Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and today we are re airing our episode
Speaker 1: from eight to twenty twenty four. It is Shocking Dark.
Speaker 1: This is a nineteen eighty nine Aliens knockoff from the
Speaker 1: director of Troll two. So you're in for a fun
Speaker 1: ride with this film, and we have a pretty fun
Speaker 1: discussion about it as well. So strap in here we go.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 3: today on Weird House Cinema we're going to be talking
Speaker 3: about the nineteen eighty nine Aliens ripoff Shocking Dark, which
Speaker 3: has got to be a new favorite for me. I've
Speaker 3: never seen this before and it is top tier schlock.
Speaker 3: This movie is It was such a good time.
Speaker 1: That's right, I mean, this is bad movie. Caviare from
Speaker 1: the screenwriters behind Troll two and the director of such
Speaker 1: films as Zombie three and Robo Wars.
Speaker 3: Singular rob or singular by my.
Speaker 1: Mistake, Yes, Robo War. There was only ever one Robo War, but.
Speaker 3: They didn't yet have James Cameron to come along and
Speaker 3: write Robo War with a dollar sign after it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, this this one. I have to say, this
Speaker 1: is a film that I actually absolutely has to be
Speaker 1: seen to be believed. We we don't talk about bad
Speaker 1: movies so much on Weird House. We're generally, you know,
Speaker 1: very I would say, we're pretty forgiving. We're we're here
Speaker 1: to lean into films and find find what works and
Speaker 1: celebrate what works in a movie. Uh So, it may
Speaker 1: have been a while since we watched something this schlocky, this,
Speaker 1: but in its own way, this perfect because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, one would be tempted to cast a film
Speaker 1: like Shocking Dark as the mere antithesis of great filmmaking.
Speaker 1: But I think you could also argue that this is
Speaker 1: the reflected reverse image, and as such it's that same greatness.
Speaker 1: It's just reversed, you know. It's Shocking Dark is stupendous,
Speaker 1: and as such, I would argue it's more captivating than
Speaker 1: most motion pictures. There's no lukewarm movie here to be
Speaker 1: spat out and forgotten half finished. The experience, no matter what,
Speaker 1: is going to be absolutely memorable.
Speaker 3: I totally agree with that this is not a middle
Speaker 3: of the road boring hack exercise. This is a jewel
Speaker 3: of badness. It's the kind of badness that takes on
Speaker 3: a form of genius. Like other other films of this
Speaker 3: caliber we've talked about before, like troll To, like Plan
Speaker 3: nine from Outer Space, like Highlander two. In many ways, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think it's right up there. This movie is so pleasurable,
Speaker 3: and I think there will be a bunch of reasons
Speaker 3: that we can get into. Some are harder to describe
Speaker 3: than others, but we'll try to sort of lay out
Speaker 3: a roadmap of the pleasures on offer here. But first,
Speaker 3: since this movie is widely acknowledged to be a shameless
Speaker 3: ripoff of at least one James Cameron movie, actually two
Speaker 3: two James Cameron movies, I thought we should try to
Speaker 3: place it within a kind of taxonomy of different ways
Speaker 3: a movie can be thought of as a copycat or
Speaker 3: a ripoff. All right, So, the first way I want
Speaker 3: to think of a movie being a knockoff is the
Speaker 3: marketing clone. And in this case, the actual substance of
Speaker 3: the movie may have nothing to do with the film
Speaker 3: that's being copied, but the market facing information about the film,
Speaker 3: such as title poster or trailer tries to make the
Speaker 3: movie seem related we did two, or identical to another
Speaker 3: more successful movie. And there are actually a few different
Speaker 3: ways you can do this. One example is sequels in
Speaker 3: name only. An instance here is Troll two, which is
Speaker 3: connected to the very same creators of Shocking Dark. Troll
Speaker 3: two had nothing to do with the movie called Troll.
Speaker 3: Movies like this are in neither form nor function actual
Speaker 3: sequels to the original. They just illicitly slap a title
Speaker 3: on there, like Zombie two or Terminator two. In this case,
Speaker 3: they put it on the poster without permission and they
Speaker 3: opened the box office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so like with this film, this film was
Speaker 1: apparently shot as Shocking Dark, and it was a producer
Speaker 1: level choice to then try and sell it as Terminator too.
Speaker 1: So I think if everyone involved in making the film
Speaker 1: realize like that was that was maybe even a step
Speaker 1: step too far. You're not just not it's one thing
Speaker 1: to call your film troll too, but to go after
Speaker 1: to go in the wake of Terminators. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: here it is Terminator too. I know there's another Terminator
Speaker 1: too coming out in a few months. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say anything about that one, But why don't you
Speaker 1: buy this?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Another way you can have a marketing clone is mockbusters,
Speaker 3: movies that you know, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 3: are trying to confuse people into buying the wrong DVD.
Speaker 3: These were very popular in the late two thousands and
Speaker 3: the twenty tens. So imagine a movie called trans Morphers
Speaker 3: with DVD box art that looks very similar to Michael
Speaker 3: Bay's Transformers. You can think of other examples like Atlantic
Speaker 3: Rim and The Da Vinci Treasure. These movies may or
Speaker 3: may not be similar to the target blockbuster in terms
Speaker 3: of plot, character, or style. The point is that they
Speaker 3: can be hard to tell apart before you watch them.
Speaker 3: They're hard to tell apart like at the store, especially
Speaker 3: maybe to like a grandparent buying a DC for their
Speaker 3: grandchild or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's a kind of crass way you can approach
Speaker 3: trying to steal the artistic or entertainment credibility of another film.
Speaker 3: Another way you can have something that could be thought
Speaker 3: of as a knockoff is the premise lifter. A lot
Speaker 3: of copycat movies are like this, and I think it's
Speaker 3: one of the most benign forms of copying in storytelling.
Speaker 3: In this type of movie. You take the basic premise
Speaker 3: or elevator pitch of a pre existing movie, but then
Speaker 3: you take it in your own direction. So, for example,
Speaker 3: a premise clone of the original Terminator might be a
Speaker 3: movie about a killer robot that is transported from a
Speaker 3: dystopian future back to the present to carry out a mission.
Speaker 3: So you could have the same setup as the Terminator,
Speaker 3: or at least the same setup as far as you know,
Speaker 3: as far as it would sound in a sentence long pitch.
Speaker 3: But then maybe the plot and the characters and execution
Speaker 3: could be totally different. And there are even some quite
Speaker 3: good movies in this category. I think a fresh take
Speaker 3: on a familiar premise can be exciting and sometimes can
Speaker 3: even be great art. Lots of examples of this category
Speaker 3: don't even feel like copying. They might just be variations
Speaker 3: on a theme or further exploring a new niche subgenre
Speaker 3: in the example of Terminator. At this point, does Dangerous
Speaker 3: Robot from the Future even really belong to James Cameron?
Speaker 3: Or is that more just kind of a very specific
Speaker 3: subgenre of sci fi?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 3: Now, another way a movie might be thought of as
Speaker 3: a copycat is what I would call the vibe repeater.
Speaker 3: A lot of Star Wars copycats are in this category.
Speaker 3: They don't exactly lift all that much directly from Star
Speaker 3: Wars in terms of semantic plot content, but instead they're
Speaker 3: trying to copy, like the texture and the feeling of
Speaker 3: Star Wars. So it's more the world, the ensemble, the
Speaker 3: look and sound, the emotional range, and so forth. So
Speaker 3: in the case of Star Wars vibe repeaters, you'd usually
Speaker 3: get some kind of swashbuckling space adventure with a cast
Speaker 3: of zany characters and morphologically diverse aliens, droids, bad guys
Speaker 3: in scary helmets, rebels fighting against the odds, space battles, mysticism,
Speaker 3: and things like that. So these movies try to copy
Speaker 3: the texture and the feeling of another movie that's been successful,
Speaker 3: more so than explicit details of the story or explicit
Speaker 3: designs or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of the times, a lot of
Speaker 1: the time it falls flat. To be honest, I guess
Speaker 1: it depends on what you're copying. Like I would say,
Speaker 1: in general, I've never seen a Star Wars vibe repeater
Speaker 1: that gets the job done. But if I were to
Speaker 1: look at say the various conan the Barbarian inspired movies. Okay,
Speaker 1: certainly none of them are on the level of Conan
Speaker 1: in terms of cinematic quality, but like the general vibe
Speaker 1: might be there. It's like, all right, you know, muscle
Speaker 1: Barbarians and some of the similar or themes might be exploring.
Speaker 1: It can work kind of like some of your better
Speaker 1: mad macs of vibe repeaters can essentially get the job done.
Speaker 3: I agree, yeah, yeah, okay, And then the final category
Speaker 3: I would talk about is just the all out ripoff,
Speaker 3: and this is the territory we're in with Shocking Dark.
Speaker 3: Shocking Dark is indeed a marketing clone of Terminator. Specifically,
Speaker 3: it is a sequel in name only that uses a
Speaker 3: poster that looks exactly like the poster for Terminator. It
Speaker 3: is both a premise lifter and a vibe repeater of Aliens.
Speaker 3: It's taking the basic plot pitch, and it's also trying
Speaker 3: to copy a lot of the texture and feeling of Aliens.
Speaker 3: But it goes beyond any of these categories into outright
Speaker 3: reproducing whole characters, situations, and scenes from Aliens, but with
Speaker 3: a much lower budget and less finesse in terms of acting, writing, sets,
Speaker 3: costumes and effects, and so it's actually a a pretty
Speaker 3: interesting question to me. Why would you want to do that?
Speaker 3: I can understand, I think all of the other categories,
Speaker 3: Like I understand the mercenary money making appeal of the
Speaker 3: marketing clone that is a cash grab. I understand the
Speaker 3: creative appeal of taking a crack at a story premise
Speaker 3: that has been done before, but doing it your own way.
