Beyond The Cabin In The Woods
Episode 165 - Beyond New Nightmare
[music] You, you, I think. You know what horror is. Come with me into the tormented, wanted, half of the night of the insane. This is my one. Let me lead you into it. Let me take you into the mind of a woman who is mad. Hi, and welcome to Beyond the Cabin in the Woods, a good girl's guide to horror. I'm your polter guide, Kinsey. I'm your polter guide, Donna. I'm your polter guide, Mac. And this week, we watch the 1994 film West Craven's A New Nightmare. Surprisingly, we haven't been here yet. Right, exactly. So let's just, we're going to jump right into it. Had you seen it before? Did you like it? Did you not like it? I had not seen it before. I'm not sure I was aware it existed. I didn't like it for most of the movie. For one thing, I didn't like that they made Robert England creepy because by all, everything I know about Robert England is that he is a delightful human being. I was a little offended for my friend, Robert England. I think he got paid. I think he agreed to it. Yeah, but still, then, I don't know, there came a point. I'm going to say basically third act where it suddenly got me and I was very into the movie. I was very into it at the end. Sort of liked it. One third liked it. Okay. I am going to go exactly the opposite. I like it for the first two thirds and then I really check out in the last third. I think the effects become very dated at that point. I'm not really following it and then the eventual death of Freddy is such a late series, blue screeny nothing moment that it unraveled anything, any sense of dread or horror that I felt in the first two thirds. I've seen it several times. I've probably seen it more than any other Freddy Krueger movie. I definitely like it better than any other Freddy Krueger movie. I like it more than the first one. It's got a lot of flaws. I think anyone who isn't an actor who is playing themselves might have been better advised to hire an actor to play themselves. Wes Craven's not exactly a startling screen presence on his own. Kenzie, you might have to remind me, who's the head of New Line? Oh, Bob Shea. Bob Shea. Yeah. Bob Shea, definitely not a good actor. It's an interesting scene and he is a cardboard standy of himself in that whole thing. It's a really good scene, badly acted. I remember it going back as far. This will be a page from somebody's past, maybe just my own. Before IMDB, before lies became the dominant currency of the world, there was a CD-ROM that Blockbuster put out, a movie database. I remember pouring over that thing as a kid, and it had really detailed information on all the Nightmare movies up to noon. I think the thing was released around '94, but it also had video clips of all of them. I've seen the scene where they're in the third act when Heather/Nancy is reading the script, and then her son startles her like that 30 second moment I've seen probably 20 times, and I've seen the rest of the film maybe half a dozen times. So, yes, mixed similarly to you, Donna, but for different reasons, ultimately. Yeah, I've seen this before. I'm never mad when I watch it, but it's not my go-to Freddie movie. It definitely has its flaws. It's early 90s roots definitely show very easily. Now, granted, my default Freddie movie is Dream Warriors, but we'll unpack that for another time. I would actually put Dream Warriors as number two for me, so I don't think that's an unreasonable statement. Okay, good. You were talking about Freddie Dine in the third act. I've seen a lot of good and bad Freddie deaths. If you've watched any number of the Nightmare films, there's... Ooh, there is some stinkers. How does the gamut? Yeah. This one's on the wrong side of that divide. Yeah, it's definitely... It's not the top tier worst, but it's definitely... It's going to show up to the award show dressed. It's been told it's going to win. I do wonder, for a guy who's terrified of fire, he does spend an awful lot of time banging around fire. Right? Yeah. Right? He spends... He's around fire a lot. But, yeah, it's okay. It's not my go-to. When I watch it, after I watch it, I'm like, "Okay, well, I'm good for another 10 years." No, it's fine. Mac, I want you to know my child that read the TV guide sees your CD-ROM child, and we're shaking hands now. Yep. Yep. Covered a cover each week. All right. For those of you who don't know what a new Nightmare is about, our Good Good Buddies at IMDB and Max Nimesis wants you to know a demonic force has chosen Freddy Krueger as its portal to the real world. Can Heather Langenkamp play the part of Nancy one last time and trap the evil trying to enter our world? Hmm. I have some problems with the syntax of the beginning of that, but largely it's fine. I mean, for an IMDB review? Yeah. I mean, it's... It gets a passing grade. I have notes, but... Yeah. But what it's really about is Heather Langenkamp takes her kids at the absolute fucking worst hospital on God's Green Road. Right? Yeah. What the fuck? The muttering doctor's memorial hospital, the... Oh, trauma code, what the hell is that? ER. You know, I think for me, it's the hospital doctor stuff. I think that's where I really kind of start checking out on this film, like... That's