Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're looking
Speaker 1: at a movie that, uh, well, I think with the
Speaker 1: idea of it is that somebody said, what if we
Speaker 1: made a film adaptation of Orpheus and Euridice, except in
Speaker 1: the sort of early nineties highway horror style of a
Speaker 1: movie you might expect to see to come on at
Speaker 1: like one am on T and T after the credits
Speaker 1: roll from a previous showing of Psycho three. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the film Highway to Hell, which I'm
Speaker 1: positive that I watched on television back in the early
Speaker 1: nineties at some point early to mid nineties, I guess, uh,
Speaker 1: but I was. I was trying to just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what I wonder where I saw it, And
Speaker 1: for a little bit there I was like eighty percent
Speaker 1: positive that I must have seen it on USA up
Speaker 1: all night back in the day. Um. This this ran
Speaker 1: from on the USA network from about I don't know
Speaker 1: if if that would have you would if you would
Speaker 1: have been in the position to to watch this. Joe, Oh,
Speaker 1: uh well, I I don't remember ever seeing this movie
Speaker 1: on TV, but it has exactly that fragrance that USA
Speaker 1: Up All Night fragrance. Yeah, USA Up All Night was
Speaker 1: basically like it's late at night on cable. Let's show
Speaker 1: some let's show some B films. Let's let's show some
Speaker 1: cult films. And uh, just to spice it up a
Speaker 1: little bit, you had a host there, Uh Gilbert Godfrey,
Speaker 1: the stand up comedian who will come back to in
Speaker 1: this this episode, served as host. At first was the
Speaker 1: soul host I think when they would do it on Saturdays,
Speaker 1: and then they added a second night. I guess it
Speaker 1: was so successful they started doing it on Friday nights
Speaker 1: as well. It was this um person by the name
Speaker 1: of Caroline Schlitt, but then she was replaced by on
Speaker 1: To Sheer, and Rhonda Shear was the long time Friday
Speaker 1: night host. Um, who is this? You know, this this
Speaker 1: charismatic blonde, uh, comedic performer. And so they would host
Speaker 1: these with these you know, cheesy bits of of of
Speaker 1: early nineties comedy and introduced these strange films. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking back on it, and you know, I'm very
Speaker 1: quick to to reference Mystery Science Theater three thousand is
Speaker 1: a is a way that I, you know, early on,
Speaker 1: got into many of these weird and you know, arguably
Speaker 1: bad films and B films and whatnot. And then another
Speaker 1: big influence was was was Monster Vision on T and T.
Speaker 1: But I often forget to give USA Up All Night
Speaker 1: any credit. I think USA Up All Night maybe where
Speaker 1: I first saw Friday thirte part eight Jason takes man Haaf,
Speaker 1: the one that takes place mostly on a boat. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: I was actually just looking at some lists of films
Speaker 1: that were featured on USA Up All Night over the years,
Speaker 1: and also a spreadsheet that I think fans put together,
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of Friday to thirteenths on there,
Speaker 1: a lot of really like well known B films. Like,
Speaker 1: thinking back on it, I there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that wants to just attribute to the trashiest films to
Speaker 1: USA Up All Night. And maybe it was just because
Speaker 1: there was something about it, Maybe it's something about the
Speaker 1: host segments to that it felt a little scandalous to
Speaker 1: be watching it as a child, like I should not
Speaker 1: be up watching. Yeah yeah, but but in many cases
Speaker 1: the other of these lists, I'm like, oh yeah, these
Speaker 1: are all great genre films, and they would have been
Speaker 1: edited for television obviously, how else will the children learn
Speaker 1: about chud exactly? So um but one of those things
Speaker 1: that I found out looking at the list is like, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess there isn't any evidence that I have I
Speaker 1: can find right now that Highway to Hell ever aired
Speaker 1: on USA Up all Night, So maybe it never did.
Speaker 1: But I stand by what you said. This is the
Speaker 1: this this film should have aired on USA Up all
Speaker 1: Night because it has all of that same energy. Rob,
Speaker 1: is it fair to ask if you have sort of
Speaker 1: a secret secondary career ambition to one day be a
Speaker 1: basic cable horror movie host like al Lewis, l Bira, Joe,
Speaker 1: Bob Briggs, somebody in that vein. Uh you know maybe
Speaker 1: in another life that would that would have been That
Speaker 1: would have been interesting, but um it it's weird to
Speaker 1: look back on it. I never thought about those being
Speaker 1: actual jobs that people had somehow, you know, I I
Speaker 1: guess I didn't think long and hard about it, like
Speaker 1: why is why? Why is Rhonda shear or or Grandpap Monster?
Speaker 1: Why are they? You know, what are they doing? I
Speaker 1: guess on some level, especially when I was very young,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, they're there at the studio. It's their
Speaker 1: job to play this film like when like off camera
Speaker 1: they're setting there watching it it air or something. You know,
Speaker 1: there's something about the horror movie host role on TV that, uh,
Speaker 1: it does serve a function which is suggesting the spirit
Speaker 1: in which you should receive the movie we are showing you.
Speaker 1: So it puts you know, Grandpa Unster is there to
Speaker 1: help put you in a mind frame to not just
Speaker 1: react to a trashy movie on TV and be like,
Speaker 1: what is this junk? But to react to it with
Speaker 1: with with jolly nous and the spirit of kind of
Speaker 1: ironic adventure. Yeah. Yeah, And likewise, I think Rhonda Share
Speaker 1: and Gilbert Godfrey were there to to make you feel
Speaker 1: like you're, you're a little bit up to no good
Speaker 1: by watching this film like you're having a um, you know,
Speaker 1: a wild night out by staying in and watching a
Speaker 1: Friday the Thirteenth movie. Uh. Joel and the Bots and
Speaker 1: Mike and the Bots. You know, they were all about,
Speaker 1: you know, showing you that it was it was all
Speaker 1: right to laugh at these films and take pleasure in
Speaker 1: their uh, their goofiness and uh, and I guess Joe
Speaker 1: Bob was there to to to to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to cast a you know, a similar vibe. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe it was a little less about about you know,
Speaker 1: making fun, but it was more, you know about embracing
Speaker 1: the you know, the weirdness of it. Now, wait, did
Speaker 1: we come about this in a total have we actually
Speaker 1: introduced to the film yet? I don't recall, well, we
Speaker 1: said the title it is film Highway to Hell, which
Speaker 1: does not feature the A C D C song, which
Speaker 1: for which it was clearly named. I think some trailers
Speaker 1: for the film feature that the song, but otherwise you
Speaker 1: will not hear that song in the movie. I read
Speaker 1: a trivia claim on the internet. I can't verify this
Speaker 1: is true, but the claim is that they originally wanted
Speaker 1: it to be the theme song in the movie, but
Speaker 1: then found they could not afford it, so instead we
Speaker 1: got a kind of off label prescription use of alternative rock. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, I look forward to discussing the music in
Speaker 1: this one, because it's it's it's all over the place. Now,
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is an Arizona movie. This is
Speaker 1: kind of a nice part two, following our episode on
Speaker 1: Hands of Steel. Um. Almost all of this is filmed
Speaker 1: in Arizona. I think they might have filmed just a
Speaker 1: tiny bit in Utah as well, But uh, this, the
Speaker 1: filming of this movie takes us back to Page Arizona,
Speaker 1: but also to Phoenix, Arizona. And yeah, you don't have
Speaker 1: to watch much of this film to realize, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this this has a lot of Arizona in it. It's
Speaker 1: got a lot of tumbleweed diners, just like Hands of Steel,
Speaker 1: except there was nary a arm wrestling competition anywhere in
Speaker 1: in Highway to Hell, and I was a bit disappointed
Speaker 1: by that. So uh, at this point, I would like
Speaker 1: to ask this question, uh, you know, for you, for
Speaker 1: anyone else who's who's seen this film, what what exactly
Speaker 1: is this movie? Is it? Is it a horror thriller?
Speaker 1: Is it a broad Beetlejuice style horror comedy? Is it
Speaker 1: a dark fantasy adventure? Is it Mad Max or Death Race? Uh?
Speaker 1: Is it a is it an MTV era Dante's Inferno?
Speaker 1: I feel like I can't answer the question. It feels
Speaker 1: like it's all of these things in different at different
Speaker 1: and different degrees at different points throughout the film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the most distinct way to put
Speaker 1: it would be to say it's a horror comedy, but
Speaker 1: it's but yeah, it has elements of everything else you mentioned.
Speaker 1: There was quite a bit of of Mad Max kind
Speaker 1: of road battle uh content in there. Yeah, almost like
Speaker 1: if you if you get the filmed in Arizona package there,
Speaker 1: they tell you it's like all right, well, well here's
Speaker 1: your highway link that you can use, Um, how many
Speaker 1: cars do you want to blow up? And like, well
Speaker 1: what this wasn't going to be a car chase movie
Speaker 1: and they're like, well it is now because you're filming
Speaker 1: an Arizona baby. Speaking of of numbers of cars, how
Speaker 1: do you think they they created the scene where you
Speaker 1: were on the highway in Hell with hundreds of VW Beatles,
Speaker 1: Remember that all the folks swagons. Somehow they source those cars? Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of screen trickery involved, but but also probably just a
Speaker 1: lot of of actual bugs, I guess. Um. I think
Speaker 1: that scene is one of many in this film that
Speaker 1: it it does drive home that that this is a
Speaker 1: film with a unique vision. There are things that this
Speaker 1: film wanted that I don't think anybody else was asking for.
Speaker 1: I don't think maybe they're they're even the things that
Speaker 1: they're they're doing at times in this film really even
Speaker 1: all you know of work across the board. But you
Speaker 1: can't fault it for having a unique vision of things. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's ultimately ultimately a lot of fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you never know what exactly is gonna come next. You
Speaker 1: just know that it's going to be in this sort
Speaker 1: of weird MTV era kind of vibe. But yeah, at
Speaker 1: heart horror comedy, I can agree with that, and it
Speaker 1: is it is an orphic story. At heart is it
Speaker 1: is about going into the underworld to retrieve your lost love,
Speaker 1: which of course is a is a longstanding mythic trope
Speaker 1: and one that we continue to define throughout our media. Now,
Speaker 1: before we go any further, there's one thing that I
Speaker 1: wanted to flag at the beginning. I thought it was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting about this movie. It has what I
Speaker 1: would call maybe an omni mythological view of hell, in
Speaker 1: that it's the hell setting in this movie is not
Speaker 1: just the Christian hell, but it is a hell that
Speaker 1: essentially incorporates l elements from every type of vision of
Speaker 1: hell or any negatively inflected afterlife, from all of all
Speaker 1: of mythology or or even just you know, other pop
Speaker 1: culture from the twentieth century. So it's got you know,
Speaker 1: sort of cartoon devil kind of stuff. It's got deals
Speaker 1: with the devil devil and Daniel Webster kind of things.
