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Episode 699 - Can't Unsee: The Haunting of Ajax House f/ Benito Cereno
1.3k Plays25 days ago
We're back just in time for our annual Halloween special with Benito Cereno! And this year, we're visiting Chris' grand-uncle's scary haunted house to talk about scenes from spooky or scary movies we'll quite simply never forget, even if we want to.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Setup
00:00:00
Speaker
This show is recorded using Zencaster. If you are a podcaster, or you want to be a podcaster, and you want to be able to record remotely, you can do so using Zencaster. They also have hosting options, and you can let them know that we sent you. Follow the link in our show notes, or in the episode description, and sign up for an account on Zencaster now to start recording your own podcast.
Return of War Rocket Ajax: Halloween Theme
00:00:38
Speaker
He's got more Rocket Ajax! To bring back his body!
00:00:57
Speaker
War Rocket Ajax. Why, there hasn't been a War Rocket Ajax podcast around these parts in nine on six weeks. But that's right, everyone. It's back from the dead. War Rocket Ajax is back, everyone. And we hope you are having a very spooky Halloween season.
Coping with Hurricane Aftermath
00:01:18
Speaker
My name is Chris Sims. With me, as always, is the late Matt Wilson. Matt?
00:01:27
Speaker
i I am late in that I have not been here since late September ah because of a hurricane. That's true. Perhaps I will talk about my experience with that hurricane at some point, but I don't really want to right now. I i will say I like that I was so stressed out about ah making jokes about you and the hurricane right before it hit.
00:01:55
Speaker
and And now we're back on the show and I immediately did it again. Like I was so stressed out and felt so guilty. What else can you do? ah One thing Marlene and I have found ah before, during, and after the hurricane, during the period where I had no power, no water, and no cell phone service. And so I was totally cut off from everybody and just got a lot of reading done. Gallo's humor was kind of the only thing ah we could we could rely on.
00:02:25
Speaker
Well, Matt, that's why I have invited you to recover a little bit, to to have a nice relaxing vacation time here at my great step-uncle's haunted mansion. Oh, cool. I guess I shouldn't have said haunted. I guess that should have been a reveal. Well, it's it's cool. I mean, I'm sure it's like one of those things where like,
00:02:56
Speaker
In his wheel and his will, it said, like if we stay overnight in the house for one night, we get his fortune. No, it's we're actually very much trespassing right now. Oh, so he's not he's not dead. No, no, no, no, not no, no. Okay, great.
00:03:18
Speaker
ah Well, I'm glad to be here. it It is, you know, it's good to get
Humor in McDonald's Lore
00:03:22
Speaker
away. Yeah, ah there are 999 ghosts here, but there is always room for one more. And I think I heard the spooky rattling of chains a second ago. Let me go ahead and open the door to the root cellar and see who's down there. I'll be right back. Okay, great. While you do that, I Oh, I thought it would take a second. but you just hey hey Hey guys, I was just hanging out in this root cellar.
00:03:55
Speaker
You are you enjoy an um enjoying a radish there, bud? Yeah, you know what they have in the root cellar? Falea fish. yeah Oh, like McDonald's filea fish? Yeah, I don't know how long they've been down here, but they're still pretty fresh.
00:04:11
Speaker
I mean, be careful because there was a, there was a whole recall of not fillet of fish of quarter pounders, but of McDonald's food. That's what they call it when it's food, right? A recall. Yeah. Um, I mean, it wasn't a quarter pounder though. Obviously I did eat a quarter pound of fillet of fish. So, um, I think I'm okay though. For those of you who may not recognize the voice that's Benito Serino, who is, uh, I guess also trespassing. I guess you're double trespassing. Yeah.
00:04:42
Speaker
I don't even know whose house this is. I just smelled filet of fish. That's true. I do know that you do have a tendency to like float on aroma lines. Exactly. Like I saw, that I saw that, like that wafting line and like it was playing the the snake charming song and I just flew along. Next thing I knew delicious
Special Halloween Episode Discussion
00:05:02
Speaker
tartar sauce, soft steamed bun, et cetera. You know, they did say that ah this house was actually built on an old McDonald's.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, because I think it's because there's there's a rich, barely tapped vein of fried fish. One time I took the elevator down to the root cellar, which is ah is a luxury. It is. And the elevator doors open and it was just so much filet-o-fish. Yeah, the tartar sauce just came flooding out. I mean, what? As a dire omen.
00:05:38
Speaker
What other sandwich can you get in a root cellar that has half a slice of cheese on it? That's right. The plant fish is nasty. The plant fish is the nastiest fucking sandwich. but here's so Here's the thing. I can't just be eating beef all the time. And someone in this house fucking loves McDonald's. So like I got to do what I can. Look, someone in this house, loves loves McDonald's too. And by that I mean the haunted house. but Yeah. i thought but yeah saw Surely one of the 999 ghosts that inhabit this place, one of them loves McDonald's.
