Hey Leo. Yes hello hi how are you? I made a pretty amazing discovery this weekend. I was out camping and hiking with some friends. I woke up early one morning and I decided to go for a little bit of a walk on my own so I left where we were staying. I went out to the woods and then I had one of those incredible experiences that only the hiker and the horror fan can really enjoy. I found a graveyard in the middle of the woods. Phenomenal. I love secret grade yards. Yeah here was the thing though. I got a little thrown off because it was a very pristine graveyard. It was small. The headstones were all in an arc and then I read it and I was really confused because it said mittens was a good companion. I thought what the fuck? You found a pet cemetery. I found a pet cemetery. Tremendous. It took me about three minutes to figure it out. I was like why does this say that Fido loved his gay companions? I was like what a thing to write on a headstone. What is the queer equivalent of a pet cemetery? Maybe it was one of those. Right or somebody really loved their polycule. Could be that. That's where they're all in an arch together like a rainbow. It was a polycuber graveyard. That's what it was. Did any of the headstones say IP freely because it could have been a setup? Yeah maybe it was all a joke. But it did. There was a moment of total confusion where I was looking and I was like mittens was a loyal companion. Loved their gay parents. Always got the stick when I threw it. It was a pet cemetery and of course it was a pet cemetery in Massachusetts. It was very diverse. I don't know what a diverse pet looks like other than poodle that had dyed hair. Don't you dare make a joke. Don't you dare. #santolito for whatever poodle joke he was going to make. I'll save it for a future show. I hope that poodle belonged to the straightest couple that buried a dog in that graveyard. It's like the alvira poodle from the movie. Yes, yes, exactly. All right everybody. Welcome to spoils and horror. My name is Stephen. I am Leo. And this is episode number 139. Hell night. But an excellent day for an excision. Look at me, Damien. It's all for you. I'm our number one fan. I hope they are watching. They're seeing. They're seeing. They don't know. I'm scared to close my eyes. I'm scared to open up. Whatever you do. Don't fall asleep. Leo, I got to admit, I love when this happens. This is a true case of you showing me a movie because I had never seen Hell night. So why'd you pick it? It's still my birthday pick for two. This is part two. This is a movie that I grew up with. Low shelf rental store movie. It's a very interesting and overlooked slasher film, more of a stock and slash film, I guess, from the 1980s. And it has Linda Blair in it, which most people only remember her from two things. Her first role in The Exorcist. Can I guess the second one? Repossessed. No. Ah, that's what I remember her from is repossessed. Most people don't even know that movie exists. I think Repossessed is a fucking hilarious film. But unfortunately, most people know Linda Blair from her string of Skinnamax style horror/prison films that she did in her career, which to be fair and get it right out of the way, I'm not going to be going on about those because I don't disrespect anyone for what they choose to do as a working actor. If that was her gig, that was her gig. A lot of people go nuts reaming on her about those films and I don't care. I think she's fine. I think she's a good actor. I think this movie, although still early in her career proves that she's a good actor. And that's one of the reasons I chose it. Well, I stated my opinion clearly that I like some of those movies. I don't think I've seen all of them, but I've seen some of them and I like them, which is if anybody has listened to this show more than this episode, we'll surprise no one. Yeah, this was a totally surprise pick for me. I had heard of this movie. I knew a little bit about it. And I think what I knew about it is a little interesting, which is that I knew it was a little different. I knew that there was a different take on the main character and I knew there was a different take on the plot that was something that people really was excited about with this movie. Whether or not I was, we'll get into it with the episode, but that's what I knew going in. Well, there you go. Now we're going into it with everyone. Members of Alpha Sigma Rho are throwing a costume party filled with fire pits, cake stands, and wet t-shirt contests. Everyone is gearing up for Hell Knight, the initiation ritual where fledgling frat boys and sorority girls have to stay the night and hunt a garth manor. President Peter tells the pledges and a bellished tale about a deformed family who were killed in a murder suicide. Their son Andrew survives and to this day may be inside the house waiting for new victims. Peter locks four pledges inside the manor. Denise, the party girl, Seth, the horn dog surfer, Jeff, the rich kid, and Marty, the smart girl who is starting to wonder why she's joining the sorority at all. Denise and Seth run upstairs to fool around while Marty and Jeff look around downstairs. As Peter and his two friends start sneaking around Garth Manor trying to scare the pledges inside, Marty and Jeff get to know one another. They talk about politics, growing up poor, and following in the footsteps of their parents. The movie opens with a blood curdling scream and a wet t-shirt contest proving to be the quickest I've ever been drawn into a film in my entire life. I would like to say if you're going to throw a wet t-shirt contest, the t-shirts have to be thinner than what we experienced in this. Right, exactly. They were all multicolored. They were pretty thick. It'd be like in Maine if they had a wet flannel contest. It's kind of like "Why bother?" Wet sweater contest, okay. I was drawn in nonetheless even with just the thought or opportunity. As well, you should be. But I think there's a lot to say about this opening. It really does actually pull you in very quickly. I really like that there's a immediate sense of partying, laughing, really great music, a fun credit sequence where the Hell Knight title card pops up on the screen. This movie drags you in really quickly. It's just a ton of fun to watch all these different people partying and all these different things that are happening inside this house. Yeah, it's not a place that I want to be. But the movie kicks you off with some high energy really quickly. My experience of college is based entirely off of movies because I never got the chance to go. And by movies, I mean growing up as a young kid in the 80s watching shit like this happen as an institution of college. And I would love anyone to let me know if that's actually how it happens or not because what I hear from people nowadays about college sounds nothing like this at all. But these movies tell me this is how it was 24/7. My experience of college was being a total fucking loser. So, so take this same scene, set it in a dorm room and make an ugly nerd crying that you got it. So more like revenge the nerds for you. Exactly, exactly. Throw in some sad Starcraft and you've got a movie. An autobiography if you will. I feel like Hollywood lied to me, that's all. But the movie kicks it into high gear really quickly. There's just a lot that's happening. And we get to know the a few of the characters right off the bat, which I really enjoy. But this does bring us to a very special moment. We have hit a milestone. We are introduced to all these characters. We're introduced to Marty and we're introduced to Peter and we're introduced to Seth who because it's costume party is dressed like Robin Hood. Therefore, bringing into the fold the first actual bycocket into those of horror movie history. If I didn't have a better choice plan for our 150th episode, I would have waited till then. Yes. Right. We need to find a horror movie version of Robin Hood. So it can just be that's got pockets galore and it's got to be out there. They get a horror movie of everything. Hey, they're doing all those Disney films as horrors now. Maybe Robin Hood will be next. And then somebody slips made Marion's throat. Robin Hood's arrow goes straight through her eye. Revving chainsaws in the background. I'll throw something in the show notes about the old Disney Robin Hood for anybody who's even remotely aware of that reference. That's fucking funny. Yep. There is a bycocket in this movie and I couldn't let it go, which is normally a problem that I have for you for you. I like Seth immediately proves himself to be the exact definition of at least Hollywood frat boy pledge house president smegma douchebag fraternity row, whatever it's called. He's hitting on the girl in the cloak room until he sees Marty walk in. And then even though he's literally just about to bring this girl upstairs turns his attention to the new girl and literally then does nothing about it for the rest of the movie. Yeah. And then he kind of starts flirting with Denise, which is fine. It's all these, you know, the archetypes of these characters, but it is kind of funny that they zone in on literally the two only other characters that have any role within this movie whatsoever. This is a party of 250 people. Yeah, we don't get to see a guy named booger. We don't get to see anyone with any sort of Chris Farley look to him acting like antics. It's just the main characters in a large party until we get to a large caravan riding down the road. Yeah. And I love the way you describe these characters. So when you were reading the opening narration, I'm not sure if you screwed up, but if you did, please keep it in there. Because as opposed to calling them pledges, you called them pledgelings, which makes them sound like the face huggers in Alien. See, I told you, I didn't go to college. I don't know what they called. Makes them sound like a hat shot of eggs. Like, they're just frat boys and sorority girls. They looked up and all the pledgelings were on the ceiling. They were crawling around, stuffing their proboscis down everyone's throat. Right, right? Covered in slimes. That sounds like a frat to me. I don't know. I think that there are frights like that. You know, it is pretty fun when a movie feels a little universal because you start off this movie and you know exactly where you are. You know what time period you're in, but we all know a frat party. We all know a fun vibe to a slasher horror movie. So it's pretty easy to get into this movie and know right where you are. Like, it does feel a little timeless. And then there's this, this movie has this great idea. You know, any movie that has some sort of backstory for a slasher always has to have this insufferable moment where they have to like dump the story of the killer onto the main characters so the audience knows what's going on. Some movies do it really well. Like, I love that scene in Friday 13 part two. Campfire scene that's very appropriate for telling a scary story, different things like that. I love the way this movie handles this, which is that Peter is the head of the fraternity. And he's very excited about Hell Knight. He's very excited about giving these pledges a hard time as they get ready to get into their frats and sororries. And so he does this very grandiose tour that he takes everybody through the courtyard of the Garth Manor and he's telling them the story of what happened in the Manor describing them all the horrors that they're going to have to be, you know, sort of sleeping around as they spend one evening there in order to get into the fraternity sorority. And again, it does feel very timeless. There's a timelessness to scary stories until you hear the story that he tells, which has probably every wrong word that you can possibly use to describe someone who gives birth to someone that's deformed. This is a monologue about Mongoloid simpletons who dragged themselves around on one leg and you couldn't tell if they were male or female. Somebody call HR. And it's so funny because it just goes on and on. And the first time I heard it, I was like, oh, I love this idea that he's