(upbeat music) Get three coffins ready, kid, because our latest podcast, Make My Day, is venturing off into the wild and sprawling frontier, that is, Clint Eastwood's career. More movies than Stephen King has books and more genres than all of the franchises we've covered over at the Halloweenies. Now, I know what you're thinking. Do they really need to start another show? Well, to tell you the truth and all this excitement, I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a podcast, the most powerful medium in the world for pop culture conversation and Prince's output is infinite, you've gotta ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? Find out today and subscribe to Make My Day, a Clint Eastwood podcast now, wherever you get your audio. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Flashes, huh? What's your favorite scary movie? (laughing) - Not that one. (laughing) (upbeat music) - Welcome back to horror queers. We're talking go, go, not cry, cry. We're talking a missing leg that's now missing. And we're talking fine, but we're taking my car. Car explodes. I'm riding with you. And I'm Joe. - And I'm Trace and we're talking, that was gonna be a standup comedian. (laughing) - But she's not funny. - Joe, this entire fucking movie, my thing was going to be go, go, not cry, cry. - Oh, sorry. - Every time, every time, we need to just like start talking about this beforehand. But anyway, everyone, we are discussing the first half of Grindhouse in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. - Mm-hmm, yeah, it's a double build that you and I both love. - Love, love, love both of these movies. But I, you know, I'm sure people will ask, why didn't you just do Grindhouse? And- - Oh my God, it's too long. Too long for an episode. - Yeah, I just think, I think both of these movies need their own episodes. - Sure. - So, everyone look for that in the future. (laughing) But, okay, well, I have so much to say about this movie and I know you do too. So I'm gonna go ahead and just bring in our guest, Joe. Everyone, they are the hosts of the Bloody Broad's podcast in which they dissect their love of horror and all its sub-genres. Please welcome Baphna and Jamie. - Hi. - Hello. - Hi. - Hi. - Oh, welcome to Terror Planet, Planet Terror. (laughing) I don't know what that was. - You brought in the Bloody Broad's to talk about some Bloody Broad's. - There we go. - Honestly, the women are the most interesting characters in this movie. - Correct. (laughing) - Plus, Jamie and Baphna, I know that you too have a soft spot for, you know, made-aughts horror. So this seemed to vary your jam. - Oh, 100%. - Extremely, this was a foundational film and shaping, I think, sort of what I would go back and re-watch to learn more about the history of horror, as it were, because I was online as a young teen, probably, you know, message boards that I probably should have been in as like a 13-year-old. But I, people were referencing like movies that were referenced in this film, and that's kind of how I built my horror education. - Well, wait, I have two questions. First, what is it about the mid-aut horror that like really speaks to both of you? - I was a teenager from about 2002 to 2006, so everything that came out then has a choke hold on me. (laughing) - I was a middle schooler who was being held captive pop culture-wise by two hyper-religious parents who wouldn't even let me listen to like, they called it secular music, you know, like I had to listen to Christian music. Yeah, yeah, so I would sneak a lot of things behind their back, and one of my favorite bands, at the time, which was a Christian metal band. I know, I know, insert every stereotype here from the mid-2000s. But, they-- - Was it Charis of Clay? - No, my God, they're not metal too. (laughing) They're like, whatever the opposite of metal is, like, Christian contemporary, like, soft adult is popped. - Is it bad that the first thing that popped into my head was like, with arms, what opens? - No, it was not Creige, you guys. It was a band called Show Bread, and they referenced "Not To The Living Dead" and a lot of their stuff, and I love "Not To The Living Dead." And, you know, Jesus' zombies, there's a lot of overlap and lore there. So, yeah, this just seemed like a natural thing for me to, like, sneak behind my parents' back. It was like one of the first things I downloaded off of "Put Locker." (laughing) Oh my God, "Put Locker." - Actually, that was my next question. 'Cause, so, Jamie, clearly you did not see this in theaters, but, Babna, did you? - Oh, yeah, yeah, I did. - Good, good. - And, I thankfully didn't have to sneak into this one. I had to sneak into "Sin City," which I saw, like, what the year before. - Yeah, we're probably about the same age then, because, yeah, this came out '07, so, oh, this was the end of my senior year of high school, because I was still, I was working at a movie theater when this came out, and I, so at the time, I was the person in charge of posters and standees, and so, I got to build the, like, enormous grindhouse standee that was, like, the front of a theater, but it took me, like, three hours. And they were like, "You don't have to stay that long." I was like, "No, no, no, I'm gonna finish this. "I'm gonna do it." - I remember that. I remember, there's probably a picture of me somewhere in front of it, if I can find my photos, but, oh, my God, I'm so jealous. - Good times, and I actually, Joe, did you see this? You saw this in theaters, didn't you? - Oh, I saw this on opening night. It was me and probably 20 other people, and I remember, like, I was so hyped for this double bill. I had been waiting for it for ages, and I fully thought this was going to be packed theater. Everybody was gonna be talking about it, and I was so disappointed that, you know, the people who were there, we had a great fucking time with it, but at the end of the weekend, you look at those opening weekend grosses, and it tanked. I was so mad at everyone. - Me too. - Me too. - I saw this twice in theaters, 'cause I took my dad to go see it first, opening weekend, and then I loved it so much, that I took a bunch of my theater friends with me, and some of them, like, weren't, did not know what they were in for, so, like, around the time, the zombie peels the boil off its face and rubs it all over Josh Rowan's face. - Oh, yes. - One of my girlfriends like to me goes, "What did you bring us to?" And I was like, "There's still, like, "two hours left, just a heads up." - You were like, "The best double-bill ever." - Though, accurate consistency for, like, a really bad pimple, but just amplified. - Honestly, so gross. - So gross. - Now, how dare you? - I can handle gore of all shapes and sizes, but, like, pussy stuff is, it really gets to me. - Yeah, that's where I draw the line, Trace. That was the only point in this movie where I was like, "Okay, this might be too much," because the rest of the gore is so over the top, and it's so funny to me, but the pimple of the zombie just-- (laughing) - Yeah, and the tongue popping, like, whatever, hi, I don't like that. - Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. The worst was also the images on the TV. - The penis. - The doctor's just-- - Yes, yes. - It's the penis. The penis is the worst. - Oh, both penis shots, the ones on the screen, and the other one, oh. - I will say, though, 'cause I also worked in guest services. I had so many people come out during this movie and say, "Excuse me, there's something wrong with the film, "it's really scratched up." - Oh, no, no. - So, not only do people not get it, but also, when I told them it's supposed to be like that, they would ask for refunds. I mean, like, not to watch the rest of the movie. Yeah, it was-- - Sorry. - It was bad. - If you did not-- - Not a trailer. - Right, like, they don't understand the whole point of, like, a Grindhouse style. I just-- - I don't think so. - So, I mean, I'll say this. So, Quentin Tarantino does have a quote. He was talked to Empire Magazine in 2020, and he's just talking about how the reception of the film kind of went. He said, "With Grindhouse, I think me and Robert "just felt that people had a little more of a concept "of the history of double features and exploitation movies." The people didn't at all. They had no idea what the fuck they were watching. It bit nothing to them. So, that was a case of us being a little too cool for school. - Well, for me, it was like, I was still excited because this was like the mashup ensemble of some of my favorite directors at the time, right? I was just like, "Oh my God, is this like the All-Stars, "but for horror directors?" Like-- - And the cast of both movies are just like, "Oh, it's so awesome." - Yeah, this was heavy-hitter central. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez were at the height of their power at this point. - Right, and Fergie. - Yes. - And Fergie. - Fergie's good in this movie. - Yes, she just doesn't have enough screen time. - No, I agree with that. But yeah, 'cause it's Robert Rodriguez fresh off of Sin City, and then Quentin Tarantino fresh off of Kill Bill. So-- - God, yeah. - And then you had like Edgar Wright with his trailer, and you had Eli Roth, who at the time, I was a huge fan of, and I forget who else, aside from Rodriguez and Curt Tarantino. - Rob Zombie. - Rob Zombie did the trailer for, oh my God, it's like-- - Werewolf Women of the SS. - Yes, y'all, that's the only trailer where I'm like, really? - Well, so here's the thing, I'll just say this one thing about it. So he actually like filmed like a 30-minute short film, and so he had to cut that down to a trailer, and I think if he could see the full thing, it might be better than what they had. - Yeah, and I don't wanna like skip too far into y'all's notes or whatever, but like, honestly, Machete is the best trailer out of all of them, and like, yes, obviously-- - That's great, but okay. - I mean, which one did you think was the best, Joe, do you think Thanksgiving was? - I like don't. - Don't, don't, don't, don't, it's my favorite, yeah. - Thank you, yes, I'm still waiting for it to be made. - Yeah, not even Michael Wright, just I like the concept of it, and it felt a little bit totally different than all the other ones, so I was a fan of that one. - True, like it took itself seriously as a satire, which I loved. - Yeah, it played it straight, and that to me makes some of the best parody too. - 100%. - Yes, okay, well, let's go through this production. I mean, for everyone listening, so all of us watch the full like solo, like director's cut of Planet Terror, which is about 15-ish minutes longer than the version that's in Grindhouse. - Right, I went through and looked at the differences. Honestly, like there's only like one or two full scenes that are missing, and they're not really important, but a lot of the changes are just like extensions to scenes, and things like that, like extra lines of dialogue, or maybe like a little bit more of another joke or two. So it's not the big of a difference. I personally prefer the director's cut because I like to see everything in the movie, however, - Sure. - All the additions are kind of in the first hour of the film, so I'm interested to see how the pacing is different in the Grindhouse version, because I haven't seen that version since theaters. - Right. - Yeah. Anyway, I'm actually pulling a lot of this from an article in Wizard Magazine, written by Mike Cotton, and the article is called House Party, Girls, Zombies, Serial Killers, step inside Quentin Tarantino and Robert Ariguez's Down and Dirty Double Feature Grindhouse. This magazine is now defunct, so it doesn't exist anymore, but thank God for the arc-wax machine. - It's kind of a wizard magazine. - It's, you know what, it existed until 2011. - Amazing, okay. I hope a bunch of people are like, "I can't believe you've never heard of it." - Yeah, but yeah, okay. So Planet Terror had its origins start all the way back in 1988 when Robert Ariguez directed The Faculty, which I always forget as a Robert Ariguez film. - Oh, same. - Never do. - It's stylistically, it seems the most different from the rest of his films. - Okay. - I mean, Spy Kids. - Right, that's what I was gonna say is that a Spy Kids is what really throws me. - Okay, but the thing is though, 'cause his whole shtick is he would do one for the adult, and then he would do one for his kids. Like Shark Boy and Mama Girl was based off of like drawings that his kid did, and his kid is of course in this movie. - Right. - Yes. - Right. - So yes, but at this time, Ariguez decided he wanted to reinvent the zombie movie because at the time, I mean, zombies weren't really a thing anymore. So while filming The Faculty, he told Elijah Wood and Josh Hartnett that zombie movies were dead, and they hadn't been around in a while, but he thought they were going to come back in a big way because they had been gone for so long. You know, horror is cyclical. We always talk about this. And he was right, of course. - Well, and so, of course, he goes, well, we gotta be there first. So he had a script and he started writing, got about 30 pages down, and he even had characters for Elijah Wood and Josh Hartnett in this script, but unfortunately, after those first 30 pages, he didn't know where to go with it. So the introduction was just like as far as he'd gotten. - We were robbed of early 2000s Josh Hartnett. That's right. - I know. We all lost. - So he got onto other movies, which by the way, so between the faculty and this, he did Spy Kids 1, 2, 3 all in a row, once upon a time in Mexico, Sin City, and The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl, and then it's this. - Jesus Christ. - Wow, holy shit. - I mean, let's not forget that he was shooting a lot of these movies in his fucking garage. - Right, yes. - And it's all in Austin too, so. - Yes. - But in that time where he wasn't making his zombie movie, we got Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later in 2002, and Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead in 2004. So he missed his chance and he was very aware of that fact. - Oh no. - But then, so with Quentin Tarantino, so he had always wanted to go back in time and make his real first film in a way before the eyes were on him. And Rodriguez thinks this is because he felt robbed at that experience because Reservoir Dogs was successful right away. It wasn't like the kind of underground hit he was kind of wanting it to be. - Sure, I'm not gonna feel too bad for Quentin Tarantino for that though. - Right, I was like, you had a hit on your hands from the jump buddy. - But he never got to cut his teeth in the way that some filmmakers got to. And it goes, yeah, it's easy for him to say that now, but he's kind of like, oh, I wish I had to scrape and scrap like other people did, which, okay. - Okay. - It's okay, it's a, you know what, it's a great white privilegey male thing to say. - Yes, but Rodriguez had always wanted to go and do those kinds of films that inspired him to become a filmmaker to begin with, you know, his start, he did have that experience, you know, he did Almeriachi, but which was made for like $7,000. - Sounds such a good movie. - But then Studio got it and they were like, hey, like we love this, like let's market the fuck out of it. So the idea for a double feature, which was seemingly payback for Miramax splitting kill bill into two features, came to Rodriguez and Tarantino when the latter would set up screenings of old grindhouse flicks in his house, I guess, but complete with the requisite sleazy trailers for other movies before and between films. So like this final product, he would show some trailers at a movie and then some more trailers and a second movie and Rodriguez had the idea of we should recreate this experience for movie govers. - Genius. - They officially started planning the films in order to use creative music for the kill bill films, which by the way, I don't know if y'all remember the kill bill volume two. - I didn't know that. - Well, so there's a song that plays over the credits, the end credits of kill bill volume two, it's Malagania Salerosa from the band Chingon, but that's Robert Rodriguez's band. - Yeah. - I carry okay that a lot, even though I cannot speak all the Spanish. (all laughing) But also because Rodriguez had Tarantino be a guest director for a sequence in Sin City, which is the scene when Mickey Work talks to Benicio del Toro's severed head in the car. - Oh yeah. - So they had, I mean, obviously they were already friends, but they had just like worked together and like talked about a lot of stuff. And so they could do this because they understood each other. - And they had clout for days, right. So they suggested they each make their own exploitation epics and put them together. And thus, Grindhouse was born. And Rodriguez had an opportunity to revisit his zombie film. And the main thing he added was the idea for a dancer who loses her leg to the infected. - Genius. - It's a good hook. - Well, 'cause it's not at the machine gun part yet, he just had dancer lose his leg. - Right. - Okay. So they didn't wanna just imitate the old Grindhouse style, notable not just for excessive blood, sex, violence and gore, but also again for those explosive trailers and strikingly visual posters that unfortunately, the films themselves would never lived up to. The posters were always better in the movie themselves. And so their goal was to make something that actually lived up to the posters. - Oh, by the way, I disagree with that. There's plenty of good Grindhouse movies that also have amazing posters. - Right, right. I was sitting here thinking of like all of the, you know, again, the things that I went back and watched as a young teenager after seeing this, that it was referencing and being like, oh yeah, that's dope. - Well, those are right because the posters are fantastic, but I would say there's more than a few really, really fucking good Grindhouse movies. - Well, those are right because it's word, it's not mine. So. - No, Trace, eat them. - Months later, they were working on one of the fake trailers that would run between the two films and add authenticity to the experience. And Rodriguez realized he was going about the project all wrong. He was too excited about the Planet Terror movie itself and not thinking like a true Grindhouse all tour who would focus on the trailer first and the film second. And so that's where the one-legged dancer came back into play. He started thinking that he needed some images that would really get an audience to want to come see a movie. And so one day he was stuck in traffic on the way to meet with some video game company in Orange County. And he suddenly got a flash that instead of having his one-legged dancer just have a peg leg that she had to have a machine gun leg. And that would be the image on his poster. - Oh my God, which is fucking great. What I love is too, again, people that didn't get this movie, they were like, "How does she even shoot the gun?" And I was like, "Oh my God, it doesn't matter." - It doesn't matter. - Suspend your disbelief, guys. It doesn't matter that you could shoot multiple things, like sometimes it's a machine gun and other times it's a rocket launcher. - Right, it doesn't matter. - It doesn't matter. - It doesn't matter, it's cool. - Yes, right, that's all