Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
REWIND 011 - House of Wax (2006) w/ Ariel Powers-Shaub
0 Plays3 seconds ago
“We almost finished what Ma started.”
We're revisiting one of our favorite recent episodes with one of our favorite recurring guests as we talk about our histories with motor vehicles, our mutual dislike of Nick, and reckon with Paris Hilton and the “See Paris Die” campaign for this movie!
If you truly can get used to anything if you’re around it long enough, it might explain why Ariel Powers-Schaub keeps coming back to join us! She’s rad and you should check her out on the following platforms:
- Buy Ari’s book, Millennial Nasties wherever books are sold! Amazon! Barnes & Noble! Vinegar Syndrome?? WAL-MART?!?
- @ari_hellraiser on Instagram, Letterboxd, and Xitter and @arihellraiser on Bluesky
- Check out Ari’s coverage of the I Spit on Your Grave franchise on the Patreon for The Pod & the Pendulum!
Basically, we’re all just trying to keep from dropping our stupid lip balm. See how successful we are at the following social media platforms:
- @Disenfranchpod on Bluesky, Letterboxd, and YouTube.
- Email us your thoughts or requests to disenfranchpod@gmail.com
- Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
- Find Stephen at @ChewyWalrus on Bluesky and Letterboxd.
- Check out Stephen’s new podcast with friend of the show Hope Stough - Welles University - on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever podcasts are sold!
- Find Brett at @sus_warlock on Letterboxd.
- Find Tucker at @icenine09 on YouTube and Instagram and @tuck_mugs on Instagram.
- Join our Patreon for exclusive bonus content, including bi-weekly episodes of What Are We Watching? at https://patreon.com/Disenfranchpod
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:10
Speaker
I'll say good for you.
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to the disenfranchised podcast, that podcast about those franchises of one, those films that fancy themselves full-fledged franchises before falling flat on their faces after the first
Rerun Explanation and Guest Introduction
00:00:33
Speaker
film.
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts, Tucker, and I cannot explain to you why we are not putting out a new episode today in a way that would make sense to a rational person, but needless to say, we're running a rerun this week.
00:00:44
Speaker
We're rerunning. We ran it, then we didn't, and now we're running it again. Rerun! Anyway, enough of my yakkin'. Enjoy our episode from last year?
00:00:55
Speaker
couple years ago? i don't know. What is time? Anyway, enjoy our previously released episode on the fantastic remake of House of Wax with our good friend and fantastic guest Ari.
00:01:06
Speaker
Ariel Powershop. Hope you get as much of a kick out of it as I'm sure you did the first time around. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, Courage.
00:01:17
Speaker
Okay, love you. Bye. Hello and welcome to the disenfranchised podcast that podcast all about those franchises of one those films that fancy themselves full-fledged franchises before falling flat on their face after the first film.
00:01:31
Speaker
i' am your host Stephen Foxworthy and joining me are these two lovely wax statues I have with my co-hosts Brett Wright and Tucker. um They couldn't be here in the flesh so they're here in the wax.
00:01:42
Speaker
And that could not be more appropriate for today's episode. um But before i tell you what it is, like you didn't see what the episode title was when you clicked on it, I do need to introduce the person with whom we would not be doing this episode
Guest's Personal Connection to 'House of Wax'
00:01:56
Speaker
without.
00:01:56
Speaker
She called dibs on it. immediately and we we we will be postponed it and postponed it until we could get her on and she's here we got her uh the author she literally wrote the book on this movie and many others like it it's called millennial nasty is available now on amazon or wherever you get your books ariel powershop ari welcome back to the disenfranchised podcast hey thanks for having me it is i can honestly say always a pleasure to have you on the show it's always fun to be on
00:02:27
Speaker
Absolutely. we We love to have you. You've joined us for a few other Millennial Nasties, as I recall. Yeah, yeah. ah Gosh, we did Black Christmas, Sorority Row, and then we did Stay Alive, which is adjacent to, although not included in Millennial Nasties.
00:02:47
Speaker
You guys let me come on and talk two thousand trash. Honestly, I can't think of anyone else we would rather talk 2000s trash with, frankly. oh That's the highest compliment I can receive.
00:02:58
Speaker
but Well, I mean, it's it's first so first of all, not only are you just a joy to talk to anyway, but it's hard to find someone with the depth of knowledge that you have in this particular field. So ah the the pleasure is always on this side of the podcast, believe me.
00:03:14
Speaker
And we've got you scheduled for a couple more episodes later on this year. So this will not this will not be the last we hear of you. ah Okay. Yeah, that's good. I should maybe put those on my calendar. I'll remind you of what they are at the end of the recording so that we can make sure we get you in.
00:03:31
Speaker
Perfect. And so, of course, we brought you back to talk some more two thousand s trash with ah the film House of Wax.
00:03:42
Speaker
yes directed by, ah I'm always curious to how to pronounce this myth man's first name. Is it Jame, Jamie, call it Sarah? ah i think I say Jamie, but now I feel underconfident about that. Okay.
00:03:58
Speaker
The thing that throws me is the U. The U throws me. There's a U in there. I think it's, I've heard it said Jamie, call it Sarah. So that's kind of what I say, but now I'm unclear. Yeah. um But directed by Jamie Callit-Sarah, written ah by Chad Hayes and Carrie W. Hayes, and st starring Alicia Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Damon Harriman, Paris Hilton, Jared Padalecki, John Abrams, Robert Richard, and a few others. What a cast. Ari, what a picture.
00:04:30
Speaker
What a picture. So I have to ask because it's usually the first question that I ask on these shows. What is your history with house of wax? Why house of wax? um What role does this play in your evolving love of the millennial nasty?
00:04:45
Speaker
ah Lay it all out on us. Yeah. Yeah. So this movie is from 2005 and five and um that was the year I graduated high school. And and so that was a year where I was really watching a lot of these movies. You know, i I don't remember ever having trouble getting into an R-rated movie if I wanted to, but like when you're 18, there's less of a question and there's even less trouble. And so like I could go see these types of movies at the theater and rent them myself. And so they became way more accessible to
Cultural Impact and Film Appreciation
00:05:18
Speaker
me.
00:05:18
Speaker
Um, and so I saw this when it came out, um, I know we're going to talk about Paris and the see Paris die campaign, but I certainly was swept up in that, too. I wasn't necessarily like chanting see Paris or like we want to see Paris die or anything like that. But I was like, oh, this is interesting. I know who Paris Hilton is.
00:05:41
Speaker
um I had zero history with any of the movies that this movie is referencing. I had never seen them or heard of them, any House of Wax previous or tourist trap.
00:05:55
Speaker
So I just went into this like understanding sort of that it was a remake because this was a big time of remakes and just going in for the fun of a slasher. My...
00:06:07
Speaker
enjoyment of it and appreciation for it has grown over the years, I think, partly just because like digging into Millennial Nasties, my appreciation for most of those films grew as I was like analyzing them and really digging into them.
00:06:23
Speaker
um But especially for this one, because I think when I first saw it, I was like, Well, it's kind long. And there's a million characters that I don't really care about.
00:06:35
Speaker
and it's really not very gory. And so like, it could have been better. But now I'm like, no, this movie like relishes in the setting that it works so hard to create and you're spending time in it and you're spending time with characters that you don't normally get to do in a slasher where you're really like getting invested in some of their lives. And um the important stuff isn't necessarily the blood and gore in this one. It's the family lore and the backstory and,
00:07:09
Speaker
the horrifying things that are going on in this family. So um I like it the more I watch it. And it's part of our 2000s white tank top trilogy of final girls, along with Wrong Turn and the Texas Chainsaw remake. um I think Alicia Cuthbert is a queen of this era.
00:07:32
Speaker
um She also is in another millennial nasty that I wrote about called Captivity. And so I think she's great. So yeah, House of Wax, way fun.
Horror Tropes and Themes
00:07:42
Speaker
People should really revisit it if they remember it just being kind of in the pile of remakes and not worth watching. It's a really good one.
00:07:51
Speaker
as Even as someone who is kind of outspoken about his general dislike for the genre, there was a lot to enjoy in this one, but more than I thought, personally. So i I didn't have a totally bad time with it, but still there's a lot of elements that I'm just like, okay.
00:08:09
Speaker
But, you know, um this this one i minded of those elements less than some other... yeah um minded some of those elements less than some other but ah You understand what I'm trying to say? I do. This one's higher up.
00:08:22
Speaker
It's higher up than some others. That's what it is. Right. This one might be, at at at the moment, might be one of my reigning millennial masters. Excellent. I love to hear that. This is a good pick, honestly.
00:08:34
Speaker
Because it's not so it's not so like gory death games, traps and bleakness. It's more of a slasher. It's got a folk horror element. There's, and there's some room to breathe in between the nastiness that is there.
00:08:51
Speaker
And the visuals are, really impressive. Yes. Oh my God. Outside of, you know, kind of the ugly patina that most of these movies tend to have, the like bluish green, yellow kind of over everything.
00:09:05
Speaker
um There's some really incredible set pieces and the wax figurines in particular are yeah really well done. Yes. And the house of wax The titular house of wax. Yeah. so What if there was a house made of wax, they said.
00:09:23
Speaker
And they really did build that house and melt it for the big end sequence. And so like that alone, ah you know, we used to make things. That's a movie that makes me go, we used to make things. We used to be a proper country, damn Yeah. Even though this is filmed in Australia, I'm going to say we used to make things in this country.
00:09:44
Speaker
Well, and maybe that's why they did it in Australia is because they wouldn't let them make things in this country. so I'm sure the insurance was cheaper. yeah i have to imagine that's the case. Yeah. Like, particularly something like this. Like, and this does fit into that kind of films in the vein of like the Texas chainsaw massacre of a bunch of teenagers being places. They're really not supposed to be in small town America.
00:10:07
Speaker
Like this really fits that vibe very well. um And again, as these movies are getting remade in the, in the aughts, then we see um kind of the resurgence of that, that horror trope again.
00:10:21
Speaker
and it feels like this movie is just doing it like to the hilt. um Yes. Yeah. not Yeah, these kids have gone off the map, literally, and they've gone so far off the map that they're not even in a town. They've just stumbled into a family. You know, it it has so much in common with Texas Chainsaw and Wrong Turn.
00:10:45
Speaker
Where they have stumbled upon a particular family and really sort of disrupted that family's life yeah and are paying for it. And, you know, in any of those movies I mentioned, you can argue the culpability of the teens and whatnot. But in House of Wax, like, they...
00:11:07
Speaker
don't make as much trouble as the teens do in some other movies. Like a couple of them are pretty disrespectful, you know, breaking in and picking at wax figures, pretty rude thing to do. Right. um But it's like, they really are trying to get out of there.
00:11:24
Speaker
They have the classic car trouble and they're like, we just need to get this part for this car and then we'll be out of your hair. ah But no, they're going to get turned into wax. Yeah. that's I mean, that's good.
00:11:35
Speaker
Look, don't you kids know you just wandered into the middle of a horror movie? Come on. Right. Come Read the title. Let's go. no It's just the you know the audacity of Jared Padalecki just walking into this house. with And again, his his logic is just flawless.
00:11:49
Speaker
It was unlocked. Like that is permission to do a thing. Right. And it's the same, it's the same thing that kids do in the, ah the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They just go walking into a house that's not theirs and they get brutally murdered as a result.
00:12:04
Speaker
Yes. I mean, it's, again, it's kind of one of those classic horror tropes that because we're remaking all of these is kind of seeing its resurgence here in the aughts, which is, I think it's always nice when some of those things come back around, frankly. Yes.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yes. Very much so. And even like, Wrong Turn's not a remake of anything. And it's got some of those themes. Joyride is another millennial nasty where you've really got like, you know, kids not from around here thinking they're entitled to certain things. And I think um there's all that's always going to be.
00:12:40
Speaker
a good area to explore in horror is people who just walk up and think they're entitled to certain things and what happens to you. my um i was thinking about we just recently had a conversation on the pond, the pendulum when we were doing our top ten about how Australia loves to make horror films about you someone needing the kindness of a stranger and that getting turned on its head.