Impact of Horror Movies
00:06:18
Speaker
Because one of them is the Grimace. All right. That's right. Folks, this is our very special Halloween episode where the premise has changed every three minutes. Now we're ghost hunting the Grimace. Matt, do you have your your
00:06:33
Speaker
right electronics meter. Oh, my EKG? Yeah, of course. Yeah, we're gonna get some EVP on the grimace. EVP, that is the that is what I could not think of. Oh, right. EKG is the actual medical piece. of medical that's ah That's a heart monitor. That's probably not. Yeah.
00:06:54
Speaker
Is it the ghost of Evil Grimace who was the original Grimace? The four armed one who would steal your milkshakes, yeah. No one talks about how he disappeared because he was actually quietly put down ah by the original Ronald McDonald Willard Scott.
00:07:10
Speaker
Right. And so he was replaced by good grimace who we can only assume is from an alternate universe. Right. He was replaced by a grimace that McDonald's corporation felt they could control. Yeah. Can I ask a quick question? ah Sure. Are you two doing improv right now? Yes. No, this this is 100% real. I meant to say no. i'm ah No and.
00:07:35
Speaker
um i It's not improv because we're not making it up. This is all 100% true. it's It's real historical lore. there's also There was also a green grimace named Uncle O'Grimacy. That's true. And he got executed behind the McDonald's for whipping batteries at Santa Claus. it was it Philadelphia is responsible for ending Uncle O'Grimacy, who was the grimace who advertised Shamrock Shakes.
00:08:04
Speaker
Right. And they they know say you are telling me the truth right now they found out about his past as a member of the IRA and his crimes during the troubles. Um, and they were, he was already on probation, but when he started whipping batteries, they were like, okay, I do do do, but you know, and I right now are being that classic, uh, story where one of us only tells lies and the other one only tells the truth. Everything I'm saying is a hundred percent true.
00:08:35
Speaker
Okay, and Benito, if I asked you which way the door was, what would what would you
Supporting Hurricane Recovery Efforts
00:08:42
Speaker
say? That's not the solution to the puzzle. You're supposed to ask me what the what Matt would say. Yeah, okay, so ah so it's the real Benito who's here. Just wanted to check and make sure. Just wanted to offer up a quick pedantry trap to see if you were the real Benito Serino. Matt, Matt, Matt, I see you dropping links in the chat. Do you think I don't know that Uncle O'Gremacy is real? Why don't you Google that Uncle O'Gremacy got ah discontinued because he was saying he was in the IRA. I didn't make that part up. The battery part was made up. but Wait, of the two parts? That's right. But it was, but it was, I think it was in Philadelphia. So that's where that came from. it's Okay.
00:09:30
Speaker
People could go look up the full story about the IRA. It was... That story is somewhat embellished. This, okay, this is a St. Patrick's Day show that you two are doing right now. But it's a go it's a ghost. So the the ghost of original Evil Grimace is here. The ghost of Uncle O'Grimacy is here. And he knows how to...
00:09:58
Speaker
Jerry Riga Car Bomb, so. Okay, so if you could name the other 997 ghosts just real quick, we can get through this and and and head on home. All right, Inky, Blinky, Pinky, Clyde,
00:10:17
Speaker
55 burgers, 55 fries. Matt, what are we doing for our special Halloween episode? we are We are going to be talking about... ah we're We're going to do a segment that i have but we have kicked around several different names for. As I originally thought of it, I was going to call it Thursday Night Bloody, but I don't want to confuse it with Thursday Night Raw because we are not talking about things that are raw. I want this to be very clear. What we are discussing is not raw moments from horror and otherwise spooky movies we have seen. perhaps Perhaps that would have been the smart and easy thing to do.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yes, but you don't watch horror movies. And you had one specific thing you wanted to talk about, that's true which is not raw. So instead, I thought we could call it can't unsee. Because the moments that I thought of are all ones that I'm like, I kind of wish I had never seen that. And then You suggested Haunted, which is good, but I think the title of too many other things. Then you said The Haunting of Ajax House, which I think is i think is good. Benito, right now, I'm dropping in a link to an Onion article that may have been the origin of the ah the Uncle O'Gribusy IRA thing. Okay. Oh, man. Was Uncle O'Gribusy around in the 90s? No, he was around in the 70s.
00:12:00
Speaker
Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah. All right. I can't believe you guys are going to make me go to my own grunge profile to look at my final published piece for the static media family of websites. The real reason these popular fast food mascots vanished.
