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Episode 113: Thir13en Ghosts featuring Jesse Black
61 Plays11 hours ago
This week we're joined by the one and only Jesse Black, co-host of Savant Garde to talk about the baker's dozen of ghosts in this week's movie, Thir13en Ghosts. There's a Black Zodiac, a house made entirely out of glass, and Mr. Monk himself, Tony Shalhoub. All that, and Matthew Lillard joins the four timer's club. We go long, but only because there's so dang many ghosts! Don't miss it!
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Transcript
Introduction & Theme Setup
00:00:39
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. It's the only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why does it to have so dang many ghosts? We're your hosts, your own personal black zodiac.
00:00:56
Speaker
So that, of course, would make me, Chris Anderson, the torso of the show. Okay. Okay. you think that's fair. Sure. And of course, you've got Mr. Greg Bossy here. You're obviously the pilgrimess.
00:01:12
Speaker
Okay. All right. You're that classic member of the Black Zodiac. Yeah, the Black Zodiac, as we all know it. Yeah, the the one that we're all familiar with.
00:01:23
Speaker
And of course, we have my lovely wife, Anna Anderson, here as the torn prince of the show. Okay, okay. I appreciate not being the boob ghost. Yeah. Yeah. As comely as she is.
00:01:39
Speaker
No, completely understandable. But of course we do have with us a very special
Special Guest Introduction
00:01:44
Speaker
guest. You might know him as the host of Savant Guard, the only podcast that's hosted by an OCD ex-husband and an autistic ex-wife where they review every single episode of Monk and the Good Doctor. That's the one. Yeah. And you might today know him as the evil mastermind who has assembled us all here in his own personal ghost prison. So he has to be the Cyrus Criticos of the show, Mr. Jesse Black. How are you doing, Jesse? in I'm doing great. Thank you so much. And thank you for watching this film for me, with me. i hadn't seen it in a very long time, actually. So I'm very excited to revisit
00:02:30
Speaker
um Yeah, this seems like the kind of movie that you can revisit like once a decade. This is a once a decader. You're 100% correct. ah Sorry, I should have delivered that more creepily because of the way that... What's his name? cy Is it Cyrus? I always get this confused with... Cyrus Criticos.
00:02:47
Speaker
Yeah, he I don't have like a cool suit that he's wearing. A cane, no less, either. it's like a silver-tipped cane. But imagine that I do. Imagine that brought one. Listeners, luckily this is strictly an audio medium, so this is all in your mind's eye. Jesse is Cyrus Criticus.
00:03:05
Speaker
Listeners, if you haven't seen the movie that we're watching this week,
Movie Introduction: 13 Ghosts
00:03:09
Speaker
it's 13 Ghosts. I don't think I've said the title yet. It's 13 Ghosts. It should have been obvious from the discussion. Yes, the fact that we were kept on talking about 13 Ghosts was probably the movie 13 Ghosts.
00:03:22
Speaker
and And if you haven't seen 13 ghosts, here's just a brief summary to hold in your mind as we progress throughout the podcast.
00:03:39
Speaker
A widowed father of two inherits a mansion from his late uncle, only to learn that it's actually an elaborate machine that can open the gateway to hell when it's powered by a certain number of ghosts.
00:03:55
Speaker
What that number is, we'll never know. You're lot better with that than i thought you were going to. Thank you. It's difficult it's difficult to ah just did There's a lot of chicken fat in this movie. really need to pick and choose. Definitely. You're both correct.
00:04:12
Speaker
it is It is dense and plot heavy, and I get the impression that there was a lot cut out of this. It feels like there was a longer version of this at some point. 100%. So Jesse, why did you choose 13 Ghosts?
00:04:27
Speaker
Okay, so this was a very nostalgic movie for me somehow. um And it's not just because ah you know the show I do with my ex-wife Lucy is about Monk, who's played by Tony Shalhoub.
00:04:39
Speaker
Tony Shalhoub also in this film. So I think that's why i immediately thought of it um when we're talking about me coming on this episode. And then I kind of... Got back in my mind space when I was, I don't know how many years, maybe like 12 years old or something, with the found the portable DVD player in my house ah for some reason. I think my dad got like free screener copies of DVDs for some reason. No idea why. But we had this DVD just floating around in the house.
00:05:05
Speaker
Nice if you can get them. Yeah, and I was just um kind of rotating through different DVDs that would just traumatize me because I was like, oh I want to get into horror movies. And I thought this would be I was like hesitant to put this one on because I was like, this is going to like the baddest shit I've ever seen. Like, this is going to be scary um And actually, there are so many ghosts. There's so many ghosts. And the the cover of it scared me. Like with the. Yeah. It's like a human's head screaming, but it's got like picture in picture of of other scary stuff. it's like a collage. It's a collage. Yeah. And I distinctly remember watching this on that shitty little like.
00:05:42
Speaker
clamshell portable dvd player in my bed and it freaked me out big time i thought this was like a serious ass movie revisiting it these days it's a little sillier but uh there are some parts of this movie that legit freaked me out as a kid for like a while um just like lot of evocative that's understandable there's some like confronting stuff no doubt no doubt no doubt but um yeah it's great to come back to it Yeah, I was a little bit older when this one came out. This would have been when I was working at the video store, probably my first year at Kim's. And this was one that, you know, you definitely would watch in the store. And it's perfect for that sort of scenario because it's not super coherent, but every now and then you see something going on with a ghost and you're like, oh and there's some loud noises and you're like, oh, I'll look at the screen. Oh, a ghost.
00:06:31
Speaker
And then you can sort of almost instantly tune out and get back to whatever it is that you had to do. Uh, And yeah, it's the kind of movie that you rewatch like once a decade and you go, yeah, that wasn't that good.
00:06:46
Speaker
that That was ah about as average as I remembered it. Yeah, it's tough to revisit in a lot of ways that we'll get into, I'm sure. but Greg and Anna, what's your background with 13 Ghosts? How do you feel about 13 Ghosts? This is the second time I've seen it. um And I don't remember exactly when the first time was, except that I saw it with you.
00:07:10
Speaker
oh there sometime in the last 17 years or however long, ah that's that's not very helpful anymore. I think I had it logged in my Letterboxd. So I think I must have watched it within like the last five years because I haven't been doing Letterboxd for that long. So it might have been within the last five years we watched it together.
00:07:29
Speaker
So I'm a little bit ahead of schedule on rewatching 13 Ghosts. That might be why I'm a little bit more sour. But I cut you off. Oh, oh, I was going to say, i mean, i I loved it the first time and I loved it this time. I think it's like deeply stupid in a way that I find really fun. the whole idea of the Black Zodiac is so cool to me. And I really, I wish that, um,
00:07:59
Speaker
I don't know. i wish that this had been based on a novel. You know what I mean? Because I'd read that novel. I wouldn't read a novelization of the movie. It would have to itt have to have have come before.
00:08:12
Speaker
and So what you're saying is you want to find some 13 Ghost fanfic. Sure. Now you're speaking. I mean, no, probably not erotic fanfic, but we did watch what it was based on. You and I did also watch the original 13 ghosts this week, which I thought was all a lot of fun.
00:08:33
Speaker
nice Yeah, and that, and honestly, that kind of, um the opposite of sour, like, sweetened me towards ah the modern one, um because the old one was also very stupid and very fun, and I feel like, and feel like if you're going to to remake something that was a silly, gimmicky horror flick to begin with, you know...
00:09:03
Speaker
it it's It's okay if you don't make a masterpiece to some extent. Sure. What about you, Greg? What do you feel about 13 Ghosts? Big picture.
00:09:14
Speaker
So 13 Ghosts, I remember coming out, and this is 2001. So this is my, I want to say like my second or third year college. And I think this is where I started to get my taste kind of developing. Because what I remember about 13 Ghosts is thinking, I'm not going to see that.
00:09:33
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I just remember seeing it and thinking, i don't have any interest in that movie. I don't think it's going to be any good and I'm going to not see. Because this is a time when I would see a lot of stuff in the theater. Yeah. Like you'd go to the theater just to go to the theater to see stuff. And I was like, that one...
00:09:49
Speaker
I I'm going to pass on 13 ghosts because to me, it just looked like a bunch of people running through glass corridors. And that is a very large amount of what the actual movie is. You surmised a lot correctly there. Yeah, it's just like it's just kind of nameless running through glass.
00:10:07
Speaker
yeah I don't think I'm going to see that. So this was your first time watching? Yeah, definitely. How'd you feel about Oh, first time ever right now. Oh, wow. Yes. Oh, definitely. was hoping someone would be fresh to it. Right on. So to spoil it a little bit, it felt like there were two people, there were two versions of me watching this movie, and I'm still not certain which of the two won out.
00:10:29
Speaker
Okay. completely understand. Well, maybe if I give you a little bit of the background of the making of 13 Ghosts, that'll help you, you know, bring yourself to one mind on the picture.
Horror Filmmaking Legacy & Influence
00:10:45
Speaker
So I'm going to, did you guys see that slam dunk transition? Let's hit that bumper.
00:10:53
Speaker
We're going to the context section the show.
00:11:03
Speaker
I wish I had some context about the background of the film. Script director, actors on track, what was going on on screen? I wanna hear some details.
00:11:15
Speaker
Gossips tend to all that shit. Can't imagine all the time.
00:11:32
Speaker
So 13 Ghosts, first thing you need to know, i got to clarify the title. It's spelled T-H-I-R 13 E-N Ghosts.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yes. That is the real title, isn't it? That awesome. The official title. It sure is. I knew it was stylized that way, but now I'm looking in the IMDb headline and yeah, it it sure is.
00:11:55
Speaker
Huh. It looks weird. Yeah, it's not ass between as clean as 7. 13-teen. Yeah. definitely Yeah. Anyway, so that's just something to roll around.
00:12:07
Speaker
three It was released October 26, 2001, right in Halloween. Perfect. Perfect. so that's just something to roll around it was released october twenty six two thousand and one right in time for halloween perfect Not a lot of buildup there, though. They were not counting it to stick around for a long time to get to Halloween.
00:12:30
Speaker
Your director, Steve Beck. Okay. I found one, two, three, four, five, six taglines. That's too many.
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah, that smells like panic. Tagline number one. The only thing worse than being trapped in a house with a ghost is being trapped in a house with 13 ghosts.
00:12:56
Speaker
Yep. That's long bit and also inaccurate. Yeah. Yeah. Tagline number two. Misery loves company.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's okay. It's not bad. yeah It's better than the first It's not a novel. The first one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Tagline number three. Terror wants company.
00:13:21
Speaker
Absolutely awful. I don't like that one. I kind of like it for some reason. The focus group is split on this one, apparently.
00:13:34
Speaker
Tagline number four, I'm going to rule out on a technicality. Terror has multiplied. 13 is a prime number. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point can't do terrorist multiplied for 13 ghosts.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah. Huh. Pedants will eat you alive.
00:13:53
Speaker
Huh. Tagline number five.
00:13:58
Speaker
What's more terrifying than a ghost? 13 of them. Wait, was that not the first one? I can't make the audio sound for a thumbs down, but that's what I'm doing. Hang on, I got it for you, Greg.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So they didn't really hit any bangers with those five, I feel like. Is that why there are five? Is they don't feel like they accomplished what they wanted to with anyone? They're six. Maybe this is the home Okay.
00:14:26
Speaker
okay
00:14:29
Speaker
There are ghosts around us all the time. Okay. Most of them don't want to hurt us, but there are exceptions. Oh, jeez. Yeah. 13 exceptions.
00:14:42
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. yeah i' was really hoping I was really hoping to be like, there no one none of them want to kill you, but 13 of them do. 13 specifically.