00:13:01
Speaker
This is kind of like the dark side of that, where they need to rely on the kindness of a stranger, but they just barrel in and try to take it. Instead of what often happens in Australian films is they look for it, they ask for it, and then something bad happens. So I've been thinking about that.
00:13:16
Speaker
And i don't know where I'm really going with that. But that's something. No, that ah absolutely is something. just yeah in it Again, the fact that this is movie is filmed in Australia. um Something.
00:13:28
Speaker
Right. there's There's something in there. Yeah. but And I think i think the the inverse of it that that we're seeing here is the that's kind of the... I don't know, maybe the American manifest destiny of it all kind of playing out. yeah Is that, well, this is mine because I'm American. And so I can take it.
00:13:46
Speaker
If this were, I think in a foreign country, that might feel like commentary. The fact that it's in America, it's becomes a class disparity. Exactly. Because it's, it's the, you know, the rich kids and then, you know, the, the hill folk from, from, you know, the other side of the swamp kind of thing.
00:14:04
Speaker
yeah Literally in this case, the other side of the swamp. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. And I have questions about why they brought that beautiful American muscle out to tracking in the woods. But that's neither here nor there.
00:14:19
Speaker
and And again, I think it's because that's dad's car. Like dad paid for that car. That's not our car. We don't need to be careful with it. That's dad's problem. Dad'll fix it. That'll reimburse me for the part later once I buy it.
00:14:32
Speaker
That makes me really sad, though, because if you get to drive a car like that, you should respect a car like that. I'm inclined to agree, which is why I would never drive a car like that. Right? Me either. I've never owned a nice car. I drive beaters because I know that's what I will take. That's that's how I approach taking care of a car.
00:14:50
Speaker
You and me, Ari. yes Same. I was telling when I went to go get my tires fixed this weekend, I was telling the guy at the tire place that's I only ever buy used cars and I drive them till they break. That's how I do.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah. So when they break, I got to take them into the shop and generally have to have AAA to get them towed there. That's. Oh, my God. That happened to me with my last car. And at the dealership when I was buying a new car or like a new used car, they were like, are you trading in? I was like.
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, I guess, but I don't think you want it. What are you i you? You won't give me blue book. You can't give me blue book for that thing. Absolutely not. Yeah. Now, the thing that really does surprise me about that whole car interaction is that he knows exactly what part that is and exactly what size he needs. That does not seem like his and M.O.
00:15:40
Speaker
the The kid driving it? Yeah. Jared Padalecki. I'm not sure. yeah i only will ever think of him as Dean from Gilmore Girls. right i Whereas i know him mostly and sam i well i know I know him mostly from the 2009 Friday the 13th remake.
00:16:00
Speaker
ah Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which we did cover on this podcast previously. yeah um See our previous episode with our mutual friend Mike Snoonian on that episode.
00:16:10
Speaker
So that was a good one. ah Yeah, I was going to say I bet Mike had some thoughts about that. The Friday the 13th franchise is close to his heart. But yeah, Padalecki, he does know exactly what part is missing and what he needs. And so i think i wonder about that because the the the Wax family, they steal that part from his car to lure him into their town.
00:16:36
Speaker
Right. And so did they steal part that they thought he would know? Like they didn't just rip something out and make it unfixable because then they couldn't lure him
Narrative Techniques and Deleted Scenes
00:16:47
Speaker
in as easily. So like how strategic was the part that they took to lure him in?
00:16:53
Speaker
it's It's just – as someone who's had many fan belts break on him over the years, it's it's an easy and cheap enough part – that it seems likely that, you know, oh, this is an easy fix. so We can just go, where's the next town? Let's just go there and and get the part.
00:17:11
Speaker
Versus something like if you were to rip an alternator out, that's still not a super expensive part, but there's a lot more work that goes into securing an alternator. Not every auto body shop is going to have the alternator that you need for your car, but any gas station or auto body shop with their salt will have fan belts.
00:17:28
Speaker
Okay. So it was strategic. And I, you know, we, once we get into the town, we realize these people have been doing this for a long time. Yes. Like a very long time. So we, they, we, we realize that they probably got this down to a science at this point. Right.
00:17:44
Speaker
Like they very much know kind of what they need to do to get these people in to scare them. um Have you watched any of the deleted scenes from this movie at all?
00:17:56
Speaker
I'm not sure if I have, or if I've read about them. You know how that is ah your brain? do. do. Very much. i I caught the deleted opening on YouTube this morning when I was doing a little bit of research before I was getting ready for work.
00:18:10
Speaker
And um they have the deleted scene, the deleted opening scene where there's a woman on the side of the road and she calls whoever on her phone is like, I ordered a tow truck like half an hour ago. It's not here.
00:18:24
Speaker
and it's of course pitch black outside country roads. They're not taking her home. I can tell you that. And she sees, you know, the telltale headlights of the Sinclair car coming up the road. She's like, oh, never mind. It's here. Just hangs up immediately.
00:18:38
Speaker
like doesn't Like, hang on the line with reveal me. on the phone. This is it. Right. Just, oh, there's headlights. This must be the person I'm waiting for and not some random stranger trying to murder me. Or just somebody driving by.
00:18:50
Speaker
Right. Unrelated to you. And so she's like walking towards the car. And there's like, I don't think there's any dialogue spoken. But- but the person in the driver's seat ends up grabbing her and starts driving and just chucks her into her own windshield.
00:19:06
Speaker
um Which feels a lot less subtle than what they do to these kids, frankly. And maybe that's why it was cut. I don't know.
00:19:16
Speaker
I mean, that's a great opener to a horror movie, but it doesn't really fit their MO because... They need the bodies preserved really specifically, probably, to do their wax thing. And so if you chuck a body into a windshield, is that going to work for your wax figurine later?
00:19:35
Speaker
Right. I mean, are you going to like, maybe you can seal up all those cuts with some wax. I don't know. ah Because her face is pretty cut out. Yeah, then the realism would fall apart then. Maybe that was like an old strategy that they abandoned. Maybe. Or maybe she's one of the people that they're just going to put in a pew in the church.
00:19:55
Speaker
And so the face isn't really, you don't need to see the face because they're all facing other way. there you go. Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, what do they call it? ah You know what I mean. a thing over your face at church.
00:20:06
Speaker
It's a thing. Yeah, the church hat with the, yeah, it's a veil. Like, yeah, over the front. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like there's a word I'm not thinking of, but I'll probably remember it in the night and sit up and say it.
00:20:18
Speaker
and And then text it to me and then we'll try to have Tucker edited in. i Just send us a recording of you saying the word like revelatorily and we'll just throw it in like right here.
00:20:30
Speaker
And if you didn't hear anything, it didn't happen. There you go. Um, But yeah, no, I, you get the impression these people have been working at this for such a long time to the fact that they've even got like, and we again, we don't find this out until the very, really cinema, the, the, the, the filmmaking tells us this at the end, but they've even got another brother out there working them this whole time.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yes. The twist brother. The, the, the sequel hook as it were. Yeah. Yeah. So that was one thing I didn't know that, like, I didn't know that this was ever thought about getting a sequel.
00:21:11
Speaker
Well, they actually had a prequel planned for this. Ooh. According to one of the screenwriters, Carrie Hayes, they they had wanted to do a prequel, ah but they just, you know, the movie hit the box office, didn't do as well as they'd hoped.
00:21:27
Speaker
And as a result... Yeah. like So, yeah, but I mean, probably my guess would be of the family in the 70s, like from that opening that we saw that gave me yeah some strong Black Christmas remake vibes, honestly.
00:21:43
Speaker
Yes. Yes. There's a lot of that there. And I think Black Christmas didn't come out till the year after. So maybe Black Christmas is cribbing from this a little bit. Could be. Or maybe that's just something in the water of if we're making ah a tortured remake of ah of a classic slasher, we've got to add you know some dark, gritty backstory. Abusive background. Yeah.
00:22:03
Speaker
Maybe. Maybe.
00:22:06
Speaker
Granted, think I would have much rather been a part of this family than the Black Christmas family. Oh my God. Yeah. i I would watch a prequel about this family. I think in the Black Christmas remake, we get plenty of them.
00:22:18
Speaker
I don't think we they need their own movie. No, they don't. Absolutely not. i In fact, let's be honest, kind of glad we didn't see it. Yeah. But yeah. um No, House of Wax. It's... No, it's it's it's kind of fun.
00:22:33
Speaker
um The, can we talk about the can we talk about our cavalcade of teenagers? Yeah. There's so many. Let's talk about our meddling kids.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yes. They keep, they're coming out of the wax work. So literally we meet our core form. We're like, all right, these are our kids. These are who we're following. And then Chad, Michael Murray and what's his face just come walking out of the gas station. You're like more.
00:23:02
Speaker
There's more. There's more. here Okay, so they're on a road trip to see a football game. I think a college football game. That would be my guess. um They don't say Bama, but in my head, they're going to see Bama because they're in the South and it's really important football. pal I add headcanon where I need to.
00:23:22
Speaker
That stands to reason. Honestly, that's probably as good a guess as any. Because people, like, got to think about a football team people really go bananas for. So, um And who goes, yeah, but Bama's a good one. If it were up in this area, I'd say maybe Michigan, Ohio State, or Notre Dame.
00:23:38
Speaker
but Yeah, I mean, there's one of those teams that's worth rooting for. go go blue. um
00:23:47
Speaker
My mother went to the University of Michigan. We have allegiances. my My aunt worked for the University of Notre Dame, so so do we. I see. Well, now we have to fight. ah and didn't want to do this. no We don't have to.
00:24:00
Speaker
That's true. That's true. um Yes. So they're on a road trip to see football. And we don't usually get this many kids in a slasher. No. And I'm saying kids. They're young adults, older teens. College age. On their way to college-ish.
00:24:18
Speaker
So yeah um call them kids because they're younger than me. The fact that they're all played by 30 year olds, though, makes it really. And I think that's part of the reason why they do that is so, you know, teens of an indiscriminate age, like you don't need details. Don't worry about it.
00:24:34
Speaker
Exactly. And, you know, I think it could be a gift and a curse of how many of them that there are, because on the one hand, it gives us a lot of kills, which is great. So we have a lot of opportunity for that.
00:24:49
Speaker
And there really is some interesting character development. And it's not all the way realized. Because it's not what we're here to do. But I do actually like that it's there.
00:25:00
Speaker
um There's been discussion. I don't know quite where I stand on this. But some people find the relationship between um the twin brother and his friend queer-coded.
00:25:14
Speaker
And I think that that is possible. Yeah. I think as queer coded as maybe you can get in the early aughts or the mid aughts, like, cause again, that wasn't really something we were, we were not acknowledging queer people on screen.
00:25:30
Speaker
Unless it was to make a joke. with that As a joke. Yeah. Which is kind of what they do. Like, oh, don't look at me, dude. i'm not kissing you. Oh, come here. You probably like it. Like that whole exchange. Right. They're doing that brand of 2000s weirdness.
00:25:43
Speaker
Right. um We've got a set of twins, a boy and girl set of twins. And- They're weirdly close. I mean, I guess twins sometimes are. And that's... Siblings are a whole theme of this movie. Right. Like, sibling relationships and what siblings do for one another is a whole theme of this movie.
00:26:05
Speaker
But um I'm like, you guys are 18 and you're very close. Maybe it's a twin thing and I just don't get it. We've got girl twin and her boyfriend.
00:26:16
Speaker
And... girl twin, Alicia Cuthbert's character, is on her way to the big city for a big magazine job. And I love that. I love that magazines existed. Too bad they don't really anymore.
00:26:29
Speaker
It was like a job you could aspire to. It was nice. Absolutely. And I feel like that was kind of one of those early aughts, like... like jobs for women kind of thing. Like, Oh, what does this, what does this female character do? I don't know Let's make it work for a magazine. She works for a magazine in the city. What city? Doesn't matter.
00:26:48
Speaker
Capital T, the capital C city. Yes. Yes. Um, and she's conflicted about going to the city or, you know, going with her boyfriend or staying with I was going she, I think, is pretty committed to going to the city. That's true. is the one trying to get her to stop.
00:27:07
Speaker
Yes. Because he does. He's the one that's conflicted. Jared Padalecki, a.k.a. boyfriend. Yes. Wade, I think is his character's name. He's the one who's very conflicted. She is going regardless. It's just the question of whether he's going with her.