fair. You know what? Miko Hughes being the poster child of Creepy Kid, late '80s, early '90s. Yes, here for it. Miko, no notes. You're fantastic, babe. Mm-hmm. But we get to the hospital stuff and I'm just like... Mm-hmm. Oh, man. Oof. Oof. Very, very fair. And it wasn't until you mentioned that I'm like, nope, that's really kind of where I start checking out. Did anyone else feel like all of the earthquakes were a very bad, like... I don't want to say McGuffin, but, like, check off the gun, like, just to get us to all these different places of like... It's like, there's a lot of earthquakes in this. Well, there's legitimately a lot of earthquakes in this. They were shooting it right after the big '94 earthquake, and there were a lot of aftershocks. Okay. So they had to roll with it a little bit. Okay, all right. Really? Some of those earthquakes are legitimately earthquakes, yeah. Wow. Oh, no. Some are not. They're like, okay, we're doing earthquakes in this movie, and then we'll lean into it. But... All right. Well, then I will give the earthquake check-offs gun a pass, knowing that, because I didn't put it together. Like, you know, when it was made and all the earthquakes and aftershocks. So, all right. That's, okay. That is interesting. Yeah. Same thing happened for Star Trek generations in the opening scene. Whenever they're shaking on the Enterprise B, those are aftershocks from that same earthquake. I don't know if I'm going to go back and watch generations just to see that, but, you know... Skip it. It's fine. It's fine. Okay, I have my one big question. All right. What you got? In fact, I wanted to make this my pole for the end, but I'm going to do it now instead. So, I know why Freddie was going after Heather. We know because she was the door he had to get through. That was explained in those words very clearly. He had to get through Heather to get into the real world. So, I also understand why he was going after the people around her because he needed her off-kilter. Right? That makes sense. What does it make sense is why he killed a couple of Rando visual effect guys. Okay? Like, what did they have to do with anything? And what further does it make sense is if he has to get bound up in a story in order to be contained, why doesn't he go after the storyteller? Two answers there. Why not kill the storyteller and then come worry about the door? Okay, let's go. Two answers, all of them are no prize worthy. First on the special effects guys, he needed an actual glove. Like he needed to physically obtain a glove and they're the glove guys. Not a great answer, but just trying to draw a straight line between special effects guys and this entity. Yeah. That was an actual functional death. Mm-hmm. Okay. That, I mean, I see your questioning of it because it's not very well established but the no prize answer. The second one- I accept it. Yeah. The second one is, I think the movie would be better if Wes Craven were the protagonist, but Wes Craven knew he wasn't that good of an actor and couldn't carry a movie. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We were it with a scene or two, but he could not be Wes Craven in Wes Craven's new nightmare, starring Wes Craven, written and directed by Wes Craven. Wes Craven. Yeah, that would have been, if he had been a stronger actor, that would have been interesting to see a few more scenes of him having his own problems, fighting the demon. You know what I mean? Just a few little like trying- Yeah, there's almost an implication that there is that story going on, we're just not seeing it. Like, Wes sort of bereaved and dazed and not really understanding what's happening to him. There's like another movie beyond the movie we're seeing. I'm going to choose to believe that those scenes were written and filmed and then Wes himself was like, I'm not pulling this off. Yeah. [Laughs] God bless you. Yeah. Please. It's trickier to be a movie actor than it looks. Like, you say, okay, hit your marks and say your words and that's it, but then you also have to like, you know, be and look like a camera's not in the room and that sort of thing. It's harder to do than it looks. Yeah. Yeah. I would have gone for the storyteller if I were the Freddy demon. I think that's a better story and maybe not a better movie. Like, let's take care of the guy who's going to get me all bowed up and then I'll worry about the door. Right. Agreed. Yeah, definitely agreed. Which is why he grunts his way through his cameo and scream. [Laughs] Under heavy makeup. Mind you too. Playing Freddy. Playing Freddy. Yeah. [Laughs] Oh. The other thing I wanted to point out, I know Mac was not impressed with the visual effects there in the end. And I don't want to say that I was impressed with the visual effects like the Freddy makeup from the first few movies looks like a guy that's been burned. I don't know what that makeup was. I don't know what that was. It looks like just exposed muscle or something. Yeah. Yeah. It looked like plastic. It did not, it did not look like a guy who's been burned. I don't know what that was. I chose to ignore it. But something I found really interesting is the times that we saw the hand, the claw. And by the way, here's a little bit, I'm