Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener Mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And my name is Joe McCormick. It's Monday, the day
Speaker 3: of each week that we read back messages from the
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you have
Speaker 3: never gotten in touch with the show before and you
Speaker 3: would like to give it a try, you can email
Speaker 3: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3: We give that email address at the end of every
Speaker 3: regular episode, but at the listener Mail we like to
Speaker 3: give it here at the top because some people they
Speaker 3: tell us all the time, in fact, they've listened for years,
Speaker 3: never written in why not give it a shot. We
Speaker 3: of course really love and appreciate all of the messages
Speaker 3: we get, but if you want to be featured on
Speaker 3: a listener mail episode, you're especially likely to have your
Speaker 3: message pop up if you've got something interesting to add
Speaker 3: to a subject we talked about on the show. Let's
Speaker 3: see and this first message today exactly that, Rob Do
Speaker 3: you mind if I kick things off with this response
Speaker 3: to our series on headless beings?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's have it.
Speaker 3: This is from Joe who has written in before with
Speaker 3: sometimes some great lore from Southeast Asia, and Joe has
Speaker 3: more to add today, They say, Dear Joe and Robert,
Speaker 3: I'm a little behind on the episodes and just finished
Speaker 3: the one on headlessness. Towards the end of the episode
Speaker 3: there was mention of headless ghosts and divine entities. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure if you came across this in your research,
Speaker 3: but I believe the panangalon might be of interest to you, guys.
Speaker 3: Lore has it. Panangalon are witches that practice black magic.
Speaker 3: At night. They detach their heads from their bodies and
Speaker 3: float around in search of blood, children, pregnant women, and
Speaker 3: the likes. They are slightly different from other only head
Speaker 3: in that they still have internal organs trailing after their
Speaker 3: disembodied head as it flies around. Wow, that's gross, just
Speaker 3: like soggy organ bags hanging out of the neck stump.
Speaker 3: That's that's brutal. Let's see. Their vulnerable headless bodies are
Speaker 3: hidden away for safe keeping until daybreak, when the floating
Speaker 3: heads and their entrails return and stuff themselves back into
Speaker 3: the body and become whole once again. There are similar
Speaker 3: legends throughout Southeast Asia, known under names like krassu or mananangal.
Speaker 3: Both penangalon and Mananangol come from the word tongaal, which
Speaker 3: means to be separated, which is apt for such a creature. Ah,
Speaker 3: but there's more, Joe continues. It's said that the smell
Speaker 3: of vinegar follows them around because they have to soak
Speaker 3: their innerids in vinegar before they can fit them back
Speaker 3: into the body. You can ward off these creatures by
Speaker 3: placing thorny leaves around your house to damage their floating entrails,
Speaker 3: and you can kill one by stuffing glass and other
Speaker 3: prickly material into their necks if you find the headless
Speaker 3: bodies alone. This is gross. I can't believe this.
Speaker 2: I was just searching around in my notes because I
Speaker 2: feel like something related to this has come up before,
Speaker 2: but I can't place exactly when it was. I don't
Speaker 2: think I did a monster fact on these, and I
Speaker 2: wasn't aware of all of these grizzly details concerning this
Speaker 2: particular variant, but something like this has come up. Maybe
Speaker 2: I was just poking around for ideas in folklore.
Speaker 3: At one point I did not know about this, Joe,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to look this up after we're done.
Speaker 3: Recording here, but the email continues, they say, on a
Speaker 3: lighter note, there was some musing about the origins of
Speaker 3: the quote lock and load sequences in one of the
Speaker 3: Listener Mail episodes. Yeah, this actually goes back to our
Speaker 3: weird House Cinema episode on the movie Critters, which feeds
Speaker 3: is one of these kind of what we ended up
Speaker 3: learning was widely referred to as the lock and load montage,
Speaker 3: but it's featured in every Batman movie. There was a
Speaker 3: sequence like this in Critters as well, where a character
Speaker 3: is like putting all of their suit and gear on
Speaker 3: and you see all the buckles snapping and the like
Speaker 3: things going into sheaths, all in extreme close up, and
Speaker 3: then finally there's a reveal of the full suit in
Speaker 3: all its glory, and we were wondering, what does that
Speaker 3: go back to, Like where does that film icmeme come from?