00:12:19
Speaker
Let's see. The IRA thing, I think, may be apocryphal and may have originated in that Onion article. ah that it's proud It's probably not real, yeah but ah let's see. Uncle O'Grimacy disappeared by the mid-80s, most likely as part of the streamlining of the McDonald Land's character characters, but a second, much less likely, theory has also been put forward. The legend, which despite being popular, has no tangible evidence to back it up,
00:12:46
Speaker
is that in the 1980s, an actor dressed in an uncle of grimacy costume and making public appearances in Philadelphia began making comments in support of the Irish Republican Army and anti-British paramilitary group. ah This story is almost certainly a joke that took on a life of its own, but nevertheless, McDonald's has said it has no plans to bring Grimace's magically minty uncle back anytime soon. so they could Maybe they could bring the six counties back. How about that?
00:13:10
Speaker
ah Anyway, I think i think it originated. I feel like maybe we should start over. This is such dicey territory we had jumped our way into. I think it's all bangers so far. I think it is 13 minutes of bangers. I think it originated with that Onion article and then somehow got picked up in actual news sources. Could very well be. Because it has appeared in actual news sources since then. Anyway,
00:13:37
Speaker
That's the information of the internet age, the truly scary thing. Boy oh boy, I lived through a hurricane where people were saying that the airspace over Asheville was closed when I heard a helicopter fly over every five minutes. Look at who's fancy over here knowing about helicopters.
00:14:03
Speaker
I saw a helicopter. Okay, man. I didn't say I saw a helicopter. I said I heard a helicopter every five minutes. And people were saying the airspace was closed because of Joe Biden. Joe Hussein Biden. That's right. All right. Let's talk about these moments from movies that we can't forget. The origin of this idea was Chris A topic that we have talked about many times before, i think all like yes I think on this show and elsewhere, I remember walking through the Mall of America with you and talking about this for a long period of time. Quite some time, yes. The scene in Ghostbusters where Dan Aykroyd, as Ray Stantz, gets a BJ from a ghost. I thank you for making sure to
00:14:58
Speaker
give the distinction between the man Dan Aykroyd and the character of Ray Stans. Although I do feel like this is a distinction without difference in this particular instance. is isn' it and Okay, do you know do you know the background of this scene at all, Chris? Have you researched this? Is there some kind of no pun intended oral history of this scene?
00:15:26
Speaker
ah No, I I refuse to do any research but krista i kind of what i'm on Chris does have a ah head cannon of of ah no one but is Okay, yeah, all right. All right a head cannon of how this scene originated That's very good man, no, like i I always assumed it was a like a holdover from an earlier draft of the script and that they filmed and then decided, let's put let's keep this in this movie that we're gonna just show on television to children. yeah um well And make a cartoon of? Yeah, that scene is ah the weirdest one in the whole cartoon series. I can't believe it's in the pilot. It's with Lorenzo music. If you've ever wanted to hear Lorenzo music,
00:16:20
Speaker
believe i can so learn some music was peter but i know he was peter know he was peter If you ever wanted to hear Arsenio Hall, more he was but he was Ray, right?
00:16:34
Speaker
the pedantry trap is closing in either um According to this article on decider, which quotes, uh, Ghostbusters, the ultimate visual history, Harold Ramis, uh, said that, uh, it yeah, it was basically the vestige of a former draft where the idea was, uh, Ray was going to have a love interest, a ghost, a woman who's been dead for a hundred years, but the scene was too long and it was in the wrong place in the film. So instead of cutting it out. Yeah. They left. theyise it inexplicable Let's leave in the part where Ray just get, gets a beach from a ghost.
00:17:25
Speaker
Right. And so, well, so what I, what I meant to get to when you were distinguishing Ray from Dan Aykroyd, I was going to say chances are very good that it's there because Aykroyd says that that happened to him in real life. But here it didn't Dan, know here's here's the quote. Here's the quote from Dan Aykroyd.
00:17:51
Speaker
So he says, I don't miss anything that we didn't use. The ghost in the fort, the seduction ghost, in paranormal research, that's a common thing. Ghosts doing sexual things to people. I have a friend who had three women visit him in a haunted house in Louisiana, and it was one of the greatest nights of his life. But in under two hours, you obviously can't have everything.
00:18:11
Speaker
i have a friend this happened This really happened to a friend of mine. Yeah. It says Dan Aykroyd. You know what? on one have I don't know if you guys have watched the new American version of Have I Got News For You on CNN, also on Max. I've seen a handful of clips. um First of all, it's very funny, but there is 100% an episode where Roy Wood Jr. explains Not that he had sex with a ghost, but that a ghost haunted him while he was having sex with an alive woman, because it was the ghost of her um former husband.