it is. - It's cool. That is the defining element of these movies. - Why? - Because it's cool. - Right. - But of course, it wasn't just plot that would give them the old grindhouse field. They wanted to replicate the look of the films. And this is the one thing I'll say about Death Proof and save the rest for our eventual episode on it. But people always comment on how Death Proof didn't retain the distressed look of Planet Terror. You know, they're like, "Oh, Rodriguez really did the job "and like made like a bad movie." But then Tarantino cheated and made a good-looking good movie. But this was obviously intentional. Tarantino, in his words, shot his in the traditional style of the time while Rodriguez used technological wizardry to make his film look like old exploitation fair. - Yeah, it's just two different approaches. - Right, and there's always that famous anecdote where they were shooting one of the trailers or one of the shorts that eventually became a trailer and they dragged the film around a parking lot after to give it that look, you know? - You gotta go the extra mile. - So speaking, so Planet Terror has 450 special effects. A lot of them are invisible when you don't notice them right away. And I'll go through a couple of them during the plot because Rodriguez, I didn't know this 'cause I guess I'll go through the bonus features on Rodriguez films enough, but a staple of his Blu-Razes, he does a 10-minute film school feature on all of them. And he'll go through specific sequences or special effects and just say, "This is how I did this." And he does that for Planet Terror. So I got a lot of details on that. But the aging effect is a series of layers of real film print damage, artifacts, dust passes, scratches and reusing different brightness levels. There's some other trickery to keep it random. So it doesn't look like you're watching the same effect over and over and over, but it wasn't really cosmetic. He wasn't just like, "Okay, let me just do this." He consciously thought about what kinds of distress he was going to do for each scene. So he would use the aging for dramatic effects, you know? So big action sequences, you'll notice the film gets more deteriorated. And once the threat disappears, so do a lot of the scratches. - Right. - 'Cause it's not being rewound numerous times because people love that sequence. - Mm-hmm. Or when the film turns red during the elevator scene when Tarantino's rapist character is, you know, being rapey, there's also a splice. Any time someone does a chopping motion or a punching motion. So when we have that picture of the dick that's all pussed out and they both just go like with their hands, the film splices at that point. - I mean, that is the funniest thing 'cause I remember a bunch of criticisms and I'm sure Trace, you'll get to the scores and how little money this movie actually made. But a lot of people felt that this was just juvenile, bro antics and they really didn't appreciate any of the craftsmanship that went into making both of the films. - Yeah, I think a lot of people just didn't think it was intentional. I mean, they knew it was intentional, but they were just like, "Oh, it's easy to do that." When it's like, "Um." - It's not. - No. - It's not easy. I couldn't do it. - No. - Yeah, so another thing is that Rodriguez and Tarantino realized they were putting too much of their movies on the screen. And so in those old grindhouse theaters, prints of the film were often moved from town to town, damaging them or sometimes losing entire segments. And a lot of times these were sex scenes because the theater owners would keep them for reasons. - They're on the purpose of seeing Pearl. - But the directors decided they'd each cut a portion of their films out, leaving viewers to wonder what happened in the missing reel. This is a funny anecdote from Tarantino's screening nights because he was showing a movie. It was something with Oliver Reed. And he said that had a missing reel and he announced it, but before he showed the movie, he was like, "It's really interesting because after the missing reel, you don't know if the guy I'm assuming Oliver Reed slept with a girl or not because she says he did and he says he didn't. It leaves you guessing." And the movie still works with 20 minutes out of it. And that was what he found so fascinating. So Rodriguez decided to use his missing reel in a way where it actually says missing reel. And when we come back, we're all of a sudden in the third act with no idea how we got there, but who cares? And it still works, I would argue. - It does. - I think it's funny. - Also, everyone in that barbecue restaurant suddenly has on like completely different outfits. - Yes. - They're all those silly different guns and it takes me out every time. - Oh, I love it. - I think it's so funny. It's one of the biggest gags, the funniest gags in the movie for me. Yes. Okay, so heavy stuff now. So with casting, Rodriguez was dating Rose McGowan at the time. After the Me Too movement started, he said in an interview that he cast her because he knew that it would enrage Harvey Weinstein because Harvey Weinstein did not want her to be in the film since he, I'm using air quotes around this, allegedly sexually assaulted her years earlier and blacklisted her from being in any Miramax related film. And he knew he could get away with this, he meaning Rodriguez because he knew that Bob Weinstein would tell Harvey to fuck off if he tried to screw with his dimension label films. (laughing) - We love a power play. - As a consequence, however, Rodriguez said that Harvey deliberately slashed the ad budget for the film in a successful effort to hurt it at the box office. - I remember this was almost public knowledge within a couple of weeks after the movie coming out and not doing well. - But not because of that. I mean, yeah, he said like, Harvey slashed the budget. - Yes, exactly. People knew that all of a sudden it seemed like, oh, they didn't advertise this as much as we thought they were going to or it seemed like they were in the lead up to it. Now, here's the thing. In her 2018 memoir Brave, McGowan accused Rodriguez of exploiting her, saying she felt faster Rodriguez. They met in April of 2005 and trusted him enough to tell him about being raped by Weinstein, only for him to use the knowledge against her. So once in the scene where her character's being attacked by the rapist played by Quentin Tarantino and then by selling the film to Weinstein from the get-go. - Hmm, trash. - Well, so here's the thing. So Rodriguez then issued a public statement. I'm assuming this man had a press release and he said, well, hey, he has no will towards her and, you know, like he supports her, like, you know, especially all the things she does and like he supports the movement. But he said, hey, she signed on to the script that was filmed and that sequences where McGowan's character was threatened with sexual assault were there to then set up her attacking and killing predatory men. And also he didn't sell the film to Harvey. They had a first look on his next project and he owed them two more after that. So Grindhouse, Spy Kids 4 and Sin City 2 fulfills his obligations to them. But in this statement, he also goes to the complete timeline of development and McGowan's involvement, saying that there was ample time for Rose to decide not to be in a film funded by the Weinstein's and reject the movie and the script before shooting ever began. Going on to say that if she ever had a problem with making the movie for them, he would have completely understood, changed the role and cast someone else. - Yeah, it's situations like this where, and you all know that I'm an actor, it's situations like this where I'm like-- - Who has the power? - Right, and then how much was she almost relying on this? Because especially like pre the level of like internet casting we have right now, like I can self-tape for something and be cast in something in LA right now from Atlanta. And they just didn't have that then. And it really is who has the power, Joe, to not go on a tangent about it. It really is just who has the power, especially as a woman in the acting sphere. - Exactly, like it doesn't always have to be like a Nicholas Cage situation where he was in debt and it was contractually obligated to take everything he was in, but it's also like her career at that point too. Like how many options did she really have as well? - Exactly, she was literally blacklisted. - Exactly, and working with your boyfriend or working with someone you trust over working with another person, I'm assuming, especially given her history, like I would take the job, I don't blame her. - Yeah, I think though it's the, I have one more pivot that I'll say after I say this, but it's more of a thing where it's like, you know, she says, "Oh, I told him this like in confidence." And then he used that in the script. And so, like, that's a question mark for you. And so, you know, she knew it was gonna be in there before she agreed to do it, but here's the thing though. He says that the Tarantino scene was in every draft of the script since the first draft issued to cast and crew, which was dated January 24th, 2006. But he met McGowan in April of 2005. So, while I fully believe, yes, like she knew this is going to be in there after she had the script, and so she could have not taken the part, it also sounds like based on this timeline, she told him, and then he wrote the script. - Yes, exactly. - That's what I was gonna say. It's that little tidbit after where I'm always kind of giving him this side eye because of that timeline, 'cause I'm a huge Rose McGowan fan. Like, I read her book and I was like, yeah. - And it could be, and if I'm being very generous and really trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, it could be a thing where he was like, you know, oh, you had this bad experience, and I wanna kind of like help you through that and give you like this moment where you get to go back and attack and kill your abuser, but at the same time, and again, we don't know the conversations they had about this, but that seems like something you would maybe want to discuss with her when you're thinking about putting it into a movie, you know? - Yeah, maybe just, you know, run a buyer, just a quick five. - So, I don't think there was any ill intent here, but I do think again, it's murky waters. - Exactly, yeah. - Anyway, okay, Rodriguez wrote the part of Dakota Bloc specifically for Marley Shelton because he had worked with her in Sin City. She was the opening kill that Josh Hartner goes after. - Oh, right. - But she also auditioned for him for the faculty before he obviously didn't cast her, which I was like, I wonder if she would have been married. - She would've been married that. - That's what I was thinking, too, right? - Oh, she would've been great in that role, too. - Oh, hell yeah. - I love Marley Shelton. I really wish she did more movies nowadays, but she's fantastic in Planet Terror. She also actually has hyper-flexible risk because she can move her wrists in a bizarre way, so she said that she was, so like the whole useless talent thing that comes into play for Cherie, she was like, that was actually me with this film. - Love. - With Josh Brolin, though, so he had been trying, Rodriguez had been trying to work with Josh Brolin for a while, and they were apparently texting a lot, like back and forth, like, oh my God, like, what about this, what about this? And Rodriguez pitched in Planet Terror and Brolin agreed immediately 'cause he's like, this is gonna be so fun, but he has this really great quote on a featurette on the Blu-ray. He goes, other movies, you go, what is this? What does this mean? Is this a good character with this? I don't give a fuck. - Also the right attitude to take for this movie. - Oh, heck yeah. - Filming took place from March to July of 2006 with Rodriguez serving as writer, director, composer, cinematographer, and co-editor. - He doesn't know. - Yeah, he's, Jack of all trades, that one. Apparently Tarantino was on set a lot, but this is not a Steven Spielberg, Toby Hooper poltergeist situation. Planet Terror is 100% Rodriguez's baby. Also fun fact, Rodriguez, like, so before production begins, he gets his actors and he shoots video rehearsals with them on like a camcorder to kind of show them, like, oh, this is the kind of what the scene is gonna look like at the M. And he quickly edits his, like, rough footage together to show them what it's gonna look like. And again, there's no production here. It's like, hey, like, we're in a garage, dude, like, acted out for me, I'm gonna shoot it. But he also does this for anything that's going to be time-consuming, he does this to save time in post-production. - That's a very interesting approach. Wow, I didn't know this, and now I'm, like, trying to picture how that works. I guess on, like, a day-to-day, when you have that much on your plate. - If you watch, if you have the Blu-ray of Planet Terror, you can watch the feature, right? I think it's on the 10-minute film school one. And it's the scene whenever Josh Brolin stabs Dakota, Marley Chilton with all the needles, which drops the phone with the sidekicks. That's what we see him filming with them and, like, showing. And this is what it's going to look like. - Side note, until that scene, I did not know this was supposed to be set in present day. I was like, why does she have a cell phone? - Sidekick, too. - Yeah, oh, listen. My sidekick slide got much use around this time. I was a sidekick, girly. - This, honestly, that moment, I know we're jumping ahead now, but that moment to me felt tantamount to the conversation we had about beepers and swimband trays, where I was just like, yeah, this is a piece of archaic technology that we will have to explain to future generations. - Oh, my God, not the beeper, right? - And also, okay, so, you know, technology can be used to kind of like, I can find it with a stage five, where you're like, oh, like, they're using old phones. Like, that's how you know it's a prequel. In screen four, when we were doing the whole step five, six, seven, like one, two, three punch. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - In the first one, in step five, they're using a sidekick and screen four came out in 2011. So that's supposed to tell you, oh, this is from a movie that takes place, like, in the mid-2000s, 'cause that's in step five. - Yeah. - I think I'm out. - Well, that's why I always admire about it follows, is that the technology they have in it is not, it's asynchronous to any other timeline, 'cause I'm always lusting after that shell. - That fucking clown show. - Reader slash, yeah. - Yeah, whatever phone reader, I don't even know what, that she has, I'm always like, I need it. So there wasn't a ton of trouble with the MPAA shockingly. They did want Rodriguez to cut down on a scene when someone's brain was getting eaten. So he actually obliged and added more aging, which he thought in the final cut makes it look more violent than if he just left it in like showing the brain getting eaten. - I love that. - Agreed. Anytime we can fuck with those assholes, it's like, just do it. - Yes. - So we also get the fake trailers in Grindhouse, and we'll save the three that air between planet terror and death proof for our death proof episode, but since Machete precedes planet terror and was made by Rodriguez, we'll cover that here. Rodriguez actually wrote the entire Machete film back in 1993 as a full feature for Danny Trejo. - Amazing. - He had just cast him in Desperado and he envisioned him having his own series of Mexican exploitation movies like Charles Bronson or Jean-Claude Van Damme. So he wrote this idea of a Federale from Mexico who gets hired to do hatchet jobs in the US. And I didn't know this, the idea came from, he heard that sometimes when the FBI or the DEA has a really tough job that they don't want to get their own agents killed on, they'll hire an agent from Mexico to do the job for $25,000. - Jesus. - That's so low. - Absolutely. And I'm so glad you brought this up, Trace, because him saying that Danny Trejo is the Mexican Jean-Claude Van Damme sends me every time because I see the vision and I can't help but agree. But I also love that he had had a full script from Machete written since 1983. That is wild to me. - Well, to me, that just shows that he understands the power of Danny Trejo, right? - Yeah. - Well, and here's the thing. So, you know, obviously, Machete does become a full, like feature and the first Machete, which came out in 2010, gross $20 million more than Grindhouse did. - Yeah. - Wow. - I remember it being profitable. People like that one. - I will say, Machete kills is not a good movie, but I do still think it's very entertaining. I actually think this might be a contract. I think Amber Heard's really good in it. (laughing) - Not controversial for at least us. Yeah, we like her, so. - Yeah. - As always, we can talk about a performance versus a person instead of a person. - Correct. - I fully agree. I just feel like nowadays, like if you mention either Amber Heard or Johnny Depp, like someone's got their pitchforks out for you. - Oh, listen. Yeah, you should see our mentions after talking about, like, I briefly mentioned Skeleton Key in a episode that was like, damn it. - Oh, Skeleton Key. - Ah. - That is a prime bloody broads-type film. - Correct, yes, yes it is. - So, speaking of money, Planet Terror was released in theaters as, of course, the first film in the Grindhouse Double Bill. So, you know, you bought a ticket to Grindhouse, not Planet Terror for any of you young and who didn't, don't understand this concept, and we're gonna lie for it. The total runtime of Grindhouse was three hours and 11 minutes, which by the way, is three minutes shorter than Titanic. - That's right. (laughing) - It was not onerous to sit through people. If anything, it felt like a fucking epic that you were just like, oh, well, that's my Friday night settled. - Listen, this is also where I always chime in with I grew up with Bollywood. They have intermissions for a reason, three hour movies. Like, you know, you could just gotta train your butts. You just gotta do it. It's seven minutes shorter than Wolf of All Street. So, like, yeah. - I think honestly, though, here's the thing. I'm gonna, I don't think the runtime was the issue. I think it was the concept of watching two movies in a row that people didn't like. - Absolutely, it's a psychological trick. It's the same way that you have people who won't watch an hour and 30 minute movie now, but they'll marathon a TV show. - Yup. - And, like, the age. - A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Although, I guess it's flipped, though, from what it was with the Grindhouse. - Have you just marketed this as, like, drive-in only or something like that? Like, I feel like more people would have seen it because the whole thing about going to a drive-in is a double bill with trailers. - Well, and let's not forget that, like, classic Hollywood cinema back in the heyday, like the 40s, 50s, this is what we did. We had an A picture and a B picture with newsreels and animated shorts and all this other shit. So, it's like, it's not even a Grindhouse principle that just changed the content of the double bill. - Yeah. - Yeah, they just made it more adult