WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Krull 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.040 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.439 Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today we're 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:22.840 going to be talking about the nineteen three sci fi 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:27.200 fantasy adventure Krull. And while I'm sure we've done a 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.400 movie that fits into this category before, one of the 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.640 main things that stuck out to me about Krull, at 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.919 least as a film project, is that it has the 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:42.400 overwhelming aroma of a troubled, big budget production. This is 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.040 a movie that really excels in many domains, especially domains 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:48.960 where money can make a lot of difference in in 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:53.040 a production, but also has major issues. This movie is 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.840 a very mixed bag. Some elements are so genuinely wonderful 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.960 and more or less the way they're intended to be. 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.880 Some are kind of dull, maybe even boring. Sometimes others 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.959 are extremely unintentionally funny. Uh. And on top of that, 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.720 it's called Krall. You really cannot beat the phonetics of 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.920 the name, and it all comes together into a preposterous, beautiful, 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:21.680 disorganized explosion at the Star Wars factory kind of movie. Yeah, Yeah, 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.080 there there's a lot of wonderful weirdness in this one. 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.000 It's gonna be fun to discuss. One note about the title. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:29.640 I don't know about everyone else out there, but I've 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.480 seen Krawl multiple times over the years, and I frequently 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:37.800 find myself having that moment in between viewings where I wonder, wait, 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.280 what was Krall was? And then I have to remind myself, oh, 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.400 Krawl was the planet. That the planet and two suns, 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.040 because other times I'll be like, what is the monster 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:48.720 name Krawl? The monster on the post is the magical weapon, 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.880 The Crawl is Krawl, that guy with the scruffy beard, 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.840 that's the hero. No, No, it's it's the planet. It's 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:56.920 like if you titled any movie that takes place on 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:01.560 Earth Earth, so instead of cool hand, Luke is just Yeah. 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.120 I always think Kroll is the monster because it looks 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.079 like the correct name for like the fish face. Uh 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.560 you know, critter, that's that's keeping the princess hostage. Yeah, 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:13.680 it would work. It would be like and in Days 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.440 of Your the Cruel came to our world, but now 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.880 it's um, it's the Beast, and the beast is in 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.880 the Black Fortress, and the weapon is the glade and 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:29.320 our hero is um clown. Right, it's not clown coal. 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.200 It always looks on the screen and in text like 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.600 it's it's spelled almost like clown. This movie has such 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:40.240 an ineffective hero every time, and the hero is talking. 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.640 When Rachel and I were watching it, we we just 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:49.359 sort of started making sounds like I don't know. I 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:53.480 I would I would slightly disagree on on some of 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.760 his heroic moments, but but we'll be Okay, that's fair enough. 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.880 If you're a clown fan, I won't spoil your fund. 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.520 But okay, So, so I mentioned earlier, it's kind of 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.320 an explosion at the Star Wars factory, I think, to 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:10.200 reference a review that I was reading, a contemporaneous review 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.000 from published in Variety in nineteen eighty two, you could 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.959 also call it an explosion simultaneously at the Star Wars 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:21.760 factory and the Excalibur factory, because this review said quote, 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.080 although inoffensively designed only to please the senses and appeal 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.760 to one's whimsical sense of adventure, krawl, nevertheless comes off 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:34.560 as a blatantly derivative hodgepodge of Excalibur meets Star Wars, 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.640 lavishly mounted at a reported cost of twenty seven million 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.400 dollars a collection of action set pieces never gels into 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:47.360 an absorbing narrative. And it's funny because there's not really 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.400 anything in that paragraph I can disagree with, even though 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.920 I love Krall. Yeah, like this is this is correct, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.200 But it also is a very fun movie and one 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.520 that I've seen many times over the years. So yeah, 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.440 I keep coming back to it. Uh, something works and that, 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.600 and it's become a cult classic for this reason. Yeah. 