Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb,
Speaker 1: and let's see today we have an older episode of
Speaker 1: the show that we've never rerun, so we are unearthing it.
Speaker 1: It is the nineteen ninety one Japanese sci fi monster
Speaker 1: films zay Ram. I may or may not be pronouncing
Speaker 1: the alien's name correctly here. I don't recall the sights
Speaker 1: and sounds except for the pronunciation of this alien's name.
Speaker 1: I certainly remember mostly the sights. This one has an
Speaker 1: amazing futuristic bounty hunter character and some various other effects
Speaker 1: that are just tons of fun. Maybe we'll get around
Speaker 1: to watching the sequel at some point. This one originally
Speaker 1: published four four, twenty twenty two. Let's enter the picture.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And my name is Joe McCormick. And today's movie is
Speaker 3: a nineteen ninety one Japanese film called zay Ram, or
Speaker 3: maybe better to say Zerum, because the zay Ram really
Speaker 3: sounds like the Tennessee take on the name of the
Speaker 3: alien in this film. Yeah, but hey, what do you know?
Speaker 3: This is our very first space bounty Hunter movie, And
Speaker 3: I think I'll have to be honest and say that
Speaker 3: Zayram is not the most scintillating movie I have ever seen,
Speaker 3: but it has a really great central monsters, has a
Speaker 3: fun bounty Hunter, and it is light years beyond the
Speaker 3: quality of the other main Space bounty Hunter title in
Speaker 3: my mental database, which is also from nineteen ninety one
Speaker 3: and is called a Braxis Guardian of the Universe, Rob
Speaker 3: Have you seen this one with Jesse the Body Ventura.
Speaker 1: I have. I believe I watched the riff Tracks version
Speaker 1: of it, and I remember it being bad, and I
Speaker 1: definitely remember the two principal cast members.
Speaker 3: Braxis goes way back like when I very first started
Speaker 3: getting into B movies in like high school, you know,
Speaker 3: My friends and I were going to the to like
Speaker 3: the used book and DVD store and digging through their
Speaker 3: like trash pile to see what we could find. This
Speaker 3: is one of the ones we dug up. So it's
Speaker 3: got Jesse the Body Ventura as the Space bounty Hunter,
Speaker 3: and it's got spin Ole Thorson, who you might know
Speaker 3: from Oh I don't know. He was in Conan I think,
Speaker 3: and they're running around some Yeah. Yeah, they're running around
Speaker 3: some town in Ontario, and Spin is the is the fugitive,
Speaker 3: and I recall he keeps grabbing people and asking them
Speaker 3: if they know how to compute the anti life equation.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, Spin shows up in a number of different
Speaker 1: Arnold movies. He was kind of like part of the ensemble,
Speaker 1: I believe, but then eventually starts showing up, you know,
Speaker 1: doing solo projects as well.
Speaker 3: Do you think they originally wanted Arnold for a Braxis
Speaker 3: but he, I don't know, went on the Determinator or
Speaker 3: two or something.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine Arnold was ever in talks for a Braxis.
Speaker 1: I think I think this project was a different orbit entirely.
Speaker 3: But hey, a space bounty hunter can be a lot
Speaker 3: of fun because, okay, you know, you have like two
Speaker 3: parties arrived from other worlds. Now they're here on Earth,
Speaker 3: and there's already a chase going on, so like, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not like you have to get to that part
Speaker 3: once they're here. One is already in pursuit of the other,
Speaker 3: and that's a good setup.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, In general, the bounty hunter scenario makes for
Speaker 1: good fiction. Especially when you know, because you can do
Speaker 1: the same thing, like who's this mysterious individual chasing this
Speaker 1: other mysterious individual. Well, you're gonna have to explain it
Speaker 1: to the bystanders and they become part of the whole plot.
Speaker 1: But yeah, throw in space and aliens and you've got
Speaker 1: yourself a winning formula. And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that I like about Zeram is that it's
Speaker 1: a pretty simple formula. They don't. They get into a
Speaker 1: fair amount of complexity with the monster itself, but in
Speaker 1: terms of the basic plotting, into a certain extent, the
Speaker 1: world building, they keep it simple. This is a movie
Speaker 1: where the title is the name of the monster, so
Speaker 1: you know it's going to be monster centric.
Speaker 3: There's extremely little plot in this movie. Yeah, But what
Speaker 3: it lacks in story complexity, I would say it's somewhat
Speaker 3: makes up for in the form of the far more
Speaker 3: interesting than spin only Thorson Fugitive, which is an elegantly
Speaker 3: haberdashed bipedal starbeast who has so many now I reveal
Speaker 3: my true form moments, I lost count of them. Like
Speaker 3: every time now I reveal my true forms, there's another
Speaker 3: one coming.
Speaker 1: That's right, my son walked in and watched part of
Speaker 1: this with me, because this is ultimately a pretty pretty
Speaker 1: harmless movie. It's got a little bit of little bit
Speaker 1: of a monster blood and monster grossness in it, and
Speaker 1: some sci fi weapon fire, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: pretty wholesome. So he was watching part of this and
Speaker 1: he was he was at least acting a little exasperated.
Speaker 1: He was into the monster designs. But he's like, haven't
Speaker 1: they almost killed this thing like six times?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah they have. Luckily it finally sticks. But I'll
Speaker 1: tell you something else. It sticks. Yeah, this monster's design
Speaker 1: sticks with you. Because I had never seen this film
Speaker 1: in its entirety, but I caught I think I caught
Speaker 1: part of it back in the nineties on the Sci
Speaker 1: Fi Channel. They had a dub version. I think they
Speaker 1: showed and it was one of those where you know,
Speaker 1: who knows what else was going on, But I only
Speaker 1: caught just a glimpse of it, just enough to watch
Speaker 1: like one or two scenes with the title creature, this hulking,
Speaker 1: relentless alien bio weapon that you know, it seems like
Speaker 1: this thoroughly unique amalgam of alarming features. You know, which
Speaker 1: is which is good in any monster because monsters are
Speaker 1: often this sort of amalgam, but it's a monster where
Speaker 1: it's primary form, the one that gets the most screen time.
Speaker 1: It suggests elements of Samurai and onny mushrooms and stingrays.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously there's a little bit of Xenomorph sprinkled
Speaker 1: in there. There's also a sense of the Cyclops and
Speaker 1: just much much more like it seems like they've they've
Speaker 1: added enough elements that it just becomes unique feeling. And
Speaker 1: it also made an impression on me because at the
Speaker 1: time I had not seen much in the way of
Speaker 1: Japanese cinema, especially you know, sort of the bio horror
Speaker 1: realm of Japanese cinema, you know, thinking of classics like
Speaker 1: Akira or Tatsuo the Iron Man. But again I didn't
Speaker 1: see the whole film. I forgot about this creature for
Speaker 1: the most part, but occasionally I would be reminded of him.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's because I've been watching the Boba Fett
Speaker 1: series with alien Bounty hunters. Maybe that that made me
Speaker 1: think of him again. But I was like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: need to look this film up. I need to see
Speaker 1: who this mysterious creature was and what this film consisted
Speaker 1: of and give it a proper.
Speaker 3: And I would argue, maybe you still don't know who
Speaker 3: this alien creature was, because I don't think the movie
Speaker 3: really addresses that question much.