Speaker 3: And we never found a good answer to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it remains an open question.
Speaker 3: Joe has an idea here, they say, I believe those
Speaker 3: may have been inspired by Japan's common Rider hinchin Superhero
Speaker 3: series and Magical Girl series that began in the mid
Speaker 3: to late sixties. The initial common Rider transformations were quite simple,
Speaker 3: with the protagonists just yelling hinshin and then a shot
Speaker 3: of a bell or armor appearing later on. Sailor Moon
Speaker 3: appears to have popularized longer and more drawn out sequences
Speaker 3: with more emphasis on various parts of the outfit. These
Speaker 3: transformation montages can easily be adapted for non magical series
Speaker 3: just by having the characters getting themselves ready instead of
Speaker 3: having a device slash magical item address them. In any case,
Speaker 3: both often involve zoomed in scenes of various parts of
Speaker 3: the outfit and or weapons, accompanied by thematic music, then
Speaker 3: completed by a slow pan of the completed ensemble or
Speaker 3: full body shot. This also means that the montage of
Speaker 3: Tony Stark summoning his armor also counts as a magical
Speaker 3: girl transformation, and then eyeball.
Speaker 2: Emojis increasingly magical.
Speaker 3: I might add, oh yes, anyway, happy holidays if they're
Speaker 3: upon you by the time you read this. As always,
Speaker 3: I love what you do and the im looking forward
Speaker 3: to more episodes. Joe, Well, Joe, thank you for the
Speaker 3: great email. As always, and I had not thought to
Speaker 3: look to like Hinge in Superheroes or Sailor Moon or
Speaker 3: anything like that, but that is interesting. I could imagine
Speaker 3: that indeed being the source of this of this meme
Speaker 3: in film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I hadn't put this together either, but it
Speaker 2: makes sense this might be the connection. And yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean you have anytime you have a creative minds in cinema,
Speaker 2: they're gonna they're gonna borrow and find inspiration in various
Speaker 2: genres and in different film cultures. So it makes sense
Speaker 2: that somebody realized, hey, we could tweak this a little
Speaker 2: bit and we can use this for more, you know, again,
Speaker 2: non magical even non science fiction suiting up sequences.
Speaker 3: It would be truly hilarious if like the Batman suiting
Speaker 3: up montage goes directly back to sailor.
Speaker 2: Moon with a with a camera spinning around and all
Speaker 2: the light. Yeah yeah, yeah, and to come back to
Speaker 2: Iron Man. I've probably hammered this one before, but I
Speaker 2: feel like the suiting up sequences and many of these
Speaker 2: superhero movies it's gotten it's gotten too magical, you know,
Speaker 2: like there's no physicality to the suit anymore. I liked
Speaker 2: it more when Iron Man had to have his own
Speaker 2: suit like put on or there's like robot arms putting
Speaker 2: it on for him. But when it just became just
Speaker 2: a sea of nanites that just kind of a symbol
Speaker 2: on his body. It's like it's just so far removed
Speaker 2: from anything that I can touch and feel like, it
Speaker 2: just becomes this magical transformation sequence. He might as well
Speaker 2: be turning into Mamra they ever living. Yeah, I'm being
Speaker 2: picky here. I have to drive home that I just
Speaker 2: rewatched the Infinity Stone movies with my son and they
Speaker 2: were even better than I remember. So I love those films.
Speaker 2: I really enjoy a number of the Iron Man films.
Speaker 2: I just wish I could feel the suit a little
Speaker 2: bit more in those sequences.
Speaker 3: And to be fair, I've seen some of the Iron
Speaker 3: Man standalone movies, but I haven't seen those the big
Speaker 3: Avengers ones.