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.360 So the Variety review, like many others at the time, 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.560 makes note of the enormous budget. This is twenty seven 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.599 million in you know, nineteen eighty two eighty three dollars. Uh, 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:19.360 And that is one of the curious things about Kralt. 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.440 This is not the brain eaters. We're not watching a 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.080 Roger Corman production made on the cheap. So I don't 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.600 think any failures of the film can be chalked up 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:34.560 to lack of resources or lack of ability to realize 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:39.040 the director's vision or something. This is a luxuriously realized 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:44.360 almost one wants to say, gilded film with gorgeous location shots. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.599 You know, they've got all those uh scenes set with 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:51.520 like the jagged peaks of the Italian mountains, just beautiful, wonderful, 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.400 cavernous indoor sets, including you know my favorite, the thing 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.320 that has a place in my heart, built indoor sets 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:03.720 of forests, misty, magical fake forests. Yeah, these are great. 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.120 In fact, I'm I'm less into the movie when they're 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.320 actually outdoors, but when they're indoors and they're on like 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:14.599 an obvious but extremely well executed indoor swamp or indoor 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.520 forest or whatever the case might be, I'm all in. Yeah, 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:22.920 So you've got all that jolly weird set pieces, uh, costumes, characters, 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.240 and yet I do think I have to agree with 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.360 with the review that Krull does not really work as 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.200 a story. It's almost as if the main characters and 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:37.160 their motivation are kind of like place holders that somebody 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.600 put in an early draft of a script to kind 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.280 of build a world around, but then they never came 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.400 back and replaced them and filled in the drama. Some 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.760 occasional exceptions emerge, like I can think of a couple 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.200 of really nice dialogue driven scenes here and there, Like 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.279 one is a scene where the hero Colon persuades some 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.400 rowdy bandits to join his quest for some reason. Suddenly 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.279 I think the writing is a lot better in that scene. Yes, 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.440 I think this is the first my first viewing of 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:04.880 Kroll that well, first of all, this was my first 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.159 viewing of Kroll that was completely solo. In the past, 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:09.640 I've always watched this with with at least one of 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:11.719 their person if not a group of people, and there's 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.200 a lot of talking over it. And also this was 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:16.239 the first time I really got to appreciate the sequence 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.440 in question, which has a number of terrific act actors 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.159 will get to in a minute and just have some 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.560 nice back and forth dialogue, and I'm like, yeah, this 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.440 is this is a solid scene. I like everything about this. 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.000 But meanwhile, some of the other scenes, just like the 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:34.080 kind of exposition of the quest scenes are I don't know, 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:38.640 I mean like they I love them, but they they 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:42.359 do not have a really believable element of human drama 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:46.240 or character. I think I saw a user review somewhere 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.760 this might have been on letterbox, where someone was like, yeah, 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.159 this is this movie. The plot is a a first 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.040 time dungeon Master's campaign. Yes, and and I can yeah, 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:57.719 I think that's a fair comment, you know, because you 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.960 get that various feeling of Okay, these characters now meet 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.240 these characters. These characters send the characters here. Now they 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:06.320 have to go here, and then eventually they're going to 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.400 face the big bat. And uh yeah, yeah. It has 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:11.920 a It has a simple structure like that, and it 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.560 almost feels like, yeah, of course, I'm not gonna describe 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.240 the characters. That's for the players to do. So that's 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.280 why some of the major characters are kind of empty 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.400 vessels in some respects. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.040 some of the semantic content of this film is just 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.600 a skeleton upon which to drape the meat of the movie. 