Speaker 1: No, we don't know really where he's from or what
Speaker 1: he did to have a bounty hunter chasing after him.
Speaker 1: I mean, he could be the good guy for all
Speaker 1: we know, though probably not his his backstory is not
Speaker 1: really fleshed out. All we're really told is that he's
Speaker 1: essentially some sort of bioweapon.
Speaker 3: I'm going to buck expectations and argue that when it
Speaker 3: really comes down to it, Much like the original Alien,
Speaker 3: zay Ram is a movie about work in the workplace,
Speaker 3: you know, because it's about a it's not really about
Speaker 3: human relationships. It's not really about good versus evil. It's
Speaker 3: really about people trying to do their jobs. So you
Speaker 3: have a couple of power company guys who have a
Speaker 3: job to do. There are main human characters, and then
Speaker 3: you have your Zeno legal bounty hunter who has a
Speaker 3: job to do and she's our main sort of you know,
Speaker 3: superhuman hero. And the movie is essentially what happens when
Speaker 3: those two groups trying to do their jobs jam into
Speaker 3: each other at cross purposes. It's like, you know when
Speaker 3: you see a road partially blocked for digging on a
Speaker 3: pipe or something, and then there's a delivery driver who
Speaker 3: has to get through, but their truck won't fit the gap,
Speaker 3: and they start arguing. Except add in space tentacles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think you're essentially right here. I
Speaker 1: wonder what we're to make of the fact that Xeram
Speaker 1: itself is essentially a product in a humanoid form. You know, hmmm,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe there's nothing to be made of that,
Speaker 1: but ross cross my mind.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I can see it if he's a bioweapon.
Speaker 3: I mean, like much like you know when I watch Alien.
Speaker 3: The movie raises lots of great questions and I love it,
Speaker 3: But one of the ones I think people don't think
Speaker 3: about very often is I'm like, man, if like the
Speaker 3: Whyland Utahani Corporation had better workplace protections, Like if they
Speaker 3: had better like union regulations in place or something, A
Speaker 3: lot of this could have been of did, but probably
Speaker 3: all of it. But no, I mean, it's just like
Speaker 3: it's a movie about work problems and this is kind
Speaker 3: of the same. It's like, why did these two electricians
Speaker 3: have to go into the warehouse to investigate the alien
Speaker 3: technology themselves. Couldn't they have called a supervisor to deal
Speaker 3: with this?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, it seems like there should be more of
Speaker 1: a system in place. Shouldn't the police maybe get involved?
Speaker 3: I don't know, Yeah, you would think so.
Speaker 1: All right, So the elevator pitch for Zayram. I feel
Speaker 1: like we've basically done it already. It's alien Bounty Hunter,
Speaker 1: Alien Bounty taking place on Earth, drawing earthlines into the
Speaker 1: wild cosmic scenario.
Speaker 3: Did you did you say earth lens?
Speaker 1: Did I? I don't know earthlans, Earthlings, maybe earthlins.
Speaker 3: Is maybe I miss Earthlings.
Speaker 1: Like this universe, I'm just I'm expanding on the zay
Speaker 1: Ram universe here already.
Speaker 3: All right? Okay, so who made zay Ram? Oh?
Speaker 1: Oh no, we have some trailer first.
Speaker 3: Oh oh sorry, okay, let's hear some trailer.
Speaker 4: The people of Earth are about to be visited by
Speaker 4: some guests. While they're here, try and make them the
Speaker 4: feel welcome. If you can't take the heat, get out
Speaker 4: of the galaxy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Not a great trailer, but that's the English language shower.
Speaker 1: The voiceover is a bit a bit much, but we
Speaker 1: wanted to have something for you that wasn't just explosion sounds.
Speaker 3: I mean a big part of this movie is explosion sounds. Yes, okay,
Speaker 3: so who made this thing?
Speaker 1: All right? So the director, one of the writers, and
Speaker 1: the character designer is Kita Amimia. Emma has an illustration background,
Speaker 1: born nineteen fifty nine. And I think the illustration background
Speaker 1: makes sense given just how visual this movie is, Like,
Speaker 1: this is a movie that's very much about look at
Speaker 1: this look at this monster. Look what happens when he
Speaker 1: has a costume change.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: The character design elements are very strong in.
Speaker 3: This I agree so much so that there are even
Speaker 3: moments of this movie that look like hand drawn illustrations.
Speaker 3: Like there is an opening scene. Actually, it might be
Speaker 3: my favorite part of the whole movie is the black
Speaker 3: and white silhouette opening sequence and when the outline of
Speaker 3: Zayram is first revealed, before we see any of the
Speaker 3: you know, the surface detail, Zaram kind of looks like
Speaker 3: an illustration. He looks like a hand drawn animation until
Speaker 3: it's revealed like, oh no, this is somebody in a
Speaker 3: costume lit from behind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's yeah, it's pretty great costume. It's one
Speaker 1: of these where zay ram generally feels enormous but has
Speaker 1: a very you know, a very humanoid gait about him,
Speaker 1: very humanoid dimensions. I feel like it was very effectively done.
Speaker 3: Heavy footfalls. Zaram likes to kind of clomp around on
Speaker 3: the floor.
Speaker 1: Now. Emamia has done a lot of work in design
Speaker 1: and effects, including this is interesting. He was an effects
Speaker 1: animator on nineteen eighty nine's gun Head, which we covered
Speaker 1: on Weird House in the past.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: He's also worked as a character designer for video games
Speaker 1: such as clock Tower three, which I believe I played
Speaker 1: that one back in the day on like PS two.
Speaker 1: He was also involved in some only Musha titles and
Speaker 1: does zay Ram as very much as sort of his
Speaker 1: follow up to his first full length film, Cyber Ninja
Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty eight, which I've not seen, but I
Speaker 1: looked at some stills from it. Looked at at least
Speaker 1: one clip. It looks like a lot of fun and
Speaker 1: there are also some really out there monster designs in it.
Speaker 3: I have not seen it, but I will watch based
Speaker 3: on the title alone.
Speaker 1: So he would go on to direct a sequels z
Speaker 1: a Ram two in nineteen ninety four, and there was
Speaker 1: also a spin off animated series that seemed to have
Speaker 1: quite a following, Aria Zerium The Bounty Hunter. He's worked
Speaker 1: a lot of it years though, and his filmography includes
Speaker 1: some common writer films and what seems like dozens of
Speaker 1: titles in the film TV franchise Gero, which, like these
Speaker 1: other titles, is a tokusatsu or live action special effects drama,
Speaker 1: this time about a man in magical armor who has
Speaker 1: to protect humanity against the horrors, which I believe are
Speaker 1: some sort of demons. Now. Gero I've seen is sometimes
Speaker 1: described as a midnight tokusatsu series, as it yes contains
Speaker 1: like people in heroes and fancy armor suits battling monsters,
Speaker 1: but it apparently has darker elements for grown ups and
Speaker 1: such as is shown on TV like Late at Night. Zairam, however,
Speaker 1: is not midnight tokusatsu. This is tokusatsu for the whole family. Again.