Speaker 2: Oh no, they're good. They're there when you're ready for him. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, This next one comes to us from Nathan.
Speaker 2: The subject RoboCop and crossbows. Nathan says, greetings and salutations, gentlemen.
Speaker 2: I wrote schall a while back with some comic connections
Speaker 2: concerning a ror shark and the question, Well, I've got
Speaker 2: I don't remember that one, but well I kind of
Speaker 2: remember that one. Okay, Well, I've got some more in
Speaker 2: relation to RoboCop and its sequels. Both Robo Cops two
Speaker 2: and three were co written by Frank Miller, probably best
Speaker 2: known as the author of the industry changing comic The
Speaker 2: Dark Knight Returns, published in nineteen eighty six. When the
Speaker 2: highly anticipated animated feature was released in two parts in
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, the aging Bruce Wayne slash Batman was portrayed
Speaker 2: by none other than the great Peter Weller. Solid adaptation,
Speaker 2: perhaps more accessible than the atypical storytelling approach of the comic,
Speaker 2: definitely worth a view. That's interesting, you know, I've actually
Speaker 2: never read The Dark Knight Returns. Even when I was
Speaker 2: in my biggest comic book phases, I ended up going
Speaker 2: more in the Grant Morrison and Alan Moore direction, I think,
Speaker 2: than the than then checking these out. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It was a time too where I don't think there
Speaker 2: was a great digital solution. So these comic books, they
Speaker 2: get expensive, and do you read them so quickly then
Speaker 2: you're out of comic book.
Speaker 3: I actually have read that one. I'm not I'm famously
Speaker 3: on the show not up on my comics, Laura, So
Speaker 3: I haven't read a whole lot of especially like superhero comics.
Speaker 3: I've read, like, you know, some of the Alan Moore
Speaker 3: novels and stuff, but I have done this one. It
Speaker 3: was like in a batch that I did some number
Speaker 3: of years ago, and it's like, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 3: read some of the big superhero comics that everybody says
Speaker 3: are great. So I read Dark Knight Returns. I read
Speaker 3: I think Long Halloween, you know, some other stuff like that,
Speaker 3: and I don't remember a lot of detail about it,
Speaker 3: but I remember thinking most of those that I read
Speaker 3: were great.
Speaker 2: This this is one that I remember I had as
Speaker 2: like an older cousin at the time when I was
Speaker 2: a kid, and he had the Dark Knight Returns. I
Speaker 2: remember him like showing me the cover and it was like, like,
Speaker 2: this is the real business right here. This is the
Speaker 2: serious comic book, you know, and you know this kid
Speaker 2: had nunchuck, so I just had to believe. Anyway. The
Speaker 2: email continues. Multiple on theme comics can be seen incidentally
Speaker 2: in RoboCop. Among them, an issue of the now world
Speaker 2: renowned Iron Man RC. Three was directed by one Fred Decker,
Speaker 2: who's writing partner Shane Black, known for, among other things,
Speaker 2: their collaboration on the exquisite The Monster Squad also nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty seven, who would also go on to direct the
Speaker 2: Christmas Laiden critical hit iron Man three, also twenty thirteen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I think we. We referenced Shane Black a
Speaker 2: little bit in the episode that came out Friday, but
Speaker 2: was not out at the time of this email.
Speaker 3: About how he sets all his movies at Christmas, and
Speaker 3: a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and wait, iron Man three. I almost said RoboCop three,
Speaker 3: iron Man three was set at Christmas. That sounds right,
Speaker 3: I had I believe it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I barely. I like that one. That one was fun.
Speaker 3: I remember it was funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Monsters Quad was also fun back in the day.
Speaker 2: I don't I'm not in a big hurry to revisit
Speaker 2: it because I think there's some things about it that
Speaker 2: are not going to age all that well. But still
Speaker 2: great looking monsters in that film.