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.120 And the meat is a buffet of delicious sets and 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:38.840 set pieces mountains, hillsides, swamps, built, indoor forests. The meat, 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.240 of course, is the beast. The meat is alan arms strong, 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.600 and most of all, I would say, the meat is 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.000 the glave. How can you not love the glave? Because 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.440 we really cannot discuss Krull any further without devoting a 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:57.119 serious explainer to the glave. Once you see Krull, every 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.120 time you close your eyes, you'll see the glave. The 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:01.600 glave is just part of you. Now. It is like 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:06.640 a golden, five fingered starfish with knives jutting out of 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:11.280 each arm. And it is referred to with such solemnity. 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.560 It's it's just wonderful. Yeah, the glave is awesome. The 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:19.080 glavee is kind of I see about four different elements 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.760 coming into play here. Uh, it's it's it's pretty much 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.920 directly stated that the glaze is like a an important 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:29.320 sacred symbol that is now in physical weapon form. Uh. 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.240 It is. There. There's a little bit of sort of 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:37.520 Eastern design to it as well. It's reminiscent of of 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.680 the scharoken that are attributed to the Japanese martial arts. 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.400 For the most part, there's also a little bit of 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.560 a South Asian flair to it. It reminds one of 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.719 the chockrame weapon, a spinning blade weapon. I looked it 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.200 up on Etsy and there are sellers who appear to 0:08:53.320 --> 0:09:00.120 have created glave fidget spinners, which is just perfect. That's great. 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.760 And of course it's also a magical weapon, and in 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:07.360 this movie, anything magical might also be possibly technological. So 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.040 it also reminds me a lot of the flying silver 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.360 Balls of Death from the Phantasm movies in the sense 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:15.920 that it doesn't really have to behave in a way 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.400 that makes sense from like a physics or aerodynamics point 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.160 of view. No, it's like a flying starfish circular saw 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:27.760 that you control with telekinesis right. I'm still thinking about 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.360 that comment you cited that it's a first time Dungeon 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.040 Masters campaign that is so perfect, because I would say 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:35.839 one of the main reasons for that is that the 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.679 connections from set piece to set piece are very flimsy. 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.280 It's just always like, well, we have to go here now, 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.280 and and that gets you to the next scene that 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.120 you wanted to show. But could you explain why they 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.800 were going from one thing to another? It's I think 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.280 it's rare that you could credit or credits are doing 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.000 the exact one sentence review for this from a letterbox 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.920 from someone about the user name Cinema of Void Rights. 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.319 It's like watching a first time d M test running 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.240 a campaign of a level two parties searching for a 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.440 plus five fidget spinner to fight a space goblin. So 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:14.240 fidget spinner, there you go. Yeah, a bit harsh, but fair. 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.199 They only gave it one and a half stars. I 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.840 I would give it. I would give it five glades. 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.400 Five glades easy. You would sacrifice all five of your 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:29.200 fingers in the process of giving it five glaves. All right, well, 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.280 let's get to the elevator pitch here. I would just 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.440 give it a brief one. I would say, it's dungeons 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.960 and lasers. That's a that's a great tagline. Rob. I 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.080 feel like I have been at least lately forgetting that 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.800 the elevator pitch is actually supposed to be a straightforward 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:49.000 description of the movie. So I wanted to be yeah, okay, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.720 I've forgotten that lately, and so this time I remembered that. 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:53.800 I was like, oh, wait, okay, so let me try 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.959 to do that, just so you understand what we're talking about. Um. So, 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:01.400 like an evil mountain arrives from space and it settles 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:03.720 down on the world of Kroll. Kroll again is the 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.480 name of the planet. And from this evil space mountain 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:11.120 pour forth the Slayers who are laser blasting shock troops 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:15.320 who terrorized the peaceful villages of this magical planet. In 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.680 response to Kingdoms of Krull planned a unite by joining 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.800 by joining in marriage the heirs to their thrones, and 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.520 these are Prince Cowen and Princess Lisa. But before they 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:28.720 can they can get all their act together, Princess Lissa 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.280 is kidnapped by the Beast, the vile ruler of the 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:37.240 Space Mountain. Can Cowen save the princess? Probably? Yeah, yeah, 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.040 he has a really good shot head pulling that off. 