and gross. - Right. - Exactly. - Yeah, and see, 'cause Austin, I mean, I lived in Houston at the time, so I didn't live in Austin yet, but like, Austin has drive-in theaters, and I can only imagine that Rodriguez is hosting, like, screenings of this at drive-insare. - Amazing. - But the budget for the entire endeavor, which, okay, it's somewhere between 53 and $67 million for both films for all of Grindhouse. - It is a lot of money, though. - But, so Planet Terror costs $23 million, which means that Death Proof is the more expensive film? - It's between somewhere between $30 and like $45 million is how much Death Proof costs. But I actually think the gap, I'm wondering if they're adding like, marketing or something to that, because whenever I see a gap like that, I'm like, okay, maybe they're saying, maybe that's what the marketing costs. I don't know. - Maybe this could be slightly controversial, but I also think that Rodriguez knows how to shoot fast and cheap. - Oh, yeah. - That or than Tarantino does. - Yeah. - That's not controversial, that is a fact. Yes. (laughing) - I'm not just talking out-book, because obviously Rodriguez has more films than Tarantino, but like, I get the impression that he's very much, you know, that's why we did the rehearsals in my garage, because I know exactly how I'm gonna shoot it, I know how I'm gonna cut it, whereas I think Tarantino's more deliberate and Rodriguez is like fast loops and so on. - I could see that, but I could also think that like, you know, Robert Rodriguez knows his art and he knows how to work, it's smart, not hard. - If you're all curious, I might recommend reading Robert Rodriguez's 1995 book, Rebel Without a Crew, or how a 23-year-old filmmaker with $7,000 became a Hollywood player. And this book was also loosely adapted into the 2019 film Red 11, which was also written and directed by Rodriguez, but it's about like a boy trying to like, get out of $7,000 of debt and like make a movie. And so it's based on Rodriguez's experiences making Elmeriachi. - I've never heard of the film, I've definitely heard of a book. - It did South by Southwest in 2019. - Yeah, I was gonna say I've heard of the film, but that is very interesting. I love a good nonfiction and I love a memoir style book, so that's going on in the TV. - Well, I think at the very least, 'cause I know a lot of like burgeoning filmmakers who really again, like previous guest, Eric Lawrence, who was on our "Tay Me and the T-Rex" episode, he like looks at a lot of like what Robert Rodriguez does, his inspiration for his own filmmaking style, 'cause he's also a burgeoning filmmaker out in LA. - Oh no, it's bottom. - Yeah, so okay, Grindhouse was released over Easter weekend on April 6th, 2007, and placed fourth with $11.5 million, and this place behind Blades of Glory and Meet the Robinson's, both in their second week of release. - Oh my God. - Third place was that weekend's other new release, Are We Done Yet? Which is the sequel to Are We There Yet? (laughs) - Oh my God. - Okay, that one I don't remember. - The first two were scoffing, but they were big movies. - Yeah, they were huge. 'Cause I saw Meet the Robinson's in theaters. - And Blades of Glory's Will Ferrell, so. - Yeah, it's the iconic, you know. What does that mean? Nobody knows what it means. It gives the people go and that then gets used in, you know. The Kanye West song and like all of these pop culture moments, but it's really interesting to me because inflation-wise, basically just add $10 million to everything we just talked about, and that's what it would be worth in today's money. And when you put it that way, yeah, when you put it that way, I'm like damn. (laughs) - Well, but then do the same thing to the budgets though. - Exactly, exactly. - Question for you folks. Do you think that Easter release weekend? Like to me, that doesn't seems. - Okay, wait. - Correct. - So here's the other thing. So the other new release that weekend was the Hilary Swank Dark Castle film The Reaping, which is about the 10 plagues. - Oh yeah. - So that movie did place behind Grindhouse. It plays fifth with $10 million, but then I had to look this up. The Reaping had a budget of $40 million. - Why is this on the cross? - Right, like, unintended. - No, no, that weekend it was Christ off the cross. - Right. (laughs) - So like you had four new releases. I'm sorry, three new releases. You know, one was a religious horror film. One was Grindhouse. One was a family film starring. I think it's Ice Cube. And then, you know, Will Ferrell and Animation still in theaters from the weekend before. - Yeah. - Jeez. - Grindhouse would go on to gross $25 million domestically and 384,000 internationally for a worldwide gross of $25.4 million making it a monstrous box office flop. So here's the thing though, and I didn't know this. So because of how it performed in the States, they started to, and the reason the international gross is so low for Grindhouse. - They pulled it, didn't it? - They released them separately in other countries. So here's the thing. Planet Terror on its own gross $11.4 million overseas, but for comparison, death proof on its own gross $31 million overseas. - Yeah, I could see that. - And I know, yeah, Tracy might have notes on this, but I know that to kind of harken to what they would do with Grindhouse and then like hammer horror films back in the day, they would recut British trailers with an American narrator so that Americans didn't know they were British films until they'd go see them. - Yeah, again, hammer horror was like 60s through 70s. And I know that in the UK, this was widely received as like a run for more money to release them separately instead of altogether here in America. - Well, they were trying to recoup. - Well, and honestly, I think that was in hindsight, a smart idea, but I mean, nevertheless, even though it flopped, reviews were extremely positive. Grindhouse has an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 7.4 out of 10, weirdly enough because Planet Terror and Deathproof also have their own individual things. So Planet Terror on its own has 77% with an average score of 6.3 out of 10, which is too low. Letterbox users have given Grindhouse a 7.4 out of 10 and Planet Terror on its own a 6.8 out of 10. - Hmm, criminal still low. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Well, I think for a lot of people, this is just B-movie schlock. And I'll confess that when I look at the two movies in comparison, like this is the one that I don't like quite as much. So Jamie, you and I are the inverse, but you know, rewatching the film, you realize, oh, there's a lot of really fucking good shit in here. And if you just dismiss it outright as a silly zombie film, I think you're kind of missing a lot of the humor and the craftsmanship. - But yeah, so apparently like for the weeks and months after this movie came out, like box office analysts, like critics were like flummics. Like what went wrong here? And you know, we already have Rederbeg and Tarantino's answers, I've already answered them here. But I mean, at the end of the day, you know, it's a cult film now. Yeah. - It was a cult film after the Friday. - Yes. - Yeah, it was a cult I willingly joined and never left. - A hundred percent, a hundred percent. But all right, Joe, what happens in this movie? - All right, so I'm going to make reference to one article. I kept this short because I know there's four of us and we all have plenty to say, but I'm going to bring in occasionally Enrique Garcia's piece called Planetaire Redux, Miscegenation and Family Apocalypse from his book Critical Approaches to the Films of Robert Rodriguez. All right, so we open with a old school Distress Dimension logo. And then we have Cherry Darling, who is played by Rose McGowan, dancing and crying at Skip's Go-Go-Go Club. So then we move it into the dressing room, and this is where we're introduced to Skip himself, who is played by Skip Riceyge. And he reminds Cherry that it's Go-Go, not cry cry. So she gives him the finger and grabs her bye-bye slip as she quits. - The guy playing Skip, by the way, is Robert Rodriguez's realtor. - Oh, okay. - And we do get a moment of a queer representation in this opening scene with the two women making out. And he says, if you're going to do that shit, do it on stage. (laughing) - So how do we feel about this? Because this is very much, oh, we're just putting lesbianism in for like the exploitation factor. But again, I don't care, because that's what the movie is. - I know, but we get more of it later, just implied. - That's the interesting thing. So the Stacey Ferguson, the Fergie character, Tammy was originally Tommy based on his friend, Tommy. And then he was like, wait a minute. This is an exploitation grindhouse movie. Like let's make it a lesbian and it changed Tommy to Tammy. (laughing) - It made it better, to be honest. - It made it much better. - And also just like her opening dance (laughing) I pull, and it's so funny. 'Cause I've wanted to do something like an homage to this intro so many times, but she doesn't actually do anything on the whole. - No. - So Go On Girl, give us nothing. - It's the way, it's when she like moves her legs, like she has one like extended and one like out, but then she like kind of rotates them. Like that's kind of like the move for me and her Go Go dance. - Yeah, like in the pantheons of pole dancing within the genre umbrella, is this above or below Lindsay Lohan? And I know who killed me. - Oh, it's above that. There's at least an energy here. - It's above that. She does one singular fireman spin, which is like a basic spin, and I'll give her that. But everything else is all like what you do to warm up the crowd before you ask for tips. - But it's also, again, it's Go Go dancing. It's not stripping. So is she supposed to use the pole? - I don't know. - I mean, it's for a reason. - But I think that's because there's also strippers there. Like she's a Go Go dancer that maybe warms up the crowd for the strippers. - And she says that, right? She says it's stripping not, or sorry, it's Go Go dancing not stripping. There's a difference. I mean, it's verbatim what she says, but I mean, I think people would be, maybe people wouldn't be shocked. I don't know. I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that a lot of actual strippers and dancers are queer. They're bi, if not outright gay, which makes their job a lot easier. (both laughing) - Just like disavow themselves of men. - Yeah, pretty much. But yeah. - And I have to see the lap dancing in the other film was better than the dancing in this one. Sorry. Sorry Robert Rodriguez. Tarantino's got this one. - I mean, I don't know if Robert Rodriguez choreographed this dance. - Yeah, I hope not. (both laughing) - I believe it was intentional. There was supposed to be maybe this uneventful of a dancer. To me, this is more about how he shoots it. It's more about the style. And again. - Absolutely. - The style was flawless. - The tongue touching the mirror. - I was just about to say that, Trace, down to her licking the mirror and at that point, the score swells and the horns and the score almost sound like they're coming out of her mouth. - Yes. - The score is fantastic in this movie. - And that's his score too. - Yeah. - Of course it is. - He understood the assignment. - Yes. - Okay, so after she quits, Cherry does go out onto the highway and she nearly gets run over by a fleet of passing military trucks and she ends up getting her leg not insignificantly cut up. - Oh, there's like a shrapnel in her leg. (both laughing) - It's like a four inch piece of glass that I'm like, yeah, you know what? After I get a four inch piece of glass, I too walk three miles and booted heels to a barbecue joint. - Yup. - Yeah, sure, why not? Right in the middle of my thigh, why don't you? - This is what you do in Texas, I guess. Okay, so as she limps away, we transition to a nearby military base where we're introduced to Abby, who is played by Naveen Andrews. He is there to cut off the balls of Romy, who was played by Giulio Oscar Machoso and so begins the frat boy fascination with balls for this character. (both laughing) 'Cause this would have been like peak lost and so like-- - Mm hmm, nature was. - I remember seeing Naveen Andrews being like, what an interesting role for this man to take. - I know, I promise. What a side quest and it's so funny that you say it's a frat boy fascination with balls, Joe, because I read it as very homoerotic. - Oh yes. - Yeah, I mean the fact that we're often doing the ball stuff in and around the military to me seems very purposeful. - Oh absolutely. - A hundred percent. And again, there's some real good jokes here, you know? I want your balls, I'm really quite attached to them. (both laughing) - Also the perfectly shaped shears that have like a pocket for the sack. - Okay, it's like, is that custom made? - It has to have been, but like my legs cross every time I say that thing because I would rather you just take a butcher knife and like slice them off, but like that thing is serrated in a way that I'm like, that's gonna take some twists and turns to get your balls off. Like you can't sew that back on once you use that, you know? - And can we talk about the jar of balls that he holds up, they're like in that substance? - And you know, I think admittedly, like if you don't know what you're coming into watching this movie, this may be- - This tells you. - And this is either very stupid or it's too gross. I mean, look, the gag when they break and Naveen Andrews like falls face- - Face-to-face plans. - Onto a ball. - Yeah. - It's so fucking funny, but I can see any casual audience member being like, you know, not watching this. - Right. - And traces this when your walkouts begin. - There were no walkouts in my theater like in the one I was watching. - Blades of Glory came out that weekend. This was like the height of frat boy, dumb shit humor. - Yeah. - 'Cause isn't that all about like a figure skating where you got one man's face and another man's crotch as you're trying to see your heels and shit? Come on. - Yep, yep. And like I'm pretty sure like Anchorman didn't come out too much either before or after this. Like it's all that stuff and I'm like, so it's not just this movie. It's everybody. We were all laughing at balls. So if people walked out 'cause of that, weak. - I just, again, I think it's too gross for people. I think it's way too gross for people. 'Cause also I wrote in my notes too when we start shooting people, like the squibs are like-- - The charts. - They're so overloaded with blood. It's so ridiculous. And they have to be hollow point bullets. I don't know how much y'all know about shooting, but like my God, I was like, these are massive squibs for what I'm assuming are handguns. - Right. (both laughing) - Yeah, so we are introduced to Lieutenant Muldoon, Bruce Willis, who I always forget is in this movie. - Same. (both laughing) - So he arrives and he believes that Abby is holding out on him. And for casual audiences, we have no fucking idea what is going on with this transaction right now. So he thinks that Abby is holding out on something. Abby looks like he's about to get pinned down, executed, held hostage, whatever. So he ends up shooting a bunch of weird looking devices that have kind of green mist attached to them. And when he shoots them, they release the mist and they turn casual people into flesh-eating zombies, but they seem to be attracting these soldiers who immediately go into it. And the face peeling, this guy just ripps off his own face. If this movie is so gooey, yes. Which is great for us and terrible for you, Trace. (both laughing) - I was gonna say, we like it 'cause we like Cronenberg, so. - I can handle face peeling off because again, it's just blood and skin, it's the popping stuff that I can't do, but I also, again, like with the balls, like Abby just tries to collect them, recollect them. Like to what end, what is your fascination? It's everyone in this movie has at least one weird character, quirk or trait. And I love that we just keep bringing them back, but make no effort to explain them. It's like, why the balls? Just because that's his thing. - Yep. - Don't question it, he doesn't have his balls. - Exactly. Okay, so Abby takes off as the military men are distracted, but we do see that this mist, this green mist, is going off into the atmosphere. So it is out there now. - Mm-hmm. - We transition over to the bone shack restaurant as we see Tammy, who is played by Fergie. Her car has broken down and so she is collecting spring water from JT, who was played by Jeff Fahey. - Also from Lost. - Right, yes. (both laughing) - That's connection. - JJ lending a hand. - But also Psycho III. - Yes, of course. - Those gorgeous teeth. - Please tell me I'm not the only one that just loves a good Texas Chainsaw Massacre to homage because this whole section, I was dying. - Mm-hmm. I have Fergie's delivery of not-a-good spring water, like just ingrained in my head. (both laughing) - Well, I'm curious, did you folks, if you remember this, did you think at the time that the spring water, because we keep seeing shots of the dam behind the bone shack restaurant, did you think that it was gonna be something was in the water? And that was what was turning people? - Yes, 100%. I kept thinking like, oh, he's something in that is like turning people or he's disposing of bodies that way, like something. Yeah. - Which would have made sense, though, because cabin fever and quintetrentino, notably, was like a huge champion of cabin fever. - Exactly. - He's like walking under his wing, so. - Mm-hmm. In any case, it doesn't really come to anything, but it is an interesting visual that we keep cutting back. - Well, again, logic doesn't mean anything, but like, it is airborne, but some people don't. It's like, oh, you just need to get bit, but like, well, how did the original people get it? I don't know, I don't know. - Yeah, because there's three specimens that we learn escape. That's why Jonesy has to be eliminated by Abby. So, presumably, those people go out and begin infecting a bunch of other people. - I guess because we constantly see the green gas, I was like, okay, so it's gas, it's airborne, whatever, but whatever. - I think it's probably both. - Yeah, and I do love that when we're having that confrontation where Abby's asking where his subjects are. It's just the most Roger Rabbit cartoonish. Like, they clearly broke out of the cage. The bars are like bent in this very-- - Yes. - Like, chalk body outline way. - Yeah, I'm actually glad you said Roger Rabbit 'cause there is kind of a cartoonishness to this that-- - Oh, yeah. - That's why I think, oh, it's so gory, it's so gross. I'm like, yeah, but it's so over-the-top cartoon. - It's cartoony. - Yeah, it really is. - Yeah. So, JT and Tammy both check out Cherry as she limps by en route to using the bathroom to clean herself up. - And doesn't JT say something like, that's like a prime kind of rump roast or something? - Yeah, that's a rump roast. - There we go, crump roast. - JT has some, they're almost like dad jokes, but like, he has some of the best one-liner dad jokes in this movie. - I really like Jeff Fehe in this film. You know, I think you could argue that if you like any of these people, there isn't quite enough of them unless you're a