00:18:55
Speaker
so Okay, CNN getting wild over there. Yeah, they have to put a disclaimer at the beginning that's like, this isn't really CNN. Okay, a few bits of information.
00:19:07
Speaker
to add to this. One, the voice of Ray Stance on the real Ghostbusters cartoon was Frank Welker. Frank Welker, i could I could have guessed that. So if you wanted to hear the voice. Some people go to haunted houses and they and they have ah the greatest night of their lives. I'm in a haunted house getting nit-picked to death by you two. Frank Welker, if you wanted to hear the voice of Fred from Scooby-Doo. Yeah.
00:19:35
Speaker
ah ah havoc having an O face from a ghost. ah That's what would have happened on the cartoon. Arsenio only voiced Winston for one season for one year. Is that right? And then ah and Dave Cooley was on it, right? But did did he take over for Lorenzo Music? He took over for Lorenzo Music who only voiced Peter Vinkman for one season.
00:20:04
Speaker
Well, talk about a dude who is haunted by a BJ. No kidding. Yeah, but I think I think it's one of those likes. The way they used to do cartoon seasons were like once the first season is like 64 episodes. It's very long. It was very long. Yes. Yeah, that man, the animated series was the same deal. The thing about the cut, like, the way we view that scene in Ghostbusters, like, look, it's inexplicable.
00:20:32
Speaker
Don't get me wrong, it's so weird that that's in there. But I think it's especially weird for us, because we saw that movie as kids, and thus think of it as a kids movie, despite it not being a kids movie. It's not a kids movie, but it is one of the, like, movies?
00:20:56
Speaker
I wish they were still making cartoons for babies based on hard R movies like they used to. Yeah, that was definitely a hallmark of an 80s childhood was watching cartoons based on stuff like movies that you would not be allowed to see, or at least not in my household. Where's that megalopolis animated series? i have a a Another example of a scene from a movie, an R-rated movie that got turned into a cartoon I'll bring up later in the show.
00:21:36
Speaker
yeah it's like We think of it as a kids movie, not just because we saw it, because it came out in a time when all of us were children, but also because there are there are action figures, there are toys. Yeah, I mean, so like i was very I was very young when the first movie came out, but I mean, I did watch the the cartoon, but I was like exactly the right age when Ghostbusters 2 came out to be,
00:22:06
Speaker
really into um those little keychain ghost killing machines that they gave out with the kids meals at Hardee's. Yep, I have one of those. Yeah, I legit thought those things could fight a real ghost. um Which ah you have spoken before, I believe, on this show and on the show that you and I do ah together. But I don't know if you've talked about this on the show that you and Matt do together.
00:22:34
Speaker
ah But we know you've had ghost encounters when you were yeah when you were a child. Primarily at church, yeah. Yeah. And that's where I would carry around my my ghost sapper from Hardee's, and that's not a joke. Yeah, yeah no, I get it. I get it. I went to go see Ghostbusters 2 at the theater as a child, and it terrified me. It freaked me out one specific scene.
00:23:04
Speaker
where, um, Vigo... Ray Stans is laid as laying on a bed. The part where Vigo the Carpathian gives Ray head. Yeah. Uh, no. And boy, what a head on that guy. Am I right? Got a huge head, that fella. Uh, no, it's the part where Vigo the Carpathian, you know, like Peter McNichol is his little, like, lackey. His Renfield? Yeah. There's a part where he, like, zaps him with energy from his eyes and like kind of electrocutes him. And that freaked me out so much as a four year old or whatever I was. And we had to leave the move. We had to leave the theater. Oh my God. Oh wow. Yeah. Uh, it was, it was bad, but here's the thing. We can't make children's cartoons out of R rated movies.
00:24:03
Speaker
because now we make things that are for kids into R-rated movies. That's true. I guess that is the the way that that it has gone. like The R-rated movies of 2024 are fucking Deadpool, The Wolverine, and Joker 2.
00:24:23
Speaker
you know like We went in the opposite direction as we got older. Yeah, i was I was trying to think of a funny R-rated movie that I could make that joke about and honestly, Megalopolis was the only one that came to mind. Challengers? You guys didn't watch the Challengers cartoon when you were growing up?
00:24:50
Speaker
that's That's where my love of tennis came from. Yeah. Like, they don't make are rated action movies anymore. They're all PG-13 because they want as many people as possible to see them. Yes, I think you're right. Although I think that and i think that as part of that Has been the development of I don't love the name but I can't help but call them violence movies so I think there is like. Because there I talk about them a lot because it's a genre I like and it's horror adjacent but it's not properly horror right but it's a a movie where you're going to watch but it's not a sanitized action.