Speaker 3: It can be fun to work out your own unique
Speaker 3: version of an idea. I understand wanting to capture the
Speaker 3: vibes of a movie that you liked in the past,
Speaker 3: but just do something different with it, you know, so
Speaker 3: create a similar feeling that you have enjoyed yourself. But
Speaker 3: I don't quite understand what is the appeal of just
Speaker 3: taking the scene from Aliens where Burke leaves the face
Speaker 3: hugger in the room with Ripley and Newt and reproducing
Speaker 3: it essentially the same but less well within another movie.
Speaker 3: That is a head scratcher for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, my only guess is that it basically
Speaker 1: comes down to, like a producer level understand or misunderstanding
Speaker 1: of what cinema is, you know, where it's just about
Speaker 1: the cash grap It's not about what emotions the movie
Speaker 1: can summon. It's not about the stories they can tell.
Speaker 1: It's just like, how much money can we make tomorrow
Speaker 1: using the limited resources we have today?
Speaker 3: But I don't even understand, So, like, what kind of
Speaker 3: appeal do you think you're gonna sell more movie tickets
Speaker 3: if you have a scene in your movie it's the
Speaker 3: same as a scene from the other movie that made money,
Speaker 3: do you know what I mean? Like, I don't even
Speaker 3: know how that you think that translates into getting people
Speaker 3: into the theaters or getting people to rented?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I can only assume it was just
Speaker 1: kind of a product of the time, right. It must
Speaker 1: have worked, right because they did it all the time
Speaker 1: in B and C budget tali in cinema.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess so. But by the way, I don't
Speaker 3: mean to say any of this to detegrate the experience
Speaker 3: of Shocking Dark, because despite what you might regard as
Speaker 3: it's creator of failures or crimes, it is an absolutely
Speaker 3: brain melting good time. I can't recommend this movie enough
Speaker 3: to people who like schlock movies.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, this is definitely so bad it's good territory. I
Speaker 1: couldn't I couldn't get my wife to watch it. She
Speaker 1: was like, she kind of scratched her head with why
Speaker 1: I would watch this in full. But if you enjoy bad,
Speaker 1: schlocky movies, movies that are very rough around the edges,
Speaker 1: then Shocking Dark is the film for you.
Speaker 3: It feels like a movie built entirely out of first takes.
Speaker 3: There are parts where actors literally screw up their lines
Speaker 3: and then correct themselves, or they like miss a cue
Speaker 3: and leave a long awkward pause before responding to someone
Speaker 3: and just leave it in. That's in the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We'll get into some specific examples of this too,
Speaker 1: where it's just kind of like the camera's rolling, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get what we're gonna get, and yeah, it's in
Speaker 1: the movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it. And then there are otherwise where
Speaker 3: it's just hard to describe what is so funny and
Speaker 3: pleasing about it. You just have to see it for yourself.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of little details about timing, editing, framing,
Speaker 3: line delivery that are difficult to translate into words, but
Speaker 3: you should see this once again. It is top shelf
Speaker 3: shlock all.
Speaker 1: Right, I have a quick elevator pitch, and I think
Speaker 1: you have a longer one, but mine is simply we
Speaker 1: have Aliens at Home. This movie of Aliens at Home.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's like what if aliens? But instead of a
Speaker 3: terraforming colony on LV four twenty six, it's tunnels allegedly
Speaker 3: underneath Venus. Does that even make sense to have tunnels
Speaker 3: underneath Venics sounds like a flooding risk, But okay, So
Speaker 3: it's tunnels underneath Venice, the city of Venice in Italy.
Speaker 3: And then instead of colonial marines, you've got the Mega Force.
Speaker 3: More on them later. And then instead of xenomorphs, you've
Speaker 3: got bug eyed ooze hippos. And then instead of Whale
Speaker 3: and you Tawni, you have the Tubular Corporation. And instead
Speaker 3: of James Cameron, you have the guys who troll to
Speaker 3: and robo war.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go ahead and just listen to a
Speaker 1: little bit of the trailer audio for Shocking Dark.
Speaker 4: They thought they were fighting only against aliens. They were
Speaker 4: sure that they had won their battle, but they were mistaken.
Speaker 4: Shocking Dark ferocious, indestructible, ruthless terminator, shocking starm.
Speaker 3: Hey, there, this is Joe with an insert from the future.
Speaker 3: After we finished recording the episode, just thought back about
Speaker 3: how Shocking Dark has a pretty unbelievable plot twist in
Speaker 3: the last fifteen minutes or so, and we end up
Speaker 3: talking about it without much warning in the episode. So
Speaker 3: if you want to see the movie without having a
Speaker 3: pretty bizarre surprise spoiled for you, you should watch it before
Speaker 3: listening further. That's all.
Speaker 1: All right. So at this point in the podcast, you
Speaker 1: might be wondering, all right, how can I see Shocking Dark? Then? Well,
Speaker 1: Shocking Dark did not receive a proper release in the
Speaker 1: US for a very long time, I think, for some
Speaker 1: obvious reasons. But in twenty eighteen, the excellent Severn Films
Speaker 1: put out the definitive Blu Ray edition, scanned in two
Speaker 1: K from the director's cut negative discovered in a Rome
Speaker 1: Lab vault. Plus, there are there a couple of fun
Speaker 1: extras on the disc that I'll reference later. You can
Speaker 1: buy this in most places, but you can also get
Speaker 1: it off their website severin dot com. They do great releases.
Speaker 1: In general, Shocking Dark is probably a film where you
Speaker 1: can get by seeing it in a grungy format, but
Speaker 1: I still think it's worth seeing in the best quality available.
Speaker 1: I know that some of the streams you'll find out
Speaker 1: there are on the official services that offer them. These
Speaker 1: are also the Severin restoration, or at least you know,
Speaker 1: the restoration that Severin films used in their release. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what I watched. I rented it from Video
Speaker 1: Drum here in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: I am soon to own a disc of this, but
Speaker 3: I watched a stream of it that was available through
Speaker 3: I think scream Box, and it looked good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet it's the same restoration, because it is
Speaker 1: worth stressing that it's a film with some things that
Speaker 1: I think are worth seeing in high detail. The locations
Speaker 1: they used and the I think one set that they
Speaker 1: utilized late in the film. I think these are great.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed seeing them, these performances, you know, respect the
Speaker 1: actors involved here and see them in the highest format possible.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the people who made it.
Speaker 1: The director's chair occupied by Bruno matte who of nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one through two thousand and seven Italian director of
Speaker 1: B movies, exploitation films, and yes, shameless knockoffs. His story
Speaker 1: is pretty endearing in a number of ways. Though his
Speaker 1: father owned a film editing studio, so he grew up,
Speaker 1: you know, in and around the business, and he has
Speaker 1: various technical credits to go all the way back to
Speaker 1: the Night to the early fifties. In sixty nine and seventy,
Speaker 1: he worked as an editor on two Jess Franco films,
Speaker 1: ninety nine Women and Count Dracula. That's the one that
Speaker 1: had Christopher Lee in it with a mustache, and he
Speaker 1: apparently did some uncredited directing on ninety nine Women. After this,
Speaker 1: he directed a string of Italian sex comedies and exploitation
Speaker 1: films leading up to nineteen eighties Hell of the Living Dead,
Speaker 1: a Dawn of the Dead inspired zombie film featuring a
Speaker 1: score by Goblin. Oh wow, Yeah, Now, don't be mistaken.
Speaker 1: All of the exploitation projects continued in the background here.
Speaker 1: But he also followed this up with eighty three's The
Speaker 1: Seven Magnificent Gladiators, which starred Luf Forigno and Sybil Danning,
Speaker 1: who guests were also in a Hercules movie that we watched,
Speaker 1: and Brad Harris so I think was also in that
Speaker 1: Hercules movie.
Speaker 3: Wait, they're trying to get some Magnificent seven juice into
Speaker 3: the title of this gladiator. Is this a future Gladiators movie?
Speaker 1: Ooh, that's a great question, I would say, given the timeframe.
Speaker 1: There's like a seventy five percent chance that it takes
Speaker 1: place in a post apocalyptic future. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: This could be This could be a Sword and Sandals picture.
Speaker 1: I mean, he does have Luf Rigno in it, so
Speaker 1: come the Hercules connection.
Speaker 3: He could be a Roman gladiator or he could be
Speaker 3: a cyber gladiator. Both makes sense.
Speaker 1: There's also eighty four's Rats Night of Terror that is
Speaker 1: a post apocalyptic film with like Rats overrunning a post
Speaker 1: apocalyptic city. Great and I think they used decaying sets
Speaker 1: from more exterior sets from Once upon a Time in
Speaker 1: America for that one. And then there's eighty seven's Double Target.
Speaker 1: This had Miles O'Keefe in it, and Donald Pleasants.
Speaker 3: Is Miles O'Keefe the guy from Atour.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay? Eighty seven Scalps and Strike Commandos starring Reb Brown,
Speaker 1: eighty eight Zombie three, the nineteen eighty eight Predator ripoff
Speaker 1: Robo War starring Reb Brown.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's one of my favorites. I used to put
Speaker 3: Robo War on when I was like hanging out with
Speaker 3: my D and D friends. I'd put it on on
Speaker 3: mute because something often silly looking was happening on screen.
Speaker 3: But if you watch that one, I don't know if
Speaker 3: that's fun to sit through the entire time, because it
Speaker 3: gets rather monotonous. There's just a lot of like running
Speaker 3: around in the jungle and stuff, but there are some
Speaker 3: quite funny dialogue moments in it.
Speaker 1: The alien does not look as good as the predator
Speaker 1: in our Predator franchise.
Speaker 3: I have to say, no, it does not. I would
Speaker 3: say that the the monster costumes in Shocking Dark are
Speaker 3: much better than the monster monster suits and designs in
Speaker 3: the other Bruno Matte and Claudio Fergoso movies I've seen.
Speaker 1: Agreed, Agreed, We'll come back to those monsters in a bit.
Speaker 1: But let's say, following Robo War, there's eighty eight Strike
Speaker 1: Commando two, which has Richard Harris in it, and then
Speaker 1: there's the nineteen ninety five Jaws knockoff, cruel Jaws and
Speaker 1: much more.
