Speaker 2: steak of solid mercury. That would be good.
Speaker 3: Oh, because then at room temperature would be liquid.
Speaker 2: It's useless.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's actually great. Somebody should use that, everybody
Speaker 3: who's listening. He said it first.
Speaker 2: I give it to the world. Do with it what
Speaker 2: you will.
Speaker 3: So crossco says that were wolves will never allow another
Speaker 3: werewolf to remain buried in consecrated ground. So tonight, Marianna
Speaker 3: and the other wolves in her coven, they're going to
Speaker 3: be coming to collect Karen's body, and he promises that
Speaker 3: he's going to protect her. He says, I will prevent
Speaker 3: this blasphemy, and he holds up a big sharp knitting needle.
Speaker 3: I guess this is either silver or titanium. But in
Speaker 3: this movie, you kill a were wolf by driving a
Speaker 3: metal steak through its heart. So it's getting a little vampirey. Yeah.
Speaker 2: As we've covered before, it is often these various places
Speaker 2: where the werewolf and the vampire overlap, and we actually
Speaker 2: see that in folklore as well. That's true, so it's
Speaker 2: not completely without president. He also does some more exposition here.
Speaker 2: He tells Ben and Jenny that the were wolves have
Speaker 2: a leader. It is a woman named Steerbaugh, and he
Speaker 2: says at the next full moon quote it will be
Speaker 2: the tenth millennium of Steerba's birth. At midnight on that.
Speaker 3: Day, all were wolves will reveal themselves. All the transformations
Speaker 3: have already begun. The process of evolution is reversed. And
Speaker 3: for a second I thought it was going to cut
Speaker 3: away to Ben saying I don't believe in evolution, but
Speaker 3: Christopher Lee goes on to say he says there are
Speaker 3: many stages before men becomes a beast. Before that happens,
Speaker 3: Steerba must be must be destroyed, and I will do it.
Speaker 3: So at this point I was confused. So is he
Speaker 3: saying at midnight on that day Steerba. If Steerba is
Speaker 3: not destroyed, evolution will be reversed because the werewolves will
Speaker 3: all simultaneously go wolf mode? Like is that all he means?
Speaker 3: Or does he actually mean all evolution will be reversed
Speaker 3: and so everything will just like revert to its its
Speaker 3: an ancestors.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess it's that right, I mean the
Speaker 2: stakes are high.
Speaker 3: He suggests worldwide implication.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like all humans will become wolves or something like
Speaker 2: a wolf or some sort of something like a wolf.
Speaker 3: Humans evolved from wolves, as we all know.
Speaker 2: Maybe so within the context of this film, it's possible.
Speaker 3: I guess. Maybe it's just meaning like we revert to
Speaker 3: weird little quadrupedal synapsids pre Triassic era. So Jenny, Jenny
Speaker 3: takes the silver bullets from Stefan and they leave, and
Speaker 3: then there's a scene where Ben and Jenny just sort
Speaker 3: of review all of the exposition they've already taken in,
Speaker 3: with Ben making derisive and skeptical comments throughout. Also at
Speaker 3: the end of this conversation, he says he will kill Stefan.
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but did you want to hear
Speaker 3: that song again by Babbel in the pale, pale light?
Speaker 3: So it fires up, and then we fall Be and
Speaker 3: Jenny as they returned to the cemetery at night. Ben
Speaker 3: has come armed with a rifle. He gives Jenny a pistol.
Speaker 3: I guess we can assume that they put silver bullets
Speaker 3: in both of them, which is confusing because Ben is
Speaker 3: saying he doesn't believe in this, but he is using
Speaker 3: the silver bullets. Our heroes find the gate hanging open,
Speaker 3: and they hear wolves howling in the distance, and then
Speaker 3: they're creeping through the woods to Karen's grave, and we
Speaker 3: keep hearing the same wolf howl sample, and Jenny is like,
Speaker 3: I think it's coyotes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, codies sound like that. Sure.
Speaker 3: And here is where I mentioned earlier that there are
Speaker 3: actually some quite nice looking horror shots, and there are
Speaker 3: a couple in this scene, Like there's one where we
Speaker 3: see the woods in the dark, and then there's a
Speaker 3: kind of soft light from the distance, and then the
Speaker 3: middle distance is filled with fog and through a gap
Speaker 3: in the trees and the vine. Suddenly we see the
Speaker 3: silhouette of this hairy beast sloping through the mists toward us.
Speaker 3: It looks great. Yeah yeah. Inside the mausoleum, Stephan is
Speaker 3: already there. He's kneeling over Karen's open coffin. He's praying
Speaker 3: to God. His prayer includes the sentence protect us O
Speaker 3: Lord from the evil of man and the malevolence of beast.
Speaker 3: So he prays to Jesus Christ that Karen's body be
Speaker 3: purified of all evil. He flicks a bit of holy
Speaker 3: water on her, and he's getting ready to drive the
Speaker 3: steak into her heart. Meanwhile, outside the mausoleum, Ben and
Speaker 3: Jenny are approaching and they get surprised by a snarling werewolf.
Speaker 3: We again do not get a good look with perspective.