00:27:21
Speaker
And good for her. Right. And then my favorite is Paige, played by Paris Hilton, um She is such a good friend.
00:27:33
Speaker
Mm-hmm. She's such a good friend. And I know lot of slashers have that final girl best friend trope who's like such a good friend. But Paris Hilton really nails it here because she's so supportive of her friend.
00:27:47
Speaker
She takes a lot of shit from other people and she remains a good sport about it. Like she pretty much has to. Right. There is a storyline. She's like exclusively taking the shit in this. Like. oh Well, for sure. And that has to do with like the meta way we are treating Paris Hilton.
00:28:04
Speaker
Which we absolutely have to get into later. We do have to get into. um And there's there's a storyline that's not fully realized with Paige where she might be pregnant.
00:28:17
Speaker
And... um We never find out if it's exactly true or not. She she thinks it might be the case. Right. And she is getting ready to tell her boyfriend, but she doesn't get a chance to.
00:28:31
Speaker
it's very interesting to me that they would make this character potentially pregnant and not realize it to kill her off. It's like, did they want to make her death that much more brutal?
00:28:43
Speaker
And if they did, why didn't she say for sure she was pregnant? Like, I like that storyline and the richness it brings, but it's not fully realized. And I don't know if that is an intentional choice or if something was cut for time. It's hard to know. Ari,
00:29:02
Speaker
that was great. though i I loved all of that. We're going to get back to that in a second. But there's something really weird about this wax statue of Tucker. Here, I think I just saw its eyes move. I'm going to to peel some of the... I'm going to try to see. Maybe maybe there's something under there. to to peel some of this wax off here.
00:29:19
Speaker
Let me just reach up here. Ouch! Oh! Oh my! Oh no! It's alive! It's been you the whole time?
00:29:29
Speaker
It's been me the whole time. Sorry about your cheek, dude. Ouch. I didn't realize. It'll grow back. here's how Well, I'm definitely not going to do anything with this wax statue of Brett then. I'm just going to probably just leave that one alone. Right. I'm just going to let that one Sorry, buddy.
00:29:47
Speaker
ah maybe Maybe when the weather heats up, it'll melt the wax. Who knows to say? um But Tucker, since you're here um and you do know that we are covering 2005's House of Wax, um why don't you tell us a little bit about your history with this movie?
00:30:05
Speaker
two thousand five 2005? Really? i thought it was 2003. Are you sure? Did you look it up? yeah I'm looking at it right now. I'm just going by memory and I thought it was 2003. I mean, Ari literally wrote the book on this. so i think i guess so.
00:30:21
Speaker
That book? That's the one right there. can see it. That's nice. Do you know what's under it? Can I can i share something with you real quick? Yeah.
00:30:33
Speaker
Moving fast for a guy covered in wax. So do you remember the last time we were talking about your book? And I was saying that I used to get a bunch of books at the library when I was a kid. Yes, I do. Similar to that.
00:30:45
Speaker
And there's one in particular that i I always think of, but I can never remember what it was called. So one day I spent about four hours just looking through those used books websites and just trying to figure out what the book was.
00:30:57
Speaker
And I found it.
00:31:00
Speaker
It's Terror on Tape. This is the book that um when I read your book, I was like, oh, it kind of reminds me of that book a little bit, except this doesn't really have much of a theme. It's just a bunch of movies. it's like it's It's like a Leonard Maltin's Guide, sort of, but just for horror films.
00:31:19
Speaker
And I remember a lot of these... A lot of these photos were like the first things I saw of any of these movies. Like the photo of Dr. Fibes there will live in my memory forever.
00:31:31
Speaker
American Werewolf in London. These still photos. oh yeah No matter how many times I see the movies, whenever I see Amityville whenever I see this link happen, I'm like, oh shit, that's from the book.
00:31:43
Speaker
He does the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the screen meme. Yes. So many of these. um The Bees with John Saxton. just Stuff I watched based on recommendations from this book kind of built me as a cinema fan.
00:32:03
Speaker
yeah And I found it. I couldn't believe I found it. I'm so glad that you did. And I am so honored to be, have my book compared to that.
00:32:14
Speaker
Yes. It's like, it's going to be that for a, for a future cinephile. That's the dream. There's no pictures in my book though. That was no licensing. That's fine. I'm looking for, i on my DVD shelf, I'm turned away because I'm looking for something because I have a really special s thing like that too, Tucker, where. Yeah.
00:32:34
Speaker
I had this DVD that I got for Christmas, like the first Christmas we got a DVD player and it's it it was a DVD called Boogeyman. And it was about like iconic horror killers.
00:32:47
Speaker
Oh, nice. And it was it just had like little vignettes and clips on like it was almost like a tale of the tape for like horror killers. And it would show some clips from their movies and tell you about them. And there was like Chucky and Freddy and Jason and All these ones that I never like my first memories of so many of those killers is from this boogeyman DVD that I just watched over and over and over and over again because it was all I had.
00:33:13
Speaker
ah So like before I ever could ever get my hands on Phantasm, I had seen stuff about the tall man on that DVD. So like, yes, I know what you mean when you're like those images are the ones that stick.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yes. The one let me find it real quick. The one that I watched the movie specifically for was, you remember the old The British Tales from the Crypt movie? Yeah. They made a sequel called The Vault of Horror, and this image always stuck with me. Ooh, that's creepy. Of the vampire the hippie vampire gal with the switchblade.
00:33:47
Speaker
Oh my, yeah, that's quite an image. only I ever watched this movie is because I saw this picture in this book. It's not as good as Tales, but it's it's still it's still a pretty good ah British anthology horror.
00:34:00
Speaker
It's the reason we can't cover Tales. I could have sworn Tales didn't get a sequel, but it it totally did. and Speaking of writing a letter to Daddy. Oh, well...
00:34:11
Speaker
I was singing along with that when it came on. like It's not my favorite part of the movie, but it's one of my favorite times where another movie is shown in a movie. It's in House of Wax when they play Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.
00:34:25
Speaker
And that is another movie about siblings. like This movie is siblings all the way down. right Yeah, dude. Indeed. Indeed. So Tucker, tell us about your relationship with your sibling.
Paris Hilton's Role and Media Perception
00:34:38
Speaker
I mean, your relationship with House of Wax from 2005.
00:34:42
Speaker
Well, I saw this at the movie theater when it came out and I really liked it. Not because it's a good movie. I mean, it's not bad. It's a pretty all right movie. I would say it's above average. It's, it's on the good side of mid, but it's the production design and the art direction that really just brings this one home. Like your bases are loaded and the art director comes up there and just,
00:35:08
Speaker
Grand slams that shit. Oh, it's so fantastic. All the wax stuff is great. I love... I watched it with Marv, and he didn't know that the whole town was wax.
00:35:19
Speaker
And I got to watch him figure that out. And it was very fun. Because he's like, oh, there's a lady in the window. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, that sure fucking is, buddy. I tell you what, there's plenty in that window.
00:35:32
Speaker
And it's so clever. but now Like when they go to the church and they open up, the way the camera pans up, like if you don't know, you think that the preacher's just like surprised. huh Oh, man. I love it. There's so much about this movie I love. But when I saw it at the movie theater, I was particularly disturbed, not because of this film, but because of the reaction to Paris Hilton's death in this movie.
00:35:55
Speaker
The entire theater cheered. And ah even though i didn't know ah what we know now about her upbringing and everything and how terrible that was, I still thought that that was real fucked up.
00:36:11
Speaker
Real, real fucked up. I think it's time. let's Let's rip the bandaid off along with half the cheek and let's talk about let's talk about the Paris Hilton of it all because that was the big um the the big marketing push of this movie was the See Paris Die campaign.
00:36:31
Speaker
um And this is, I think, at the height of her, for lack of a better turn of phrase, cultural ubiquity yeah in this in this movie. Like, she is kind of everywhere.
00:36:43
Speaker
ah The Simple Life is halfway through its run. This is two years after the sex tape leaked. Like, all of this is... ah kind of at a head and she is the it girl for all intents and purposes.
00:36:59
Speaker
yeah I can honestly say I was not the nicest person to Paris Hilton in the, in the aughts. And I do regret that. um What were your guys' relationships with Paris Hilton around this time? I didn't really know her personally, but like,
00:37:15
Speaker
Good for me. well no i always i always give people the benefit of the doubt at least i try to and especially um especially when everybody else seems to just kind of hate them for existing I'm like, well, that's not, that's kind of fucked up.
00:37:34
Speaker
Like, I don't know her. And like, yeah, she was doing some dumb shit. But like, still, like, that doesn't affect me. Like, why? Why talk shit about somebody? Like, why? Why be that person? Like, I've never, never really understood that. Um,
00:37:52
Speaker
i I mean, I wasn't a fan either. I wasn't watching the show or I didn't really care what she was doing. I was pretty much indifferent. But at the same time, like I said, that reaction in the theater, I thought was just a little fucked up.
00:38:04
Speaker
Just a little fucked up because like, you don't know that person, man. You don't know what that person's going through. And come to find out I was right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some fucked up shit was happening to that gal. And that's not cool.
00:38:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um Gosh. So I was pretty young and when the sex tape came out and i I didn't have all of the vocabulary and all the understanding to, like, I knew that I thought it was wrong and I knew that I didn't like that that had happened, but it was also, I'm sure it's not the first sex tape ever leaked in history, but it's my memory of the first one. It feels like the first big one, especially with the ubiquity of the internet and regular people being able to see it.
00:38:55
Speaker
And this is a this is a weird time because it's pre social media. And now. Celebrity is so much more sort of diluted where we've got influencer culture and there's many more tiers of celebrity, and that didn't used to be the case.
00:39:15
Speaker
And now we also have so much more access to celebrities than we ever did before because of social media. We feel like we know them. part of their brand is like selling their life to us.
00:39:27
Speaker
This is still when all we knew about celebrities came through either trashy tabloids or their PR team. So we got extremely polished or extremely salacious.
00:39:41
Speaker
And that's all we knew. That's all how we had to know about celebrities. And it's just really different than it is now, because I think if this see Paris die campaign ran now, first of all, I don't think it would.
00:39:54
Speaker
But if it did, you'd have staunch defenders of their, you know, their fans would be on the Internet saying this is wrong. We don't like this. But there was no place to really say that before, if you felt that way.
00:40:05
Speaker
And there was really no reason the we didn't know to defend paris at the time other than i think this is fucked up to do to a person like we didn't know anything about her and she really had to go along with the see paris die thing like some people point to it and they're like she was such a good sport she's smiling by the posters she's doing the promos um Well, she had to like she didn't have a choice. Like you have to be a good sport, quote unquote, and go along with that or you don't get work.
00:40:38
Speaker
And there's sex tape jokes in the movie. i I couldn't believe it. Honestly, i was i was shocked. Oh, this is your first time, Stephen?
00:40:49
Speaker
This is my first time, obviously. Of course it is. Oh, wow. Okay, okay. Oh, I'm actually... I'm surprised. I didn't know. No, I mean, again, as someone kind of new to horror, like, i wasn't into this at the time.
00:41:00
Speaker
and then when... ah you know, when when I realized we could cover it for the podcast, it's kind of one of those, well, if I'm going to cover it for the podcast, I want to try to go in as as fresh as I can. So I just kind of put it off until then. Again, this subgenre of horror is not my immediate go-to.
00:41:18
Speaker
So, um and and, you know, I mean, The poster for this movie is literally Paris Hilton covered in wax. Yeah. up mill That is the poster. And it's very sexualized. It's like bukkake.
00:41:32
Speaker
Yes, very much so. And it, yeah. And, and again, all the jokes that we see, like the first one, I was kind of like, well, that's bizarre. And then we get like the, the blow job slash or the roadhead slash picking up my lip gloss. She dropped her chapstick. What are you talking about? Right.
00:41:50
Speaker
And Paris Hilton didn't realize it was going to be cut together that way as a sex tape joke on her. Right. So when she saw the final edit and then it hadn't come together that way, she was really sad.