fan of the central romance, but I think he acquits himself really well with what little screen time he actually gets. - Yes, I mean, I wanna know his recipe. - Wow, you'll never get that. It's either blood or salt, right? That's the magical ingredient. - It's Chekhov's barbecue recipe throughout the whole thing. - And actually, the full scenes that are cut in the grindhouse version of this are Jeff Fehe scene. So like, there's a series where he cuts barbecue and he feeds it to his dog and then he walks outside and there's like two zombies there and he's like, you're gonna come in or you're gonna eat? That's not in the grindhouse cut. - No, they're so funny when he calls the police and he's like, there's two delinquents standing outside, they won't come in, but they won't leave. You gotta purchase. - So good. All right, so let's introduce a few more characters. We've got Dr. William Block, who is played by Josh Brolin and his anesthesiologist wife, Dr. Dakota Block, Marley Shelton. And I love that they're waking up at eight p.m. because they are working the night shift at the hospital. But they also have this young son, Tony, who was played by Rubble Rodriguez, Robert Rodriguez's son. So it's like, has he just been up or does he also keep midnight hours? I have so many questions about the child rearing. - No idea. I mean, these are not good parents, but also one of the funniest laughs for me is when he's just playing with his toys. I'm going to eat your brains in Kenya now. - I'm not. (all laughing) - I sing that all the time. And everyone's always like, what the fuck is that for? - You know what's weird though? Like the callback to it when Josh Brolin says it later, that's not the grindhouse cut. - What? - Yeah, I know. They keep the kids version of it, but they don't have the Josh Brolin's callback in the grindhouse cut. - But it's so perfectly delivered. - I know. (all laughing) - We should also note that this film has great production value. So like the sets are always really visually interesting. I quite like a lot of the costuming as well, but I did notice the fun little touch here where Tony is eating great white bites, which is a shark cereal. (all laughing) But these scenes also very much confirmed that Dr. Dakota is not in a happy marriage. Her husband is very authoritarian. She is mildly afraid of him, but she is plotting to meet up with somebody. We don't know who, but they are supposed to come and pick up Tony from the babysitter later so that they can make an escape. - Marley Shelton's giving like real femme fatale energy for a lot of this movie. And I, honestly, I think she's my MVP of this. I just-- - Oh, yeah. - Oh, yeah. - And she, the physical comedy she gets to do, it's just Rose McGowan is fantastic in this movie, but I think Marley Shelton kind of steals the movie for me. - Oh yeah, she like does not break once. Like she's just in, and I love that for her in this. - All right, so we follow a transition from Dakota's tap to Cherry treating herself in the bathroom. And then she comes out and discovers that what we will come to realize is her ex-boyfriend Elle Ray, played by Freddie Rodriguez, is there. And they catch up about her failed attempt to become a doctor, her burgeoning stand-up career. And then he eventually agrees to give her a ride. - I do love their exchange where she's like, "Everyone wants me to be a stand-up comedian." And he says, "But you're not funny." And she's like, "That's what I keep saying." And she's one of the best like, yeah, just the most deadpan, like, I don't know. And there is that moment, I mean, especially as a woman where I'm like, okay, how much it, it's almost like I have impostor syndrome where I'm like, how much of this is my talent? And how much of this is like guys who wanna get in with me telling me I'm good at what I do. - A hundred percent. I do wanna give some credit to Freddie Rodriguez. Only because he is so sexy. - I agree. - Oh my God, I was like, where has he been all the, 'cause you know, I watched him on Six Feet Under and this is like his first bit actually. - But it's such a completely different performance. - Oh, a hundred percent. And I was like, what has he been doing? He was on that show bowl for like six years. - What the hell? - Somehow I've blocked this out of my pop culture perception, I guess. - Well, 'cause it's the one where Aliza Dushku was on it and she like accused the guy playing bowl of like actually harassing her. And after all that went down, it was like the next season, the show runner and Freddie Rodriguez left the show and then it ended the season after. So he was on the first five seasons of Six of the Show and then it ended. - Yikers. - Wow, okay. - He's good in this movie. - He's also very handsome. - Very. - I know. - And very 2007 handsome. - I'm extremely. - He's handsome no matter the time period. I have a thing for short guys and he is filling that quota. (both laughing) - He looks great in the leather jacket when he occasionally gets to wear it. We should also note that his name, L. Ray, is obviously a reference to Robert Rodriguez's fictitious Mexican town from Dust Tildon. - Yes, yes. - And he is smoking apple brand cigarettes which is a Quentin Tarantino fixture. - I just kept expecting him to like, you know, say like, "Oh, my new metal band plays the bar on Saturdays." - Oh, he's too cool for a new metal band. - Yeah, but he looks the part, you know? - He does. He is the lead singer or the bassist, right? - I was gonna say the bassist. - Exactly. - The bassist. - Oh, he's that bassist that like sticks his tongue out while he's performing with the big eyes, trying to make himself look like a big scary man. - Oh, yeah. - I mean, I'm not gonna lie, when he does the gun thing later on. - Oh, yes. - It's a bit of a panty dropper. - I was gonna say. - Just a little bit. - Does it for me? I knew immediately what you were talking about and I immediately was like, "Yep." - Oh, yes. - Which is fun because we also get to see Dr. Dakota do it with her syringes and it's also a web handy dropper. - I love her little speech that she gets. - Yes, it's so, it's my own favorite part of the movie. It's so good. - My little friends, yes. All right, well, why don't we talk more about her then? So we move to the hospital and we see the blocks go their separate way. Again, the dialogue in this phone is so choice. So she goes, "Goodbye, Bill." And he goes, "Don't you mean see you later?" And she just goes, "Of course." And she's not even looking at him and just walks away. (laughing) - Oh, Marley Sheldon. - Okay, so Dr. Block, the male, goes to treat Joe, who is played by Nikki Cat. And he has a bite on his arm that we see getting progressively worse throughout the scene and the sequence. And eventually, yes, we do pop the black abscesses on Joe's tongue, and this erupts onto Dr. Block's glasses. - So gross. - It's how it also, it's on his glasses, but then it drips down his face, and I'm just like-- - Oh my God. And it looks like it was mixed with Frank's red hot. (laughing) - Yeah, if you like Dr. Pimble Popper videos on social media, this is the movie for you. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no. - No, no, no, this is worse. - I'm the opposite. Yeah, I'm the opposite of that. Like, I can't do any sort of, I don't know. I can do a lot of horror movie stuff, but anything that's like too oozy, ugh, just ugh. - I can do blackheads, I can't do like whiteheads. So I think the pop is what gets me, it's the pop. - Oh my God. - I hope no one's listening to this while they're eating. (laughing) (upbeat music) - Get three coffins ready, kid. Because our latest podcast, Make My Day, is venturing off into the wild and sprawling frontier that is Clint Eastwood's career. More movies than Stephen King has books and more genres than all of the franchises we've covered over at the Halloweenies. Now, I know what you're thinking. Do they really need to start another show? Well, to tell you the truth and all this excitement, I kinda lost track myself, but being this is a podcast, the most powerful medium in the world for pop culture conversation and Prince's output is infinite. You've gotta ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? Find out today and subscribe to Make My Day, a Clint Eastwood podcast now, wherever you get your audio. (upbeat music) - Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of really disgusting stuff in here, this is where we see the dick with the chronic hermetic lesions. - Hermetic, hermetic, 'cause it's her piece. - Oh, sorry. - I was like, hermetic is like, if you were hiding out from the world. - If it was sealed in, yeah. - Yeah, he had decayed from not using it. Oh my God. - Sorry, folks. This is when Notepad tries to sabotage the recording because it makes an authorized edits to things that I have written. - It's so funny, though. - It really is. But yes, this is when we get to see the dick and it looks disgusting, but we do make mention that these are images from soldiers in Iraq. - And this is revealed to be forecasting for the whole reason why this outbreak happened when Muldoon talks about his stint in Afghanistan. So we are very much saying, hey, soldiers who go off to war can basically be mistreated and/or forgotten about. - And also, here's some more balls. - And no. - Yes, but can we also talk about for a second, the effect that the Iraqi, operation Iraqi freedom for Americans had on the horror landscape because I feel like that's where we really started to get a lot of torture porn in the early 2000s. And it's always really interesting to me how this film avoids that while still making a sociopolitical statement. - Well, because that's the thing is like, if we're going to zoning on torture porn, like hostile, like hostile, they're, yes, you're right. They're a direct reaction to 9/11 and in war without ever directly referencing it. - So I love that this film at least has the ball. And maybe that's cause it's an exploitation film, right? So we're exploiting the war in this movie. - Right, well, taking the piss out of it. And I mean, I think this almost makes it safe to have the commentary because it's so over the top. - Absolutely, yeah. - Yeah, the other films are more of our response to it and that's almost why they want to hide it. They want to sneak the message in. - Agreed. - But all this to say, we do have to chop off Joe's arm. So we bring in Dakota and yes, this is her three friends. We have a yellow, a blue and a red needle. We should note that she has two sets of these, one in her pocket and another set on her garter belt. - And we also like, okay, let's talk about characters with their quirks. So Dr. Block, the male one, his tick is that he constantly checks his pulse and choose-- - With a thermometer. - With a thermometer, yeah. - But it doesn't, it looks like just a glass stick. It doesn't look like there's any mercury in it, but nevertheless, at least he says later, it helps me like determine my calmness or something. - Yeah, he's trying to stay calm in a obviously high stress situation, which I get, I could never be ER doctor, but-- - No. - I find it really interesting that he's just again, compulsively body checking in a way that's very socially acceptable for a man at the time to be doing that. - Yeah, like his quirk is acceptable because he's such a great doctor. Whereas, you know, we almost look down on her because she's just an anesthesiologist, but then also sexualizing her by showing the garter belt, even though it seems very obvious that she's really fucking good at her job. - Exactly. - I mean, she's a whole speech. - Mm-hmm, that's amazing. - The man just needed a smartwatch. It's only me. Yeah. - This is still the time of sidekicks. Do we have smartwatches yet? - No, but I mean, we have random gas emitting zombie disease. - So-- - Truly, that is true. So we cut back to Tammy. Her car has broken down, but not before we get a brief Easter egg, which is a memorial to Jungkul Julia on the radio. - Which, again, you know, if you're watching this for the first time, that's not gonna mean anything to you, which, that's kind of the thing with the grindhouse thing, you know, 'cause people were like, oh, like they should have showed them in the reverse order because Planet Tara's like this fun, exciting action movie, and Death Proop is like a slower burn of a film. But even narratively, it's like, oh, well, like if we did Death Proop first, we would know Jungkul-- who Jungkul Julia was before this, so, I don't know. - I'm curious, ladies, do you have an opinion of which film you think would have been better served going first? - Good question. Good question. I mean, I like to watch things in the order they're released, so I didn't mind watching it the original way, but-- - Right. - This one, you end with more of a bang, you know? - Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I see the vision. I understand why they ultimately decided to do the order they did, but as someone who prefers this film, I say do it first, and also it's psychologically proven that like, if you're trying to make an argument or a case, and you have to go back to back with someone presenting an argument or a case instead of or comparing two things, instead of doing a gap, you should go first, because then the audience has that first film or that first argument or that first example in their mind the entire time. But if you had a break, if they had had a intermission in between, they could have done whatever order they wanted to do it in, and the audience would have picked up on it. - Well, but would we not call the three trailers in between an intermission? - I would, I absolutely would, yeah. - And I went to, it was a double bill with Bill Pope when Edgar Wright was filming Scott Pilgrim versus the World, here he had a few, you know, movie double features that he hosted. And Bill Pope was a cinematographer on Scott Pilgrim, but he was also a cinematographer on Team America, and Army of Darkness, so that was the double bill. And I thought they were smart. Like, I thought, sorry, I didn't think they were smart because they did Team America First, which is what most people were there for. - Oh, and then everybody left, right. - And then everybody left, and then Army of Darkness was the second one, which I mean, was the main reason I was going, 'cause I'm like, I've never seen that movie on the big screen, and what better way to see it, right? 'Cause like, after the Q&A, after Team America, like, 'cause that was in between, like, you know, obviously everybody had questions about the sex scene and all that kind of stuff. But like, after that, so many people left. - Well, and so that's the thing is, I think, because this film is so fast paced and Death Proof is not, it's like you have your adrenaline going for the entirety of this movie, and it's like, it slows to a crawl for Death Proof, which I didn't mind it, but like, I could see what, I could see, I also saw, I think some people left during the trailers because they didn't know there was a second movie, but no, I'm telling, again, like, they literally did not know what this movie was. - And this was before the MCU was the MCU, so like, end credits, things were just for us learners. - Right, get up and leave. - Yeah. - Also, y'all will be happy to know the iPhone, the very first iPhone came out two months after this movie came out. - Wow. I'm good. - Okay, so coming back to Tammy, she has to abandon the car, so she makes her way down the highway, she is avoiding cars, and just when we think she might get picked up, she actually gets mauled and killed. - By Quentin Tarantino, by the way, and he bit her while he was mauling her. - I don't know. - There's like a whole thing where she's like, talking in the camera, I'm like, look, he bit me, I'm gonna bite him back. (laughing) - Fergie, what? - She's a trooper, 'cause this is not a big, memorable part, but the number of people who are excited and/or surprised when they realize, oh, that's Fergie, singer, Fergie, yes, we like her, and I actually think she's legitimately good in this film. - Agreed. - Yes, and also, we still don't know why we're following this character yet. - No, no. (laughing) - Well, but we find out. - Oh, we will, but I also will say, I mean, nine is a very bad movie, but Fergie is really good in it. - Agreed. - Oh, okay. - Agreed, I agree with you. - Yeah. (laughing) - Okay, so we're on the road with El Rey and Cherry, and we get this statistical education about venison roadkill, which is kind of ironic because I just watched, I just watched David Lynch's "The Straight Story," and there's a whole bit about a woman who just keeps hitting deer on the highway, and I was like, this is remarkable that I've watched two films in the span of about a week that addressed the exact same issue. - Yeah. - Now you gotta watch the ring, too. - Yes. - Dries, god damn it, stop that. Like the third time in a month, we've bought the movie off. (laughing) - And I'm not listening, so no. So, of course, because we've had this education, we do then immediately hit a deer and flip the toe truck. (laughing) - But do they hit a deer, do they hit a zombie? - Well, they think they've hit a deer, but yeah, it's more likely a zombie. - Well, 'cause this is right after we see Fergie's character getting eaten by the zombies, and Cherry asks, what the hell was that? And Ray goes into this entire monologue about how people will scoop up Roadkill from the road and try to salvage it, yeah. - So, speaking of when this toe truck does flip, Cherry ends up getting pulled out of it by these men, and before El Rey can fire on them, they rip off her leg. So, we take her to the hospital, but unfortunately, he gets detained or questioning by Sheriff Hag, who is played by Michael Bean, and he is flanked by Deputy Tolo, who is played by the one and only Tom Savini, as well as Deputy Carlos, who is played by Carlos Gallardo. - I do love that Savini makes a appearance in this, because it's just such a special effects makeup laden film that it felt right. - But he's an actual character, which I like as well. You know, it's not just, oh, you recognize Tom Savini, isn't this fun, it's Tolo gets some funny comedy things to do in this film. - And Carlos Gallardo, by the way, is the original El Mariachi. He was recast with Antonio Vanderas in Desperado, but he was the original like $7,000 Mariachi. - Wow, holy shit. - Okay, I knew I should have recognized that name. - I also, again, this land of dialogue when Hag is talking to El Rey, and he's like, "I'm missing leg that's now missing." (laughing) - Takes me out every time. I also love shortly after this, where she's like, "I was gonna be a stand-up comedian." It makes me laugh every time, and I know it's coming. Just like the stupidest thing for me to laugh. - That whole scene though, with El Rey and her, when we get to it, just like takes me out every time. - Okay, yeah, so before we get there, we jump back to JT's. This is when he is asking the people who are lurking outside if they wanna come in, if they wanna taste his barbecue sauce, and when we jump back to the hospital, we see Dr. Block is getting increasingly irate, his blood pressure is going up because he began the evening by saying, like, when he kissed his son, goodbye, he said, you know, like, say a little prayer so that daddy doesn't have any dead bodies, and