Speaker 1: It's got some classic Christian uh Dante's Inferno stuff. But
Speaker 1: then it's also got, as we said, this Orpheus and
Speaker 1: euridicy Basis, so there's a lot of Greek mythological visions
Speaker 1: of Hades in it. Yeah, and then all of this
Speaker 1: of course set very much in the American desert um
Speaker 1: and and interestingly enough to this is we're dealing with
Speaker 1: a a. The writer was American, but the director who
Speaker 1: discussed here as Dutch. So you wonder to like, how
Speaker 1: much of this is like an outsider's view or understanding
Speaker 1: of America and the American desert through the lens of cinema, um,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So yeah, you have all these different energies
Speaker 1: going on. And oh yeah, let's even got kind of
Speaker 1: a dusty tumbleweed grand Pappy on the side of the
Speaker 1: road to offer wisdom and give the hero tools he
Speaker 1: needs in order to complete his quest. Oh yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and he's wonderful. Yeah, it's got Obi wan kenobi and overalls.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's go ahead and listen to just
Speaker 1: a little bit of the trailer here, but not a
Speaker 1: whole lot, just just a little bit of it, because
Speaker 1: this is a dumb trailer in my opinion, and and
Speaker 1: certainly don't watch it, because this is also one of
Speaker 1: those trailers where and maybe this had to do with
Speaker 1: like the fact that this movie set on the shelf
Speaker 1: for a little bit before they finally released it. They
Speaker 1: took the approach of let's just put every special effects
Speaker 1: shot in the film in the trailer, including like major
Speaker 1: character deaths and so forth, joining us on a dazzling
Speaker 1: cinematic adventure down the Highway to Hell ad that stretches
Speaker 1: from Highway to Hell an unforget journey some softeign pictures.
Speaker 1: Now we ll have some fun. Now, does the trailer
Speaker 1: give away the identity of Satan? Because give everything everything
Speaker 1: that's criminal. I hate it when you know I am
Speaker 1: I am very much of the teaser school of trailers.
Speaker 1: I really like it when the trailer gives you one
Speaker 1: thing from the movie and try instead of trying to
Speaker 1: cram in little glimpses of tons of things. Yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 1: this one definitely makes that mistake. It's just little glimpses
Speaker 1: of everything in the film. Once you've seen this trailer,
Speaker 1: the film has nothing new to give you, really, except
Speaker 1: except maybe extended improv lines from Ben Stellar, which gets
Speaker 1: I noticed you were down on the Ben Stiller part.
Speaker 1: I thought it was I thought there were some some
Speaker 1: of his improving was okay, but he's so. Ben Stiller
Speaker 1: plays a cook at a diner in Hell called Pluto's Cafe,
Speaker 1: which is kind of funny. And so he's grilling stuff
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk outside and and he says, why use
Speaker 1: mesquite when you've got concrete? You know. I liked it.
Speaker 1: It was It's fine, It's fine, but it felt like
Speaker 1: there was a lot of it. Also, Ben Stiller is
Speaker 1: jacked in this movie. Did you notice that he's been
Speaker 1: working out before they maybe? Yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: he was always jacked. Is a thing about Ben Stiller,
Speaker 1: Like if you if you go back and watch you know,
Speaker 1: various early appearances. Yeah, he was always pretty jack. He
Speaker 1: just you know, generally had a shirt on, but you
Speaker 1: could see it's pretty muscular underneath there. I was impressed,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's start at the top with us.
Speaker 1: The director is Dutch filmmaker Alt Young born nineteen fifty three. Uh,
Speaker 1: he seems to have he seems to have shifted to
Speaker 1: American projects after doing an episode of Miami Vice in
Speaker 1: seven and then he went on to direct this obviously,
Speaker 1: but also dropped Dead Fred, starring Phoebe Kates and Rick
Speaker 1: Mayle of who's famously of the young ones. Um And Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I have not seen drop Dead Fred, which
Speaker 1: is a like a grown up with an imaginary friend,
Speaker 1: like a whimsical imaginary friend, uh, type of a plot. Uh,
Speaker 1: But we were I was looking at the reviews. It
Speaker 1: seems like nobody liked this when it came out, none
Speaker 1: of the adults anyway, Because when we were talking to
Speaker 1: our producer Seth, he said that when he was a
Speaker 1: child and he watched this film, he very much enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and therefore he has like kind of a warm spot
Speaker 1: in his heart for it. So I don't know, I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from anyone out there who has who
Speaker 1: has opinions on this based on especially watching it as
Speaker 1: a child. Well, you know what, you love it, more
Speaker 1: power to you. I gotta say it looks intensely annoying.
Speaker 1: But then again, stars Phoebe Kate's, I mean, the imminently
Speaker 1: likable Phoebe k It's a lot of people probably know
Speaker 1: her from Gremlin's you know. And Rick, I mean, Rick
Speaker 1: is terrific. Uh. Rick, Rick is amusing and everything, and
Speaker 1: I've seen him in some terrible films, but he always
Speaker 1: brings that wonderful, manic energy of his to a performance. Now,
Speaker 1: as for young Uh, it seems like like basically, like
Speaker 1: I said, he had some some Dutch films before he
Speaker 1: came to the US. He directed these two films, both
Speaker 1: of them you know, very much kind of supernatural comedy
Speaker 1: type deals, and then he seems to have for the
Speaker 1: rest of his career he's just largely been about more
Speaker 1: independent and uh in many cases, you know, more far
Speaker 1: more European films. Um, a lot of them look like
Speaker 1: they're a lot more serious. So I don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess he got in had a taste of that, you know,
Speaker 1: that that mainstream American filmmaking, and maybe decided, uh, he'd
Speaker 1: rather do other things. But he seems to have had
Speaker 1: a long and seemingly a successful career. Uh passed highway
Speaker 1: to hell. Now, the writer for this film is actually
Speaker 1: a major name. This is Brian Helgoland born in X
Speaker 1: one Academy Award winning screenwriter for l A Confidential. Oh
Speaker 1: that's a great script. Yeah, yeah, yeah it was. It
Speaker 1: was wonderful film. Now pre l A Confidential. Um. He
Speaker 1: he seemed to work in horror quite a bit, so
Speaker 1: he wrote the fourth Elm Street Movie. Was that one
Speaker 1: of the good ones? Oh? Yeah, I'd say that's one
Speaker 1: of the better ones. Yeah. He also did nine seven
Speaker 1: six Evil as well as episodes of Friday Thirteenth. The
Speaker 1: series is nine seven six Evil. That movie about a
Speaker 1: phone number that when you call it, it kills you.
Speaker 1: I think it is. I don't know that I ever
Speaker 1: saw that one, but that also feels suitably like late
Speaker 1: eighties early nineties, the idea that there are evil phone
Speaker 1: numbers that you dare not call, and they're probably advertised
Speaker 1: during USA up all night at the time. Oh. It
Speaker 1: was directed by Robert England, who plays Freddie Krueger in
Speaker 1: the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. And yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: people who who dial nine seven six Evil in this movie, yeah,
Speaker 1: they get some kind of curse or they they turned
Speaker 1: into murderers. I think I haven't seen this one, but
Speaker 1: I do find it interesting that there is a movie
Speaker 1: of this type for every technology. So You've got The Ring,
Speaker 1: which is about a you know, videotape that when you
Speaker 1: watch it, it kills you. And there's fear dot Com
Speaker 1: about a website You go there and it kills you.
Speaker 1: Here's a phone number, you call it and it kills you. Um,
Speaker 1: you've got the Mangler that's about I think washing machine.
Speaker 1: You use it and it kills you know, industrial washing
Speaker 1: machines will kill you. Yeah, but you know what, they
Speaker 1: never got to. They never got to a reclining chair
Speaker 1: that kills you. Oh, I think they did. I think
Speaker 1: they did eventually, but not not not during the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: But I think I did run across some sort of
Speaker 1: a killer sofa, killer lazy boy type of the movie
Speaker 1: Century years. Yes, in one century film, but as far
Speaker 1: as I know, Helgoland had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1: After the success of of Vale Confidential and Assassins, he
Speaker 1: went under a writer's a string of big scripts, including
Speaker 1: Conspiracy Theory, The Postman, Payback, A Night's Tale, Mystic river
Speaker 1: Man on Fire. Um oh he he uh. He had
Speaker 1: Also early on both he wrote and directed an episode
Speaker 1: of Tales from the Crypt, and he went on to
Speaker 1: direct a Slight Case of Murder along with Payback, A
Speaker 1: Night's Tale forty two, uh and and many many more. So,
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is the script for Highway to Hell
Speaker 1: is just above reproach. I get the sense that a
Speaker 1: lot of what's on screen has been significantly sort of
Speaker 1: ad libbed or built upon, uh, beyond what's on the page.
Speaker 1: I can't say that for sure, but I at least
Speaker 1: I've seen that alleged with like all of Ben Stiller's
Speaker 1: parts which are said to have been ad libbed. And
Speaker 1: I don't know. This feels like a movie that incorporates
Speaker 1: a good deal of improvisation. But yeah, conceptually there's a
Speaker 1: lot of good gags in it. Yeah. Alright, well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about our core character core cast here. So first
Speaker 1: of all, we have our our main hero here, we
Speaker 1: have our our orpheus and and this is the character
Speaker 1: Charlie played by Chad low Born. At first, when I
Speaker 1: saw him, I was like, wait a minute, I didn't
Speaker 1: know Rob low was in this, And then I realized something.
Speaker 1: It wasn't quite there. It was Rob Low in the
Speaker 1: like you know, wrestling video game character creator. But somebody
Speaker 1: has moved the sliders around just a little bit, and
Speaker 1: then I realized, oh, okay, this is Rob lows extremely
Speaker 1: similar looking and sounding younger brother. Yes. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: I have to say low Low is perfectly fine in
Speaker 1: this playing our brave but naive boyfriend who has to
Speaker 1: travel to Hell to get his girl back. Um. Chad
Speaker 1: Low did a lot of TV work, including Spencer Life
Speaker 1: Goes On Melrose Place e er twenty four, Pretty Little Liars,
Speaker 1: and I think more far more recently, Supergirl. I would
Speaker 1: say both of the main two actors in this this
Speaker 1: the movie doesn't require a lot of them in terms
Speaker 1: of dramatic nuance, but but for what it does require,
Speaker 1: you know what, they're both good. Yeah. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: his the girl that he must retrieve from. How is
Speaker 1: that the character Rachel played by Christie Swanson B nine. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with it, this is the original
Speaker 1: Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the movie that came out
Speaker 1: before the series. Yeah, I've never seen the movie. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's um, I've forgotten most of it, but I mean
Speaker 1: it exists, and I think Paul Rubens is in it Okay,
Speaker 1: but but yes. Swanson was also in Dude, Where's My Car,
Speaker 1: Ferris Beeler's Day Off and Flowers in The Attic. TV
Speaker 1: Viewers might also know her from the series Psych All
Speaker 1: right now. In the Joseph Campbell theory of the myth cycle,
Speaker 1: your young hero has to have a mentor figure is
Speaker 1: sort of like wise older figure who appears to give
Speaker 1: supernatural aid near the beginning of the story and encourage
Speaker 1: the hero to sort of like breach the boundaries and
Speaker 1: go into the underworld or the other world. And in
Speaker 1: this movie that character is played by is is the
Speaker 1: dusty grandpappy we talked about earlier played by Richard Farnsworth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Farnsworth play Sam and this brings the second future Academy
Speaker 1: Award winner into this picture. Uh So. Farnsworth was a
Speaker 1: longtime stunt man uh turned actor. He did a lot
Speaker 1: of Western work, but eventually popped up in films and
Speaker 1: it was acting roles um films like The Two, Jake's
Speaker 1: Misery and and probably most notable of all, his final
Speaker 1: film role The Straight Story by David Lynch, in which
Speaker 1: he plays an old man who makes this long journey
Speaker 1: by lawn mower to mend his relationship with an ill brother.