00:42:03
Speaker
Yeah. But she couldn't say anything about it until years later. Now we've got interviews from her where she gets to talk about this because we're so removed from it. Right. we almost, it's unfortunate that we have to be that removed about it from it to talk about it. Right. It it really does suck.
00:42:17
Speaker
Yeah. Somehow she's allowed to be human now. How did that happen? that's Because now we have influencers to hate. Oh, gotcha. People were... There's always ways a bigger flash.
00:42:31
Speaker
Yes. But, you know, we had Paris, Britney, and Lindsay Lohan that we just hung out to dry in the 2000s. And, yeah.
00:42:43
Speaker
I think it's time for Lindsay Lohan's comeback. I'm ready for it. Absolutely. If she wants it. Are they doing a Freaky Friday? They're doing a new Freaky Friday. That's true. They are. They're doing Freakier Friday. Okay. I'm ready. I'm in.
00:42:55
Speaker
Me too. And I think we will be covering Freaky when that comes out. Yo, that record she put out in 2003 was pretty good too. I used to have that CD. Rumors? Was it called? It was like all neon and stuff and she's like on the front and there's like lasers and stuff.
00:43:13
Speaker
I don't remember that. i have no idea. I don't remember. I have the movie that she did in 07 called I Know Who Killed Me. Oh, that was that that Paul Schrader movie?
00:43:26
Speaker
I don't know. She did a Paul Schrader movie. I don't know if that's the one. It's very weird and trashy and I love it. It's like bad Jollop. i I wanted to like it, but like my expectation expectations swung in the other direction, and I got real disappointed by it.
00:43:45
Speaker
Yeah. Because of how fantastical the trailer was like, look how fucking cool this is going to be. yeah And then I saw it, and i was like, this is not cool, actually. it's It's special to me, but it's like not good. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:59
Speaker
um Maybe I'm thinking of someone else who did a Paul Schrader movie because that was not Paul Schrader. Okay. I was like, i don't know. Rumors was the record I was talking about.
00:44:11
Speaker
Okay. Or at least the song on remember my 2000s. No, the album is called Speak. Ah. That's it right there. You can barely see it, but that's it. she's There's like neon and shit.
00:44:21
Speaker
I had that CD and it was pretty good, I remember. Yeah. It was totally fine.
00:44:31
Speaker
I don't know anything about it, so I will keep quiet. well Although I would say regarding Sea Paris I really want one of those t-shirts just for the cultural artifact of it.
00:44:44
Speaker
And I feel like I deserve one. Like, I've earned it. I would frame it. I wouldn't judge you. Again, you wrote the book, Ari. I think if anyone deserves it, it's you. Because I want to like point to it and be like, never again do we do this.
00:45:00
Speaker
so I mean, they have them on like Tee Public and Redbubble, but those are, I'm sure, reproductions and not the actual things. Yeah. i Is it is it OK to buy shirts from there? Is that like legit?
00:45:13
Speaker
Are those not the type of places that like scrape images from the Internet? ah Yeah, there's a lot of copyright infringement that goes on in those sites. But I would I would argue that something like a reproduction of a watch Paris die T-shirt would be OK to sell because like there's no like they made a promotional run of them.
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah. And they're not going to make any more. Like nobody involved with that. involved with If the people involved with that movie thought that they could make enough money with it now, they'd be making them themselves. That's true. Not just selling one to me. Yeah. right Yeah.
00:45:52
Speaker
yeah I posted a link there in the in the chat there if you're... Yeah. Thank you for that. No problem. that That seems like it's a little bit more of a reputable site. Yes. The yeah Threads to Kill site. So...
00:46:06
Speaker
There you go. you can get to you can get your You can get two. You can get one to hang on the wall and one to wear. One to wear, yes. Nice. um Oh, yes. She was in a Paul Schrader movie. It was called The Canyons.
00:46:21
Speaker
Lindsay Lohan? Lindsay Lohan. it It's an erotic thriller directed by Paul Schrader and written by Brett Easton Ellis. Oh, hey, I know that guy. Well, not personally. We got the got to the bottom of the mystery.
00:46:33
Speaker
There we go. Speaking of mysteries... Who's doing all the killing in this town of wax, I wonder? Hmm. Could it be the only humans in town?
00:46:46
Speaker
yeah Probably. You know what? man ah Look, I really like this movie, but they should have just kept it being one dude. um As this, I will always consider this more of a remake of Taurus Trap than House of Wax.
00:46:59
Speaker
So I always liked that Chuck Connors was, he was talking about his brother, but it was really him in a wig and a goofy mask. And even the brother in this one, he doesn't wear a wig, but it's long hair and a goofy mask.
00:47:12
Speaker
I even showed Marv, I was like, this is what he looks like in Taurus Trap. Except it's just one dude instead of two dudes. Well, and here's the thing. They're played by the same actor. So i I have to wonder if that wasn't the initial intent.
Town's Sinister Practices and Unwoven Threads
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder. but But then the twin angle, like you the fact that we've got two sets of twins in this movie It feels coincidental almost in a way that it's the twins that survive the, the, the final kids, I guess, or the twins.
00:47:44
Speaker
And then they're up against this other darker pair of twins. I wish, I wish there were more, they did more of the movie did more with that. It's like, it comes so close to being something.
00:47:57
Speaker
about when And then you've got, you've got, you know, the the two the evil twins plus their brother. It's like we went from one in tourist trap to three. now we have three.
00:48:13
Speaker
And we don't even know the third one's a brother until literally the final line of the movie. It's like, oh, there weren't two. There were three. and then you have a quick cut to, you know, the hillbilly from the beginning just goofily waving at them as they drive out of town.
00:48:27
Speaker
I love that they time it perfectly because as soon as they say they're three brothers, right before he comes on screen is when your brain makes the connection. And then you're immediately, you're like, oh shit, I knew it.
00:48:40
Speaker
Can he possibly be the only other person we've met in this movie? Yeah, but you forget about him after a while because crazy shit happens. You Yeah, that's true. A lot of crazy shit happens. And I mean, all he does is pull a prosthetic hand out of a pile of animal carcasses, really.
00:48:55
Speaker
yeah And, you know, even though he is evil, he was right to be offended by them because, like, yes they were, like, they apparently they've, like, never seen a redneck before or something. Like, because that dude couldn't do anything without them.
00:49:09
Speaker
Like, this dude sneezes and they're, like, freaking out. like And, like, they're driving. They're not Like they know where they are in America.
00:49:20
Speaker
yeah Like they should not be culturally shocked by anybody. But I think that's that entitlement we were talking about earlier, right? Like it's, it's that, well, you're not like me, therefore you are bad.
00:49:34
Speaker
um You know, that, that class disparity that this movie comes so close to commenting on um without actually going through the door of commenting on it. This movie comes so close in so many ways. So close.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah. And again, I think I would like this movie more if it actually like followed through on some of this stuff. Like, again, the kills are great and I love the the the visuals are phenomenal.
00:49:59
Speaker
But like in terms of making a point, like I just I want it to connect on on one of these levels. Yeah, that's that's not what it's doing. It there's a lot of threads that, you know, don't end up getting wrapped up. It's like they could have cut maybe one or two of them.
00:50:18
Speaker
Mm hmm. And followed the other ones. What are you going to do? Right. And it might have improved the movie overall, but that's not what we were doing in 2005. No, we were doing, let's get our tits out.
00:50:32
Speaker
Let's do some kills. I want a wax shower. eleven and I want Jared Padalecki right in the middle of it, trying to scream, yeah but he can't. He has moan no mouth, but he must scream. Mm-hmm.
00:50:48
Speaker
yes Yes. I do love that. How he just keeps. Why would you keep pulling at it? I don't know. Wait for the medical professionals. He just keeps grabbing. He sees that he's pulling. it and he just keeps going.
00:51:04
Speaker
Yeah. keeps going it's like well maybe it's it's that well Maybe if I try it from another angle. Or maybe if I change my tactic a little. It won't be so bad. It's never going to heal. If you don't stop picking at it.
00:51:15
Speaker
That's true. Man, that's what my mom always used to say. Look, the killer in this, well, the the long the disfigured guy, not the not disfigured guy, I guess.
00:51:27
Speaker
Vincent? That's Vincent. That's Vincent. Is my favorite line in this movie. Because there's she has, why are you, why does he, be who gives a fuck?
00:51:39
Speaker
So they're down in the little basement, right? The brother and the sister, Nick, that's Nick. ah They're in the basement, Nick and his twin sister. And and all of a because all of a sudden, Vincent comes in and she looks right at him as he's running towards him and says, that's Vincent.
00:51:56
Speaker
And you're like, great, that's fucking rad. Now, can we run or something? Why are you telling me this at all? And so at every point after that in the movie, every time a character appears on screen, I just say that's and then their name.
00:52:08
Speaker
Nice. That's Nick. That's Wade. Hey, there's Vincent again.
00:52:16
Speaker
That's Tucker. Hey, that's Ari. There's Bo. Look. It's Bo. Golly. And papyrus for the fonts on the the baby seats.
00:52:28
Speaker
I don't even think they had that in the forty s They didn't have papyrus. Avatar font? like Come on, James Cameron, get the fuck out here. I love this movie unabashedly because it is both really great and also really bad and everything in between.
00:52:47
Speaker
Does it remind you of the... ah simpsons treehouse of horror bad twin episode where you guys know what i'm talking about i love that with hugo yeah yeah it's the scar was on the other side wait reminds me of that if that were the case and that means the evil twin would have always been oh don't act so surprised there it reminds me of that because there's this moment where you're like, this one's the evil one. No, it's not.
00:53:18
Speaker
That's Vincent. Hey, that's Vincent. That's Vincent. That's Vincent. um Yeah, again, like, should it have been the same person? Would it have made more narrative sense for it to have been the same person? Like, I almost thought it was going to be.
00:53:36
Speaker
And then we do that, the scene where we're quick cutting between him and Wade, Vincent and Wade and Bo and Carly. And i was like, okay, so they're not the same person because now we've got two people trying to kill these, like, two different characters.
00:53:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You know, they're sufficient, though. They're sufficient. They're efficient, though, because they always go for the feet and leg area first. Right. Every time you disable them, what are they going do?
00:54:06
Speaker
Yeah. Every single time they know what they're doing. That's why they have all those people. Those are all the wax figures. You guys, every single one in the town is somebody they just plucked off the interstate. So they've got some practice. I'm sure they've had some trial and error.
00:54:20
Speaker
We were talking about that earlier, how like when we were talking about the car, like they pick the fan belt, which is an easy enough part to replace that you could probably find it anywhere. And so you're looking for the nearest town so that they can easily like someone comes along and you're like, oh, hey, i'm missing a fan belt. Whereas if it were something like an alternator or something that might be more difficult.
00:54:42
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Like talking about just the practice with which they've obviously done. Because again, as many people as there are in this town, they've clearly had a lot of time to experiment and figure out what works and what doesn't.
00:54:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:59
Speaker
Yeah. one of my favorite scenes, it's really all sort of in one, where she gets her lips glued together. o And she sticks her finger out the great
00:55:14
Speaker
Yeah. But he's so sneaky about it. It's fantastic. He's sneaky. And he loves it. He just revels that every time that he gets exactly what he wants and hides it from the other guy, you can just see how pleased he is with it.
00:55:28
Speaker
So happy. He makes me happy with how happy he is in that scene. I'm excited for him. I'm like, that's fucked up. But man, I'm excited for you, actually. Good for you, man. Good for you.
00:55:40
Speaker
And I would like to... Next time you watch, watch for this. So she gets her lips glued together and she eventually tears them apart and her lips are all bloody. Right.
00:55:52
Speaker
But then like a couple scenes go by and it's just red lip gloss. They've just made it beautiful instead of horrifying. Yeah. You know, it should be all ragged and bloody and nasty.
00:56:03
Speaker
But she's like, actually, it's made me more beautiful somehow. Watch for that. It's very good. It's very 2000s. That's hilarious. That cracks me up. Yes. And yeah, that is that is kind of the thing that we were doing. You can't disfigure someone too, too much, at least not our final girl.
00:56:20
Speaker
Right. you know Not in a slasher. You can't do that. And i'm I'm still kind of amazed with, even though there's more of these kids than there probably would be in your standard slasher, how they still manage to get in like all the tropes of your slasher movie.