Speaker 3: No nice jaws around here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess by ninety five you got to come
Speaker 1: up with new angles on your jaws knockoff. Anyway, what
Speaker 1: your angle is that the shark is mean? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't mean enough. Further, it's just an animal now,
Speaker 1: he's mean, Okay, so Mittea continued working in low budget
Speaker 1: horror until his death in two thousand and seven, and
Speaker 1: I've read that he was, you know, working pretty much
Speaker 1: extensively in the Philippines by that time.
Speaker 3: I think Robo War was shot in the Philippines from what.
Speaker 1: It is a jungle movie, right, yeah, all right, Now
Speaker 1: onto the screenwriters. It is the husband and wife duo
Speaker 1: of Rosella Drudi and Claudio Fragasso. He was born in
Speaker 1: fifty one. They also wrote nineteen nineties, often exceeded but
Speaker 1: never equaled, Troll two, which was our second selection ever
Speaker 1: for Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: A classic for a reason.
Speaker 1: For Gaso's credited screenplays go back to around seventy four
Speaker 1: and hers to nineteen eighty, but they frequently worked with
Speaker 1: Bruno on such films as Hell as the Living Dead, Rats,
Speaker 1: Night of Terror, Zombie three Strike, Commando two, and Robo War.
Speaker 1: Now of their pictures, I've mainly just seen Troll two
Speaker 1: and The Night Killer, as well as some behind the
Speaker 1: scenes interviews with them, and it's always very interesting and
Speaker 1: it always strikes me that they take their films very seriously.
Speaker 1: So Troll two had aspirations of being a sort of cutting.
Speaker 1: Critique of vegetarianism got them, and night Killer aspired to
Speaker 1: be some sort of like serious psycho sexual thriller.
Speaker 3: In some respects, night Killer is very funny but also gross.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't recommend. I can't recommend
Speaker 1: night Killer to the average film viewer. It's more of
Speaker 1: it's a deeper cut. Yeah, But I was curious, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's going to be an interview on this disc from Severn,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what's their take going to be
Speaker 1: on it? Are they going to be, you know, very
Speaker 1: serious about it or are they going to be upfront
Speaker 1: about it being a knockoff? It's more of the latter.
Speaker 1: They stressed. The producers put a put some very strict
Speaker 1: parameters on this project. It needed to be a combination
Speaker 1: of Aliens and the Terminator, and it needed to use
Speaker 1: character names from those films. So you have a Sarah,
Speaker 1: for instance, in this.
Speaker 3: Picture, except she's the Ripley, right right, yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 3: the Sarah Connor is the Ripley. And then there's a
Speaker 3: Drake in it. Drake is one of the colonial marines
Speaker 3: in Aliens, but instead they make him like a scientist
Speaker 3: who has been driven insane by the monsters and like
Speaker 3: has a scream from beyond space and time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they said that they actually pushed back as
Speaker 1: much as they could, trying to inject some originality into
Speaker 1: the script, but that neither they nor Bruno had any
Speaker 1: control over the switch to the title Terminator too, when
Speaker 1: the producer turned around and tried to sell it.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think maybe the direct copying of scenes from
Speaker 3: Aliens makes more sense if like, these are just hired
Speaker 3: guns and they are doing what the producers tell them
Speaker 3: they have to do. Yeah, that makes sense. It's like
Speaker 3: an order that is executed unthinkingly or maybe not unthinkingly
Speaker 3: by the people executing it, but is given unthinkingly.
Speaker 1: Right, But then part of the creative exercise here becomes Okay,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to say, rip off Aliens and Terminator,
Speaker 1: but then how do you do it with such a
Speaker 1: limited budget. You can't, So you have to make up
Speaker 1: new stuff. Even if you didn't want to, even if
Speaker 1: you wanted to save all of your creative juices for
Speaker 1: the next project that you have more investment in, You're
Speaker 1: gonna have to come up with something because you cannot.
Speaker 1: You cannot reproduce Alien scene for scene, like you just
Speaker 1: cannot do it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not, though I've sort of already alluded to this,
Speaker 3: but I think that the normally, when you're dealing with
Speaker 3: the small budget, what you would expect to be the
Speaker 3: weakest link in the movie is the technical realization, like
Speaker 3: the you know, the special effects and the monster costumes
Speaker 3: and the sets. But I don't think that is the
Speaker 3: weakest link here. I think that is, you know, some
Speaker 3: of the monster costumes kind of look okay, they're kind
Speaker 3: of they're they're not as scary and realistic looking as
Speaker 3: the xenomorph costumes, but they're fun, They're they're pretty good.
Speaker 3: I mean, clearly we link here is like the script
Speaker 3: and the acting and the human elements.
Speaker 1: I agree. Fergaso thought that the monster costumes were the
Speaker 1: worst part, you know, like some of the atmosphere they created.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I thought the monsters were fine. There are
Speaker 1: other glaring problems here. Drew, for her part, said that
Speaker 1: she didn't like the film, was slightly mystified that people
Speaker 1: did like it, but was generally like glad that the
Speaker 1: film made people happy, and she commented that there was
Speaker 1: too much dialogue patting in the film, like they just
Speaker 1: they had to they had to fill up a certain
Speaker 1: amount of runtime, and you know, you can't just do
Speaker 1: effects and shotgun blasts the whole time. You've got to
Speaker 1: have some dialogue, and that there's too much of it.
Speaker 3: That's some of my favorite stuff in the movie, when
Speaker 3: it feels like the actors are just ad libbing to
Speaker 3: stretch out a scene. And yeah, oh, that's some of
Speaker 3: the best stuff, especially costers stuff in that regard.
Speaker 1: Oh goodness, yes, I guess we'll get to hurt in
Speaker 1: a minute. So anyway, the writers here, they seem to
Speaker 1: have no illusions about the film. They're glad people liked it,
Speaker 1: and they didn't disown it or anything, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's a fun little interview. All right. Now, let's get
Speaker 1: into the cast here. I'm going to start with really
Speaker 1: our central protagonist here, our ripley, if you will. It
Speaker 1: is the character Sarah, and she is played by Haven Tyler.
Speaker 3: You know she is I don't think anybody could say
Speaker 3: she is a good actress in this movie, but she
Speaker 3: is likably bad. Like I found her bad performance was endearing.
Speaker 1: This is Tyler's only acting credit. She was an American
Speaker 1: college student studying abroad at the time and since she'd
Speaker 1: done a little bit of modeling and she had in
Speaker 1: the past done some school stage performances, she signed up
Speaker 1: with a talent agency in Rome, which led to her
Speaker 1: casting in this production. According to a twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: interview with Fangoria magazine, this one was conducted by Michael Gengold.
Speaker 1: Her audition was apparently just her screaming in a room,
Speaker 1: and it's a really good interview. It's certainly worth worth
Speaker 1: checking out for anyone interested in this picture. But she
Speaker 1: reflects positively on the experience of making it, saying that
Speaker 1: like most everyone was nice. The guy who oversaw the
Speaker 1: munitions was really professional, which is something I have to
Speaker 1: Amit is often on my mind these days when I
Speaker 1: watch these older films with a bunch of guns in them,
Speaker 1: I'm like, geez, I hope nobody was hurt or killed
Speaker 1: making this. I hope they were. They were careful, So
Speaker 1: it's always refreshing to hear something like that. I showed
Speaker 1: my wife part of the movie and she observed that
Speaker 1: Tyler bears a certain resemblance to contemporary actress Kate McKinnon. Ye,
Speaker 1: she looks like yes, And of course the whole idea
Speaker 1: was I think she was cass because she at least
Speaker 1: vaguely to some degree, resembles Ripley. It looks like Sigourney Weaver.
Speaker 1: I don't know sure why not.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get there, but I don't quite see it.
Speaker 3: But I respect that they tried, And you know what,
Speaker 3: I feel like my judgment is going to continue because
Speaker 3: now that I'm looking down the list of the other
Speaker 3: actors we have to talk about, in almost every case,
Speaker 3: I actually feel have the same judgment, which is likably bad,
Speaker 3: not a good actor giving a very stiff, wooden performance.
Speaker 3: But I like them a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean really, you know, someone like Tyler. This
Speaker 1: is her only film. Yeah, she've had very little experience.
Speaker 1: This is a very green performance, but it's great, like
Speaker 1: she gives it her all. It is perfect for this
Speaker 1: film totally.
Speaker 3: And another person on that wavelength is the actor who
Speaker 3: plays Fuller, the company man.
Speaker 1: Yes, Christopher Aarn's another American actor living in Italy at
Speaker 1: the time. We haven't I don't think we've mentioned this,
Speaker 1: but this is an Italian film, but all the dialogue
Speaker 1: is in English. It was like shot in English, so
Speaker 1: using a lot of American actors or Americans in general
Speaker 1: that happened to be in Italy at the time. So
Speaker 1: this guy's acting credits, though, stretch from nineteen eighty five
Speaker 1: through around nineteen ninety nine. They include eighty eight Raiders
Speaker 1: of the Magic Ivory, Anyone, Top Gun Knockoff with Aliens
Speaker 1: and David Warner, Blue Tornado nineteen ninety one, is Beyond
Speaker 1: Justice with Rudger Howard and Elliott Gould, and finally a
Speaker 1: bit part A is a Goths soldier in the nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine all star Julie Taymoor film Titus, produced in
Speaker 1: part by Steve Bannett.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's come up before. I don't remember him from Titus, though.
Speaker 1: I think it's a bit part you know, God Soldier
Speaker 1: or God's Soldier Never Won or something, you know.
Speaker 3: Okay, So my read on this guy is that they
Speaker 3: told him you are the bad guy, be mean, and
Speaker 3: so in every single moment, every single line, every single
Speaker 3: second that the camera is on him, he is sneering. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's just like. It is one of the most over
Speaker 3: the top villain performances I've ever seen. I don't think
Speaker 3: he ever cracks a smile.
Speaker 1: He is just like, Yeah, he's like every scene he's
Speaker 1: making that. You know, sometimes you see people who's like
Speaker 1: their idea for a headshot is they need to look
Speaker 1: mean in all of them. They need to look like
Speaker 1: like very stern and not smile. That's his whole vibe,
Speaker 1: the whole picture.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, that's off to him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a he commits the part. It's fun all right.