Speaker 3: Great cast tom noonan this as Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. It continues in terms of sequel watchability,
Speaker 2: I think you both said that you'd not seen them. Well,
Speaker 2: I think we we haven't seen three, but we've both
Speaker 2: seen two a lot. I think, speaking as a longtime fan,
Speaker 2: I was eight or nine when RoboCop came out on
Speaker 2: VHS and I first saw it, I'd say number two
Speaker 2: for sure worth the watch. Agree tom noonan is the villain,
Speaker 2: carries the picture, and a lovely montage of failed attempts
Speaker 2: to create another cyborg is superb once more.
Speaker 3: Agreed, grimly hilarious. Yes.
Speaker 2: Part three, on the other hand, is a dud, difficult
Speaker 2: to sit through, but the excellent and unexpected cast makes
Speaker 2: it ideal for a background viewing. The same can be
Speaker 2: said of the cartoon Yes, another of those R rated
Speaker 2: film turned toy turned cartoon properties. It's not good, but
Speaker 2: the credits revealed names I recognize from legit good work
Speaker 2: later on the TV series A Snooze the remake Snooze,
Speaker 2: though I have to add that one has a great cast.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it. You may be wondering about RC comics,
Speaker 2: and I must regretfully report, despite at least some having
Speaker 2: been written by the often remarkable aforementioned Frank Miller, also
Speaker 2: a snooze. Unfortunately, I've found that to be the case
Speaker 2: to be true of basically all movie turn comics. I've
Speaker 2: read tons of Aliens, Predators, Terminators, etc. Hoping to recapture
Speaker 2: some of the delight the movies provide, but they never
Speaker 2: really work. I'm fairly certain it's the lack of the
Speaker 2: iconic scores and sound effects that led to my disappointment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I recall at one point trying to pick up
Speaker 3: one of those I don't know, some kind of Aliens
Speaker 3: colonial marine, kind of comic, and it just did not
Speaker 3: click with me. I was getting in there. I was
Speaker 3: like that this does not have the magic of Aliens
Speaker 3: the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I did an Alien Versus Predator novel
Speaker 2: at some point before they did the movie, so back
Speaker 2: when it was just like comics and novel franchise, and
Speaker 2: I remember enjoying it. But I also remember virtually nothing
Speaker 2: about the plot. But it was better than the movies
Speaker 2: that would come.
Speaker 3: As to the RoboCop remake, don't want to spoil anybody's
Speaker 3: fun if they like it, because we did get an
Speaker 3: email from a frequent correspondent who I believe said that
Speaker 3: he enjoyed the remake, But I was not a big fan.
Speaker 3: I'm not a person who says as a rule that
Speaker 3: one should not try to remake an already great film.
Speaker 3: You know, you can remake a film that was good
Speaker 3: the first time and find a new angle on it
Speaker 3: find it a new interesting way to approach it. But
Speaker 3: this is one that did, in the end just feel
Speaker 3: completely unnecessary. It's just like, why does this exist?
Speaker 2: Now, Nathan goes on a little bit more about RoboCop.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna skip through some of this a
Speaker 2: little bit, but it's all good stuff. But I'm gonna
Speaker 2: get to the crossbows. Nathan says, Now, finally, if I
Speaker 2: could back up to the topic of crossbows, there's a
Speaker 2: subcategory I think deserves a mention, the wrist mounted crossbow.
Speaker 2: Notable examples of users in users in fiction include the
Speaker 2: Drow of the under Tark, Poison Ivy and Batman, and
Speaker 2: a hunter in Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust. Who's been a
Speaker 2: long time since I've seen that one.
Speaker 3: I don't know it?