00:14:53
Speaker
I'm glad that at least this one left out 13. Yeah. Yeah. There's something. You don't need to keep hitting me with 13. I get it in the title. So 13 Ghosts is actually based on a 1960 horror movie called 13 Ghosts, directed by William Castle.
00:15:12
Speaker
Now, William Castle, he was a horror producer and director who's most famous for directing a lot of gimmick movies. If you think of a 50s horror movie where there's like a nurse in the lobby saying you can't see the movie if it's because it'll scare you to death and you have to sign a release or ah there's a You have to, whatchamacallit, there's like electrical things in the seats or a skeleton flying through the movie theater. That was all William Castle stuff. He was the guy doing that.
00:15:43
Speaker
There was also, let's see, there was a couple of other examples that he had. There was something called the Fright Break, I think in his movie, Homicidal, where he was like, a clock would appear on the screen and be like, you got one minute.
00:15:58
Speaker
One minute before we get to the scary ending of this movie, you can get out of the theater now and the clock is ticking down. And you can go hang out outside in the coward's corner. Yeah. What? And it would be him talking the whole time.
00:16:09
Speaker
Huh. Weird. Which I could see if I was in the right place. That could definitely give me an anxiety attack in movie theater. It's coming. But I don't think homicidal would do it. He also did one called Emerge-O-Vision, I think, in is House on Haunted Hill.
00:16:27
Speaker
That was just a skeleton on a line, a glow-in-the-dark skeleton that he would pull out into the theater in the middle of the show. ah And he did my personal favorite in a movie called Mr. Sardonicus.
00:16:39
Speaker
He did what was called the punishment poll where at the end of the movie, Mr. Sardonicus, he was a bad guy and the crowd would vote as to whether or not he would like get off the hook or he he would get like the super bad ending. And everybody in the theater got like a thumbs up, thumbs down placard that they would hold up.
00:17:00
Speaker
But he knew everyone was going to vote thumbs down. So he only filmed one ending. Yeah. And but it was a great gag, obviously. For the original 13 ghosts, the gimmick was called Illusiono and involved a viewer that was kind of like 3D glasses, but with strips of colored cellophane that would you would look through one color at a time, either blue or red.
00:17:27
Speaker
And red would let you see the ghosts and blue would hide the ghosts from you. Oh, that's pretty cool. What's fun about it is it's one of the few, like, William Castle gags that you can recreate in your own home if you just have yeah a regular pair of glasses. That's pretty cool. And I were, like, passing one pair back and forth. Yeah, it was fun. That's fun. Yeah, it was fun. Huh.
00:17:47
Speaker
And while the other one had the glasses, the one, you know, that wasn't where it's like, what's going on? It's like, oh, it's a... It's a skeleton and but he's on fire. It's ghost. There's a ghost there and he's sort of waving his arms. So this sort of explains good portions of the film. Yeah. And also why those portions didn't work.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. There were ah also canonically spectral viewers in that film as well. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that is also coming from the original film. All right.
00:18:17
Speaker
But yeah, there was an introduction by William Castle where he was like, if you don't believe in ghosts, just watch the whole movie with the I don't believe in ghost frames on. Have fun watching a stupid movie. And if you do, if you're brave enough to believe in ghosts, watch with the red lens.
00:18:37
Speaker
Man, that's pretty cool. You never see that anymore in the theaters. Well, maybe you do. I haven't been theater. No, no, I haven't been to a theater, I think, in like five years. But still, maybe I'd go back if there were some gimmicks. Yeah.
00:18:50
Speaker
But I guess there's 4DX now. I haven't tried that yet, where like your seat will rumble and they'll spritz you with water. I don't want to be spritz. That's my main opposition. Don't spritz Do they have that here?
00:19:02
Speaker
think they have it in yeah yeah i don't trust the liquid i don't think they have one in wichita if they did and it was the right movie like if maybe like twisters getting spritzed the whole time anytime anyone's like can i spray you with liquid my response is going to be no yeah that's just yeah especially since movie theaters are so overly air conditioned you just be cold and wet the whole time yeah who can do scents too smells Oh, okay. the thing at all That would trigger my allergies. Yeah, exactly.
00:19:37
Speaker
hope nothing smells like cranberries. Yeah, know exactly. Do cranberries have a smell? I just think it's the smell. The scent of artificial cranberry just gives me a headache. So whenever people come into the store smelling like a cranberry, I'm just like, like a candle? Oh, nasty candle. Bad Yankee candle. Yeah.
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:57
Speaker
So anyway, William Castle, he rarely garnered much critical acclaim for his work, ah but he did have a devoted fan base and he still does to an extent. You know, there are still Castle guys out there that you can find. I would call myself a mild Castle guy. I like Castle.
00:20:14
Speaker
hu But acclaimed Hollywood director Robert Zemeckis was also a Castle guy. Oh, yeah. We also, Anne and I have been watching, they put Tales from the Crypt up on Shudder recently, the original like TV series. yeah And he was a producer on that.
00:20:31
Speaker
So he had already at this point had some experience reviving stuff from his childhood that he liked. Like he brought back EC Comics for the TV. And here he along with producers Joel Silver and Gilbert Adler, formed the production company Dark Castle Entertainment, whose explicitly stated goal was to remake old William Castle movies.
00:20:55
Speaker
Okay. Oh, Dark Castle. Interesting. Yes, exactly. He's the castle. And Joel Silver now in the three timers club on the show. Joel Silver was also a producer on Xanadu and another 80s one. I can't remember. It wasn't rhinestone.
00:21:16
Speaker
I'm not going to look it up. I'm going to look it up. I can find it. Joel Silver. God bless. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he's made. so We wouldn't have the Matrix without Joel Silver. Really? Yeah. He was a producer on that.
00:21:31
Speaker
legendary Weird science. Weird science, of course. Yes, because of EC Comics again. oh yeah. yeah Yeah. Yeah. That was an EC Comics adaptation.
00:21:43
Speaker
ah So their their first attempt at doing a William Castle movie was 1999's House on Haunted Hill, which was a moderate success. It did have Chris Kattan in the Matthew Lillard role. And I think that's a that's a step down.
00:21:59
Speaker
I think it has Taye Diggs as the Tony Shalhoub, which is... Liam Neeson in that? Is Liam Neeson not in that? No, he's in The Haunting. Oh, duh. Yes. Okay. Ah, yes. I confuse those three films all of the time. Yes.
00:22:15
Speaker
I just did. The Haunting is my favorite of the three, I think. It seems like it might be the strongest. The Haunting. Yeah, it also has a, does House on Haunted Hill also have an elaborate house set? Because I know The Haunting does.
00:22:30
Speaker
i'm I'm sure it does. That's the one I remember the least. I should probably rewatch that just to close the loop. But anyway, The House on Undead Hill was a moderate success, successful enough that two years later, they produced their second film and their second William Castle remake, 13 Ghosts.
Director & Casting Insights
00:22:50
Speaker
ah To direct, they brought on Steve Beck. Beck's background was in commercials. He'd also worked in visual effects for industrial light and magic. So he's got a good effects background. But this was his first time directing a feature length film.
00:23:04
Speaker
Do you know if he directed anything after this? Yes. He directed one other movie, Ghost Ship. Oh, OK, good. OK. Yeah. Things are lining up to me.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah. The movie that is famously only good for the first five minutes. Yeah. There's also a video artist named Stephen Beck that may or may not be the same person.
00:23:27
Speaker
Okay. If you in the listening audience know if Stephen Beck and Stephen Beck are the same guy, write to favoritebadmoviepod at gmail.com. We'll believe you, whatever you say.
00:23:40
Speaker
So I tried to figure out why this movie stars Tony Shalhoub. no Because he seems like a very odd choice. He wasn't a name, yeah really. He's not a conventional leading man.
00:23:55
Speaker
No. No. The nearest reasoning I could find was ah he was cast based on his performance in Wings. Yeah, I was just going to say, is it based on the idea that he's trying to break out off after Wings and try to find a different role?
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I know why he would take yeah Right? But why did they take him all the way around almost? yeah maybe Maybe it was just an old-fashioned he auditioned and was the best choice.
00:24:25
Speaker
Yeah, and this was probably did not have a very large budget. What was the budget? Yeah. Something relatively small. i was just looking at it, but I guess they didn't have... it Yeah, I'm going to say it was probably less than $50 million dollars for sure. Yeah, they had Shalhoub money, but not... Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:46
Speaker
yeah you get a shalhoub in there for like two million you can stretch everything else speak you know one he's arguably the biggest name except for maybe matthew lillard and shannon elizabeth but it's like i don't know how you really argue which of those three is the biggest name at that point in time yeah f marie abraham is an oscar winner but i'm right sure you can get him for cheap he's only there for three days yeah I could see him being willing to do pretty much any, I don't know anything about F. Murray Abraham's work, but this this strikes me as like, ah he's like, sure, I'll come on for a couple days, a cane. I mean, after you did Last Action Hero, I'm sure he's just sort of up for whatever. Yeah, yeah for real.
00:25:29
Speaker
Now, Shalhoub did have ah a very steady hand on the wheel. He's obviously a very competent actor. He he didn't fuck anything up. And so that freed up Beck to focus on the art direction and the special effects, his real passion.
00:25:44
Speaker
And it shows. Yeah. Yeah. He knew he wanted his ghost to pack a punch, and he wanted them to be played by physical actors. He didn't want CGI or optical effects or anything. He just wanted people in makeup there.
00:26:00
Speaker
he came up with concept sketches and elaborate backstories for all the ghosts and he gave them to the makeup team. And I think he also got some conceptual art from Bernie Wrightson. We saw in the credits and that was used yeah in that prop book as well. That was all Bernie Wrightson illustrations. Oh, okay. Bernie Wrightson, the original illustrator of Swamp Thing. from Oh, okay. Oh, he did like the concept art of all these, of the, all the 13. Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:27
Speaker
yeah The Black Zodiac. The Black Zodiac. The Black Zodiac, yeah.
00:26:33
Speaker
Yeah.
Production Design Challenges
00:26:35
Speaker
Beck also had a very unique concept for the set of the film. He wanted to do the opposite of an old, dark, gothic mansion.
00:26:44
Speaker
Yep. Odd choice for a haunted home house movie, but I think it does at least separate from the pack. I think that's very true. So, yeah, instead of a large gothic mansion, he went for a large, well-lit house where all the walls, ceilings, and floors were made of glass.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah. It took about three months to design and build, required 8,500 square feet of glass and several tons of steel.
00:27:13
Speaker
my God. The downside of this... Sorry, i don't want to go off on a whole tangent about, but it was built, you know?
00:27:24
Speaker
Even as as ultimately kind of silly as it is, it really is kind of, it's cool that yeah yeah they took the time and built such an ah such an elaborate, completely unique set.
00:27:39
Speaker
That you almost can't really see or discern in any way. you know Yeah, they're downsides. It's a trade-off. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is extraordinarily impressive, like, knowing that they spent all that time actually making it, which is something I hadn't thought about. Like, really shocking, really impressive. And at the same time, it is, again, for a structure that you can just look through. Yeah, you never get a clear sense of space, which yeah does make it more, like, unnerving horror movie-wise. Sure. But it also makes it, like...
00:28:15
Speaker
hard to understand what's happening and like yeah lock in on the movie. oh It's it's insc inscrutable when they' everyone's running around with different groups and you're like, okay, is this the basement? I guess because it's like more dark yeah and there's there's a bathroom scene and you're like, okay, well, how's that going to work? But they you know they figure it out.