Speaker 1: Now getting into the basically the Colonial Marines the picture
Speaker 1: we have the character cost Her, and Costa is played
Speaker 1: by Garretta Garetta born nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 3: I love her. I can't literally like the moment when
Speaker 3: she died in the movie, like halfway through I shouted
Speaker 3: out loud. I was like, no, do not take her away?
Speaker 1: How can we finish the picture without her just jarring presence.
Speaker 1: So she is an American model turned actor with a
Speaker 1: number of notable credits from the world of Italian b cinema,
Speaker 1: making her something of an icon and this part of
Speaker 1: the world of cinema. Her credits include nineteen eighty three
Speaker 1: He's Warrior of the Lost World and eighty three He's
Speaker 1: twenty twenty Texas Gladiators, Fulci's Murder Rock from nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: That one not that good. But not only for folci completists,
Speaker 1: I think. But she's in that one. She's in Bruno's
Speaker 1: Rats Night of Terror, and in nineteen eighty five she
Speaker 1: appeared in Loberto Baba's Classic Demons, which is definitely worth
Speaker 1: seeing if you're into just wild Italian horror movies of
Speaker 1: this time period.
Speaker 3: Is Warrior of the Lost World, the one they did
Speaker 3: on Mystery Science Theater that has mega weapon.
Speaker 1: Yes, I believe so. I think that's the one with
Speaker 1: Donald Pleasants in it, right.
Speaker 3: That sounds right. A mega weapon from what I recall,
Speaker 3: is like a dump truck that's got a little like
Speaker 3: thing pooping out some flames from it.
Speaker 1: And yep, yep, that's the one. Fred Williamson's in it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But to repeat the theme of actors who are
Speaker 3: giving it, they're all who are giving a I don't know,
Speaker 3: you you might not think of as a realistic dramatic performance,
Speaker 3: but who are going over the top in ways that
Speaker 3: make this movie so much fun. Bullseye Like Greta. Greta
Speaker 3: is so much fun in this Yeah.
Speaker 1: She has this kind of like unhinged green energy that
Speaker 1: makes her just absolutely captivating to watch. Like we'll get
Speaker 1: into the key scene here in a bit. But yeah,
Speaker 1: anytime she is on on on screen, you're like, what
Speaker 1: is she gonna say next? What is she gonna do?
Speaker 1: And what choices is she gonna make in her acting?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right. We also have Foster Lombardi playing Frienzini, another
Speaker 1: one of the Mega Force crew here the Marines here
Speaker 1: born nineteen fifty five, Italian actor who credits include nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty's Terror Express eighty two s Don't Look in the
Speaker 1: Attic Rats Night of Terror, nineteen eighty nine's After Death
Speaker 1: aka zombiefore. That one was directed by Claudio Fragasso and
Speaker 1: written by Rosella Drudi, and he was also in Blue Tornado.
Speaker 3: Is this the guy who cost her yells at for
Speaker 3: being Italian?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, okay, all right. It can't be an alien's
Speaker 1: ripoff without a newt ripoff and that is where the
Speaker 1: character Samantha comes into play. Samantha was played by child
Speaker 1: actress Dominica Colson, who was apparently eleven at the time
Speaker 1: but looks quite a bit older on the screen. Judian
Speaker 1: Fragoso points this out that she's almost as tall as
Speaker 1: Tyler and these various scenes and I don't think everyone
Speaker 1: was really happy with the way this ended up looking.
Speaker 1: But hey, being being a parent of a twelve year
Speaker 1: old and seeing how his friends have grown especially, I
Speaker 1: can totally see how this could happen. You cast an
Speaker 1: eleven year old and suddenly she's like a foot and
Speaker 1: a half taller.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I guess it takes a while to make
Speaker 3: a movie, didn't it. Yeah yeah, we.
Speaker 1: Would maybe not this one, but I'm maybe between the
Speaker 1: time of casting at or maybe you don't realize that
Speaker 1: your lead actor isn't as tall as Sigourney Weaver. I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah that would make sense. I would have guess this
Speaker 3: actress was older than eleven. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But anyway. In that interview with Fangoria, Tyler shares
Speaker 1: that she and her mom, who was on set with
Speaker 1: her the whole time, were lovely people. So it's always
Speaker 1: nice to hear when a low budget picture like this
Speaker 1: is not in and of itself a secondary horror movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, because you can imagine the pitch. I was
Speaker 1: a college student living in Italy for a summer, and
Speaker 1: I was cast in a sci fi horror movie filmed
Speaker 1: in an abandoned nuclear power plant.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that is where they filmed some of
Speaker 3: the stuff, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, we'll get into like you have so many
Speaker 1: great sequences, and well, there are great sequences. You have
Speaker 1: some great locations in this film, Yes, that look very
Speaker 1: interesting that could have this industrial quality to them, but
Speaker 1: also don't look like straight up grimy ruins like they're
Speaker 1: kind of they're very clean and futuristic looking in some regards,
Speaker 1: and that's basically what the whole situation is.
Speaker 3: When I was watching, I was really wondering where some
Speaker 3: of this was shot, because it doesn't look like cheap sets.
Speaker 3: It looks like a real industrial setting with like heavy
Speaker 3: bulkhead doors and all this stuff, Like what were they
Speaker 3: doing here? But they actually got let into a nuclear
Speaker 3: power plant.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Italy, I believe, historically had four different nuclear power plants,
Speaker 1: all of which close by nineteen ninety following the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven Italian referendums on nuclear power, and this would
Speaker 1: have been in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they shot stuff there. They also shot some in Rome's
Speaker 1: Roma Termini train station. I think there are some grinier
Speaker 1: tunnel sequences that must have been shot there. And then
Speaker 1: there's one set late in the picture. There's one like
Speaker 1: fully created set. Basically, it'll be a set that looks
Speaker 1: a lot like maybe they were inspired by the Mother
Speaker 1: command center in the original Alien.
Speaker 3: That's what I was thinking, was the one. Yeah, should
Speaker 3: we spoil it right now? It's a time machine.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This movie as the gall to throw in the
Speaker 1: last ten to fifteen minutes of the film, they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: time travel exists, Yeah, in a big way.
Speaker 3: Best codea ever.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see who do we have left on here? Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a character named Drake who shows up. We mentioned
Speaker 1: Drake earlier, played by Clive Ricci born nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 1: This is another This is a much much smaller role,
Speaker 1: but another totally unhinged performance that lands somewhere between bad
Speaker 1: and transcendent.
Speaker 3: I could not believe what I was watching. In the
Speaker 3: scene where he starts screaming at all of the Mega
Speaker 3: Force guys and they all start screaming, and everyone's screaming,
Speaker 3: It's like I nearly fell over.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of screaming in this film, a lot
Speaker 1: of shrill screaming. So this is a This is an
Speaker 1: English born actor born fifty eight, also a composer. This
Speaker 1: was his first film credit, which I think is understandable.
Speaker 1: But he went on to appear in ninety four Cemetary Man,
Speaker 1: two thousand and five's Casanova, the two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: HBO series Rome, Dario Argento's Mother of Years in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, in the twenty twenty four series Those
Speaker 1: About to Die, along with various other I think Italian
Speaker 1: productions and productions that took place in Italy. I believe
Speaker 1: he's also a translator and a voiceover artist.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, hey, should we talk about those creature effects
Speaker 3: that Claudio was talking down on.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is the work of the Polucci brothers. So
Speaker 1: these are a pair of twin Italian monster suit makers,
Speaker 1: Francesco and Gaetano, active behind the scenes, or at least
Speaker 1: credited as such, because sometimes you know, special effects people
Speaker 1: are kind of lost in the shuffle and aren't actually credited.
Speaker 1: But based on the databases, we know that they were
Speaker 1: active between eighty five and ninety six. They'd previously worked
Speaker 1: on nineteen eighty five's Texts and The Lord of the
Speaker 1: Deep on some special effects, and then they followed this
Speaker 1: up working alongside the legendary Italian special effects master Carlo
Speaker 1: Rombaldi on nineteen eighty five Silver Bullet. This is the
Speaker 1: Stephen King scripted adaptation of King's Werewolf story.
Speaker 3: Is that Gary Busey in it?
Speaker 1: It sure does?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay?
Speaker 1: And also what's his name that played Stilgar in the
Speaker 1: David Lynch Dune.
Speaker 3: Oh Everett McGill there you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Everet McGill's in that too. So anyway, this seemed
Speaker 1: to be like this. I'm guessing this was their big moment,
Speaker 1: like working with a legit master of like creature effects
Speaker 1: and creature building, and after this they seem to go
Speaker 1: their own way. Their creature work continues in Body Count
Speaker 1: in eighty six, The Barbarians in eighty seven, Top Line
Speaker 1: and Robo War in eighty eight, and Night Killer in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, and then their last picture came out in
Speaker 1: ninety six. But again, sometimes special effects workers don't end
Speaker 1: up being credited properly, so I'm not entirely sure where
Speaker 1: else they may have worked.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: I think the monsters in Shocking Dark look a lot
Speaker 3: better than the monster in Robo War.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they look good. I feel like they're mostly lit
Speaker 1: pretty well. They clearly just had two suits, one of
Speaker 1: which which looks kind of like a fishy frogman, and
Speaker 1: the other one looks kind of like a cross between
Speaker 1: the alien space jockey and a giant cicada.
Speaker 3: That's what I was thinking of. One is the cicada
Speaker 3: because it's got a oh, it's got kind of a
Speaker 3: hose running down the middle of its face that is
Speaker 3: space jockey ish but could also be interpreted as the
Speaker 3: insects rostrum, and it has the red eyes of a cicada.
Speaker 3: It just looks very insecty. But then the other one
Speaker 3: is the one I was thinking of, is the bubblegum hippopotamus,
Speaker 3: because it's kind of a hippo. Then when it opens
Speaker 3: its mouth, it's got this stretchy the bubblegum kind of
Speaker 3: the sticky stuff in between its jaws that it's always
Speaker 3: like peeling up and I don't know what you call that,
Speaker 3: that physical effect, but it's like bubble gum stuck between
Speaker 3: two things that are peeling apart.