00:25:33
Speaker
thriller, you're going to see some violence happen, right? Like the, like Sisu would be an example or or like, uh, the raid, the raid or any number of like, uh, Timo Johanto movies like tonight comes for us or his new one, which I haven't even seen yet. Um, but, uh, yeah, exactly like that. So like the only R rated movie franchise that could believably be made into a cartoon is John Wick.
00:26:01
Speaker
I would watch the shit out of a Wick cartoon. What's the ah guy who did Eon Flux? Peter Chung or something like that? Do a John Wick cartoon in that style? Give me Keanu phoning in PSAs about not playing in abandoned refrigerators. It's definitely going to be a voice actor doing a Keanu impression. Yeah. Yeah, I know.
00:26:32
Speaker
like Like I would love, like I miss those days. Where- Hey, was there a Hellboy movie this year? There was. Yes, it came out a couple of weeks ago. i haven't seen I haven't seen it yet. It made no waves whatsoever, but it's an adaptation of The Crooked Man.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, it was in it. um Basically, nobody you would have heard of. um It's much lower budgeted even than the the last one from 2019. What I've seen about it is that Hellboy fans are enjoying it, but it with its lower budget and production values, it looks more as if it were filmed as the pilot for a Hellboy TV show rather than like a full feature film.
00:27:14
Speaker
Wild. yeah yeah Anyway, can we get back to talking about how fucking bizarre it is that Dan Aykroyd gets a beach from a ghost in that movie? And that they leave the entire sequence in there?
00:27:29
Speaker
So and it's like part of the montage of like it's part of like a musical montage ah of them like learning how to be good at fighting ghosts, right? Yes. Yes. Was it just that they had that line in the song where it's like you've had a dose of a freaky ghost and they were like, we need to show the freakiest ghost. I thought for sure you were going to say bust and makes me feel good because well I guess we do see him bust that that line so upsetting where that line would be in the song is during that scene is during that little bit of the montage. Did Ray Parker know
00:28:04
Speaker
but that that was going to happen in the movie. The script that he got, when they when they gave him a script and a copy of ah Huey Lewis's I Want a New Drug and said, make us a song fraud for our ghost movie, did the script that they give him have a freaky ghost who makes you bust? ah so Strangely, that's actually the only page of the screenplay they gave him.
00:28:30
Speaker
These are important questions. What did Ray Parker Jr. know and when did he know it? Here's what I will say about this. And then we can look. His one condition was he's like the person who gets the blowjob has to be named Ray after me. and So we renamed Steve Stans.
00:28:51
Speaker
yeah
00:28:54
Speaker
ah here's here's Here's the thing, you guys. It's never mentioned in the rest of the movie. Nope. And if that happened to you, like it did to Dan Aykroyd's liar friend,
00:29:17
Speaker
you would like, like we would know about it. I would never tell anyone. I would never tell anyone. I would call specifically you two immediately. it's all that That whole scene where Ray and ah Winston talk come about like the nature of good and evil in the car, that in real life that would have gone way different. You'd be like, Winston, I understand you're feeling anxiety, but let me tell you about what happened back at the firehouse. You're never going to believe this. Well, Chris, your theory about that scene was that Dan Aykroyd wrote it into the movie because Dan Aykroyd wrote the movie. Yes.
00:29:53
Speaker
to make him seem like a cool guy. ah
00:29:59
Speaker
I don't know if I believe that, though, because I think if he was a cool guy, he wouldn't have made a silly face. Yeah, he wouldn't have like done that big cross-eyed O face. yeah That's right. That's right. Because is it that you thought he thought it like that was the funniest thing he was capable of? Yeah, that's so that's probably what it is is he was like, what if I would like What if I ah do my O face? My O face because it's a ghost.
00:30:29
Speaker
oh ah like He thought that shit was hilarious and they kept it in the movie, even though they axed the entire subplot because he thought that shit was hilarious. And as a kid, you're like,
00:30:43
Speaker
as When did Ghostbusters come out? 84? 84, yeah. 84? Okay, so I would have seen it on TV when I was probably three or four years old.
00:30:56
Speaker
um Like, as a kid, you're not like, a ghost is S-ing his D. Well, that that wasn't in the TV cut of the movie. Yeah, but Matt, I look, I don't want to brag because I I did grow up poor, but there were a couple years where we had HBO. Oh, nice. Whoa. Nice. yeah i had I had a taped off of fucking ABC with commercials in it version of Ghostbusters that I watched all day. That's amazing. I'm actually, now that we're discussing it, I'm having memories of watching it with my family on TV. And I remember asking after the part where Peter gets slimed and he goes, whoa, that feels funky.