Speaker 1: And one of the things about this is that again,
Speaker 1: this was Farnsworth's last role. Uh. He was actually terminally
Speaker 1: ill during the filming, and I went on to earn
Speaker 1: an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. So what I
Speaker 1: said earlier about him being a winner, he did not
Speaker 1: win the Academy Award for this role, but was nominated,
Speaker 1: And I think that that's that's still pretty good. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, Richard Farnsworth, Yeah, he's great in this,
Speaker 1: playing the old man who has the secret knowledge. He's
Speaker 1: the old he's he plays also that kind of horror
Speaker 1: movie trope of the the old feller that's going to
Speaker 1: warn you about what you should not get up to. Um.
Speaker 1: But then he's also here to guide our hero once
Speaker 1: he does get into trouble. Oh yeah, I mean, in
Speaker 1: a way you could look at that. Well, I guess
Speaker 1: this is a much a different version of that. But
Speaker 1: I was thinking about, you know, Crazy Ralph in in
Speaker 1: Friday the Thirteenth, who warns all the kids not to
Speaker 1: go to Camp Blood because he's got a death curse.
Speaker 1: But Crazy Ralph comes off as if you know, he
Speaker 1: is menacing in his own way. Uh, this old fellaw.
Speaker 1: I guess he's a little bit ominous. When he first
Speaker 1: starts like wiping the windows at the service station and
Speaker 1: it's playing these dramatic music stings. I don't know why
Speaker 1: it's doing that, but I did find it funny. So
Speaker 1: whatever you were doing, filmmakers, that did work. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: that scene. There's also a funny part right after that
Speaker 1: where there's their dramatic music stings when Chad Low goes
Speaker 1: into the service station and he goes to the coffee
Speaker 1: stand and there's like the sugar caddies and stuff, and
Speaker 1: it's going done, done, done. But anyway. He ultimately plays
Speaker 1: a very uh kind, wise and benign figure in this movie,
Speaker 1: who who arms the hero with the supernatural tools he
Speaker 1: will need in order to defeat the great evil. Alright, Uh.
Speaker 1: The next actor of note in this Patrick Bergen uh
Speaker 1: plays this character that we encounter in Hell. Uh is
Speaker 1: introduced by the name of Beazel and turns out to
Speaker 1: be this kind of satanic mechanic. Um. You know, I
Speaker 1: guess what is a homage to the Rocky rd Picture Show.
Speaker 1: I assume if the trailer spoils everything for you. It's
Speaker 1: okay if we go ahead and spoil everything for you,
Speaker 1: the big twist and reveals and so forth. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and say, yeah, this is the point
Speaker 1: of no return if you want to go into this
Speaker 1: spoiler free ended all hope of surprise. He who enter here.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, So, as you might guess from the name, Beazel,
Speaker 1: who appears at first as a helpful, friendly figure in Hell,
Speaker 1: turns out to be b El's a Bub Satan himself
Speaker 1: the Bael's Abub, but I want to be clear, is
Speaker 1: not always represented as identical to Satan. Sometimes he's just
Speaker 1: one of the demons of Hell. But in in some
Speaker 1: Christian traditions, Beel's Abub and Satan are the same, and
Speaker 1: here that they take that tech. Uh. Though I thought
Speaker 1: it was very funny when we first meet him, I get,
Speaker 1: I don't know how surprising it is supposed to be
Speaker 1: when you ultimately find out that he has Beel's abub
Speaker 1: because his name is Beazel. They're doing a very Edwood
Speaker 1: you know, doctor Acula thing like that, but at least
Speaker 1: the characters act surprised. Um. I have to point out
Speaker 1: that when we first encounter Patrick Berg and he also
Speaker 1: has a very nice mustache. Um, which I'm kind of
Speaker 1: taking it on myself for this to be maybe a
Speaker 1: theme for this month's Weird House Cinema, since we're participating
Speaker 1: in November that we need films with strong, um encouraging mustaches. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the picture, well, cheers der satanic mustache. Later on
Speaker 1: he's clean shaven, and then later on beyond that he's
Speaker 1: like in full demon mode with horns and stuff. His
Speaker 1: accent also changes a little bit depending on what mode
Speaker 1: he's in. Yes, sometimes he sounds almost Australian. Did you
Speaker 1: get that? Yeah? Well, like so, just to back up
Speaker 1: Patrick Berg and if you're not familiar with him, Irish
Speaker 1: actor m who was especially hot in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: appearing in such films as Sleeping with the Enemy, Patriot Games,
Speaker 1: Robin Hood and Love Crimes. He also played Captain Sir
Speaker 1: Richard Francis Burton in Mountains of the Moon in nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: which I haven't seen in a very long time, but
Speaker 1: I remember as being great. I don't know how it
Speaker 1: holds up. That was one that also started uh Ian
Speaker 1: Glenn as John Speak also featured Richard E. Grant, Fiona
Speaker 1: Shaw and Peter Vaughan. Um oh, and he also played
Speaker 1: a uh Bergen also played Dr Frankenstein in the TV
Speaker 1: adaptation that I that I fondly look back on. I
Speaker 1: saw he was also in lawnmower Man to Beyond Cyberspace. Yep,
Speaker 1: um it's I think that one was also Job's War.
Speaker 1: I think it has different titles. Uh oh, and he
Speaker 1: in Bergen also played Dracula in a two thousand two
Speaker 1: TV series, so he's he's gotten a little bit of
Speaker 1: the Dracul, a little bit of the Frankenstein. He's basically
Speaker 1: a horror icon. But anyway, yes, no, before you move on,
Speaker 1: I'm hung up on this. What was it lawnmower Man Too,
Speaker 1: Beyond Cyberspace, Job's War. I think it has different subtitles
Speaker 1: depending on where you're encountering it, so you weren't going
Speaker 1: to get both. Yeah. I feel like we've discussed this before.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was on Mic or off Mike.
Speaker 1: But we'll just have to cover lawnmower Man Too at
Speaker 1: some point and just put all of this to rest. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's got a good cast, it's got people are liking it,
Speaker 1: and it's based a Stephen King's story. So okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: about as much as this movie is based on Orpheus
Speaker 1: and euridacy. Yeah. Anyway, back to his accent, yes, so
Speaker 1: Patrick Bergen is Irish, and I feel like early on
Speaker 1: his character is more Irish, but by the end of it,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what accent he's using, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how much of the demon um special effects makeup
Speaker 1: is changing the way he talks, you know. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Petrick Bergan is a He's a fun screen presence throughout.
Speaker 1: Would this be our second movie within a month that's
Speaker 1: got an Irish big bad You got Dan O Harley
Speaker 1: he and Halloween three? Oh yeah, I guess so. Alright,
Speaker 1: another major villain in this piece as a character we'll
Speaker 1: we'll describe in more detail in a bit, but hell
Speaker 1: cop hey k a Sergeant Bedlam is plays that are
Speaker 1: are are big physical threat of a character of a
Speaker 1: villain played by C. J. Graham, who didn't do a
Speaker 1: lot else besides of this, but he did play Jason
Speaker 1: Vorhees in Friday the Thirteenth, Part six Jason Lives. Is
Speaker 1: that one of the good ones? Uh? As we discussed
Speaker 1: last time, I don't know if there are any good
Speaker 1: ones but that one certainly enjoyable. That's the first one
Speaker 1: that just commits to Yeah, Jason is undead. He's back
Speaker 1: from the grave. Something I appreciate. Instead of having to
Speaker 1: go the Halloween route and always explain how he didn't
Speaker 1: die when you thought he did last time, instead they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: he died. He's just now Now this is a supernatural series.
Speaker 1: It wasn't before now it is, so what I think
Speaker 1: that's ultimately admirable to say, we got to shake it
Speaker 1: up a little bit. We're not ready to go to space,
Speaker 1: but we'll do this. Yeah, precisely. So Part six is
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Uh, it's the first one where
Speaker 1: he's undead. This is the undead Jason, and I gotta say, hell, cop,
Speaker 1: he's a lot like Jason. He is. He doesn't speak,
Speaker 1: he's just very impassive and violently efficient. There's very little
Speaker 1: emotion in his performance. Yeah, and and ultimately I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons this character really stands out. Uh,
Speaker 1: and is I think one of the real highlights of
Speaker 1: the film. Alright, but other characters, other humans involved. We
Speaker 1: have this this character Royce, who's like a biker in
Speaker 1: Hell who also has a sword, and he's played by
Speaker 1: Adam Stork born nine two. Can you explain this character
Speaker 1: to me? I don't think I missed anything, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: I felt like this character was supposed to mean something
Speaker 1: that I never understood. Yeah, Like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: there were key scenes that had to be cut, but
Speaker 1: he was probably the least interesting thing in the film
Speaker 1: for me. Whenever he was on the screen, I was
Speaker 1: I was wondering, where's help other characters should be asking? Yeah,
Speaker 1: to better explain what I'm saying. I feel like this
Speaker 1: is a character that would almost make sense if he
Speaker 1: was supposed to be tapping into like a type or
Speaker 1: another character known from outside the movie, the way that
Speaker 1: Gilbert Gottfried shows up as Hitler and so like that
Speaker 1: part is supposed to be funny because the audience is
Speaker 1: supposed to already bring knowledge of who Hitler is and
Speaker 1: why he would be in Hell. But this character, it
Speaker 1: feels like that, except we just to have no idea
Speaker 1: who this guy is. Yeah, exactly. It would have made
Speaker 1: a lot more sense and would require less wondering if
Speaker 1: they we were like, oh, yeah, well he matches up
Speaker 1: with this historical or mythic figure and therefore, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we we don't. We don't have to think too long
Speaker 1: and hard about what he's supposed to be in this film.