Speaker 1: It's always painfully obvious that they only had two monster
Speaker 1: suits in this film, like they're not really able to
Speaker 1: create that illusion of there being tons and tons of monsters.
Speaker 1: I always felt like there was monster A, a monster B,
Speaker 1: but still they look pretty.
Speaker 3: Good, though there are some surprise monsters later on of
Speaker 3: a different format.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, there is going to be a y spoiler
Speaker 1: monster coming later. I guess not much of a spoiler monster,
Speaker 1: all right. And then finally, the music in this picture.
Speaker 1: The score is by Carlo Maria Cordillo born nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: composer and one time producer on Joe Diamato's ninety one
Speaker 1: fantasy film Quest for the Mighty Sword. He worked a
Speaker 1: lot in European exploitation in genre cinema. His credits include
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty one Joe Diamato George Eastman Gorefest Absurd.
Speaker 1: He did one Picicerre Simon's eighty two slasher pieces, along
Speaker 1: with Joe Diamanto's A Tour the Fighting Eagle, and his
Speaker 1: eight nineteen eighty three post apocalyptic film Endgame, Bronx Lata
Speaker 1: Finale eighty seven, z Iron Warrior, Fulchi's Enigma the same year,
Speaker 1: Night Killer Troll two, and various other schlocky titles. His
Speaker 1: work typifies that kind of like fun and atmospheric work
Speaker 1: you find in a lot of these films, which along
Speaker 1: with you know, the work of bigger name players in
Speaker 1: the game helped inspire whole modern subgenres of like horror, disco,
Speaker 1: and you know, sort of like retro dark synth wave stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the soundtrack here is not super original, but I
Speaker 3: think it fits well and is quite fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. You can find some of these tracks on
Speaker 1: Cordea's official streamable releases under the title Alienator, which is
Speaker 1: one of the alternate titles for the film, if you
Speaker 1: look for the album The Bite of Fear. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought it sounded pretty good. Special edition vinyls of
Speaker 1: his scores have been released before, I don't think for
Speaker 1: Shocking Dark, but but Troll Too and Absurd definitely have
Speaker 1: come out on vinyl. And finally, I should note that
Speaker 1: IMDb lists the use of stock music on this film
Speaker 1: by none other than legendary Greek progressive and electronic composer
Speaker 1: Evangelists who live forty three through twenty and twenty two.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure what where and to what extent
Speaker 1: we hear Evangelists in Shocking Dark, But I know he
Speaker 1: did a lot of major compositions obviously, you know Oscar
Speaker 1: winning stuff like eighty one's Chariots a Fire, or you
Speaker 1: know the legendary score to eighty two's Blade Runner. But
Speaker 1: he also did stuff like a twelve hour private score
Speaker 1: for some surgery instruction videos that the Tacos tape. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not I'm not a vangelist expert,
Speaker 1: so I'm not sure like what all he got into
Speaker 1: outside of like his main work. So maybe there is
Speaker 1: some like you know, straight up you know stock music
Speaker 1: that he did that they're sampling here. But but again
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm not sure on the details of
Speaker 1: where we hear any of his work in this picture.
Speaker 1: Let me stress though, score by Cordillo not a score
Speaker 1: by vangelists.
Speaker 3: Evangelists directed shocking everybody remember that. Okay, is it to
Speaker 3: talk about the plot?
Speaker 1: Yeah? It's getting the plot now.
Speaker 3: I think once we sort of hit a certain point
Speaker 3: in the progression of the story here, the plot recap
Speaker 3: may become thinner or more cursory than usual. Since it
Speaker 3: just did not make sense to me to, like after
Speaker 3: Act two begins, to try to narrate in detail. This
Speaker 3: is one of those movies where when I started playing
Speaker 3: the stream, I had to stop and make sure I
Speaker 3: had selected the right title, because if you know that
Speaker 3: the premise is it's a ripoff of aliens and terminator.
Speaker 3: The first scene does not make any sense. We open
Speaker 3: on tourists in Venice. Yes, so we're in some piazza
Speaker 3: with cathedrals in the background. You see tourists wandering around
Speaker 3: with cameras taking pictures of stuff. They're pigeons everywhere. Somebody
Speaker 3: strikes up some soft Italian mandolin music, and then a
Speaker 3: voice over comes on, sounding like the narrator of a
Speaker 3: slasher movie trailer, and says, Venus before the year two
Speaker 3: thousand and it goes on to say squares, museums and churches,
Speaker 3: Tourists crowd the streets. Venice is threatened by the high tide.
Speaker 3: The seaweed is killing the oxygen in the waters, and
Speaker 3: the putrid waters are corroding the foundations of the city.
Speaker 3: So we're treated to some shots of Venice from the
Speaker 3: water from out on the ocean, looking at the at
Speaker 3: the coastline and the buildings, and then the narrator says,
Speaker 3: this is Venus today, and then it grows softer and
Speaker 3: it says what will happen tomorrow? We cut away from
Speaker 3: the waters and the pleasure boats to a shot of
Speaker 3: the city with soft, fuzzy lens Now it looked very
Speaker 3: clear beforehand. Now we got the fuzzy lens, so the
Speaker 3: camera operator has activated conquest mode. I don't know how
Speaker 3: exactly they do that. I mean they smear some vasoline
Speaker 3: on the lens or something, but we're in that mode,
Speaker 3: and in front of the city there is now a
Speaker 3: red sign that says Venus off limits. And here we
Speaker 3: get our first glimpse of the Mega Force. Now, these
Speaker 3: costumes are I don't know, they're a big part of
Speaker 3: what makes the movie funny because they're just funny looking costumes.
Speaker 3: From the bottom to the top, the Mega Force wear
Speaker 3: heavy boots, baggy cuffed up nylon pants, a Batman utility belt,
Speaker 3: golden yellow long sleeve shirts, and then I don't know
Speaker 3: what you call these this like shoulder formation or sleeve type,
Speaker 3: but they're like a V shaped gray vest with sort
Speaker 3: of arched cap sleeves. You know, there's like where the
Speaker 3: sleeve comes out from the shoulder over the arm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks kind of like the things that the
Speaker 1: Ninjas wear in Mortal Combat.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, and then a gas mask and a
Speaker 3: bicycle outlet.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So basically, so, yeah, Venus is off limits. Now,
Speaker 1: future Venus is kind of like New York City and
Speaker 1: Escape from New York, only it's a biohazard zone instead
Speaker 1: of a penal colony.
Speaker 3: Will learn, Yeah, not even any prisoners in there. There
Speaker 3: is no Duke of Venice. There is only slime, which,
Speaker 3: by the way they show us, we're just getting at
Speaker 3: this point. They're showing us pictures of the water and
Speaker 3: they're slime in the water. And then another narrator comes on,
Speaker 3: I think this is a different voice who says the
Speaker 3: situation in Venice is now critical. A giant toxic cloud
Speaker 3: has settled over the city and is slowly destroying every
Speaker 3: form of life. The government has declared it a disaster
Speaker 3: area and has ordered the evacuation of the few remaining survivors.
Speaker 3: Venice is now a dead city. And then like the
Speaker 3: camera pans around looking at the canals, filming places where
Speaker 3: there's like a lot of algae on the bricks around
Speaker 3: the canal, or just some litter, and it kind of
Speaker 3: reminds me of something we talked about in our Weird
Speaker 3: House episode on Frogs from nineteen seventy two, when you've
Speaker 3: got a movie scene that is supposed to be showing
Speaker 3: that a place is filled with litter and pollution. But
Speaker 3: the trash in the scene looks too fresh. They do
Speaker 3: not have that problem here, because I think they're just
Speaker 3: I think they got these shots by just going around
Speaker 3: in filming places where there was actually trash piled up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they just like picked out the worst spots in
Speaker 1: Venice and like, here's your dystopian future.
Speaker 3: Right, So it doesn't actually look that futuristic. It just
Speaker 3: looks like they were cruising for trash and they found
Speaker 3: some and you know, got some shots. So we go
Speaker 3: around looking at these these fuzzy scenes of a desolate,
Speaker 3: abandoned Venus. There's like crumbling. There are crumbling buildings hanging
Speaker 3: over the canals, old wooden scaffolding in various stages of rot,
Speaker 3: bricks falling into the ocean, rats living in old water
Speaker 3: logged mattresses. The idea is Venus stinks. Now, it's no good. Next,
Speaker 3: we go inside a secure facility to a control room
Speaker 3: of some kind with huge banks of lights and monitors
Speaker 3: and dials all beeping, and in here we meet some
Speaker 3: Megaphorce guys. And as soon as I saw this, I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, this is not a set they cannot
Speaker 3: afford to create a set like this, this is some
Speaker 3: kind of actual industrial control room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very it's very functional looking, like especially in
Speaker 1: the still that you popped into our notes here, it's
Speaker 1: like you can see computer screens online in the background,
Speaker 1: like all the lights are on. You know, presumably they
Speaker 1: did not fire the plant back up again in full,
Speaker 1: but everything looks very operational, like. This is not a
Speaker 1: This is not a power plant that was taken off
Speaker 1: line because it had completely worn out. No, it came
Speaker 1: off line because of you know, other other reasons.
Speaker 3: I'm just imagining Bruno like that guy in Chernobyl where
Speaker 3: he's like, no, get my reactors started again.
Speaker 1: But yeah, these are some great spaces that that we
Speaker 1: see throughout the picture at times, like huge vault doors
Speaker 1: in this case, you know, big control banks, some great
Speaker 1: hallway and yeah, so some and it feels significantly different
Speaker 1: compared to a lot of the grimy industrial spaces that
Speaker 1: we've seen in a lot of our other movies that
Speaker 1: we watch for Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So a guy from wearing the Megapores uniform
Speaker 3: comes into this room. He says, what's going on here?