Speaker 1: My nine year old son walked in and seemed to
Speaker 1: enjoy it and critiqued it a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say probably the scariest thing in here is well,
Speaker 3: I mean some shots of Zairam the monster have like
Speaker 3: that scary face thing that comes out of it. Which
Speaker 3: we can talk about more. But probably the worst thing
Speaker 3: is that it like really bites the electricians arm bad
Speaker 3: and leaves a big bloody welt. Yeah, you can deal
Speaker 3: with that. I think the movie's cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now with the next I want to hit the
Speaker 1: other writing credit on this, who is also the visual
Speaker 1: effects coordinator, and I think it becomes pretty obviously we're
Speaker 1: kind of in Pumpkinhead territory with this film. This is
Speaker 1: this is a film, you know, by special effects people,
Speaker 1: with very much a special effects design mentality that goes
Speaker 1: into it. So it's it's monster first, it's visuals first,
Speaker 1: and maybe the actual plotting and acting and so forth
Speaker 1: takes a backseat to all of that.
Speaker 3: Now your Pumpkinhead comparison, that was directed by Stan Winston, right,
Speaker 3: Am I right about that?
Speaker 1: I believe so yes, that of course a legend of
Speaker 1: special effects, not so much, you know, a legendary director.
Speaker 1: But he did get in there. He got in there
Speaker 1: with Pumpkinhead in nineteen eighty eight, I think he did.
Speaker 1: He directed mostly some other short stuff. He directed a
Speaker 1: film titled A Nome named Norm from nineteen ninety that
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of till just now, and he did
Speaker 1: some video shorts, but yeah, Pumpkinhead was his chance to
Speaker 1: really get in there and show what he could do.
Speaker 1: And it's mostly about a really cool monster. You got
Speaker 1: some Lance Hendrickson in there too.
Speaker 3: I guess. Yeah, yeah, it's it's an okay horror movie.
Speaker 3: It's a great looking horror.
Speaker 1: Movie, also featuring Dick Warlock. Oh yes, okay, So anyway
Speaker 1: back to the za Ram writing credit and visual effects
Speaker 1: coordinator goes to Hajimi Matsumoto as a writer. They only
Speaker 1: worked on the Zerium movies and three other titles, but
Speaker 1: Matsumoto has primarily worked in special effects, including some Godzilla movies.
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety five's Gamera Guardian of the Universe, which which
Speaker 1: I love. That's a really fun one with a lot
Speaker 1: of like cute Gamera when he's little and then he
Speaker 1: becomes your expected Gamera.
Speaker 3: Is this the second movie we've mentioned in this episode
Speaker 3: called Guardian of the Universe with the subtitle Guardian in
Speaker 3: the Universe. Oh man, that sets up a perfect sequel
Speaker 3: idea Gamera versus a braxis they got to duke it
Speaker 3: out and figure out which one is the real Guardian.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's got to be Gamera. I'm going to I
Speaker 1: vote Gammera every time, especially over Ventura. But let's say yeah.
Speaker 1: But Matsumoto was also also involved in the special effects
Speaker 1: on nineteen ninety eight's Ring, the original Japanese Ring upon
Speaker 1: which the American film The Ring was based. He also
Speaker 1: worked on some of the Ring sequels. He worked on Spiral,
Speaker 1: and he worked on The Grudge, both the Japanese version
Speaker 1: and the American remake.
Speaker 3: All right, but we would not have a Space bounty
Speaker 3: Hunter movie without our Space bounty Hunter. So who plays
Speaker 3: this all important character.
Speaker 1: It is Yuko Moriyama, playing Area of the bounty Hunter.
Speaker 1: She was born in nineteen sixty eight, Japanese actor. This
Speaker 1: was her first role apparently, and she went on to
Speaker 1: do the sequel some TV. She was in Reborn from
Speaker 1: Hell too, And it looks like she retired from acting
Speaker 1: between two thousand and two thousand and four and possibly
Speaker 1: went into some sort of education field.
Speaker 3: For some reason. I usually just like to see that,
Speaker 3: I mean, assuming it wasn't caused by some bad experience
Speaker 3: or something. When somebody's just like, Okay, I was acting
Speaker 3: for a while. Now I'm career change, I'm gonna do
Speaker 3: something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, based on the limited English information I could find
Speaker 1: about it, it sounds like she just like she eventually found
Speaker 1: her calling somewhere else. So yeah, more power.
Speaker 3: To her now. As we talked about, this movie doesn't
Speaker 3: place a lot of dramatic demands on its actors, but
Speaker 3: I'd say she's good. She fills this role quite well.
Speaker 3: She wears the power armor, she does good fight scenes.
Speaker 3: She has a good determined stare when facing down the monster.
Speaker 3: Thumbs up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, solid action performance. You know, she comes
Speaker 1: off as a badass and unlike her AI help her, Bob,
Speaker 1: she's kind of reckless. She's relentless. She's like, she's got
Speaker 1: to get her bounty, while Bob the AI is more
Speaker 1: concerns earned about, you know, how this is going to
Speaker 1: affect their license? Oh yeah, the lead do they hit?
Speaker 1: Did they have the actual permit to use this particular
Speaker 1: super weapon against the alien? And stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Oh. I got that interminable argument at the beginning about
Speaker 3: the zone and whether using a zone will cause them
Speaker 3: to forfeit some percent of the bounty, And.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should have had more of that. It could
Speaker 1: have been the the shin Godzilla of Alien Bounty Hunter films.
Speaker 3: Oh, that would be a good idea.
Speaker 1: All right, So two Earthlings or Earthlinks, if you will,
Speaker 1: get get sucked into this, this whole situation, and the
Speaker 1: first of them we'll start with is I believe his
Speaker 1: name is Tep Tepei. I'm sorry Tepe. I think Tepe
Speaker 1: Tepe the handsome electrician unknown age. This character was played
Speaker 1: by Kunihiro Ida and very limited credits on this guy.
Speaker 1: He was in both the zebraz Ram movies. Doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to have been active in a long time. But then
Speaker 1: the other Trician who's our funny electrician, are kind of
Speaker 1: obnoxious electrician because you know, that's kind of how your
Speaker 1: duo should go in a film like this. This is
Speaker 1: Camea and he is played by Yukihiro Hotaru. Born in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one. Hotaru is very active still today, mostly
Speaker 1: on Japanese television. He made a career for himself, initially
Speaker 1: playing detectives, usually in Japanese pink films. This is a
Speaker 1: broad category of erotic films in Japanese cinema, with some
Speaker 1: particularly sleazy titles, but he seems to have gradually crossed
Speaker 1: over into mainstream sci fi and horror as well. Ultimately
Speaker 1: starring or at least acting in a number of TV shows,
Speaker 1: even kids films. He worked in that Garo series that
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier. So yeah, you can see you can
Speaker 1: ultimately see why because he has a very charismatic face.
Speaker 1: He's constantly pulling funny, weird faces in this film, So
Speaker 1: you can see why an actor like this would be
Speaker 1: sort of your go to for sort of you know,
Speaker 1: a wonky character roles. You know, it was certainly in
Speaker 1: recent decades.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's doing a zany Jim Carrey kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we usually mentioned the music, so I'll go
Speaker 1: ahead and say that hirokazu Ota is credited with the music.