underneath the heart of this Dr. Donna Science person beats the heart of a theater kid. So I just- Just above the Baptist girl. Oh, no. The Baptist girl is way tucked, way, way, way back. I'm just trying to get the topographical map of Donna. Yeah. She's way, way back. Gotcha. Okay. Dr. Donna's top tier. Top top top tier. Yeah. And then there's theater girl and then there's Baptist girl, way down deep. Okay. So I did a lot of special effects. I did a lot of special effects for theater. So I mentioned this because when you saw that hand come up during, for most of the movie, you could see the blood tubing. The blood tubing was visible on the back of the hand. Okay. After Heather was like, yep, let's do this. I love you too, Daddy. Let's go. You couldn't see the blood tubing on the back of the hand anymore, which I thought was a neat little effect, a neat little, neat little thing they did. Like it's no longer special effects. Now it's quote, unquote real. Right. And I just- That's good, but then they kept going. Yes. I did want to let you know. I do agree that that Freddie makeup, I don't know what the fuck that was. It was weird and I didn't like it. Yeah. It looks better on the poster than it does in the movie. Yeah. I'll give you that. Yeah. Because you look at a poster like, oh, dude, Freddie looks gnarly. And then you're in the movie, you're like, are you okay, Fred? Like Fred, Fred, Fred, like, what have they done to you? Nineties. Freddie's such a swell guy. He's got a one nine hundred number. You could call him talk to him whenever you wanted to. He was, you know, like, better than most of your relatives. You just feel like, are you okay? Do you need money? Is this what's going on here? Like, let me know. I will help you, buddy. Blink twice if Wes is holding you against your will. I'm sorry. The thing I actually meant to say when I brought up the whole theater kid thing, it never put sharp blades on a prop. That's so dumb. That's so stupid. Yeah. Yeah. These are, these were not the best effects guys. Like, there are some shady ass effects houses in the world, and they usually end up doing the work on the odd number Star Trek movies. Yeah. So that was like, you deserve to get cut, you're dumb. Yeah. I'm done. I mean, I'm done for different reasons, but that's, we'll unpack that later. So I will say this. One of the things that makes this film very unique, and I work, we've kind of been talking about it, is the meta aspect of it, like, so like Heather Langenkamp's husband, he is a very well-known special effects artist. Yeah. That is legit and she actually, I think they did the effects work on Star Trek into darkness. I just remembered, I don't think there are front for the mob. The guys that did the first pass on Star Trek, one in Star Trek 5, I do believe were fronts for the mob. Keep going. Sorry. That's okay. But that's what she, after she basically, you know, stopped acting, she does a lot of, like helps with effects and stuff like that. Like that's what she does. She played an alien in one of those JJ Abrams movies because her husband was doing effects work, like creature effects work. Yeah. So I think that is pretty interesting with this film, just that Wes is like, I like these people and I want to hang out with him. You know what? Wes wanted to cast her real husband in the husband role and he said, and he said, yeah, this is probably too close to home, thanks, but no thanks. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yikes. I do think it's funny in a roundabout way with this film. It also, in a roundabout way, predicted what we see now at cons with like you can do photo ops with actors in costumes. So like there's like photo ops and you can do with Robert England and he's in full Friday gear and. Listen to that so much, but he still wears the glove. Like I know he always has a glove, but there's some shows like Spooky Empire, he'll usually do the full. I see. Remember, like he said, he's not going to do that anymore because it's a bit of a production. Yeah. Yeah. In the past, he certainly did. He always has the glove, but there are other actors though that do like, for example, because I'm looking right at him, Bill Mosley will do his house with 1000 corpses, Otis. Now granted, it's very easy to do. It's an easy costume to get into, but so I think that is also kind of interesting that in a roundabout way, it predicted something we see now. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No. So I have met Robert England and he is a delight and we did do a photo op with him and I told editor Bill, it's like, no, I want the glove hand. That's the side I'm on. That's. And Bill's like, I'm not fighting you on this. We're not. I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. He's like, babe, not fighting you. Just not. And you weren't asking for permission, you were just letting him know like this is how it's going to go down is that he's like, and once again, no, that's fine. You sure? Yeah. Not this is not a fight. No, we're not childhood. Kinsey was very excited that day, just was a very happy banda might be saying something about the formation of certain parts of my brain, but I thought Heather was adorable in this movie. She like Heather