WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Extra Terrestrial Visitors 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.400 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:10.520 This is Rob Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:13.080 of course a Weird House Cinema Rewind comes from the 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.840 vault of Weird House Cinema. This was originally published on 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:21.040 September sixteenth, twenty twenty two, and it is our episode 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.280 on Extraterrestrial Visitors aka pod People. 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.240 Yeah. This one, of course is a film that was 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:30.800 featured on Mystery Science Theater three thousand back in the 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:36.200 day and is a richly enjoyable movie on its own. 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.159 But one of the issues in this episode back when 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.360 we recorded it is of course that we did not 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:46.240 have great film quality to go off of the best. 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.400 I think the best quality available was pretty grubby. We 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.120 complain about it a bit in the episode. But then 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.080 something magical happened. In the months following our release of 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:01.720 the original episode, several films put out an excellent restored 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:06.679 Blu ray edition of Extraterrestrial Visitors. I found out about 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.600 it months later ordered up a copy of it. I 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.800 have now viewed it and I have to say it 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.600 is beautiful. If you find any if you find anything 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:19.280 in this film beautiful, you will find this restored version 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.480 of it beautiful. You can actually make out details that 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.280 are lost otherwise. Like, for instance, there's the character that 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:27.959 has the I'm a Virgin T shirt. Well, now you 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:29.880 can read all the details on that shirt and see 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:34.080 that it's a Virgin Islands tourist T shirt. That's the 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:37.320 full story there. And just in general, like everything's in 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.640 just a richer quality. There's still a certain level of 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:44.120 grubbiness just because it is still, you know, a Spanish 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:48.320 genre picture of the nineteen eighties. But man, it's a 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:50.560 fun package. So I highly recommend it to anyone out 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.920 there who is a fan of extraterrestrial visitors, Spanish genre films, 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.760 or or of course if you're an MST completist and 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:02.920 you want a nice copy of this beloved film. And 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.800 one more thing, it also has a CD in it 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.600 that has the soundtrack on it, which which isn't much. 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:11.440 It has, you know, just a few of the synthy 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.919 bits that you hear, and then also that terrible pop 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:17.760 song that they're recording in the studio. 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.840 Oh yeah, hear the engines roar now, I think. 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.600 Yeah, So I actually got the experience of finding my 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:30.720 car's CD drive putting that CD in there, rolling down 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.480 all the windows and then you know, tearing around town 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:36.000 with that's with that song blasting. 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.000 Did you feel the wind in your eyes? 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.320 I did, felt the wind right in my eyes. All 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.160 systems will go, all right, let's jump right in. 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.560 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.480 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.919 This is right, and this is Joe McCormick, and we. 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.240 Are going to the year nineteen eighty three for this one. 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:10.280 We're going to be discussing a film that has many names. 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:17.239 Its primary title in the United States is Extraterrestrial Visitors, 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.520 but it is also widely known to Mystery Science Theater 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.000 three thousand fans as pod People. 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.200 Strangely, that title has nothing to do with the contents 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:29.480 of the movie and makes it sound like it's a 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.840 ripoff of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, when in fact, 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:36.840 it's a ripoff of ET but with much grizzlier elements. 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.600 Yeah, it's. My rough understanding of this film is that 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:45.280 it may have originally started as your basic killer creature 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.920 in the woods sort of fair, but this is the 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.400 year after ET. Cute aliens being befriended by children is 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.720 big business, and so this gets folded into the plot. 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.920 So it's one of these films that, much like the 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:04.800 much like the film Grimlins, it's totally inconsistent, Like one 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.600 second it's doing cute stuff and the next second it 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.800 is in horror mode. And at the end of the 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:13.720 by the end of the film, you're you're left wondering, like, 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:15.480 who is this for? Like, there are parts of this 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.279 film that I would show my child. There are other 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:20.960 parts that I would not show them. There are there 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.240 plenty of human characters I would not expose them to 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:24.160 in this Well. 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:28.200 I'd say even the cute stuff in this movie is grotesque. 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.480 The scenes with Tommy, the child and his alien friend, 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:36.320 like playing around and doing telekinesis parties in the in 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:38.680 the bedroom and making like the toys dance on the 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.600 ceiling and stuff. Something about that is its own kind 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:44.960 of horror, even though I don't think that part is 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:46.240 intended to be scary. 