Speaker 1: The score is a bit much in places for my taste,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty effective in other places. This individual also
Speaker 1: scored the film Roboman Hakaider from nineteen ninety five, which
Speaker 1: I haven't seen, but I've noticed on shells many times.
Speaker 1: It's another one of these sort of hero in armor
Speaker 1: or robot gear battles evil.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, you might have already guessed from the
Speaker 3: way we've been talking about it so far. This is
Speaker 3: not really one of those movies where it will make
Speaker 3: much sense to go scene by scene since there really
Speaker 3: is very little plot. It is mostly a showcase for
Speaker 3: visual spectacles, you know, sci fi tech battles, tentacle attacks,
Speaker 3: monster transformations, and so forth. But we can give you
Speaker 3: a general picture of the shape of the plot and
Speaker 3: then talk about some highlights that we really enjoyed. And
Speaker 3: the first highlight I would say is actually the very
Speaker 3: first thing in the movie. Strong. Strong opening sequence might
Speaker 3: have been my favorite part of the entire thing. And
Speaker 3: interesting connections throughout this opening sequence to the Saudakar, because
Speaker 3: you have this background of deep chants as if you know,
Speaker 3: the moon monks are doing mattins. But then also you
Speaker 3: have space marines and these egg shaped Eva helmets much
Speaker 3: like the like the they're shown in the most recent
Speaker 3: Dune movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so they're they're they're clearly here or I
Speaker 1: don't know that they're here. They're there. They're somewhere, presumably
Speaker 1: in space, maybe on a space ship or something space station. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to stop zay Ram and who they don't stand a chance.
Speaker 3: No, So what we see is a black and white
Speaker 3: silhouette of a creature who looks like a person wearing
Speaker 3: a wide brimmed hat, or perhaps somebody who has a
Speaker 3: large mushroom cap for a head, and it's hard to
Speaker 3: tell more than that because the person's in silhouette except
Speaker 3: when it pauses to suddenly reveal a face, but not
Speaker 3: with the correct proportions for like a human face. So
Speaker 3: it's not a face that would fill what is presumably
Speaker 3: this creature's head. It's like a little tiny face and
Speaker 3: it's in this pale makeup that looks kind of like
Speaker 3: a mask from no theater, but with super nasty black teeth,
Speaker 3: like very scarified.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when we zoom in on it, it often makes
Speaker 1: little noises kind of like yeah, stuff like that would
Speaker 1: add to the creepiness.
Speaker 3: But then okay, so when we see the face, the
Speaker 3: face is not proportional to the size of the head.
Speaker 3: It's much smaller. It's like a little cameo, you know,
Speaker 3: little tiny face on this big head with the wide
Speaker 3: brim hat. And then it is the body of this
Speaker 3: creature looks like it is wearing some kind of fibery cloak,
Speaker 3: you know. It's like it's got a big kind of
Speaker 3: ragged cape.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it's been it's been tramping through humanoid realms
Speaker 1: and so it has taken on the guise of human clothing,
Speaker 1: and I think it adds to sort of the category
Speaker 1: confusion of this monster, like what is it? Is the
Speaker 1: thing and the little face on its hat? Is that
Speaker 1: is there like some sort of a hybrid I mean,
Speaker 1: or at least a symbiotic relationship going on here? Or
Speaker 1: is that the face of the thing is you know,
Speaker 1: it's wearing clothes. So does it his it cultured?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 1: Or is it just a brute beast? There's so many
Speaker 1: questions that rise to the surface.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the space Marines unload their pulse rifles on
Speaker 3: the monster, but to no avail. The Sombrero creature slaughters
Speaker 3: them all and escapes whatever wherever it is this opening
Speaker 3: takes place. I imagine it's supposed to be some kind
Speaker 3: of exo prison, and we see in the very opening
Speaker 3: scene that it has a kind of xenomorph like stabbing,
Speaker 3: a jaw to face attack that I think is done
Speaker 3: by that little tiny face on its hat.
Speaker 1: But a lot of this action is taking place in
Speaker 1: it like kind of extreme close up. This is a
Speaker 1: film that likes close ups at times that feel like
Speaker 1: a little bit too much, Like I felt like you
Speaker 1: could you could pan out on that row of weapons,
Speaker 1: and I would I would maybe get more out of
Speaker 1: the scene, but fair enough.
Speaker 3: Okay. But next thing, after the intro, we go to
Speaker 3: meet our main characters, who are all going about their
Speaker 3: business somewhere in modern day Japan. So we meet our
Speaker 3: bounty hunter. This is Eriea, and she is very on target.
Speaker 3: She's very on task. She will stop at nothing to
Speaker 3: capture or kill the hat beast. And I couldn't remember
Speaker 3: if they explained this anywhere in the movie, but she
Speaker 3: looks human, but I think she's supposed to be from
Speaker 3: another planet, right, She's not like a human who secretly
Speaker 3: went to space and became a bounty hunter, because this
Speaker 3: is not understood as far as I can tell, to
Speaker 3: take place in the future or anything when humans have
Speaker 3: gone into space and some of them might be space bounty.
Speaker 1: Hunters, right, she is, I guess what we might loosely
Speaker 1: think of as a space human, which to a certain
Speaker 1: extent is kind of the legacy of budget constraints on
Speaker 1: sci fi from various cultures and film cultures in various decades,
Speaker 1: where yeah, you just can't have a crazy looking alien
Speaker 1: for everybody. Some of them got to be human, And
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it's something that's fleshed out more
Speaker 1: in the sequel or the TV series, But she is.
Speaker 1: We're never given any glimpse that, like, oh, she may
Speaker 1: look human, but her blood is blue or purple. No,
Speaker 1: she just seems to be a human who happens to
Speaker 1: have this job. And maybe I don't know, it's one
Speaker 1: of these things we're not supposed to think about too much.
Speaker 3: I guess right, it's Planned nine from outer space. The
Speaker 3: aliens just look human, except they're wearing a shiny shirt. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 3: but the other possibility of considering again, I don't think
Speaker 3: they ever said this, but I was like, well, I
Speaker 3: wonder if she's like doing I don't know, assuming the
Speaker 3: appearance of the dominant life form on this planet.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I wasn't that one of the elements and
Speaker 1: critters where we had We had alien bounty hunters in that,
Speaker 1: but they ended up looking like people, but they weren't people.
Speaker 3: That could be. Yeah, my critters knowledge is abysmally low.
Speaker 3: So as we've threatened a few times, we may have
Speaker 3: to break the critters seal on the show.
Speaker 1: It's just hard to choose. I don't know, we've talked
Speaker 1: about it. I think off Mike before. But each Critters
Speaker 1: movie offers its own alluring choices. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: go with Critters one? I think, is that the one
Speaker 1: or maybe it's the sequel that Leonardo DiCaprio is in it,
Speaker 1: But then that third one? Is that the third one? Okay? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, two or three perhaps, But then you
Speaker 1: have a pretty good cast in the first one, and
Speaker 1: then by part four you have Brad Doriff showing up,
Speaker 1: so I don't know, there's so many directions to go.
Speaker 1: And then of course they're row poly alien create creatures
Speaker 1: in all four of them, some wonderful Gromlin action.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, so you got Aria, she's the main hero.