in the first one doesn't do it. She was just, there was something, I mean, fundamentally, she's a teenager. She's here. She said, grown woman. I just did the hair is working. And then she gets the gray streak in her hair and I'm like, whoa. I agree. Yeah, she is stunning in this film. I will use the S word. She is stunning. Good. I'm letting you get some support about it. I felt tentative about like, this is going to be creepy. Well, they always, you know, they always talk about and I that, you know, she has very big blue eyes and I've never, and I know it's some of its video quality from, you know, yeah, 80s video quality, all of that. But this film, you really see it and you're like, holy crap, yes, she does have big eyes and then everything you've said with the hair. Yeah. Yeah. No, she's. It's the perfect haircut. It's just past the 80s perm dark ages. And just before the vagaries of the Rachel, it was like, that's perfect. Like, let's just keep everything in 1994 and not move on from there. Everybody's fine. She just looks like she's got a lot of hair and she's pulling off the, I woke up like this. Look. Yeah. She nailed that look. She and PJ Soles in Halloween were kind of the one two punch on various parts of my personality makeup. And Mack, it would have been creepy if you went the other way. Yeah. The other way. When she was a teenager. Yes. I agree. Thanks. But no, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I'm just like, you know, that's what would have been creepy. Not this way. I find 30 year old Heather Langenkamp oddly attractive. I do not find young Heather Langenkamp attractive at all for the record. If anyone needs an affidavit signed, I, you know, where to find me. So Heather went and talked to Wes, found out what was going on and then like any reasonable human being in the world was like, that's dumb. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't. Didn't buy into what was going on. And eventually in desperation finds herself in a house with John Saxon because that happens to everybody all the time. That's, you know, we all find ourselves in houses with John Saxon sometimes sentences just find themselves in weird places and you just have to go with it, right? Like when you find yourself in a house with John Saxon. Right. John Saxon. What are you doing? Oh, is it Thursday already? Okay. All right. I guess it's my day. So I'm a little broken right now. I've, I've, I've killed. Well, now I'm just, I'm having questions, Donna of is John Saxon your Atkins with the tea. Now I'm, I'm having these questions. No. Okay. All right. All right. So definitely, definitely not. Okay. All right. I mean, I don't have anything against John Saxon. He's not an actor. Yeah. He's a strapping handsome man. Just not by Atkins with the tea. And he's, he has definitely fallen into his role from the nightmare movies. He is his daddy and just like there's this moment because Heather is acting as herself very well. And there's this moment when you can just see her go, okay, we're doing this and it proceeds this, this bit of dialogue where John Saxon is dad and Heather is still Heather and this dialogue going back and forth and then you could just see her go, okay. And she says, I love you too, daddy. And it's like everything just ticked over like the music changed. I feel like the lighting changed, like everything changed when she said, I love you too, daddy. It's like she said, all right, let's be Nancy, let's do this. And that by the way, I don't remember if I mentioned the specific point. That was the point when for me, I was like, oh, and I don't mean I loved it because of the fantastic makeup and effects because no, I have already agreed with Mac, the makeup and effects were a little wonky. Yeah, but the story, that was when the story clicked for me because all of a sudden, okay, Heather has bought into the importance of what's happening here and Heather is going to take care of shit. And that's when the story started working for me. So I actually got goosebumps. It is a noticeable shift after she says that because you're right, the music cue changes, the lighting changes, everything changes, like even when she looks down and she's in Nancy Pajamas, like she's in her costume from the first nightmare. So yeah, it's that that scene does work very well. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about set dressing, odd pieces of set dressing. It's certainly, I think the post COVID zoom meeting public event era that I'm glued to the TV when we're in Wes's house and I want to see all the books on his shelf because like literally any famous person comes on Zoom or something. I'm like, oh, what they read? What are they telling me that they think they should be reading? Oh, okay. All I can make out was that he had a copy of Koojo on the shelf and I was like, really Wes? Koojo. Okay. Even a 94 King had a wide library that you could have chosen from. Right. With Koojo and Koojo, the movie's already come out like you didn't get the gig, Wes. Yeah. See, and in that aspect, I'm not even paying attention to that. I just didn't reminded that I really just want to listen to Wes Craven talk about horror, like just like, why horror is this? Why horror is that like