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:51.120 Oh, I thought it was delightful. Tommy is absolute goodness 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.880 and sweetness, and so is Trumpy. Trumpy is the name 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.840 that Tommy gives to the childlike alien who comes into 0:04:58.880 --> 0:04:59.280 his life. 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:01.800 So so in a way, this movie is going to 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.039 be in the tradition of all the movies where a 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:10.000 child befriends a benevolent, fantastical being, you think about the 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:12.480 movie that was the direct inspiration for at least half 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:16.800 of this, Spielberg's et came out the year before. But 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.000 on the other hand, I think you can think of 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.839 this as part of a subgenre of though it's not 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:25.479 exactly correct in this movie, because the horror is being 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.919 done by just other aliens that look identical to the 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.640 one he's befriended, but it's part of the subgenre of 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.680 child to be friends a deadly monster movies, like I 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.680 think one of the core prototypes here is the original 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.920 nineteen thirty one Frankenstein, The Universal Monster Movie, where there 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:48.440 is a pivotal scene highlighting the creature's moral innocence as 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:53.159 well as his destructive power. After the creature escapes Frankenstein's lab, 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.640 he wanders the countryside where he encounters a child and 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.559 the creature, being innocent and childlike himself, they play games 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.039 together and they throw flowers in a lake until the 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.080 creature accidentally kills the child while in the midst of 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:09.200 a game because he doesn't understand cause and effect and 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.719 he doesn't understand his own strength. And it's that's sort 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.880 of what makes Frankenstein more of a grotesque tragedy than 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.880 a movie about a sidistic evil monster. I don't know 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.800 if that's exactly the case in Pod almost called it 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:28.000 pod people extraterrestrial visitors. It's I'm not sure if this 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.919 movie was trying to say anything about like the moral 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.680 complexity of the beings in the relationship to humans. The 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.640 child that in the movie does often say they just 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.560 want to be our friends. Yet we do see the 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.960 aliens totally unprovoked to just attacking humans. 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.240 I do well, I don't know if they're completely unprovoked. 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:51.039 Now to come back to Frankenstein, and I think Frankenstein 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.560 is a great comparison here because the other aspect of Frankenstein, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:56.560 and this is president in the novel too, is that 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:01.720 Frankenstein in Frankenstein's Monster rather and you can call him Frankenstein. 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.880 It's it's fine, we checked, he's cool with it. The 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:09.280 monster encounters a humanity that is hostile to him, and 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:13.440 that fosters hostility, that fosters this this grudge against both 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:18.720 his creator uh and the creator's fellow human beings, and 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.240 so in this film, we kind of see the same 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:23.920 duality Like this, we also see that Frankenstein, you know, 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:27.040 with the with the child encountering the child or encountering 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.920 the blind man. Because we have these two aliens and 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.560 they both have they have different experiences with the humans 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:40.320 they encounter. The first alien encounters poachers and hunters and 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:44.320 vile band members and so forth. Like the first his 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:48.720 first encounters with humans are all murderous. Meanwhile, the second, 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:54.280 younger alien, his first encounter is Tommy, and Tommy like 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.040 hatches him from an egg. Tommy is nice to him 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.240 and feeds him and and they venture off to a 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:04.440 world of whimsy with each other. Where the other one, 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:06.160 the murderous alien, has none of that. 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:08.480 Oh, I think I see what you're saying. So like, 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:13.200 even though the other alien does like just randomly attack 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.920 like innocent people, like in a bathroom or in an RV, 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:21.600 it is because the other alien had previously encountered dangerous humans. 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:23.400 Right, Yeah, Like at that point he's like, this is 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.160 what humans are, and if I see one that, I 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.600 have no other choice but to kill them before they 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.160 hurt me. Like he's walking around with he has like 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.600 a crossbow bolt in his chest most of the time 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.960 because he's also been wounded by the humans. So yeah, 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:41.920 this was the for me, the most interesting thing about 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:46.359 this film watching it for the first time without any riffs, 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:50.280 without you know, the added layer of overt humor provided 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.280 by MST three K, because I seen this film multiple 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:56.240 times before via that ms TH three K episode, which 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:58.920 is one of my favorites. It's a classic MST episode. 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.040 But I'd never really given the film a chance to 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.680 succeed and fail on its own merits, and it does. 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.480 It does both. Now, I do want to come back 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.720 to the title of this film, because this is it's 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.520 it's interesting that it has had. It has so many titles. 