Speaker 3: She's she's the bounty hunter. But then you've got Erie's
Speaker 3: got of a sidekick, right, sort of the nerd who
Speaker 3: does her computing for her. And in the case of
Speaker 3: this movie, you know they're not going to just go
Speaker 3: another humanoid who acts kind of nerdy and does computing.
Speaker 3: They actually have a talking computer. It's just an AI
Speaker 3: sidekick who constantly explains to the viewer what is.
Speaker 1: Happening, Yeah, Bob the AI, Which I think one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I like this is this, this this alone.
Speaker 1: And I'm not comparing this movie to Ian m Banks
Speaker 1: culture series, but in those, in those novels, you'll frequently
Speaker 1: have an individual who's often a member of the culture
Speaker 1: and they have they have an AI that they're they're
Speaker 1: talking to all the time, and they're having little conversations
Speaker 1: and disagreements and so forth. So this felt, you know,
Speaker 1: not to say that this was even you know, remotely
Speaker 1: inspired by it's a pretty you know, i think common
Speaker 1: idea regarding science fiction, but it made me think of
Speaker 1: that a little bit.
Speaker 3: Bob's got a little bit of personality. Bob is not
Speaker 3: just a you know, purely giving the answers to you know,
Speaker 3: He's not like a Google search result, like He's got
Speaker 3: some some thoughts of his own.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, again, he's he's very into making sure that
Speaker 1: they get to keep their license, that that any weaponry
Speaker 1: or tactics that they employ, that these are they have
Speaker 1: the correct certifications, that they're they're not going to get
Speaker 1: in trouble. So he's you know, he's very much a
Speaker 1: very lawful mindset, and Aria has more of a chaotic mindset.
Speaker 3: I'd say that's right, Yes, So Bob is sort of lawful,
Speaker 3: neutral and area's kind of chaotic good yeah, okay. But
Speaker 3: then the other two main characters are our power company guys,
Speaker 3: and we mentioned them already, but you have Tepe, who
Speaker 3: is he's handsome, sweet, shy. Earnest don't have a lot
Speaker 3: of notes on Tepe. He's just like, oh, he's a
Speaker 3: nice guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then the other one you've got is Camilla, who
Speaker 3: seems a little bit older and he is our fidgety clown,
Speaker 3: but he ends up really coming through in a pinch
Speaker 3: at the end of the movie. And early on, Camia
Speaker 3: has a near meat cute with Eria the bounty hunter,
Speaker 3: because she seems to be buying hundreds of apples and
Speaker 3: she drops one in the street and then Cama picks
Speaker 3: it up out of the gutter and tries to run
Speaker 3: after her. But I don't think they ever come face
Speaker 3: to face.
Speaker 1: Not at that point, but of course later on they
Speaker 1: meet and he's like, oh, it's the woman from the street.
Speaker 1: Though I don't know what.
Speaker 3: The purpose of that is, like that opening sequence, because
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, yeah, I saw you before. Anyway, So
Speaker 3: this movie, especially early on, is very heavy on technobabble.
Speaker 3: There is a long scene with Eria and Bob just
Speaker 3: discussing regulations on the technology they use. Like, the main
Speaker 3: thing I think you need to understand is the concept
Speaker 3: of a zone. And so there's a long scene where
Speaker 3: Erie and Bob are talking about the idea of a zone.
Speaker 3: Here's my best interpretation of how it works. So Eria
Speaker 3: and Bob know that the monster Zeiram is headed toward Earth,
Speaker 3: and they know that it will crash land at roughly
Speaker 3: a given place at a given time, and they get
Speaker 3: there before it. So in order to capture Zayram with
Speaker 3: as little risk as possible, Eria and Bob make an
Speaker 3: alternate dimension copy of the city district where Zayram is
Speaker 3: going to land, and then somehow get him to land
Speaker 3: there instead of in the regular dimensional place. And this
Speaker 3: alternate dimension city district is known as a zone. It's
Speaker 3: like surrounded by invisible walls and it's just like a
Speaker 3: regular city, except it has no people in it except
Speaker 3: whoever teleports into that using area's transporter. And apparently you
Speaker 3: collect a reduced bounty if you quote use a zone,
Speaker 3: but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, I liked this aspect of the movie, like it
Speaker 1: adds an extra little wrinkle to it. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how much of it is them wanting to do
Speaker 1: something cool with kind of like, oh, they're not battling
Speaker 1: the alien just on the streets. They're battling it in
Speaker 1: this strange shadow zone, or if it's kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: if they're battling in the zone, we don't have to
Speaker 1: have any extras or worry about why the police aren't
Speaker 1: showing up.
Speaker 3: Right, So most of this movie just takes place in
Speaker 3: the zone. So, like you say, there's no need for extrasm.
Speaker 3: There was one scene where they cut back to the
Speaker 3: regular world and they show like the people that the
Speaker 3: Electricians were supposed to be partying with later that night,
Speaker 3: hanging out and like they're not there, but they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't miss them. I don't care that they're not here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was strange. Oh, but by the way, I
Speaker 1: should ask at this point, did you watch we both
Speaker 1: use the same Blu ray copy on this. Did you
Speaker 1: do dubbed or subtitled subtitles? You did subtitles, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: because so I did the thing where I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: because sometimes there is a drastic difference. It's between subtitles
Speaker 1: and and and the dub on films like this. So
Speaker 1: I did the thing at first where I had both
Speaker 1: going on, and I was, you know, you kind of
Speaker 1: like trying to split my head by following both and
Speaker 1: seeing like which one was the way to go. And
Speaker 1: I quickly decided, Okay, that doesn't seem to be a
Speaker 1: tremendous difference. Maybe the subtitles are a little tighter, but
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm missing out on a lot of
Speaker 1: plot if I just go ahead and and and employ
Speaker 1: the dub instead.
Speaker 3: I mean, it always varies by case, but I think
Speaker 3: in general dubs are a great option for like silly movies,
Speaker 3: B movies and stuff like that. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I gravitate more towards subtitles if it's like the they're
Speaker 3: real strong, dramatic performances by the original actors, and you
Speaker 3: kind of want to hear their original tone and things,
Speaker 3: even if you don't understand the language.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and just rely on the subtitles for the for
Speaker 3: the semantic uh. But yeah, I mean in a monster movie,
Speaker 3: I think dubs are great.
Speaker 1: Okay, well we'll come back to this because they'll be
Speaker 1: two points where I want to know if you have
Speaker 1: a different understanding of what was occurring based on the
Speaker 1: subtitles versus my understanding via the dubs.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, but we didn't finish talking about the zones
Speaker 3: because the other the okay, right, So the one last
Speaker 3: thing with the zone is like, you can't just walk
Speaker 3: into or out of a zone like a zone. Again,
Speaker 3: it's an alternate dimension. It's surrounded by invisible walls, and
Speaker 3: you have to have some kind of teleporter device that
Speaker 3: Aria has set up in her command center in an
Speaker 3: empty warehouse in order to teleport in and teleport out.
Speaker 3: And multiple times in the movie, these teleporting devices get
Speaker 3: broken and that prevents somebody from going one way or
Speaker 3: the other. But okay, Eria and Bob are discussing zones,
Speaker 3: discussing bounties, discussing regulations and technology. Meanwhile, Tepe and Camia
Speaker 3: are our power company guys are trying to finish all
Speaker 3: the jobs they've got left on their list for the
Speaker 3: day because at least one of them has a date
Speaker 3: that they need to get to. I don't remember. I
Speaker 3: think it's Cameo, or maybe both of them do anyway.