00:56:36
Speaker
Like you've got your your jock, you've got your whore, quote unquote. Right. um You've got your your goofball, your doofus, your final girl, your dude with the bad attitude. Like everyone's accounted for. Everyone's represented. Yes.
00:56:51
Speaker
All the friend groups, all the friend types are there. Right. You guys, yes I hate all these characters pretty much, but boy, up boy, i hate Nick a lot. Nick sucks.
00:57:02
Speaker
Nick sucks. He really sucks. He's the kind of, look, so I drove two weeks ago. I drove from New Hampshire to Indianapolis. And then a couple days ago, I came back. And of those four days of traveling,
00:57:16
Speaker
Five people, five individual human beings actually tried to take my life intentionally on the road because that's how people drive now. And When I was watching this movie today and I saw Nick, I was like, yeah, that's those motherfuckers that were trying to run me off the road. That's them right there.
00:57:35
Speaker
ah said That's the same person. That's the kind of person who would do something like that. who would because Because you offended them somehow by whatever you were doing, they decided that they want to actually maybe kill you.
00:57:51
Speaker
Get in front of you and brake check you. And then when you try to get in the other lane, they swing in front of you and brake check you again. That's very scary. And Nick, that's the kind of motherfucker that was in every one of those trucks that tried to kill me in the last two weeks.
00:58:06
Speaker
That's Nick. Yes. And also, I'm sorry that you had to go through that. That's horrible. I hate driving so much. The more time goes by, the more people become like just aggressively psychotic.
00:58:18
Speaker
Yeah. And it's it's really scary. I just want to move to a big metropolitan area where I don't have to own a car and never fucking drive again. Nope. Come here, man.
00:58:30
Speaker
You know, I love driving across the country, too. That's difficult for me to say because, like, big old solo road trips like, my favorite thing in the world. But fuck it, man. I just can't do it anymore because everybody's completely psychotic.
00:58:42
Speaker
Come back to the Midwest. Come to Chi-Town.
00:58:47
Speaker
I don't know, man. You and I can road trip up and hang out with Ari some weekends. Kick it. Oh, I don't know. You don't know? I may i may find my way. That area at some point.
00:58:58
Speaker
You never know. I'm still floating in the wind. You know, I don't know how much longer I'll be in New Hampshire. guess we'll see. guess we'll see. Just drop that into the middle of a conversation. All casual. Like, yeah, it'd be a couple months.
00:59:14
Speaker
Could be more months. Who's to say. who's really to say. um yeah Man, fuck Nick, is all I'm saying.
00:59:25
Speaker
No, I don't disagree with you. that he That he becomes one of our final pair without really learning anything. um kind of But again, it's the 2000s. No one's really learning anything. But like if anyone in this movie needs to learn something, it's Nick.
00:59:43
Speaker
Nick does what he does out of loyalty to his sister. And I have to imagine just a little bit because he's the type of person who just thinks all day about like beating somebody up or shooting somebody. you know like those people who are like, oh, somebody breaks into my house. They're dead.
01:00:03
Speaker
People just wanted just want an excuse to shoot a motherfucker. Like that's Nick too. So like some of that shit, like when he's on top, when he's doing the beating and stuff, I'm pretty sure he's having a good time with that as well.
01:00:15
Speaker
Man, fuck Nick. I like that dude. He also strikes me as the kind of person that just remembers every bad thing that's ever happened to him and absolutely has a list of names like written down somewhere.
01:00:27
Speaker
yeah he's a chip on his shoulder kind of guy. Yeah, absolutely. He will invent a chip for his shoulder if he doesn't actually have one, as he does through most of this movie.
01:00:38
Speaker
yeah Right. and Yeah. yeah he's Phantom chip. Not happy unless he has someone to be pissed at. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Man, fuck Nick, man.
01:00:51
Speaker
But how cool is that house of wax when it melts at the end, though? That's all I want the show notes to be to this. Motherfuck Nick. That's the entirety of the show notes.
01:01:02
Speaker
I'll let you write the show notes this week, Tucker.
01:01:06
Speaker
yeah Fuck that guy. I've known people like that. Those people suck. They do. oh The worst. But you know what doesn't suck? Is when the house of wax melts because it's made of fucking wax.
01:01:18
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. whole yeah That is rad. And you guys, i don't I don't know who did the production design and the art direction and all of those wax figures and everything that went into just making the whole mood that is the second act forward of this film.
01:01:36
Speaker
ah But they deserved an Oscar, I think. Yeah, I'm going to agree. Because this, I think this would be a silly little fun movie if it weren't for all that shit. But i would yeah I would not remember it. I would not still be talking about it at all.
Practical Effects and Production Design
01:01:51
Speaker
But I will talk about House of Wax any fucking chance I get because just I love everything about it that's not the main characters, basically.
01:02:01
Speaker
Yeah. the Just the ballsiness to build the set of wax and then melt it. And they're like, they're touching hot wax, they're burning their hands, they're all hot, they're climbing through it getting like that is a commitment to movie making that I really appreciate it That's where like, the the film person in me goes, it's still real to me, damn it.
01:02:29
Speaker
Right? No. And and just like I don't want to wish for actors to get burned on set. That's not what I'm saying. I don't want anybody to be unsafe. But I just appreciate such commitment to making something look so good, you know, because now it would just be sort of forgettable CGI and it'd be really flat. Right.
01:02:48
Speaker
Right. Well, and i I want to say there are a few CGI shots in this movie, and they're honestly, like, objectively not that bad. But everything the 99% of everything else that is practical, it that especially that one CGI shot where they're in the sign and it's melting, that looks really bad.
01:03:07
Speaker
Not because it looks bad, but because it's being compared to everything else you're seeing. Right. Right. And digital effects will, I mean, it's it's ah damn near impossible for them to stand up to the practical ones. There's something about the viscerality, the tactileness, tacticity, I don't know what the word is, but like just that that ability that you can actually reach out and touch the thing.
01:03:32
Speaker
That is so palpable. And I think that carries across on the screen, which is why I think the 2011 remake of the screen of the thing rather, excuse me, like was hurt so badly is that they took out all the practical effects that they actually filmed the movie with and replaced them with digital ones.
01:03:51
Speaker
Dude. And that movie deserved better because that was pretty damn good movie. That movie gains like two whole stars with practical effects for me. I used to have the Blu-ray and it had some behind the scenes. And unfortunately it didn't have like full deleted scenes or full scenes of the, the practical, but it had some behind behind the scenes stuff.
01:04:12
Speaker
And it looked just as good as the original, just as like interesting and like gross and slimy and icky and weird.
01:04:23
Speaker
But no studio didn't want that. now unfortunate. I do still like that movie. I wish the effects didn't suck, but I really appreciate the effort they made to do something new while keeping it exactly the same.
01:04:39
Speaker
But still, it's it's kind of a prequel, and it's really cool to watch them back by back because without the credits, they do run into each other. so that's like the end The ending scene of the thing 2011 is the beginning of the thing.
01:04:53
Speaker
It's the helicopter chasing the dog. I need to watch it. And the music is the same. So you could cut them together and make them one film. That's kind of rad. That's awesome. One day.
01:05:05
Speaker
One day. One day we'll cover it on Pod and Petulum. Get those practical effects. Let's find them and clean them up and put them back into the movie, guys. Let's do it. is youw it There it is. i want it. do that Do the Topher Grace-esque fan edit of the thing.
01:05:20
Speaker
ah yeah um But no, and I mean, it is. It's the the practical effects of this thing are really spectacular.
01:05:31
Speaker
Like the actual wax statues that we get, all of the all of the wax work, honestly, is really, really phenomenal. it's It's, I think, what makes this movie stand apart from other millennial nasties of this era is that – even Even with the kind of greenish, golden, weird patina that it has that a lot of these movies do have that I've disparaged before and will probably need to stop doing. Yes, that one.
01:05:56
Speaker
i love it. the The effects still manage to look yes good. And I really, really dig that. like that's And I think that's what elevates this movie for me is that even when it's – a little too nasty, even when it's a little too, um gory or what have you, like it still looks rad as hell.
01:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, it does. I agree. I think the whole town looks good. um Set design's fantastic. like I love how it's very believable that at a distance you wouldn't notice.
01:06:34
Speaker
And then the closer you get to something, you start to notice the cobwebs. You see that it's in disrepair. You see that that's not really a person. and And I love that. like The first shot, when you're you're seeing it...
01:06:47
Speaker
from the perspective of ah Sammy and homegirl. And they're just kind of walking into it. They don't know anything's amiss.
01:06:58
Speaker
But then as the film goes on, you get closer to all of this stuff. You see these things more times and you start to see the cracks. And I think it's really cool. Like I said, the I mean, I don't even, you could cut the entire first act of this film.
01:07:16
Speaker
And I would be fine because I don't need to know where these people came from. Just start me out at the town. So ah from there I will tell you ah the production designer on this movie was Graham Grace Walker, ah who prior to this had been the art director on a little movie called The Road Warrior.
01:07:38
Speaker
Ever heard of it? Yeah. He was production designer for a little movie called Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. You guys can we just get Beyond Thunderdome? Jeez Louise.
01:07:49
Speaker
i don't know that we can ever get Beyond Thunderdome. Dead Calm. The Island of Dr. Moreau. Oh. the The Marlon Brando one. Pitch Black. Queen of the Damned.
01:08:01
Speaker
Man, what a resume. Ghost Ship. This is a family show. Since when? um Ghost Ship. the first The best first 10 minutes of any movie ever. There you go.
01:08:14
Speaker
Yeah, dude. um But yeah, like and then after this, he does The Reaping, The Condemned, Whiteout, the Kate Beckinsale movie. Oh yeah, I told you about that, because remember you were like, what's that? And I was like, she's got face blindness.
01:08:28
Speaker
And I don't remember who the guest was, but you guys, because that's how I sound. but
01:08:34
Speaker
You guys didn't believe me. I'm like, it's straight up Whiteout. And yeah, sorry, callback. Ari also did a production design for one of your favorite movies, The Collection. yes Oh. um So yeah, like ah really quite and future episode of this podcast, the 2018 remake of Superfly.
01:08:53
Speaker
oh fuck. You just reminded me that I existed again. Dang it. Sorry, bud. Sorry, man. I hate to be the guy that does that to you all the time, but yeah. Just try not to mention it to me until we have to do it on this show because it just really brings me down every time you mention that it exists.
01:09:09
Speaker
I mean, it is on the schedule, but we'll we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.
01:09:14
Speaker
But yeah, like that's, that's, so that is our production designer on this movie. And um that might be why it looks as good as it does is because this guy is clearly a pro who has done very good work.
01:09:30
Speaker
Yeah. Historically. So yeah, big, big fan of the way this movie looks. um What are our thoughts on the director of this film? Jamie Colette, Sarah. Who?
01:09:42
Speaker
There it is. um Jamie Colett, Sarah has done Let me kind of walk through some of his movies. ah Orphan little horror movie called Orphan.
01:09:53
Speaker
oh yeah. It is sequel to that. and That girl was like 15 years older. Yeah. and It's a prequel. It's good. It's so fun. It's really based on your recommendation.
01:10:05
Speaker
I liked the first one. It's good. You're going to have fun. Okay. All right. Okay. And then he does a trio of Liam Neeson action movies called Unknown, Non-Stop, and Run All Nights.
01:10:18
Speaker
Okay. Which, fantastic as far as I'm concerned, could be a a trilogy. um He does a ah Blake Lively surfing movie called The Shallows.
01:10:30
Speaker
Cool. Another Liam Neeson movie called The Commuter. Did he do a Tooken movie, though? No, he did not do a Tooken, because his next two movies... ah His next two movies, Tucker, are future episodes of this podcast starring one Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Jungle Cruise, and Black Adam.
01:10:49
Speaker
Oh, he did Black Adams? Mm-hmm. Damn. And then this year, he directed a ah an action thriller from from this year that a lot of people have been talking about dropped on Netflix not that long ago called Carry On. Oh, yeah.
01:11:03
Speaker
Everybody's talking about that. Yeah. It's supposed to be pretty good. Isn't there somebody in that that I know? Bateman. The Bateman. Jason Bateman? the Jason Bateman. Okay.