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.960 All right, Well, let's go ahead and listen to strailer audio. 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:49.720 Here on a distant planet, a great kingdom was ravaged 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:57.240 by beings who came from the future to conquer the universe. 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:10.560 Now the only survivors follow a doubtful scene and its 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.320 own was king. They will hold her in the black forts. 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.600 You must have help at the end. Living in possible journey, 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:23.880 they must fight an invincible enemy. Use knowledge your seat, 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:30.559 I shall be your ky. Columbia Pictures presents a world 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:42.400 apart from anything you have seen before. Grow see sounds 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:46.320 pretty delightful. It sounds like a big budget eighties swashbuckling 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:51.000 fantasy sci fi adventure with the James Horner score. Yeah yeah, yeah, 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.160 As we'll discuss, this is James Horner score for sure, 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.839 so it's it's it's not my favorite score in the world. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.559 It's not my favorite James Horner score, but it's pretty good. 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.400 It's pretty solid. It does everything it needs to do. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.040 It's not my favorite either, but it has that that 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.360 majesty all the kind of like fluttering brass of the 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.560 orchestra always kind of uh, every other scene sounds like 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.760 a coronation him. Yes, all right. When it comes to 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.439 availability for this film, well, it's widely available. I think 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.120 we both watched it on HBO Max, so it's available 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.040 there at least for now until they take it down. 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:27.760 They seem to be changing things around a lot over there. 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.000 But but as of right now, they still have a 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.040 lot of good films in the in the collection. Karl 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:37.600 has also been released in various blue rays, DVD, VHS 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.520 of course, and special editions over the years. There's even 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.960 a VHS style blu ray that came out that really 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:47.440 captures the original awesomeness of the VHS tape, which I 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.280 fondly remember seeing on the shelves at VHS rental stores 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.200 when I was a kid, because it ultimately looks it 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.319 looks super scary. I think I was a little afraid 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:00.120 of this VHS box because you see our heroes in 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.559 the foreground and in the background they've merged the Beast 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.280 and the Black Fortress together, and it's just absolutely horrifying. 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:09.920 He's staring right into my soul with his blood red 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.120 eyes yeah, the mountain is the beast's face. That does 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.280 not happen in the movie. But I also like, is 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:20.400 this a real picture of the VHS boxes? That tagline? Right? Um, 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.240 I think so. I think this is an accurate recreation 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.440 of the VHS box. Okay, well then I just have 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:30.160 to share it says journey into a mystical time where 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:34.560 a horrible beast is the ruler. I feel like somebody 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.120 could have put some more effort into that man maybe. 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:42.160 So now, coming back to what we've been talking about 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:46.280 with the basic plot of KRALL versus the this the 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.520 the overall visual style of it. I think that's ultimately 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:55.400 where KRALL excels via its sets, via its costumes. By 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.200 all accounts, the genesis of this film was it was 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.920 a studio desire for a big fantasy holm and I 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:02.760 think originally it was going to be a lot more 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:05.960 uh traditional, and that the beast wasn't going to be 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.040 a space titan, he was going to be a dragon. 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.360 But but they changed over time, and clearly folks were 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.360 brought in to just really breathe a great deal of 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:20.240 visual life into this piece. It's almost like they gave 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.920 some extremely talented people a coloring book or a paint 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:25.600 by numbers sort of a thing, and they're like, this 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.480 is the movie we're making. Um, just do what do 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.400 what you can with it. And boy did they ever. 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.120 Like every little corner of the coloring book is just 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.120 colored in with pigments you wouldn't expect or didn't expect 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.120 or didn't know existed. Uh, and it makes it delightful. 