Speaker 1: But I think Tepe has an actual date date and
Speaker 1: Kemia is just like hanging out at the box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Kemia needs to go hang out with people who
Speaker 3: don't actually like him. So one job that they have
Speaker 3: to deal with before they can finish up for the
Speaker 3: day is that somebody is stealing electricity, so they are
Speaker 3: called to the location where this is allegedly happening. They
Speaker 3: arrive at a warehouse where somebody is rigged up a
Speaker 3: bootleg power line coming off of the pole, and instead
Speaker 3: of just cutting the line, they have to go into
Speaker 3: the warehouse to investigate, and lo and behold, it's the
Speaker 3: command center. It's full of weird, blinking, beeping gizmos.
Speaker 1: Time to start touching stuff right, Also, just put our
Speaker 1: hands all over this long story short, the two electricians
Speaker 1: accidentally get teleported into the.
Speaker 3: Zone along with eria Xeram arrives, and this leads into
Speaker 3: the rest of the movie, which is just one long
Speaker 3: chain of fi chases, monster attacks, and monster transformations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all in kind of dreary look mostly dreary looking
Speaker 1: industrial locations that you know, fit the zone and fit
Speaker 1: this style of movie. Though there is also a wonderful
Speaker 1: looking I think it's a playground, like a really modern yeah,
Speaker 1: like early nineties Japanese playground. I didn't look this up,
Speaker 1: just try and figure out where this was. But it
Speaker 1: looks really cool. I look at this and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to head.
Speaker 3: I want to play on that. And so from here
Speaker 3: on out, I think, because it's just sort of fights
Speaker 3: and chases and transformations, uh, maybe we can just focus
Speaker 3: on highlights.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: The first big fight between Xerram and Erea is great.
Speaker 3: It involves energy weapons, ballistic weapons, strange traps, like area
Speaker 3: has all these different kinds of traps, Like one shoots
Speaker 3: out all these tethers that wrap up the monster. One
Speaker 3: is like, it shoots up these spikes that surround the monster,
Speaker 3: and yes, they're like metal spikes, and I think it
Speaker 3: has to like bend them down. But then the it
Speaker 3: also has hand to hand fighting. Eria has the full
Speaker 3: gamut of bounty hunter skills, so it seems like she
Speaker 3: is a trapper first and foremost, and she likes using
Speaker 3: this device that encases someone within, like a giant crystal,
Speaker 3: but then when a fight breaks out, she throws down.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She does have a wonderful array of sort of
Speaker 1: Mandalorian esque or predator esque weaponry, you know, all the
Speaker 1: various bells and whistles.
Speaker 3: But of course Zaiam has his own tricks, and one
Speaker 3: of them, one of the weirdest ones I thought, was
Speaker 3: that he throws out these bioprisms that like hatch open
Speaker 3: and then release these creatures, these weird google eyed critters
Speaker 3: that look like a cross between Final Stage bundlefly Et
Speaker 3: and the baby from the nineties puppet sitcom Dinosaurs.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's one he patches multiple of these things. Again,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a little sea organic seed pod
Speaker 1: looking thing, and when it breaks open, it kind of
Speaker 1: like like whatever's inside rapidly grows and mutates into this
Speaker 1: kind of squat gobblinoid creature that it runs around and
Speaker 1: squeeze and stuff. There's one that pops up later on
Speaker 1: that has three faces and not just one, and the
Speaker 1: faces kind of remind one of the baby masks from Brazil.
Speaker 3: And they make it kind of noise too, don't they.
Speaker 1: Like these are squee noise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, these are not they're not doing you know,
Speaker 3: heavy heavy booted martial arts like zay ram Is. They're
Speaker 3: just sort of going like and like running at the
Speaker 3: at the heroes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like he's he's weaponizing some other technology,
Speaker 1: like like these things are mostly just distractions. They're not
Speaker 1: They're not going to really make a huge tactical difference.
Speaker 1: He's not hatching like elite hunter killers. These are not
Speaker 1: his hunting dogs. These are just like blithering clone goblins
Speaker 1: that you know are just there to cause a distraction.
Speaker 3: Agreed, Yes, but I love Yeah, I like them too,
Speaker 3: And there's a number of them throughout the movie. There
Speaker 3: was one part, though, I thought it was funny, where
Speaker 3: the Electricians are figuring out what's going on, and I
Speaker 3: think Eria says to them, at least this was how
Speaker 3: it was in the subtitles. She goes, don't you get
Speaker 3: it now, we're in an alternate dimension, and then one
Speaker 3: of the Electricians goes, you're right.
Speaker 1: Now. One of my favorite sequences in this occurs, I
Speaker 1: want to say, you know, more or less halfway through
Speaker 1: the film. You know, we've already had the initial battle
Speaker 1: with zay Ram. Then we get this scene where where's
Speaker 1: you know, zay Ram has a run in with our
Speaker 1: two humanoid characters, and I think at this point it's
Speaker 1: been established that the humans are on their own in
Speaker 1: the zone and Eria has been like ejected from the
Speaker 1: zone and can't get back in due to like gadget reasons.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, the transporter breaks or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is where it gets fun because we
Speaker 1: know she can hold her own against z a Ram and
Speaker 1: effectively captures a Ram, but then she gets booted. Our
Speaker 1: two human characters mess things up, accidentally freeze a Ram,
Speaker 1: and zay Ram has to figure out what he's going
Speaker 1: to do. And so we have zay Ram still in
Speaker 1: this this form of this whol king bio weapon, you know,
Speaker 1: clothed in this shroud and having this large hat like head.
Speaker 1: We already know that he can rapidly grow grotesque goblinoids
Speaker 1: to do his bitting, and in a previous scene he
Speaker 1: used that the mouth or the face on the on
Speaker 1: the hat, it kind of came out like a tentacle
Speaker 1: and it bit one of the human's arms. Cameo yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like tore off a bit of skin. So ah, it
Speaker 1: has a tissue sample. So we go to this scene
Speaker 1: where it's just za Ram alone in this open industrial
Speaker 1: space and he removes the cloth from his mouth region
Speaker 1: and he spits up one of these He kind of
Speaker 1: like you know, flexes his muscles strains, spits up one
Speaker 1: of these seed pods. But instead of throwing it and
Speaker 1: letting it hatch. He crushes it in his big muscular
Speaker 1: hand and some sort of clone slime drips out of it,
Speaker 1: pulls up on the ground, begins to bubble and rapidly
Speaker 1: grows into a kind of half formed clone of Cameo,
Speaker 1: or at least the head, one arm, and part of
Speaker 1: the torso just laying there in a pile. And it's
Speaker 1: really grotesque and wonderful. It mostly just spits up clone goop.
Speaker 1: He but then Xerium seems to sort of wordlessly question
Speaker 1: this thing, and then the goblin clone responds with kind
Speaker 1: of alien gibbering and also a little more or oozing
Speaker 1: of clone goo from the mouth, and then satisfide with
Speaker 1: all this, Zirium then crushes the goblin clone underfoot. I
Speaker 1: absolutely love just the alien weirdness of this whole scene.