Speaker 2: Oh, you know this is another one that when I
Speaker 2: was younger, there was a time when everyone was all
Speaker 2: about Vampire Hunter D. Anyway, Nathan closes up by saying,
Speaker 2: chances are you've already seen Bloodlust. In any event, I
Speaker 2: highly recommend it. It's full of great Castlevanian creatures, and
Speaker 2: multiple recent Core episodes make me think of it. Crossbows obviously,
Speaker 2: but something you said in the shows on Shadows reminded
Speaker 2: me of a sneaky fiend who travels through two dimensional shadow,
Speaker 2: and while he isn't headless like the subject of those episodes,
Speaker 2: there is a neat take on lacanthropy where the Wolfman's
Speaker 2: entire torso opens up, revealing enormous jaws. I think I'll
Speaker 2: finish listening to your episode on RoboCop, finish rewatching RoboCop,
Speaker 2: and then rewatch Bloodlust.
Speaker 3: Fun sounds great, Nathan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds like some good viewing lined up there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the idea of many crossbows. This is kind of like
Speaker 2: a side tangent I might have to come back to
Speaker 2: in the future because there is this whole world. Like
Speaker 2: we touched on this a little bit talking about that
Speaker 2: very early ancient repeating crossbow that there's evidence of in
Speaker 2: China that may have just been a toy or like
Speaker 2: just an example of the basic principles of a design,
Speaker 2: but it probably didn't have much strength at all, and
Speaker 2: most of the firing power came from the string rather
Speaker 2: than the bow. And so you do get into interesting
Speaker 2: design problems when you scale a bow or crossbow down
Speaker 2: too much. And yet you do find examples of fairly
Speaker 2: small ones that were used because there would be environments
Speaker 2: where you would still want a ranged weapon, but not
Speaker 2: have a tremendous amount of room to fire said ranged weapon.
Speaker 2: I forget this specif on it, but there was recently
Speaker 2: a samurai show at the High Museum here in Atlanta, Joe.
Speaker 2: I know you went to this as well, I said JJ.
Speaker 2: And if memory serves there was a small bow or
Speaker 2: crossbow I don't remember which that was intended to be
Speaker 2: fired from a carriage or inside of a carriage, but
Speaker 2: probably inside a carriage firing outside. Should there be bandits
Speaker 2: or whatnot?
Speaker 3: Hmmm, I don't recall that specifically though. There were a
Speaker 3: lot of amazing gizmos there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, Nathan, Yeah, thanks for all the thoughts there,
Speaker 2: and all the film recommendations as well, Like you know,
Speaker 2: the Vampire Hunter d thing. I hadn't thought about that
Speaker 2: in a while, so I'll have to revisit it and
Speaker 2: see if maybe maybe I'll rewatch it as well.
Speaker 3: All right, This next message comes to us from Daniel.
Speaker 3: It's in response to our series called The Sunken Lands,
Speaker 3: about areas of land that have been covered up by water. Specifically,
Speaker 3: there's a part where we talked about the observation and
Speaker 3: areas around like the southeastern coast of Great Britain, of
Speaker 3: tree stumps down underneath the surf that would sometimes be
Speaker 3: revealed by like movements of sediment by heavy storms, and
Speaker 3: how this is evidence that actually forests used to go
Speaker 3: down into the space that is now filled in with
Speaker 3: the North Sea. Daniel says, Hi, Robin Joe, I just
Speaker 3: listened with interest to your Sunken Lands episode one the
Speaker 3: other day as I actually had a genuine experience like
Speaker 3: this where I live. In the nineties, I lived just
Speaker 3: short walking distance from the beach the same village I
Speaker 3: grew up in grassy Head, Trial Bay, NSW, Australia. I
Speaker 3: guess that's New South Wales, New South Wales, Australia. In fact,
Speaker 3: you can hear the sea roaring from our property, being
Speaker 3: only a few hundred meters from the beach. After some
Speaker 3: wild weather I went for a beach walk to see
Speaker 3: if any of the many shipwrecks were visible that uncover
Speaker 3: sometimes if the sand washes out of Trial Bay parentheses
Speaker 3: Trialbay named after a ship called the Trial stolen by
Speaker 3: convicts from Sydney and wrecked on my beach in eighteen sixteen.