of course-- - No, dad, body's for daddy. - Oh, wait, but I have a question, 'cause we just miss this, but what about when the Asian doctor, who is speaking English, is telling Dr. Block, I'm gonna chop off this guy's arm if you wanna watch, and we have subtitles. - Right, right, and I understand, again, this is why my hackles get raised with a lot of Tarantino films, where like, yes, it's exploitation, and yes, it's supposed to be a nod to that, but do the straight white men watching this know that? - Or are they just like, ha ha, he's Asian, they're subtitles, ha ha, balls. - I mean, look, here's the thing, did I laugh? Yes, but is it offensive? - Yes, yes. - Yes, absolutely. And ironically, I mean, I think that's a very valid point, is that there's a bunch of people who are going to go to this based on the two filmmakers who made the films, and maybe they're going to miss some of this commentary, but I feel like there's a bunch of other people who are going to watch it and say, oh, okay, we understand that you're actually making fun of that type of thing, well, also paying homage to films that did it unironically back in the show. - Sure, yeah, I was gonna say, media literacy one on one, and also that's just a gamble you take with any sort of satire, so. - Yeah, it's something that wasn't really scrutinized back in 2007, but I feel like in today's society, even still, a lot of people would not understand that. - I think, no, but at least it was an actual Asian person being cast, and I think that's what makes it like an intentional thing for me, and doesn't make me angry. - And also, Trace, honestly, I feel like less people now than in 2007 might get it, yes. - Oh, no, 100%, that's the thing. I think people, I mean, again, it is offensive, but I think people will be quicker to crucify this bit for being offensive, because they don't get it. - Yeah, we live in the, I read the title, not the article age, and that is very much a title, not the article. - Well, it's interesting, I mean, in the outro bettease, we were going to talk about the poem last week. Trace, I said, you know, oh, we're gonna talk about, is this misogynistic, or is this female empowerment? And you immediately said, oh, no, it's female empowerment, and I said, oh, and the reason I did that is because a number of people look at this film and say, this is just Robert Rodriguez, you know, being a frat boy and objectifying women and sexualizing their bodies and that kind of stuff, and I definitely think you could look at it and say that is true, but I think you're also then deliberately misreading a lot of the, you know, that's a very shallow surface level critique, well, still accurate. I think if you dig beneath the surface, and that's part of why I brought in the academic piece, there's quite a bit more going on to the film, even though it is, you know, dick and ball jokes. - Well, Jamie and Bavanett, so as women who speak for all women, please, what are your thoughts on this? - I know. (laughs) - Every day. - The only reason you were brought on to the stuff is that. (laughs) - I mean, coming from my perspective, at least, you know, in terms of is it exploitation or empowerment, it's kind of the same thing as when I take a bikini photo, as an example, and post it on social media, and people are saying, you know, oh, you look so great, go you, or people are like, you're giving men fodder for free, basically, and with all respect to my male friends, you two included, men will get off to anything and everything, and it is not my job to adjust my behavior to fit that narrative. It is not my job to contextualize myself and try to make myself safe from their own issues with objectifying me. And I've been objectified for so long, starting with the church and being raised in the church, that who cares if a guy sees my tits and is like, that's hot, who cares if he sees them and thinks you? I don't put men's opinion on a pedestal, it's the same as any other stranger walking down the street, if they like it, great, if they don't, I don't give a shit. So I just don't care. I do not care if men find it hot or not, and I think Rose McGowan in this is such a badass, and so, I mean, it's a fucking disabled woman who winds up being the action star. I really don't know what else I could ask for in a film made by two men who notoriously fetishize women's body parts, like... - No, and I would 100% say this was female empowerment, 100%, like I'm with you, Trace, like that would have been my immediate response as well, because not only are the women, the ones that come up with how to save the day while looking like, you know, oh, they're so limited by, I don't know, not having a leg or not being able to use their arms, you know, or anything like that. And the fact that they're the ones that get it together, she gets the motivational speech from, like they give each other the motivational speech, not the men. The men are just, are the men are dying there. They live, spoiler alert, sorry guys, if you made it this far, but like, they're the ones that literally carry this film and save everybody, so female empowerment, especially coming from such a like, visually dude bro film. - And I think, Jamie, I like you mentioning the comparison, like, you know, if you take a sexy picture of yourself in a bikini, but it's, and the difference, of course, is that, you know, that's you putting out your image or whoever wants to see it. Whereas this is a film that is, you know, being paid by someone, made by a man. But, and here's the thing though, I do think that Cherry and Dakota are sexualized, but it doesn't feel icky. - Oh, absolutely. - It also neither one of them get nude in this movie. - Shh. - Right. - No, Cherry has that whole sexy-- - Cherry has that, that we get to see real gag, but I understand what you're saying, yeah. - But like, we don't see Rose McGowan's nipples in this movie. - Right, no. - But even in that scene, like, it's just so hilariously and weirdly cut, you know, like, like so funny that to the point where I'm like, okay, it goes beyond like, okay, the fact that she's naked and we see her, but you know what I mean? - Yeah. - Like, it makes it funnier. It's almost like the opening dance sequence with it being kind of, you know, not flashy. - And again, to piggyback on both of you said, it's like, you know, yes, they are meant to be sexy. We are sexualizing them, but that's also because it's okay for women to be sexy. - Absolutely. - Like, yes, you know, brain cells can live under sexy, right? They survive, they thrive sometimes. - Yeah, I feel like it's the constant negotiation that we're having specifically on our podcast is if something is being made with a male gaze for a male audience, does that mean that other people can't still enjoy it? And I always go back to nay challenging me on our show "Girls" episode saying like, oh, well, I find women attractive, so this works for me, and therefore it's a success. Like, is it problematic? Maybe, but also it's still working for me, even if I wasn't a quote unquote, the intended audience. - Yeah. - And I always have to check myself and say, sure, okay, this is made by Robert Rodriguez who makes a bunch of these very, I'm gonna keep saying it, slightly bro-y films, but that doesn't mean that other people can't find enjoyment in it. Like, you know, that negates the entire female loving audience which is yes composed of men, but could also be composed of women and a variety of other days and thens. - That's just what I was about to say, Joe, 'cause I think of stuff like, I mean, my God, Bridgerton, just as an example, but like, the Witcher with Henry Cavill, I mean, I don't really know, Trace, your taste as much as Joe's, but like, those are things that we get a lot of straight men in, but I've never, like, most of my friends are queer but I've never met a queer person who's like, can't enjoy these abs 'cause it was filmed by a straight man. Listen, Mando, yeah, Mando, we don't even see his face and we're just like, mmm, yes. - Oh, well, we know it's Pedro. - Exactly, that's what I was gonna do. - They're fantasizing. - I actually do wanna say this. I don't even disagree with each other. Like, I don't think all of Rodriguez's films are bro-y. I think it's specifically, it's from Dust Hill Dawn, it's this one, I guess arguably Machete. They're like, I would say that even his Mexico Trilogy or Sin City, but I don't even think those are bro-y films, but I think they attract a very bro-y audience. - Yeah, 'cause it's action movie guys, right? It's people who want the boobs and the guns, even when you're not necessarily getting the boobs. - Yeah, no, you're not. - It's hard to separate the way that the films have been marketed or even the legacy that they've had, right? You know, when you think of from Dust Hill Dawn, there's certain key things that you'll think of and one of them is by Kansal Mahayak with that snake and the tequila pour and all that stuff. - She looks so good. - Oh my god, stunning. - She does. - I don't know, I mean, yeah, I think we can definitely say, ooh, this film's like misogynistic and he's fetishizing these women, but also specifically Marley Shelton and Rose McGowan are so gorgeous. Like, they look so fucking good. Well, they're also simultaneously kicking ass in this film. - I'm more inclined to say, yes, it's male-gazzy and they're being sexualized, but I'm really, I would always push back on saying this is misogynistic. - So, Trace, just real quick too, something that I think is a little bit harder to translate from a woman's perspective into sort of for a larger audience, is that the entire world is male-gazzy for women? And yes, we're always just kind of feeling a roulette of like, is this gonna give me some kind of empowered feeling? And am I finding empowerment from a male perspective instead of what I actually want? And it's absolutely something I ask 'cause like a pole dancer, like, why am I finding enjoyment in this? And like, especially as an actor, I mean, I auditioned full transparency. I auditioned for something that had I booked it would have required shirtless nudity. And I had to grapple with the fact of like, am I okay with the character's story enough to be okay with the scene where people on HBO we're gonna see my tits, like (laughing) and it's just, I don't know, I think we could have a whole separate episode of like just describing what it's like to be a woman and finding empowerment and horror when it's based in revenge and it's based on the male fantasy of violence and revenge. - And then you can also add in the woman of color or filter to that for me. - Sure, yeah. - Which I'm like, I can watch this movie and be completely removed from it because I'm like, I don't see me, except for Naveen Andrews, which I will always look at Naveen Andrews. - You mean, you don't see yourself in the killer, the crazy babysitter twins? (laughing) - Oh my God. First of all, that's an inefficient way to paint your tonus. - Also good, but Quentin, you know, did not care. He was gonna get the toe shot no matter what he had to do. He also got that one of- - Oh my God. - Cherry, God, Cherry pulling the glass out of her thigh in the bathroom when she's cleaning herself out. And we do get the toe shot there. - Well, hang on, no, this isn't a Tarantino joint. This is only Rodriguez. - But we do get the, I think the sort of, you know, what I come to expect from Tarantino shots, especially because they're twins and twins are already sexualized and females. And then we get her toes on her sister's boobs, like. (laughing) - Well, I will say though, just a heads up, that the twins are actually Robert Rodriguez' nieces. (gasps) - Oh my God. - Oh my God. I think I knew that. - Oh my God, I didn't, I'm having such a visceral reaction on live, you guys. - But that being said though, I mean, again, like even Marley Shelton said, no, like Tarantino wasn't set all the time during this movie. He was always whispering and Rodriguez's ear. So I mean, do I think- - Girl, I bet he was. - But that's why I said- - I bet he was. - That's why I said though, this is not a Steven Spielberg Toby Hooper poltergeist situation. Like everyone says, no, Rodriguez directed this movie, but his buddy Tarantino was still there with him the whole time. - Was there, yeah. - Make sure you get the toes. (laughing) - Oh, why, Quentin? No reason. - No reason. - That's his character quirk. (laughing) - There we go. House. (laughing) Okay, speaking of character quirks, let's introduce Earl. This is Michael Park's, his character quirk is that he has a sick wife. So he's, he's floating around the periphery of this movie, but even when he's introduced, you're just like, are we supposed to care about this character? He's part of the police force, but he just immediately leaves upon introduction. - Well, but you should also know that he is a recurring character. He's in Kill Bill of Volume 1 and 2, and he's real reappear and death proof. And he's also in, I want to say from "Just Tilt On." - Yeah, seriously. - Like the character. It's still by the mark, but it's the same character. - Yes. - So funny, every time I see Michael Park's now, I always think of which movie trace. - Oh God, I don't know what. Tusk. - Oh, yes. (laughing) - Yes. - He was a good actor. He was a really good actor. - Yes, he was. - I still have my mask from that point. - As I say, I just have such a good walrus mask. - I just have such a cool reaction to that. And he just mentioning that film sets me on edge. - I love it. - I love it, too. - I love it too. - I've grown to love that movie even more since we covered it, too. (laughing) - Although, I mean, not to just go down another rabbit hole, but he does do brown face in "Kill Bill of Volume 2," because he plays that Mexican guy. - Mm-hmm. - Oh. - Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm. - So that, for me, is an unforgivable sin. Like, I cannot believe that we continue to do that. - I couldn't believe they did it in "Alien." I was like-- - Yep. - 'Cause this is the late '70s. What are y'all doing? - Well, they did it in short circuit, too, and that was not the late '70s. - Just really quick correction, though. It's actually "Alien's" and the late '80s is brown face. - Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, there we go. Like, I need to start a site that's like, it's kind of like, you know, does the dog die, but it's like, is there insert color face? - Yeah. Ooh, boy. Oh, boy. - Okay, so let's hop back to Cherry. She wakes up in the hospital. This is when she discovers that her leg is gone. - I think Rose McGowan does a lot of crying in this movie in the first half of it. - Her face? - Her face? - It looks like they Vaseline'd her face to make it look like she was crying. Like, it's makeup. It's not just her tears. I will say, again, on his two-minute film school, like, he talks about how they make the leg. It was mostly done with a cast around McGowan's leg. It was a gray cast or a green cast. Sometimes they use a gray saw and just CG'd over it, but they needed something that would hold her leg, like, an ankle rigid, so it would look like convincing. - Right. - But you see, like, a super cut of him, like, taking a shot of her with the green cast, and then, like, adding in all these digital effects, and boom, there you have the machine gun leg. - Love it. - Love that. - Those, like, first few scenes of her walking out with, like, the, uh, table peg leg. - Mm-hmm. - It, like, just hurts me as someone that's currently in physiotherapy for, like, leg issues and knee issues, and, like, can walk like that with two legs. Like, I was just, like, ah, her hips, her poor hips. - Yeah. I always forget how long it takes her to get the machine gun leg. Like, she's really using this table leg for the majority of the film. And I love the physicality of McGowan's performance, as she's kind of wobbling and trying to find her, I guess, new center of gravity. - Yeah. - Mm-hmm. - Wow. - She uses that leg well, I will say that. - Mm-hmm. - She does indeed, yeah. Okay, so we're still sort of making relationships and connections, so J.T. Cole's Sheriff Hag, and this is when it's revealed that they're actually brothers, and they're fighting, because J.T. refuses to give over the secret of his barbecue sauce. This is the recurring joke between these two characters. - It's really good. It pays off, too. - It does, yeah. - It does. - It's a surprisingly emotional beat for the two of them. So Dakota gets called in, because we jumped over it at one point. Dr. Block looked at a body and shattered his thermometer because he was so upset, but we didn't get to see why. So when his wife comes in, because he calls her, this is where we discovered that it is Tammy's body, and clearly everybody knew what was going on here. So we push the queer woman into the closet, and this is when Dr. Block demands to see his wife's last three messages on her sidekick. And when she refuses, he uses her little friends to paralyze both of her hands. - So fun fact, really quick about the Fergie thing with her. Hey, I love the no brainer joke. I think it's so funny. - Yeah, me too. - She's been a very funny. - But the effect here. So they actually, they had Fergie, and they turned her head, and it was just blood in the back. And then they had a dummy that kind of looked like Fergie, and they turned that, and that had the missing cavity in the back. And all he did was a digital composite. So basically, there's a point when they turn the head, where the head becomes the dummy head, and you can't see it because of the toe. The digital effect is so good. - I'm impressed. - He is really, really good at FX. Like, some of that spy kid shit looks not great, because again, he is filming it in his garage. But then you also realize he's filming it in his garage, and it looks this good. Like, it's impressive stuff. Because again, a lesser filmmaker for this head, this brain less bit, it would have just been, oh, we're gonna stick a green screen, like on the back of, a green cap, on the back of Fergie's head, and we're just gonna CGI in. And that's what would happen nowadays. No, this is a real, this is a real practical effect. It's just, they use CGI to make the transition seamless. - Crazy. - Yes, you do it. It's how you do it. - I love the practical effects. - Always, always and forever. But yes, anyway, sorry, back to Portacoda losing the use of her arms, her hands. - I love this. - Yeah. - I love, I mean, Tracey mentioned that this is the sequence that Rodriguez did as his film school, but I love the way that this is shot, when he's jabbing her. - Yeah, yeah. Honestly, even the putting the two of the sidekicks together, I was like, oh, this, it's just visually interesting. - I forgot sidekicks could do that until I rewatched it. I was like, oh, yeah. Again, they were my preferred early to mid-aut's phone. So I was like, yes, this is my, like, I was living. And also, Joe, how have I never noticed that he quite literally shoved her back in a closet? What the fuck? - I know, I didn't catch that either until you said that. - I will say credit to, I believe it's Joshua Anderson for his dread central recurring column, the lone queer, I believe. So he noted that, and I realized immediately, oh, yeah. We should always be noticing when queer people got put in a closet. - And then there's his name. So somebody named Block