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.520 Like some of the choices they make. It's like, for instance, 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.040 it's not an earthlike merely an earthlike planet. No, it's 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.600 a planet with two sons. It's not a dragon, it's 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.800 a space titan. It doesn't live in a just a 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:52.960 cavern or a castle that lives in a space mountain 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.240 that came from down from the heavens. Uh. There's not 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.000 a magic sword, there's a magic glave. And yeah, everything 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.520 has this wonderful weird sheen to it and they're fabulous 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.520 weird details that are not explained at all, And that's 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:08.920 something I love in a film like this. I agree 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.000 it's very much a genre mashup. Is this sci fi 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.560 or is this fantasy? It? It doesn't, it doesn't commit 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.240 either way. It's just it's just pulling in whatever seems 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.240 cool in in any given scene. Now, we were also 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:24.280 enjoying the detail that there was a video game adaptation 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.800 of Krawl was available in the arcades and on a 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.240 hom Atari system. So, first of all, I think this 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.400 is a pretty good looking game given its context. But 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.480 also the main thing I love about it is the 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.200 sound effects. It has these chip generated sound effects that 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.920 are just oh, there's a sound that it makes when 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.480 you're a little coal one sprite picks up an item, 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.120 like when it grabs a piece of the glade. It's 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.120 so good. I wonder if we could even sample that 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:56.120 sound effect. Can't you just imagine that that sound playing 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.280 anytime you like, pick up a dish to put it 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.600 in the dishwasher. Yeah, it's so perfectly muddy and glitchy 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.920 and fun. Um. I have to say to looking at 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.280 not not merely the arcade cabinet for this, which of 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.199 course many of these arcade cabinets look terrific, but just 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.919 looking at stills from the arcade game at least, I 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.399 was impressed by how much it actually looked like the 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:18.719 film that was based on. Like I could look at 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:20.920 the details and be like, oh, those are the Slayers, Okay, 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.920 that's the beast running around. That's clearly the glade being 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.159 thrown about. So um yeah, unlike I can think of 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.640 other examples where you look at it at screenshots from 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.720 these older games, you're like, really, that's supposed to be et. 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.159 That's Indiana Jones. I don't know, I muna say. In 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:38.399 the poster for the game, Colwan looks right that the 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.679 artist successfully rendered this guy. But Princess Lissa here, they 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.040 gave her a spherical haircut. Yeah, and she has like 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.679 some really deep eyeshadow. I don't remember if she ever 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:51.399 ended up looking like this in the movie, but she 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.960 looks like she has decided to wed the beasts. Like 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:58.720 she looks like the princess in peril in in uh 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.920 in the legend, after she has decided that she will 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.439 uh marry or she's been sort of ensourcefuled into dancing 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.240 around with the the villain and that was he also 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.359 called the beast. I can't remember what his name was. Um, 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.640 he's just called evil or some darkness, I think, yes, darkness, Yes, 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.880 Tim Curry, Tim Curry and about a thousand pounds of 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:31.760 late x and and so forth. All right, let's do 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.840 those connections. Yeah, we have quiet, We have quite a 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:39.240 selection of talented individuals involved here. Uh, I think I 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:41.520 can safely say for none of them was this their 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.920 finest work. Well, for a couple of them this might 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.880 have been their their biggest film. But for the most 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.880 part we have several individuals who had done greater things 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.720 before would go on to greater things. At the top 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.640 here we have the director Peter Yates, who lived through 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.000 eleven British TV and film director probably I think probably 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:05.240 best known for nineteen Bullets starring Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bassett 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.080 and Robert Vaughan, featuring one of, if not the best 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.080 car chase has ever committed to film. Actually have not 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.760 seen Bullet. I know it's famous for for the car chase. Also, 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.280 I did not realize Robert Vaughan was in it. Who 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.520 was in Batt'll Beyond the Stars. We talked extensively about 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.080 Robert Vaughan's career as a guy in lawyer commercials. Yeah, 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.639 he has a pretty prominent role in Bullet, as I recall, 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.359 It's been a long time since I've seen it, but