Speaker 3: And the guy manning the computer says there's an SOS
Speaker 3: from Venice, sir, And before the guy even finishes saying venus,
Speaker 3: we hear people screaming from somewhere and then we realize
Speaker 3: they're screaming on the TV that they're watching. So let's watch,
Speaker 3: and we get to see the closed circuit camera and
Speaker 3: it's like some workers in a steamy tunnel somewhere and
Speaker 3: they're looking up at the camera in the tunnel and
Speaker 3: screaming for help. And the performances of these guys is
Speaker 3: so strong, so they're they're like overacting in one sense
Speaker 3: where they're like a just screaming at the top of
Speaker 3: their lungs. You can see their uvulas, you know, teeth out,
Speaker 3: just shrieking. But then they're there are also moments where
Speaker 3: they'll like pause and look at the camera for a
Speaker 3: second and then scream for help again. Yeah, so we
Speaker 3: see a look of grave concern on the face of
Speaker 3: the Mega Force leader. I think this guy is technically
Speaker 3: the kernel, but this guy is great. He's got a
Speaker 3: very Charlton Hesteny stab you with his Adam's Apple quality.
Speaker 3: But he also I don't know exactly why, maybe because
Speaker 3: of the yellow shirt. He just reminded me of corn,
Speaker 3: like he's a big old corn corn on the cob,
Speaker 3: just yellow, sweet summer corn. And he also is a
Speaker 3: really funny character because the corn guy here stares into
Speaker 3: space for several seconds before saying his lines. It does
Speaker 3: it repeatedly, like it'll cut to the Mega Force guy
Speaker 3: and then engage the emergency protocol.
Speaker 1: I want to say that he's also one of these
Speaker 1: characters that is often like clearly reading lines off a screen,
Speaker 1: whether they're actually on the screen digitally or they are
Speaker 1: there probably and we just can't see it from a
Speaker 1: d to the camera angle.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So in the scene, Corn commander here wants to
Speaker 3: get in touch with somebody named Raffleson, who is the
Speaker 3: scientist in charge of whatever they're looking at, but they're
Speaker 3: unable to raise him. Communications have been cut. As I
Speaker 3: alluded to earlier, it's kind of hard to describe what
Speaker 3: makes this so funny, but all throughout here there is
Speaker 3: pretty high level hilarity in like every human aspect of
Speaker 3: the movie, from the physical blocking and posture of the actors,
Speaker 3: to the facial expressions, to the lines as scripted, to
Speaker 3: the line deliveries. Like everything on that level is super
Speaker 3: awkward and funny. And sometimes adorable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's at that level that is I think
Speaker 1: ultimately very difficult to reproduce for comedic value. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: it's a rarey. You see something like Garth Morange's Dark
Speaker 1: Place that was able to so perfectly capture the sort
Speaker 1: of vibe that was achieved organically in this picture.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, Okay, So we go into the facility that
Speaker 3: we were just watching on the closed circuit and we
Speaker 3: follow around a couple of the workers in jumpsuits as
Speaker 3: they run around the tunnels. Occasionally they remembered act scared
Speaker 3: and then they you know, and they'll have lines about
Speaker 3: how it seems like it's curtains for us. And eventually
Speaker 3: they wander up on a monster hidden by fog, so
Speaker 3: we don't get a good look at it yet, but
Speaker 3: you know that they're like, oh no, it's our time,
Speaker 3: so you know they know they're done for Then we
Speaker 3: cut back to another guy. It's this curly haired guy
Speaker 3: we follow as he runs around the tunnels. He makes
Speaker 3: some really good faces if you pause it at essentially
Speaker 3: any moment, and then he gets assaulted by this other guy, Drake.
Speaker 3: Drake is the scientist who we mentioned earlier who gives
Speaker 3: the the just really astoundingly unhinged performance. When he first
Speaker 3: sees him, he's like, oh, Drake, it's you. What happened
Speaker 3: to the others? And then Drake puts a hand on
Speaker 3: him and he's like, goods. Drake starts, I think, sort
Speaker 3: of choking him, and I don't know, probably eats him
Speaker 3: or something. We like Drake, by the way. So next
Speaker 3: week cut back to headquarters and we got the Corn commander,
Speaker 3: this other kind of dorky Megaphorce guy, and a lady.
Speaker 3: Now also, she's wearing a vest with arched caps leaves,
Speaker 3: but hers is a leather vest for a green jumpsuit,
Speaker 3: so I think she's supposed to look cool. And these
Speaker 3: three people are Sarah Drumble, the scientist. We've got Bond,
Speaker 3: who is the captain of the Megaphorce Strike Team, which
Speaker 3: will be our colonial space Marines for the film. I
Speaker 3: recall Bond being quite unremarkable. I don't know what to
Speaker 3: say about him. He's just like leader Man. And then
Speaker 3: of course there's Commander Corn, who is some kind of
Speaker 3: some kind of colonel. He stays back in the command
Speaker 3: center for much of the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's played by one time or Bruce McFarland, and
Speaker 1: Raffleson on the screen is played by Al McFarland. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if these two were like father and son,
Speaker 1: if they were related, or they're just having to be
Speaker 1: a couple of McFarland's yeah, in Italy at the time.
Speaker 3: So the three of them are in what looks like
Speaker 3: one of those featureless rooms attached to the side of
Speaker 3: a church where you do Sunday school, and they are
Speaker 3: watching a videotape of the scientist Raffleson. He's the big
Speaker 3: science guy in charge of all the dudes in the tunnels,
Speaker 3: and Raffleson on the tape is saying, well, yeah, one
Speaker 3: thing's for sure. Our group here seems to be condemned
Speaker 3: to certain death, a hideous death, and he could not
Speaker 3: sound more bored. But Raffleson says he wants to create
Speaker 3: a record of what happened here. He says, about a
Speaker 3: week ago, strange things started to take place. Several of
Speaker 3: his team disappeared and others showed signs of mental disturbance.
Speaker 3: And then Drake, who's the guy we met in the tunnel,
Speaker 3: has begun to insist that he is in touch with
Speaker 3: a community of strange creatures, almost as if he were.
Speaker 3: And then the signal cuts off off, cut to static.
Speaker 1: Now at this point, I feel like the movie is
Speaker 1: starting to fire in all cylinders and you're and to
Speaker 1: be fair, like doesn't feel particularly aliens at this point,
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like a huge rip off, you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like, all right, some sort of weird creature
Speaker 1: community has emerged in post apocalyptic Venice.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, you could imagine it going in other directions,
Speaker 3: but so okay, here the corn commander tells Sarah Drumble
Speaker 3: that she's gonna have to go on a mission into
Speaker 3: the lab facility to see if they can rescue any survivors.
Speaker 3: And then there's a guy who pipes up from the
Speaker 3: back of the room who's He says something like, you know,
Speaker 3: to heck with the survivors, I need Raffleson's secret diary.
Speaker 3: Who is this guy? Well, he introduces himself as Samuel
Speaker 3: Fuller from the Tubular Corporation.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love the Tubular Corporation. And they
Speaker 1: say it a lot.
Speaker 3: They never stopped so many references to the Tubular Corporation.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to think, is there something that refers
Speaker 3: to like, where does that title come from? Obviously this
Speaker 3: is either waylund Utawni or Cyberdine, But where does where does?
Speaker 3: What is the source of tubular?
Speaker 1: They made tubes, I guess, or they were just like
Speaker 1: totally tubular.
Speaker 3: They did like tunnels.
Speaker 1: We learned that, Yeah, tubular tubular. It's just so funny.
Speaker 1: But I did find it hilarious that someone out there
Speaker 1: on one of these like there's like a Terminator wiki
Speaker 1: had added a page for the Tubular Corporation and its
Speaker 1: stressed that it was non canon, that it was not
Speaker 1: officially part of the Terminator universe. But I'm sorry you've
Speaker 1: put it on the Terminator wiki, so it kind of
Speaker 1: is at this point. It's just like an Italian company
Speaker 1: that is in the same world.
Speaker 3: Tubular Corporation is Terminator Dutero canon. Yeah, it's like how
Speaker 3: some Christians feel about like the Book of Enoch or something. Okay,
Speaker 3: but anyway, this guy, Samuel Fuller, he is like our
Speaker 3: Burk from Aliens, except it completely misses the thrust of Burke,
Speaker 3: which is that Burke is charming at first and then
Speaker 3: is revealed to be a snake. Samuel Fuller is mean
Speaker 3: and explicitly evil from the very first moment. He is
Speaker 3: like if the abstract notion of contempt became flesh and blood.
Speaker 3: He's sneering in every single scene, you know. He comes
Speaker 3: up and he's like, I'm going on the mission. And
Speaker 3: then the strikeforce guy Bond, he says, it's only right
Speaker 3: that the lady here comes along. She's a scientist, but
Speaker 3: I don't want any other civilians on the mission. And
Speaker 3: then Fuller comes up and sneers at him. Fuller, by
Speaker 3: the way, is wearing like a black and red jacket
Speaker 3: with these big pouches on it, like a cargo pockets
Speaker 3: jacket and a black and red hat. So again very
Speaker 3: terminator color scheme. And he comes up and sneers at
Speaker 3: the guy, and he says, eleven years in the Marines
Speaker 3: were enough to teach me that whoever talks a lot
Speaker 3: doesn't get much done, and you seem to talk lot.
Speaker 3: So Bond is he gets mad and he's going to lunge,
Speaker 3: but the corn commander holds him back and says, easy, Bond,
Speaker 3: Fuller here is an expert in martial arts. So the
Speaker 3: colonel explains that Bond doesn't really have a choice because
Speaker 3: the Tubular Corporation is the one that ordered the mission
Speaker 3: that they've got to go in there, and they're the
Speaker 3: ones that constructed the viaduct leading to the underground venice,
Speaker 3: which is I guess where they're headed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that is, to your point, basically a tube.
Speaker 3: It is, right, Yeah, it's a tube. So Sneerman here
Speaker 3: is with the company, and he gets to come along
Speaker 3: with the Mega Force because he's with the company and
Speaker 3: because he knows karate.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: Also here the scientist Sarah Drumbel speaks up, and she
Speaker 3: says the project was supposed to purify the city's polluted waters.