00:31:41
Speaker
I was like, mom, what's this funky mean? And my mom is sitting there like, how do I explain the word funky to a child? And she just goes, it means weird. He feels weird. He's like, thanks, mom. Yeah. I mean, that that is what it means. In the context, yes, that's right. I just guess I never got to a point where I asked her what mother puss bucket meant, I guess. i I just remember constantly repeating the line when they're when they first go to the abandoned fire station.
00:32:10
Speaker
where Egon says, this building should be condemned. And I just said it because it was a thing that Egon said. I just imagine child Matt walking into every building, solemnly turning to everyone present and going, this building should be condemned. Pretty accurate, pretty much what i but I did. I feel like But this moment has encapsulated the three of us as people in a way that we could not have more effectively done, in that Matt ahlat latched onto Harold Ramos dryly saying, this place should be condemned. You asked someone a question in order to expand your vocabulary.
00:32:57
Speaker
And I was like, oh man, Dan Aykroyd made a funny face. And then 10 years later, revisited media and was like, he's getting a fucking blowjob from a ghost. Yeah. I mean, what did you, I think when I finally saw Ghostbusters unedited, like on an unedited VHS or whatever, I was probably old enough to know what was happening in the Dan Aykroyd blowjob scene. Cause every time I'd ever seen Ghostbusters before that, it was the TV edit.
00:33:26
Speaker
So I didn't have that experience of like not understanding what I was seeing.
00:33:32
Speaker
wait's it's not even like It's such a weird experience because it's not like you like you don't... It's not one of those things where you don't know what's happening. I mean, you don't know what's happening, but you don't know that you don't know what's happening. You just think, oh, he's making a funny face. yeah He's probably scared of that ghost.
00:33:51
Speaker
I don't know why they did that close up of his belt getting unbuckled though. yeah that That ghost is doing something weird to his butt. That ghost is doing some funky stuff.
00:34:03
Speaker
ah um ah Now that's just making me think of when me and my friends saw ah Bill and Ted's bogus journey at the theater when we were kids and trying to reverse engineer in our brains what a melvin was i like they're not showing it but they keep saying it and it something bad downstairs something bad downstairs bad like in the root cellar yeah uh like in evil dead what is i mean i was about to say what if an evil dead ash got a bj from a ghost but that does kind of happen and
00:34:40
Speaker
Well, it kind of does happen in all three Evil Dead movies. A ghost does something much worse in the original. there is but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The original Ghostbusters is just a PG movie.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, but it's from before they added PG-13. Otherwise, I think it probably would have been PG-13. It would have been PG-13 after PG-13 existed. It's just wild the way media used to be. Yeah. um They would make cartoons out of these things and you can just have a dude like imagine if imagine if like there was a scene of fucking Captain America getting a beige from anybody from who Well, ah if if it's a human being, umla that's that's an R-rated movie. It would have to be something that was invisible or or ethereal to be similar to the Ghostbuster movie. Imagine if they did that scene in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yes. With the red ghost? Oh, no, with Invisible Woman. Well, it was the first thing I could think of that was comfortable that had an invisible character in it. Yeah. Sorry. I'm still thinking about if Arnhem Zola was trying to perform oral on somebody, would he do it like this or would he do it like this? Exactly. Would he use the camera head on his shoulders or the giant computer face in his torso? Well, only one of those has a mouth. Well, neither one is going to be very effective. Yeah. Only one of those has a mouth.
00:36:23
Speaker
i I don't know which one you mean when you say that. What that, what that robot torso do. While we're on, okay. While we're talking about things from the eighties that got turned into, let me call this one can't on here. I mean, we're, we're creating those experiences for people now based on our experiences from, from childhood.
00:36:51
Speaker
Somehow, I never saw Ghostbusters in its unedited form in my youth, but I did see Robocop. I assumed this is what you were going to talk about when you said... Okay, but what scene from Robocop do you think I'm talking about? I think you're talking about when the guy gets hit by the car. Yes, when the guy is melting. Not when the guy gets shot in the dick. When the guy gets shot in the dick is something I've thought about later. Yeah.
00:37:21
Speaker
and Can't forget but when I was a kid the scene I couldn't forget is when the guy is in the like toxic waste and he's melting and Then he gets hit by a car. It is just goop Like that visual Will never leave my brain It's the rest of my life. It's so great though Cause he's already like all fucked up in the toxic ways. He's like a, he's like a full fucking mutant and then they hit him with a car. It's the most Looney Tunes shit in the entire movie. It's full of Looney Tunes shit. Well, it's, it's, I mean, but I've talked about this with a lot of people in a lot of different ways. There are so many things in movies that like going back and watching them now seem totally cartoonish.