00:28:32
Speaker
uh it i do i one thing i really love about this movie is all of the um the moving parts stuff is is pretty cool and it's a very striking choice yeah yeah yeah yeah but at the end of the day yeah to go for like all clockwork is yeah the clockwork part is kind of cool uh and the the limited cgi is like not the worst thing i've ever seen for 2001 it's not no no okay um But at the end of the day, you just i ended up daydreaming about, like well, how did they film this with all that glass? like Aren't there a bunch of reflections everywhere and trying to make the cameraman get out of the way? It kind of took me out of it a little bit. It turned out that that was a legitimate logistical problem that they were ran into. No. did yeah end up eating into their shooting time and budget because like they had to like set up their entire like all their trucks being like okay all you guys have to be like half a mile away or everybody's on this side i hadn't even thought about that part of it yeah you can see outside so you can see all the stuff that you brought with you yeah the production team eating sandwiches but yeah yeah exactly
00:29:40
Speaker
And you can't even see the outside that clearly. now Because most of the time you're looking through like five panes of glass that have stuff. That all have writing on them. Which is also bizarre.
00:29:51
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's important. And it's all like, it's it's it's a strange set. It's cool, but it doesn't quite work. Mm-hmm.
Audience Reactions & Comparisons
00:30:02
Speaker
You know, audiences, they were lukewarm on 13 ghosts. that It only made $68 million dollars on its $42 million dollars budget.
00:30:11
Speaker
Though I'm sure it also made a shit ton on DVD because everything made a shit ton of DVD in that era. And this one, I remember just moving. ah After that, Dark Castle stopped remaking William Castle movies altogether.
00:30:27
Speaker
The next year they will produce Stephen Beck's second and final feature film, Ship. feature film ghost ship A movie that's famous for only being good for the first five minutes. Arguably worse. Other horror movies. Right. Sorry. Not to diverge into ghost ship power, but that movie is such a slog for so much of it. I watched it recently, and there's so many cool, like this movie, very cool crystallized pieces that I'm like, oh, that's sick as hell. And I think that's why it resonated with me as a kid. 13 ghosts, I mean. You're like, all these ghosts, those individual backstories. and But at the end of the day, like you said, it's like the execution is like not there.
00:31:04
Speaker
And Ghost Ship, whatever I just said, multiplied by like 15 times in terms of the execution not being there. That tough watch. Except for the first five minutes. Yeah. I think he needs better scripts. I think these scripts need another pass. I think 13 Ghosts could have been improved.
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah. Not a doubt. But it's just, it is rough. Other horror movies of 2001. You got Valentine. I got a soft spot for Valentine.
00:31:32
Speaker
I got no problem with Valentine. Little slasher, little post-scream slasher. ah Speaking of postmodern slashers, you got Jason X. war Wow. That's the one, ah I believe he's in space. Yes. Sure.
00:31:49
Speaker
Okay. ah The best scene is when they put him in like a holodeck to try and distract him, and they show him just picking up one camper in a slumber bag.
00:32:00
Speaker
and Oh, yeah. Slumber bag? that what they're called? Sleeping bag. yeah Sleeping bag! I didn't even notice. I don't... Kept move. slu Slumber sack. Yes.
00:32:12
Speaker
Mm-hmm. picks her up in the slumber bag and he starts using that as a cudgel to beat another busty gal in a sling bag that's a great gag that was a great suit uh that you you also got bones that year the snoop dog movie oh yeah okay you got session nine that was a good one yeah i like that movie
00:32:37
Speaker
ah You got Brotherhood of the Wolf. Check out our episode with Gretchen Felker Martin on Brotherhood of the Wolf. Great time. Strange film. You got, unfortunately, from Victor Salva, Jeepers Creepers came out. Oh, my God.
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. That was 2001. What a year for this. Yeah. Wow. Wow. well And you also got, similar to this in one sense, you got the movie The Glass House.
00:33:08
Speaker
If you guys just like glass houses, you can check out Lili Sobieski in The Glass House. So. Two glass houses, one year. There you There's lot competition for your glass house dollar.
00:33:20
Speaker
You guys want to talk about the plot of 13 Ghosts? Yeah. Absolutely. Sure. Thank God, because I wrote it down.
Plot Overview & Key Events
00:33:45
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:33:57
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
00:34:07
Speaker
Hell yeah.
00:34:10
Speaker
You know how we do it here. Hell yeah. We open in a junkyard. It appears to be being invaded by a small paramilitary organization.
00:34:22
Speaker
It is, in fact, a group of ghost hunters being led by an eccentric rich guy named Cyrus Criticos, as played by Murray Abraham. I immediately had nothing but trouble vibes from this opening scene, and I was like, uh-oh. That's not a great start. That's not a great start.
00:34:40
Speaker
But it turned out that I was wrong about that in many ways. It's true. I mean, they both have, you know, normal people led to a creepy house. But other than that, not a lot in common.
00:34:53
Speaker
We also meet Dennis rif Rafkin, as played by the newest member of the Four Timers Club, Matthew Lillard. Love to see Matthew Lillard. Mm-hmm. They've come here to capture the ghost of some sort of serial killer.
00:35:07
Speaker
So they start spraying down the entire junkyard with a tanker truck full of blood. And then they end up trapping him in a closet sized glass box at the cost of the lives about a half a dozen of their evil Ghostbuster red shirts. And also it costs them the life of one Cyrus Criticos. R.I.P. Yeah.
00:35:30
Speaker
It's...
00:35:35
Speaker
It's very like opening scene of Jurassic Park with like spotlights, people with guns and just be like, we got to get him in the cage. We got to get him in the cage. Yeah,
00:35:47
Speaker
yeah it's a very science meets supernatural. It's fun stuff. Also killed in all this chaos is one of two ghost liberators who think of Cyrus as sort of a paranormal slaver.
00:36:02
Speaker
the surviving liberator, Kalina, she'll pop up later. Don't you worry. This doesn't happen for absolutely no reason. No. and Or check out Kalina.
00:36:14
Speaker
Kalina. Yeah. Great. Normal name. as yes Everyone in here has like such an interesting name. Yeah. They chose. Sorry. The Cyrus Cyrus Criticos equivalent in the 1960 movie is named,
00:36:32
Speaker
Plato's Zorba. No way. So, yeah. yeah they' were like They changed that? yeah Yeah. I always have Plato's Zorba, dude. Or at least Zorba. Yeah. Instead of just a vaguely... Yeah, and he comes out as like the main ghost at the end. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You put on the glasses like, there's Plato's Zorba.
00:36:51
Speaker
Oh, shit, that's cool. Okay. I could see where they were trying to kind of approach a modern take on that. but when Yeah, if you can recapture that fun, I get it.
00:37:05
Speaker
So we cut to Arthur Criticos, as played by Tony Shalhoub, enjoying a suburban married bliss with his beautiful wife, Jean, and his kids, Kathy and Bobby.
00:37:19
Speaker
It doesn't last long because we fade to an audio collage letting us know that Gene died in a fire and that the family has fallen on hard financial times as the credits continue to roll. It's it's also a video collage as a single shot yeah which like the camera rotates around and it's like, idyllic yard.
00:37:43
Speaker
With Tony Shalhoub looking out the window, wall, wall slowly becomes grosser and more dirty. And now we spin around to wall with building outside of it and Tony Shalhoub like crying in the window. And it's just like, this is very bold in an interesting use of CGI that you don't really see anymore.
00:38:02
Speaker
So tip of the hat to 13 goes there in that regard. It wastes no time. no It's a weird vibe to start off a horror movie. Yeah. Oh, definitely.
00:38:15
Speaker
And here's a family that's fallen on horror times. I don't know. It's it's dead wife syndrome. it's a really It's a really common opening to a horror movie. So for me, formally, i mean this is something i was going to say later, but like this whole movie is edited and shot to feel like that audio clip you pay of, you're like, happy birthday, Jacob. up Like... Audio-wise, visually, tempo-wise, editing style-wise, it's all...
00:38:52
Speaker
yeah So if you listener could imagine that visually, that's what this movie starts like. And that's what it's like a lot of the time. That's so true. And it is bizarre. I don't think the dead wife thing is that crazy for a horror movie, but like to begin in this like way of seeing the visuals morph with the camera is just so weird. It's like something you'd see someone try to do in a really artistic film.
00:39:21
Speaker
But this is just like a shitty horror movie. And it's really strange. For me, what it is is that the rest of the movie feels like it's stylized to be about like sexy 20 somethings. So to have at the center of this movie be a sad family just feels like so wrong and like out of step with the time and out of step with like the look of the movie. It's definitely out of step with the look of it. Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:39:53
Speaker
It feels so MTV. So to have your leading man be Tony Shalhoub as a to a widower is just like, what what? Who is this for? Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
So, ah yeah, they're all dead. The wife is dead. And now they're all they're living in a small apartment. Just Arthur, Kathy, Bobby, and their live-in full-time nanny Maggie.
00:40:22
Speaker
So astute listeners might be able to figure out what's going wrong with Arthur's finances. Yeah. Kind of already.
00:40:32
Speaker
That he thinks he can afford a full-time live-in nanny for his teenage daughter when he is on a a math teacher salary? He's on a math teacher salary.
00:40:43
Speaker
And Bobby has got to be, what, like, eight? I mean, so i know you still need a... ah guys Yeah, watch me. I don't I don't know if you need a whole nanny for this.
00:40:54
Speaker
This scenario seems extreme. They also seem relatively after school program. is Yeah. Yeah. Get this game relatively well behaved. Like it's not like there was anybody needed a lot. It's just like the child she just needs attention like every child does. well He's leaving a scooter everywhere, though, you know, so that he's doing trouble. He is doing that.
00:41:13
Speaker
That's true. It's true. stupid scooter yeah i mean just have the sister pick him up from school and the sister's job is to watch him after school this is what's up you could save yourself i'm gonna guess even if you were paying you know pair wages where you're including the room and board as part of the salary you're still gonna save yourself 10 20 grand a year i don't know yeah so the good news is there's a knock on their door It's not a debt collector as they fear, but Ben Moss, attorney at law, who's come to tell them that long lost Uncle Cyrus has just died and left them something in his video will.
00:41:56
Speaker
This video will. His big, beautiful house. This video will is beautiful. So good. Yeah. It's like his face, but in the background there's like sigils and demons.
00:42:09
Speaker
He's like, I've led a fascinating life. Most evil oh operating system ever somehow. It also he has like videos that like close and then another one will open to show something else, then that will close and then something else. So it's like they almost programmed the living will as well in addition to shooting it.
00:42:26
Speaker
It's like, let's get it to the post-production team so that they can put piece it together with all the the the motion data. like, okay, great. Yeah, it's like a full production. Like a puzzle point-and-click adventure game that you're going to solve by watching clips of your dead uncle. It's great. Yeah. Cyrus's will. Play Cyrus's will. Literally. God, yes.
00:42:46
Speaker
You have unlocked Cyrus's will.
00:42:51
Speaker
They all start driving out to their new house and we got to spend a little more we get to spend a little more time with the Criticos family. I'll learn what their deals are. it Turns out Bobby's a little bit morbid, a little bit spooky, presumably because his mother died in a fire.
00:43:06
Speaker
Six months yeah Yep. Maggie is a sassy black lady. Yep. And near as I can tell, Arthur and Kathy have no distinguishable personalities.
00:43:18
Speaker
Almost nothing. um yeah They give Maggie the comic relief, as you might expect from a film of this time. Absolutely. um Bobby is kind of creepy and is often in danger. The sister Kathy is... I'm struggling to name a single thing about her character.
00:43:35
Speaker
Besides what happens her. she She has brown hair. She loves the bathroom. She loves the bathroom. it's really important to her. It's like the only thing that she's got in this whole movie is that she wants a alone time in a bathroom. and She can't wait to see the bathroom.
00:43:51
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I guess to wash. To wash.
00:43:56
Speaker
Well, it's yeah, because she had to share a bathroom with three other people. And I mean, I get that. But like that's the only thing about her that I know. That's her character's motivation. and The bathroom. And Arthur, i would describe him as a dad.