Speaker 1: But as far as Adam Store goes, he appeared in
Speaker 1: Mystic Pizza, Death Becomes Her and did a lot of
Speaker 1: TV work. He was also in the TV adaptation the
Speaker 1: mini series of Phantom of the Opera. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: what I've actually seen. I've kind of remember enjoying this
Speaker 1: as a kid. It's started Charles Dance as the Phantom,
Speaker 1: and it also featured Ian Richardson and Burt Lancaster. Oh,
Speaker 1: how did I never know about this? Charles Dances the Phantom.
Speaker 1: I would love to see that. Yeah, I remember it was.
Speaker 1: I think it was my first introduction to Phantom of
Speaker 1: the Opera actually, and uh and so so I don't
Speaker 1: know what if how that ways that it might have
Speaker 1: been terrible, but it was like the first real Fantom
Speaker 1: story I watched. Oh. In quick note in the film
Speaker 1: though here in Highway to Hell, Royce has a gang
Speaker 1: of bikers with him in Hell, and they are apparently
Speaker 1: played entirely by the alt rock band from the late
Speaker 1: eighties Doss Psycho Rangers. I don't know this band. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they only put out like a couple of things,
Speaker 1: so they weren't They weren't huge. But they are credited
Speaker 1: in the credits for the film as Doss Psycho Rangers.
Speaker 1: I do remember that. Yeah, alright. Our our next actor
Speaker 1: of note in this Pamela Gidley plays Clara. This is
Speaker 1: the old man Sam's lost love. Uh, this will make
Speaker 1: sense when we described the plot a little bit, but
Speaker 1: she lived. She played the title character in the the
Speaker 1: post apocalyptic sci fi I guess that one is also
Speaker 1: kind of a sci fi comedy deal. Cherry two thousand. Um, though,
Speaker 1: if you're only familiar with the with the poster our
Speaker 1: Cherry two thousand is not the main character in Cherry
Speaker 1: two thousand. It's a it's a female bounty hunter character
Speaker 1: who's helping to retrieve Cherry tooth thousand. Melanie Griffith, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Melanie Griffith plays you have Melanie Griffith is lead. Melanie
Speaker 1: Griffith is not Cherry two thousand. But Gidley was also
Speaker 1: in Twin Peaks fire Walk with Me. She played Teresa Banks. Now,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier, we we do have some Ben
Speaker 1: Stiller in this film, but it goes beyond that, we don't.
Speaker 1: We have the whole Stiller family in a Highway to Hell,
Speaker 1: actually sometimes in multiple roles, right because Ben Stiller, I think,
Speaker 1: plays both the cook at Pluto's cafe the hell Diner,
Speaker 1: and he plays the Till of the Hun. Later in
Speaker 1: a scene where you're you're you're watching like evil historical
Speaker 1: figures sitting around a table. Oh yes, because okay, so
Speaker 1: at the in the scene where it's the historical figures, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Ben Stiller is a Till of the Hun. Ben
Speaker 1: Stiller's sister Amy Stiller playing Cleopatra, and Gilbert Godfrey playing
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler. Um, they're playing cards or something. And uh,
Speaker 1: and I should add that I think, Um, Gilbert Godfrey
Speaker 1: is the only one even halfway trying to do an
Speaker 1: accent and still very much Gilbert Godfrey doing a German accent,
Speaker 1: and I think his choice is to portray Hitler in
Speaker 1: Hell as insufferably whiny. Yeah. Yeah, it's excellent casting, excellent casting.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's not just just Amy Stiller and Ben Stiller. Uh,
Speaker 1: but it's also Jerry Stiller, who plays a desk cop
Speaker 1: and then Jerry Steeler's wife and Amira plays media who
Speaker 1: is a waitress at Pluto's the hell Diner um. And
Speaker 1: of course this is fun because they were a stand
Speaker 1: up comedy act back in the day. They were a
Speaker 1: husband and wife stand up team. Yeah, she she's quite
Speaker 1: funny in the diner scene. And Jerry Stiller he, I
Speaker 1: didn't fully understand what was going on between him and
Speaker 1: the hell Cop, but eventually the hell Cop like shoots
Speaker 1: him with a with a dimensional portal gun. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's like messing with hell Cop. He's like asking
Speaker 1: for it. He's being like really annoying towards him, and
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know what the relationship between the
Speaker 1: two is supposed to be. He's like, that's what I
Speaker 1: do in Hell I I prank hell Cop. But he's
Speaker 1: the only one who's not afraid of hell Cop, which
Speaker 1: which seems fitting. That's a good point. Yes, he's the
Speaker 1: only one in the movie who doesn't fear him other
Speaker 1: than Satan himself, I guess yea, and Satan himself respects him,
Speaker 1: like he knows this is a good Hinchman. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Jerry Stiller is just not buying it at all. So
Speaker 1: it's such an always I have no I still do
Speaker 1: this day. I have no idea why this is the case,
Speaker 1: why the entire Stiller family is in this strange film,
Speaker 1: but is one of its charms. Oh, but I guess
Speaker 1: this comes back to that thing I read. I think
Speaker 1: I already said this, but I read on at least
Speaker 1: the IMDb trivia page. If this is correct, it claims
Speaker 1: that been Stiller ad libbed all of his dialogue in
Speaker 1: the film. And I don't know if that's true, if
Speaker 1: it could be all of it, but certain certain parts
Speaker 1: to do feel rather improvisational. Oh yeah, I mean he's
Speaker 1: he's basically a background cameo that was allowed to swell
Speaker 1: and take on life like nothing he's saying is important
Speaker 1: to the plot. Uh, so I buy that. I bet
Speaker 1: he did improve all of these lines about frying eggs
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk in hell. Now another actor of note
Speaker 1: in this uh, Kevin Peter Hall, who lived nine appears
Speaker 1: later on in the film playing the character of Sharon
Speaker 1: the You know this is the character from Greek mythology,
Speaker 1: but also, uh, you know a character pops up in
Speaker 1: Dante's Inferno Ferno. This is the uh, this is the
Speaker 1: boatman who brings you across the river into the Underworld. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's portrayed here as having his eyelids sown shut. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and this is neat for Kevin Peter Hall because
Speaker 1: you have all seen Kevin Peter Hall movies, but he's
Speaker 1: generally covered in a lot more makeup. He played the
Speaker 1: Predator in both Predator one and two. He also played
Speaker 1: the alien in Without Warning, the very first movie we
Speaker 1: watched for Weird House Cinema. That's right. Yeah, he played
Speaker 1: Mutant Bear in nine Prophecy. That was his first film.
Speaker 1: And he played Harry and Harry and the Henderson's as
Speaker 1: well as Big John in Big Top Pee Weee. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that is interesting. Somebody who's been in a lot of
Speaker 1: well known movies and is in a way himself well
Speaker 1: known for like great physical performances, but people wouldn't recognize
Speaker 1: his face because he's always behind a bunch of makeup. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he he uh sadly died due to age related pneumonia.
Speaker 1: He had contracted HIV from a blood transfusion apparently, and
Speaker 1: this was his final film role. Now here's another interesting
Speaker 1: really this is a cameo as well, but also this
Speaker 1: is very telling of the vibe of this film. Leada
Speaker 1: Ford shows up playing a hitchhiker. She was the lead
Speaker 1: guitarist for the all female rock band The Runaways in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies before going solo as a glam
Speaker 1: metal act. In the late nineteen eighties. She sang a
Speaker 1: duet with the Ozzy Osbourne on the single Closed My
Speaker 1: Eyes Forever. So she's a denizen of Hell in this
Speaker 1: movie who has a freaky early encounter with Chadlow when
Speaker 1: he shows up. Yeah, that leads right into um, this
Speaker 1: strange attack by a one of Hell's ice cream salesman.
Speaker 1: It's like, scream Scoop and he's like, Okay, I'll ate you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and our character has to blast him with a holy shotgun. Um.
Speaker 1: I will mention the cinematographer on this one because it's
Speaker 1: this is kind of interesting. Robin Vigion Uh born nine
Speaker 1: uh this. This guy was a cinematographer on such films
Speaker 1: as Hell Razor, Hell Razor to the Fly, to The
Speaker 1: Never Ending Story Well three Um. He He also worked
Speaker 1: in the camera and electrical department on Raiders of the
Speaker 1: Lost Arc, Never Say Never Again, and the World Is
Speaker 1: Not Enough. And he was second unit director on Event Horizon.
Speaker 1: So I especially thought the Hell Raiser Hell Razor two
Speaker 1: thing was interesting given that we have a character and
Speaker 1: here was some strong cinebide energy. Yes, that's right, And
Speaker 1: speaking of that character, I would say one of the
Speaker 1: things I found most impressive about this movie is the
Speaker 1: design of hell Cop. Hell Cop looks really interesting. One
Speaker 1: of the main things about him is that he's got
Speaker 1: writing carved all over his face and apparently that was
Speaker 1: a touch coming from the UH. The person behind special
Speaker 1: makeup effects in this movie Steve Johnson. Right. Yes, Steve
Speaker 1: Johnson born nineteen sixty UH. He has special effects, makeup,
Speaker 1: design and creation credit on this He is has a
Speaker 1: very long history UM in the practical special effects and
Speaker 1: makeup special effects. For instance, he made Slimer for Ghostbusters.
Speaker 1: He worked on such films as The Howling with with
Speaker 1: Rob Bolton. He worked on American Werewolf in London with
Speaker 1: Rick Baker, and he co ran the special makeup effects
Speaker 1: studio at Boss Films that worked on pol Guys, to
Speaker 1: Fright Night and Big Trouble in Little China. His company
Speaker 1: x FX worked on the Abyss species as well as
Speaker 1: four seasons of the Outer Limits series. I was excited
Speaker 1: to UH to see that so he's worked on loads
Speaker 1: of films with with interesting practical special effects makeup. He
Speaker 1: worked on Blade too, for example. So uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a film knowing that Steve Johnson is heavily involved.
Speaker 1: You know that that if nothing else, uh, the monsters
Speaker 1: and the makeup and the gore, it's all gonna look
Speaker 1: really good. And it sure does. Yeah. I know that
Speaker 1: last one is going to be special to you because Rob,
Speaker 1: I know you're a Blade to man. Yeah. Yeah, alright.
Speaker 1: Let's talk briefly about the music here. So the music
Speaker 1: is mostly credited Two Hidden Faces, which I believe a
Speaker 1: trio of of individuals. Yeah, this is a musical group.
Speaker 1: I looked them up and they have four film composition
Speaker 1: credits on IMDb. Several. I don't think I've ever seen
Speaker 1: any of these movies, but I just wanted to mention
Speaker 1: several because they were funny. One from a movie called
Speaker 1: Nuns on the Run. This is a farce crime comedy
Speaker 1: starring Eric Idol and Robbie Coltrane. So, Sir Robin and Hagrid.