00:38:13
Speaker
But when you are a certain age of child, they are mortifying and they scar you. Like, I don't know how many times I've talked about the scene in Superman three where that lady sucked into the computer. Yeah. And then also think of how many people our age who are traumatized by Judge Doom and Roger Rabbit. Yeah. Yeah. but like That's intentionally really scary.
00:38:44
Speaker
e I mean, yeah. but Yes, because it struck me as like a weird subversion of the cartooniness because that's when the cartooniness intentionally becomes scary. Yeah. Scary but being cartoonish. but Right. you know i Well, Judge Doom, in terms of when he gets rolled over by the steamroller and then pops back up, or when he puts the shoe in the dip.
00:39:09
Speaker
I was going to say like when he when he does the reveal ah about and his ah his eyes pop out and he changes his voice. I always got the most freaked out by when he got for Marlene. It was always the shoe in the dip. For me, it was always when he got run over by the steamroller and then got back up. That's because ah Marlene has empathy.
00:39:33
Speaker
excuse matt
00:39:37
Speaker
I mean, the shoe in the diff is harrowing as well. i Don't get me wrong. But like, the melting guy in Robocop, I had just never like, I think like Toxic Avenger had already come out by that point, probably, right?
00:39:52
Speaker
ah but Yeah, by the time of the first Robocop. Yeah, I would think so. It's it's of that school of like, trauma gross out special effects.
00:40:05
Speaker
And I know that now and I could put it in that context now, but like back then I had never seen anything like it. The scene where he comes back up after we run over by the steamroller is like, it's again, it's that intentional thing of taking this thing that is so cartoony, but doing it realistically that is like,
00:40:33
Speaker
If you saw a dude get crushed with an anvil in real life, that would be really fucked up. Yes. I mean, I that that is kind of like, yeah, that's the point kind of the point of that in Roger Rabbit's like, he looks like a real guy who's been run over by a steamroller for a second until he goes full cartoon. ah Yeah, it's They really did go all out with the the Christopher Lloyd, Roger Rabbit stuff, but I watched Roger Rabbit so many times yeah that that stuff became nothing to me. Like it was, you know, I knew it was coming every time. You did you know, by the time a child is 10, he's seen over a thousand instances of a man getting run over with steamroller. It's true. It's true. it's This is what our society has become. That's why I'm introducing this legislation to ban steamrollers.
00:41:26
Speaker
Is Roger Rabbit at the center of the Venn diagram of the most watched, the most actually good, and the most technically impressive movie of all time? It's up there. Yeah. I mean, yeah. It's the special effects in Roger Rabbit, the like mix of animation and live action.
00:41:54
Speaker
is still, it still blows me away. Yeah. It's still incredible. And like, I have always wondered like, cause Roger Rabbit's popular. It's a, it's a beloved movie. It's a movie that everybody seems to like. And the fact that they didn't do like more movies like it has always made me think like, Oh, it must've been incredibly difficult. Like to the point of not being worth it.
00:42:24
Speaker
Because now we have like movies where people interact with shit that's not there all the time to varying degrees of success. But like it's not as good as it was in Roger Rabbit. You would think that I had would have read the ah the book that inspired Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Yeah, have you not? I haven't. It's called Who Censored Roger Rabbit. Yeah. And I only recently learned about the incredibly much darker ending of the book.
00:42:54
Speaker
what Oh, does he not blow himself back up after he gets run over with steamroller? Well, it's it's not the Judge June part of it. it's the It's the Roger part of it, which is that... um Well, okay. First, Roger wasn't framed. He did it. Oh, okay. yeah i My understanding is the book and the movie are pretty substantially different. They're pretty substantially different. But the ending of the book, who censored Roger Rabbit,
00:43:24
Speaker
Roger wasn't framed, he did it. And at the end of the book, he dies. Jeepers? Yeah. Well, to be fair, how is that any darker than um they actually did build the freeway? They did be build the freeway. And then cars, car culture ruined everything forever? Hey, the message of who framed Roger Rabbit? Layered. Layered in a way you wouldn't necessarily expect.
00:43:53
Speaker
Benito, what ah what and strange or horrifying moment from media stuck with you as a child? Yeah, so the first one I thought of when we were talking about this ah is yeah something, it was one scene that I saw, and but kind of by accident, because I was a kid. and ah It was the opening scene from the 1990 miniseries TV miniseries based on Stephen King's it um So I came out in 1990 I would have so depending on what time of year I would have I would have been eight or nine When that came out and I don't know Have you guys seen it either of you man with not Tim Curry? Yeah with Tim. Yeah, the Tim Curry one and also with ah You know ah
00:44:47
Speaker
ah John Ritter and Harry Anderson and some other smart people. As the adult versions. As the adult versions of the kids, yeah. I gotta say, that's a killer cast. It's ah it's a great cast. its That's a stacked cast. like Ultimately, I think that miniseries is kind of mid.