01:11:14
Speaker
And it's also got Taron Egerton, if that's a guy that you're from from the Kingsman films. you ever You ever been watching Jason Bateman in a movie and just be like, damn, I wish that was Greg Kinnear?
01:11:27
Speaker
ah Almost
Film Industry and Actor Anecdotes
01:11:29
Speaker
exclusively. That's a very specific wish. like I like Jason Bateman. I like him in TV shows, but whenever he's in a movie, for some reason, I'm like, well, they couldn't get Greg Kinnear?
01:11:39
Speaker
Come on. And Lord knows Greg Kinnear could use the boost. Let's be honest. He needs the work. he he he last day Last big thing I saw him in was the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
01:11:51
Speaker
ah He's been in some movies. He was in Brigsby Bear. That wasn't big though. It's only big to me, I guess. I was going to say. that on the straight up schedule? It is on the straight up schedule. Is it soon? Because we really need to talk about that one. Dude, the I will tell you all the things ahead of it on the two on the schedule. and you'll be like, oh no, but we got to talk about that first though. I though i know next i know this month.
01:12:13
Speaker
ah I'm excited about this month. Yeah, don't say it or you're going to have to bleep it. and You're not wanting to do a lot of editing on this episode, so don't do it. can't even access my bleeps. My bleeps are on my computer. My computer's in the short part.
01:12:26
Speaker
I got no bleeps. Are we going to be able to fix it? I got fucking no bleeps. I have no idea. I have no idea. got none of that shit anymore, man. I don't even have the theme song. don't know what I'm going to do. Hopefully I emailed it somebody. Did I email it to in the remaster? Oh, I don't know about the remaster. I'm sure we've got a copy of it on the Play it and on your phone and record it on your computer.
01:12:49
Speaker
That's perfect. Savage. Savage. This is guerrilla podcasting. Okay. At this point, you're absolutely right. All right. Absolutely right. I refuse to pay for any software. And so I've done some weird things to edit.
01:13:06
Speaker
There it is. you You, are an inspiration to us all. yeah I love that for all of us. What, what else do we have? What else can we say about house of wax that we have not already said? and ah Jared Padalecki hadn't even started doing Supernatural yet.
01:13:25
Speaker
No. It's same year, right? 05 is when Supernatural came out. Is it? Let me check. Correct. Whoa, calm me down, everybody. Kitty cats. Yeah, i just had a I just had a cat go ballistic there. That's what cats do It is actually, in fact, what cats do. Yes. So the ah Supernatural starts in September of Ought 5. This movie comes out in May of Ought 5. So a mere months from the start of this movie. So this was Sammy getting casted just basic based on his chops. Not like the Friday the 13th remake where they were like, oh...
01:14:05
Speaker
writer's strike let's get one of them winchester boys on this movie correct which is the same logic they had for my bloody valentine oh jensen ackles i love my boys i love both of them so much like was telling i was telling marv i was like marv jared padaleck he's in this movie and he's like who and i was like the guy who's on my guitar strap on the button Because of course Jared Padalecki is on my guitar strap.
01:14:29
Speaker
Why wouldn't he be? But I still won't watch Walker. It's really strange. don't get it. That is really strange. Maybe I should. Maybe. Straight up maybe. I don't know. Maybe.
01:14:40
Speaker
Ari, closing thoughts on on House of Wax. I'm going re-watch it if you haven't watched it in a long time. um And see how it feels now that we're damn near 20 years removed.
01:14:56
Speaker
We are 20 years removed. As of this year, it's the 20th anniversary of House of Wax. Yes. Happy anniversary, House of Wax. Why we're doing the movie now. Yes. Yes. and It was planned.
01:15:08
Speaker
ah The soundtrack. yeah had We hadn't originally planned to do this in October of last year, but yeah. no no I will say when My Chemical Romance comes on and the credits, my partner went, just lost it. She yeah loves My Chemical Romance. Of course. her favorite One of her favorite bands of all time.
01:15:31
Speaker
As soon as this movie starts, I lose it because it starts with the G.D. DeFontes, dude, the Deftones. First song in the movie, you're like, oh, okay, I'm ready. Let's go.
01:15:41
Speaker
yeah this movie is clearly solidified in its time and place by its soundtrack. It's right between where like like emo and nu metal were kind of yeah sort of turning into each other.
01:15:54
Speaker
And oh, man, so many so many great tracks on here. So many, like, I had to tell Marv too, like, these are my people. Like, we this may not be like, like 1999 or 2000, but I was about the age of these characters in 2005. I was like early 20s, like, you know, 21, 22-ish.
01:16:15
Speaker
So... To be clear, the characters, not the actors. Oh, yeah, because they're probably all in their 30s when they made this. Correct. Very important distinction. Absolutely.
01:16:26
Speaker
But yeah, this, like the rage carry to like idle hands for better, for worse. These are my people. This is my group. This was my carass.
01:16:37
Speaker
um As us, Bacconin is referred to them. These are the people that you can't separate yourself from because they are just, there's their reflection of society at the time as you remember it.
01:16:51
Speaker
And that's this movie. This movie is 2005 as remember it.
01:16:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And the music just really drives it home. Really does. Really, really. i had I had wanted to talk about that and I had completely forgotten that that was something I wanted to mention. So thank you for bringing that up, Tucker. Absolutely. yeah i'm here for that's It is what you're here for.
01:17:12
Speaker
and I'm glad you continue to have my back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um Well, in that case, let's talk about this movie coming out on May 6th in the year of our Lord, 2005.
Box Office Performance and Sequel Discussion
01:17:27
Speaker
Lo, these 20 years ago. um it is the number two movie at the box office, the number one film at the box office. I saw in theaters, and not opening weekend, but definitely saw it in theaters.
01:17:40
Speaker
It is the Ridley Scott historical epic Kingdom of Heaven. Oh, wow. yeah I a't see that. oh Yeah. a movie that does not exist by today's standards you had me at ridley ridley scott you lost me at historical whatever i see you lost me after historical ah honestly epic is what i said epic it is yeah i stopped listening isn't that ah like four hours long It is. It's very long. It's got Orlando Bloom, Edward Norton in a vocal cameo only.
01:18:12
Speaker
i feel like maybe that's a movie we could cover on this podcast. Oh, wait. Maybe you said Orlando Jones is in it. I'd watch that. Not Jones. Bloom. Orlando Bloom is the one that's in it. Orlando Jones ah showed up in Abbott Elementary and it's just so good to see him.
01:18:29
Speaker
That is nice to hear. It's so good to see him. That is nice to love Orlando Jones. and He just went away for a really long time. Yeah. I don't know what happened. But then now he's back. And I love that for him because I love him.
01:18:42
Speaker
We are friends. So I don't think – no, never mind. In retrospect, we cannot do Kingdom of Heaven on this podcast. Bummer. um But ah in number two, we've got House of Wax opening 12.1 million. is on its – million it is on its war opening No, it's on its way to 32.1 million.
01:19:04
Speaker
It'll get another 38 million ah international for a worldwide box office of 70 million on a budget 35 million. So it does double its production budget worldwide, but it needs to make a lot more than that domestic in order to just break even. So the planned prequel that we mentioned earlier was canceled as a result of the poor box office for this movie.
01:19:29
Speaker
They could have just called that one Taurus Trap. You could have. and would have been so rad. But then make more like House of Wax. House of Wax 2 colon Taurus Trap. Get somebody to do the Vincent Price role, you know?
01:19:45
Speaker
yeah but to Give him the mustache and everything. like Like the guy at the beginning of ah another Dark Castle film, House on Haunted Hill. So if we were doing this in 2007, who would we cast as Vincent Price? Is it just Geoffrey Rush or are we doing something else? Yeah, no, we'd just keep Geoffrey Rush, but we'd do a better makeup job on him.
01:20:03
Speaker
Oh, that's fair. Yeah. ah In third place, another movie I absolutely saw it in theaters. ah This one I did see when it came out opening weekend, the weekend before. ah The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
01:20:17
Speaker
I did too. I saw that at the movie theater. And boy, I can't believe how much I hate that movie now. I used to love that movie. When we watched it for the podcast, boy, I was like, this fucking sucks. Couldn't believe it. believe it.
01:20:29
Speaker
Did I bring my towel to that screening? Yes, I absolutely did. Best believe you did. Sure did. In fourth place, another movie I would eventually see in theaters.
01:20:40
Speaker
um it It would go on to win the Oscar. It's called Crash. Oh, yeah. Not the Cronenberg. Not the good Cronenberg one. Where they're six in the crashes.
01:20:54
Speaker
Where they're sexing in the crashes. Not that one. That one came out a decade before this one. This is the one where, um you know, what if what if we what if we weren't racist, but in fact we really, really, really are.
01:21:06
Speaker
Yeah. in number in In fifth place, did i I think I saw this one in theaters too. God, every movie but House of Wax I saw in theaters this year. It was my last year of college.
01:21:18
Speaker
I was seeing everything. It was Ari's last year high school. It was my last year at college. Yes, I absolutely did see this one in theaters. It's the Sean Penn, Nicole Kidman thriller, The Interpreter.
01:21:30
Speaker
He lost me at Sean Penn. They had to sneak him into the game right for me. That does not exist. Okay. They just sneak that sucker in there, man. ah the remaining The remaining five in our top ten.
Vin Diesel's Artistic Ventures
01:21:43
Speaker
ah In number six, we've got a sequel, XXX State of the Union, starring Ice Cube. Oh, nice. I liked that. i like I liked all three of those movies, you guys. I never saw them. You know what? ever I can't... Look, I'm not going to watch the Fast and the Furious movies, but... i Outside of that.
01:22:04
Speaker
um or i also implore him to reconsider. um Outside of that, I always try to check out what Vin Diesel's doing, man. Because I've seen the short film that he made.
01:22:18
Speaker
oh God. Like, and I've seen Find Me Guilty. So I know this man is like an artsy fartsy, like, dude.
01:22:31
Speaker
Like, he's not, like, he's he's not the the guy in those movies. He's not the guy he's he's selling now. Like, this guy's an artist, dude. And so, like, I'm just waiting for him to do that again.
01:22:43
Speaker
Because now, Dominic Toretto is an artist. I'm just saying, good for him. do what? What if I told you yeah the first Fast and Furious movie is about a heist of DVD players I've seen the first one. I saw the first three, actually. And then I was like, no, thanks. on Oh, my God.
01:23:05
Speaker
Just watch the fifth one. I was going to say, you got to get to five, man. You got to get to five. Watch the fifth one and then watch the seventh one and then the ninth one. Well, here's a deal I'm willing to make you. And I don't know if you knew.
01:23:18
Speaker
but Either of you guys knew that we were making deals right now. But we are. We didn't. I didn't have my deal making hat on. And I will. have a copy of the art of the deal right here.
01:23:29
Speaker
Oh no. I will. I don't have a copy of the art of the deal. I was certain you didn't. I will watch every single Fast and the Furious movie if you guys watch both Find Me Guilty and Multifacial.
01:23:46
Speaker
Multifacial you can find on YouTube. That's the the original short that when Vin Diesel was trying to get roles in Hollywood and nobody wanted him, he decided he was going to just write a role for himself.
01:23:56
Speaker
and so That's the one that Spielberg saw that got him cast in Saving Private Ryan. And that's what got him cast in Iron Giant as well. And then, course, i mean Find Me Guilty, you know what that is, Stephen. It's a Sidney Lumet film. And ah it it's... It's...
01:24:15
Speaker
It's pretty mid for a Sidney LeMay film, but just to watch Vin Diesel do his thing in that movie is... It's really It's on Tubi. Yeah, dude. He really becomes that character. and he Look, that movie doesn't work if his performance isn't believable.
01:24:34
Speaker
And that movie works. It really, really works. I will watch those movies because I want you to watch The Fast and the Furious so much. Yes, I will watch them. I'll watch them. I'll it. I should probably watch the first three again because I saw them when they came out.
01:24:51
Speaker
Here's the thing. i think they're worth a rewatch. They will at least inform what comes next. I thought the first one was fun, but then like I just kind of lost interest, really. It was all it was. The second one is directed by John Singleton, which is interesting enough in and of itself.