Speaker 3: A lot of the early shots here are just these
Speaker 3: extreme closeups of teeth, snout, and fur. And when Ben
Speaker 3: sees the werewolf, he shoots at it, but of course
Speaker 3: he doesn't just shoot. He screams, is good, so good, pure,
Speaker 3: pure red brown. I love it. And then after he
Speaker 3: shoots at the were wolf a bunch of times, he screams.
Speaker 2: Go right behind you can.
Speaker 3: So Ben and Jenny bust into the mausoleum just as
Speaker 3: Stephan is about to stake Karen's body and Ben stops him.
Speaker 3: He's threatening him. He's like, if you touch my sister,
Speaker 3: I'll blow you away. But wait, he doesn't believe in
Speaker 3: were wolves still, he just shot one with silver bullets.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, the situation resolves itself because Karen suddenly wakes up.
Speaker 3: She has They're all standing right there around her, but somehow,
Speaker 3: without them noticing, she has gone fully into beast mode
Speaker 3: issues She's covered in hair. She attacks crossco Several other
Speaker 3: were wolves attack from all directions, and I guess this
Speaker 3: is finally all the convincing that Ben needs. Because our
Speaker 3: heroes work together to fight off the were wolves. Ben
Speaker 3: keeps screeching anytime he's about to blast one. There's a
Speaker 3: really funny looking, funny fight moment where they close werewolf
Speaker 3: Karen inside her coffin by forcing the lid down on her.
Speaker 3: But the lid has a glass window, so they're just
Speaker 3: putting the lid down and she's inside like all furry
Speaker 3: scratching at the window. I don't know. So they chase
Speaker 3: one of the injured werewolves outside as he is transforming
Speaker 3: back into his human form, and this is the one
Speaker 3: we met earlier named Erla. Cross Co interrogates him to
Speaker 3: learn the whereabouts of Steerba, and the answer is the
Speaker 3: Dark Country, and we will later learn this means Transylvania,
Speaker 3: though actually it's shot in Czechoslovakia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've been in Czechoslovakia for most of the
Speaker 2: scenes thus far. So yeah, it seems so we don't
Speaker 2: necessarily get that feeling of transport across the globe here.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Erla begs to be released from his curse and
Speaker 3: cross Coo stakes him. Meanwhile, we see Marianna. She's shown
Speaker 3: watching from a distance, dragging her wolf nails over a
Speaker 3: tombstone in a sensual manner, like she just loves death.
Speaker 3: So after this, it seems Karen is finally peacefully laid
Speaker 3: to rest, and outside the cemetery gate, Crossco tells Ben
Speaker 3: and Jenny that he's got to go to Transylvania to
Speaker 3: track down Steerba because she is the source of it all.
Speaker 3: Ben says, Stephan, I'd like to go with you. It's
Speaker 3: a very hard turn into like now he's all in.
Speaker 3: He says he wants to make sure that what happened
Speaker 3: to his sister, never happens to anybody again. And then
Speaker 3: he says, I'm with you right to the end. Whatever
Speaker 3: it is said. Oh, Jenny also says, so am I
Speaker 3: Ben then mocks her. He's like, oh, she just wants
Speaker 3: to write something and win the Pulitzer Prize. And she
Speaker 3: says yes, among other things.
Speaker 2: I mean, who doesn't want to win the Pulitzer Prize
Speaker 2: and werewolf journalism it's highly coveted.
Speaker 3: The way she says, among other things implies she wants
Speaker 3: to write something and win the Pulitzer Prize among other prizes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, what is the There's got to
Speaker 2: be an egot except Pultzer Prize in various other awards.
Speaker 3: So it's off to the dark country. It's time for
Speaker 3: the Transylvania Montage. So we see morbid old churches covered
Speaker 3: in these weird skeletons and emblems of death. There's rob
Speaker 3: I think you mentioned earlier, a Prague astrological clock. Ye,
Speaker 3: like a clock tower with this face that includes these
Speaker 3: gold circles and astrological symbols. And then an old steam
Speaker 3: engine comes chugging through the forest and arrives at a
Speaker 3: small mountain village called Volcava, so I looked up Volcava.
Speaker 3: It is actually the name of a real village in
Speaker 3: the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic. So I imagine
Speaker 3: this might be actually where they shot parts of the movie.
Speaker 3: It's fairly close to Prague. This, of course, is not
Speaker 3: in Transylvania, which is a region of Romania, not the
Speaker 3: Czech Republic. When the train arrives, we see Mariana get
Speaker 3: off the train. She's wearing dark sunglasses and a black
Speaker 3: leather suit with no shirt under the blazer. She meets
Speaker 3: a guy in a pinstripe suit waiting on the train platform.
Speaker 3: They say hello by sniffing each other, and he tells
Speaker 3: her that Steerba is very anxious to meet her, so
Speaker 3: together they climb into the back of a truck with
Speaker 3: a tarp covered bed, along with a bunch of other people,
Speaker 3: presumably all were wolves. Yeah, just the truck, And in
Speaker 3: a few minutes we see this truck. They say like, ooh,
Speaker 3: we didn't arrange any lunch. But then we see them
Speaker 3: drive by a couple of German hitch hikers who are
Speaker 3: they're like hiking in these tight shorts and singing a
Speaker 3: German song and they they're like, oh, yeah, I get
Speaker 3: in the back of the truck and then they immediately
Speaker 3: start eating them and the driver declares schnitzel ah oh
Speaker 3: the Broughton so Ben and Jenny are also in town.