shoved a queer person back in the closet. - Yeah. And the reason I'm saying specifically queer is because a lot of people do read Dakota as a lesbian, but we don't know how she identifies. Like, she clearly doesn't like her husband, but that doesn't necessarily mean she can't be bisexual or pansexual, so I'm just saying queer umbrella. - And I'm always gonna say, like, please just let bi people exist. Please don't tell them they have to be one or the other. - Yes. - I mean, I will say, I do personally read her as more canonically lesbian because she makes eyes at Cherry several times, and she has like some great butch energy right at the end when she's holding that giant gun on the beach. - Oh, yeah. - But again, yeah, could be bisexual. We don't know. - Okay, so the only reason that she doesn't get a red syringe in the eye is because Dr. Block gets called away because all of the bodies have disappeared. So let's jump through some of this action quickly. We do see things going down out at the precinct when Deputy Tolo bursts into the interrogation and reveals that he has lost a finger. We get this funny gag about his missing ring, which I think again is very visually well shot, where we see the guy holding out his ring and then the arm gets attacked and then we go into the full action set piece. - It's really cool. - Again, it's just like, you could have shot this in a very conventional way, but we know something's going to happen because we're holding on the arm. And then of course, we get this frenzied action set piece, but it could have just been a static shot. It didn't have to be shot stylists. It didn't have to be shot stylishly. - I mean, the thing is though, I feel like every shot of this movie is, I mean, obviously with the effects and stuff, but like everything is so stylized in this film. - Extremely. - Yeah. Okay, so El Rey is in the mix. I do love the moment where he shoots this zombie in the face, but also frees himself from the leg shackle. - Yes. - Gives us a sense of how good a shot he is. - Yeah, there's so many little tells throughout this film. I think that kind of inform us of a character's skill set or as Cherry calls them useless talents. (laughing) That's my favorite of the character quirks is her list of useless talents. - Absolutely. So El Rey and Hag decide that they need to go back to the hospital so that we can get Cherry because obviously something is going on. And when we jump back there, we can see that things have taken a turn for the worse. So lots of people are fleeing, but when El Rey gets there, he just immediately goes to work of this rating, all of these zombies. He's incredibly proficient. And I gotta say, the physicality from Freddy Rodriguez is pretty darn good too. So does anybody have any thoughts about Dr. Block scene with Joe? So yes, we had his colleague who was going to saw off the arm, but it's revealed that Joe has had his way with this gentleman. And then he attacks Dr. Block with this saw. And I love that we come so close to cutting his face, but we just cut off half the glasses. - Yeah, and that's the second time his glasses have saved him. The first was when-- - The tongue. - Yeah. - Well, I've made my thoughts on this scene very clear already because this is when we get the boil wiping. - Yes. (laughing) - Yeah, and I kind of feel the same as Trace, but also it's just such a good way to build tension. The visual gag of the saw, like coming unplugged at the last second because the cord is just a smidge too short. - Which is funny now, right? It's a trope. We've seen this a billion times, but I remember at the time thinking, "Ah, how clever." - I literally just watched that trope in hostile part two, which came out two months after this. (laughing) - Oh my God. - Okay, so we do hop over to Earl's house briefly, where we see that his wife Ramona, played by Jarely Romeo, is infected. But we don't spend much time there because we have to cut back to Dakota, throwing herself out of a second story window onto a pile of garbage, and then breaking her paralyzed wrists, trying to get into her car. - Okay, this I think is in a movie filled with violence. I think this is one of the most painful things to watch in this movie. - I can't handle it. I had to turn away. - Well, the way she looks up, 'cause her mascara is, I love her face for the rest of this movie, 'cause her mascara is just like running, and it's such a no, it's such a very striking look. But yeah, man, the heel trips her. (laughing) - The scene and the scene directly after it, when she gets to her dad's house are what just, oh, I have to look away every time. - Oh, I have to, oh, don't wait, I have information on that. (laughing) - Okay, good. - Yeah. - Okay, so, just in case we thought that Dakota couldn't handle herself, you know, in some ways it's jokey and also awful when she breaks her wrist, but then she gets into the car, realizes that she's not gonna be able to use the hands. So, I love how she's got this ingenuity where she knows to use her wrist's watch so that she can use the manual. There we go, so manual steering. - Yeah, but I also love though, is that she hits every single car in the parking lot on her warehouse. (laughing) - You got it so good, it's so good. (laughing) - It's a great visual too, right? (laughing) - Oh yeah. - She's resourceful. - Okay, so she ends up immediately missing El Rey as well as the rest of the cops who arrive and, sorry, I guess I had jumped ahead that El Rey was already here. - That's fine. - We do get this jokey moment where Tolo inadvertently kills an old man who is not infected because he is a shitty police officer. - Yeah. - So, this is when El Rey goes in, he collects cherry, she's not feeling great about herself. You know, she was basically just cowering under the sheet, but when he gives her the peg leg and orders her to, you know, all right, let's go pick yourself up, I believe in you, let's do this. So, they end up escaping in his tow truck. I do know some people feel like the movie is making fun of her disability when she can't get into the tow truck. And I would say maybe in this instance, but what we see of her as the film progresses makes upward in my mind. - Absolutely. And I didn't see it as making fun of her disability. I saw it as like him just kind of being a dick. - He's being a dick. - Yeah. Also, like, I mean, she's not great on the peg leg because she's not used to it's a different length of her leg, so she would of course not be good at like walking on it yet. - Like she literally just lost it. - Yeah, and listen, at least Elray did the thing that like he matched it to her boots, you know? Like I'm used to getting things tailored, but like with any outfits, you got to go take the heels you're wearing to the party. You have to have the shoes and the clothes at the same time. You can't buy them separately 'cause you got to get it tailored. - Yeah. - So, I mean, that's the first thing I noticed. I remember noticing that back in the theaters too. I was just like, that was smart. - The red and red, style icon. - Yeah, between this and the proposal, I was like, low key, the bar's in hell for a straightment, but he's above it at least, so. (both laughing) - That's true. So, Dakota ends up getting back home so that she can collect Tony, the babysitter twins who we've not said are played by Electra Stone and Ales of Allen. They are not happy that her friend never came to collect Tony, so they do end up taking it out on her car when Dakota tries to leave. - Tracy, is this an additional scene for this film that's not including "Grand House"? 'Cause it felt very unnecessary. (both laughing) - I know they are present in the final cup because they'll come back later in the film. I don't remember if the shovel stuff is, but again, this also reeks of, these are my nieces, let me give them something to do. - Exactly, yeah. - So, we jump over to JT's, and this is when Hegg deputizes everyone, except over who he still doesn't trust. I do love that all of these badges come from the all or nothing box. (both laughing) This is when Hegg instructs everyone not to shoot him, and we get a fake-out scene where we think that JT has been killed and his dog Rusty is eating his intestines, but it turns out that he's actually just eating sausage links, and JT is very happy 'cause he likes the taste of the sauce, and this is when Hegg says, "It's because it has your blood in it." (both laughing) - Also, the shovel scene is in both versions. - I noted. - Okay, interesting. - Also, we do get this really funny gag of El Rey eating a link of the sausage and saying, "Good sausage." - Yes, good sausage. - Again, Bethany, Texas. - He never resists a chance to bite his barbecue, ever. - Ever. - Truly. - And it seems also very, again, maybe it's because I have a dirty mind, but very homo-erotic to me. - Mm-hmm. - Truly. Oh, these sausage links were just over your body. Let me take a bite. (both laughing) - How else were you gonna get them seasoned? (both laughing) - Truly. So, this is a part that I'm sure people who have listened to this podcast for a long time can probably anticipate that I laughed at. - Oh, 100% laughed every single fucking time. I think I was, I didn't believe it at first when I first saw it. - Yes. - I was like, "There's no way." (both laughing) So, of course, we're talking about the scene where Dakota leaves her very young son in a car by himself with a gun, and it gives him explicit instructions. Don't point to date yourself. Shoot anybody who isn't me if they show up, and then she steps out of the car, and immediately we just see this gun go off. So, we don't see Tony's face or anything. It's not gratuitous in that regard. - Well, we see the aftermath. - Yeah, but it's not as, it's not when evil lurks or anything like that. - That is exactly the reference I was gonna make, Joe. - But like, how do you not find this funny? - Well, tell us, ladies, do y'all find this funny, or is this too upsetting for you? - Oh, I cackled, I cackled. - It was just so absurd. Like, I could not, I was like, of course, the first thing the kid does is point the gun at himself. - She takes two steps in the gun. (both laughing) - 'Cause I feel like in other movies, you would stretch it out, right? You know, she would go to the door, we would maybe have the action sequence, and then she would go back to collect him, and he would inadvertently either shoot at her, mistaking her for somebody else, or he would, you know, end up shooting himself by accident. Then, and it's like, she barely closes the door and the fucking gun goes off. It is hysterical. - What makes it funnier is that the last thing he says is like, even daddy, and she's like, especially if it's daddy. - Yeah, so, okay, here's the thing. 'Cause, hey, killing Tony is one of the first things to rub her over, he just wrote in this script. But, oh my God, who we should know? It played by his actual son. - This is sending me, I'm sorry. - But here's the thing though. So, he wasn't sure if killing this kid was going to fit in with the tone of the movie. So, every single scene that Tony's corpse is in, or that Dakota's in, he shot in two different ways. One where she's holding his corpse, and one where she's bringing a Tony alive around. Like, he's still alive. - Oh, that makes so much sense. - Which, I was kind of like, well, that's why the budget was more expensive 'cause you were shooting everything twice. - Right, but. - But, honestly, I love the fact that Michaela's hit me. It's a funny gag, but also there's a moment later where she's like, cradling him, and she's like, "Tony, I told you not to point the gun at yourself." It's such a good delivery from Marley Shelton. - Yes, and was I the only one speaking of that kid? Was that the only one that noticed he kind of looked like Danny Torrance? - Not at all. - Yeah, we are okay. And then his name is Tony, and then he's just acting like Danny without Tony. - Right, we even, I'm gonna eat your brains. - Exactly. - It's red, round, red, round. - A hundred percent, you know, 'cause he said, like, all those creepy kids in those movies, they always have this bull cut, so I gave him a hit of bull cut. And like, he's like, and you know, it's like Danny from the Shining. (laughing) - Screaming. - So speaking of this, I'm going to bring in Garcia for the very first time. So he does, he has a whole extended passage about how this film plays with conventional notions of the new killer family and that kind of thing. So with regard to Tony's death, he says, Dakota's child has to die in this film because he represents the unhappy and traditional family structure that had shackled her sexuality. - Love that. - Also, she's not a good mother. Like, I love Dakota, but she's not a good mother. - No. (laughing) - This is why you don't leave guns with children ever, even if it's for their own self-defense. - And that was a really sloppy getaway plan. Come on, hiding the bag under his bed. Come on. - Even just like asking your lover to go and pick him up is like, now you take responsibility for the child. You will meet your lover somewhere else. - She has to go to work. - And letting in the twins from hell on this plan, that was hella sketchy. - Oh my God, I know. Those girls are bad babysitters. - Yes. - So yes, Tony has shot himself in the face. And then this is when Dakota's husband shows back up. So she has to briefly fight him off and make a dash for the house. And then this is where we get another familial reveal. Earl opens it up and we discover that this is her father. And it should be noted, again, I'm gonna give credit to Anderson for his piece. So Earl says, something along the lines of, I said I never wanted to see you again. And it's never explained within the body of the text, but you could infer that this has something to do with her sexuality. - Absolutely. - See, hey, I understand why you might infer that, but for me it was, 'cause we know he never liked Dr. Block. So I took it as you married an asshole. I said, don't get married to this person and you did it anyway. - I almost wondered if they had had him out of, their child out of wedlock and that's like the whole. - Oh. - Yeah. - I don't like the idea of Earl McGraw being like a conservative. I mean, I guess he's like a Texas cop, but I get it, but I feel like it would be like, because he loved his daughter and she did something that was very self-destructive and that's what happened. - Yeah. - All readings are valid because we don't know. - I just love her follow-up. - Which is why. - Daddy! - Because this is like the army of zombies is chasing her. - It's like, maybe let me in and we'll have this conversation inside. Okay, so we jump back to JT's bar. This is when we discover that he has a pair of escape vehicles, so we have a motorcycle and we have a chop-top convertible. This is also when HEG is questioning who L-Ray is and of course, this is the running joke about L-Ray is that he's got some kind of mysterious past, but he's very, very good with weapons and we'll discover after the missing reel that he's, well, we will never learn, but HEG will learn and he will apologize and say, oh, if only I had a no-ner earlier. - Give him all the guns. - Give him all the gun. So now we're up to the fucking rant as well as the ring reveal and then the sex scene that is so hot, it burns a film reel. (laughing) - Oh, this is fun. This is fun, but honestly, it's the cut to just the whole barbecue shotgun fire. - Yes. - Yes. - Oh, yes. (laughing) - Good times, good times. So the whole place is on fire. The hordes are descending. We have no idea how we got here. It doesn't matter. That's fine. We should also note that HEG has been shot in the neck by Tolo at this point and Earl, Dakota, the crazy babysitter twins and Skip have also joined the party. - Sure. (laughing) - At this point, I was like, why not? (laughing) - Honestly, an excuse to just bring back Skip even 'cause again, he's kind of giving me, oh my God, again, the owner of the Cheetah in showgirls, right? - Yes, oh my God. - 100%. (laughing) - Yeah, yeah. - He's like that uncle you tell everybody to just kind of stay away with at the barbecue. - Yes. - You're like, just don't go near that uncle. Don't get me an uncle Skip. - Granted, I'm assuming the babysitter twins are meant to be of legal age, but they could be teenagers in this movie and he is 100% fucking them. - Oh, absolutely. - Oh, 100%. - I mean, considering that we saw the machete trailer before we saw this and there's this scene of machete with the wife and the daughter in the lagoon and they're both opposite. It's just like, oh man, we get to the crazy babysitter twins. Yep. (laughing) Sexy shenanigans. - Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, Joe. I feel like every exploitation film, you just have to have some sleaze in it. Like, this is the era of penthouse rivaling Playboy, even though it was more explicit than Playboy. Like, yeah, I mean, Bert Reynolds posing on a bear rug naked. - That one. - I love it. - Okay, so also great is everybody grabbing a gun and we just line up outside of JT's and just blow all of these zombies away and you get this one cathartic moment of, yeah, okay, we did it and then we see that there are hundreds more coming at though. - Very not the living dead. - Yes, well, I even think Tolo's death is like a day of the dead, oh my gosh. - Absolutely. - Oh, yeah. - Oh, yes. - But I love Jeff Fey. He's delivering it. That boys get the devil in him as El Rey is like twirling the guns. (laughing) - I mean, if that's the most important thing that you want to say right now. - Sure, but we got bigger fish to fry. Okay, so Cherry nominates herself because she needs to feel important and contribute something to this. So she says that she will go, go, not cry, cry and collect El Rey's truck to help get them out of there. And he covers her because as we learn for the first of many, many times, he never misses. - Oh, yep. - So she drives the vehicle into the building, the survivors pile in. This is when Earl seemingly martyrs himself by staying behind. And then we take off in this kill dozer, Cherry's useless talent is that she can ride a bike. So Dakota jumps on with her, gives her a bit of a squeeze around the midsection. - Okay, but again, really funny and physical comedy. - Oh, yes. - Anyone else have a car and then like Marley Shelton's limp hand just comes. - Yes! (laughing) - And of course, the car in question is the pocket bike that her son wears, so we get this great visual image of the convoy with El Rey riding this thing, looking like he's en route to the circuit. - Honestly, that's what I thought you were just gonna talk about when you said you saw a scene and you were like, there's just no way this is real, because for me, this was it. When he gets on that mini bike, I said, in a way, in a fucking way, like, it took me right out. But I didn't want to gloss over to when Cherry's getting on the bike. - Yes. - And she introduces herself and she says, I'm, you know, I'm Cherry and she goes, yes, you are. (laughing) - I'm such a great exchange, right? And I love the kind of fast friendship that develops between the two women, but I do also enjoy that there's a bit of a sexual undercurrent. - Oh, yeah. - Mm-hmm, very. - So the convoy goes along, we are taking out zombies as we go. We should also note that the dog does die, so we spray the babysitter