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.000 So it was a French Spanish co production, and so 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.240 it was released in its respective countries with of course 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:28.200 French and Spanish names. I believe that the Spanish is 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:34.200 what los novos extraterrestris, which is the new extraterrestrials, and 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.080 then and then the French and French is not my 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.440 certainly not my my happy spot for pronunciation, but I 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:45.240 believe it is less monsters. So it's that's terrible, I know, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.480 but but I love what it means. The hatching of monsters. 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.400 I think the Hatching of monsters might be the best 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:53.120 title for this film. 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.800 Because they do come from eggs. One egg is snuggled 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.040 by a child in his bed and the other egg 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.880 is is the other egg bashed opened by a poacher. 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:01.480 I'm not sure. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.960 Multiple eggs are bashed open, ye by poachers, and we 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.480 have poachers who are seeking eggs in the forest, so 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:12.400 the egg trope goes pretty deep in this. But but yeah, 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.400 this has had a ton of titles that we mentioned 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.280 pod people. You can look up all sorts of crazy 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.640 posters and vhs box art for this thing. And like 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.600 I found one that just says a visitor and there's 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.840 a weird illustration of Tommy and there's the shadow of 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:31.319 something standing in a doorway, presumably the alien visitor, which 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.120 looks nothing like anything in the film. 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.200 Now, the shadow kind of looks like the silhouette of 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:39.600 the Guiver, you know, it's like it's like a kind 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.760 of robo alien humanoid shape with claws. 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:46.240 And then there's another one I found and I love 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.400 this one. This is a black box video release and 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.120 this must be like this must be like us or Canadian. 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:54.600 I don't know. I didn't I didn't look this up. 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:59.679 But it has this wonderful, charming, childlike illustration of Tommy 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:05.400 and Trumpy, and it just says ETV in gold swirling letters. 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.720 That's Extraterrestrial Visitors. But for the cool kids ETV, it's 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.360 like T two. Yeah, you know, I love it, Like, 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:14.679 how did they think they could get away with that? 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:17.480 Let's just call it ETV. Let's just cut straight to it. 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:18.520 The kids don't care. 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.400 This is G two baby. 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:24.000 But Trump is very cute on this. I would say 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.720 in general, we're talking about ET Trumpy. Trumpy is far 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.040 cuter than et. ET is just a flesh bag with 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.480 big eyes and a glowing finger. But meanwhile, Trumpy is 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.800 this delightful mix. He's like all the better aspects of 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:42.079 alf combined with snuffle up agains in a more bipedal form. 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.560 What is the Star Wars character that Trumpy looks like 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:49.240 from the most nicely cantina that has a long Ardvark snout? 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:51.560 Oh yeah, I forget his name, but yes, he does 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:53.400 look like him, especially at one point in the film 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.079 when Tommy puts a coat on him with. 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:58.800 A hood garn Dan, Is that right? 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.520 If you say so, I guess he also looks a 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.280 little bit, but like Max Rebo, the blue piano player 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:09.680 from Java's Barge. Yeah, of course trump he has hair. 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.679 Yes, okay? So according to is this Wikipedia or some 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:18.440 kind of Star Wars wikie, this creature with the goggles, 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.280 the hood and the long snout is called garrin Dan, 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:26.239 also called long Snoot. It says he it was a Kubaz. 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.280 I think that is an alien species, and he is 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.640 considered to be the greatest spy in the most sicily 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:32.680 spaceport there. 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.000 I mean, you barely notice him, you know, you have 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:36.520 to look up his name. That's the mark of a 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:36.960 good spy. 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.480 But a big difference is that Trumpy is furry, whereas 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:41.440 Garindn is not. 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:43.320 Oh you don't want to carry all that fur with 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:47.040 you on Tatooine. Though perhaps sheared first? 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.600 Yeah yeah, what so. One of the human characters describes 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:55.200 the aliens as looking like a cross between I think 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.160 they're saying a pig and a bear, though it kind 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.680 of sounds like a pig and a pair either way. 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.199 I'm not sure. I don't really see the pig part. 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.360 Yeah, yeah, the snout doesn't look very pig like. It's 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.160 more it's more snuffle up agaus. That's what I think. 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:11.800 Yeah, I wonder if that line was written before the 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:13.360 creature design was finalized. 