01:25:07
Speaker
And the third one's got the kid from Sling Blade in it. Who is the coolest character in the entire franchise. What about the kid from Sling Blade? Does he ever come back? No.
01:25:18
Speaker
kid from Sling Blade. Do you want me to answer that question honestly? with He's the guy with the accent, and the main character and the third one. What you need to know about the Fast and the Furious franchise is that it has a lot in common structurally with the Saw franchise, where they go backward in time, they go forward. This character you thought was dead was really over here. Now we're doing this and we're back in a flashback.
01:25:42
Speaker
So if if we say, does someone come back, it tells you something, but it also doesn't necessarily tell you when or how. I see. And so I really just think you need to luxuriate in the experience.
01:25:54
Speaker
And I'll also say this. When you watch the Fast and Furious started in 2001 or 2000, that's goddamn 25 years, right? You can see the evolution of what society found attractive in a butt over the course of 25 years.
01:26:13
Speaker
the The evolution of the butt you is documented anthropologically in the Fast and the Furious franchise. Through these films. These are the historical documents.
01:26:25
Speaker
Yeah. ah Yes. Ari, I don't know if anyone has ever told you this before, but you're a goddamn poet. I don't know about all that. They should have sent a poet and they did. it was Ari.
Horror Remakes and Critical Reception
01:26:41
Speaker
I'm just saying, you'll see the truth. um Number seven and eight on the top ten are two future episodes of this podcast, one of which Ari may want to join us for.
01:26:54
Speaker
ah Number seven, we have the Matthew McConaughey vehicle, sierra ah Sahara. not sierra sahara And in eighth place, we've got the remake of the Amityville Horror. oh and Yes, that was 2005. That was. Do you have interesting things to say about that?
01:27:11
Speaker
I don't know. haven't watched it in a long time. Really? Okay. Well, I watched it for book research and crossed it off my list. and so Because it doesn't quite fit the criteria of a millen millennial nasty? I didn't find it nasty enough, and I set it aside mentally. i That's fair. So not quite trashy enough for your sensibilities?
01:27:30
Speaker
Well, I don't know. Maybe it is, and I just don't remember. Okay. I'm sure it's trashy. I'm sure it's trashy. I saw it when it came out and I bought the DVD and I showed it.
01:27:41
Speaker
I showed it to a handful of people and I haven't seen it in years, but I, from what I recall, I quite enjoyed it. So I'd be very interested to go back and rewatch it and see, hopefully it's not another hitchhiker's guide.
01:27:56
Speaker
I have long wanted to do a spooky thon that is just horror remakes. Um, um Well, we kind of did with the Romero stuff, but it was like the original and the remake we would do. Right. we were i mean, we did a but specifically for like one director, but I want to do one that's just like all horror remakes. Honestly, we could do it this year if you wanted to. Let's do it.
01:28:22
Speaker
fuck i could I can just throw Amityville Horror on that list. Yes, indeed. i mean I'm into it. I'm going to do it. I'm putting it on there right now, and then i'll I'll figure out the rest of the month later. Because I'm looking at the straight up for that month, and it even fits the criteria. so Look, as long as we can do 13 ghosts.
01:28:41
Speaker
I mean, 13 goats. 13 goats. As long as we can do 13 goats, I'm into it. So put that one on there, too, Steven. That's a lock right there. That's the one I'm locking in.
01:28:52
Speaker
The Steve Beck film, 13 Ghosts. Was that one? don't know. The Monk is in it. And straight up, Stu from Scream is in it. Matthew Lillard. And Rod Diggah.
01:29:05
Speaker
From the Flip Mode Squad, man. So dangerous. And she was on that she was that song on that song and the score by the Fugees called Cowboys. Because each of the members of the Fugees has another person rap with them back and forth.
01:29:18
Speaker
And so Lauryn Hill raps back and forth with Rod Diggah on Cowboys. And it's arguably the best song on the record. Which is a hot take, I think. Most people would call me crazy for that.
01:29:30
Speaker
I think we can all call you crazy. yeah I'll allow it. And then in ninth place, we have a lot like love, the Ashton Kutcher, Amanda Pete rom-com.
01:29:43
Speaker
And in 10th place, speaking of rom-coms, the Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore rom-com, ah where the third part of that triangle is the Boston Red Sox. It's always the baseball win. Yeah, it's the baseball. Yeah, it's the baseball. Great. I'm glad that was a thing that happened that I never saw.
01:30:01
Speaker
And never want to and never have to. don't know. Maybe for research. don't know. The tomatometer score on this one is a 28%. Unfair. The consensus bearing little resemblance to the 1953 original.
01:30:16
Speaker
House of Wax is a formulaic but better than average teen slasher fic. Or pic. Sorry. Flick. Good God. my brain is my My brain is off. My brain is done. Checking out for the night. Sorry, guys. My brain.
01:30:30
Speaker
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. Goodbye. ah And the Metacritic score. The Metascore is a 41% based on mixture average reviews from 36 critics.
01:30:41
Speaker
Tucker, care to take a stab at the Letterboxd score? Oh, this one's so complicated. um Look, I'm going to say 2.8, 3.2. a 2.9. Well done.
01:30:52
Speaker
it's a two point nine well done Nice. Nice. I'll take that. That's your first, that's your first get in a while. Well done. And so Ari, the time has come for us to ask out of five stars. How are you rating 2005 house of wax?
01:31:08
Speaker
Let's see what clever, ah clever thing am I going to come up with? ah I give it three out of five prosthetic hands.
01:31:20
Speaker
Oh, there you go. Another thing that I wish was followed up on the prosthetic hand in the animal pit. I'm so sorry. 3.5 out of five. Oh, that half star means a lot to me. And I fucked it up while I was trying to be clever.
01:31:32
Speaker
No, you're fine. We'll, we'll, Tucker will fix it in the edit. Don't worry. yeah fix it i walk um but Normally I would, but I, I don't really have a lot of options this week. So.
01:31:44
Speaker
Right. Tucker, what about
House of Wax Ratings and Reflections
01:31:47
Speaker
you? how are you ranking this one out of five? I really, i can't decide if I want it to be a 3 or a 3.5. And I think I do want to say 3.5. Yeah. Yeah, you do. Just because, just because of how, um, there's nothing like it.
01:32:07
Speaker
Like, I'm always going to watch this movie. Like, I was pretty mad when I went to grab my DVD and it's not there. Apparently I lost it a move. ah had to arrange it. Oh no! no!
01:32:19
Speaker
I'm so mad that I don't own it anymore. I'm wondering if there'll be a 4K. I think there's at least a Blu-ray, so I'll just buy it again on Blu-ray. least it'll be an HD upgrade instead of just having it in standard def.
01:32:31
Speaker
ah But yeah, I think I'm going to hit it with the 3.5. I've been trying to figure out five which one I wanted to do this whole time, but I think 3.5. I think... three point five i think I think it's a three, but then also, like, I don't know what my life would be like without knowing that this movie exists.
01:32:51
Speaker
So that's that half an extra start. Like, my life is better because this movie exists. It's part of me now. That's fair.
Guest's Contributions and Promotions
01:33:00
Speaker
ah i'm I'm going with three.
01:33:02
Speaker
i actually had it at at a 2.5 for most of this recording, and just talking about it, I bumped it up to a three just now. Yeah. Nice. So there we go. That's a thing that just happened.
01:33:15
Speaker
um But yeah, that is our episode on 2005's House of Wax, the long-anticipated, long-awaited House of Wax episode. Yay!
01:33:26
Speaker
Ari, thank you so much for being here. gosh thanks for having me I said it at the beginning and it remains true it is always a pleasure to have you on always a pleasure to talk to you always a pleasure to get your perspective particularly on this era of horror um it you're you're a delight and I'm always happy to have you on um tell us what you got going on what's what's coming up the pipeline ah where can we find your work etc lay it on us yeah Well, the main thing that I'm working on right now that I can talk about is my work on the Pod and the Pendulum, the other podcast that Chewy and I appear on from time to time.
01:34:06
Speaker
I'm just wrapping up my coverage of the I Spit on Your Grave films on the Pod and the Pendulum Patreon. So we're recording our last one soon. So if you're a patron, you'll be able to listen to in-depth discussions of all the I Spit on Your Grave films.
01:34:21
Speaker
um And then we just made our schedule for 2005. So we've got all the franchises that we're doing in the works over there. It's going to be such a fun year. It's so good.
01:34:32
Speaker
I keep thinking like, oh, what franchises haven't we've done? We've basically done them all. Not true. No, there's so many we haven't done yet. So many big ones still that we haven't done yet. i know. It's crazy.
01:34:43
Speaker
So just getting to the exorcist and you're like six. I know. It's wild. I did for that. Same. So, um, all my writing and podcasting, you can find on my socials. You can find me at re underscore hellraiser everywhere. i say I'm mostly on blue sky and letterbox, but I'm also on Instagram and sometimes Twitter.
01:35:05
Speaker
i don't know. It's all getting to be too much. So you've, you find me, you find me. I'm around. Yeah, and buy Millennial Nasties, you mooks. Come on. You could do that if you want to. it's a good um It's a good coffee table book.
01:35:21
Speaker
It's a great read, too. It's a really fun read. You said it right there because... It is because it's, it's the kind of book that you can read as like a whole thing or you can, you're just like, Oh wait, what does Ari think about this movie?
01:35:36
Speaker
Oh, there it is. And then, I mean, you still get a taste. If you've read it before, you can go back and hit certain ones and you'd be like, Oh yeah, that's, we talked about that before. And yeah, it's just, it's really cool in a lot of different ways.
01:35:49
Speaker
Did I go back and reread her chapter on this movie before we recorded this episode today? You better believe I did. Yeah. You guys are so kind. Thank you. you i can't thank you enough. But I will say the cover is very cool. I didn't design it.
01:36:04
Speaker
But if you have it on your coffee table, it makes you look like a really interesting person. So if you want to look like an interesting person, you should buy a copy of Millennial Nasty's. Absolutely. Absolutely, you should.
01:36:16
Speaker
um This is, of course, the Disenfranchised Podcast. You can find us wherever podcasts are sold. ah Hit us up on our email, disenfranchepod at gmail.com. Let us know what you think of what we're doing. We would love to hear from you.
01:36:31
Speaker
ah You can also, if you want to support us, leave us a five-star rating and review on your podcatcher of choice, especially if that is Spotify or Apple Podcasts. That helps us find listeners like you, and we think you're pretty cool, so we'd love people like you as well.
01:36:44
Speaker
um And then if you want to support us monetarily, you might as well swing over by our Patreon, patreon.com slash disenfranchpod, where you will find hours, straight up days of content behind that paywall.
01:36:57
Speaker
Or if you don't want to pay the money, but you still want to get in on the conversation, you can join the official conversation of the disenfranchised podcast by joining for free.
01:37:08
Speaker
over on patreon.com slash disenfranch pod. And who knows, if you comment on an episode, maybe Tucker and I will comment back because that is a thing that we do.
01:37:21
Speaker
ah You know who else could potentially comment back? Ariel Power Schaub, who is a free member of the podcast. So she is also a part of that conversation. So if you want to be like her, then become a free member.
01:37:34
Speaker
And who wouldn't want to be? If you're listening podcast and you're like, oh, that's straight up what I aspire to be as a person. Well, now you kind of can can achieve some of that. you can get closer to that. you That's true.
01:37:46
Speaker
and You could. It's true. It's so easy. It it is within your grasp. It doesn't even cost money. Nah. It's so easy. not Free 99. Yeah. That's it. And without the 99 though, just free, and just straight up free. So free.
01:38:00
Speaker
um You can find us on us what is it? We're on what blue sky letterboxd Instagram and YouTube at disenfranch pod. Are we on the face page? Are we on face literature anymore? stephen We know we're still in the face literature ah mainly because it's so easy to connect from Instagram to the face. light Like oh yeah so easy.
01:38:23
Speaker
You know, just flip the little switch at the bottom and it's there. It's great. that There it is. Yeah. Woomp. There it is. And there it goes. And there it went. And if you don't know now, you know.