twins with its blood. - This, okay, I don't like watching dog's eye in movies, it's very, very upsetting, but the way this is done, 'cause the dog jumps out of the car and the guy's like, wait! And then it's very clearly like a dummy dog in the next cut as it gets run over, but then it's the way it squeals. (laughing) - I mean, this is the same as what we were talking about with the squibs, right, where it's just way more blood than you would ever expect. It looks like we are hosing these girls down with blood. And of course, they go. (laughing) - Well, they had it coming. - They kinda did, they're shit. (laughing) So it seems like all hope is lost when we get to a bridge that is completely barricaded by zombies, but this is when the military reappears, re-enters the story, so they mow everybody down. Lieutenant Maldoon is on the scene and he recognizes El Rey and wants him, so we knock him out. - So we wake up in quarantine and Abby is also there, so we get this backstory about why the military is doing this, they need concentrated doses of DC2 in order to basically stay from going feral and boyly, but Abby also suggests that if they can just get to his lab, he's pretty sure that one of them can make an antidote. So this becomes our new thing, our new motivation for the rest of the film. - Okay, so basically though, the thing is like, all these soldiers were exposed to the virus, and is the virus DC2 or is that the, what? - So the gas is DC2. - Okay, okay, so they were exposed to that and they have to just keep giving themselves a little bit of it, but if they don't, then they become monsters. - Yeah, they'll fully mutate. - Yeah, it's just like the Imperator in Mad Max Fury Road. - Yes. - Right, yeah. - Also a good point to mention that like, I know we've been saying this at least on our podcast for almost every movie lately, but it's wild to watch this post quarantine. - Yeah. - Just wild. - Yeah, I mean, we do have a number of characters saying, you know, I think L-Ray in particular, but also Abby is very careful to say, don't let it touch you, you know, wear protective gloves. When L-Ray goes into the hospital, we see him put on the gloves before he even attacks anybody. So it's kind of fun to see that, and then you see all these other people who are just like, - Yeah. - Cool, whatever. Give me the shit. - A true slice of humanity. - There we go, yeah. All right, so Cherry and Dakota are taken away by Lewis, who was played by Quentin Tarantino, as well as Rapist number two, was played by Greg Kelly. Put that on your CV, folks. (laughing) And this is where we get our trademark Tarantino dialogue in the elevator. - So, hey, I love him going, move it, Peggy. But rude. Unsurprisingly, some of Tarantino's rapy dialogue was taken from his character in the original script from Dustil Dawn. So Dialog, they didn't make it into the final cut. They used in this movie. - Oh God, I just feel like he's telling on himself. - Mm-hmm. - Like he just really wanted to use that dialogue. - Yeah. - Well, why is he playing? I mean, I guess in some ways it's him saying, "Oh, we're doing it all again." So of course it makes sense for me to come back and play this character, but also... - Ew. - Yeah, and like, I do feel sorry. Just a little side note for Rapist number two. I feel for you. In my grade 12. (laughing) - There's some by play. - Yeah, no. - In my grade 12 final production we did for our drama classes, we had to do a play. Like we all threw it on and the whole class was involved in every single way. We submitted to drama festivals. Joe, you might know the Sears Drama Festival. - Oh, right, okay. - And it was an ensemble piece. And literally the only person that got a name was the lead. And I was man too. Can you guess what my contact is in my brother's phone? - Man too. - Man too. (laughing) - Man too. (laughing) - That's amazing. Never let the joke die, right? - No. - 50 years later. - No, I don't remember any of my lines from that play, but I remember being man too. So, Rapist number two, I'm sorry. (laughing) - But you empathize. - Yes. (laughing) But definitely not what's here into you. - No. - Well, he's getting his dick wet, sir. - Ew. - Well, that's the one way to put it in. - That's fine. (laughing) - Also, very 2007. - Yeah, very much so. - See, that to me is, I feel like we definitely hear that in cabin fever. Do we know it? - Yes. - Or maybe a hostel movie? - Oh yeah, dick wet feels very yeah, at the time. - And back to "Black" I think came out around that time too, the song by Amy Winehouse. - Yeah, but she says that. - Oh. - Yeah. - Okay. All right, speaking of black, as we take cherry and Dakota to where presumably we will sexually assault them, we do see the other military guys are watching a trailer for a grindhouse film called "Women in Cages" and folks, this is a real movie. - Yeah. - So we go and chat with the Lieutenant. He is confronted by Elrey and Abby because we should note that the other civilians have staged a bit of a coup. Unfortunately, JT does get shot in this moment, but Elrey and Abby manage to escape custody and of course we have more ball jokes because Abby is back on the scene. (laughing) - Okay, so Muldoon does talk a little bit about why this is all going down. It's because when they were in Afghanistan, they inadvertently killed Bin Laden and folks, if you want a weird historical beat, this movie comes out before Bin Laden was killed. - I specifically remember that 'cause I was like, whoa, like, but it also kind of anticipates Quentin Tarantino changing history in "A Glorious Bastard" it's like the year after this. - God, and that's my favorite Tarantino film and it's just, that is such an interesting juxtaposition I've never considered, Trey, so I appreciate that. I'm gonna have to double-build this one night. - Oh, absolutely, but yeah. So Bin Laden was killed in May of 2011. So again, it's that reaction to 9/11 of the Afghanistan more but we're just changing history, which I'm like, all right, cool. (laughing) - Yeah, and specifically, you know, like so much about this movie is about how historical structures of power disintegrate the minute that things start to kind of hit the fan, right? So the military is presented as a bit of a powerhouse in the film, but they're also repeatedly undercut by either their own hubris, the fact that they've got rapists within them. But, you know, we learned that they did all of this, like Muldoon and his men did this in part because they were cast aside by the government. So they did the U.S. raw, raw service by killing a terrorist, but then because they weren't supposed to do that or no one is supposed to know about it, they were gassed and left for dead. - Jesus. I mean, that's-- - Yeah, start. - Yeah, and immediately I think of, you know, Agent Orange from the Vietnam War. - Yep, oh yeah, which I think you're definitely supposed to. - Oh yeah, and I mean, the broader theme of like how dare these men, these were presuming straight white men not get their due or whatever they imagined they were gonna get. - Right. - You know, totally worth burning the world down, guys. Totally worth it. - Yeah, because they're gonna get the cure out of this because they are forcing an apocalypse on people. So they have to be taken seriously. But also entitlement. - Mm-hmm. - Well, 'cause yeah, they're just like, oh, we're gonna release some of the world so we can test them, experiment on people to find the cure. Like, that logic makes sense. - Sure, well, they just don't care about anybody else. - Yeah. - Again, pandemic behavior. So in captivity, this is when we get Dakota encouraging Cherry that she will find a use for her useless talents and that if she is ever in doubt, she should just ask for help and reach up. It's a nice moment. - And it is also foreshadowing. - Mm-hmm, this is when Lewis does come back and he orders Cherry to dance. He wants her to use that leg, so she does. - I ain't never seen a one-legged stripper and I've been to Morocco. - That killed me. - I'm like, I've seen a lot of fucked up shit in my day. - I'm like, what does Morocco have to do with this? - It's really funny. (both laughing) I mean, it's funny in a classic Quentin Tarantino kind of way where you're just like, oh boy, okay. - At least he's not dropping the in-word, every other word, you know? - Really fast. - Like he likes to do when he casts himself in something. - Again, the bar, hell. (laughing) - Yeah, I mean, set a low box. Well, at least he's not being completely fucking crazy. Oh wait, he's talking about Morocco. Never modding. - Quentin Tarantino plays the same character in literally everything. And I'm thinking of Alias right now where everyone thought he was the man, but he was somebody else, I forgot his character's name. - Wait, is he man number two? (laughing) - No, that's me. (laughing) (sighing) No. But he plays literally the same guy in everything, and it's like we're not Michael Sarahing him. - I feel like, okay, so here's the thing, 'cause I want to say he just plays himself in every movie, but I think so. But a part of me, and again, if I'm being generous, wants to say he is playing the public perception of Quentin Tarantino in all his roles. - Right, yes. - The perv, the acerbic perv. - Yeah. - He's playing like Nick Cage in the unbearable weight of massive talent. - Well yeah, like that version of Nicholas Cage, yeah. - Yes, yes, yes, exactly. But nevertheless, Joe, what happens here? (laughing) - So she does end up hitting him in the face with the peg leg, and then she jams it into his eye socket. I do love the fact that this does not take him out. He still wants to rape her. The problem is is that his genitals are falling off in goops and bits. - Just more ball humor here. (laughing) - Yeah. - Yeah. - But this is where Dakota gets to step up. So she ends up using her yellow friend. So she gets rapist number two, subdued, paralyzed with it. And then she shoots Lewis in the eye, his other eye with a red syringe. - Well, this is also because she gets the use of her arms back. And it's like, yeah. - If she had had this ability the entire time. (laughing) - She would have been super powerful. - Right? - Yeah, so we do see Lewis puke out his guts. And then this is when Cherry blows him through the door with her newfound machine gun leg. (laughing) - That has a grenade launcher on it somehow. (laughing) - Yeah. - And just watching her shoot him through the door and then take out all of these men who are watching the women in cages trailer. It's so satisfying. - Oh yes. - So I did want to bring Garcia back in just to talk a little bit about the use of violence and sexuality because of course, you know, this is a film with an implied anticipated sexual assault sequence that, as I said, I think some people look at and say, ugh, this is really gross and creepy and why do we need this in here and so on? So Garcia says, "All of this violence and sexuality "in the film is homage to Grindhouse movies." Very obviously. But this would be a specific subgenre called The Ruffies. So in the documentary American Grindhouse, that documentary implies that because of censorship against showing sex on screen, sometimes these B movies would emphasize violence against women as a substitute for sexuality. So things we couldn't get away with on screen we would make up for with implied violence towards women. But then Garcia says, "Rodrigas as violence against women serves a purpose "because it is used to establish "how they are not in control of their bodies "and how the American apocalypse serves as a way "of collapsing the social structures that encourage. "But control their sexuality." - Yes, and I'm so glad you included that excerpt about The Ruffies because again, this is more for the heterosexual side of things, but like male sexuality is so encouraged to be violent towards females that it is absurd. And once you see it, you can't unsee it, of course. And I know I'm preaching to the choir with this one, but I mean, even when you are into having a partner be a little bit more dominant with you, like everyone's first idea is always just like, so painful, honestly, and not in the fun way. And like, it's always like guys really get off to women crying and women being abused for, to put it, you know, bluntly. And it's so absurd to me that we are still like, encouraging it and it kind of loops back to what you guys were saying. Is this empowerment or is it exploitation? Because it can be both, but like, yeah, guys gonna get off to a women being beheaded. And I know that sounds extreme, but it's true. Like there are people who fetish is like amputation. So I just, it's like, what are you gonna do? - Right, and it loops all the way back to like, you know, the root of not the only root, but like one of the roots of this kind of behavior is like, you know, think back to like kindergarten. Like I remember specifically when, you know, when four year olds are gonna hit each other, right? It's just gonna happen, right? It's fight or flight. And like, this one boy in my class like had hit me or whatever, and then I all I got was like, oh, well, that just means he likes you. - Yeah, no. - He's pulling your hair because he wants to date, you or marry you. - And I'm like, I'm four. I don't know what that means. I can't even spell date. - Yeah, I mean, while we're asking girls to cover up, not where I like tank tops in schools, because that might give the boys the wrong idea. - Right? - Yeah, I'm gonna get inside of a tangent. I'm really holding back. - Oh, sorry. Sorry, I'm just having vivid flashbacks to my grandmother chasing me around packed parties with safety pins. - Oh my God. - Oh. - Yeah, to cover up that cleave. - Oh my God. No, no, no, no. Okay, well, let's hop back to the other civilians. So we have staged this coup. JT has been shot, but we realize we can escape in a pair of helicopters. So we nominate that skip will fly one. And then of course, El Rey can fly the other one. So we're gonna have to leave JT and Heg behind because both have been shot and they're not going to make it. So El Rey and Cherry get on the motorcycle. I love this physical bit of comedy where we have to reposition Cherry twice. - The other way. - And then the other way. And this is then when we burst out, so she can shoot everybody up on the motorcycle. I remember this vividly from the trailer. And again, people don't like the fact that she blows on the machine gun leg because they think it looks like she's blowing on a phallus to which I would say, she just had a badass fucking action sequence. - Right, let her do what she wants. Again, Joe, everything can be sexualized. So like, what do you want me to do? - That's really neat. - Stand here like what? - But I also love that the angle does, it's not, she would have to have to bend her knee backwards to like make this angle happen. And I'm like, this is, it's just so ridiculous, come on. - Very, very silly. But also by this point in the film, if you're not on board with it, why are you still watching? - When it's almost over. - So we've made it outside, all we have to do is get to the helicopter, but standing in our way is a larger concrete version of the screen to sound barrier sequence with Courtney Cox. - Abby's death is one of my favorite things. Well, yes, and that's where we're at. So of course, he's trying to play the hero, he reminds everybody, we need to get to this lab. One of us is the antidote. So I'm gonna go first, let me play the masculine hero, and his head just immediately gets blown off. - Great effect. It is awesome. - And then the best line, the best line. - And what is it? Please tell us. - Is anybody else here a biological engineer? - Because of course, we already struggled to find a second person who can pilot the helicopter. That's why we had to call on skid. We are running out of survivors with useful talent. So yes, Abby is dead, we're fucked, but we should note before we continue on with the action, we do hope the touching sequence where the two brothers die, but not before JT finally reveals the secrets of his barbecue sauce. - It's the canned tomatoes for me. - The canned tomatoes. Oh my God, I was also just like, what? What? (laughing) What self-respecting chef would? - I did not watch this, but in the grind house Blu-ray, not the planet Terra 1, but Robert Rodriguez does 10 minute cooking school that supposedly he does this barbecue, I think. - I love that. Me too. - So this heartfelt moment ends when we're about to die. So Hagg sets off the explosives, which is the sign for the group to make a run on the helicopter. So it is time for cherry darling to strut her shit. So she takes off and then because of the explosion, she basically rides a fireball over this concrete wall, shoots a rocket, mid-air lands on her tits. - This looks so painful to me. - And then spins around and shoots everybody else with a machine gun. - Yeah, it would be so painful. - You know, I'm like reflexively holding myself. - Yeah, same. (laughing) - So we've had to do this with a whole movie with the ball, so that's fine. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah. - Equal opportunity. (laughing) - So this is all very fun. It's very stupid. And then of course, because we previously referenced the fact that she can do a back bend and it's useless, this is how she also dodges a rocket. - And all this was in the advertising for the movie, but I don't even care about this point 'cause it's still cool no matter how many times you watch it. - Yes, like I love the cinematography of her just jumping over the building. - Oh, it's so pretty. - So so cute. - It's slow motion too. - Exactly. (laughing) - Okay, but it's time for Elvira to sacrifice himself because someone is going to shoot her. So he gets in the way and he ends up taking a bunch of bullets and it's all very sad. So we're kind of cross cutting between her, realizing that it's not gonna be too against the world because he's going to die and not come with her. And also Dakota having to confront her husband who was waiting for her in the helicopter and then her dad saves her. - Her line of dialogue, no more dead bodies for daddy tonight. Like what is that? (laughing) - Again, the use of daddy in this film is just rowing me off left and right. I'm like, what's happening? - And the hell raise or apologize in me is like, oh, are we doing a come to daddy? - Right, that's what I thought we were. I was like, oh, is this not where we're going? Oh, okay. (laughing) - Do we like the fact that Dakota doesn't save herself here that she needs to be saved by her dad? - It's not my favorite. - Hate it. - Yeah, like narratively I get it, but I know. - I kind of accepted that Earl was dead. So I would have been happy, like we've seen her lightning fast reflexes with the syringes, and it feels like, you know, Cherry has gotten to redeem herself and become this action superhero. And I really wanted this for Dakota, like to have the opportunity to fuck up her deadbeat husband. - And also, 'cause it feels like she almost freezes when she sees him, which means she didn't really, like this particular aspect of her character didn't really grow or change over the course of the film. - Which is maybe true to life for fatter lives. - And so on. - Yeah. - Yeah, and I think too. - Yeah, like I could see it. - Yeah, there's always this aspect of like, as a survivor of abuse and domestic violence, like being able to accept help because you're just so ashamed of your situation. So there's that part of it too. - I like that. - That makes it a bit of an easier pill to swallow for me. But it is a thing where she's like, "She's such a badass." And it's like, "Ah." But I guess maybe that is also the message there, right? Like, hey, you can be this big badass, but like, you know, trauma is still trauma. And it has a very real effect on you. - Yeah. - You know what? This makes sense because it even anticipates the messaging that she gave to Cherry, which Cherry has to accept, right? You need to let other people help you. - Right. - We should also note that Dr. Block looks like a giant pustule. So maybe she's just taken it back at the new appearance of her husband. - That is gross for her. I cannot believe you just said that. - I know. I'm like, huh. - Pustule. - Pustule, yeah. - Okay. - So a look of like, I let that control me. - Yeah, maybe. - Yeah. - So Dr. Block is dead. Everybody piles into this helicopter. Skip is going to have to take over because of course, L-Ray is shot to pieces on the ground. I do love this moment where we just tilt the blades and take out all these military dudes. So L-Ray reassures Cherry that it'll still be the two of them against the world because he never misses. And she is pregnant. - This grows every time I show this to people. Like I feel like this gets the biggest like cringe laugh of the entire movie. - Such a gender reveal party coded moment. - This is the straightest moment of this entire film. - Truly, yes. Although I do love the fact that it's not like, and he'll be fine. He's not going to stay with her and he'll be okay. It's like, no, this motherfucker's dead. Like you get his baby, but he's done. - Yeah. - And this is right up there with like some stellar, like my mortal style fan fake writing, like love it. - So he is dead more or less. And this is when Dakota is encouraging Cherry to grab the rope. She gets lifted away into the night sky. And then we transition to a caravan of survivors and a significant amount of time has passed. We don't know quite how much yet, but they're wandering in what appears to be much warmer climates. 