um, 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.320 but it's a classic. Yates also directed nineteen seventy seven's 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:37.920 The Deep, based on the novel of the same name 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.520 about double shipwrecks and Barracoutas from Peter Benchley, and that 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:46.679 start also started um Jacqueline Bassett, Nick Nolty, Robert Shaw 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.240 and Louis Gossett Jr. I've always wanted to see that one, 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.240 but I haven't. Yeah, it looks very it's it's very wet, 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:57.040 very wet looking film. Um And and I heard what 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.199 it's got A It's like they're going for one ship, right, 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.840 but there's another ship wreck underneath it, like they're going 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.520 for the heroine shipwreck, but that is on top. It 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.720 turns out on top of like a Spanish galleon or 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:09.439 something that has a bunch of gold in it. And 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:11.840 then I think they're Baracoutis. But again I haven't seen 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:18.120 it or read it myself. Not Sharks baracouta Is this time. Yeah, yeah. Now. 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.960 Yates also directed The Year of the Comet, The Dresser 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.679 starring Albert Finney, two time Academy Award nominee for The 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.520 Dresser and also for nineteen seventy nine Breaking Away. So 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:32.840 you have a talented director here helming this thing, though, 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:34.960 I think if you look at his other films, like 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.000 this is the only one that's really kind of a 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:39.800 big budget genre piece. So I think he was branching 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.600 out and trying something new here. Yeah. I read somewhere 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:44.679 that he he sort of looked at this as as 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.440 an amusing challenge, like that this is not somebody who's 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.840 otherwise going to be making fantasy films. He's like, well, 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.840 I wonder if I could do it now. The writer 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:56.320 on this, or at least the right I don't recall 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.720 the history on the screenplay exactly, but our final credited 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:03.000 right or who gets all the credit is Stanford Sherman. 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.040 Dates unknown on Stanford here, but he's a screenwriter who 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:09.760 wrote for such shows as TV shows as The Man 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.400 from Uncle and the six nine sixties Batman series, multiple 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:17.320 episodes of that. His film screenplays and include Kroll The 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.120 Man who Wasn't There, which is a Steve Guttenberg Invisible 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:25.159 Man movie, and is The Ice Pirates. Oh okay, so 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.960 The Man who Wasn't There? Not the Cohen Brothers movie, right, right, 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.760 This is a Steve Guttenberg Invisible Man movie. I'm I 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:36.199 believe it is a comedy, but you know, all the 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:38.679 best to the goot, but I'm not in a big 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.880 hurry to watch this movie. Oh but you mentioned Ice Pirates. 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.280 That's something people have told us to cover on Weird House. Yeah, 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:47.840 i'd have to. I only have vague memories of watching 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.640 Ice Pirates. I can't remember how inappropriate it is, So 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:55.080 that's one of those that will require a review first. Okay, 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.440 all right, let's get into the wonderful cast for this film, 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:03.959 starting though with the star playing Cowlin, which, again it's 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.800 really hard to not to say clown reading this name, 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.080 but played by Ken Marshall, who was born nineteen fifty 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:13.640 and American Juilliard trained actor. Acted from nineteen seventy nine 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:16.520 through two thousand and three. He may also be familiar 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.680 to some of our listeners as Lieutenant Commander Michael Eddington 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.400 on Deep Space nine. I'm a little foggy on these episodes, 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.199 but I think he's like a trader to the Federation 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:29.240 who ends up joining up with the one of that 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:33.119 rag tag group of civilizations that had like the Shape Changer, 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:37.919 the changeling species in it, and some other creatures. He 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.199 also played Marco Polo in a three mini series and 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:46.560 also appeared in the movie Feds. Um. I have to say, 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:50.520 like I I agree, he's not maybe the best in 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:54.160 this but I feel like in those scenes that have good, 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:57.800 well written dialogue, and he's also surrounded by often an 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:02.399 incredible group of of more talented, more experienced actors. I 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:07.000 found that I bought his charismatic you know, you know, 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.720 raising everybody up, getting everybody united, his little speeches and 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:14.199 so forth. I bought into that. So at least some 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:16.240