00:44:12
Speaker
Sad dad. Yeah. Sad dad. Sad dad. Still a good dad. Sad, broke ass dad. Yeah. I was surprised that at no point did he get to do like math.
00:44:23
Speaker
If at some point he as a math teacher was like, oh, oh there's a big clock. ah it's but Don't you see the ghosts are we released at this rate? Something. Give him a whiteboard. Fucking God. It's accelerating at this rate. Yeah. That's math. I thought he was going to start writing on that glass like a beautiful mind style.
00:44:46
Speaker
But we don't see any of that. I was unaware he was even a math teacher, to be perfectly honest. The very end, he says it, I think, again. And that's why remember. He says, I'm just a math teacher. Yeah, I think it comes up like once in the beginning and once at the end. yeah And if it like...
00:45:01
Speaker
This movie, I think, would seriously improve 20% if he showed any sort of passion for math and just giving him more of a character. This is fucking anything.
00:45:12
Speaker
ah So they get to their new house. Dennis is there, and he's in disguise as a guy from the power company. Dennis, of course, Matthew Lillard. And he says that their big fancy house is messing power up.
00:45:27
Speaker
And Ben Moss tries to get rid of him, but Arthur, being the friendly type of guy, agrees to let him in. So Arthur's friendly, and he he understands the plight of the working man. We can say that about Arthur.
00:45:38
Speaker
Yep. the family go inside the house and we get our first relatively good look at it as we've stayed before, because it is entirely made out of glass. It's a little bit hard to read. Yeah.
00:45:53
Speaker
You know, there's no like big atrium or like a living room. It just seems to be sort of a series of spaces that serve no purpose. Mm hmm. All the interior and exterior walls are made of glass, and the glass is all etched in some sort of illegible text that we're told is Latin.
00:46:11
Speaker
It's filled with arts and antiquities, as well as the ultimate early aughts symbol of wealth, a suit of samurai armor in a glass case. What is that? I don't remember that. There's no furniture at all, I think, besides the toilet and the bathtub. There was a bed. There's somewhere where there's a bed. There was a desk. Very briefly...
00:46:33
Speaker
There was a box of dinosaur toys. Yeah. Yeah. There really is most of the big ring thing that we'll get to, I'm sure. And yeah the bathroom. And very yeah we series of corridors. Series of corridors for sure.
00:46:48
Speaker
That are moving. It's not well defined in my opinion. So the, the criticosi explore and Dennis goes down to the basement to check the breakers.
00:47:02
Speaker
But instead of breakers, he finds a prison for ghosts. And they start psychically assaulting him. And he's like, oh, my brain hurts because of ghosts.
00:47:13
Speaker
And it's all the 12 ghosts that he captured for Cyrus. So what are... Matthew Lillard is taking pills to prevent the visions or something. What is it that he can do...
00:47:28
Speaker
I believe he's a psychic medium. Okay. And he can, like, see visions of of the ghosts, but he can't see the ghosts. Like, he knows when the ghosts are there, but he can't see them physically.
00:47:42
Speaker
No, he has almost what you would call a sixth sense. Oh. Yeah, he's got the visions real bad. Okay. get some Yeah, and he's also, if he... Yeah.
00:47:52
Speaker
Yeah. and And if he touches people, he also like learns. there's story Yes, that's right. I forgot about that. Yeah. And he has visions of the future. It's very weird because it's like he's got a lot of information that other people don't have. And yet at the same time, none of it is useful for the current situation because he still lacks all the information that all of the other people lack as well.
00:48:15
Speaker
It's a strange double edged sword. Yeah. He still leaves his glasses to see the ghosts. Yeah. Yeah. He's just the first piece of the puzzle. You know, you got to assemble a useless psychic like Cassandra.
00:48:28
Speaker
Yeah. Mm hmm. Uh, yeah. He finds a bunch of ghosts. The kids and Maggie have gone off exploring while Moss and Arthur signed some paperwork in the library. The library is a defined room that at least has furniture and like that's true. So it makes sense. Yeah. Did it have books in a bookcase?
00:48:51
Speaker
Yes. A few of them. Yes. I think I'm remembering that that would obscure the glass. Yeah. It didn't have full wall. it had like three shelves of books and a desk.
00:49:02
Speaker
No. Dennis busts into the library and explains that he is not an electrical worker. He is a psychic medium hired by Cyrus to help him locate and capture ghosts.
00:49:16
Speaker
Moss and Arthur don't buy what he's selling, but it does make Arthur wonder where his kids are now that he has this psycho busting in and yelling about ghosts. So he goes off to find them.
00:49:29
Speaker
Meanwhile, Moss goes down to the basement. There he picks up a suitcase full of cash, presumably used as payment for his legal services. But someone left that suitcase on some sort of pressure plate.
00:49:43
Speaker
Hmm. The weight lifted. It looked like it was maybe on top of like pedals of some sort. i don't know. But once the the weight is lifted, the pressure plate lifts, activating a giant clockwork machine that composes basically the entire house.
00:49:59
Speaker
Oh, this is what triggers the whole house to start moving, isn't it? Is when he picks up the briefcase? Yeah, you can remember what actually did it It starts clicking. Yeah, that was the activation was old Ben Moss. Oh, boy. Taking that hand.
00:50:12
Speaker
and is I said he'll get his. Oh, he does very quickly, in fact. Because the first thing it does is it starts releasing ghosts, including, of course, ah Yeah.
00:50:26
Speaker
Our first couple of the firstborn son, the torso they're out and about. but before any of the ghosts can really get on him, the house itself gets him by sliding glass doors bifurcate him.
00:50:40
Speaker
Oh, I want to call it. Is it that the Z axis? Sure. Between the ears, basically. They split him from ear to ear. yeah His face is on one half and his butt's on the other half. Exactly. a pretty great moment.
00:50:54
Speaker
It's a pretty great moment. Hard to top this. Yeah. it's Yeah. He slides down the glass and you get to see like a body's exhibit of half of his body. It's pretty cool.
00:51:07
Speaker
Now, meanwhile, Bobby and Maggie have found a cool pair of untinted Oakleys, which we soon will learn. Allow the wearer to see you guys. These glasses are so 90s and would make so much more sense in a cast of sexy teens. Yeah.
00:51:24
Speaker
I mean, 20-somethings. They have like lights in them, right? Aren't they like... they like Yeah, there's a little yeah layer of... They some little LEDs. It's bizarre looking. To give you a sense that they're some sort of technology. Yeah, exactly. Some arcane stuff. This way you know they're not just for fashion. They're not just made of plastic.
00:51:44
Speaker
They do allow the wearers to see ghosts, we will eventually learn. Kathy, for her part, is mulling over taking a quick bath now that she's found this bathroom that she's so excited about. She's in love with it.
00:51:56
Speaker
And for the curious, the way the bathroom works is that the floors and walls of the bathroom are all frosted glass bricks. That's how they got around that problem. She did earlier in the film joke, you know, I hope the bathroom's in the basement.
00:52:12
Speaker
So I have to say her behavior in this bathroom makes me think that i think I can't tell how old she is supposed to be. I looked this up. Shannon Elizabeth is 28 years old
00:52:27
Speaker
while performing this role. And it's just like, how old is she supposed to be? Because it's just like, she is fucking enthralled with this bathroom. And it's a nice bathroom. But at the same time, it's like, have you just...
00:52:42
Speaker
Are you that impoverished? Because before they had find enough life, it seemed like that no one would be like, be like, she immediately starts washing herself. Like she doesn't even take off her top. She's like, I just got to wash my face in my head. And it's just like, what are you doing?
00:52:59
Speaker
Like, what is even happening in this? I've never seen anyone just like go into a bathroom and come out all wet. like It was an amazing bathroom. I got so excited. It's like, are you 14? You simply have to wash your face in this sink. It's still it's a delight. Yeah.
00:53:14
Speaker
Very strange. I read her as like 18, like about to go for college. Yes. I think that's the correct. Sure. I think that's probably what you're supposed to think because they will also expose her bra and I wouldn't think they'd want to expose the bra of someone who's like 16. But I can't see any 18-year-old just being like, this goddamn bathroom.
00:53:36
Speaker
Yeah. Well, now hear me out. Sure. Maybe she really, really hated the old bathroom like in a way that it was like becoming a fixation, like she was becoming mentally Maybe.
00:53:49
Speaker
So if you tell me that she's mentally ill in this film, that actually makes me makes her performance more believable in many ways. and A lot. Is this at the same time where the um in the bathroom where the viewer is seeing flashes of... And um so I apologize to you all, and I forgot how...
00:54:06
Speaker
kind of painful to watch this film is in terms of the intercutting loud flashing it's so much epilepsy warning terrible at least it was on my set up like the dialogue and then it's just like who like yeah hideous yes uh all around yeah but you're seeing one of the 13 ghosts i forget the the sad princess or something the yeah The angry princess, naked more commonly known as the titty ghost. Yeah, the titty ghost. No nipples.
00:54:38
Speaker
mind you smooth perfectly it's very strange design really i remember her having big blue nipples does she have big big she had something like cut i felt like she had cuts as well but she i remember having big blue nipples i thought it was all right i'm on the wiki right now so for those who've never seen this they do just like they just flash the ghosts for a moment which is also really difficult for a horror movie to be like Are you scared of this thing? You look at it for just moments and and then never again until it comes back, but then stop. Then it comes back and then stop. And it's just like, I don't know.
00:55:12
Speaker
Am I supposed to be afraid of that? I might have seen a slightly edited version, though. Edited inexplicably, because you still got to see half the lawyer fall off. But Arthur was saying things like, darn it me. Yeah, I'm seeing some big blue nipples on this. No shit. Okay, I think I got different version. watched it Tubi, and I don't recall nipples.
00:55:32
Speaker
Interesting. All right, now I'm just going to have to go to IMDB's alternate cuts. you guys I also i have no memory either way. Yeah. Matthew Lillard says shoot instead of shit at one point for me. I mean, I do remember that her her breasts are very obviously silicone breasts that have been put on over real breasts. Oh, obviously, and yeah. and it's of ah And that's a real weird –
00:56:00
Speaker
Real weird look. Her whole thing is pretty weird too because even the banker like makes a lewd sexual comment about her. yeah It's just like, I don't know who would actually think that.
00:56:13
Speaker
She's covered in cuts too. Yeah. has just like, look at this naked dead woman. yeah it's It's a hideous scene. I mean, he's like, I'd like to see more of that or something. i forget Yeah. And then later he's like, whoops. so who shouldn't Shouldn't have said those things about your breasts. Literally. Yeah.
00:56:31
Speaker
great And I remember at the time, dudes being like, you gotta check out the titty ghost in this movie, bro. Really? Really? You're weird to say that to me. That's amazing.
00:56:42
Speaker
Takes all types, I guess. One of the least sexy movies maybe ever I've seen. Definitely. i do it for Absolutely. Oh, that's funny. So luckily Kathy escapes the tits out ghost unharmed.
00:56:58
Speaker
I believe Arthur finds her and conscripts her into looking for Bobby. There's a lot going on logistically. This movie spends a lot of time of like separating characters and getting characters back together, which is great. and so You can't tell what rooms they're in.
00:57:12
Speaker
So you don't really know if they're apart or just not in the same. Right. yeah know Or how far apart they are, yeah whether they're on the same floor. yeah Yep. No idea.
00:57:24
Speaker
Bobby, meanwhile, he's riding his Razor scooter in a mansion where every wall is made out of glass and every shelf holds a priceless artifact. And there are also now several murderous ghosts about.
00:57:35
Speaker
So if you're an anxious type, you're probably a little bit stressed out about Bobby right now. a He does, though, have a pair of spectral viewing ghost glasses.
00:57:46
Speaker
He quickly runs two of the into two of the least dangerous ghosts, the bound woman, a high school girl strangled to death by her boyfriend, and the torso, a headless, limbless torso that wriggles menacingly.