Speaker 3: They're driving around a mountain road with Christopher Lee. Christopher
Speaker 3: Lee is sitting awkwardly in the back of this tiny car,
Speaker 3: looking kind of pained and with his eyes closed, like
Speaker 3: he's carsick or something. Then we finally get to the
Speaker 3: first steer by scene. This is really what everything's been
Speaker 3: working up to. So we cut to this ancient stone
Speaker 3: castle in the forest where in one of the great halls,
Speaker 3: the Wolf Coven is holding a festival of sadism and decadence,
Speaker 3: complete with these creepy metal helmed guards holding crossbows. They're
Speaker 3: shirtless with black pants and the helmets on. They're standing
Speaker 3: in the dark outside. Inside you got huge roaring fires everywhere.
Speaker 3: This music, which is I think finally here it is
Speaker 3: not the Babbel song. Instead, it is a guy in
Speaker 3: a fur hat pounding on a big drum with a mallet,
Speaker 3: and then there's this a tonal chanting. You've got a
Speaker 3: stone altar in the middle of the room. You gotta
Speaker 3: have that, A bunch of half naked wolf people wearing
Speaker 3: random patchworks of metal armor and black leather straps. You've
Speaker 3: got some chained up human prisoners.
Speaker 2: All gingers, I think, all wearing panties of some sort
Speaker 2: or another.
Speaker 3: I think so. And then infernal paintings in the Bosh
Speaker 3: and Goya style all over the walls. So Marianna is
Speaker 3: there at the ceremony, and it is being presided over
Speaker 3: by a crone dressed in furs and a long, dark
Speaker 3: cloak cloak. She's like an ancient witch. Eventually, a man
Speaker 3: named Vlad brings an unconscious woman dressed in a white
Speaker 3: gown into the room. Laser down on the stone altar,
Speaker 3: the Vlad pours a big bowl of blood out over
Speaker 3: the unconscious woman. Then the crone leans over her face
Speaker 3: and sucks some green animation out of her mouth. Then
Speaker 3: everybody starts howling and chanting steer Ba, steer Ba. And
Speaker 3: there's a kind of cool cutaway here to some imagery
Speaker 3: of a wax face melting in a fire. And then
Speaker 3: when Steerba finally stands up once again from leaning over
Speaker 3: the woman, she is no longer a crone. She is
Speaker 3: Sybil Danning, and she not only has transformed in body
Speaker 3: into Sybil Danning, she has transformed in accent, so now
Speaker 3: she no longer has the same accents. She talks like
Speaker 3: Sybil dan She's now got the sharp cheekbones, big hair.
Speaker 3: She rips her cloak off and shows everyone her magically
Speaker 3: rejuvenated body and they all keep howling, and then we
Speaker 3: see the woman she sucked the life out of now
Speaker 3: reduced to a withered, decomposed corpse. So after this ritual scene,
Speaker 3: it transitions via a double peel away wipe. There's some
Speaker 3: great whites in this movie, by the way, and they
Speaker 3: keep changing it up. It's always a different wipe. It
Speaker 3: transitions into the much commented upon Werewolf three way sex
Speaker 3: scene where Steerba, Marianna, and Vlad all take turns kissing
Speaker 3: and grabbing on each other while becoming increasingly hairy and
Speaker 3: occasionally snarling and a wooing. And my memory is that
Speaker 3: this goes on for like the entire middle third of
Speaker 3: the movie, so you'll have other action happening and then
Speaker 3: it just cuts back to the were wolf sex.
Speaker 2: It's pretty great. I love this scene and some of
Speaker 2: the behind the scenes details about it. They're pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: Johnson gets into some of these on the on the
Speaker 2: Blu Ray. I think for starters, there would have been
Speaker 2: a better way to get these three actors in their
Speaker 2: kind of werewolf mode, like some sort of spandex covered
Speaker 2: with hair or you know, some other sort of approach.
Speaker 2: But no, they had to manually glue all of the
Speaker 2: hair onto their bodies, which apparently took forever and was
Speaker 2: just like the effects. Guys were like, this is not
Speaker 2: a good use of time. It's gonna take forever to
Speaker 2: do this. And then once this is all applied, when
Speaker 2: these werewolves are rolling around with each other and I
Speaker 2: guess should be like caressing each other, they can't actually
Speaker 2: touch each other because they peel the hair off. So
Speaker 2: the the werewolf threesome scene has this strange vibe to
Speaker 2: it where they're they're like, I'm almost touching You're almost
Speaker 2: touching me. It's it's weird, but it but then the
Speaker 2: lighting is great. It's it's got its own super weird energy.