giving up to work. And then he's telling the backstory of the house. I think this is a wonderful idea. And then he just went into this monologue where he just said it over and over and over again. And like every like outdated word that we use to describe someone who comes out of the womb with like a hang nail. They weren't flipper babies. They were actually just normal people with maybe a, you know, wort or something. Right. Like, it's just so funny. And I thought to myself, I thought, how does this story play out now and like the politically correct era? Like, let's say you do a remake of Hell Knight. And you redo this scene. What happens in that? I think it would be that Peter stands up in front of everybody and says, this is the Garth House horrible things happened here. Two women in a mixed race couple had a baby and it turned out he was male straight and cisgender. So they shot themselves. About it. I'll go on the parents for raising the child incorrectly. Right. And it would all be about going into a correction camp for their behavior. Yep. Exactly. They accidentally gave him a gendered boy toy and which sounds very different than it was meant to in my mind that it did out of my mouth. Some kids want that for their birthday. That's all I'm saying. Look, we, we as a horror do not judge. We, we make jokes and we have fun, but we do not judge. Much like Lloyd Kaufman, we make jokes equally across the board on everyone. Yes. Because we love everyone. Platonically. It depends on if you win the spoils of horror contest. When a date with Leo. If you put enough into our indiegogo campaign, you could win some love from one of us. It just depends on how much you're willing to spend. If you join our Patreon at a certain tier, you get one date with, with Lee or me, we get to choose. We get to choose which one of us go on the date coin. You'll be surprised when one of us shows up and that'll be how it goes. I did keep laughing about this idea of the, of the Gen Z, you know, like haunted house story going with my cisgender straight male left inside the house after the parents were gone. I, I wrote down, he's still in this house to this day, reading his sports illustrated, waiting for his next victim. As much fun as we're making out of it, just to catch the audience up, the story goes that the former owners had a series of deformed children who were systematically murdered by their father. After offing his wife, he turned a noose on himself, and that was the end of the Garth family, except for one survivor. And you don't know actually how much of the story is true. It's very clear that Peter isn't bellishing it, which I actually think is great. I think that's a great idea. No, I was going to say it's campfire stuff like you're mentioning. I had the same note about comparing it to Friday 13th, where you're just telling a spooky story because there's something about we got to get these kids in this house and we got to scare the shit out of them. And what I love about it is, do you remember when we covered Friday 13th part two, we told a joke where we said they never get the story wrong. They always tell the story perfectly. They're never like, Jason Voorhees was wearing a bag over his head and said, "Trader Joe's on it." They never get a part of the story wrong. And so that's actually what I really enjoy about Peter's monologue, other than the heavily outdated nature of some of what he says. I really enjoy the simple fact that he's embellishing it. And you actually don't know how much what he's saying is actually true. And it's funny because you get to see the kids in the background. The pledges who will be staying in the house as well as the ones who are just there listening to the story. And some of them are smiling, some of them look concerned, some of them are rolling their eyes because they know it's full of shit. And I think that's a small touch of realism, which this movie actually does a lot of and nobody gives a credit for. They do these little nods, these little touches of reality because you would, like you and I would probably either be in on the joke or look at this guy going, he's full of it. That's not right. And you would see them in the background. You would see those reactions. Right. And so once they lock the four pledges in the house, which is going to be kind of our four main characters for the rest of the movie, they're all the people that are crowded around outside of the house. They're doing pledge level shit. Like pledges sometimes it almost feels like some sort of ritual, like some sort of initiation thing. And so they all got torches in their hand and there's all these cars and they all drive away in their cars. And did you notice that the last one, the last car that drives away has a woman sitting on the hood holding a torch as it speeds off into the darkness? I've never wanted somebody to roll over the top of a car so badly in my life. That right there is why it got outlawed for people to ride the back of pickup trucks and shit without a seatbelt. Because we did stupid fuck talking of which the 80s were all about these movies, at least with frat parties and people having to do outrageous things to prove that they're worthy to belong to the frat and all that. And it got me wondering what is the weirdest thing you did or would have done to belong to a group of people? Oh, you asking me this question? Man, I don't know how to answer that. I might have to think about that during this episode. I mean, Jesus Christ, we're in the horror community. I watched of a violent nature and the yoga kill for anybody who's seen that movie knows the yoga kill. I'm just fucking dying of laughter. I don't know that I'm the right person for this question. I've done a lot of wacky shit in my day. And some of it probably pretty questionable. Some of it I won't admit on air because I grew up in an era where my dumb shit was not filmed and put on the world for display. But none of it was to belong to a group or to join a fraternity or anything like that. It was just me being a dumb ass kid. So I don't know. I don't know if I can help you with this Leo. I'm an ugly dumb bisexual who likes horror and played starcraft. Like, I was on the outs from the beginning. Like, well, if any of you meatbags have an answer to this or you want to share your weird dumb shit, you did, please tell us right to to us. Yes, exactly here. Honestly, I would love to hear it. I think it's funny. I think it's interesting. I would love to hear it. If I think of something by the end of this episode, I will say what it is. Cool. But other than that, I have no fucking idea. I've been on life. Life has always had me sort of like off in the corner, staring at the wall, a la Blair Witch Project. I was on the outskirts too. That's why I'm curious about these things. Hey, we all want to belong. I have a few issues with this movie. Some of them start now and it's when the characters that are staying inside Garth Manor open up their mouths. I mentioned before, I do genuinely think Linda Blair is a great actor. I think she is talented. I think she has what it takes to be the celebrity that she is. I think it shines more in this movie because I can't say that of any of the others. Linda Blair is very, very charming in this movie. Let me get that out of the way right off the bat because I want to talk more about her character later. I do think she is a unique final girl and I think they do a really good job with her character who she is and any fault of that character is not hers. Two of the others are just slasher stereotypes, the party girl and the frat boy. I can live with that but I have some issues with what those characters are left to do. And then there's Jeff who is the guy that Marty is stuck with throughout the entire movie. I think the only way to describe him was if ever a wisp of air could be a character in a film. There's just nothing here. I can't tell you who this guy is other than the fact that he's rich and he gets embarrassed talking about being rich. It's not to say that he's not a hero in certain points. He fights the villain. He certainly tries. I do like the fact that the movie kills him off. It actually does give Linda Blair's ending a little bit more weight. But quite frankly, I kept hoping for some M night Shyamalan ending where it showed you the previous footage and you realized that literally Linda Blair was talking to no one because that's about what it felt like to me. I actually have a very similar notation here about Jeff as a character being more like Casper the Ghost. Nobody else can see him or hear him. It's just her having these conversations because she's alone. She's scared. He's just a figment. He's just some sort of psychosis. That would have actually been very cool. And don't get me wrong. I like their dialogue in the scene where they are lighting fires and lighting a few candles and just getting prepared for the night. I have some issues with the movie's dialogue and characterization later. But not here. I like that they talk about she grew up poor. He grew up rich. She has a really nice moment where she talks about her father being a mechanic and how he taught her things. Whereas his father was rich and this like leave it to be her type that wore sweaters. I like the way that they're comparing their lives. I like the way that he mistakes her for being some full of herself college student. But she really isn't like that. She doesn't actually care about politics. They just have a nice conversation. I get where they're going with this. And I actually think it's good for Linda Blair's character. It gives her personality. One of the things I like about her character is that they don't do the whole final girl. Like they have basically have two choices. Her character is either a virgin until she dies or with no personality. I think remember that girl in fail games that we couldn't stand where she just depends on the entire movie. Like rolling her eyes every time her boyfriend dares to want to actually have sex with her. If he breathes the wrong way it's like oh stop your heavy breathing you pervert. Yeah. Right. Or we have the really good final girls. The ones that have full characters. You know like Laurie Strode or say the lead girl. I think it's Chrissy in Hellraiser. She was always really great. Had a full story to tell which is just not that interested in boys in those movies because it wasn't relevant to the story. They were the characters who realized there's more important shit going on right now. We don't have time to find a private room and fuck. Right. That's what men do. That's what we do. It's going to take him 20 seconds to break down the store. And I'm going to tell you right now I can be done in 20 seconds. I don't know if that would be enough time for me but I can say I can get a good few feels in. Like I'm all right. I'm handsy. I really do feel like the opportunity for us to get that date out of out of our patreon is going lower and lower. The price tag is going higher and higher. So you're going to have to earn it. Do you want sex in 20 seconds or a or a feel in 20 seconds? John spoils more on patreon. I'll ask you want to feel something. But all joking aside she is she's in that more interesting camp. She feels like a full person which I really really enjoy. As opposed to the other two who are the stereotypes going off to the bedroom to fuck almost immediately. And they've only just met each other. And I have to ask what is it with guys in horror movies in the 1980s choosing to flirt with women by shooting arrows at them? I felt the same thing. I thought only a fucking guy would take a bow and arrow that he has. Great. The arrow has a plunger on it and shoot his girlfriend in the ass and think to himself, this is going to make her want to fuck me. You did this in part of 13th as well. There's just right out there. She's like what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah. So I don't know something about the 80s. I'd just like to make a recommendation everyone. Don't try that at home. A blood curling scream is heard from outside. The pledges follow the sound and figure out that