Speaker 3: To my surprise, not only were their shipwrecks, but also
Speaker 3: a never before seen mudflat about a foot high and
Speaker 3: tree stumps sticking out in the breakers. These stumps were
Speaker 3: from an ancient mangrove forest, and some were a good
Speaker 3: two feet wide. I did take photos, but if they
Speaker 3: aren't attached, it's because I didn't find them. Well, Daniel,
Speaker 3: there weren't any photos, so I guess you didn't find them,
Speaker 3: Daniel says. Over the next few weeks it all covered
Speaker 3: up again. So there was at one time a forest
Speaker 3: where the beach is now. It was a strange experience
Speaker 3: to walk among the tree stumps in the waves at
Speaker 3: the beach. Thank you for your show. I've been listening
Speaker 3: for ages now, cheers Daniel.
Speaker 2: Excellent. That's exactly the sort of in the field reporting
Speaker 2: where hoping to hear from our listeners.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Love getting emails like this. Thank you, Daniel.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into the weird house cinema listener
Speaker 2: mail a little bit. This one comes to us from Lee.
Speaker 2: Lee says, greetings, Rob, Joe, and jj I hope you
Speaker 2: are all well. The recent episodes regarding headless Men had
Speaker 2: me wondering about disembodied heads. The search quickly sent me
Speaker 2: into horror and sci fi film best off lists. One
Speaker 2: of note was the Den of Geek website. The list
Speaker 2: features notable movies and describes the scenes. They also include
Speaker 2: disembodied brains or one at least, since they mentioned Total
Speaker 2: Recall in The Thing nineteen eighty two, for specific scenes,
Speaker 2: I might further require the head or brain play a
Speaker 2: pivotal or at least interesting role in the plot. So
Speaker 2: others because I guess, yeah, I mean there are films
Speaker 2: where heads incidentally fly around without bodies. I guess yeah.
Speaker 3: There's like the scene in Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger
Speaker 3: is at the customs desk and he takes off a
Speaker 3: fake head that I don't know he was using to
Speaker 3: sneak into the planet disguised.
Speaker 2: But that's it.
Speaker 3: It's just like a fake talking robot head and then
Speaker 3: it explodes. It's not a major plot point.
Speaker 2: Get ready for a surprise, yes, two weeks. And there
Speaker 2: are other films like you know, Big Trouble. Little China
Speaker 2: comes to mind is one that has a fabulous beholder
Speaker 2: like creature that's essentially a floating head, but it's not
Speaker 2: central to the plot. It's just really cool anyway. The
Speaker 2: email continues here. So others on the list include the
Speaker 2: Brain from Planet Aros. That's nineteen fifty seven. We haven't
Speaker 2: watched it, but it has come up before, The Thing
Speaker 2: that Couldn't Die nineteen fifty eight, The Fiend without a
Speaker 2: Face nineteen fifty eight. Now, we did cover that one
Speaker 2: on Weird House, Yes we did.
Speaker 3: That's about the I just sprayed for brains last week.
Speaker 2: Tzardas from seventy four. That comes up from time to time.
Speaker 2: Not sure if that's one we'll cover, and and then
Speaker 2: they say, as well as a couple I would add
Speaker 2: on my own the Frozen Dead from nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 2: Invaders from Mars mentioned during the Maze episode, and looking
Speaker 2: into information on Modoc, I stumbled across the teenage mutant
Speaker 2: Ninja Turtle villain Kraying. Both of these could lend themselves
Speaker 2: to the monster fact treatment. Yeah. I'm a big Krang fan.
Speaker 2: I like Modoc, So if there's anything to pull on
Speaker 2: there that's a little bit science y, I'll go for it.
Speaker 2: The Crossbow episodes brought to mind the DC comics hero
Speaker 2: vigilante Huntress. Not familiar with Huntress whose weapon is a
Speaker 2: crossbow pistol, as well as the Slee Stack from the
Speaker 2: seventies Saturday Morning Live action Showland of the Lost, who
Speaker 2: had a crossbow weapon. While the slee Stack were one
Speaker 2: of the batties of that series, The role of Huntress
Speaker 2: sort of trends with that good, bad gray zone of Vigilanti.