Speaker 1: One of these scenes where there are no humans at all.
Speaker 1: It's just monsters doing monster things and having some sort
Speaker 1: of conversation that we can scarcely understand.
Speaker 3: Now, this is one of the one scenes I would
Speaker 3: say if somebody was thinking about showing this movie to
Speaker 3: a very little kid, I don't know. This one's pretty grotesque. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and It's kind of pathetic the way the creature is
Speaker 3: like no, and zay Ram's just like done with you
Speaker 3: and then squashes him.
Speaker 1: Now did this have subtitles in your version?
Speaker 3: No? It didn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, excellent, that's good. I would be disappointed, first of all,
Speaker 1: if I missed out on this, the details of this conversation.
Speaker 1: But I ultimately like not knowing, Like as a human viewer,
Speaker 1: we're just completely cut out on the details here, Like
Speaker 1: what is he just saying? Hey, where did that guy go?
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, he's over there. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, good squash. But maybe he's getting more information
Speaker 1: about the planet. I'm not sure. It's just it's a
Speaker 1: lovely scene. This, I believe, is the scene that I
Speaker 1: saw on television, and it just stuck with me because
Speaker 1: it was just so strange.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a great one. They pushed the weirdness
Speaker 3: past eleven. It's off the charts here. Another thing that
Speaker 3: stuck with me was I think, I wonder if you
Speaker 3: agree there's a part in this movie that I think
Speaker 3: is a direct homage to Aliens, because there is a
Speaker 3: scene where they're fighting with Zairam and then suddenly it
Speaker 3: pans over to reveal somebody coming in to say that
Speaker 3: I think Tepe is being threatened. But then it pans
Speaker 3: over and here's Camea driving an excavator. He's working with
Speaker 3: heavy machinery with and I think it's like framed in
Speaker 3: stage with the same kind of lighting and stuff as
Speaker 3: when Ripley comes out in the power loader fight at
Speaker 3: the end of Aliens. Would you agree?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, And it seems like that's where they're gonna go, Oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna have kind of a rip off
Speaker 1: of that scene where it's gonna be bulldozer versus zarium,
Speaker 1: but then it ultimately ends up being for comedic payoff,
Speaker 1: right because doesn't Zeriam just sort of like swat the
Speaker 1: bulldozer and turns it out there? Yeah? Yeah, and uh
Speaker 1: and then and then Camea just runs for it. So
Speaker 1: I like that ultimately a successful scene if they'd gone
Speaker 1: if they'd actually had it be kind of this fight,
Speaker 1: which I think they've done. Didn't they do that in Carnosaur.
Speaker 1: Doesn't a bulldozer fight a dinosaur in Carnoisaur?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, somebody gets into like a bobcat or some
Speaker 3: one of those smaller one of those little I don't
Speaker 3: know what you call those smaller bulldozer, a little min dozer.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to see that. I mean, Ripley did it
Speaker 1: best using a space bulldozer suit. I don't want to
Speaker 1: see just a normal bulldozer fight a dinosaur. Now I
Speaker 1: have another question for you, Joe, regarding dubs and subtitles. Uh. Okay,
Speaker 1: So a large part of this film is that the
Speaker 1: humans are trapped in the zone with zay Ram, and
Speaker 1: then an area is stuck on the outside. Okay, but
Speaker 1: then the humans get in trouble with zay Ram and
Speaker 1: then Eria jumps in and saves them, saves the day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't if it was established how she was
Speaker 1: able to do that. I missed it.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know. I mean, yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff like that. I don't I know what you're
Speaker 3: talking about. And I don't remember. I think they must
Speaker 3: have fixed it somehow. And then they just like don't
Speaker 3: show her teleporting or something. It's like, oh, here she is,
Speaker 3: you know, Bob got Bob got it all put together.
Speaker 1: Okay, but she's ultimately not that important.
Speaker 3: But no, no, no, But yeah, there's some gaps like
Speaker 3: that and a lot of the a lot of what
Speaker 3: Aria and Bob are doing later on is they're like
Speaker 3: trying to put together like the super cannon or something,
Speaker 3: or trying to get permission to use it or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is some question from Bob, especially if they
Speaker 1: have authorization to use the super weapon and then they
Speaker 1: have to get it there, and then once it's there
Speaker 1: it has to be a symbol. Then clearly our electricians
Speaker 1: are not quite up up to the task, so Eria
Speaker 1: has has to slap it together, and it's a pretty
Speaker 1: cool weapon when she fires it off.
Speaker 3: Though I like some of the more low tech fighting
Speaker 3: you see that you see the electricians doing because and
Speaker 3: I think we're going to talk about the monster transforming
Speaker 3: into different stages in a minute, but one of stages
Speaker 3: it's attacking the two electricians and they just start piling
Speaker 3: furniture on top of it, which I thought was very funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's another scene where I want to say
Speaker 1: that the monster is either thrown into or throws somebody
Speaker 1: else into one of you know your you're just go
Speaker 1: to set pieces in a film like this, A wall
Speaker 1: of cardboard.
Speaker 3: Boxes, yes, clearly empty.
Speaker 1: All right, So yeah, one of the this is a
Speaker 1: film about the monsters, about the monster itself here, and
Speaker 1: one of the great things about it is that it
Speaker 1: goes through multiple stages again, like you said, this is
Speaker 1: a film where Behold my true form happens again and again.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we have stage one Zerium, which we've largely described clothed,
Speaker 1: hulking humanoid warrior. And in my opinion, this is zay
Speaker 1: Ram at his best and realizing here I may be
Speaker 1: saying Zerium at times it's okay, who knows, but I
Speaker 1: think I think zay Ram the Tennessee and version is correct. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this this primary look, primary za Ram, tremendous clothing, accessory options,
Speaker 1: numerous bioweapons, really comes off well. But then eventually Zayram
Speaker 1: gets blasted and we get stage two zay Ram, which
Speaker 1: is a skeletal, multi limbed walker. And this one's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun because it's a stop motion effect, which
Speaker 1: obviously has limitations in a film like this. It even
Speaker 1: has limitations when it's done especially well, like in a
Speaker 1: Ray Harry Howsen or like RoboCop two, but it, you know,
Speaker 1: generally examples of really well done integration of live action
Speaker 1: and stop motion. But still the monster looks great in
Speaker 1: this Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah it does. It's it's sort of a mix of
Speaker 3: an insect and like a mammal skeleton.
Speaker 1: You know, multi limbs lashing around. Pretty fun. But eventually
Speaker 1: that gets blasted too, and we're off to stage three
Speaker 1: zay Ram, which it had been established earlier that only
Speaker 1: the head is important.
Speaker 3: I think they literally say hat, just.
Speaker 1: The hat, okay, so I just about so that at
Speaker 1: this point za Ram is reduced to just that hat,
Speaker 1: shroom cap, stingray thingy, and it flies around, floats around,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of looking like a rubber bat on
Speaker 1: a string. It reminds me a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of various flying Kaiju monsters. Yes, so maybe less compelling,
Speaker 1: but very much expected.
Speaker 3: I feel like maybe a Kaiju movie that we watched
Speaker 3: for this show had a monster that could transform into
Speaker 3: something that looked like this flying mushroom cap or stingray thing.