pranks are being played on them with a series of speakers, wires, and remote controls. Inside the mansion, another elaborate hoax creates the illusion of a ghost floating towards Marty. She screams and escapes the room just before it reaches her. As Peter sets up another scare, he sends one of his friends to the back of the house to set up a diversion. She's grabbed by the ankles and dragged into the cellar by a mysterious figure who chops off her head. Back now side, Peter's remaining friend is working on their next trick when he hears something behind him. He gets scared, climbs down a ladder, and runs into a large man who grabs his head and twists it backwards. As this happens, the niece wakes to a noise in the other room. She grabs a candle, walks into the hallway, and finds an old vanity where Peter tries to scare her with more fake ghosts. When he leaves to set up his next prank, Peter finds his friend hanging dead from a noose. He runs and tries to escape, but the large man kills him with a size. A lot happens during this section of the movie. But we get introduced to Peter's friends, so Peter, to remind everybody, is the head of the fraternity, and he brings along two friends who I didn't bother to name because it doesn't matter. But the three of them are setting up a series of pranks outside the house because, of course, they see this whole thing as fake, and they want to scare the pledges that are inside. And there's a small moment that I was really intrigued by because at one point, the female friend protests something, walks off, and the male friend looks up at me and says, "What a twat!" Which caught me off guard, because that's the same thing I say every time you leave this channel. I think if I remember correctly, that's what most of the Google reviews say about this show. But weirdly, they put five out of five stars. That's right, that's right. Five stars, what a twat, that's it. Best review ever. And they put a little exclamation point at the end, like, like it's our sign-off line. What a twat. Thank you everyone for listening to "Spoils" or... One thing I love about this movie is that it has a lot of atmosphere. Many things happening around the house, things to look at. The house itself is a great find. I think perfectly suited for the story and large enough to believably allow for the hidden passages and underground layers that the plot calls for. This isn't exactly hammer horror, but it rings of that vibe of old school, Vincent Price-style scary house, Garth Manor, between what's going on inside and the expansive grounds surrounding the property, which are well-employed also. And it makes it so... Everything's not limited to being just inside the Manor, which gives it plenty of opportunities for fights throughout the film. I think that atmosphere and the way the story is structured is both a blessing and a curse. But you speak to the blessing part really well, because you essentially have three different types of atmosphere that are coming together. Number one, just the general vibe of the house. They are in this beautiful gothic manner that has kendalabros and fireplaces and opulent ballrooms. It's a great set to work with, and you're right, it reminds me of maybe some hammer horror films, but more universal horror films. It reminds me of some of those, the 1931 Dracula and different things like that, just these big opulent places. And then you have the pranks, and the pranks actually add an extra level of atmosphere, because even though they are not real ghosts and real undead things that are jumping out and scaring our main characters, it still lends a vibe nonetheless. It's like if you're watching, like the way Halloween 4 has a wonderful Halloween vibe. So it has that great opening montage in Halloween 4 that doesn't use the normal music, but instead uses those great sad shots of old pumpkins sitting on hay bales. You don't talk about that great, that fantastic opening to Halloween 4. This movie captures a vibe, even though I don't know that it is supposed to take place on Halloween. It's a it's a costume party. It's called Hell Knight. I don't know. I don't know. To be honest, it's many times I've seen this film that's never registered to me, whether it's Halloween or not. But you know, there's plastic skeletons that jump out of closets and there's canned snakes that jump out of a vanity. My favorite is this wonderful ghost effect that almost makes me sad that this movie is not actually a ghost story, because it just looks so goddamn good, which is that they use a very similar trick that they use in Disney's Haunted Mansion, which is that they project a ghost onto glass, which makes it look transparent. And look, it's technology that I don't believe for a second this fraternity could have, but bombs on the boat who gives a fuck. You know, I could care less. You know, I could care less how these how these kids are making any of these pranks work, but it adds an extra level of horror, even though it's not actually happening. It's not actually scary. And then of course, there's the actual horror of Andrew Garth living inside that house as some sort of lurched like creature, some big giant thing that is living in these catacombs under this house. So it really has a lot of horror vibes pumped into every single section of this movie, which I agree with. And I think, again, for a film that doesn't seem to get enough love or enough attention is something that people, even when they do review this film or know about this film overlook, I think there's not a lot of conversation around how it just really went out of its way to put together a good atmosphere for the film. I do also think that the combined stories actually are also the curse of the movie, because I couldn't figure out why every time I watched this film, I felt it dragging. This movie shouldn't drag to me. And there's a couple reasons. And I want to talk about one right now, which is just the pacing of this movie is very strange. And so what will happen is you get the four main characters inside the house, and then the movie just slows to a crawl. And I like some of the opening dialogue between Marty and, Marty and Jeff, but we'll take Jeff's part out. Marty talking to herself in a room. And then this movie just continually does the same thing over and over and over again. It picks these weird moments to slow the fuck down. We get caught up in these characters that are outside, they're setting up these pranks. But everything is very belabored. The script that I wrote is short, but everything is long. The kill of the kid on the roof that is setting up a mannequin, and then the creature grabs his head and twists his head around. There's a lot of just looking around during that scene. Yeah, that's like a five minute kill. That's a five minute kill. And there is a moment where the camera pans in on this guy. He's setting up a mannequin. And then the camera pans down to show what he's doing to the mannequin. And it stays on that shot a long time. And then it cuts to this character looking behind him to see that no one's there. And then shortly after he's killed, these tech 10 second shots that they keep adding into this film where it shows a character and what they're doing, it adds up. It does. These 10 to 15 second shots add up. And there is just a lot of belabored space in really weird points. And I'm not talking about the parts we're setting up a jump scare. I fucking love those. This movie is full of silly jump scares. Those are not my issue. It's just these weird moments where the movie just slows to a crawl for no reason. I think you actually nailed on one of my only quote unquote complaints with this movie. It's fun to have fuzzy nostalgia of it from when I grew up looking at it with fresh eyes for the show. I'm like, Oh, here's the mistakes. Here's the problems. And I think I agree with you. This might be the biggest one where I could see a lot of people going into this film finding it boring just because these little moments do add up. It's not exactly long shots of people walking down hallways endlessly forever. But it's pretty damn close. And you could easily shave 20 minutes off of this movie and not miss a beat. And it would actually sharpen up the film to do that in my opinion. The double edged sword that you're hitting on, which I think is correct, is that it's also got a general charm in the setups of the jump scares and everything else as you're mentioning that had they tightened it up would have made the movie punch harder. But still it's slow. The slow parts add up, but they're also a little bit charming. I'm repeating myself. I know, but I'm just trying to summarize. Yeah. I actually crunch some data and I can help you out with this. So this movie of all the horrors, movies that we've covered. This is second on the list of the movie with the highest AWPMs across the whole movie. Do you know what AWPMs are? I think you've explained that before, yeah. It's apprehensive walking per minute. The only movie that beats this one is witchcraft. And Leo's laughing because of course that was just a joke. I made that up. But what the whole point is, is that there's so many different scenes where something scary happens and then the characters have to explore to figure out what's going on. And this isn't like clue where they when they explore it's very comical, where it's very silly. It's very belabored and very long. And there is a sequence later in the film where Marty and Jeff try to get out a gate and then they can't get out the gate. And so what they do is turn around and slowly walk back into the house and then slowly walk up the stairs and down the stairs and around the stairs and into one room and out the rest. And again, it's not leading to a jump scare. I think that sums it up perfectly. If this were a Friday 13th film, for example, or Halloween film, they would not be able to get out of the gate. They'd say, okay, we need to go back inside. You'd see them slowly walk to the front door and then it would cut to the next scene where something actionable is happening. This doesn't do that. It shows them walking, as you say, in the front door upstairs, down the hall, down the other hall, into that room, closing the door, locking the door. It follows the entire sequence, which we don't need. And to make one last point about the pacing, because I don't want to drive this into the ground, but you can see that the movie gets when the pacing is wonderful, too. So let me compare and contrast. By the 25-minute mark of this film, we have not actually established that there is a real threat. We have been focused on meeting the pledges and we have gotten focused on the fret boys and fret girl, setting up all of the traps and all the jokes and all the pranks. We don't know by this point in the film that there's an actual threat. So at 25 minutes in, you're looking around and going, what am I watching and why am I watching this? Are these traps going to become deadly? Are the fret boy and the fret girl and what are they going to actually set up something that goes wrong? What's happening here? Now, I love the story that those pranks end up telling, which is that it creates a very plausible reason for our main characters to not really sense that they're in actual danger. And also, it just sets up a lot of things that make sense to the end. There's a ladder in a certain place that makes sense because of the way the story is set it up. There are props in certain places because they were set up earlier as part of the pranks. So it allows loose ends to be tied up very nicely at the end of the movie. And it allows for a really creative way of looking at a slasher because you always have to figure out what the characters are doing when they're not being killed. And that has to be interesting or the movies just fucking unbearable. Look at later, later Friday 13th movies, as much fun as I love them, some of them are fucking the people that get killed or unbearable. But in early Friday 13th movies, they're interesting, they're nice, they're thoughtful and they're a little bit more fun to watch. And so I think if you compare