anytime like on those clip shows and when he they, you know, they show a clip of him talking about horror, the genre, all of that. Like I am just like, yes, and I'm like just leaning forward and just in awe. So that is, that's where my brain was going was just like, I could have just had an hour and 50 minutes of just Wes talking about horror and just like everybody walked by and cost him. And I would have been fine. Like, I would have been. I think there's a commentary track on the movie there, Ken. I know. I know there is, but it's. Let me see here, oh, my handy dandy new nightmare DVD. Oh, Mac, you got, ooh, you've got old school new nightmare DVD. So with the little flax happy cases, the mark one of DVD cases that, I don't know, somebody at Warner Brothers sobered up and change that around, but yes, there's a commentary by Wes Craven here. So the other set dressing piece going back to Wes. You see bits of the script every once in a while of this movie. And I don't know, I think Wes is including too many descriptions in his screenplays. Like they're a little engorged when I see those pages and I'm like, ooh, come on. I get Quentin's very popular right now, but you can pair it back a bit. We get the idea. You're directing it too. You don't need to tell yourself every little ounce of detail that you're supposed to shoot. Have the movie in your head, man. Storyboard it. Storyboard. Just do a storyboard that actually that brings me to another thing I like about this movie. This movie gave the audience some credit for brains because what was happening in this movie is actually kind of abstract. Yeah, how did this movie do, by the way? Very badly. Yeah. It did not do. Yeah. I'm not surprised because the concept is kind of intellectual, you know? It won some, like it won I think a Hugo that year. Like it was really popular with guys, people who read books. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not surprised. The concept is kind of something you need to think about and understand and it doesn't hand hold you through it. No. It doesn't come over and say, okay, over here, we've got the demon. Now over here, we're going to build a thought cage with a story, see, and then you need to get in the story and then once you get in the story, then we can finish the cage. It doesn't do that. It just kind of looks these little pieces of information up for you. And I think this film just requires some intellectualizing of its audience and I like it. Yeah. This film has definitely found its audience years and years later. Like I want to say is right around the 10th anniversary give or take that it really started to find its audience like it, it starts showing up, you know, when people talk about horror that it's one of their, in top contender of Nightmare on Elm Street films. So it definitely was ahead of its time. It wasn't, it wasn't well received at all. And that's it was well reviewed, but just it didn't, it was the poorest performing box office wise of the series. There's numbers here, it opened third in the box office, it's opening weekend, making six million and went on to gross about 20 million worldwide, which given the budget made it profitable, just not, you know, Bob Shea was not happy. And it opened up against Pulp Fiction's wide release in its first weekend. So that audience met a deconstructed genre movies, it might have been only going to see Pulp Fiction that weekend. It's very possible. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think you're definitely seeing the DNA of what Craven wanted to do with horror and before we get into screen and then he just had a little, someone a little bit more polished right that script. I don't know about more posh, like scream is a more straight ahead. It's telling you exactly what it's going to do. Yeah. It's the more accessible version of some of these ideas. Yeah. I wanted to mention that when the babysitter showed up at the hospital, I was quite convinced that the babysitter was there to kill the kid, that she had been somehow influenced by Freddie and that she was playing for the wrong team. There was just something, something creepy about her arrival there. She wanted them to make Freddie versus Jason before doing any kind of meta crap, the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. She's on the message boards. Caine Hunter should have been Jason and Freddie versus Jason. It's, it's, she's, it's a whole thing. I was quite, quite alarmed when Nancy Heather left, when Heather left the kid alone with the babysitter. It, you know, worked out, okay, for everyone except the babysitter. It's so, I thought the babysitter deserved better. Like, I liked Julie, like, I liked, I liked Julie a lot. I, I never had that, that vibe from her. So I, I thought Julie definitely deserved her. She died protecting a child. She's going to Valhalla. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. She, she reminds me of the babysitter in, uh, Halloween 2018. Okay. Okay. I mean, she was going to bat for that kid. She, she was not going to let Freddie get that kid and, uh, you go, you go babysitter. If she were still alive, you would want her babysitting your kids. Oh, yeah. That'd be her resume. It's like babysitter 1990 to 1994, dead person 1994 to present. See for references, Heather Langenkamp, New Line Cinema. Don't talk to Bob Shay. Cause you'll talk your ear off and that scene will go on way too long. Way too long. So long. All right. Well, let's go ahead and just jump into rule poll and quote. We came prepared with different quotes, but the one we landed on, which Mac has just kind of really summed up a lot of our thoughts and feelings. And most of the other quotes we had were more talking points, which we have discussed on the meta aspect, like every kid knows Freddie Krueger, like Santa Claus. And then Donna's mentioned the one that she really liked about the turning points, but Mac, our quote, choice, what kind of choice, whether you're willing to play Nancy one last time. And I have to give it the Wes Craven, who's going to ask me for another take line reading? Was it better? Was it a Shatner Pause? I couldn't tell. Like there was like, Shatner Pause is quicker than I think is off to Shatner Pause is. And there has to be some kind of motion with it because the hands are speaking wild. You got to get that. I'll go in there. It's not so much that I'm pausing for dramatic effect. It's that I don't care for the script and I'm trying to remember what I'm supposed to say next. He's pausing because he's waiting to know the check cleared. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Are we using horses in this one because I have horses that I will charge you to use? I did not realize this is going to be very a weird amount of references to starter generations in this one. I didn't think that was going to be happening coming. I didn't either. But you know what? It's that same time frame. It is. Both of them came out. Donna, though, has our rule. By into the premise, Heather, quickly, the quicker you buy in, the more likely your babysitter lives. And your husband. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, father, father of your child died way too early in the film, Mac, before we even knew there was a storytelling cage being built. I don't know if there was any saving him. Which is why my rule, my suggestion for rule, since yourself and Wes Craven would have worked because Johnny Depp was fine. He was in his Tim Burton world. Nothing ever bad happens in Tim Burton world. It was in Wes Craven world where bodies start piling up. I don't know that Johnny Depp was fine. I think Johnny Depp was probably coked out and drunk off his ass. Yes. But in 1994, that was what passed for fine. Then I can't argue with. I, you know, I'm not saying River Phoenix had already died. He was like, okay, we're going to do a little less than what we had. We're going to take our foot off the gas there. I'm not saying live your life like Johnny Depp. I'm just saying that in the 90s, when Wes Craven calls, maybe don't pick up the phone. That should have been the rule. But that could have worked for a whole other thing. I will concede. I will concede that Johnny Depp was not in danger of being killed by Freddy at that time. At that time. Just life choices at the Viper Room. Anyway, I'm not saying Johnny Depp didn't make mistakes later on. I mean, let's, let's, I mean, dark shadows exist. But I think the rule you wanted to mention was the rock out. Yes, the rock out. Don't drive while sleeping. Good rule for life. Mm-hmm. Good rule for everyone to follow, but especially Mr. Heather Langenkamp. Yes. Much less likely to have sharp claws that should not be, why were they sharp, why were they sharp, chase, much less likely to have sharp claws coming at your crotch. I don't know how to slow that you called them out by name, just like, why were they sharp chase? All right, and Mackula has our poll question. Indeed, which icons would you want to see cross over the fictional divide? I realize I'm asking this question. I don't know if I necessarily have an answer. It was, there was an earlier version of the question I think I had an answer for. But now that we've widened it to include any genre, any, anything, I think I've done master's level work on this in other podcasts. Oh. Yeah. Oh. Oh. I just realized Thor. Okay. Okay. Captain America. Oh my gosh. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So you're being creepy perv about it. That's fine. Do your creepy person. That's not creepy perv. Well, you're making the question sexual. I'm not saying who do you want to bang in fiction. That was not the question, Donna. There's Robin groups for that thing. There's no banging involved here. I want Captain America in the real world where you punch Hitler. Okay. I'll take it. All right. All right. Ortho was about something else. I mean, I would also like to look at him. Okay. I'm not saying it's. I can't deny. He's a good looking man. Yeah. Look, don't touch, but we can do that without the fictional divide crust. Pause buttons exist. It's true. Oh, this whole episode is with places that I did not expect to go and I'm here for it. It's great. So yeah, my thought in my first go-to since we fictional divide, I went Princess Leia. I went Princess Leia. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I would like to have Princess Leia, Princess fictional divide like that. I think that would be fantastic. New Hope, Princess, or sequel trilogy general? I want general, I want general Leia. See, I feel like general Leia that we, I feel like general Leia and Carrie Fisher were like one and the same. That's true. Like, you know, like, I feel like- There's a bit of meta going on there, they let the creature out of the story. Yeah. Like, like return to the Jedi Leia? Like her just being a boss? Fuck yeah. Like general Leia, I feel like we saw, like I feel like that, that happened. But yeah. Jedi Leia. Oh yeah. I think when it was just about horror icons, I would have been tickled to see some sort of meta treatment of Michael Myers, but widening the lens that I think Batman probably number one, just because, you know, maybe he'd let me be part of the team. And that's, that's really all I'll ever wanted, mainly so I could, you know, chat up Barbara Gordon because it, it's all part of a package there. That's the third punch in the mid 90s. But beyond that, I like the Star Trek universe would be good, but then I realize I'm wearing this shirt. If the West wing were real, many, not all, many of our current problems would be lessened. And you're not wrong on that. And I realized as we were, you know, like, I couldn't give one answer because I'm like sitting here just staring at, it's like, I didn't even mention Ripley, I would fucking love Ripley to cross that divide because that's also another, there also be some problems that we would not be having. Yeah. So. For the podcasting audience, I'm wearing a Bartlett 98 shirt. So. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to look at who's staring me over here because that person doesn't need to cross a fictional divide. Well, just they need to say where they're at because that would cause problems. Who? Grand Admiral Thrawn. I would be fine. I can't guarantee everybody else. So that would just cause problems on that note who wants to go first on happy place. Ah, almost done with my semester. I do notice that every semester, my happy place is the start of the semester and my happy place is the end of the semester. Nonetheless, my last week of school, I'm very ready for the last week of school. It's been a fun semester. So anyway, I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks off before I jump right back into teaching again. Mm hmm. Be good. Be good. I don't know if anybody's heard, but the month of July has been a harrowing pinball game of horrors and it is ending, I feel, on something of a hopeful note. And I do like that hopeful note because I was mentally preparing myself for the Thunder Dome for most of the month. And while Thunder Dome has not been canceled, there's a fighting chance that Thunder Dome won't necessarily happen now. Uh, Mack, I kind of want you to make t-shirts and say Thunder Dome has not been canceled. Yeah. But, uh, Thunder Dome merely delayed. Merely delayed. Oh, my Lord. Oh, all right. My happy place is that last week we adopted a new kitty cat and his name is Poe. So I have a, I have a fin and I have a Poe now, uh, we're still getting used to, getting used to brother and everything, but he is, he's getting there and just, so yeah, we have a kitty cat now and he's super cute and that's good stuff. He is a, he is a handsome, handsome boy. I'm just saying don't sleep on your animal shelters, everybody. That's going to be, if you're looking to get pets, check out the local ones first. The same shelter we got, fin from is the one we got Poe from. So that's my PSA. Just don't sleep on animal shelters. I agree completely. I got, I got my bunny from a, from a shelter and, uh, they lied to us, but shelters will do that sometimes. Got my kitty from a veterinarian who had a kitty they needed to be home, but yeah, adopt don't funny. Well, you can find us on social media on Facebook, Instagram and threads were beyond the cabin in the woods. Our website and blue sky username is beyond the cabin the woods.com. I am on threads Instagram and blue sky as at coolest at 77. You can find me on blue sky at dragongoblin.com you can find me on Instagram at dragongoblin. There's no I in goblin. I'm not really terribly active on either one of those, but that's where I am in the future in which you're listening to this, whichever social media platform is prevalent or relevant. You might find me there at party apocalypse. I'm probably not posting much movie reviews, but the website partyapocalypse.com has this podcast and other fine podcasts, including the holiday is broken with myself, friends of the show, Laura, Aris and Canyon. The three of them also co host disorganized a criminal minds podcast and there are full runs of the fourth wall, if you're liking meta fiction, friendables to friends talking about Hannibal Lecter and as the myth turns books, blogs, movie reviews, nothing else. All the books are currently available on Kindle and limited. So you may have already paid for them. As always, thank you to our editor Billy. We appreciate everything that you do. You make a sound fantastic and professional. So thank you so much. Thank you, Billy. We love you. And thank you for listening. Great review and subscribe to us if you aren't already doing so. And don't read the letter or the script. [MUSIC] (gentle music)