Speaker 3: As things stand, it appears that all of your millions
Speaker 3: have only gone to worsen the situation. And Fuller looks
Speaker 3: at her ego that remains to be seen. Then they're like, okay,
Speaker 3: we've got fifteen minutes to get ready. So instead of
Speaker 3: the whole like drop ship situation in Aliens where we
Speaker 3: get to know everybody, instead we get like a locker
Speaker 3: room scene where we get to know the Marines before
Speaker 3: they go through a door. So let's meet our Megaporce team.
Speaker 3: They are strongly trying to recreate the competitive swagger and
Speaker 3: bravado of the Colonial Marines when we first meet them
Speaker 3: in Aliens, But there once again is a malfunction in
Speaker 3: the photocopier, so these Marines do not feel like the tough,
Speaker 3: cocky space warriors that they're trying to emulate. This is
Speaker 3: not Vasquez, Drake, Hudson, Hicks and Apone. Instead, these marines
Speaker 3: are there. They are trying to be cocky and aggressive
Speaker 3: at one another, but they just come off as incredibly weird,
Speaker 3: like off the charts bizarre energy. The first one we
Speaker 3: meet is my favorite by far. This is Costor. We
Speaker 3: talked about her earlier, but she is just a gift
Speaker 3: from Heaven. I love her. When we first meet her,
Speaker 3: she's looking straight into the camera and breathing heavy. Her
Speaker 3: first line is when we can't repeat on the show,
Speaker 3: or we're gonna get tagged explicit by the platforms. But
Speaker 3: she's just wandering around the Megapce locker room, playing with
Speaker 3: guns and suggestively taunting the other Mega Force dudes about
Speaker 3: not sweating enough and not being real men. In her
Speaker 3: intern monologue, she talks about how she's back and she's
Speaker 3: ready to kick butt, but like, where is she back from? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I don't think we ever learned that there's also so
Speaker 3: much just unreal levels of forced hostility between these people,
Speaker 3: Like you don't feel tension in the room at all,
Speaker 3: but they just start insulting each other out of nowhere.
Speaker 3: There is there's out of nowhere and for no reason
Speaker 3: ethnic antagonism that arises and then dissipates where somebody's like
Speaker 3: you're Italian and they get real mad at each other
Speaker 3: and then it just goes away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's just such an unhinged feeling of what is
Speaker 1: going to happen next in this scene, and it just
Speaker 1: feels completely off the rails from the very start, because
Speaker 1: you have like the apparent fourth wall breaking in the beginning,
Speaker 1: because who else is she talking to looking right into
Speaker 1: the camera us, I guess yeah, and I feel kind
Speaker 1: of put on the spot by it. Then there are
Speaker 1: all these like weird like first draft insults being thrown around,
Speaker 1: and just an overbearing sense of wandering and seam filling,
Speaker 1: especially as Coster like walks. It's a huge locker room
Speaker 1: like this is clearly one at this nuclear facility, former
Speaker 1: nuclear facility, and she's just like walking from one marine
Speaker 1: one Mega Force member to another to insult them and
Speaker 1: or encourage them, and it just the camera is just
Speaker 1: just tracking her as she goes. So this definitely feels
Speaker 1: like a scene where they're like, well, we've got to
Speaker 1: fill we got to fill some time up here, guys,
Speaker 1: so get out there, do the lines, maybe add a
Speaker 1: little bit extra, but we're absolutely not going to stop rolling.
Speaker 3: Oh my, it feels so stretched out. It's like it's
Speaker 3: like a jam band improv so low, but just marines
Speaker 3: yelling at each other. But it's so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh but then after Costa is insulting everybody, she finally
Speaker 3: meets the one other marine she likes, the Megaphores guy
Speaker 3: named Cain, who is a shirtless guy with long blonde
Speaker 3: hair and sunglasses and a bandana on. So he's like
Speaker 3: a surfer. Yeah, and he's the only guy that cost
Speaker 3: he seems to respect. And Cain is really weirdly like
Speaker 3: soft spoken, like he just doesn't seem to be playing
Speaker 3: one of these, like, you know, marine types. So I
Speaker 3: think they're trying to reproduce like the Vasquez and Drake
Speaker 3: friendship from Aliens, but it just doesn't it's not working.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to shock everyone with the fact here
Speaker 1: that the actor playing Kan Cortland Riley. This was his
Speaker 1: only acting role, so I don't know the details on it,
Speaker 1: but I imagine it's another situation of here's a guy
Speaker 1: who happened to be in Rome. Maybe he was doing
Speaker 1: some modeling work or something thing and got picked up
Speaker 1: for this picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds about right. He I mean, he is
Speaker 3: barely acting. He just kind of says his lines. There's
Speaker 3: he Then in this scene in the locker room, he
Speaker 3: like hands cost her or shotgun and he's like, play
Speaker 3: with it, and then she does. She like runs around
Speaker 3: the room pointing at dudes in the locker room and
Speaker 3: then gets into a fight with this guy Franzini. It's nuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like franzenians up pulling a switch play, doesn't
Speaker 1: he It's I recently rewatched Aliens, and I did think
Speaker 1: that there were times where the Colonial Marines, again though
Speaker 1: to be sure, under significant stress, were lacking in discipline
Speaker 1: in some key moments. But Mega Force is just pure anarchy.
Speaker 1: There's not they haven't even gone out in the field yet,
Speaker 1: there's no additional stress other than what they brought to
Speaker 1: the locker room, and they're already at each other's throats.
Speaker 3: Okay, so the Mega Force they meet up with the
Speaker 3: characters we've already met, you know, doctor Sarah, Drumbull and
Speaker 3: Fuller from the Tubular Corporation. So they open the door
Speaker 3: to the secure facility and kickstart the action. And I
Speaker 3: think here is a good place to kind of shift
Speaker 3: gears in how we're talking about what happens, because much
Speaker 3: of the rest of the movie is very action focused
Speaker 3: and is very much a copy of the plot of Aliens,
Speaker 3: but with variations. So speaking more loosely from now on,
Speaker 3: I think we should just talk about things that stood
Speaker 3: out from this copy of the Alien's plot as it
Speaker 3: goes forward. So there is generally the shape of things
Speaker 3: to come is that they go into this facility, they
Speaker 3: discover the monsters inside, the monsters attack them, They discover
Speaker 3: what happened to the previous occupants there, they were attacked
Speaker 3: by monsters, and then there is a betrayal where the
Speaker 3: company man tries to I don't know, monster infects some
Speaker 3: more people, and there's just general Then there's progression into
Speaker 3: another location. There's discovery of a survivor, which is the
Speaker 3: newt type character, the daughter of what's his name Raffleson,
Speaker 3: the guy who was running the facility, and then there
Speaker 3: is progression to another location where they learn some more
Speaker 3: stuff about a conspiracy to create monsters I think as
Speaker 3: a weapon or something. It's your standard, you know, Oh,
Speaker 3: the Evil Corporation was trying to make trying to make
Speaker 3: giant monsters as I don't know, for military contracts or something.
Speaker 3: I don't know why they'd be all that useful. And
Speaker 3: then there is a self destruct sequence. You have ten
Speaker 3: minutes to achieve minimum safe distance. Now do we have
Speaker 3: anything to say else to say about the scene and
Speaker 3: the tunnels where they come across this guy Drake who
Speaker 3: is giving a really a plus performance, like so hyperactive,
Speaker 3: where he's like, if you enter the city, you're going
Speaker 3: to die one and then he screams. He does a
Speaker 3: scream kind of like in the end of Invasion of
Speaker 3: the Body Snatch, and then everybody starts screaming and covering
Speaker 3: their ears, and I don't know, that was one of
Speaker 3: the moments that really got me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know what exactly was going on
Speaker 1: in that sequence, but it's like it's so over the top.
Speaker 1: Sometimes less is more, but sometimes you've got to be
Speaker 1: a little more experienced to find that correct level.
Speaker 3: I guess I think we could continue to think about
Speaker 3: the question of, like, what is it that made them
Speaker 3: copy certain elements from Aliens and not others. One thing
Speaker 3: that they definitely took from Aliens is the motion trackers. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they really like these handheld devices that look kind of
Speaker 3: like a remote control where they're scanning for motion in
Speaker 3: front of them and it's making that pulsing beeping sound
Speaker 3: That is a very effective thing in Aliens because there's
Speaker 3: like a sound cue that lets you know something is approaching,
Speaker 3: but you know you can't hear it directly, so it's
Speaker 3: very creepy like that, and they use that to the
Speaker 3: best effect they can in this movie too, so it
Speaker 3: kind of makes sense why they why they lifted that element.
Speaker 3: They also lifted the element of the monsters cocooning their
Speaker 3: victims in the walls. So they're like going through these
Speaker 3: tunnels and they find people who were part of this
Speaker 3: science mission sort of wrapped up in the slime and
Speaker 3: stuck to the walls, and and you know, they act
Speaker 3: a lot like the cocooned people in Aliens.
Speaker 1: Do, except what bursts out of them not the larval
Speaker 1: monster of any form, but the monster glove hand of
Speaker 1: a full sized monster.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Which I like, but it is also stupid.
Speaker 3: There is a scene a lot like the the Assault
Speaker 3: on the Hive in Aliens, where you know, the Marines
Speaker 3: are going through these dark tunnels and they get confused
Speaker 3: and attacked by monsters in the dark.
Speaker 1: And this sequence, the sequence where they're actually fighting the monsters,
Speaker 1: I thought, is way better than it had any right
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty good.
Speaker 1: The monsters look pretty good. They'd like throw they throw
Speaker 1: a dude over a rail. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: scenes of monsters being shot with these shotguns. So it
Speaker 1: all came together pretty well, and it kind of matches
Speaker 1: up with something Tyler had to say about the production
Speaker 1: that that basically Bruno was really focused on the technical
Speaker 1: aspects of the shoot, and meanwhile the dialogue was maybe
Speaker 1: you know, second or third in everyone's priority. In that
Speaker 1: Fangoria interview, she said, quote, there was a lovely woman
Speaker 1: on set. I believe she was Australian who was supposed
Speaker 1: to be the dialogue coach, if you will. So if
Speaker 1: she wasn't there, you could say whatever you wanted and
Speaker 1: Bruno would have no idea. Bruno didn't speak English.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I actually can't even imagine that directing a
Speaker 3: film in a language that I don't speak, that that's
Speaker 3: like a difficult task.