these scenes, which I get the whole prank thing because I really enjoy it, I just wasn't so belabored. But then you have this 25 minute mark that it takes to establish that something actually scary is happening. But then when they do it, the kill of the of the frat girl, she is dragged underneath the house really quickly. Her head is held up against the wall. And it is just one of those great 80s head shop off kills. I fucking loved this kill. Like it was one of my favorites that we've ever covered on the show. It was awesome. Her screaming was awesome. The pacing of it was awesome. It was so quick. It was so down and dirty. It felt wrong. Oh, God, damn it. This movie nails it when it can. It nails that kill. And there's something to be said that that kill wouldn't have been as powerful without some of the slow down of the previous shit. I think they slowed it down too much. I think again, they could have cut back a little. But without that roller coaster ride, without the fake outs and the jump scares that were meaningless and the slowdown, this one moment would not have hit as strong as it did. And it's my favorite kill in the movie. It just starts off with a banger. It's not super gross already. You've got to love 80s movies to love this kind of kill. You've got to love that if you just stop the movie in the right spot, you can see the actress sticking her head through the wall against a scarecrow body. Like a body that is practically straw coming out of it. But still, they do it just quickly enough that it really sings. And even though it looks a little fake, I actually think that that adds to the charm of the film. And I actually loved it even more for that reason. Guys, guys, we've been doing this thing for a while, and I think it's about time we make a trailer. Yeah. All right. So here we go. Let's get this thing. All right, ready? All right, what's going on, everybody? We are dissect that film. I am Brett. I'm Dan. I'm Angela. And wait, wait, wait, wait, guys, I have an even better idea. What if we had somebody with an epic voice spell our show in a way that our show actually isn't? What do you say? It's perfect. All right, let's go. Your host, Parker, Dan and Angela, slice and dice their way through the good. If it pleads, we can kill it. The bad. You brought the devil. There's a devil inside a room. And the ugly movies you love. And you can't piss on hospitality. I want to allow it. Hold your favorite films and franchises tight because they aren't safe. In fact, it's already too late. It's time to dissect that film. I wish our show is what that guy just said. But you know what? If you want to listen to our awesome show, dissect that film, you can listen to us on YouTube and on your favorite podcast. Apps every single Friday where we talk about all the wonderful films. Good, bad or ugly as that epic dude said back there. So until next time, I'm Brett. I'm Dan. I'm Angela. And we'll see you all again next time. While Marty and Jeff spend the night talking and flirting. Andrew Garth stands over Denise as she sleeps. When she wakes up and tries to scream, he grabs her mouth. Seth comes back from the bathroom and finds the severed head of Peter underneath the blankets. He screams, finds Jeff and Marty, and everyone tries to escape Garth Manor. Seth is able to climb the high spiked gate and agrees to run for help. Marty and Jeff go back into the house and find another dead body hanging near a window. With nothing to do but wait, they investigate the area more and find another dead body. Seth makes it to town and tries to get help, but police think he's pulling a hill night prank and tell him to get lost. Before leaving, he's able to grab a conveniently placed shotgun that was left unattended near the front desk. Back inside Garth Manor, Marty and Jeff sit and wait. Little do they know Andrew is rising up from a secret passage beneath the rug behind them. He attacks and Jeff defends them by stabbing him with a pitchfork. The creature disappears back into the passageway. Marty and Jeff decide to follow him. They walk through a maze of catacombs under the house and follow a small light to a makeshift dining room. Denise is dead, placed at the table next to a pair of skeletons. Marty screams and Andrew attacks. Sometimes it's hard to rate a film in the correct way. That's why we don't do ratings on this show. Denise and Seth have a number of scenes upstairs where they are rolling around in their underwear getting ready to have sex. And so I thought to myself, where does this stand on the scale of spoils of horror, the pantheon of sex scenes? One being witchcraft two and ten being forbidden world. So where does it stand on that scale? And I don't really know. I will say this, the sex scenes in this movie make the threesome in the howling two look like the red shoe diaries. Ha ha ha ha. I found the scenes with Seth and Denise upstairs in this room trying to have sex in this bed to go from fun to unbearable. I think this should win some kind of an award for being the most accurate depiction of virginal sex I've ever seen in my life. I couldn't agree more. The amount of fumbling and dry humping and no actual penetration ever. And I want to do this, but let's talk first and all that other shit that only happens when it's your first time. They're both insufferable and then he starts talking. He'd clearly rather talk about surfing than sex. And look, I have no issue with somebody who says, I want to have sex with you, but hey, let's talk a little bit first. Let's get some personality out there. I'm as a person who also finds personality insanely attractive. I like to talk to somebody a little bit before sex too. Totally get that. But Jesus Christ, it's that it's, it's all preamble. And I can't even say it's all foreplay because I know foreplay. It's preamble before foreplay. And then they never get to foreplay. Nothing says we are never going to have sex more than constant interruptions with, let's have a tickle fest. Yeah, yeah, that whole weird. Yeah, I don't know what that was about. This movie has no nudity, very little swearing next to no violence, blood or gore, and somehow still earned an R rating. I think that's an incredible mark of its time. It's got that incredible beheading. That's what it is. I think it's that great beheading. Because you're right, it doesn't have any of the rest. And boy, oh boy, I don't think I've ever looked at a movie and gone boy, this, this needs some more nudity. Like, I need to see a tit stat. This is, this is, look, if you're going to be like a sleazy horror film, then that's one of my other issues is that it can't decide whether it's a classy horror film or a sleazy horror film. I actually think it wants to be both. I think it wants to be a hybrid. It's looking to be 80s sleaze, but with that Vincent Price, that universal monster class. Fuck am I in for that movie? Like, I am all about that hybrid. First of all, ladies, both of you who listen to the show. Ladies who listen to spoils of horror, please know, tickle fests are not sexy. They're not sexy at all. There is nothing that communicates more. I want to play with toys and not fun toys. Like I want to, I want to act like a child and not engage in this fun adult activity than a tickle fest. Am I wrong here, Leo? Am I totally wrong? I find that very unsexy. I think if you want a good comparison for all of you women who are confused about a man's point of view that whenever you get together for a sleepover, it's just a pillow fight in your lingerie, which is not reality. That's what this is. This is the same sort of idea. We don't find this attractive. It's not sexy. It's weird. It's a little uncomfortable. And it's more like you're goofing around with your nephew, which is the first thing that's going to turn me off right away. And Seth is no better. Let's remember that we started this off with him shooting an arrow at her ass. This is why I called them both virgins. I don't care how they act in this movie. They're both virgins. They don't know what the fuck they're doing here. So they're acting like the school kids fucking with each other rather than actually fucking each other. Also, there's a critical point when it comes to lingerie. There's either lingerie is like skimpy and fun, or lingerie is like too much. You know what I mean? There's like too many bows and there's too many clasps and there's too many like different things. There's a critical point where lingerie goes from being something sexy that you wear for your boyfriend and costuming that you wear for your gay friend. Yeah, it's very easily tripped between sexy lingerie and cosplay. That's a thin line. I think the thin line is, is your lingerie more clothing than your normal clothes? Fair. Totally fair. And Denise is this like right on the line. It's like right on the line. She's cute though. She's cute. Look, I wanted more nudity in this movie for my own reasons. That's fair. That stands true for most horror films, I believe. That is, that's a general spoils horror criticism. I mean, any time they do nudity in a horror movie, nine out of ten, I'm like, that's nice. But what about her over there? That one that I'm into. I remember when we watched evil, when evil lurks and we gave it a zero out of ten for lack of nudity. You know, basket was when I was really looking for more. Oh god, only we had seen just just a little bit more nudity in the green. Actually, that might have had a lot of nudity as much. You had enough in that one. Looking in the right places. Right, exactly. Fair point. I absolutely love when this sex scene ends because they're asleep, but they still have all their clothes on. So I love when the sex scene ends and Seth gets up and goes to the bathroom and after he finishes in the bathroom, he looks himself in the mirror and he says the gold guy one wins again. And I thought to myself, he must be thinking his head, I tickled the fucking shit out of her. I think this movie was ahead of its time to be honest. I think for all the tickle fetish guys out there, this is their movie. We're not getting it. We don't understand it, but there's a handful of people out there who are like balls deep into this thing. Oh god, that was so hot. I rolled around in my underwear with her for hours. No, no, man, it wasn't on her side. He tickled her thigh. Do you need what I'm saying? He's sweating. We should get a bad review for that. Somebody should say they said, Hellnate wasn't sexy. Hellnate's the sexiest fucking film I've ever seen. Those two could stop tickling each other. Oh, he grabbed her by the ankle and tickled her foot and I came in my pants. Oh god, one out of five stars for spoils of horror. They don't get to this movie with sexy to each their own brother. I don't want to dog on this movie the whole time because I do think there are things in this movie that I really enjoy. And again, I say the pacing is all over the place, but when it's on, it's on. And the pacing picks up when Denise disappears because Seth goes to the bathroom, he comes back, he finds the severed head of the brand-o girl that got killed earlier. And then it really picks up and it goes just just high drama. And man, oh man, this movie has a kick-ass score. This movie has some really great orchestral stuff that it's doing. And it really kicks in right here when the three of them run and they try to get over the gate. And then again, the pacing gets weird again after the gate thing is done. But it shows that this movie really can kind of light a fire under its own ass when it wants to. I think that section of the film also brings us to our main killer slash killers, as it were, and the whole Garth family experience, which is just south of Wayne's world, I suppose, in how it delivers. But look, I could not take seriously that this was called the Garth Manor, because all I could think of was Dana Carvey in Wayne's world. I know, right? It's crazy. I guess the killer is effectively a Sasquatch. Is that what I'm seeing? Yeah, so there's two of them, and they are both these kind of larger hairy guys. But I actually thought they both looked great. I actually really enjoyed the