00:58:01
Speaker
Bobby gets so scared that he passes out.
00:58:05
Speaker
Everyone has now come down to the basement to try to find Bobby. They figure he's probably in the basement. And Arthur insists that this is taking too long. They need to split up. Maggie goes with Dennis. Arthur goes with Kathy. Dennis and Maggie. Dennis makes Maggie put on the glasses around a ghost. And she sees a ghost. Maggie now believes on believes in ghosts.
00:58:26
Speaker
Two ghost believers down in the squad. Meanwhile, the clockwork house releases another ghost. This one is called the Jackal, and he's the worst ghost, arguably. You can tell that he's the worst because of all of the things that he does.
00:58:43
Speaker
Yeah, all the crazy stuff. Oh, it's wild what he what he gets into. You don't want to see him coming at you through those glasses? No. Because then he'll be walking in your direction, and wow, what will you do? Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:58
Speaker
he's He's a crazy guy in a straight jacket, and he's got his head in a cage, and the cage is busted out, and he and he kills people. yeah And he starts attacking Kathy by clawing at her boobs with his ghost claws.
00:59:11
Speaker
And that's when we see her brassiere. It's weird. It's weird that he's clawing specifically at her boobs. It focuses on it quite intensely to say to show that they're like, hey, it's ri her shirt is ripping in this manner, and it's exposing the brassiere. you're like, okay, I didn't need to.
00:59:26
Speaker
Come on. It's always very strange to me when it's just like isn't this scary and also a little sexy? It's like we don't seem we don't need to put... I've seen plenty of scary sexy things and this was frankly neither. No, no, it's always just very fun to me and very funny when it's just like this is supposed to be scary and also look at those tits. It's like these are two different, these are two fighting is two fighting interests.
00:59:51
Speaker
frankly I think they go hand in hand, you know, like Dracula's Brides or a Cronenberg movie. think one follows the other. i don't know if they necessarily go together.
01:00:04
Speaker
Okay. Fair enough. She doesn't really get you know injured, though, right? It's almost only cosmetic. the Because when Tony Shlub gets scratched the jackal, he's like, ah. And there's like, yeah, he gets all bloodied up. But she's just yeah Jack was only convinced in taking off this presumably 18 year old shirt, which is very suspicious suspicious on the part of the the evil ghost. us You are on watch the Jackal. ah Yeah.
01:00:30
Speaker
He's the one that scared me the most as a kid watching this. That one really freaked me out for some reason. I mean, each these is the one where theyre like he's the Not the yeah So Arthur leaps to Kathy's aid, despite the fact that he can't even see what's ah tearing up his daughter's shirt.
01:00:52
Speaker
Luckily, Karina, the ghost liberationist protester, shows up and she has road flares. And it turns out that ghosts hate road flares.
01:01:03
Speaker
Hate them. They really do. but So they wave some road flares at the ghosts. And then they run for safety and a wall slams shut, sealing them off from the jackal.
01:01:16
Speaker
They hand Arthur some glasses. Now Arthur's able to see the ghost with his own two eyes. Now everybody believes in ghosts. That matter's settled. Thank goodness. Soon, everyone except for Bobby is reunited in the mansion's library to listen to Kalina talk a little bit about, ah you know, exposition in a library. So, of course. Lord have mercy. Yeah. We got to Lord have mercy.
01:01:46
Speaker
Jesse, what that is, is in the first, like, ten episodes of the show, six of them had somebody going to a library to, like, research and explain something. guess that sense. So we thought this going to happening all the time.
01:01:57
Speaker
Yeah, that is a good exposition play. Oh, OK. But you still yeah got to bust out of the sound bite when you have one. This is a good one. Of course. Every time. It's a big lore dump in the... I feel like this is decent amount of time they spend. And I love any lore dump that comes with an accompanying book that has visuals.
01:02:14
Speaker
What is he called goes through the book page by page, page by page. It has a creepy name it really The book, I mean. Yeah, it was... Was it Arcanum or so It's the Arcanum. Yes.
01:02:28
Speaker
Cool. ah he So Kalina explains that Cyrus was collecting ghosts to power a gate to hell. Normal. Yeah. Obviously. People love hell famously. yeah He was assembling the 12 ghosts of the so-called Black Zodiac.
01:02:48
Speaker
And their spiritual power will fuel the machine. The machine being basically the entire house that they're in right now The members of the 12 Zodiac are excited for them in order. Yeah,
01:03:04
Speaker
yeah and obviously all big black Zodiac fans here. You've got the firstborn son, okay who looked like a baseball player who got in a car wreck, maybe. No, firstborn son was the little kid.
01:03:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah, the kid with the arrow through his head. Yeah. Yeah. All of these have very elaborate backstories. I'm looking right now with the 13 ghost fandom.com slash wiki, ah which is i got a very complete.
01:03:34
Speaker
Yeah. ah Number two, you got the torso who is a headless, limbless torso. One thing i really liked about the picture is like looking at the, because every one of them is like a name, and I'm pretty sure for the torso, it almost looked like it said the trunk.
01:03:50
Speaker
T-R-U-N-C, because trunk is also like your torso, you know? That's cool. I don't know if that's, like I looked at it a couple of times, I'm like, does that say trunk? Does that say trunk? I think it does. Oh, that's cool. It's very It's old-timey language in that book. yeah it's like these archetypes of...
01:04:07
Speaker
ghost this is the coolest thing in the entire movie no no this is immediately she was like this is the black zodiac let me open this book i was like leaning in yeah exactly this is definitely the part to lock in on this is the cool idea uh you got the bound woman uh looks like a old pilgrim woman and some stocks maybe oh no this is the woman that got uh hung Yes, who Grimmis? Strangled by her boyfriend. Yeah.
01:04:33
Speaker
Yeah. ah The withered lover, a woman with a burned face, who will soon learn is Jean, Arthur's dead wife.
01:04:44
Speaker
Yep, shocker. ah The torn prince, that's the baseball boy that maybe got over. The angry princess, that's the tits-out ghost. Yep. The pilgrimess is ah ah the lady in stocks.
01:05:01
Speaker
You got the great child and the dire mother who is an adult baby and little lady that feeds them. And I'm going to be honest with you when you're calling your movie 13 ghosts and you're specifically permising it around how many ghosts you have. You have one ghost to be two ghosts, one really throws everything off. Listen, just run with it.
01:05:24
Speaker
Yeah. Because they're to to unit, they're one as a unit. They're counting it. Yeah. Yeah, they count as one ghost. They have the ghostly energy of one ghost. Okay. No. No. I'm trying. I'm trying. there's It's really indefensible. That's what they're trying to tell me. their hand They're selling me a bill of goods.
01:05:42
Speaker
Mm-hmm. trying to railroad me like Sully. Can we sally briefly talk about the design of that one where it is a large... Oh, the the great big baby man? I think maybe this this is the one i could had yeah I could have done another rework on the character, i think.
01:05:59
Speaker
I don't know. But it's like a big guy dressed as a baby and he's got a bunch of puke all over his... What do you call it? Bib? Chin. And then you creepy, creepy tiny mother.
01:06:11
Speaker
you know It's a classic big, small. who seems Who seems largely confused most of the time. not but She's like, I'll feed him. But like, why? unclear Yeah, they don't seem to understand why they're there. They don't seem particularly threatening, though. They're mostly just creep walking. I also love that the the mother ghosts, like all of them, all the other ghosts are like, I'm going to rip, I'm going to shred. And the mother ghost is like, you should go.
01:06:36
Speaker
It's dangerous. Get out. Oh, you mean Tony Shalhoub mother Jean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She doesn't have those. I love that one of the she's one of the necessary. They need her spiritual energy. They need one good ghost. Well, they need two good ghosts technically because we haven't got to the 13th ghost yet. but Yeah, obviously the ninth member of the Dark Zodiac is the Hammer. Love the Hammer. That's probably my favorite.
01:07:00
Speaker
He's very iconic. He's filled with like railroad spikes. He's very scary. Mm-hmm. Obviously, you got the Jackal. Everybody loves the Jackal. He's the most feared one. He's the worst one, probably.
01:07:11
Speaker
What I like is all of them. You could you could feel like this is like... ah i mean Either of you guys watch the show Face Off. Really quick, the last one is the Juggernaut. The makeup SFX. Yeah, yeah.
01:07:25
Speaker
But yeah, the show Face Off is, yeah, like a special effects reality competition show. Listeners know that Anne and I love reality competition shows. Yes. And Face Off is one where, like, every challenge they would have to make different monsters.
01:07:42
Speaker
They'd have to make different special effects monsters. And this feels so much like this movie is the first episode of a season of Face Off. Oh, like a challenge where each person makes, each contest makes different...
01:07:54
Speaker
black You've been assigned a member of the Dark Zodiac. I'd watch that. And they look like that, too. choose the Angry Princess. Yeah, and it they all have results very similar to this. I got stuck with two ghosts. Everybody else got to do one ghost. I've got to do two ghosts.
01:08:12
Speaker
I got the big baby guy. going step up to the challenge. I thought two was an opportunity. Opportunity. but the So yeah, that's our Dark Zodiac.
01:08:23
Speaker
Oh, the Jugger. The last one was ah the Juggernaut. The one that Matthew Lillard has big weird beef with almost. Or he's like the most afraid of that one. I love that. He's like, I actually hate that one of the most. He's the one that they were capturing at the beginning. Oh, yeah, that's probably what. Oh, okay. okay ah So after Kalina explains the Dark Zodiac, she then also yeah drops the knowledge bomb that Jean is one of the members of the Dark Zodiac, and also that Dennis helped imprison her immortal soul.
01:08:52
Speaker
And also, if Arthur wants to stop all this from happening, he'll have to willingly sacrifice himself and become the titular 13 Ghost. There's a brilliant moment in this where they're just like, did you tell them about the fourth ghost? And she's like, shut up.
01:09:05
Speaker
And Shalhoub's like, what about the fourth ghost? What about the fourth ghost? And it's so ridiculous. Yes. So ridiculous to hear someone like screaming like, what about the fourth ghost?
01:09:19
Speaker
Tony Shalhoub, the fourth of 12, working out his angry dad role in this is interesting. it's Having just seen him as a monk for a long long time, it's hard not to see him as a tree monk in this. I got to be honest. He's wearing a similar outfit.
01:09:35
Speaker
But he's a little more angry in this. He's like, you son of a bitch. What did you do with my wife? Shaking Matthew Lewis and stuff. um But I guess he also has a dead wife and monk, too. he does very yeah he does yeah yeah very different relationship but the same function of the same type of wife in a in a way actually because it's like this angelic yeah narratively uh yeah exactly like pure perfect dead wife tragedy it's interesting maybe tony gravitates to such roles i don't know yeah maybe he has a beautiful dead wife
01:10:09
Speaker
ah listeners right in uh so kalina does have a backup plan luckily blow up the whole house with dynamite everybody loves this plan it's a great plan don't be inside when it goes off unfortunately during all this uh exposition at some point kathy has disappeared lot of moving parts in this movie i think they literally like turn around be like where's kathy yeah that is actually what happens So Arthur doesn't want to blow up the house with his kids still inside. That makes sense. So he and Dennis are going to go look for them while Maggie and Kalina take care of the dynamite.
01:10:47
Speaker
ah Dennis and Arthur finally come up with the only smart idea anyone in the entire movie has the entire time. They rip off one of the glass walls and they use it as a giant riot shield to protect themselves. from Yes. Because I don't know if we mentioned this but the writing on the glass is containment stuff that the ghosts can't get. Yes. Yes.