Speaker 1: I guess um, I am right about that, right, that's Hagrid. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I saw this as a child. By the way, really
Speaker 1: so I don't remember anything about it. I've never seen it.
Speaker 1: But these are gang stories who have to run and
Speaker 1: hide from the police and from hit men who are
Speaker 1: simultaneously after them. And the scheme they come up with
Speaker 1: is they're going to pretend to be nuns and hide
Speaker 1: in a convent. Is this also the plot of Sister Act,
Speaker 1: except here it's Eric Idol and Robbie Coltrane. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I feel like there was another film that
Speaker 1: had a very similar plot that came out around the
Speaker 1: same time, but possibly Sister Act. I don't think I've
Speaker 1: seen I don't think I've actually saw Sister Act. I'm
Speaker 1: just familiar with the musical numbers from it. Just looked
Speaker 1: it up. Yep, it sure is so. In Sister Act,
Speaker 1: Whoopi Goldberg plays a lounge singer who is forced to
Speaker 1: join a convent after being placed in a witness protection program. So, yes,
Speaker 1: she is hiding out in a convent pretending to be
Speaker 1: a nun to in order to hide from hitman who
Speaker 1: want to kill her. Oh. I had to look it
Speaker 1: up because yes, I think it's also basically the plot
Speaker 1: of the nine film We're No Angels, which is a
Speaker 1: Neil Jordan's film. Uh. And in this one, what I think,
Speaker 1: it's Sean Penn and Robert de Niro who pretend to
Speaker 1: be priests. This time it's not nuns but priests hiding
Speaker 1: from from somebody, wait, priests or monks, priests in this case,
Speaker 1: definitely priest. But this seems to very much be a
Speaker 1: thing wise guy or gals um hiding within the church
Speaker 1: pretending to be monks or priests or nuns or something.
Speaker 1: Right right, Okay, So you got Nuns on the run
Speaker 1: for Hidden Faces, and then you got Highway to Hell.
Speaker 1: And then the other two movies that they composed for
Speaker 1: are called Under the Hula Moon and the Players Club.
Speaker 1: Players Club is movie written and directed by Ice Cube. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Under the Hula Moon. I was looking at
Speaker 1: the IMDb synopsis. This is a movie in which Stephen
Speaker 1: Baldwin plays a man named Buzzard who lives in Arizona
Speaker 1: and he thinks he's going to get rich by inventing
Speaker 1: a type of new sunscreen called camo, which looks like
Speaker 1: camouflage when you put it on. M Okay, that I
Speaker 1: can see that that plot going in in totally different directions.
Speaker 1: It could be serious, It could be comedy. Well, I
Speaker 1: think I think it eventually turns into a kidnapping movie.
Speaker 1: So I think, Uh, Chris Penn plays like an evil
Speaker 1: guy in that movie who kidnaps Steven Baldwin's wife, Okay,
Speaker 1: and he's got to go rescue her. Now. When I
Speaker 1: was looking looking at information about this film Highway to Hell, um,
Speaker 1: I of course looked it up in Michael Weldon's The
Speaker 1: Psychotronic Video Guide, and in it he he specifically mentions
Speaker 1: that this movie makes use of Tangerine Dream music from
Speaker 1: the film Miracle Mile, which is the apocalyptic thriller starring
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards. And at first I was, I was, I
Speaker 1: didn't doubt Michael Weldon because Michael Weldon, aside from being
Speaker 1: an expert on all of these these films, um, he
Speaker 1: also generally had a really he has a really great
Speaker 1: head for the music scene. So if he mentions a
Speaker 1: particular release or a particular artist being involved in the film,
Speaker 1: I mean he's he's invariably correct. So I didn't doubt him.
Speaker 1: But I was looking around and like IMDb does not
Speaker 1: list Tangerine Dream on the credits. Uh that they have there? Uh,
Speaker 1: they don't don't have anything about Tangerine Dream in the
Speaker 1: trivia section. Uh. You know, there's nothing on the wicki um,
Speaker 1: but if you if you watch the full credits for
Speaker 1: the film, they do say, um, special thanks to Tangerine
Speaker 1: Dream for additional music. So some of the time, I
Speaker 1: think when we're when we're watching Highway to Hell and
Speaker 1: the music is particularly good, uh, we're actually listening to
Speaker 1: Tangerine Dream. Huh. So do you think subconsciously that's why
Speaker 1: you picked this movie? Uh? Um, I mean probably probably not,
Speaker 1: But it's kind of a neat idea that I kind
Speaker 1: of like accidentally tripped into a Tangerine Dream score. Um,
Speaker 1: because there are there are Tangerine Dreams scored films that
Speaker 1: I've kind of been eyeballing, Like we could talk about that,
Speaker 1: and that'd be an excuse to really discuss Tangerine Dream. Um.
Speaker 1: So uh, and we'll probably come back to that because
Speaker 1: ultimately this is not the place to really get into
Speaker 1: Tangerine Dream because I'm not even I'm not even exactly
Speaker 1: sure which bits of music that we're hearing our Tangerine
Speaker 1: Dream bits. I just suspect that certain ones, the ones
Speaker 1: that were more um uh, you know, it gave you
Speaker 1: more of this, uh, this sort of spacey, otherworldly fee
Speaker 1: that those must have been a tangerine dream moments. But
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with Miracle Mile or their work on
Speaker 1: Miracle Mile, so I can't really identify it. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: are you ready to get into the plot. Let's discuss
Speaker 1: the plot. Okay, So I don't think this is one
Speaker 1: of the ones where we're gonna go scene by scene
Speaker 1: and do the whole thing, but instead maybe mentioned things
Speaker 1: that stood out to us as we as we go along.
Speaker 1: So there was a strange choice. I thought to begin
Speaker 1: the live action portion of the movie. Now there's a
Speaker 1: there's a credit sequence that showing you this like animated
Speaker 1: postcard that says greetings from Highway to Hell um. But
Speaker 1: then after that it begins the live action portion of
Speaker 1: the movie with video game footage. You're watching a cop
Speaker 1: play an arcade cabinet game called Highway to Hell. And
Speaker 1: I know they did not create an original video game
Speaker 1: for this movie. So I was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what actual aim this is. Nothing on the web tells me.
Speaker 1: I thought I could match something, you know, just match
Speaker 1: the screen to something. It looks kind of like out
Speaker 1: Run or Final Lap, but the hut isn't quite right,
Speaker 1: So I don't know what game this is, but it
Speaker 1: ties into something that's mentioned in the text epilogue. So
Speaker 1: after the last scene fades out and you get that,
Speaker 1: you know that text crawl on the screen telling you
Speaker 1: what all the characters. It says that the Chad Lowe's
Speaker 1: character Charlie goes on to become rich and famous by
Speaker 1: developing a bunch of very successful video games that are
Speaker 1: all Hell themed. I guess it's imagining that he made
Speaker 1: Doom or something, though otherwise video games are not a
Speaker 1: theme in this movie. It's only the opening shot and
Speaker 1: and then that epilogue. Yeah, yeah, the epilogue that was
Speaker 1: totally unasked for. Like you don't you don't reach the
Speaker 1: end of this movie and you're like, I wonder what
Speaker 1: happened to them? It doesn't matter, No, everybody wants to know.
Speaker 1: It's like the last episode of The Wonder Years. You
Speaker 1: want to know what everybody became when they grew up,
Speaker 1: who got married to who, Like Chad and Rage escaped
Speaker 1: Hell like that that's all you need to know. Like
Speaker 1: that's enough. Nothing else they're gonna do is going to
Speaker 1: top that. Um, So you know, why do we need
Speaker 1: this epilog? I totally disagree. I think we needed to
Speaker 1: know that Chad became a video game lord. You know,
Speaker 1: he probably had to testify before Congress at some point
Speaker 1: when they were holding a hearing on violence in video
Speaker 1: games and hell imagery. And then Rachel what does it
Speaker 1: say she opened a bunch of successful health themed Pizzaiha's Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right, she did. I want that information. Oh and
Speaker 1: it says that their dog Ben went on to star
Speaker 1: in dog food commercials. Yeah. Yeah, they felt it was
Speaker 1: important for us to know this as well. The narrative
Speaker 1: would not be complete without the dog food commercials. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they're also like, and Satan still satan ng that's
Speaker 1: all he doesn't actually, it's not actually doing anything differently.
Speaker 1: He's just he's still doing the same. But okay, opening,
Speaker 1: So that we've covered beginning to end there, right, that's
Speaker 1: right now, there are a few things we should mention
Speaker 1: in between. So so opening scene, you got Chad Low
Speaker 1: and Christy Swanson. Uh you know that there again? Um,
Speaker 1: what are their names? Yeah, Charlie and Rachel. They are
Speaker 1: they're eating basket burgers at some diner in the scrub
Speaker 1: land I think it's supposed to be outside of Las
Speaker 1: Vegas and uh, and Charlie is nervous because the situation
Speaker 1: is I think they're like teenagers who ran off together
Speaker 1: to get married in Las Vegas. So they're trying to
Speaker 1: Elope and they think that their parents found out that
Speaker 1: they ran off to get married and they're trying to
Speaker 1: and that they're going to send the cops after them
Speaker 1: to bring them home. Yeah, so they're they're very concerned
Speaker 1: that this cop that was playing the video game is
Speaker 1: coming for them and it's gonna and is in fact
Speaker 1: following them when they drive away from this diner, right,
Speaker 1: So they bolt from the diner with with their dog, Ben,
Speaker 1: who was very cute dog. I love to have the dog.
Speaker 1: I had to at the beginning. I had to be
Speaker 1: like okay, Google and going too does the dog die?
Speaker 1: Dot com? And looking at up No, the dog does
Speaker 1: not die, but this doe, I I don't know because
Speaker 1: I'm not around your dog all the time, but I
Speaker 1: felt like this dog looks like your dog. Not immensely,
Speaker 1: but yes, sort of. Plus, the main character's name is Charlie.
Speaker 1: Charlie is the name of your dogs. I guess that'll true.
Speaker 1: Added to it. Yeah, But so their dogs hanging out
Speaker 1: and they're dinged up forward Pinto and I love the Pinto,
Speaker 1: by the way. So they they're driving around in a
Speaker 1: Pinto with a jiggling triangular light up roof sign for
Speaker 1: a pizzeria called Nunzio's Pizzeria. So I guess we're to
Speaker 1: understand that that Chad Low is a pizza delivery boy.