Speaker 2: So I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is exactly what It's like a lot of almost. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So after this there is the scene of the road ambush,
Speaker 3: which was funny in a couple of ways. So Ben,
Speaker 3: Jinny and Stefan are driving along the mountain roads until
Speaker 3: they roll up on a big crowd standing in the
Speaker 3: middle of the road. There's a lady lying down in
Speaker 3: the street, and then a priest in the crowd says
Speaker 3: that she was hit by a car, and then the
Speaker 3: all the just walk away. But it's a trap. The
Speaker 3: lady is a werewolf, and just as she starts to
Speaker 3: wolf power up, Crossco sees what's happening and stakes her
Speaker 3: with a silver dagger, and then Crossco leaves and tells
Speaker 3: Ben and Jenny that he's going to meet them in
Speaker 3: the village. Ben and Jenny get back in the car
Speaker 3: and start to drive away when Jenny, from out of nowhere,
Speaker 3: whips out this big flask and starts having a glug
Speaker 3: of whatever's in there. And then there's a werewolf in
Speaker 3: the backseat.
Speaker 2: Oh no, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yes, so Ben shoots it, and then they almost drive
Speaker 3: their car off the road into a ravine, but they
Speaker 3: stop at the last second, and then there's a spiral
Speaker 3: wipe and yeah. Then there's of course more of what
Speaker 3: the were wolves are getting up to, trying not to
Speaker 3: mess up each other's body. Hair prosthetics, and after this
Speaker 3: a diamond wipe. And then finally Ben and Jenny arrive
Speaker 3: in town, in the village of Volcava, and it really
Speaker 3: lays out the scene. So there's this cobbled street in
Speaker 3: the middle of town. The locals are decorating for the
Speaker 3: festival of the with garlands strung up between the buildings
Speaker 3: over the road, and you've got vendors setting up stalls
Speaker 3: with flowers and animal pelts and food. There are people
Speaker 3: dancing in brightly colored costumes. When we zoom in on them,
Speaker 3: we realize some of these dancers are were wolves in
Speaker 3: human form. There are goats roaming about, old men smoking cigarettes,
Speaker 3: and then this kind of shady looking guy hunched in
Speaker 3: a doorway in sunglasses with an owl. He's just got
Speaker 3: an owl perched on his wrist. So Ben and Jenny
Speaker 3: get checked into the hotel. The hotel is obviously run
Speaker 3: by were wolves. All the dudes in the lobby start
Speaker 3: licking their lips when they walk in, and Ben tries
Speaker 3: to first get them separate rooms, but Jenny is like, no,
Speaker 3: we want one room. This comes out of nowhere. I
Speaker 3: don't recall any scene in the first act with any
Speaker 3: indication that she likes him, or that they're you know,
Speaker 3: even really becoming friendly, much less falling in love. But
Speaker 3: I guess now that they're in Transylvania, Jenny's heart beats
Speaker 3: only for Red Brown. So the hotel manager gives them
Speaker 3: a room and says that his nephew, Tondo, will take
Speaker 3: them up there. It's a room number six six six,
Speaker 3: of course it is, yeah, and he gives a very
Speaker 3: toothy grin, and after they go up to their room,
Speaker 3: Tondo tells Ben that he's an excellent local guide. I
Speaker 3: do like this weird hotel. The interiors are pretty nice.
Speaker 3: I wonder where this was filmed. I didn't look that
Speaker 3: one up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it might have been the hotel that they were
Speaker 2: staying in, the one where where Sybil, Danny and Christopher
Speaker 2: Lee have dinner every night, and apparently Christopher Lee one
Speaker 2: of them. Is something Steve Johnson shared and his extras
Speaker 2: is that Christopher Lee really liked to talk and would
Speaker 2: talk to anybody and share all these stories about the
Speaker 2: old days, which is great. And you know that people
Speaker 2: love Christopher Lee and he's a wealth of knowledge. But
Speaker 2: you had these guys working on the film, like the
Speaker 2: effects guys especially, and they had so much to do.
Speaker 2: They were like having to dodge Christopher Lee because they
Speaker 2: were like, you can get into a conversation with him,
Speaker 2: you're not going to get out of it. We've got
Speaker 2: We're just so overclocked here.
Speaker 3: That's funny. Christopher Lee won't stop talking to me. It's
Speaker 3: a great problem to have.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like Johnson was like, you know, looking back
Speaker 2: on it, it's like so weird because you know, it's
Speaker 2: Christopher Lee. He's a legend. It's like you in retrospect,
Speaker 2: you would want to listen to all of that stuff,
Speaker 2: but in the moment, there was just so much to
Speaker 2: do you just didn't have time for it.
Speaker 3: So anyway, once Ben and Jenny get to their room,
Speaker 3: Jenny whips out this big wreath of garlic bulbs that
Speaker 3: she had in her suitcase, and then she just starts
Speaker 3: kissing on Ben. I guess they're in love. Now.
Speaker 2: Can you bring that much garlic on an international flight?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe they went by boat. So while they're going at it,
Speaker 3: we see the werewolf dancers down in the street below,
Speaker 3: and one of them starts sniffing the air and giving
Speaker 3: these cute little mini howls in the direction of the hotel,
Speaker 3: almost like he's really happy for them. He's like, oh,
Speaker 3: great for them. They found love.
Speaker 2: So the next.
Speaker 3: Scene, Ginny and Ben meet back up with Stephan at
Speaker 3: a church. Stephan explains that many people in the village
Speaker 3: are in league with evil and they're being watched wherever
Speaker 3: they go. He introduces them to his local allies, which
Speaker 3: include the priest father florin Vasila, who's a person of
Speaker 3: short stature who lost his elder brother to the wolf coven.