01:11:08
Speaker
binding spell of some kind. Binding spells. Containment Yeah. Isn't this with the baseball guy? Yeah. The Torn Prince is like swinging at the glass. Yeah, yeah. content Like, oh, oh. And the like like the glass gets pushed back and they're like, oh, the glass. Oh, the glass.
01:11:24
Speaker
And only one of them can see them at the time. There's a lot of that. We're like, where is he? Where's the ghost? Mm-hmm. good Yeah, they do a lot of fun logistics stuff with who gets the glasses. and but yeah You could put fun in quotes in that particular sentence, I think.
01:11:39
Speaker
Maybe more just sort of business. It's just a thing that they're doing. Just another way that it's just like, let's try a different dynamic. Now he's got the glasses. Now he's with him and he's got the glasses. you know So down in the basement, Kalina and Maggie run into Cyrus. What a twist. He's still alive.
01:11:59
Speaker
Cyrus, it seems faked his own death for some reason in the middle of this ghost capture, I guess because nobody would suspect it I don't know. I would rather just have somebody call everybody and say, Oh, he died. But He does in this very public way.
01:12:14
Speaker
He's also been hanging around the house pretending to be a ghost. I assume this is to fool us, the audience, into thinking that he's the 13th ghost, but I have no idea why he would be doing this in story. So I kind of assumed that he was dead and that he was somehow brought back through the ritual, but I also didn't think about it enough to care.
01:12:34
Speaker
Like when it was revealed that he's not just only visible through the glasses, that he's actually there, I was like, I don't know if that makes sense or not, but let's just move on. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why he was just hanging out pretending to be a ghost.
01:12:47
Speaker
He could have built himself a little hidden control room. It's his house. I mean, yeah, he can do what he wants. He's put a lot into it, too. Was he going to not pretend a ghost? does like ghosts. It sounds like fun. i yeah Yeah. I can't argue against that.
01:13:04
Speaker
no You know, you got me on both points, my dog. ah anyway it turns out that he's in league with Kalina who is not a ghost prison abolitionist but his lover who had infiltration infiltrated the ghost prison abolition movement in order to stop them she was a fifth columnist Or a double agent? I don't know.
01:13:28
Speaker
This entire time? Very confusing. I was confused about it because doesn't she have a partner that was murdered or killed by the ghost in the very first scene that she's like, no. All part the roof? Yeah, that all fake. Was that part of the roof? All part of the roof? Yeah, she killed him.
01:13:43
Speaker
Huh. Yeah. But she's with It's elaborate. They have a ah very weird kiss that I did not like seeing. No. No. Well, he she hands him the book or he kind of grabs the book and shoves it away like, ha ha, book is mine. Yeah.
01:13:58
Speaker
I mean, he's excited. He's feeling his oats. ah Now, one of them knocks Maggie out somehow. Who cares? noeys Maggie's unconscious. Anyway, we find out also that Arthur killing himself won't stop the machine. It's actually what they need in order to have the machine fully activate.
01:14:19
Speaker
Meanwhile, Arthur and Dennis get attacked by some other ghosts, including both the hammer and the juggernaut at the same time. This is a nightmare scenario. Those two in a tag team.
01:14:29
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, my goodness. The Dugganut's just like a big guy, right? He's just like a guy in a mechanics outfit. Yeah. He's scary looking. Yeah, he looks like a Frankenstein. He's a Everyone else has a lot more going on. He's just kind of a big dude, which I thought was interesting. Yeah.
01:14:43
Speaker
He does pick Matthew Lillard up over his head. Matthew Lillard, a big guy in and of himself, and then break his spine on the corner of a hallway. yeah Hated this when I was a kid, this specific folding action that he does with Matthew Lillard's body. And then the the brightest blood ever maybe comes out of Matthew Lillard's mouth like is if he's that's how you know someone's really injured in the blood, the blood mouth.
01:15:07
Speaker
Good stuff. Yeah. The blood out of the mouth is always a fatal sign. And we we haven't talked a lot about it, but Matthew Lillard is very over the top in this. I would say that he has dialed it up between seven. Like his lowest level on a scale of one to ten is seven and his highest is 13, I feel like. Yeah, he's cooking. Like it's really, it's he's he's shouting like the entire time. It's incredible. Yeah.
01:15:31
Speaker
It's interesting that just, I feel like he is that way in comparison to everyone else in the film, but compared to almost every other Matthew Lillard performance we've seen on the show, it's more, this one is,
Character Performances & Key Scenes
01:15:42
Speaker
yeah. right I mean, you could be right. Admittedly, like the most bold thing that Tony Shalhoub does is he kind of like touches his eyebrow when he's thinking, i don't know if anyone else noticed that he does that a little bit, he touches his eyebrow when he's thinking that's like the strongest move that anybody does. Yeah.
01:16:01
Speaker
Yeah. Which is not a lot of choices. in the movie No, no.
01:16:08
Speaker
Let's see. Yeah. They get attacked by the hammer and the juggernaut. As you might guess from their names, they're two of the bad ones. and They do end up killing Dennis, oh who sacrificed himself so that Arthur could hide behind their wall shield. Turns out Dennis, not such a bad guy after all.
01:16:24
Speaker
The hammer and the juggernaut are about to turn to attack Arthur when Cyrus starts playing a spell over the house's PA system. The black Zodiac is summoned to the central clockwork room of the house.
01:16:39
Speaker
Before Jean answers the summons, she briefly appears to Arthur and Arthur's like, I miss you, my dead wife. And she's like, I miss you too. yeah And then she disappears.
01:16:51
Speaker
Mm hmm. Meanwhile, Cyrus doesn't need Kalina anymore, so he lets her get squished between a couple of shifting walls. Also traumatized me as a kid.
01:17:03
Speaker
hated this scene when was a kid. Well, they full CGI it, so it's pretty wild. Apparently, I was reading briefly that the um the effect was going to be way gorier or something on the head because she kind of goes, Cyrus, you son of a bitch, while she's being squeezed, and then it cuts away right when her head starts to squash. But apparently it was way worse originally, and they cut it, which is fine with me because I i hate that kind of movie injury of someone getting squeezed. No, it's really it's rough.
01:17:29
Speaker
It sounds like a rough way to go. Yeah. The kids, the kids are back. They emerge from the floor. of the clockwork room. They are surrounded by razor sharp whirling concentric gears.
01:17:45
Speaker
If you see it, you know what I'm talking about. It's hard to describe, but razor sharp whirling concentric gears. It looks a lot like one of those devices you would like, like you could see in like a movie where they're training for space. Yeah. Like where the boots and you're like flipping around and there's three rings kind of rotating together. Gyroscopic. Yeah. Yeah.
01:18:07
Speaker
It was like that, but with 13 rings, glass punk sort of thing going on. Good stuff. Absolutely. Arthur, he finds them there and he finds Cyrus too, and he starts punching Cyrus in the face.
01:18:24
Speaker
Cyrus responds by beating Arthur with his cane, which also turns out to have a sword in it. Oh, yeah. and Cyrus whips the sword out and is about to stab him. Fortunately, Maggie has woken up inside the control room of the house and has started randomly pressing buttons.
01:18:43
Speaker
This causes the spell that summoned the Black Zodiac to mess up, freeing the ghosts, who immediately kill Cyrus. Unfortunately, Maggie's machinations have also caused the clockwork machinery in the house to start going crazy.
01:18:59
Speaker
Bobby and Kathy are trapped inside the center of the sphere of whirling gears that is rapidly falling apart. But Arthur is able to time it out and leap through the chaos and join them where all three of them hold together as the machine grinds to a halt. So we didn't really didn't have to do that at all anyway.
01:19:19
Speaker
yeah Actually, he doesn't have to jump, does he? Are we meant to believe he's he's kind of protected by the power of love and that's why it works? Or do we think he actually timed it really well?
01:19:33
Speaker
So are you asking that because they're in the center of a glass house that is shattering, why they're not dead from all the shattered glass? a Is that all what you're asking? Because that's i'm immediately what I thought. but i'm justssuming they were But I assume that they were protected by the swirling blades or or love, one of the two.
01:19:50
Speaker
Like, so really, when Tony, or sorry, Arthur has to jump through it, he is. he has, like, a minuscule window to not get shredded by the gyroscope. And yes he did he just nail it?
01:20:02
Speaker
He must have, otherwise they wouldn't show us. because he They wouldn't show us yeah him doing like timing it out. yeah like They wouldn't put in that mechanic. yeah we got emily from to Maybe that's where the math teacher thing comes in. somehow That's my assumption.
01:20:18
Speaker
I recognize this pattern from class. That would have been perfect. linear algebra ah so the house is now partially or mostly in shambles once again it's hard to tell ah but the ghosts all sort of wander off into the woods presumably to keep killing people it's fine yeah I mean what can you do can't stop them it's true James contain them yeah it's some sort of ghost prison yeah that would be great yeah the basement's probably fine actually
01:20:54
Speaker
Jean's ghost offers her family one last goodbye. And then Maggie starts spitting some her trademark sass about how she's going to get on the next plane back to Newark. Roll credits.
Critique & Analysis
01:21:10
Speaker
Final thoughts, five star ratings in terms of watchability and weirdness. Where did everybody land? Greg, let's start with you. Yeah, so as I said, there' are really there's really two really two people watching this movie with me when I watched it. there was and So it's a haunted house movie in which the house is full of glass,
01:21:33
Speaker
So nothing is discernible. And half the time i can't tell what they're scared of because it's not visible. hey And also it felt like this was a portion of another movie. Like it felt like they're like, so you're, you're interested in the 13 ghosts, right? It's like what, this is the first minute of the film. I don't, I have no time to know what the 13 ghosts are.
01:21:59
Speaker
I don't like in a horror movie when you, when you can't see the thing, you're like more afraid of it. But when you literally have no idea what it is, it's hard to kind of be scared, but at times I kind of was tense.
01:22:11
Speaker
So there was some part of me that's like, this is exasperating and is confusing and doesn't make sense in his bad. And there was a part of me that's like, this is exasperating and it is confusing and it doesn't make sense.
01:22:24
Speaker
And it's a good time. And so I was really, really batting back and forth between those two things at all times. Like one being like, this doesn't make sense and is full of poor choices. And the other one saying, yes, but it doesn't make sense. It's full of poor choices. ah And so it was, ah I think I'm going to go three and a half. I think that's where I finally land on this for watchability.
01:22:47
Speaker
I think I could probably watch it more than once a decade. but probably like once every five years. You know, it's not going to be one I'm going to go back to all the time, but in a couple of years from now, someone's like, ooh, we should watch 13 ghosts. They'd be like, yeah, let's put it on.
01:23:04
Speaker
It would be a good time. I think it would especially be a good time with other people too. I think that would have upped my enjoyment of it a little bit maybe. Because there's just some really, really stupid choices in this movie, which I have to slap them on the back for. it it is also at times just like, I don't really know what we're doing or what you want me to be afraid of or what's even happening. So I'll just keep waiting, i guess.
01:23:29
Speaker
ah And it's pretty weird. I think this one's a pretty weird one due to the... um due to the set choices and how that sort of affects everything.
01:23:40
Speaker
Because having it in an entirely glass house full of glass corridors, we have no sense of space where it's like almost feels claustrophobic, but also isn't. It's like see-through and yet there's writing over the wall. So it's also obscured at the same time.
01:23:57
Speaker
just really bizarre choices. I'm going to give this a, I'm going to give this a four. I think it's a pretty weird one in its own strange way. What about you in watchability and weirdness?
01:24:11
Speaker
I'm going to give it a four for watchability. i yeah, i had a great time. ah both times I watched it, i would watch it again.
01:24:24
Speaker
um Weirdness, I'd give it about a three. think more of the weirdness is in the fact that it has two different high concepts that it doesn't entirely follow through on. Yeah. Yeah.