Speaker 1: And when he takes his burger back to the car,
Speaker 1: he puts the burger in his mouth and then lets
Speaker 1: the dog eat it out of his mouth, which okay,
Speaker 1: but it's pretty great because he established this is I mean,
Speaker 1: this is really well put together, because we're very just
Speaker 1: a few minutes into the film, and you already know
Speaker 1: pretty much what these characters are, what they're doing, what
Speaker 1: their dynamics are, like, they're super gonna love he loves
Speaker 1: his dog too, but he's he's riding around in this
Speaker 1: pizza delivery car clearly doesn't have like two nickels rubbed together,
Speaker 1: so so you can and and they're they're just they're
Speaker 1: very concerned that this cop is going to be after them,
Speaker 1: and and really if they ran, if they think the
Speaker 1: cops are after them, they're they're totally in the wrong
Speaker 1: vehicle to try and sneak away and hide themselves and
Speaker 1: none the great American desert, right. You would think if
Speaker 1: they were going for subtlety, he would take the pizzeria
Speaker 1: logo off the top of the car. One thing I
Speaker 1: got to say about the diner. I love when restaurants
Speaker 1: used to have big signs for Vienna Sausages on the walls.
Speaker 1: This diner there at the beginning does yeah, was was
Speaker 1: that ever a selling point for restaurants? I don't know,
Speaker 1: but there was a restaurant here in Atlanta I went
Speaker 1: to one time that had one of those big vintage
Speaker 1: vintages and the sausages posters. Yeah, some people would buy
Speaker 1: them in a store, I guess, being a sausage and
Speaker 1: we're talking about the same thing like this sort of
Speaker 1: like reconstituted. Yeah. I don't know, it's quality, I guess um.
Speaker 1: But so yeah, Anyway, they hit the highway and when
Speaker 1: they're out on the freeway that they noticed the motorcycle
Speaker 1: cop who was playing the arcade game and the diner
Speaker 1: is still behind them, and uh, and Chad Lowe is paranoid.
Speaker 1: So Charlie thinks they're being followed. Rachel doesn't, but Chad's afraid,
Speaker 1: so he gets off on a dark exit called Black
Speaker 1: Canyon Road to see if the cople do the same,
Speaker 1: and the cop does not get off after them, so
Speaker 1: they're they're just you know, off there in the dark,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I actually, we're okay. But then Charlie
Speaker 1: has a great idea. He's like, I know, let's take
Speaker 1: this dark, unfamiliar back road to Vegas instead of the
Speaker 1: freeway absolutely and through the desert in a questionable automobile
Speaker 1: like you do. And I was wondering, are there back
Speaker 1: roads to Vegas? I'm not really familiar with Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: so I looked on Google Maps and maybe sort of.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a bunch of different freeways and
Speaker 1: highways going in. There's one sort of back ish looking
Speaker 1: road that I think goes through the Lake Mead recreational area.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if that's what they had in mind,
Speaker 1: or maybe, uh, maybe the person who wrote this wasn't
Speaker 1: all that familiar with Agacy either. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I ultimately it's the horror movie trope of let's let's
Speaker 1: go on the back road, let's let's get off the
Speaker 1: main path, and surely nothing bad will happen to us, right,
Speaker 1: So off they go into the darkness, and they end
Speaker 1: up pulling up at a service station called the Last
Speaker 1: Chance Service Station, and there's an old man hanging out
Speaker 1: there in a rocking chair, and Rob, I don't know
Speaker 1: if if if I'm reaching here, but if you notice
Speaker 1: that the old man's rocking chair has a rear view
Speaker 1: mirror on it, just like a truck would. Is this
Speaker 1: an orpheus and euridicy thing about, like the theme of
Speaker 1: looking back behind you? Because we ultimately find out that
Speaker 1: this old man his his sweetheart was lost in the
Speaker 1: underworld and he never retrieved her. I didn't really put
Speaker 1: it together like that when I rewatched the film, but
Speaker 1: I think you might your right. So anyway, they get
Speaker 1: the tank filled up and and this is the scene
Speaker 1: I was describing earlier. That's actually very funny because the
Speaker 1: old man's cleaning the windows in an ominous manner, and
Speaker 1: the coffee station has these chilling music stings. I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure why they decided to do that, but I
Speaker 1: thought it was funny. Um, And before they leave, the
Speaker 1: old man warns them he's, like, you know, are you
Speaker 1: heading for Vegas? And Charlie says why he asked, and
Speaker 1: he says, well, it's an old road. It needs a
Speaker 1: lot of repair. You'd be a lot safer on the interstate.
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, being kids, they ignore him
Speaker 1: until the car won't start, and so then when when
Speaker 1: they can't get it started, Rachel has to go open
Speaker 1: the hood and fix it. And here we find out
Speaker 1: she knows stuff about cars. She took auto shop in
Speaker 1: high school, so she can repair it. And that will
Speaker 1: come up again later. But the old man seems concerned.
Speaker 1: He offers to let them stay in his extra cabin, uh,
Speaker 1: and they ignore him. So when they're leaving, he says,
Speaker 1: you keep an eye out for two Joshua trees. If
Speaker 1: you get sleepy, don't pull over until you pass the
Speaker 1: second one. So I like that. That's a sort of
Speaker 1: you know that that has a convincing ring to it.
Speaker 1: And plus it's what this this portion of the film too,
Speaker 1: is I found especially well shot because it's shot at night.
Speaker 1: So it's night in the desert, uh, you know, out
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. Uh. So I feel like
Speaker 1: I was really getting a strong, ominous feeling from all
Speaker 1: of this and granted, you know, some of it is
Speaker 1: you know, familiar tropes, the old man warning you about
Speaker 1: the dangerous to come and the road ahead, and of
Speaker 1: course the kids aren't going to listen to him, but
Speaker 1: it's but it's well presented, right, And so out on
Speaker 1: the road, um, Charlie is monologueing about how much he
Speaker 1: loves her and and he's saying, you know, sweet sappy stuff.
Speaker 1: And then he realizes she's asleep and hasn't been listening
Speaker 1: to him, and then he tries to talk to his dog,
Speaker 1: and then also realizes the dog is asleep, which was funny.
Speaker 1: And then we see ominously a Joshua tree. Uh. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, as you might imagine, after he passes the
Speaker 1: Joshua tree, Charlie starts to get very sleepy while he's
Speaker 1: driving and starts to nod off. Anytime that happens in
Speaker 1: a movie, I always feel like I get the yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's the kind of scene that that
Speaker 1: gets me. And as he's falling asleep, he suddenly swerves
Speaker 1: while driving and is immediately confronted by a highway patrol
Speaker 1: car on this this dangerous section of the road. And
Speaker 1: we said, as we see the officer get out of
Speaker 1: the car and immediately something is wrong. His boot sizzles
Speaker 1: on the pavement when he steps out, like a hot
Speaker 1: iron pressing into meat. And you see him holster his
Speaker 1: gun and it looks like something out of RoboCop. And
Speaker 1: then you see his handcuffs, which are not really cuffs,
Speaker 1: they are actually hands. They're like these rotten zombie hands
Speaker 1: that are chained together. Oh my god. And the I mean,
Speaker 1: all of this is is just is perfectly executed to
Speaker 1: like this is the point of the film where everything
Speaker 1: is just working perfectly. So like the boot sizzling looks great,
Speaker 1: the robot RoboCop revolver it it really like weird you
Speaker 1: out when you see it because you're not expecting that.
Speaker 1: And then the handcuffs made of actual hands, um, they're
Speaker 1: they're articulated in a way that really feels lifelike and ghastly.
Speaker 1: So even if the idea sounds goofy and it is,
Speaker 1: you know, handcuffs that are hands like, they look ghastly
Speaker 1: and bizarre, and you know that you're this is not
Speaker 1: a good place to be and this is not the
Speaker 1: cop you want pulling you over, right, So he approaches
Speaker 1: them menacingly. He shines his flashlight in their eyes, and
Speaker 1: then we get the face reveal on hell cop and
Speaker 1: he looks ghastly. There is writing covering his face all
Speaker 1: along his jawline and on his cheek bones, and on
Speaker 1: his cheeks and his forehead and his lips. Um. It's
Speaker 1: it looks it looks mad and satanic. And I'm I
Speaker 1: couldn't quite read what the writing said. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you caught any words in there. I couldn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: I see something about eyes, uh, and you know, I
Speaker 1: can make out a few other little words here and there.
Speaker 1: According to IMDb, his chin has the letters s J
Speaker 1: plus l Q, which is us to stand for Steve Johnson,
Speaker 1: the makeup artist who already mentioned, and his wife at
Speaker 1: the time, Leanna Quigley, who of course is a Scream
Speaker 1: Queen icon herself. But looking at this close up, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm having trouble finding those letters. But supposedly they're there.
Speaker 1: M oh. But beyond that, so he has sunglasses like
Speaker 1: a lot of scary cops in movies do that. This
Speaker 1: is actually a I don't know if this is something
Speaker 1: that's been written about anywhere, but I think this is
Speaker 1: a recurring trope that you know that uh, scary abusive
Speaker 1: authority figures in films. You know, dictators or abusive cops
Speaker 1: or whatever often have these sunglasses that hide their eyes
Speaker 1: that sort of make them less human or don't allow
Speaker 1: you to see where they're looking, which adds a kind
Speaker 1: of panopticon effect, or don't allow you to read their emotions,
Speaker 1: and and so this cop, it is it plays into that,
Speaker 1: especially by having him not just wearing totally opaque sunglasses,
Speaker 1: but the sunglasses are actually riveted to his temples, so
Speaker 1: they're not like, you know, just resting on his ears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hell Coop is wonderful and I feel like the sort
Speaker 1: of energies converging here. You have kind of a hell
Speaker 1: Raiser cinembi quality to the character. Um also reminds me
Speaker 1: a little bit of the zombies from Shock Waves, the
Speaker 1: Nazi zombies. But then the sunglasses. You're bit about the
Speaker 1: sunglasses is absolutely correct. I feel I feel like there's
Speaker 1: a strong homage here to the Man with No Eyes
Speaker 1: from Cool Hand Luke. Remember the chain gang boss that
Speaker 1: has those gleaming sunglasses and if you will remember in
Speaker 1: Cool Hand Luke, uh, the man with no eyes is
Speaker 1: never actually like defeated, but there is a scene where
Speaker 1: he gets his sunglasses knocked off, you know, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of, uh, you know, a slight victory for the
Speaker 1: characters who've suffered under them. And indeed, in this film
Speaker 1: we find out much later in the film that the
Speaker 1: hell Cops weakness it happens to be the sunglasses and
Speaker 1: if you destroy his sunglasses, you destroy him. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: thought that was a really nice touch. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: and in the end that is how Rachel, in fact,
Speaker 1: it defeats him by by shooting him right in the
Speaker 1: sunglasses with the with the magic gun that Charlie will
Speaker 1: be given in a bit. But all of this with
Speaker 1: Hellcop just even approaching the car, you know, all of
Speaker 1: these elements are present there. But also you're doing this
Speaker 1: this thing that always works well in the harm if
Speaker 1: you're taking a real world frightening and potentially life threatening
Speaker 1: experience and then you know, which is being pulled over
Speaker 1: on the highway, and then you're twisting that into this
Speaker 1: slasher horror direction with a cop that is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: beyond you know, the dangers of a human cop. They
Speaker 1: are essentially like a hellish Michael Myers character. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know it just stalking up to your vehicle. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: it just exceptionally well done. I feel like I feel
Speaker 1: like Hellcop could have been his own film. You know. Yes,
Speaker 1: though I think Hellcop might be less fun in a
Speaker 1: movie that tried to push him in a more serious
Speaker 1: horror direction. True, Like, I feel like Hellcop lives very,
Speaker 1: very comfortably in this sort of comedy vision of Hell
Speaker 1: that's otherwise populated with all these zany characters. True. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it might be hard harder to pull off it, but
Speaker 1: ultimately I think it's It's one of those where like
Speaker 1: the makeup alone and the performance, I'll give the performance
Speaker 1: some credit. Um, it also elevates it, to you, above
Speaker 1: the comedy to a certain extent. So yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure it would it would necessarily work outside of the
Speaker 1: comedy environment, but oh it does feel legitimately creepy in
Speaker 1: this film. Yeah, I agreed. Oh, a couple more details
Speaker 1: about him, I forgot to make he his his name
Speaker 1: tag reads Sergeant Bedlam and he uh, and he's got
Speaker 1: a badge that is just a pentagram of course. But
Speaker 1: so anyway, we get this confrontation where hell Coop kidnaps Rachel.