makeup design. Look, look, I don't know if this is accurate to what a deformed person would look like. If they had been living in a house on their... I have no idea about accuracy. I am just literally talking about what I saw on screen I enjoyed. And one sort of looked like if Hagrid from Harry Potter was accountable. And then the other one, I don't know, do you remember that Spider-Man villain Tombstone? I do very much, yes. Yeah, he kind of looked like a Hagrid version of that way. I guess I can't say Hagrid twice. That's confusing. Hagrid. Hagrid version of Tombstone. One of them is Hagrid, the other one's that hairy guy from Hills of Eyes. Sure, that's fine. Even those are totally different characters, but whatever. But we're following each other's points. The movie hasn't quite revealed that the secret is that there's actually two of the Garth family that are alive, which I thought was a great little surprise. I thought that that was very fun. I like the fact that it was a surprise that didn't like rewrite the tire fucking movie, that it was just like, "Oh, little sleight of hand, we fooled you into thinking one person was alive. It's actually there's two." I really enjoyed that. But I thought that both of these killers looked great. And I really enjoyed the fact that we're watching a slasher movie. And we get to see the running killer, which maybe sometimes Freddy Krueger runs, but most of the others just walk. But I really enjoyed just watching every time this killer goes after our main characters, just watching him bolt after them. I think you're nailing on something here, too, when we talk about modern horror films and how they're basically clones of these older ones, and how one thing births the generation of new things scream leads to. I know what you did last summer and final destination and all this other shit. And we talk about the slashers of the 80s. You have Michael Myers come out, and he was just a fast walking stalker. And he had Jason Voorhees follow in his footsteps almost literally, where he was very slow and methodical, paced killer, and so on. And a lot of these killers start doing the same thing. We want a big muscly, deformed guy hiding behind a mask, moving slow. This movie did actually get rid of that stereotype, which for the time was unique. And it's really difficult, I find, as I'm putting notes together for these films and watching these old movies and stuff, because this is where these things started. We take these things for granted now, that's just how the killer genre is. This is how the stereotype is. This is how this trope goes. And these are where these things started, these types of movies. At this moment, Hell Knight was a little groundbreaking in the fact that it didn't have this guy be slow and steady and lumbering towards you with a big axe over his shoulder. He just tore ass across the field and threw you off a roof. And it was frightening, because everyone else had done something different. Oh yeah, that's one thing I really enjoy about this film, is that it is that horror movie way that we say frightening when we recognize someone thing is scary, but we're not really scared of it. That's exactly what I was feeling when I was watching this. There is a great part in the catacombs of the house, where Linda Blair is being chased by Andrew Garth. And he is just like bolting through these caverns trying to find her. And I thought that that was a genuinely frightening part of the film. I thought that that was really great, because he was very close to catching her. And I had investment in that character. I didn't want her to die. So of course, it makes it all the more exciting. I really totally agree with you that just watching this character bolt after people was really, really enjoyable. And there are a few really good moments in this final showdown between Peter and Marty. There's a great one right off the bat. When it starts, they are sitting inside in their room, and they are sitting on the bed, and they're talking, and they're not sure what to do. Seth is just escaped, and he's trying to find help, but they're not convinced that he's going to actually find help. And two of them are talking and slowly behind them. There's a rug that is rising up as if somebody's coming from an elevator underneath it. I loved that shot. That was a point where I wanted the movie to slow down. And I really fucking enjoyed that. I got right what was happening. I was like, oh, there's a trap door under the floor. And there is this big giant monster has crawled into it. Now he's rising up to make his kill. I just fucking adored that moment. Yeah, that's the stuff I was talking about. Universal monsters shit like that. The old school creepy where you're expecting somebody to tear down the stairs or start banging on the door or throw somebody through a window, because that's what 80s slashers have established up till this point. You're not expecting it to go old school creepy on you, which makes it even more terrifying when it happens. And since we're here, this scene where they follow him down into those catacombs is just fantastic. I have no no issue with the slowness of this because it's building towards a jump scare, which is that which is that they slowly walk down and Peter and Jeff is carrying up. I can't remember if anybody's fucking name in this reason. But Jeff is carrying a pitchfork. Marty is standing behind him. And the two of them are going into these catacombs and slow and there's candles lit and there's rats running across the floor. And they make this big find, which they find that Denise is dead sitting at this dining room table that's been set down there with skeletons around it. This is the stuff that horror movie dreams are made out of. I really, really enjoyed the sequence. And of course, I loved watching Andrew chase after the thing that this movie nails is that every second of it is pumped full of horror movie imagery, even more so than House of Dark Shadows, which we just covered and we both really liked. I mean, this movie is just dummies and ghosts and tunnels and spooky trees and torches and ghosts. And like, it's just pumped full of every moment and it utilizes them. I gotta give the movie credit, it pays things off. They mentioned these tunnels in the beginning and now we're in them at the end. And so this was a fantastic sequence. And you're nailing on exactly the connection between these two films, why I chose them to pair with each other for this month, is that kind of atmosphere, that kind of background that even though, I guess this third time I said it, but the pacing, they could have taken 20 minutes off, they could have cut it back. I agree. I'll stand by that. But even with that being said, the slow moments in this, if you're paying attention to the background and you're soaking in that atmosphere, and you're just turned the lights off, I don't say this much for horror movies, because it sounds so cliche, he say it, but literally get in a dark room and watch this movie. I don't think it's gonna scare you, it won't scare me, maybe they'll scare you, who knows. But you'll soak in this atmosphere, you get in front of the television, turn the lights down, watch this thing, and it will give it a whole different experience for you, because you'll be able to really just be in that environment. You'll be able to get down into those catacombs with the stone walls, as you say, the torches, the rats, the cobwebs, and it would just have a whole different feeling than a standard 80s slasher would give you, and that brings a different life to this movie. And I think that this is where the balance of the movie is just a little off, because it also nails some of the vibes of a slasher too. It has the stock characters of a slasher, it has the energy in the beginning of a slasher, like the energy of the beginning reminds me of prom night. For sure. You know what, you know, it's very strong, it's very, you know, like we've joked about Arobicide forever, but that movie is not without energy, that movie is not boring, it's just a bunch of garbage, but it's not boring. And it's not without energy, you know, a lot of times these slashers, you can have an atmospheric slasher like Halloween, but most of them tend to have, you know, move at a quick pace and, you know, and have a good rock song in it, you know, and kind of keep things flowing really quickly. And I think that that's what this movie struggles with is finding the balance between what it wants to move like a quick 80s slasher, which of course it didn't know what an 80s slasher was at the time. This movie was made in 1981. Yeah, literally starting the 80s slasher craze. Right, right. But at the same time it knows enough, because it's doing it. I feel like this movie is 40% slasher, 60% universal monster movie, hammer film vibe. And I think it really needs to be 5050. And it needs to shape some of that boring time off. You know, so I want to talk about Seth before we go, because he is out on his quest to go find help. Yeah. And this quest just has a lot of false starts that just kind of go nowhere, which doesn't really say anything about the film. It's not like when Laurie Strode tries to get into the neighbor's house and the neighbor shot off their light, that was scary. This is not scary. This is just like they're seen after scene of just kind of going nowhere fast with him trying to find help. And it hurts the pacing of the film, but it does lead to a very funny scene. Well, he does do a thing that we all credit movies for not doing where in somebody runs up the stairs, the old classic trope, and we're like, don't go up there, you fucking idiot. Why don't you just go out and get help? Well, that's what he did. He went out and he sought help. And yeah, he didn't get to the right places in the beginning at the start, blah, blah, blah. But he eventually ended up at the police station, which is where he should have been. And the police station immediately looked at him and said, you're fucking dumb. We don't believe you go home or you're going to sit in jail all night. But what I found absolutely hilarious is when he turns around, it just so happens that right next to the waiting room, the room where people are waiting to report their crimes, there is a slightly a jar door that is filled within arsenal of guns and machine guns and your shotguns and weapons that you could use to annihilate a small army. Was I wrong? Or did these things have evidence tags on them? I don't know if they just pulled like the punisher in for littering. If you're on your table, we got to go talk to you again. Yeah. Frank, we've told you to not be out drinking after 10 fucking in there. Yeah. But lay out your guns, lay out the machine gun and the shotgun and the gun and guns. And then throw out the grenades, put down the knives. Jesus fucking Christ. I've never seen somebody fucking guns just sitting on like, I don't know what looked like the equivalent of the police room snack table. It really did. It was literally just a small room, which by the way, nobody was watching. There were no cameras in. There's no police in the room or at the door, even to the point that he could grab all the ammunition he wanted and jump out the fucking window to get away from everybody. This place was the least guarded place outside of the bathroom in the fucking cop station. I swear to God, all those guns were next to a big plate of brownies that said, take whatever you want. Maybe that you know that that bowl of candy people leave out when they're lazy just says, please pick one. Maybe they had one of those next to the guns and he got confused. He's like, yeah, guns great. I'll take them. Yeah, maybe it was one of those weird police gun protection programs. But in this town, they give the way the guns. You give us guns, we give you a snickers, then this guy gets a gun and it's all circular, you know, all the guns that we have in the police station are over a year old and we just got no one. So we're giving away the old ones. It's a yard sale. We're slashing prices. I wish the establishing shot hit a big like markerboard sign that said free guns