Speaker 3: There is Constantine, a local man who lost his daughter,
Speaker 3: and Luca, who lost his wife. And then for some reason,
Speaker 3: right after this, they zoom on a statue of Jesus. Well,
Speaker 3: maybe it's implying he's their other.
Speaker 2: Ally, Yeah, well they have all gathered together, and so
Speaker 2: he's there, right, And I guess wherever wherever, wherever three
Speaker 2: or more of you gather together in order to slay
Speaker 2: where wolves, I am there with you.
Speaker 3: I think, referring to in the original context to church
Speaker 3: gatherings or prayer or something, but it could refer to
Speaker 3: where wolf hunting parties as well.
Speaker 2: I think I think that is alluded to elsewhere in
Speaker 2: the Bible.
Speaker 3: Yes, So they come up with a plan. These guys
Speaker 3: are going to go look for Marianna at the village
Speaker 3: festival and when they find her, they're going to follow
Speaker 3: her to find Steerba and then when they find Steerba,
Speaker 3: Crossco is gonna take care of her. So in this
Speaker 3: scene they also describe their secret back channel communication method,
Speaker 3: which involves a puppet booth. Yeah, I never figured that out.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't know, but I like the puppets.
Speaker 2: The puppets, the puppet play they're putting on. It seems
Speaker 2: to be where wolf related was pretty good.
Speaker 3: It's pretty good. Also, Chrispherley gives the gives Ben and
Speaker 3: Jenny each holy medals to where as protection and then
Speaker 3: we get a clock face wipe. So Ben and Jenny
Speaker 3: go to the festival and everybody's out dancing and watching
Speaker 3: the puppet shokea and it's about where wolves attacking people.
Speaker 3: Somewhere in here, there's a scene where Ben and Jenny
Speaker 3: are in bed talking about how the name of the
Speaker 3: village Volcava means the place where wolves live, and so
Speaker 3: they're just lying in bed and then suddenly there is
Speaker 3: a sawtooth wipe and some text on the screen says
Speaker 3: the following afternoon.
Speaker 2: All the wipes like, did you buy a could you
Speaker 2: buy a collection of package? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Why did it need to say the following afternoon? Cutting
Speaker 3: to the next day is a normal type of cut,
Speaker 3: and people understand it's not like cutting to three years later.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 3: Uh So, Ben and Jenny there the next the following afternoon,
Speaker 3: they are dancing at a festival when uh, let's see Ben.
Speaker 3: Let's see first. Ben sees Marianna walking around with her
Speaker 3: wolf powls, and Ben tells Tondo to keep an eye
Speaker 3: on Jenny and he walks away, following the werewolves. Ben
Speaker 3: here is going to end up joining forces with Vacila
Speaker 3: and tracking down the were wolves to Stierba's castle, so
Speaker 3: they do a whole recon mission. I'm not going to
Speaker 3: recount everything that happens here, but basically Steerba is inside
Speaker 3: doing some crazy satanic magic where she's just saying a
Speaker 3: lot of Latin and you know, names of demons and stuff.
Speaker 3: She's reciting spells. This is where we first, I think,
Speaker 3: see her wearing the fem Darth Vader outfit, very robot
Speaker 3: like appear end and Ben and Vacilla's mission is going great.
Speaker 3: At first, Vacilla gives Ben a pair of ear plugs
Speaker 3: that look like teeth, but we will later learn that
Speaker 3: these are wax from the sacred candles. Yeah, they use
Speaker 3: them to plug their ears because this has never explained,
Speaker 3: but we learn that Seerbu can kind of use the
Speaker 3: voice to tie things into Sarumon again, so if you
Speaker 3: hear her voice, she can destroy you. So they plug
Speaker 3: their ears and approach the gate. Vacilla hurls a throwing
Speaker 3: knife to take out the werewolf guard and then he
Speaker 3: whacks him in the head with the morning Star, and
Speaker 3: Ben says, that's a definite new kill technique.
Speaker 2: It is Hey quality, definite new kill technique.
Speaker 3: So inside the castle Steerba. This is also the first
Speaker 3: scene where we see her wearing her Terminator sunglasses, so
Speaker 3: I guess this must be where she had a swollen eye.
Speaker 3: She reveals that Stefan Crossco is her brother, and though
Speaker 3: he plans to destroy her, in fact, she will destroy him.
Speaker 2: So many questions already at this point, because we have
Speaker 2: already established that she is like ten thousand years old.
Speaker 2: Does that mean Stephan is ten thousand years old? An
Speaker 2: Immortal Warrior or what.
Speaker 3: Quite confusing. Yeah, Marianna, I think she's eager to please
Speaker 3: her new werewolf friends, so she's like, let me kill him,
Speaker 3: and steer Ba says no, but you're sweet. Then Ben
Speaker 3: and Vacilla get spotted and they bolt as the were
Speaker 3: wolves give chase, and this is the scene where Steerbus
Speaker 3: starts using the voice like she's muttering these Latin phrases
Speaker 3: as they echo through the air all around. And unfortunately,
Speaker 3: while they are running away, Vascilla loses his ear plugs.