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.600 Maybe so, all right, at this point, we would would 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:18.440 normally give you a little taste of the trailer. But 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.040 I looked around for a while and I could not 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.760 find any trailers for this film in any language. I 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.679 was looking up the various releases. I was thinking, well, okay, 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.160 I can't find the English trailer. Maybe there wasn't one 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:31.760 or it's been lost, but surely I can find the 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.480 English or the original one that they used in Spain. 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:37.559 But I was not able to find anything. So I 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.520 thought we might just have some audio from the film. 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.400 Hopefully we'll get some of the charming synth music in 0:13:44.440 --> 0:14:04.280 there as well. Hey, come back down, Tommy, What are 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:14.680 you doing? What was all that noise? Tommy? Did you 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:21.760 hear me? Tommy? In the own room? All right? And 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:26.000 a note on availability for this film. Sadly, this is 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.360 not one where you can find it. Seemed to be 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.280 able to find a better cut of the film, or 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.360 at least like better film quality. I ended up streaming 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.840 it via Prime and I know there are some some 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:40.880 other streams available out there. Again, if you look around 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:45.400 in the for the original Spanish and French titles for 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.200 the film, you can find I believe you can find 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:51.040 it in those languages, But in terms of finding like 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.680 any kind of their stored footage, we're not there yet. 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:55.040 So I don't know if this is a film where 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.840 this is as good as the video quality is ever 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:00.600 going to get, or if at some point we'll get 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.880 something a little easier to watch, because yeah, it's it's 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:05.800 kind of kind of brutal at times. It's a film 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.160 that already has a lot of fog machines and perhaps 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:13.920 some day for nights effects going on and things get 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:15.120 really muddy looking. 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.960 The woods in this movie often look like the foggy 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:24.160 forest that Graham Chapman gets lost in and oh where 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.360 they find the Knights who say knee and Monty Python 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:28.120 on the Holy Grail. You remember that sequence? 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:33.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, this film makes makes great use of 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.760 the fog machine. So sadly we're still waiting on I guess, 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.600 a proper restored cut of this film. I hope we 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:42.600 get there. I hope that it's out there somewhere just 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.280 waiting for someone to discover. But I think for now, 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.960 as far as I know, we don't really have a 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:53.080 superior example of video quality to steer you towards. I 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:55.680 know it came out on DVD, but I have no 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.760 reason to suspect that that has better video quality than 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:03.360 what's available elsewhere. All right, let's talk about the human 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:09.080 beings that made this film. So we've mentioned the director 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.200 of this film before. He's come up, because, especially when 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.920 we've talked about Spanish films, inevitably some of the people 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.800 involved in Spanish productions also worked on some of his films. 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:23.840 This is jue Picuerre Simone. He was the director, the writer, 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.840 and he also did visual effects on this film. He 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:30.840 lived nineteen thirty five through twenty eleven. Spanish b movie 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.760 director who became I'm going to say he became legendary 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:38.440 for such films as nineteen eighty eight Slugs the Movie, 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.440 which is a film that I distinctly remember seeing a 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.080 trailer for when I was a child, and it made 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.480 me afraid to use a toilet. It may be anxious 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.520 about sitting on a toilet. That's how terrifying the trailer was, 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.280 because there's a scene where you see slugs crawling on 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:55.840 a toilet. 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.680 Oh there's a toilet attack in it, or just slugs 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:00.800 on it toilet. 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.679 I can't remember. I think you know, we've talked about 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:06.920 the trailer for Slugs of the movie at some point 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.080 for trailer talk back in the day, but I don't 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:12.280 think I could quite bring myself to watch it in full. 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:14.320 Is that one of the movies kind of like the 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.200 late seventies remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.479 is fantastic where the hero is a member of the 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:23.520 local health inspection department. 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:25.600 Is that so okay? 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:28.440 I have a vague memory of something like that. Could 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:28.879 be wrong. 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:33.280 Simone's other film of note is nineteen eighty two's Pieces. 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:35.840 This is a film that we've almost watched on Weird 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.800 House before. It's been almost cued up in the past. 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.960 It is a chainsaw movie with a lot of other 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:46.480 extra strange things added to it, but it has a 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:47.320 really fun cast. 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.000 It's like, it seems kind of like if Texas Chainsaw 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.800 Massacre was not rural and Texan but was about like 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:54.840 an apartment building. 