inside. It's a guy dressed like a mascot gun, you know, just like dancing back and forth. Yes, he's got the sound that he's flipping over his head. Free guns, kids. Come on inside. We aimed to please the residents of our town. Wig, wink, wink. A man is ha ha ha rim shot here. While Andrew chases Marty and Jeff inside the catacombs, Seth steals a car and drives back to Garth Manor. After more chases and fights, it's revealed that two members of the Garth family survived. Seth murders one with a shotgun, but is killed by the other. Andrew chases our heroes to the upstairs bedroom. Marty escapes out onto the roof, but Jeff is thrown out of the window and killed. Marty runs across the roof, climbs down a ladder, and runs across the yard, dodging Andrew's attacks during her escape. She unlocks the gate, uses her skills as a mechanic to start the car and tries to leave. Andrew jumps onto the roof of the car, and in a final attempt to save herself, Marty drives into the gate and skewers Andrew onto the spiked iron bars. She passes out. When she wakes the next morning, she gets out of the car and walks down the driveway into the sunrise of a new day. This is another one of those moments where the pacing of the film really picks up. This is a lot of fun. This is a really, really great little ending. We have this fight on the stairs. We actually have two different fights that happen on the stairs. Number one is in the catacombs, which I really enjoyed. Peter gets pulled down a set of stairs. He has to fight Andrew off with a pitchfork, and then they have to crawl out a set of secret doors, which was just a blast to watch. It's really well paced. It's really well choreographed, and all of the characters are used really well in those sequences. But then you have another fight where Seth comes in. He's an unexpected hero at the end. He is a little bit more than a frat boy, which I enjoyed. He fights off what we think is Andrew, but it actually is another member of the Garth family. I love the cinematography of the shot of the stairs. As he's fighting this guy, they roll down the stairs, but because the lighting is so crisp and sharp, and because this dust rising up from whatever is on the stairs, the dirt and different things like that, it creates a smoky fog atmosphere. This all looks very nice, and it's all paced very well. I think for a final girl sequence, this is about as good as you're going to get for this timer, especially. I think they did Marty very well. They treat her like an actual person instead of a bimbo stereotype or what have you. They give her and her two would-be survivors enough to do to keep the tension high, the suspense strong, and really jump this last part of the movie right where it needed to be. Yeah, I get why people like her in this movie. I've read a lot of good press on Linda Blair in "Hell Night," and maybe it's a bit retroactive. There's this thing that happens to certain, most of the time it's actresses, sometimes it's actress too, where they get just like fucking dog-dawn for no reason. We talked about this as Shelly Duvall, where like madness that people thought she sucked in the shining. That's insane to me. And Linda Blair has gotten dog-dawn throughout the years too for being in genre films at Leo and I fucking love. Anybody who listens to this podcast fucking loves the women in prison or the prison movies and the fucking wacky fantasy and science fiction movies and all that weird shit that she was in. I don't really get what people are all pissed off about. She got a bunch of razis and I don't know. I've really come to turn my nose up at the razis. I get sick of their stuck-up bullshit for the way that they dog-on movies that maybe aren't great, but I don't really know that they're adding to the conversation. I'm starting to hate them as much as I hate the Oscars. I think that's exactly the right point. They're not adding to the conversation. The Oscars are like, "Let's celebrate the best of the best." And the razis came out with the right intention of, "Hey, let's celebrate the worst of the worst in the most playful and honest way." Like Dean Martin's Celebrity Roast. Let's just have some fun. Fuck with each other. Have a good time. It has gotten into a point now, much like the Oscars, where it's just a bunch of garbage for the sake of garbage and fucking with people for the sake of fucking with people. And to be very fair, I think Linda Blair's career is compared almost across the board to Bruce Campbell's. They're both working actors. They're both doing what they love and they're doing it for what they can get. And some of that's really great big roles and some of that is really just working actor shit where you're doing some B shit and you're doing some lower grade stuff. And the fans who are real fans love it. They love watching their favorite actors do what they do and it doesn't have to be high-end Hollywood to make it work. Gee Willikers, I would never say have an actress on a poster on my walls that was in a women in prison movie too. Oh, oh wait, Pam Greer. Fuck him Pam Greer. How about that? Huh, weird. Yeah, Pam Greer. Everybody celebrates Pam Greer, but they're shitting all over Linda Blair for doing the same fucking work. Well, now they do. I mean, Pam Greer got, Pam Greer got fucking forgotten about she did ridiculously unfair. Yeah, exactly. I'm, look, I love Jackie Brown. I'm glad that that was the movie that got people to remember that she was like, always fucking great, but but class of 1999 was fucking great. Like scream, like the scream, not a great movie, but she was great in it. And don't get me wrong, Jackie Brown is one of my favorite movies on this planet. But it's the same thing. And I totally agree with you. The thing that I think fucking sings in this movie is Linda Blair. She is a likable. She is a fun. She's got a little adorable. She's got a little piss and vinegar in her. And I really like what they do with her character, because I told you before, there's always this sort of like, there's always this sort of virgin horror complex with these, you know, with these final girls, you know, or with certain characters in horror movies, you know, the party girl dies, and then the virginal one lives and yada yada yada. But they find a great balance with her in that she does have a couple scenes where she sort of pushes off Jeff's advances. But it's not, but it's not because she doesn't like sex or like boys or anything like that. It's because what she actually wants to do is she wants to engage with him a little bit on her own terms, which is that she's setting the boundary of, I like you, Jeff, but I want to make sure you like me and I want to make sure you're not gonna, you're not gonna abandon me after this night's over. Like, I'm actually interested in you. So if you're if we're gonna take this a little further, if we're gonna make out, if we're gonna have sex, like, I want to know this something there. Exactly. Which, again, speaks to a realistic nature of the character, which, again, a lot of horror survivor girls of this time did not have that. And she has a lot to say, you know what I don't mean say is in like she's got some big social, you know, platform. But what I'm saying is that she just has little opinions on different things. You know, she's interested in looking at the house and she kind of thinks sororities are stupid and she doesn't really know why she joined one. And then she's also got this little backstory about her father being a mechanic and he taught her a lot of things. And then she's got a few random thoughts on politics, but she says she's not quite into politics. These are the things that make a character a person. He's a human being. She's not just a stereotype. She's not just a figure. She's not just a thing. And one of the joys that I have in running a podcast with you is that I get to talk about just really idiosyncratic things that probably nobody else ever notices that I just get to spend five minutes on. And this is gonna sound really weird. I love the way she runs in this movie. I don't know why it just really caught me. The way she runs seems so realistic because it is not just the, you know, you know, sometimes characters like pretend they're running, but they're they're not going very fast and they're going nowhere. Or you've got people that all of a sudden turn into like an athlete and they are, you know, they are running like the T1000. She runs like someone who is really scared and is a little all over the place because she doesn't quite know what to do. Yet she is also a driven and smart woman. And so she's able to like form an AB path, but she gets a little confused along the way because it's a horrifying situation. She's not sure she should go through the door over the bridge or try to get over the gate or go through the hedge maze. You know, she's not quite sure exactly which one of these things that she should do, but she's just like, she gets confused for a second, then she makes a choice. She gets confused for a second, and then she makes a choice. It's a small detail. And I'm not sure how purposeful it was, but it really works. But it adds also, I think a clarity to what I say when I talk about the realism of the character in that you're right. Most of these types of films go to one extreme or the other. You're either the athlete or you're the stumble bum. There's no middle ground to it. But she solidifies that central point where I'm a normal human being. I am freaked out in this situation. I don't know the layout of this house. I'm going to do my best to make a choice, stick with that choice. And if that fucks up, I will regroup and try again. And again, I love that she gets a little lost in the sauce for several moments. You know, just doesn't quite know what to do or where to go. It's not, it's not a total perfect, like warrior woman, which sometimes is the right call, like Alice, you know, returning into a, yeah, turning into a karate, you know, master or Ripley or what, but even Ripley has a lot of fear in the first movie. But that's so, yeah, not to get too far into the film, but that's what made her work. As she went from fear to fuck this, I got to fight. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. But this is a great middle ground. This is somebody who gets just sort of like lost in the moment, doesn't know what to do. Can't quite figure out what the car is starting. Then remember is, Hey, I have all these skills. I can start the car on my own because, you know, I know something about how these engines work. It's all really masterfully done. And it's all set off by Jeff's death. And so I have such a something that's always bugged me about horror movies, just always bothered me, which is that Jeff dies because Andrew comes into the room, picks him up and throws him out a window. But for some reason, when a character gets picked up in a horror movie, they never like fight. Like they never like like I would just like, I would grab the person's clothes. I would wrap my hands around their neck like I was an octopus. Like I would just like you would not be able to just pick me up and just sort of cleanly throw me out a window. Do you remember in silent night, then like when he picked up Linnea quickly was going to put her on the antlers, right? And and she was beating him on the back and trying to punch him in the head and squiggling around to try and get out of his grip. Right. That's what I expect most normal people would do if somebody grabbed you and lift you in the air to try and kill you. You would at least try to get out of that grip. I can't get my cat into a carrier, let alone a person through a window. That is a fair point. That is a great analogy. You know what I would do? If I was going to get thrown out of a window, I would do the same thing my cat does. I would just turn into a snow angel. I'm all arms and legs out and and the killer went on to the wall. Yes. And the killer would have to try to fit me through the window. They would they would have to like bend their body perfectly to get one arm out and then the other arm out and then both of my feet out and then throw