Speaker 3: They fall out of his ears into the dirt, and
Speaker 3: the voice gets into his ears and he starts screaming
Speaker 3: in pain, and then his eyeballs explode and shoot jets
Speaker 3: of blood, which is a horrifying and disgusting effect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well done here. It looks looks grow nice exploding head.
Speaker 2: And then also Steve, but we get to see some
Speaker 2: like lightning red light horse lightning yeah, from her fingertips,
Speaker 2: which which looks pretty good. I think all the magical
Speaker 2: lighting effects in this picture look pretty good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't complain. Meanwhile, Tondo lies to Jenny and
Speaker 3: tells her that Ben wants her to meet him somewhere else.
Speaker 3: And he's going to show her the way there, so
Speaker 3: he leads her off into the woods. He starts becoming
Speaker 3: very creepy and starts making unwonted moves on her, and
Speaker 3: then she like faints. But then before he can do anything,
Speaker 3: the other werewolves come and reprimand him. They're like, you know, Tondo,
Speaker 3: you're out of line. You will be disciplined. But Jenny
Speaker 3: is captured by the werewolves, so Steer but takes her
Speaker 3: back to the castle with plans to use her as
Speaker 3: bait for their real prey, which is chrispher Lee, who
Speaker 3: is down in the village watching the puppet show. Okay,
Speaker 3: so while yeah, I thought he was the real were
Speaker 3: wolf hunter, but he's watching the puppet show while the
Speaker 3: two or having wear wolf encounters. And then there's a
Speaker 3: scene where Stefan gets lured into a church after he
Speaker 3: sees a child in a mask wearing the holy metal
Speaker 3: that he gave to Jenny, and he follows the child
Speaker 3: to the church asks where the child got the medal,
Speaker 3: but it's a trap. The child is actually a magically
Speaker 3: possessed demonic Eyelis of Acila in service of the witchcraft
Speaker 3: of Stirba, and he swipes it Crossco with a knife,
Speaker 3: but Ben arrives just in time to throw him out
Speaker 3: the window, where he is impaled on spikes below. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you noticed this, Rob, but in the
Speaker 3: shot where Ben throws him out the window, it is
Speaker 3: not Reb Brown at all. Like whoever this stunt double
Speaker 3: is does not look the slightest bit like Reb Brown
Speaker 3: even from behind. You can only see from behind, but
Speaker 3: it's a guy with curly hair who is bald on top.
Speaker 2: I mean, imagine rolling your production into some sort of
Speaker 2: like small town European setting and you have Red Brown here,
Speaker 2: enormous dude, you know, former high school and college football
Speaker 2: player turned actor, and you're going to just find him
Speaker 2: a body double. You know, good luck, good luck finding
Speaker 2: him a body double like anywhere kind of a singular
Speaker 2: looking dude.
Speaker 3: So we've kind of got the setup for the final
Speaker 3: act here. Jenny has been captured by Steerba and the
Speaker 3: werewolf coven. They're keeping her tied up in this dungeon
Speaker 3: where the walls are made out of skulls, and then
Speaker 3: Ben and Crossco, along with the rest of their allies
Speaker 3: from the village, You're gonna have to go rescue Jenny
Speaker 3: and destroy Steerbu's power. So there's a scene where they
Speaker 3: get all their weapons. They're going to use some consecrated oil,
Speaker 3: some wax from sacred candles to plug their ears. I
Speaker 3: guess so their eyes don't explode. Yeah, titanium daggers, of
Speaker 3: course they've got those around. And then this. They skip
Speaker 3: over this really quick, but Stefan says the chalice that
Speaker 3: held the sacred Blood of Christ.
Speaker 2: Like, is this on loan from the Vatican secret vault? Like?
Speaker 2: Does that just work?
Speaker 3: Got the Holy Grail there with them, holy water, and
Speaker 3: then a gun that belonged to Vacilla. Ben is going
Speaker 3: to get to use this. I guess it goes without
Speaker 3: saying that it's got silver bullets at Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, give me the gun. I know how
Speaker 2: to use that. Yeah, holy Grail.
Speaker 3: No, No, not interested in the Holy Grail. But I
Speaker 3: would have to think the Holy Grail would be even
Speaker 3: more effective than the gun. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's more of a Stephan weapon. Yeah, red
Speaker 2: brown with the Holy Grail, it's just too laughter inducing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we get to see Stefan is also doing
Speaker 3: werewolf gun play. In the next scene, he starts shooting
Speaker 3: like something that looks like a luger or something. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: at Steerba's castle, everybody's meeting up for some kind of
Speaker 3: ritual werewolf orgy. If you look at the werewolf orgy crowd,
Speaker 3: there's one guy in the middle of it doing a handstand. Yeah,
Speaker 3: just so like some people are there for the orgy,
Speaker 3: some just want to do gymnastics practice.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a free for all. It's like, this
Speaker 2: is the this is what you kind of get from
Speaker 2: the werewolf coven here. It's like, yes, there are plans
Speaker 2: to reverse evolution and take over the world. Yes, they
Speaker 2: want to eat random dirt bags and you know innocence
Speaker 2: as well. But also they're just stuft for a good time.
Speaker 2: They're just heatonists. They're in touch with their their biological origins.
Speaker 2: They're in touch with the beast in all its forms.