01:38:35
Speaker
I am your host, Stephen Foxworthy. You can find me on certain social platforms at Chewy Walrus. I like to leave it a mystery, so you can come find me. and Some of them I use more than others. he Care to find out which ones?
01:38:47
Speaker
Take a guess. um Though I will say I've been getting a lot of followers on Blue Sky right now, and I think it's because of the pot and the pendulum. so It's because you're clever and witty and you're skilled at social media interactions. Not on social media so much, honestly. You don't do your love your straight up brackets anymore, dude Remember your brackets of legend? i i am i am I actually just announced on my Facebook page that I am discontinuing the brackets at end of this year. haven't been on Facebook in like 10 years, but no!
01:39:19
Speaker
No!
Host's Personal Projects and Anecdotes
01:39:22
Speaker
You put so much effort into them, Steven. That's the problem. I have too many other projects going on to commit as much time as I need to the brackets. And it's wonderful to see the brackets. ah An era gone. That's it. You know though? That's fine, Steven. Sometimes you got know when to bail. Everything has to die. You don't have to continue everything forever.
01:39:41
Speaker
In the immortal words of Kenny Rogers, you got to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. Know when to walk away. Know when to run. You have to count your money. money When you're sitting at the table.
01:39:53
Speaker
Time enough for counting. when When the dealin's done. Love it. um Have I done that song at karaoke before? back Absolutely. good got to Absolutely.
01:40:06
Speaker
um And I don't know what else I have to promote. Probably nothing. ah Tucker, what about what's going on with you these days? ah Go read Stephen's book. It's on Amazon. You can straight up buy it there, like a hard copy or probably a Kindle.
01:40:22
Speaker
if if that's it's true If that's your thing. How have you been enjoying my book, Tucker, now that you have finally have the copy that you purchased months ago? Well, I'll tell you what, I still haven't finished that Brian Wilson autobiography. I hit a big snag in that. I haven't been able to sit down and read for a while.
01:40:38
Speaker
So I still have to finish that. Yeah. Which I'm glad it's that book that I've taken a big break from because Brian Wilson, i i love him and he's a fantastic man, but he's batshit crazy.
01:40:50
Speaker
It's not his fault. That's like the whole thing about him. That's why he's so brilliant is because he's completely fucking nuts. And so his book is just like... disjointed rambling thoughts just kind of going from one thing to another in a surprisingly entertaining and like engaging way like I love reading that book because I'll be reading it and in a matter of 10 minutes I'll go from one place to another and I'll be like wait a minute how did how did we get here, Brian?
01:41:16
Speaker
How did we get here? Yeah. Well, he jumps all over the place. Like he'll be talking, Oh, I did this thing a few years back. And then in the sixties and you're like, hold on, man, can we just have a consistent narrative here?
01:41:30
Speaker
But no, it's good because you can jump back in at any time. And then you're just like, just hypnotized right into his lunacy. Yes. um And I love this book because it was written around the same time as love and mercy was being made.
01:41:43
Speaker
So a lot of the same things in that film are touched on in the book. Okay. And it's a, it's a really good book. I got Jimmy. Jimmy got it for me for Christmas last year. And then I got him a copy this year for Christmas because it's past and future guests, Evan, Jimmy too.
01:42:02
Speaker
Yes. That's the one. That's the guy got a record coming out at some point. Who knows? That's that guy we know. Yeah, he's so he's from Indy too, so he comes to Indy for Christmas.
01:42:14
Speaker
And so we get to see each other every year and hang out. I saw that picture you posted on your Instagram. Dude, yeah. we had It was good to see you two together. Can I tell you just one little quick little story of something that happened, and then I'll move on with my socials.
01:42:28
Speaker
It's my only story of my Christmas. Here's my Christmas vacation story, you guys. So we were outside of Imbibe, which is a bar in Fountain Square. It's in the Fountain Square Theater building. I'm familiar with it.
01:42:39
Speaker
Been there before. And ah so Jimmy and I, we always go to a bar on Christmas night. The night of Christmas, we go to a bar, him and I, because we're buddies and stuff.
01:42:50
Speaker
And um this year we decided to go imbibe. So I went to pick him up from his parents' house. We went back to my sister's house who lives like three blocks from imbibe. And we hung out on the porch like drinking whiskey and smoking joints and stuff until probably about midnight. And then finally we made our way to imbibe.
01:43:07
Speaker
We go in there and we're playing pinball and drinking some beers and it was really cool. We went outside to have a smoke. And while we're outside, about three blocks, two or three blocks down the road by where like the liquor store is, you know, the liquor store in Mountain Square, that one that's like a close to the White Castle headquarters building thing.
Heartwarming Holiday Stories
01:43:26
Speaker
That one. Yeah.
01:43:28
Speaker
There were some people down there that were ready to take each other's lives. And i I say that with confidence because they said as much. They were both prepared to take each other's lives. They were very angry about something. It's two o'clock in the morning, Christmas night.
01:43:46
Speaker
And as someone who was born and raised in Indianapolis, I immediately kind of got myself behind a telephone pole so I didn't catch a stray. Correct. That's the move. That's the move.
01:43:58
Speaker
So the guy, one of the guys, like they're like, fuck it, whatever. And the one guy starts walking across the street to leave when the other dude just can't leave it alone. And like he says some shit and they go right back at it. And I'm almost certain we are mere seconds left.
01:44:13
Speaker
away from gunshots and bodies hitting the ground when little old Tukey here in his infinite wisdom and blind courage peeks out from behind the telephone pole and says, but you guys, it's Christmas. Oh my God. And I'm not kidding you. i am not shitting you. This actually happened.
01:44:37
Speaker
They immediately stopped and they stood there for a second. I couldn't hear him because I mean, they were shouting before. That's how I heard them. They're like two or three blocks away. um But and the last thing I saw them do was hug you guys. Oh, my God.
01:44:53
Speaker
He saved Christmas. I saved Christmas. Pookie saved Christmas. It's Christmas fucking miracle. I didn't know what else to do, man. i did I just didn't want to see that shit on Christmas night.
01:45:04
Speaker
Like, I don't to see it any night. I don't want to see it any night. Spending as much time as I do in Fountain Square with my sister lives there. And whenever I'm in Indy, I'm staying with my sister. So it is not unusual to be sitting out on her porch, front porch at like one or two o'clock in the morning, smoking a cigarette, cigarette.
Local Atmosphere and Future Plans
01:45:21
Speaker
And here's somebody three or four blocks down the road, unload, unload a clip.
01:45:24
Speaker
Right. You know, that shit happens. Listen to those police scanners. The shit is wild, dude. And it used to be way worse than it was down there. So much worse. It's gentrified as fuck. Now my dad won't go down there to this day for that reason.
01:45:38
Speaker
I get it. You got to take him down there. Cause I wouldn't believe it either. If you told me, Like if I hadn't been down there in 20 years, I'd be like, fuck you. I'm not going to Fountain Square. You can fuck right off. My dad avoids downtown India at all costs.
01:45:51
Speaker
Oh, what have but it what a bless his heart, I'll say. Bless his heart. god ah But yeah, theres something that happened, and I just wanted to tell that little story because it's fun. I got a lot of other Christmas vacation stories. Maybe I'll tell on the next What Are We Watching?
01:46:05
Speaker
um Which we'll record at some point. Soon. think maybe whenever I get the computer back, probably I'm down for a late night, so whatever.
Community Engagement and Social Media
01:46:15
Speaker
You know we've got to have the recording this Friday, right?
01:46:17
Speaker
yes i know um okay so ah you can find me on instagrams and the youtubes at ice nine oh nine that's ic e n i n e the number zero and the number nine uh also tuck mugs big resurgence on tuck mugs so like uh tuck mugs kind of went dark after october for a minute like i don't know what was going on but that shit went dark ah And then December rolls around and it's it's literally Christmas. like
01:46:51
Speaker
And we almost had more because the whole time I was at my sister's house, she's like, oh, I got something for your tuck mugs. I want to show off my Bronx Zoo mug because she's got she got a mug at the Bronx Zoo. And like it says Bronx Zoo on the outside, but then it has little giraffes on the inside and it's really cute.
01:47:08
Speaker
Oh, that is fun. i mean, it's not Christmas themed, so she can still do it whenever. But her and her husband are in New Orleans for their vacation, for their anniversary right Oh, well, that's nice. Well, ah they they've made the plans before all that shit happened, obviously.
01:47:23
Speaker
Obviously. Yeah, that's kind of a bummer. But also they promised they'd go to the voo Voodoo Museum for me because for about five or six years I was going to New Orleans every Christmas and I always wanted to go to the Voodoo History Museum and I'd always get so close and something would take me away from it or distract me.
01:47:45
Speaker
It's almost like the Voodoo spirits didn't want you there. I guess not. But anyway, tuck mugs. There's three posts in December. That's three times as many as ah November.
01:47:59
Speaker
Because you know who sent us a mug shortly after their last appearance on this podcast? Oh, you haven't posted it yet? I mean, the social media... ah Do not look behind the curtain!
01:48:15
Speaker
The social media manager didn't post it yet? Is it when we got locked and loaded? Is that what you're telling me? No, I'm saying the person that, that you know, ah Ari gave us a a mug to post on Tuck Mugs shortly after her last appearance on the podcast. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah yeah The Amityville Horror Mug. Speaking of, yes, the Amityville Horror Mug.
01:48:35
Speaker
Fuck that. Found it. Yeah, dude. i mean yeah Posted back in June. And it's a great mug. And if again, if you're you're wanting to be like Ari, you just you you you find her an aspirational figure, as we all do. wouldn't? If you're asking yourself the question, what would Ari do?
01:48:55
Speaker
She would send a mug to tuck mugs. That's true. That's true. Because she's in the proofs in the pudding because she's done it before. That's true. And she might do it again. Who knows? another Another step towards being, just creating like your whole personality around a different person.
01:49:11
Speaker
but You join our Patreon for free. Yes. You join our Patreon for free. Submit something to Tuck Mugs. It's not hard. You can email it to us at disenfranchpod at gmailstraightup.com.
01:49:25
Speaker
um You can send us just a DM. You can message me, I mean the social media manager for Tuck Mugs. Yeah, the drug ah that underscore much direct message Tuck underscore mus Mugs with that shit.
01:49:39
Speaker
It's just that easy. It's so simple that you'd think that we would just have more posts in general. Right. And yet, here we are with a total of 58 posts over the course of the time that we've been around. About a year, though. That's not bad.
01:49:55
Speaker
Not bad. I mean, there have been there have been some months where it's been like nothing in November and nothing in July. It's kind of one of those when it rains, it pours kind of things. The first mug got posted on April 2023. So we're coming up on two years.
01:50:09
Speaker
Nice. I love that. I like tuck mugs. I'm still proud of it. You should be. it's fun It's a fun site. Yeah, I can't imagine how anybody could come in and just like make that negative. That's what I like about it. It's just like, i'm just just look at my mugs.
01:50:26
Speaker
Look at my mugs. so And if you want to kind of get a kind of get an idea of what Tucker's husband looks like, it's on one of those pictures. Him and his special lady friend. Yeah. That's the...
01:50:39
Speaker
Yes, my husband and his girlfriend. um yeah That's a fantastic photo, too. It's a great photo. It's a good pic. And you can find it in Tuck Mugs. Love those guys. Friends mine, for sure.
01:50:51
Speaker
friends of mine for sure All right, let's let's land this fucking plane. This has been our episode on the 20 to 20 2005 2005 film House of Wax.
01:51:07
Speaker
um Ari, once again, thank you so much for being I don't know why you put up with us. That is that is a tall order. And you you just you you take it. You you just we have fun. We have fun around here.
01:51:19
Speaker
We do. It's it's great. we We love having you on. And again, we've got you on the schedule a couple more times before the end of the year, at least. So so there we go. And so until next time, I'm your host, Stephen Foxworthy.
01:51:33
Speaker
ah For my co-host, Tucker, for the wax statue of Brett Wright, and for the incredible Ariel Powershob. Until next time, um did you guys know that Elton John was gay?
01:51:47
Speaker
yeah that's Vincent. That's Vincent. Oh, I've been calling him Crandall. That's Vincent, you guys. Vincene.............