Speaker 1: Was it the Godzilla movie?
Speaker 4: Was it?
Speaker 3: Did the pollution monster have a flying stingray form?
Speaker 1: Hmm?
Speaker 3: You might remember.
Speaker 1: Anyway, they eventually capture the stingray hat thing. They get
Speaker 1: it sealed up in its crystal, but of course it
Speaker 1: gets out of that as well again, and then we
Speaker 1: get one last pretty great transformation where the hat is
Speaker 1: like upside down and a whole bunch of like mutation
Speaker 1: stuff starts boiling out of it, a very John Carpenter's
Speaker 1: The Thing esque transformation, and then it transforms into this
Speaker 1: the Thing esque abomination, which this was I guess, the
Speaker 1: logical place to go. Like at this point, Zayram is
Speaker 1: backed in a corner. It's just going to mutate a
Speaker 1: bunch and just lash at you with a bunch of
Speaker 1: tentacles and teeth and mouths and so forth. I feel
Speaker 1: like this incarnation of zay Ram was maybe a bit ambitious,
Speaker 1: and the full monster comes off a little stiff here,
Speaker 1: but it's still it's still pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Well it has at this point though, it is also
Speaker 3: because it has incorporated some human DNA from cameo. I
Speaker 3: think it has like little human body parts coming out
Speaker 3: of it. Yeah, it's like nipples and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's it looks like there might be a boob
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah, but not in a way that like
Speaker 1: is distressing. I guess just kind of like, oh, I
Speaker 1: guess it's supposed to be a human breast. Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: now that would have been an interesting way to go
Speaker 1: if it had taken Cameo's form, that's the final form.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, Like if it had gone full, like
Speaker 3: they just made a clone of him, but a defective one.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, it would have been another great ending.
Speaker 1: They should have done this. I know we squashed the
Speaker 1: camea half clone earlier, but wouldn't it have been great
Speaker 1: for like a post credit sequence where it's Cameo's friends
Speaker 1: at the bar but the clone has shown up to
Speaker 1: hang out with them, and it's like being outed the
Speaker 1: bar and has a drink, but it's still like spitting
Speaker 1: up clone goo.
Speaker 3: So they're in the middle of talking about how they
Speaker 3: don't miss Cameo and they don't mind that he couldn't
Speaker 3: make it. But then he does show up and he's
Speaker 3: just bleeding goo everywhere, and they're like, oh, hey, we
Speaker 3: were just talking about you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Titter is in an alien voice and they just
Speaker 1: don't notice.
Speaker 3: A couple more things that I thought were interesting about
Speaker 3: the ending. One is that in the end, Camea has
Speaker 3: to come through and save the day by using electrician knowledge. Yes,
Speaker 3: he has to repair the wiring I think multiple times
Speaker 3: in order to I don't know power up the device
Speaker 3: they're using to defeat the monster in the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really great and it made me wonder,
Speaker 1: not enough to actually watch it. But in the Super
Speaker 1: Mario Brothers movie, did the Super Mario Brothers end up
Speaker 1: using their plumbing skills to save the day against Dennis Hawker?
Speaker 3: That would be a good twist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's seen it and I don't remember.
Speaker 3: That movie is weird. That's a contender for the show.
Speaker 1: That is a strange film. I cannot imagine that the
Speaker 1: Chris Pratt Mario Brothers remake is going to really equal
Speaker 1: or you know, excel in creating the same kind of
Speaker 1: weird cinematic experience.
Speaker 3: Waites Chris Pratt playing Mario super Mario.
Speaker 1: That is what Seth I believe, was telling us for
Speaker 1: Other Day.
Speaker 3: Okay, so they went from Bob Hoskins to Chris Pratt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's a it's a different, different take on
Speaker 1: the on the source material.
Speaker 3: Okay. Oh oh, No, one last thing, final comment about
Speaker 3: the movie. I like how it ends with a graduation photo.
Speaker 1: Yes, why, I don't know.
Speaker 3: All the humanoids So after the monster has defeated Iria
Speaker 3: Cameo Tepe, They're like, hey, let's all pose for a
Speaker 3: photo and Bob just like they stand together and pose
Speaker 3: and Bob takes their picture and then it's like best friends,
Speaker 3: friends forever.
Speaker 1: It's so wholesome. I love it. Yeah. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: is not a film that is going to really hit
Speaker 1: you with a lot of mysteries and intrigue and double
Speaker 1: crosses and so forth. The plot's pretty simple. The payoffs
Speaker 1: are pretty much everything you'd expect, but wonderful, weird monster.
Speaker 1: And I think this is one of those films kind
Speaker 1: of like Pumpkinhead to a certain extent, is you see
Speaker 1: action figures and costumes and fan art depicting the monster
Speaker 1: like the monster has really sort of is really kind
Speaker 1: of more popular than the film itself. It seems to
Speaker 1: be the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would make sense.
Speaker 1: Now a credit? Where credits do here? When I first
Speaker 1: started poking around for places to watch this film, I
Speaker 1: could not find Zayram anywhere. I think Zayram two was
Speaker 1: available as a streaming option or at least a digital
Speaker 1: purchase option, and the anime spinoff TV series was also
Speaker 1: available that way, but it looked like I was going
Speaker 1: to have to obtain a physical copy for sure, So
Speaker 1: I inquired with the good people at Atlanta's own Videodrome
Speaker 1: video rental store about it, and they said, sorry, we
Speaker 1: don't have a copy. But then they wrote me back
Speaker 1: and said, actually, we just ordered a copy of it.
Speaker 1: We've ordered the thirtieth anniversary Blu Ray and so that
Speaker 1: came in and that's how we got to watch it.
Speaker 1: I think, a solid Blu Ray release from Media Blasters.
Speaker 1: It includes a couple of trailers and also a making
Speaker 1: of feature that I believe popped up on a previous
Speaker 1: laser disc edition.
Speaker 3: Ooh oh man, can you imagine the experience of watching
Speaker 3: this on laser disc?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I watched part of the making of video, but
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty bad. Like they were talking to the
Speaker 1: director and the star and the directors like, I wanted
Speaker 1: to make a film that was fun, So making a
Speaker 1: fun film was my primary my primary goal here. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is, you know, that sort of thing. I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe there's some more depth, in depth stuff
Speaker 1: about the effects later on, but anyway, if you live
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, you can certainly go to Videodrome and rent
Speaker 1: the same Blu ray disc that we watched it on.
Speaker 1: You can also check out Video Drome at videodromeatl dot com.
Speaker 1: And if you want to get some of their merch,
Speaker 1: and they have a lot of cool merch, you can
Speaker 1: go to videodrome dot tv. So thanks again to the
Speaker 1: guys at video Drone for hooking us up with our
Speaker 1: z A ram. All right, if you want to check
Speaker 1: out more weird house cinema, it happens every Friday in
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed we're primarily
Speaker 1: you know, science and sometimes culture or sometimes philosophy podcast
Speaker 1: and primarily science though, but on Fridays we set most
Speaker 1: most of that aside and we enter the zone where
Speaker 1: there's nothing to worry about except for maybe a strange
Speaker 1: monster and some you know, questionable acting performances that sort
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 3: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 3: to suggest 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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