Speaker 1: But directing this film in a language you don't speak,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe you know especially I mean, I can maybe
Speaker 1: see where like Bruno is coming from. It's kind of like,
Speaker 1: all right, I've got all I can handle is the
Speaker 1: technical stuff here. Someone else is going to have to
Speaker 1: handle this script and talking to these actors because there's
Speaker 1: just not enough time.
Speaker 3: So onto more elements they copy from Aliens. There's, of
Speaker 3: course the newt character and the discovery of her. That
Speaker 3: scene is similar to how it is in Aliens. They've
Speaker 3: got the scene where they sort of create a defensible
Speaker 3: position and they're trying to they're trying to prevent the
Speaker 3: monsters from coming in and getting them, and it's very
Speaker 3: similar as it is in Aliens. It's like, oh, they're
Speaker 3: inside the perimeter. They cut the power, But they don't
Speaker 3: say how could they cut the power? Man? Their animals,
Speaker 3: I think they just say how could they cut the power?
Speaker 3: I don't recall anybody saying game over, man, game over?
Speaker 1: No, they didn't. They showed some restraint, but there are
Speaker 1: plenty of lines that are just copied wholesale. Like there's
Speaker 1: the pull back and forth where the new character in
Speaker 1: Aliens is like my mother said, there weren't monsters, but
Speaker 1: there are, you know, that effect, But basically have that
Speaker 1: here as well. The scene where Newt is separated from
Speaker 1: from Ripley, that's pretty much directly copied here, but without
Speaker 1: without the as effective a set being utilized. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there are multiple places like that.
Speaker 3: I already mentioned this earlier, But one scene that is
Speaker 3: copied almost exactly is the scene in Aliens where Burke
Speaker 3: is trying to infect Ripley and Newt with face huggers
Speaker 3: while they're taking a nap. He like releases them into
Speaker 3: the room with them and then turns off the monitors
Speaker 3: so none of the soldiers can see that happens. Almost
Speaker 3: exactly the same in this with Fuller like sitting there
Speaker 3: watching coldly as you know, they're screaming for help and
Speaker 3: what is it? Though it's Ripley. She manages to get
Speaker 3: everybody's attention by holding a lighter up to the sprinkler
Speaker 3: system so they think there's a fire. Very clever on
Speaker 3: Ripley's part. I love that. It's a good, good moment
Speaker 3: of fast thinking and aliens. But she does something different
Speaker 3: in this movie. What does she do?
Speaker 1: Oh, this is a great question that I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer. I'm not sure how they wrap this scene up.
Speaker 3: It's like she I think she just like presses an
Speaker 3: alarm button. It's a little more direct. Yeah, that sounds
Speaker 3: I believe you're correct on that. But then they have
Speaker 3: basically the same outcome where they're like, well, we should just
Speaker 3: execute this guy. He's not on our side. But unfortunately
Speaker 3: for them, it becomes apparent as we proceed through the
Speaker 3: plot here that our company man is not a man.
Speaker 3: He's maybe a little more like Ash from Alien by
Speaker 3: way of Terminator. That's right, So, yes, it's more like
Speaker 3: the Ash reveal, but the format is terminator. Like, he
Speaker 3: gets part of his face scraped off and he's got
Speaker 3: a metal Indo skeleton, so he looks like a T
Speaker 3: eight hundred. Yeah, and it's revealed that the company, yeah,
Speaker 3: the company man is here to ensure that their profits
Speaker 3: are secured and I don't know, to erase any evidence
Speaker 3: of what happened here. I don't remember the exact details,
Speaker 3: but he just turns out to be a bad guy
Speaker 3: and he's chasing our heroes around. You know, all of
Speaker 3: those space marines get wiped out by the monsters. But
Speaker 3: then the Fuller here is chasing Sarah drumble around in
Speaker 3: this facility, much like the scene where the Terminator is
Speaker 3: chasing Sarah Connor in the computer factory. At the end
Speaker 3: of Terminator there, oh, when Fuller gets kind of semi
Speaker 3: defeated several times, but it comes back. You know, there
Speaker 3: are people who are trying to shoot him, and he's like,
Speaker 3: you fool, I am immune to bullets. But then Sarah
Speaker 3: defeats him with an with a fire extinguisher.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, yeah, she's like phrasing with a fire extinguisher.
Speaker 1: And they not only need to escape the Terminator, they
Speaker 1: need to escape the facility, which is going to explode.
Speaker 1: And just yeah, just when you think this film is
Speaker 1: out of jaw dropping choices, there they escape. I think
Speaker 1: we reference this already via time machine. They find a
Speaker 1: Tubular Company time machine they also make tubes through time
Speaker 1: and space apparently, and they climb aboard that and escape
Speaker 1: into the past.
Speaker 3: Yes, into the past, you know Venice of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: I would have also settled for escape into the future,
Speaker 1: where they land up in the background of a Stanley
Speaker 1: Tucci documentary, and Stanley tuccis like, jump in and help
Speaker 1: defeat the enemy here, but they went in the past instead.
Speaker 3: I'm making you zucchini pasta. Yeah, yeah, So this coda
Speaker 3: is there are a lot of like jaw on the
Speaker 3: floor things in Shocking Dark, but this was the one
Speaker 3: for me. I could not believe it that the ending
Speaker 3: involved a twist with time travel. There's no hint earlier
Speaker 3: on that there's time travel. They just like go into
Speaker 3: a room while they're trying to escape the blast, and
Speaker 3: it's like, welcome to the Tubular Corporation time machine. Yes,
Speaker 3: use the following controls to go into the past, and
Speaker 3: they do. And then it turns out that Fuller, the
Speaker 3: Terminator also took a time machine into the past to
Speaker 3: chase them.
Speaker 1: You have to chase them through the streets of Venice.
Speaker 3: Yes, chases them around Venice while they're asking just Italians
Speaker 3: for help, you know, And so the Terminator's like throwing
Speaker 3: them into the canals anybody who tries to help them.
Speaker 3: And then also they defeat. So Sarah defeats the terminator
Speaker 3: by tossing him a remote control that is somehow associated
Speaker 3: with the time machine. I don't understand why this defeated him,
Speaker 3: but she's like catch and throws him the remote and
Speaker 3: he catches it and then just electricity shoots all over
Speaker 3: the place and he's dead.
Speaker 1: I guess, yep, enemy defeat it. And it felt a
Speaker 1: little pressed for time perhaps, And I have to say,
Speaker 1: no gondola chases. I think we needed a gondola chase here,
Speaker 1: but you know, last five minutes of the picture. I
Speaker 1: guess they didn't have time.
Speaker 3: That's what I Roger Moore era James Bond, a movie
Speaker 3: you would have done, but not Shocking Dark. But so
Speaker 3: it's interesting that you were like watching Shocking Dark and
Speaker 3: it's a ripoff of Aliens, and you forget that it
Speaker 3: was according to the poster and the box start and
Speaker 3: the title supposed to be a ripoff of Terminator, and
Speaker 3: you just forget that that's even what you signed up
Speaker 3: for until the last fifteen minutes of the movie, and
Speaker 3: then oh, you're like, oh, now it is a ripoff
Speaker 3: of Terminator. We're done with Aliens now. Now for the
Speaker 3: rest of the runtime, it's Terminator. We got time travel,
Speaker 3: killer robots and Sarah Sarah Connor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, by that point the picture you've forgotten
Speaker 1: Terminator was really in the mix, and so the time
Speaker 1: travel comes out of nowhere. But I guess makes sense
Speaker 1: if you realize, well, it was a Terminator ripoff all
Speaker 1: along as well.
Speaker 3: So I'm so glad you picked shocking Dark for the show.
Speaker 3: This was a beautiful experience and I know I'm going
Speaker 3: to watch this one many times to come.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like I say, it's been a while since we
Speaker 1: watched something this schlocky, so it was a nice return.
Speaker 1: I don't think we could cover a film like this
Speaker 1: every week. I don't think there are enough schlocky films
Speaker 1: of this caliber out there ultimately, but it's great to
Speaker 1: return to them. Rob.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've had the experience, but it
Speaker 3: in my I feel like movies of this sort that
Speaker 3: are extremely pleasing to watch and have this kind of
Speaker 3: awkwardness to them are actually harder to cover and explain
Speaker 3: on the show than some technically duller films are.
Speaker 1: Well, sometimes those technically dull films have also have plots
Speaker 1: that you can really follow because they're like bullet points,
Speaker 1: you know, and or there's not a lot happening this one.
Speaker 1: There's always a lot of a lot of things happening.
Speaker 1: There's to the point where I have difficulty remembering exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, what all the plot points are. I just
Speaker 1: remember the spectacle of the acting, and then sometimes the monsters.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I see what you're talking about. But luckily,
Speaker 1: Shocking Dark is a film that invites you to view
Speaker 1: it over and over again.
Speaker 3: Yes, I do feel like I have somewhat fallen short
Speaker 3: in describing its virtues, but it I hope I can
Speaker 3: at least say, if you like schlock movies, you should
Speaker 3: see it. It needs to be you need to see
Speaker 3: it for yourself. You've got to have the experience.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. All right, We're going to go ahead and close
Speaker 1: the time machine hatch on this selection of Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: but we'll be back next week with something else. I'd
Speaker 1: reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a
Speaker 1: science podcast Science and culture podcasts with core episodes on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most
Speaker 1: serious concerns and just talk about a weird film on
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. If you want to see a list
Speaker 1: of all the movies we've covered over the years, go
Speaker 1: to letterbox dot com. That's l E T E r
Speaker 1: box d dot com. Our username is weird House, and
Speaker 1: there you will find the list and sometimes you'll get
Speaker 1: a peek ahead at what's coming out the following week.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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