Speaker 1: He takes her to his car and then he does
Speaker 1: like evil magic spells on the car that essentially that
Speaker 1: like eliminate the back door. He like puts her into
Speaker 1: the car and then the car has no door for
Speaker 1: her to get out of um and then he and
Speaker 1: then he drives off through a portal into another dimension.
Speaker 1: And the patrol car that he's in it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a spaceship too, Like it's a really souped up
Speaker 1: feeling vehicle. So that adds this extra kind of like
Speaker 1: sci fi magic feel to it where you're just left asking,
Speaker 1: like what is hell cop? Like, it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's crazy. He's he's like he's from Hell. But
Speaker 1: he also has a RoboCop gun that shoots portals. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's wonderful. Yeah, it's kind of a combat buggy
Speaker 1: in a way. His car is Oh and of course
Speaker 1: the license played on it reads damned. But anyway, so, uh,
Speaker 1: Charlie and Ben the Dog are are left behind after
Speaker 1: Rachel has been kidnapped, and and he's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? So he he freaks out.
Speaker 1: He drives back to the service station and explains things
Speaker 1: to the old Man, and it turns out, what do
Speaker 1: you know, this is a herring problem of people getting
Speaker 1: disappearing on the highway. Here somewhere between the two Joshua trees,
Speaker 1: there is just a road that leads straight into Hell
Speaker 1: and this has happened before. And uh. And then there's
Speaker 1: there's a really great moment where Charlie asked to use
Speaker 1: his phone and Richard Farnsworth says, you can't phone Hell. Boy.
Speaker 1: You can drive there, but you can't phone Hell. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's such a great line, but that Farnsworth brings it
Speaker 1: to life. Yeah. And so it turns out that the
Speaker 1: hell Cops m O is generally that he kidnaps beautiful
Speaker 1: women off the highway and so uh. The the the
Speaker 1: old Man tells his story about how his sweetheart Clara
Speaker 1: was in fact kidnapped by the hell cop ages ago,
Speaker 1: and then he he starts to reveal the magical, the
Speaker 1: special items, the supernatural aid that he's going to give
Speaker 1: to Charlie before he goes on his journey. So he
Speaker 1: pulls out this special gun. It's kind of a holy boomstick.
Speaker 1: It is a handheld shot gun with silver clam shells
Speaker 1: embossed on the stock. Yeah, major doom vibes here with
Speaker 1: the Holy Demon sling shotgun. Yeah, I thought the same thing.
Speaker 1: And this was funny because it made me think, what
Speaker 1: if the premise because the story is that, in fact, Clara,
Speaker 1: the old Man's sweetheart, she made him this gun, or
Speaker 1: at least she, I get. I don't know if she
Speaker 1: made it from scratch, but she at least put all
Speaker 1: the special decorations on it. And it makes me wonder
Speaker 1: what if the premise of Doom had been that doom
Speaker 1: guy's sweetheart made him his shotgun. But anyway, so the
Speaker 1: old Man gives Charlie the holy shotgun and he gives
Speaker 1: him a special holy car. What's the deal with the car? Well,
Speaker 1: the old Man doesn't explain. He just says that there's
Speaker 1: something special in there that'll that will help you. Something
Speaker 1: in the car, something special. Is there payoff for that?
Speaker 1: Because I don't remember payoff for that? Yes, yes, there is.
Speaker 1: Right in the conclusion, we're they're trying to escape Hell
Speaker 1: at the end and they're racing the Hell cop and
Speaker 1: then Rachel discovers the nitro booster and that's the special Okay,
Speaker 1: got you. I don't know if this old man is
Speaker 1: into drag racing or something. I'm not sure, but he
Speaker 1: might have been back in the day. He was in
Speaker 1: the original The Fast and the Furious, the one from
Speaker 1: the sixties. You know, this is the thing. They could
Speaker 1: do a prequel to Highway to Hell, prequel to Hell,
Speaker 1: and you have, like the Young Sam the original story
Speaker 1: of of the Encounter with Hell coup. So eventually Charlie
Speaker 1: does get into Hell. I think he's told that to
Speaker 1: get there he has to drive back and forth between
Speaker 1: the two Joshua trees and believe that's the thing, And
Speaker 1: so he's yelling like I believe, and eventually it works
Speaker 1: and he goes straight into Hell. And what I thought
Speaker 1: was interesting is they don't make Hell a really supernatural
Speaker 1: looking place. It's just the Mojave Desert. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: like an alternate version of the American desert, in which
Speaker 1: all the typical American desert kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: Root sixty six kind of stuff. Uh. It just has
Speaker 1: a Satanic element to it or or you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: more of a Greek underworld element to it, depending on
Speaker 1: where they're drawing from. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's just
Speaker 1: the mundane Mojave desert, but filled with undead people and demons.
Speaker 1: Like they decided not to spice it up with flames
Speaker 1: in the sky or anything. And you know, I guess
Speaker 1: I can get behind that choice. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they had they clearly had the desert to work with,
Speaker 1: which is an evocative setting in and of itself. And
Speaker 1: and then they ultimately make a lot of really fun
Speaker 1: and interesting choices in kind of beetlejuicing up the desert.
Speaker 1: So you know, it ranges from you know, diners that
Speaker 1: are occupied by zombies too. I loved this because this
Speaker 1: I don't understand what this means, but you had whole
Speaker 1: like roadside garbage cleanup cruise, but they were all Andy
Speaker 1: Warhol and instead of since it's Hell, everything's backwards, I guess,
Speaker 1: so instead of picking trash up from the side of
Speaker 1: the road, they're emptying trash onto the side of the road. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess that one sort of went over my head.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was a joke about about
Speaker 1: pop art or I don't know, but but it it
Speaker 1: feels appropriate for Again, this is the kind of thing
Speaker 1: you couldn't get away with in a serious Hell movie.
Speaker 1: If it's serious Hell movie, then you know, I guess
Speaker 1: you've got to have, you know, something like like Legend,
Speaker 1: you know where it feels like like you're in some
Speaker 1: sort of a torture inferno pit. But but here, you know,
Speaker 1: in the vibe of this film, you're like, okay, this
Speaker 1: makes sense. Of course they're you know, gangs of of
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol's garbaging up the street. Okay, well, what stops
Speaker 1: along the way do we want to highlight from from
Speaker 1: this journey? Because so it's sort of a zig zagging
Speaker 1: weird adventure here. Who just it has a bunch of
Speaker 1: little vignettes. Um, I guess we should mention Pluto's cafe, right,
Speaker 1: this is the one where where Ben Stiller's working as
Speaker 1: the cook, cooking food on the sidewalk outside and the
Speaker 1: dinner is full of undead cops covered in cobwebs. And
Speaker 1: there was one thing here because that I liked. Because
Speaker 1: so we see hell Coop taking Rachel too this uh diner,
Speaker 1: and he handcuffs her to the to the to the
Speaker 1: counter while he's I don't know, getting coffee in a donut.
Speaker 1: I guess, uh, he's occupied doing something. I think he's
Speaker 1: shooting Jerry Stiller with the gun that sends him to
Speaker 1: another dimension. And meanwhile Rachel escapes by scalding the hand
Speaker 1: handcuffs with hot coffee. Uh you also you included in
Speaker 1: our notes a screenshot from it. Um. I had not
Speaker 1: noticed this, But there's something wonderful going on with the donuts.
Speaker 1: Oh well, it's so this is a diner in Heald.
Speaker 1: It's full of undead cops and there is a glass
Speaker 1: display case full of donuts, but it's chained shut. Ah. Perfect, perfect.
Speaker 1: Now Here we get a bunch of different run ins
Speaker 1: that we get run ins with these desert bikers we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. I don't know if there's a whole lot
Speaker 1: interesting to say about them now. They were, like I said,
Speaker 1: kind of the least interesting part of the film for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then we get some mad Max style road battles between
Speaker 1: Charlie and his old manmobile and hell Cop in his
Speaker 1: battle buggy. And of course Charlie does not win this
Speaker 1: road battle, and he eventually gets his car wrecked. And um,
Speaker 1: and when his car is wrecked, Oh, there's one part
Speaker 1: I did like where he walks up to a telephone
Speaker 1: in the desert that he picks it up and you know,
Speaker 1: there's an operator who's like motorist aid and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: my car is wrecked, I need help, and then the
Speaker 1: operators just like sounds like you're walking gig. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of fun touches like that. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of media in Hell, a lot of commercials and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, TV and radio commercials a lot
Speaker 1: of times aims specifically at the character who's listening to them, um,
Speaker 1: you know, to to taunt them. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: things in the whole movie was the Sticks Beer commercial
Speaker 1: that it's so the Hell Cops car has a TV
Speaker 1: in it, and so Rachel is riding in the back
Speaker 1: of the car while the Hell Coops taking her somewhere
Speaker 1: and uh and and she looks at the t V
Speaker 1: and it's this announcer like holding a beer mug, and
Speaker 1: he goes, when I come home from a long day
Speaker 1: in Hell, there's nothing I'd rather reach for than a
Speaker 1: fine brewed bottle of Sticks Beer, made from the filthiest
Speaker 1: waters from our own river. Sticks. Sticks beer is a
Speaker 1: third more toxic than any other regular beer. The worst beer,
Speaker 1: the filthiest beer, the deadliest beer. It's Sticks beer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty great. There there's also one later where um what,
Speaker 1: Rachel is taunted with a vision of herself having to
Speaker 1: work in a pizza restaurant whilst caring for like a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of children, a whole bunch of infants. That's
Speaker 1: pretty fun as well. Now after his car's reactually, Charlie
Speaker 1: is aided by beazl. The guy who seems very nice
Speaker 1: and helpful at first. This is Patrick Bergen. We eventually
Speaker 1: find out that he is the devil himself. Um. There
Speaker 1: there is one more scene I wanted to mention though
Speaker 1: in Hell before we go onto anything else, which is
Speaker 1: the Good Intentions Paving Company scene. Oh yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: this was very good. Uh so's I guess getting quite
Speaker 1: literal with with with this saying, you know, the road
Speaker 1: to Hell is paved with good intentions. So there is
Speaker 1: there's like an asphalt paving truck called Good Intentions Paving Company.