01:24:42
Speaker
yeah Yeah, understandable. I land in the same range as you guys. I gave it a three stars for watchability. I felt it was pretty clunky. There's some good actors in here, but they get literally nothing to do.
01:24:55
Speaker
ah You can have fun watching this movie, but it it just benefits from going in with low expectations. Let me not oversell you and just give it a three. The house is cool. The black Zodiac is cool.
01:25:07
Speaker
I don't want to take that away from it. For weirdness, I gave it three and a half. It's weird that there's so many ghosts in the movie that it legitimately becomes a problem for the movie. Yeah. And it's also weird that this broke ass math teacher has a full time nanny. Like, what yeah there are just things in this movie that just don't pass the mustard. and It's weird that they're in there.
01:25:31
Speaker
What about you, Jesse? Watchability and weirdness. Watchability, i want to say is actually quite low for me. ah especially because of the... I find the the editing... Maybe I'm getting old, but the the the editing was really hard for me to to keep track of. And I usually don't have that much of a problem watching stuff that's kind of really shaky and the fast cutting. And simultaneously, you're getting the like...
01:25:58
Speaker
shot with the ghost is here shot with the ghost is gone and there's flashes in between that and man that just really was i was like damn is this like easy to to parse at all ever not really no young and yeah outside of the glass house stuff it's very very discombobulated and there's just these sound the sound editing of like the ghostly noises is a little hard to to take sometimes yeah But the, I feel like the things I like most about this movie are almost all in spite of the movie itself. It's all, it's like almost outside of it. Like the cool concept art has me like on the wiki looking at all the, all all the cool ghost stories and shit, all the cool designs. But then actually watching the movie, I'm like, wholy this is kind of tough.
01:26:43
Speaker
Yeah. But that being said, i think watching this with other people, especially even in like a packed theater, I think would be really fun. um e Maybe I'll give it a three in that regard.
01:26:55
Speaker
ah Weirdness, simultaneously hard. i think it's it's very weird in the sense that feel like they don't see you don't see many movies anymore that are like... this I don't know what this is but it's just very strange like 2000s to the hilts aesthetic with very intricate lore building that they don't really go into that much like they don't say like oh here's the dire mother here's her whole life story It's kind of... yeah um i kind of like that all the all the ghosts or have like two or three weird things about them you can kind of gather from their name and from what they're... Like, for example, the the torn prince is like a greaser-looking dude, and he's all ragged up because of presumably a car incident, and he has a baseball bat. So you're like, oh, he's probably like a young...
01:27:40
Speaker
you know, hot shot kid who was taken too soon, but he was kind of an asshole. He's a baseball star. He's a greaser. And they have these kind of interesting seeds of characters that you simultaneously don't get enough of. But also, i think if you did get enough of them, maybe it would be pretty corny.
01:27:54
Speaker
I don't know, or be too much. Yeah. Oh, it's just so much of this movie. It's just so close for me. But at the same time, I think it's moves not weird in the sense that it's got that 2000s, I don't know, aesthetic a little bit where I don't know what that is.
01:28:10
Speaker
ah the plastic Oakley's of it all. um Yeah. Yeah. And it's got a very professional studio sheen. It's not at all outre or anything, but it's a fascinating movie. I very strange things that exists. You almost feel like it should be a sci-fi original with way less budget and really piece of shit. But there's, there's just enough there that it really compels me. It's one of the more ah hot and cold movies I think I've ever seen. um Yeah. Yeah.
01:28:38
Speaker
Yeah. I don't think I gave it a number there, but somewhere floating between a two and a four. I don't know. Okay. Which I guess would be three. but you know Yeah, we'll average that out to about a three.
01:28:50
Speaker
So good. Well, listeners, those were our reviews. But I found some reviews that I want to share with everybody. We're going to that in our next segment. It's called the Review Review.
01:29:15
Speaker
You wrote a review of the film, now we're going to review you.
01:29:38
Speaker
Review, review. La,
01:29:46
Speaker
la, la, la,
01:29:49
Speaker
the we have ah one shame recently is that imdb has made you start signing in to start looking at reviews no really i'm not going to id oh man out ofruitt yeah i'm not into it don't make me sign into eighty ah you're right i and So instead I went to common sense reviews to find out what the kids and teens thought of this and if it was appropriate for kids and teens. Oh, sure.
01:30:21
Speaker
So our first review comes from honesty, Caroga Taylor, honesty spelled a U N E S T E Y. Okay.
01:30:31
Speaker
Got it. And honesty is 14 years old. They gave it three stars and said it should be 15 plus. Not the worst thing ever. I mean, it was okay.
01:30:44
Speaker
There's a woman slash ghost slash spirit that is new to the whole movie, but you don't see anything below the waist. A lot of cursing, but nothing anyone hasn't heard before.
01:30:56
Speaker
As a Christian, I don't recommend watching it at all, but that's your choice to make. That's very thoughtful. That's fair. Yeah. that That seems like a very honest review. Where's the lie? Absolutely. 100%. No.
01:31:11
Speaker
Way to go, Adam. 15 plus, huh? I would have gone, i guess that sounds about right. I don't know. This is something that feel like you i'm could freak out. If you had kids that were under like 15, you could see them getting really freaked out by some of this. Because it's the images are very evocative, even if it's silly.
01:31:27
Speaker
Which is what happened to me. I was terrified. Especially if you're a family that goes to common sense meeting Oh, yeah. I think you're probably running a little sensitive. Oh, the jackal's going to blow your mind if you're like a young Jesse at East Holy shit.
01:31:40
Speaker
You're going to be praying about the jackal for the next time. For real. Lord, please protect me. Please protect me from that. Review number two.
01:31:50
Speaker
Uh, review number two from XX lovely XX teen, 17 years old. They think it should be 13 plus four stars. At least give it a chance.
01:32:03
Speaker
It's not good nor bad, but it's not horrible. Give the movie a chance. One of my favorite horror remakes of all time. 13 plus this title has too much violence, too much sex, too much swearing.
01:32:19
Speaker
good So running real hot and cold. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Is it 13 plus because of the 13 ghosts? do you think that's what led to any like, oh, 13? think so. I think somewhere in the back of their mind that was there.
01:32:36
Speaker
because Every year of your life you can handle one additional ghost. Yeah. Are you ready? Are you ready for the the bound? but What is the trend? There's always one more a ghost than I remember.
01:32:48
Speaker
And I'm always like, oh yes, the torso, of course. Are you forgetting the the broken heart, of course, is Tony Shalhoub when he becomes a ghost? Is that his name? Does he have a Zodiac name? Is that right?
01:32:59
Speaker
He's the broken heart. The broken heart. That's so goofy. Review number three. Resident Evil for Life 220. They're teen. They're 17 years old. They think this should be 16 plus. They give it five stars.
01:33:15
Speaker
A lot of door. Is it a five star? They're a five starred system over in Common Sense. It's a really good movie, but this movie does contain a lot of gore.
01:33:26
Speaker
There's many interesting deaths. There's only two deaths in this movie. But the two I'd be worried about are this person gets slices in half and you see the organs. And during the end, there's a girl that gets her head crushed. Yeah, those are the two people that die. Well, I guess also the guys cri at the front, the goons at the beginning. That guy gets folded. yeah. That's messed up.
01:33:47
Speaker
Through the car. yeah Yeah, and Matthew Lillard. Oh, right. There are a lot of Oh, he also gets folded in half. Sorry. Yeah. yeah most You got me there, Resident Evil for Life 220.
01:34:01
Speaker
There is a character with her breasts showing the whole movie. And from what I remember, the family is satanic. If I were you, wouldn't let your kids watch this because it's a really bad influence on them.
01:34:13
Speaker
Too much violence, too much sex. The whole family? much sex. I would argue there's very little sex. Yeah, whole family's satanic. Bobby's probably the worst of all Kind of an unsexy movie in a lot of ways. Definitely. I mean, I know there's nudity, but it's very eighteen teen dorm room. Yeah.
01:34:29
Speaker
Like, look at her boobs are out. Yeah. Goofy. Yeah.
01:34:35
Speaker
Which I guess maybe is just super Christian. That's terrifying. Is that the name of the... That's the name of some kind of love? Some kind of love is our next reviewer. They are listed as an adult. They think that this should be age 14 plus.
01:34:49
Speaker
They gave it five stars. Great ghost movie. This movie is one of the best haunted mansion ghost movies I've seen. Fair enough.
01:34:59
Speaker
A lot of jump scares.
01:35:03
Speaker
I said okay. A lot of jump scares and scary imagery conveying the legends of the 13 ghosts. Give the movie a chance. It's very good, filled with mysteries and a family coming together to defeat an evil.
01:35:19
Speaker
They're a breast scene and a lawyer gets split in half. This title has too much violence. A lawyer gets split in half. Yeah, it's best by it's a lawyer.
01:35:31
Speaker
Yeah, consider that. Huh. Joe J., an adult, age 14 plus is what they're saying. Only one star. Good horror, but it is bad.
01:35:45
Speaker
Unfortunately, I had to come across this when I was a toddler. Oh. However, I wish I'd... That's too young to see this. Definitely. Toddler is too young.
01:35:58
Speaker
However, I didn't see it until I was 10. 10, maybe still too young. It has a lot of gore, and the plot is okay. But it has nudity, and it goes into the occult.
01:36:11
Speaker
but it does show the absolute power corrupts. Overall, don't watch it. This title has too much violence. Okay. Last one.
01:36:23
Speaker
This one comes from user Big Papa Smurf. Big Papa Smurf is 13 years old. Right on, Big Papa Smurf.
01:36:34
Speaker
Big Papa Smurf says 12 plus. Our youngest recommendation... Three stars out of five. Acting is dot dot interesting question mark.
01:36:48
Speaker
Okay, so I just recently watched this movie. It's very fast paced and confusing overall. I don't think the acting is that good. But I will say the use of horror and gore is well done.
01:37:01
Speaker
There is a scene where someone is split in half and you see their guts, but that's really it. Also a brief scene where someone is thrown into a machine, but you can barely see anything.
01:37:12
Speaker
Everyone is saying there's a bunch of gore, but there's not. There's some
01:37:20
Speaker
There's some blood and there's a nude woman ghost, but you can only see her boobs. Nothing below the waist. Overall, it was okay. Could be better, but not bad.
01:37:31
Speaker
I think Big Papa Smurf is probably the one that's the most on point. No, no. I was just to say this 13-year-old is really nailing it in much more eloquent yeah than the other people, which is very intriguing to me. Yeah. I'm going to check out some of Big Papa Smurf's other reviews. Yeah.
01:37:48
Speaker
they both get into he's one the station on a You can see the top half of that lady, but don't worry, not the bottom half, which I think is interesting. yeah i I have a sense that because it's common sense, like a lot of them ended with like too much violence. yeah I have a sense that there's a to it. And so there's probably like a specification of like nudity top half, nudity bottom half. ah have So that's probably, I'm assuming that's where that comes from.
01:38:16
Speaker
And I bet it also just comes up culturally. Yeah. yeah I bet like a lot of these guys are reading each other and being like, yeah, I want to know, is is the nudity, does it include the bottom half? No.
01:38:28
Speaker
Otherwise, I ain't
Game Segment & Actor Trivia
01:38:30
Speaker
watching it. deep and You guys want to play a game? Yes. Let's play a little this, that, or the other.
01:39:04
Speaker
I ask myself, what will they answer? Will it be A, B or C?
01:39:16
Speaker
A, B or C? And each time I ask you question, there's one thing that I want to know. Is it this, is it that, or is it the other?
01:39:32
Speaker
Is it this, is it that, or is it the other?
01:39:42
Speaker
Hell yeah.
01:39:45
Speaker
That's right. We're playing this, that, or the other. And we're doing it with Shannon Elizabeth, Matthew Lillard, and F. Murray Abraham. What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a title of a movie and a brief plot description.