me from over the over the ledge. I have to admit it's always confused me since we're on the topic in the same vein of you can as a killer throw a person through a two-story window and kill them instantly. But if you're trying to escape the monster and you jump out of a two-story window, the worst you do is get a hurt knee or a twisted ankle. Oh God. How many times Texas chainsaw masquer? Friday the 13th part four. Fucking Melvin and Swamp Thing throws himself out of winter or Swamp Thing. Talk to the Avenger. But like you get you get my point that like there's oh my God the amount of women that have or some men sometimes who have been like I have no other choice but to throw and they get up and run away. But if the killer threw them out the window, they're dead. Yep. Sprained ankle is all they have. Same window. Same height. Yep. Uh isn't that literally exactly what happens in Friday the 13th part four? Doesn't doesn't one of the double mint twins get thrown out the window and then and then Trish practically jumps out the same window and lands next to her. Exactly. And and easy enough maybe she's got a limp afterwards but she gets to move. She gets to fight. Yep. Yep. Exactly. She's like oh now I got the final girl limp now. That's right. Now I can run this marathon. I'm doing okay. Yeah. Now I can now I can really now set your stop watches. Time me. I've never understood that with horror films like how's it good for one but not the other? It's how you roll. It's really like how you it's a it's a duck and roll trick. Maybe that's what it is. You're so scared when the killer throws you out you forget to tuck in and hit. Right. You forget to fall. It's like a prat fall. You forget you got to fall properly. That's it. Throw your hands down on the ground as you smack out. That's that's very much a theater joke. It's how prat falls worked anyway. This ending though these final few moments. Man oh man. I love a good villain kill. Growing up on slashers you always want when Michael Myers or Chuckie or Jason Voorhees when they bite it. You want it to be a good kill. You want it to be like a rod through the eye or Chuckie getting thrown into a fan you know or something like that. You want something cool when they were fighting on that car and Linda Blair is driving around. For some reason she is simultaneously dodging Andrew trying to reach her through the windshield and keeping her foot on the gas. It's true. But when she is spinning around in that car and I see that that gate had just lodged itself in a particular way so the spikes were pointing forward I went I clap my hands together I went yes give it to me this is the ending I want. I think sometimes the predictability of these things can get in the way of film I think in this instance it was perfect as we got the foreshadowing just early enough to know oh he's gonna die right there and we lean forward on the chair rubbing our hands together waiting for it to happen. Yep I was like skewer that motherfucker look I don't need the hero to win in every horror movie but I like you I want you to win let's do this let's drive right into that fucking gate and skewer his ass and it looked great too like that shot was awesome I've heard people over the years bitch about this ending they're like that's all we got all this shit and all it led to was him getting stuck on some spikes oh fucking dumb and I'm like are you stupid this is one of the best kills I've seen I try really hard on this show if we say something's dumb or something works I at least try to justify it I don't think the world needs more podcasts where if they just say that things are dumb and things that are great and just there's no thought behind why people don't have to agree with why but at least want to justify it a little bit and I don't know I just think that the way that like there's a visceralness to it like I want a big kill I don't necessarily just want them to stab them with a little knife and then for the killer to fall over especially one that's supposed to be so strong and powerful Andrew is supposed to be like he's like a he's like the Hulk you know what I mean or maybe not that strong but he's supposed to be really strong it's been able yeah and he's he can take more damage he can die but he can take more damage he takes a pitchfork gets hit with that a couple times you know so these these killers can take a little bit more couple hits the other one that died earlier took a couple shotgun blasts they're harder to kill and so you got to have a big kill and I don't know I find it I think it's really smart of her and I think it's a nice crescendo to the movie that the gate has been tipped in just the right way that she can drive underneath it while impaling him on the roof really worked for me it's exactly what I wanted I think it's the difference between the types of horror people who are watching these movies because if you're a gore hound for example this movie is not going to work for you it has almost nothing in it as far as blood and gore goes that doesn't mean it's a bad movie just means it's not hitting that sensibility you love I think that's where a lot of these reviews and I'm saying this assuming the most positive intent in a world full of people who are fucking stupid half the time but I think a lot of the reviews come from people who are watching a movie that is out of their zone and what they want for horror and so they're reviewing it based on their needs or their wants and that's not what the movie is trying to deliver and I agree with you a million percent there's too many horror podcasts or podcasts in general that are parroting everyone else I have in the past when I've known a movie so well gone to other podcasts who have covered that movie because I want to hear what they have to say so I don't repeat it so I don't I'm like I don't want to say the same point that everyone else is making what what are they talking about what are they getting into I want to come up with a different angle right and I have heard literally almost word for word the same thing happen on five different shows they're saying the same conversation in almost exactly the same ways you go to the reviews they say the same things with the same words in the same way and I'm like do you guys have any independent thought at all are you just listening to somebody else's show rewriting how it works and saying it again like what is going on here yeah I totally agree and of course we don't want to we don't want to dog down on anybody in the show like we would never name name names or anything like that but is it the one that rhymes with give me back my horror movies I'm not I'm not at liberty to say how many horror movies are given back to a certain percentage of this but yeah but I will say it happens a lot could be anybody could be anyone I do appreciate that there's some Friday the 13th influence on this movie even though Friday the 13th one only came out in 1980 because once the creature is impaled we get an ode to every Friday the 13th movie that we're ever come and our heroine goes directly to sleep that's right she gets in her metaphorical canoe floats out into the river oh I finally killed Andrew I've saved the day and my cold maxim medicine is kicking in thank god I took that night quill earlier oh god Tom my whoop is telling me it's time for sleep it's saying I got a workout oh that's funny oh god I if I don't get a full eight hours now I'll be tuckered out for tomorrow she just goes right just goes right to sleep on the wheel it's funny I can in one way get it I guess the intensity of the moment and the adrenaline rush that you're feeling to try and survive and all that and when you think it's done you just crash yeah I can get that scientifically biologically whatever sure I'm supposed to make sense but god damn is it funny oh yeah and look if she just passed out but it really it really she lays her head down like she's like I can't believe this is over the horn starts to go off and then it's like like it's pro like you practically hear the snoring and I was gonna mention there's no way in hell's damnation I'd be able to sleep with that horn raier in the way it was so I don't know what the fuck she was on and she sleeps until the next morning and it's it's just unnecessary I do agree when the sun comes up the next morning and it shows her get out of the car what a phenomenal shot holy fuck that shot with the sun coming up and Andrew skewered on the gate and the car crashed into the gate and then her getting out that's that's one of the best shots of the movie so I get it but I feel like you could have just had her fighting until the sun came up and then you could have still had the same shot had her not go to sleep have her just get out of the car and then like the credits roll I like the fact that there's no like bullshit at the end like gets out of the car credits roll done done done yep we covered night of the demons and it was a very similar thing with the two of them got over the wall and they walked off into the neighborhood into the sunset yep he shot his girlfriend and it was over could have just ended there it was fine yeah which if you if you've seen demons like that makes a little bit more sense it's a fucking great movie demons the great movie yeah but she was a demon everyone she was just she was no he just uh he's just tired of her shit she was super in there guys you understood super annoying wash the dishes momma anyway to paraphrase a popular song once upon a time oh what a night what a hell night what then did you think of this movie Steven hell night was a mixed bag for me I'm gonna be honest there are parts of it that I liked and parts of it that I didn't if I had to grade this movie I actually could grade it because I'd probably grade it right down the middle and I'd give it a see I get why others like it I think if I had seen this movie when I was a kid I would love it but I didn't see it when I was a kid and I'm watching it now and I realized how much pacing matters to me and I think that this movie really fucks that up it really has this just bizarre bursts of energy mixed with very long sequences where nothing's happening and I don't mean just the characters are walking around like again we made fun of in witchcraft I mean that the characters are having lines of dialogue and doing business that I really don't need I don't mind that the characters figure out that the frat boys are playing pranks on them I don't need a long explanation as to how the prank works or where the wires are or where the speaker is and there's a lot of moments where the movie just kind of grinds to a halt for me there well I did give Seth the credit of becoming a surprise hero at the end even though he does get killed frankly I found Denise and Seth to be more annoying than I did a fun trope I have no problem with the party girl in fact I've never liked that the party girl always dies I kind of wish there'd be a movie where the the nerd would die and the party girl would live I think that'd be a fun twist but there are better versions of those characters Halloween has better versions of those characters that are a little bit more fun or a little more silly or a little bit more funny Jeff is just like a wisp of nothingness there's nothing to report on his acting's fine there's nothing to report there nothing to see here folks nothing to see here but that doesn't mean the movie is out without merit there are things to really like in this movie she's got some great sounds got some great music in it great sounds the trees sounded wonderful but when she runs across the grass the foli artists are doing amazing work it's got a great opening big big energy with that big frat party and the bonfires and the fun text that says hell night it just really moves at a good clip at the beginning and Linda Blair is really charming in this movie and she brings a lot to the table one of the more likable final girls from I would say you know before 2000 so really really really fun I really liked her a lot and her acting is great her acting is wonderful this movie in fact actually to be fair none of the