Speaker 2: Would you consider Chewbacco's bow caster a crossbow type weapon?
Speaker 2: Keep up the great thought provoking content regards Lee.
Speaker 3: Oh, where to start? A lot of things meant here.
Speaker 3: At first, I didn't realize what you were talking about
Speaker 3: with Invaders from Mars that came up in our episode
Speaker 3: on The Maze because it was directed I think the
Speaker 3: same year or just the year previous by the same director,
Speaker 3: William Cameron Mendsy's both came out in nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 3: So The Maze was the movie where it's spoiler alert,
Speaker 3: spoiler alert, it takes place at the Scottish Castle and
Speaker 3: the twist at the end is that the I don't
Speaker 3: know little the prints of this castle is actually a
Speaker 3: giant frog monster. Very weird. But then Invaders from Mars
Speaker 3: is an early alien invasion movie that was very influential
Speaker 3: on a lot of filmmakers who grew up watching films
Speaker 3: of this kind like it was remade in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: But it is a strange mix of plot devices and
Speaker 3: little moments that are actually kind of that are actually
Speaker 3: pretty brutal and scary, and then other things that are
Speaker 3: just hilarious. There's so many general running around in jeeps
Speaker 3: and just stock footage of you know, trucks and military
Speaker 3: trucks and armored personnel transport driving around on military basis.
Speaker 3: It's like, Okay, yeah, I think we've seen enough of this.
Speaker 3: Now get back to the alien ship. And on the
Speaker 3: alien ship there is like a there's like a disembodied
Speaker 3: head that I think has these wires coming out of it.
Speaker 3: It's like gold or something. It's weird looking.
Speaker 2: As for the question about Chewbacco's bow caster we talked
Speaker 2: about in the previous Listener Mail episode, I can't remember
Speaker 2: exactly where we landed there. Sort of a crossbow but
Speaker 2: also sort of not a crossbow. I think that's a
Speaker 2: fair way to put it.
Speaker 3: I'd say, actually, it is not only sort of a crossbow,
Speaker 3: it's fully a crossbow because it does shoot physical bolts
Speaker 3: or not just substantial massive bolts like Remember it's not
Speaker 3: just plasma. There's metal stuff coming out of Chewy's crossbow.
Speaker 2: That's right, it's a bolt that has like a plasma coating.
Speaker 2: So that's what's crashing into your storm Trooper armor.
Speaker 3: Bam.
Speaker 2: Oh wait there's more. I forgot. There's a PSPs Joe.
Speaker 2: For the record, I really didn't need an excuse to
Speaker 2: rewatch the Gargoyles movie. It was a fun, nostalgic watch.
Speaker 3: That's the made for TV movie about gargoyles that live
Speaker 3: in a cave under the desert, which I have not watched,
Speaker 3: by the way, but I don't know. It came up
Speaker 3: for some reason. I think maybe because it was early
Speaker 3: effects worked by Stan Winston, and it had some interesting
Speaker 3: cast members who was in it, like Bernie Casey's in
Speaker 3: Bernie Casey and like Scott Glenn or somebody.
Speaker 2: Yep, Scott Glenn. Yeah. I mean it's got a god
Speaker 2: of there are a number of things interesting about it.
Speaker 2: So I saw it long ago, like on a lazy
Speaker 2: Sunday afternoon on A and E. I think, so, yeah,
Speaker 2: it'd be worth coming back to it. Looks like Scott
Speaker 2: Scott Glenn's really young in this, younger than you would
Speaker 2: ever guess Scott Glenn ever was okay?
Speaker 3: Should we call it there?
Speaker 2: All right? Yeah, let's go ahead and close the book
Speaker 2: on this episode of Listener Mail. But there will be
Speaker 2: more in the future, you know, the dri core episodes
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener Mail.
Speaker 2: Wednesdays we usually do in an artifact or monster fact episode,
Speaker 2: and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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