Speaker 3: So well, I think this ties into the tagline about
Speaker 3: like the rock and roll lifestyle of the yeah too. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're trying to sell that. Yeah. And speaking of rock
Speaker 3: and roll lifestyle, here is where it's implied that the
Speaker 3: band from the club in la is playing at the castle.
Speaker 3: We hear the song and it's showing them playing it,
Speaker 3: trying to create the impression that they're in the room
Speaker 3: with the orgy, but the footage is obviously the same
Speaker 3: footage from the club earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. In the interview with Danning, she's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: Stir was so cool. She has her own band, so
Speaker 2: even even she thought was like, I thought this must
Speaker 2: be the werewolf Queen's band.
Speaker 3: So Steerbu gets worried that the enemies are approaching the
Speaker 3: castle through the woods, so she interrupts the party and
Speaker 3: sends the werewolf out to get them. Our heroes get
Speaker 3: ambushed by were wolves in the forest and they put
Speaker 3: up a fight. Ben of course, lets out some wonderful
Speaker 3: screeches when he starts blasting. The humans win the fight,
Speaker 3: though their ally Constantine, is killed, and then another one
Speaker 3: of the villagers, Luca, gets nabbed by a werewolf from
Speaker 3: a pit trap beneath the path, and Christopher Lee then
Speaker 3: hits the trap with a holy hand grenade. Final action.
Speaker 3: So this builds up to the final action once they
Speaker 3: reach the castle. I'll break it down into a few
Speaker 3: different threads here. One is their remaining ally, the priest
Speaker 3: who's been along for the mission. Father Florin. He tries
Speaker 3: to sneak up on Steerba with a battle axe while
Speaker 3: she's doing some magic spells, but she wheels about on
Speaker 3: him and then she gets him with We should have
Speaker 3: mentioned this earlier. She's got a staff on top of
Speaker 3: which is a beef jerky gargoyle, And the beef jerky
Speaker 3: gargoyle comes alive and it does xenomore face hugger stuff
Speaker 3: to the pre Like, it attacks his face and then
Speaker 3: revoltingly sticks some kind of tail or tube down his
Speaker 3: throat and then blood comes out of all his face holes.
Speaker 3: It is gross and genuinely disturbing. The effects here looked,
Speaker 3: I don't know, like it literally made me feel bad.
Speaker 2: I agree with that. I loved it, But mostly I
Speaker 2: just love the way Sybil Danning like considers the staff
Speaker 2: the gargole of staff before using it. It's like she's
Speaker 2: clearly having a great time here, and then yeah, what
Speaker 2: uses this horrific magical weapon against the priest? And yeah,
Speaker 2: body heart ensues.
Speaker 3: Steer Bud then sends Vlad and Marianna to go get
Speaker 3: Jinny from the skull room. They're having some trouble because
Speaker 3: I think Vlad is feeling the urge to warp into
Speaker 3: wolf mode, but Marianna is yelling at him to get
Speaker 3: control of himself. I didn't understand this part, like, can
Speaker 3: they not carry out their orders when in wolf mode,
Speaker 3: because it seems like throughout the movie we see wolves
Speaker 3: in wolf mode doing Steerba's commands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this feels like it's an either underdeveloped idea or
Speaker 2: maybe a remnant of one of the previous scripts because
Speaker 2: it really doesn't seem to matter for most of the picture.
Speaker 3: But anyway, once they get down to the dungeon, Ben
Speaker 3: is there. Ben shoots Vlad with silver and then stabs
Speaker 3: Marianna with the titanium dagger. Feels like a very sudden
Speaker 3: and unceremonious end to these major villains. I thought there'd
Speaker 3: be more of a I don't know, more of a confrontation,
Speaker 3: there'd be more to the end of them than this. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I agree, but he just unties Jenny and they escape
Speaker 3: the castle. Meanwhile, we get the final show down between
Speaker 3: Stephan and Steerba. He has to go confront Steerba by himself.
Speaker 3: Some weird you know, lanister incest vibes pop up from
Speaker 3: out of nowhere. She's suddenly trying to seduce him. Don't
Speaker 3: know where that comes from. She's saying a bunch of
Speaker 3: they're like. It actually becomes quite funny because they are
Speaker 3: both mumbling these magic spells at each other back and forth.
Speaker 3: He's doing, I guess, a more Christian flavored invocation of magic,
Speaker 3: and she's over there like you know by Asta Roth
Speaker 3: and but you knew, and just saying all these names
Speaker 3: and stuff, trying to do magic against him. But finally
Speaker 3: they're sort of embracing and he stabs her with the
Speaker 3: titanium blade and then they are consumed by magic fire.
Speaker 2: I mean, if she is indeed a ten thousand year
Speaker 2: old werewolf queen almost some sort of a demi god,
Speaker 2: and he too is some sort of an immortal adversary
Speaker 2: of her, then I don't know. You're getting into that
Speaker 2: weird area. And the gods are always incestuous with each
Speaker 2: other our various mythologies, so I guess it makes sense.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense. It really feels like different versions
Speaker 2: of the script are colliding here, But I don't know.
Speaker 2: If I do enough mental gymnastics, I can get there.