Speaker 1: And then it's all these people explaining why the bad
Speaker 1: thing they did had a good reason behind it, and
Speaker 1: then they just get chucked into the mixer and then
Speaker 1: and then their their body parts are used to pave
Speaker 1: the road to Hell. Yeah, this, but this part was
Speaker 1: pretty great. And I think now that I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: it like, this feels like a gag from a Mad magazine,
Speaker 1: and ultimately this whole movie feels like an extended Mad Magazine. Uh.
Speaker 1: Did you know, even right down to the fact that
Speaker 1: that Hell coop is scary and that a lot of
Speaker 1: the monsters that we see look really cool Because I
Speaker 1: remember reading, especially like parodies of films and Mad Magazine,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times like the illustrations were really good.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like these were artists that we're creating me.
Speaker 1: So I remember like a RoboCop RoboCop to parody in
Speaker 1: Mad Magazine, and I remember as a kid maybe sort
Speaker 1: of catching the jokes, but also being like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: those robots look really cool, you know, so strong Mad
Speaker 1: Magazine energy in this film. There's another thing this movie does,
Speaker 1: which I think I've realized. It's an obligatory type of
Speaker 1: joke that every Hell comedy has to do, and the
Speaker 1: joke structure works like this, You criticize a merely annoying
Speaker 1: public figure or celebrity by situating them in Hell amongst
Speaker 1: evil dictators and murderers. So there's like one part, there's
Speaker 1: one scene here where there's like a table, uh, and
Speaker 1: it has a bunch of names that says like seats,
Speaker 1: it'says reserved for and I can't remember the name. The
Speaker 1: rest of the names of the table are like dictators
Speaker 1: and killers and stuff, and then one of them just
Speaker 1: says Jerry Lewis. I think literally every like Simpson's Hell
Speaker 1: Thing has had a joke of that structure. It's it's
Speaker 1: always there now. Eventually in the film we go to
Speaker 1: Hell City and there's there's some fun to be had
Speaker 1: there as well. There's some we increasingly get out of
Speaker 1: the desert and into more interesting set pieces when we
Speaker 1: get into Hell City. So there's some some weird stuff
Speaker 1: with like mannequin people that explode into plaster when they're
Speaker 1: blasted with the Holy Shotgun. There is a a fake
Speaker 1: Rachel who then transforms into a like a hideous minotaur
Speaker 1: woman and um and of course, as with Hellcop the minute,
Speaker 1: our woman looks very real and very frightening um uh,
Speaker 1: though is ultimately more of a comic threat. Ultimately, there's
Speaker 1: one part where the Devil tries to tempt Rachel into
Speaker 1: staying in Hell with him instead of leaving, and the
Speaker 1: way he tries to tempt her is saying, like you
Speaker 1: could have everything, but the the example of her having
Speaker 1: everything is being able to play the violin. Remember that, yep, yep?
Speaker 1: Like was that her dream? I don't, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't remember anything about that. It's it's also like that.
Speaker 1: There's another point in the film too, where he he
Speaker 1: makes an offer, this time to Charlie and he's like, uh,
Speaker 1: something to his sports like you could own a particular
Speaker 1: sports team. But he chooses the wrong sports team. So
Speaker 1: he's really not that great at tempting people. Um that's
Speaker 1: he's like, you could be the um, you could be
Speaker 1: the quarterback of the of the Dallas Cowboys or something,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I might have done it if you've
Speaker 1: said the Niners. But yeah, he's put on the Niners cap. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's it's weird. This is one of those films
Speaker 1: where Okay, so Patrick Bergen, of course very charismatic, and
Speaker 1: and you know, they put a lot of energy into
Speaker 1: creating this this Satan character for him, and I kind
Speaker 1: of got the feeling that towards the end of the movie,
Speaker 1: the movie falls in love with Patrick Bergen Satan and
Speaker 1: so the final moments of the film seem to be
Speaker 1: more about Satan than anything else, like there's these scenes
Speaker 1: of Satan. First of all, we'll go ahead and say,
Speaker 1: like it all comes down to a drag race, Like
Speaker 1: you guys want to escape Hell, Well you got to
Speaker 1: do a drag race with Hell cop and if you win,
Speaker 1: you get to leave Hell. And so Satan's watching this
Speaker 1: from from a hillside. He's smoking a cigar that like
Speaker 1: one of his minions lights with their own burning finger. Um.
Speaker 1: And and like when we end up closing the out
Speaker 1: the movie, they start playing this song um it is
Speaker 1: maybe the next Time, performed by Deborah Crandell Parson, which
Speaker 1: is kind of catchy, but it's like such a weird vibe,
Speaker 1: like is this about Satan or we just like like
Speaker 1: now the film has situated the devil as its central character.
Speaker 1: I thought it was about these kids trying to escape Hell.
Speaker 1: That's a very good point. I think. I think some
Speaker 1: Batman movies or sometimes like this, where the actor playing
Speaker 1: the villain is so much more fun that it really
Speaker 1: kind of becomes about the villain. Yeah. Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: want to mention that there's a payoff to the earlier
Speaker 1: thing where where Rachel is said to have taken auto shop,
Speaker 1: because and I think this is supposed to make sense.
Speaker 1: She hot wires hell Coop's car for them to escape
Speaker 1: in it. Uh, And I was like, do they teach
Speaker 1: you to hot wire cars and auto shop? Maybe it
Speaker 1: was an extra credit project. I don't know, but then
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, they make it out of Hell and
Speaker 1: then hell Coop comes out with them and basically they
Speaker 1: have one last showed showdown with hell Coop, which I
Speaker 1: think is fitting because like, hell Coop is the real
Speaker 1: physical threat, he's not the tempter and uh, you know
Speaker 1: mastermind that the satanic character is. So you get that
Speaker 1: one last battle with hell Coop and she blasts the
Speaker 1: glasses off of him and he's defeated. He like explodes
Speaker 1: like a stick of dynamite and yeah, light shoots out
Speaker 1: of his eyes and then it's like dynamite and gasoline. Amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's high Way to Hell, folks. Yeah. So it's
Speaker 1: a yeah, it's it's fun flick. I feel like it.
Speaker 1: It holds up. It's not not tremendously offensive or anything.
Speaker 1: Um you know, it's uh, we were talking about this
Speaker 1: like it's got a few like it's got a little
Speaker 1: bit of nudity in it and maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: of language, but nothing that isn't like easily removed for
Speaker 1: cable airing. Um, because again I inevitably saw this on
Speaker 1: cable back in the day. Oh yeah, that's that's the
Speaker 1: point you were making that it's strange for the concept
Speaker 1: being hell, that it's actually a relatively mild r Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but but also it's not like it's not like it
Speaker 1: would otherwise be a kids movie. I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: just this strange it's this strange film with this this vibe,
Speaker 1: all of it, all of its all its own. That's
Speaker 1: like a little bit Beetlejuice, a little bit um Dante's Inferno,
Speaker 1: a little bit Mad Max and uh you know um
Speaker 1: uh you know Death Race uh thrown in there as well.
Speaker 1: It's a it's it's a wild movie that seems to
Speaker 1: be going on a number of different directions, and at
Speaker 1: times it really works. Well. I wish i'd seen it
Speaker 1: on USA up all night when I like it have
Speaker 1: its part of my brain for my whole life. Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to see it now, Luckily, it seems
Speaker 1: to be pretty widely available digitally. I think I watched
Speaker 1: it on Amazon Prime just like concluded, you know, without
Speaker 1: a subscription to another channel. Um and I think it's
Speaker 1: been made available on DVD and perhaps Blu ray in
Speaker 1: the past as well. But yeah, if you're looking for
Speaker 1: Highway to Hell you'll be able to find it. It's
Speaker 1: out there. Um and yeah, I think it it holds
Speaker 1: up pretty well. Uh. Like I said, it's it's worth watching,
Speaker 1: you know, for stuff like Hell Cop and the weird
Speaker 1: performance by Patrick Bergen. Uh. Yeah, there's a lot of fun. Okay,
Speaker 1: one last question. We find out in the epilogue that,
Speaker 1: uh that dude dude goes on to make health themed
Speaker 1: video games. Uh Rachel goes on to do health themed pizzeria's,
Speaker 1: and the dog goes on to starring dog food commercials,
Speaker 1: but they're not healthymed dog food commercials. What's up with
Speaker 1: that asymmetry? Yeah? Yeah, because if it was healthy and
Speaker 1: then then at least you can say, well, the experience
Speaker 1: of Hell inspired all of them, or perhaps the devil
Speaker 1: really did give them all some sort of a blessing
Speaker 1: for the for to take with them, you know. There
Speaker 1: there he's still actually controlling them all. Yeah, my dog's
Speaker 1: a little hell raiser, only the best for him. I
Speaker 1: did notice in the credits. I guess this is pretty standard.
Speaker 1: But you had one dog actor playing the dog, but
Speaker 1: then you also had a stunt dog actor, so that's nice.
Speaker 1: I didn't know the dog was named Rags. You remember that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I forget the name of the dog that was
Speaker 1: the stunt dog. The dog did a very good job
Speaker 1: of peeing on command in the scene where he faces
Speaker 1: a Cerberus. You remember that. Yes, Oh goodness, there's a
Speaker 1: stop motion Cerberus in this and we didn't. We almost
Speaker 1: got out of the episode without mentioning that this film
Speaker 1: also features a practical effects like stop motion three headed
Speaker 1: dog and it's a it's a lot of fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it has a confrontation with the cute little dog
Speaker 1: Ben and they just sort of like regard each other
Speaker 1: and then Ben pas on a rock and yeah, purely
Speaker 1: for comedy, and it's and it works. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go and close it out here, But if
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of Weird How
Speaker 1: Cinema It airs every Friday, and the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind podcast feed were primarily you know, science and
Speaker 1: culture type podcast, but on Friday's we put most of
Speaker 1: that aside and just discuss a weird film like Highway
Speaker 1: to hell, huge things. As always to our wonderful audio
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, just
Speaker 1: to say hello, you can email us at contact at
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow
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