acting's bad the acting is not a problem in this film at all even the characters that are playing the slasher victims are good actors they are just maybe don't have the most interesting characters or their characters aren't fun enough to be the stereotypes that they are and I agree with you about atmosphere and I actually think that three different points of this film I want all three of them which are the four main characters roaming around the house all the atmosphere that comes with that then you have the pranksters outside who are playing pranks that make this feel like a great halloween movie with again skeletons and ghosts and all these other things fit in and then you have the story of the actual Garth family and you have the story of Andrew inside these catacombs with secret passages and a hedge maze outside that stuff is all great and I actually want those things all to be present because I think the pranks do a really good job at giving an interesting story to be happening to our main characters before they know that there is a horror present I just don't think it does all those pieces in quite the right order there's great action scene at the end and oh I fucking love that scene with the catacombs it's got a great kill in it which is that first kill with the head gets lopped off that's that's an amazing kill there are moments of brilliance and I'd like to see other movies from this director I'm not sure how many I've seen I know that he is directed other horror movies I may have seen one of them and I'm just not remembering his catalog but this is somebody who I could see probably was a lot better on some later movies as long as he got the right budget and didn't like didn't start making like worse direct to video you know movies like asylum movies or you know trans morgers and stuff like that anyway my point being is that there is good here and man what a fucking kick ass ending that doesn't that's a that's a fucking on fire ending it's not too long it's not too short look I love a good final girl fight I don't mind when they're really long like terrifying or two that was just like fucking fucking war you know that's fucking war um you know and you and I like praised the final girl fight in friday the 13th part three we've really loved that one but this is another good one for different reasons it's a little bit more running and a little bit more fear but when you kind of connect the one that she has on her own with the one that she has with peter in the catacombs it really times out to a nice fight I will never debate someone if they say that this is their favorite slasher or their favorite horror film this is fun there's it's just to personal preference that there are things in here that don't work for me but there's a lot that does I agree with a lot of what you said actually and I love these rare moments when I get to bring you a film for the first time because I love hearing somebody's fresh opinion off something that I grew up with and have treasured for years you mentioned how important pacing is to you now I actually really get that when I was younger it was enough to just see the killer or the monster attack and people get killed and blood and so forth and so on as I've gotten older there are a few more important elements to a movie for me to enjoy it as much if not more and it changes how I enjoy a movie even causing one that I used to love so much to have for one of a better word a lesser grade as an adult hellnite has a lot going for it including the atmosphere the enthusiastic and easygoing performances especially by the boom mic who I thought deserved an academy award for its brief but frequent appearances in this movie very decent sets the outdoor ones bit reminiscent of the shining in many ways villains who look straight out of scooby do but not in a bad way just that really cool classic monster shit there's absolutely nothing new or groundbreaking and hellnite but it is a sterling example of how to polish up an old apple make it look appealing and new and actually taste good the story in many ways doesn't make sense whatsoever for example of the students do this every year why do people living in that mansion suddenly decide this is the year they're going to kill people no reason is given for why they decided to go on a murder's rampage at all again bombs and boats but there it is how do you operate the controls and the speakers with no electricity in the house little things like that however I love as you have so eloquently put at the end of the movie where she wakes up the sun rises she gets out of the car which has a dead killer on the hood once away there's no happy ending there's no long drawn-out explanation just good old-fashioned girl survives while monster dies horror on the whole this movie isn't great but it's not bad and people who are saying it's bad find you have your opinion I disagree with you for for what this movie is it does its job very very well and you can see why the people involved in the production went on to bigger and better things ultimately it's a cult slasher movie that showcases the point where Linda Blair tried to prove that she was better than being typecast that sadly in some ways backfired on her but I think she's had a strong career and I think this movie as well as her as an actor deserve a lot more love than they get so I have a couple things to say in response first of all I do want to be a little critical of you because you showed me this movie that you love from your youth and you know when I feel like I was you know mostly positive to it and when I've shown you you know movies from my youth that I care about you have not been positive about them in movies like you know your next or good night mommy lake mongo all the movies that I grew up on you've just trashed on did you grow up on those movies little known fact I'm only 10 years old hmm I might challenge your challenge but go ahead so no I'll joke inside no I totally get what it's like to grow up on a movie like this and you you see it through a certain lens and first of all second all I just have to look something up really quick because I actually am well aware of the controversy about Linda Blair's like later career and how you know she was attacked for it and then I couldn't remember I was like which women in prison film was she had she was in fucking chained heat that's the famous one you know what I mean so yeah she was with fucking simple dancing they can fucking fight me you know like that's why I keep telling people to fuck off about that yeah people can fucking bite me first of all civil dancing gave one of the top 10 performances in who spoils of horror history in the howling too as we did a movie that we have also convinced others is one of the greatest bad movies ever made correct people had their doubts about that and we changed their mind I would like to say and I'd like to point out we say that with love in our hearts we don't like we give movie shit I wouldn't change a fucking cell of film and howling too not at all you know there are movies that we talk about we're like oh if you fix this thing and make a little bit better what not I would change nothing and howling too but that's just us putting our directors had on no offense to the director who did it that's their vision our vision would be different that's all and and I will tell you people something I that Leo didn't know so unfortunately Leo is going to find out a movie that he did not know was on our shortlist in the next six months Linda Blair is in a movie and I just want to double check it called witchery that is so bad that it's good but we are going to be covering that movie on this show all right so that is a pick of mine there's a reason for it and Leo actually may not know the reason so I won't give it in a way there is a fun little piece of history so if you all want to look it up go look it up but Leo don't because it's just there's a fun little piece of trivia as to why I'm picking that movie but who the fuck cares like who the fuck cares that she was in bad horror she got paid I've been in fucking bad movies like me too oh Jesus Christ people gotta get over themselves what you do you you get work the work might not be great but you're getting paid to do what you love to do that's it Pam Pam Greer is one of my favorite actresses of all time you know I mean like if you had me and I'll say actors too if you had me do my top five list of favorite actors who would probably mostly be b actors um Pam Greer is in that top five and not every movie that she made was like a fucking masterpiece so I really I I'm really glad that we covered this because Linda Blair is really good at it she was only 22 and she was really good she brought a real piss and vinegar in the movie I really like her character and I will say there are others that have come to her defense in this movie so but I'm happy to come to her defense in some other probably much worse movies because you know what being in a bad movie is not the fucking end of the world I don't know and sometimes being in a bad movie is pretty awesome I'm looking at you rock and roll nightmare fair example all right everybody well thank you very much for listening to the episode I wanted to throw in something really quick um I wanted to throw in a bit of a thank you we got a lot of really positive feedback for our nightmare on Elm Street to episode and I think that was the one that we thought we were going to get really docked on that we got it we got a lot of really positive feedback and we got a lot of positive feedback on striking the balance between talking about a movie that is interpreted in a way that it wasn't intended to be interpreted and yet at the same time honoring what people see in the movie and saying that that's valid too and taking only a few things to task that were you know questionable that were questionable you know a few things that maybe were intended to be kind and helpful but are not actually kind and helpful in my personal opinion so I want to thank everybody there were a number of people that asked us if they can get shout outs they're all people that have been longtime listeners I will give we will give you all a shout out we are just gonna you know gonna do them on every episode so I don't have to I don't want to just say like a bunch of names and then have it be meaningless I actually want to address different things that people said and questions that people had and different things like that and so but I just want to say you know thank you it was really really nice the feedback that we got and we really appreciated it and if you send us something we will read it and if you send us something mean we will laugh and ignore you because we've been this is a long time and it doesn't bother us to get bad stuff on that note I wanted to take a moment at the end here to thank somebody who's actually been on our side for a good long time and I don't think we've spent a lot of time praising Dan I'm gonna say no last name wrong I apologize and Ellie and a Eli who without fail every week almost since our show has started if I remember correctly gets on Facebook and adds us to a list of podcasts that they watch or listen to or admire and shares the love by just saying hey here's a list of like 20 people and here's what they're covering this week and we are continuously on that list and we're getting whatever attention we're getting from it that's not really the point it doesn't really bother me if we get nobody listening to us from that I just really appreciate that you're taking the time to listen to our show and love it enough to keep including us week after week after week that actually means a lot and I appreciate you exactly and watch out for those bad horror movie podcasts watch out for give me back my horror movies you know what I mean yeah yeah you know those those horror houses of the world you know there could be anybody if you know me anyway yes so anyway thanks for listening to the show and we'll see you next week for Resident Evil from 2002 the two thousand two one oh boy [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