01:39:57
Speaker
I want you to let me know which one of those three actors appears in that film. It's a buzz-in game. You'll buzz in by saying your own name. And if you get it wrong, your opponents will have the chance to steal. Is everybody ready?
01:40:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:40:11
Speaker
All right. Hands on buzzers. Question number one. Mother couch. Three siblings are brought together when their mother refuses to get up from a couch in a furniture store.
01:40:27
Speaker
Oh, Greg, Greg, Matthew Lillard.
01:40:35
Speaker
I'm sorry, Jesse or Anna. Can you steal Anna? Anna? Shannon Elizabeth.
01:40:43
Speaker
ah Jesse gets the point. F. Murray Abraham's in that one. Wow. We did say he'd show up in pretty much anything, so. Yes. I'm unfamiliar with this. Mother couch. and putting this on the list.
01:40:55
Speaker
Yeah, the other two also will show up in anything. This is a weird list. Yeah. ah Question number two. Dying to live. a guardian angel escorts a dead teen to her eternal reward before launching a revenge attack on the rival teen who caused her death.
01:41:16
Speaker
Oh, dying to live. to live Anna, Anna, Elizabeth. You got it, my heart. She plays the, the mean teen.
01:41:35
Speaker
Question number three. Gibby.
01:41:40
Speaker
A capuchin monkey helps Katie, a young teenager, overcome her depression after her mother dies. Gibby. Jesse. Greg. Greg. Matthew Lillard.
01:41:56
Speaker
Jesse or Anna? ah Jesse. Jesse. F. Marie Abraham.
01:42:05
Speaker
No, I'm sorry, Shannon Elizabeth. damn Anna gets the point. thought he'd play Gibby. It's right. Plenty game left to play. Dear Dracula.
01:42:16
Speaker
Nice. Dracula has a great opportunity to try his brand new skills at the neighborhood Halloween party where he realizes that self-confidence is enough to make him as scary as he ever was.
01:42:30
Speaker
Dear Dracula.
01:42:33
Speaker
Um, Anna. Anna. Matthew Lillard. Nice. You got it. You're running away with it. that That premise in name is fantastic.
01:42:44
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds great. I think what's weird is I read another plot description that seems almost mutually exclusive that was about a little boy who didn't want to write to Santa Claus. He wanted to write to Dracula, and that's why it's called Dear Dracula. But maybe this all overlaps. I don't know. Interesting.
01:43:01
Speaker
One way to find out. Question number five. Blood monkey. Hmm.
01:43:10
Speaker
A renowned but mad professor leads a small grove of students into the jungles of Africa to investigate a remote tribe of killer chimpanzees, rumored to be the so-called missing link.
01:43:24
Speaker
Ooh. Greg. Greg? F. Murray Abraham. gotta You got it. You're board, Greg. I have to check that out. Is that direct-to-video? He... Yeah, or direct to sci-fi. Yep.
01:43:38
Speaker
Wow. But he plays the professor. Okay. Question number six. Blade Squad. This is the one I want to find.
01:43:51
Speaker
A ragtag band of police officers are given one last chance before getting kicked off the force. They can lose their badge or they can join Blade Squad, a high-speed pursuit unit where they all wear rollerblades and jetpacks. Oh, my God.
01:44:08
Speaker
Wow. Blade Squad. Greg. Greg. Shannon Elizabeth. You got at one, Greg. Wow. I wanted her to be in it and she is. It's called Blade Squad?
01:44:21
Speaker
Yes. I'm writing that down to get that on so many things from this.
01:44:28
Speaker
AKA inline cops. Yes. That's so good. Jesse, if you're interested in any of these movies, you got to get on our Plex. I'll, I'll send you only one later. Please, please. Cause I, this is, this looks amazing.
01:44:39
Speaker
This alone is worth getting on a Plex for Blade Squad 1998. Ooh, perfect year for Blade Squad.
01:44:49
Speaker
Very good vintage. Question number seven messages deleted. A screenwriting teacher is forced to live out the plot of a screenplay idea he stole from a student who now seeks revenge.
01:45:04
Speaker
Ooh, I like that. Anna. It's written, Anna. Matthew Lillard. You've got it. That one was written by Larry Cohen.
01:45:15
Speaker
What? In his, like, ah cell phone and phone booth era. Cool.
01:45:23
Speaker
Question number eight. Bickford Schmeckler's cool ideas. When his journal of cool ideas is stolen, college freshman Bickford Schmeckler has to blanket the campus in order to find it.
01:45:40
Speaker
Bickford Schmeckler's cool ideas. Bickford Schmeckler. Greg? F. Murray Abraham.
01:45:50
Speaker
Unfortunately not. Bickford Schmeckler is a great idea. i'm just rotating that in my mind. It's quite the title. Anna? Matthew Lillard?
01:46:02
Speaker
You've got it. Nice. Okay, writing that on the list.
01:46:07
Speaker
Bickford Schmeckler. Last one.
01:46:11
Speaker
It's fun to say, isn't it? Bickford Schmeckler. You can see why they put it in the title. Question number nine. Last one. Shark swarm.
01:46:22
Speaker
A fisherman and his family fight to take down a greedy real estate developer who has released toxins into the ocean, turning the area's sharks into bloodthirsty killers.
01:46:34
Speaker
Just a shark swarm.
01:46:37
Speaker
Greg, Shannon, Elizabeth.
01:46:41
Speaker
cool Shit. That was my guess. Yeah. Right. it could go either way with this one now. I don't know. Jesse, I'm going to guess. jeie F. Murray Abraham.
01:46:54
Speaker
You're correct. i was very excited for F. Murray Abraham for some reason in that one. Yay. Well, congratulations, of course, to my wonderful wife, Anna. You're the big winner this week. Nice. All right for me. Doop, doop, doop, doop, doop.
01:47:15
Speaker
Oh,
01:47:19
Speaker
oh it's the Patty Awards.
01:47:28
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Patty Awards. Now you're messing with the Patty Awards.
01:47:45
Speaker
Congratulations to all the nominees!
01:47:51
Speaker
That's right, congratulations to all our nominees. It's the Batty Awards. The awards that we give out to all those wonderful little moments, people, decisions, and places that make a bad movie so good.
01:48:08
Speaker
Greg, don't you hit us up with your Batty I would like to give my baddie award to the creepiest possible way to end a video, Will. And that is by saying, perhaps we'll meet again. That's pretty cool.
01:48:27
Speaker
I forgot about said, if someone if someone that I hardly knew who stole my family's fortune... Plunked a video wheel down in front of me. they' like, by the way, if you're seeing this, I'm dead. I'm going to give you a house and perhaps we'll meet again.
01:48:41
Speaker
i'd be like, let's just sell the house. yeah How much is the house worth? don't even need to see I'm not even going to set foot on the property. i don't want to trigger anything. I don't want anything to go off by my presence being there.
01:48:52
Speaker
let's just Let's just sell the house. Put it on Zillow. Let's just get to somebody else. the Yeah. You know, take the cat if we get half what it's worth, that's still a lot more money than I had yesterday. Let's just do it faster rather than not faster. Anna, do you have a batty award? ah Yeah, I'm going to give it to the fun fact that 13 Ghosts is the first major studio picture to have three Arab American leads. Yeah. Tony Shalhoub, F. Murray Abraham, and Shannon Elizabeth all have heritage from Syria or Lebanon. no sure is Right on. yeah So that's pretty cool. Hats off. I'm going to give my baddie award to the Flip Mode Squad.
01:49:45
Speaker
Now, Maggie was, of course, played by Diga. Oh, Introducing Raw Diga, as she was listed in the opening credits. Raw Diga is a member of the Flip Mode Squad, who was Busta Rhyme's rap crew.
01:49:59
Speaker
Oh. Mm-hmm. Other members of the Flip Mode Squad include Baby Sham, Chauncey Black, DJ Ice Cold, DJ Scratch, J-Doe, Labba, Lord Have Mercy, M Dollars, Mika, Nikki Greer, N-O-R-E, Papoose, Rampage the Last Boy Scout, Rampage the Reek the villain, rock Marciano, surge monstrosity, serious show money and spliff star.
01:50:34
Speaker
Wow. It's a great crowd. Shout out to the flip mode squad. Big crew. Yeah. Yes. I don't know if they're all in there simultaneously. Jesse, do you have baddie award? I sure do. I would like to give it to um F. Murray Abraham for when he's being picked up in the film by all the ghosts. um they They pick him up and they throw him into the big gear thing, right? That that is yeah endangering the children. And he is torn apart in a c j CG storm. But before that, when they start picking him up... um
01:51:07
Speaker
there's a very specific yell he does that I remembered. Like right before he yelled it, I was like, oh, he's going to do it. The scream that I remember from watching this when I was a kid, which is just, it's not even like scary or anything. He just starts going like,
01:51:23
Speaker
Like it rises in this way. I thought that was a really interesting choice for on his part. If you watch this film, please be ready for that a kind of anticlimactic scream from Ephraim Abraham. as Again, he is picked up by what are 26 hands that he cannot see and then is thrown into ah the gears and is torn apart.
01:51:46
Speaker
This rocks, dude. I was about to say 24 hands, but I forgot that one of the ghosts is two
Awards & Closing Remarks
01:51:51
Speaker
ghosts. Oh, wait, but are some of the missing... is the torso doing during this part? Listen, let's not get too in weeds on this one.
01:52:00
Speaker
It's true. This episode has gone long enough. Listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. Jesse, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been such a blast. Oh, truly, truly my pleasure. been a very good time.
01:52:10
Speaker
it's You guys are the only people I can convince to talk to me about this movie, so thank you. You must come back again. Absolutely. Once they make a 14th ghost, you better have some right here. Are you kidding Tell listeners where to find you. Tell them about Savant Garde. Oh, yes. I am a co-host of Savant Garde. um It's really, it's been one of the great joys of my life making this show, actually. I really enjoy it. Please check it out, even if you don't have OCD or and or if you're not autistic and or if you don't want to watch The Good Doctor. In fact, you don't have to watch The Good Doctor at all. you In fact, maybe don't. No. wouldn't. You shouldn't. I personally wouldn't. No.
01:52:47
Speaker
Don't. But you can you can find us at on Patreon at just search Savant Garde. That's like, and Our main hub, if you will. But we're also on Instagram. I think it's at Sovereign Guard pod. Lucy runs the Instagram. She posts. I think they're called memes, which is pretty cool. I've heard of those.
01:53:05
Speaker
Yes, they're huge now. um And yeah that's smart. We need to figure that out. And I'd just like to plug Tony Shalhoub. I'm just happy to see him. Thanks. Yeah. Make shout out to Tony Shalhoub.
01:53:17
Speaker
He was great on Wings. Yeah. I should watch Wings. It's a good time, as I recall. I mean, don't don't hold me to that at this point. but
01:53:28
Speaker
Listeners, tune in next week to find out whether ah Wings is good. And... Greg will be punished or rewarded it appropriately. We'll also be talking about Beastmaster with Michael McDaniel from the podcast Your Roots Are Showing.
01:53:44
Speaker
Before I get too far into business, I do want to also say Samogard, very good. Anne I never miss an episode. please yeah. That's fantastic. Oh, man. ah I'm so happy to hear that.
01:53:55
Speaker
Sorry about all the stuff that's in The Good Doctor that you have to listen to. The good news is we don't have to watch The Good Doctor. listeners We can vouch for the fact that you do not have to watch and listen to did it for you. Yeah.
01:54:06
Speaker
Save yourself the trouble. But yeah, come back next week for Beastmaster. This episode is running long, so I'm going to stop talking. We'll see you next time. Until next week, be good. Goodbye.
01:54:18
Speaker
Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.
01:54:47
Speaker
That you would, that you could And you know that you should Yes, you know that you should