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.720 Yeah, like an apartment building in Madrid or something. Yeah, 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.040 it's kind of odd, so we may come back to 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.800 that one. Simone also directed the nineteen ninety underwater sci 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.199 fi film The Rift that one has Ray Wise and 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.480 r Lee Ermie in it. He also did nineteen seventy 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.080 nine Supersonic Man that has Cameron Mitchell in it. He 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.200 did nineteen eighty one's Mystery on Monster Island that has 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.320 Terrence Stamp and Peter Cushing in it. And he also 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.760 did nineteen ninety two's Cuthulhu Mansion. 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.880 Oh, I'd love to see what jan Pequerre Simone does 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.120 with Terrence Stamp General Zod. 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:34.640 Yeah, I'm curious. So there's also another writer credited on this, 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.720 Joaquin Grau, who's credited as Jack Gray on the US version, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.840 a writer who worked He just worked with Simone on 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.000 a couple of his other films, So I couldn't find 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:48.439 out much about this individual. But let's get into the 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.920 cast a bit here. So really the most of these 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.000 cast members were people I was not familiar with. But 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.080 there's one that has come up on the show before, 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.320 and that is the character Bert, one of the Hunters, 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.480 one of the poach in the film, played by Frank Bronna, 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.040 who lived nineteen thirty four through twenty twelve. Not really 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.720 a major character in this film, but a regular player 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.239 in Simone's films, and he also turns up in a 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.040 ton of Spanish bee movies of the day, including Return 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.840 of the Blind Dead, which we previously covered on the show. 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.639 He in this movie looks like a cross between Sam 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.359 the Eagle and Leslie Nielsen. He has a kind of 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.879 silver haired authority and yet he's just playing kind of 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:30.480 a scummy poacher. 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.040 Yeah. I think he played a lot of heavies in 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.560 his time. He shows up spaghetti westerns and horror movies. 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:42.080 He has those really piercing eyes and often white hair, 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.240 and also seem to be able to grow a lot 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:47.040 of impressive facial hair. So if you look up just 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.720 images of Frank Bronna in different movies, Yeah, he's a 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.639 little chameleon like. He can play any kind of suspicious, 0:19:55.000 --> 0:20:00.320 sort of handsome dude with really piercing evil eyes. It's 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:02.480 it looks like he made a career out of that. 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.040 Wait, who was he in Return of the Blind Dead? 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.240 Was he a was he like one of the corrupt 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:08.480 politicians or something? 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.520 He was? Memory serves he was the corrupt politicians henchman 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.119 who you think is decent for a while and not 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:18.879 as bad as the politician, but eventually reveals himself to 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.560 be a predatory villain as well, and then he's killed 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.840 by the dead. All right, other humans in this film 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.600 we have. We have the character Rick, who's the frontman 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:34.639 of a horrible band. This is played by Ian Sarah Dates, 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:40.080 unknown Spanish actor known mostly for this film for Pieces 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.639 for Mystery on Monster Island, so you know, he was 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.639 a regular player for Simone, but he's recently directed and 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.040 produced it looks like and yeah. In this he plays Rick, 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.560 a perfectionist lead singer of a terrible band that makes 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:55.040 everyone around him miserable. 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.679 They're really it's like they're setting him up to be 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.840 the villain of the movie. He's like the jerk who 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.400 you know will finally get his come up and from 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:05.639 the monster in the end. But no, it seems like 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.560 in the end the movie you realize that he is 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:10.240 sort of the hero of the movie. 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.000 It's very weird, but he doesn't really do much that's heroic, Like, 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:17.520 he doesn't really have an arc, he doesn't have a 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.760 redemption story. He doesn't realize that he was a jerk. 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:25.240 He just kind of by not he stops actively being terrible, 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:27.760 but he doesn't really do anything all that good. I 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.680 guess he's a little heroic, but for movie heroism, it's 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:32.359 very mild. 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:35.720 Oh no, I'm not saying he does anything qualitatively heroic. 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.160 I'm saying he fills the hero slot in the movie, 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.080 like he is the young guy who comes in at 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.760 the end, you know, and like shoots the monster and stuff. 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.360 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, in that regard, you could say he's 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.719 definitely filling the space that should be occupied by a 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:52.879 more heroic figure. 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.600 But no, yeah, complete jerk of a character, essentially no 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.200 redeeming qualities. The only thing that changes really at the 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.520 end is he just sort of like stops having lines. 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:04.720 And yeah, I guess they're that. 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:17.040 You know, Well, that's an eft is a blessing. Yeah, 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:20.920 let's see another human of note in this. There's Nina 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:25.080 Ferrer playing Sharon, a member of the band and Rick's girlfriend. 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:28.800