Speaker 3: There is nothing about Stephan other than other than what
Speaker 3: we've been talking about that would imply he is an
Speaker 3: ancient being. He really reads as a character written as
Speaker 3: a regular human monster hunter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then how come if his sister is a werewolf,
Speaker 2: then why is she ten thousand years old?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but she I like how
Speaker 3: it's implied that she sort of invented being a were wolf. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she invented were wolves. So anyway, Ben and Jenny escape.
Speaker 3: There's a scene that I think he's played for comedy,
Speaker 3: but does not. It's not funny in the way it's
Speaker 3: supposed to be, where Ben and Jenny go back to
Speaker 3: the village and Ben like points a gun at the
Speaker 3: villagers and tells them how to get to the airport
Speaker 3: and like it seems it's a little much Ben, and
Speaker 3: then it cuts to one year later. The next year,
Speaker 3: Ben and Jenny are living happily together. I guess it's
Speaker 3: Halloween and they somebody knocks on their door. They open
Speaker 3: the door and it is a child in a very
Speaker 3: convincing looking werewolf mask. So they give the child a treat,
Speaker 3: and the child leaves and seems to have come from
Speaker 3: the apartment across the hall. So they go to invite
Speaker 3: their new neighbor over for wine. But the man who
Speaker 3: comes to the door is this odd European gentleman and
Speaker 3: a priest's caller who says, Oh, I don't have a child,
Speaker 3: I live alone, I guess, implying that I don't know
Speaker 3: people from Volcavo are coming to get them.
Speaker 2: They were wolves are at large in the world. Still
Speaker 2: the threat.
Speaker 3: Remains, and then during the credits, it's a whole music video.
Speaker 3: It's just a clip show of the movie you just watched,
Speaker 3: and it shows the scene where Sybil Danning rips her
Speaker 3: clothes off about forty times. It uses it in a
Speaker 3: percussive manner. She has a at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Rip away top. And they use this scene over and
Speaker 2: over again like it's like it's a hec static video
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is a bit nice. It's the beginning of
Speaker 3: every bar on the song by Babel. Of course you
Speaker 3: hear Babel once again since the world begins.
Speaker 2: But it does drive home that Howling two was a party,
Speaker 2: that was the prime that was the prime reasoning here.
Speaker 2: They don't leave it on. They don't even really want
Speaker 2: to land on that humorous node or that ominous note.
Speaker 2: They just want to remind you, hey, you just had
Speaker 2: a good time, right, it was fun. Right, you do
Speaker 2: this again?
Speaker 3: Right? Once we get to the ending of the movie,
Speaker 3: do we know anything more about what would have happened
Speaker 3: if Steerbaugh was not staked? Was the process of evolution
Speaker 3: going to be reversed worldwide?
Speaker 2: I think everyone would have been turned into horny wolf people. Yes,
Speaker 2: I think that's what would have happened.
Speaker 3: But eventually, bacteria, I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, does it stop? Because if you know, yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: the world's a better place either way. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's what we needed a species, But they prevented it,
Speaker 2: and hopefully they had our best interest at heart.
Speaker 3: Hats off to Sybil Danning.
Speaker 2: She rules this movie absolutely. I mean I thinking again that, like,
Speaker 2: you have such an amazing trio of actors here, Christopher Lee,
Speaker 2: Reb Brown and Sibil Danning, all three of them outrageous
Speaker 2: and amazing in their own way, and all three kind
Speaker 2: of like carrying their own weight. Like you could leave
Speaker 2: this thinking of it as a Red Brown picture. You
Speaker 2: could leave it thinking of it as a Christopher Leef picture.
Speaker 2: But I have to agree with you. I think this
Speaker 2: is Sybil's picture.
Speaker 3: I think most people are gonna leave it, thinking of
Speaker 3: it as a sibil danding picture. She is. Yeah, once
Speaker 3: she first appears, you can almost feel it in the
Speaker 3: editing that there is a constant anxiety, like a pressure,
Speaker 3: driving us to cut back to Steerba as frequently as possible.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, characters should be standing around asking
Speaker 3: what's Pooci doing? Why isn't Pouocy on screen right now?
Speaker 3: It's like that with Stierba.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what is Steerba doing? What is Steerba wearing? We've
Speaker 2: got to know she's doing some sort of weird arcane
Speaker 2: ritual or lounging on a throne somewhere, and we want
Speaker 2: all the details.
Speaker 3: Folks, If you're watching on VID and you just saw
Speaker 3: Rob's feed go dark, we've just had a technical difficulty
Speaker 3: and lost his camera.
Speaker 2: You might be wondering, did I start changing into a
Speaker 2: werewolf and did JJ have to shoot me? No, that
Speaker 2: is not true, just something went weird with the camera.
Speaker 2: We'll work on that for the next episode.
Speaker 3: Unless we detect the process of evolution that's being reversed,
Speaker 3: in which case all bets are off.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, keep the camera on Joe here, Joe,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to say real quick as I always do.
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and
Speaker 2: culture podcast with core episodes and two seas and Thursdays,
Speaker 2: but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns, So
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Follow us on Letterbox we were Weird House. There nice
Speaker 2: list of all the movies we've ever covered, and sometimes
Speaker 2: a peek ahead at what comes next.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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