'Cause of course, Elbury always said, go to Mexico, get your back against the water so you can defend yourself. And since that antidote is not happening with Abby's exploded head, this is what we do. We head down to Mexico, which I also look 'cause so much of this movie is rah-rah, Americana, the military will save you. It's like, nope, go to Mexico. - Go to Mexico is your safest bet. So I will say this does not look good. This looks super fucking fake. I think it's meant to be Chichenisa or maybe Toulouse. - Yes, yeah, I think it's, it looks very Chichenisa and very Tulum. Like that's what I was gonna say too. - Yeah, so it was funny 'cause Rodriguez had talked to this, he was like, yeah, everyone was really excited. They were gonna need to go to a beach in Mexico, but they came and it was just a bunch of sand with a green screen. I went to Mexico and shot the green screen, shot myself, and I just saved money. (all laughing) - You guys can't see, but I'm rubbing my temples. - I know you all signed up 'cause you thought you were gonna get a beach vacation out of this. Allah, every ocean's 11 movie, and probably every one of those knives out movies, but no, only I went, thanks. - Yeah, like this is, this is just like, I don't know if you've seen Mad Men, but it's just like when Peggy was promised she would go to Paris and she gets the account and guess what, she gets iced out and doesn't get to go to Paris. - No, I'm so glad you guys brought the CGI though. It is distractingly bad. - Oh yes. - Like compared to the rest of the film, this is not cutting it. - No, it's like very 10 Command Men style. (all laughing) - I still kind of don't care because of what this movie is. Like, it doesn't matter that it looks fake. - Yeah, I have a great final quote from Garcia, but I did also want to know just because everyone knows, I love to pay attention to hair and costumes. I do love that Cherry's daughter is, for some reason, dressed like an Elizabethan poet. - Right, and it has, does she not have her life? I was like, who's, whose baby is this? - This baby is this. (all laughing) Yeah, it's very wild, but it definitely seems like the women are in control. As I mentioned earlier, we've got Dakota, just standing guard with the gun, and of course, Cherry is leading the charge, so we're very much two against the world, but the women have taken over. - Well, let's get this still there with the crazy babysitter twins. - Oh god. (all laughing) - We've got like the Mexican version of, oh gosh, where does Wonder Woman come from? Like that little planet, yeah. - It's really interesting to me to-- - The Amazon. - The Amazon's, yeah. It's interesting to me too, Joe, that you read it as the woman being in power because it looks to me as a woman who's attracted to men, that it was like a two-to-one ratio of two women for every man, and I was like, you know. (all laughing) - Examplified by Skip with the twins on either side of him? - Yes. Okay, so let me read this quote from Garcia, 'cause that might help to put some of it in context. So Garcia says, "Although one could see male survivors in this group of evacuation to Mexico, it is visually suggested that the women are in power as they hold weapons and lead the others. Some could argue that this ending is a male fantasy or that it represents a harem ideal of sexualized women, but the fact remains that it presents the bicultural death of traditional masculinity in relation to an apocalypse brought about by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. - Oh, I like that. - Hmm, yes. - So I do think you can read it both ways, 'cause yeah, it definitely looks like a paradise for men where, yeah, as you said, you know, every man gets two ladies, but it's all the women holding the guns. So you step out of line, you're going into the ocean. - That fake ass ocean. - No hesitation. - Yes, the fake ass ocean, no hesitation. - Guns are always used as a metaphor for phallic imagery, so. - Wow, yes. But that is planet terror. - Well, except I didn't know this until I looked at the Wikipedia. There is a post-credits scene of Tony sitting on the beach, playing with his turtle scorpion and tarantula. (laughing) - What? - I'd never noticed that. I never watched the end. It's probably only on the planet terracut at Brindhouse, but yeah, it's just the credits end, and there's Tony playing with his turtle scorpion and tarantula on the beaches of not Mexico. (laughing) - Oh my God. - Because we, you know, we've not really talked about this, but the whole point of the film is that people from different groups can come together to form a new civilization and operate in harmony, right? So it's one of the kind of subtle messages I like about the film, but it's very blatant in the way that Tony, yes, packs up all of his, I was gonna say animals, but, you know, we've got a bunch of different kinds of pets. But he puts them into one environment, and Dakota says, "You can't bring them on." He says, "It's fine, they can all live together." - Aw, it is very like going from macho mid aughts America to the, I always say this wrong, the mascara. - The mascara, yeah. - But I like it that, you know, like there's no, quote unquote, romantic partners. There's no traditional father, mother, child. Like this is a fractured, found family. So in a way, this is a very, very queer ending. - Very, very island of misfit toys. - I truthfully forgot how queer this movie was until I re-watch it. 'Cause I haven't watched it in like 10 years, 'cause I watch it, is one of the movies that I watch a lot when I was in high school in college, 'cause I showed it to everyone, 'cause I was like, "This movie flop, please watch it." And yeah, so yeah, I'm happy to cover this. But yeah, I mean, that's Planet Terror, everyone. Jamie and Babda, as the guest of honor, final thoughts on this film. - Ooh, well, God, I don't know if I could give final thoughts, just 'cause it's just like, ah, it's so good. It's so good, it's so underrated. It's honestly probably like, it's in my top three zombie films, to be quite honest. Yeah. - Nice. - Yeah, 'cause it scores pretty high with me for practical effects, but also plot, and then keeping it simple. You know? - Right. - And I love my zombie movies to be a bit absurd. You know, and I love all the homages in it, and even like, you could even say the one with Tony was kind of like Danny at the end of "Shawn of the Dead." - Oh, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. Or sorry, yeah, yeah, you just, or Ed, sorry at the end of "Shawn of the Dead," where he's playing in the girl, like, you know, they got to save him, and they got to make it work. Honestly, though, like, for people that didn't understand what they were doing with this film, I don't like to be that kind of cinema goer. - Oh, be that person, be it. - But like, come the fuck on, man. Like, do you not read? Like, it was just like, I went to go see "High Rise" at the film festival, "High Rise of J.G. Ballard" adaptation, and it's like, people didn't read the synopsis. You know, the synopsis will give you a lot of spoiler-free, like, vibes for the film, and I mean, if you had read it, you would know. First of all, that it's a double feature. Second of all, you know, that it's kind of an homage to these films, but like, how do you, how do you not, how do you, like, and there's no one in this movie that like, you would just go like, okay, like, I'm gonna go see this for Hoompst, Bruce Willis, like, who I love, but still, you know? Like, who are you seeing this movie for if you weren't seeing it for the love of the kind of movie it is? - Yeah, I still don't think, I don't think people knew what "Grindhouse" meant, so you can say, oh, it's an Amash to "Grindhouse" cinema, but that means jack shit to people I think. - Exactly. - But also, it's 2007, we've got the fucking internet. - Yes. - You were asking people to do something they still to this day do not do almost 10 years later, which has fixed their fingers to Google before you say something stupid online. I don't know why I got such a stretch for people, or they like to ask in comments, they're like, what is the da-da-da? And I'm like, we have the same Algors internet, like, but like, of the little marketing that they did do, they did drop the fact that there would be features in there by people like Edgar Wright and Eli Roth and, you know, all these other people. So like, I knew that drew, that's what drew me in, 'cause I'm going like, okay, this is like, you know, the Justice League of War, like, directors, you know? So like, again, how do you not, even with those names involved, go like, hmm, this isn't for me. How do you do that? - Yeah, I just think this is such an unexpectedly queer film, and I love that we get to women who are just so comfortable with who they are as people. Like, Cherry's just comfortable with the fact that she's ready to take charge of her life, and she can't keep being a go at answer. And then we have Dr. Block, who is so undermined at every turn by the men around her, that she's just like, fuck it, I'll do it myself, you know? Very Thanos energy with so many things. And I love the schlock, I love the gross out gore where it's just so over the top, that it doesn't really bother me, it's just funny. And I would be remiss not to point out that if you are into the meta, as Bhavana and I have said on so many episodes of our own podcast, this is your film. If you are into the 70s part of horror at all, or the late 60s, this is for you. I lost count of the number of references, amages, et cetera, to everything. And at the very end with the helicopter, I can't help but think of my favorite movie, which is-- - I just realized. - It's done and done. - It's done and done. - It's my favorite movie. - Oh yeah. - It's my, I just love it so much because that's another film where a group of people who should not work together kind of have to come together and get saved and she's pregnant at the end of that film. - Right. - And so there's this very queer lens on the world where you have to have hope because it's so easy to be a doomer, it's so easy to say, you know, well, the world's going to shit, we have global warming, we have late stage capitalism, et cetera, et cetera, what's the point in anything? But I mean, you guys know it's your lived experience. If you don't have hope as a queer person and kind of that found family vibe, what are we doing? What are we doing with our lives? So anyways, I say all that to say, this is just so unexpectedly, not, I don't want to say progressive, that's not really the word I'm looking for. It's just so unexpectedly refreshing, coming from a 2007 film by Robert Rodriguez. (laughs) Yes. - He did a really good job Trojan Horse saying like, the good shit into this movie, you know what I mean? - And I think a lot of that was the actors involved as well. And one last nod that I did love is that we do just get that little snippet of Bruce Willis, but we only see him from the front for what? Couple seconds, if that. Often in a lot of these grind house films that were being made in order to make a budget, they would film all of the big name actors, film, you know, main scenes, facing from the front, and then if they appeared in any other scene with less dialogue or no dialogue, they would get a stand in and just film the stand in from behind. So. - I love that. - Yeah, we love it, we love filmmaking magic. And I'm just so glad we got to talk about this movie with y'all, it's one of my favorites. - Yeah, this movie is super fun. I really can't elaborate on any more than we already have, but I just, I love this movie so much. And I cannot wait to eventually cover Death Proof. - I can't wait to listen. - I had honestly forgotten how fun this film was. I had fond memories of it, but I didn't remember, you know, a lot of the jokes and even the visual playfulness of this. And it's a really good time. Like this flew by and it was highly enjoyable. So, you know, two limp wrists that have been paralyzed with syringes up. Oh my God, we didn't even get into the trope of like having a limp wrist. - Oh my God, she's a little infrusted clearer. (laughing) - Oh my God. We probably, by the time this comes out, we've already gotten messages from people that are like, I can't believe y'all didn't say it. Listen, keep, listen to the end. We bring it up. (laughing) - Read the article, not just the title, kids. - Truly, listen to these two and a half hours. All right, well, before we announce a recovery next week, Bovna and Jamie, let us know. Where can they find you on social media? - Oh my goodness, where can they find us? They can find us as @thebloodybrods or @bloodybrodspod on pretty much every social media platform you can think of, except for Blue Sky. What are we on that one, just bloody broads? - Yeah, we're just bloody broads on Blue Sky. Bovna, where can the people find your personal accounts? - They can find me trying to figure out that barbecue recipes where they can find me. But they can find me as @theluckycharm, so that's S-H-A-R-M-S, except for on Instagram because Zuckerberg is a hater and you get a little extra underscore on the end there. - Oh, okay. - What about you, Jamie? - They can find me taking off on a sick-ass motorcycle with a machine gun leg and a hot girl around the back, or as @glitterbrito on all of my social media, except for Instagram because, yes, Zuckerberg's a hater and I'm Jamie, Kirsten Howard, full government name over there. - Well, if you wanna get in touch with us, you can reach us on Twitter and Instagram @horakwears. Shoot us an email @horakwears@gmail.com. Find us on Letterbox to keep track of all the films we've covered. If you wanna chat with other listeners, join our Facebook Horakwears group. If you have a moment, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And if you want more content, please support the show by becoming a patron at patreon.com/horakwears. If you subscribe today, you will get 315 and a half hours of Patreon content, including this month's new episodes on Hannibal season one, episode six, Under Paris, The Exorcism, and The Watchers. Oh, and to tie in with The Watchers, a brand new audio commentary on the 2017 David Brockner film, The Ritual. - Oh my God. - You must last time you have to say that this month, Trace. - Thank God, moving into July for four more weeks of that. Joe, hmm, what are we covering next? - Next week. - Why do you sense my disappointment? - I have not seen this movie since college and I plan to never watch it again. I respect the movie, I appreciate the movie. It is an hour and seven minutes long and it feels three times that long by design. - Oh, okay. - Well, this is exciting for me in my first time watch. So I'm excited for that journey. Folks, it's a hard left turn. We are going international, but we're going to talk about Tatsuo, the Iron Man. - Yeah, this is a Japanese body horror about a man that slowly starts becoming a machine and the sound design is, by design, intentionally grating. Oh, this is our house cinema. So, here we go. Here we go, kicking off July with a bang. - It is a classic though. I had to watch this for my Asian horror film class in college and film school. - Nice. - Sounds fun. Yes, get ready for Tatsuo next week, but until then, we can cross out planet terror. - Indeed. Cross out horror queers and our boss. (upbeat music) Get three coffins ready, kid, because our latest podcast, Make My Day, is venturing off into the wild and sprawling frontier that is Clint Eastwood's career. More movies than Stephen King has books and more genres than all of the franchises we've covered over at the Halloweenies. Now, I know what you're thinking. Do they really need to start another show? Well, to tell you the truth and all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being this is a podcast, the most powerful medium in the world for pop culture conversation and Clint's output is infinite. You've gotta ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? Find out today and subscribe to Make My Day, a Clint Eastwood podcast now, wherever you get your audio. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
Break out your good spring water and raise those limp wrists because we're talking the first half of Grindhouse in Robert Rodriguez's endlessly entertaining Planet Terror (2007). Bazooka-jumping into the conversation are Jamie and Bhavna of the Bloody Broads podcast!
Join us as we do a deep dive into the legacy of this film, including its notorious box office flop status, before heaping all the praise on its badass female characters (Rose McGowan and Marley Shelton). From changing history with Osama bin Laden to pushing all the limits of good taste, we've never seen anything like this film before....and we've been to Morocco!
Plus: that iconic machine gun leg, debating "bro films," plenty of pus (and pustules) and one hilarious child death.
Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group to get in touch with other listeners
> Trace: @tracedthurman
> Joe: @bstolemyremote
> Bloody Broads: @BloodyBroadsPod /
> The People Under the Scares: @People_Scares
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