00:45:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's honestly I think yeah the two recent movies are also somewhat mid uh But um, but the cast is stellar. Yeah. Yeah, um But like so it would have been i'm i'm guessing uh part one aired on like a sunday night and then part two was on the monday night probably and so we it was it's very likely that my family and I were at somebody's visiting somebody after church on Sunday night. And so like parents would have been off talking and the kids were doing whatever and the TV was on in the background. And uh, before we were leaving, before we left, it started playing and the opening scene is like, there's a mom and she's on the phone and, but she had been doing laundry or something hanging up laundry to dry.
00:46:05
Speaker
ah The phone rings, she goes to get it. Her child is outside on a tricycle. um And so there's a whole thing you know showing the very Michael Myers-esque thing with the laundry blowing and then you see Pennywise and then the laundry blows back down. that but the the um and Then the mom comes back out and her kid is gone and all that's left is an overturned tricycle with one of the wheels spinning. and That was the part that to me was like terrifying because
00:46:37
Speaker
Like that was the indelible image for me was the was the upturned tricycle and uh, because I was just like what and I never and I didn't see The rest of it because we left like in the first commercial break and we went home and obviously I wasn't allowed to watch it um At that time, uh, I did later see it and I read the book as well because when I was like in eighth grade um, I got I don't i forget I I got some kind of award at school or something and my dad was like you can you can pick a book whatever you want and I was like I'll take it and you know it's it's like 1100 pages long yeah but I read it in like two weeks and then later when I was a teenager I I rented the like the two VHS set of the um miniseries and I watched it and I was like oh this is what I thought was scary
00:47:30
Speaker
ah yikes it's always it is always like weirdly scarier to just see like one bit of something totally out of context oh yeah yeah um and you know for certainly for me Then, and probably now, you know the idea of what you imagine yourself is scarier. And I think the one scene of you see you see the clown, then you don't see the clown, you see the kid, and then the kid's not there. And it's like, there's so much left to the imagination. That's so much scarier, and in my opinion, than the later parts. Yeah. um There's one bit I remember from that miniseries, because I never saw it all the way through either. I only ever saw like,
00:48:17
Speaker
little clips or little pieces of it. I maybe only ever saw like stuff in like ads for it. Yeah. But I remember there being one shot of Tim Curry as Pennywise. Of whom? Tim Curry. Thank you. As Pennywise with a red balloon with you know that red balloon that he always had. Yeah. And the balloon popped and like there was blood all over his face. And you know, it was TV, mini a TV miniseries amount of fake blood. So almost none at all, right? Yeah. But in my mind as a child, as a seven year old or however old I was, it was a horrifying image, you know, it was like, yeah, so much more blood than it really was.
00:49:13
Speaker
Yeah, and that was for me definitely one of those movies where until I you know, finally saw it when I was 15 16 I mostly and well until I read the book I guess but it was one of those where I only knew about it because the other kids at church did watch it and they were telling they would tell me what happened. Oh, yeah, there's that that also like I Had I had a moment like that with army of darkness Mmm, we're like Army of Darkness had come out. I went to a like a youth group meeting and this one kid at church was telling another kid about having seen Army of Darkness and trying to make it sound so scary and gory. when We've all seen that movie now and know it's a funny, fun movie.
00:50:01
Speaker
But like it created this image in my head of what Army of Darkness was for years before I ever actually saw it. Did I tell the story on here about my friends in high school who who would quote Army of Darkness all the time and then one day one of them brought in what they said was the screenplay for Army of Darkness?
00:50:18
Speaker
And it was like it was it was like three pages long and i was like i don't think this is it and they're like no this is this is the whole thing i was like they make movies from three pages that can't possibly be right um that's what young person it but it is high school that's called a treatment.
00:50:38
Speaker
I don't even think it was that. I think someone... I would believe that they that they made Evil Dead with a script that was three pages long. That could be true. um But I think it was just some it was three pages worth of quotes from the movie, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. and ah Because it was dialogue, but I was like, I don't think this is how they make movies. Anyway, Marty and Andrew, if you're listening, dumb.
00:51:07
Speaker
Well, Chris, ah do you have another example of a movie scene that stuck with you? ah No, but I did want to, since all three of us are old. Yeah, yes. We're we're elderly gentlemen now. And there is a a specific kind of thing that I don't think the that was not good, but that I do feel like the young people have missed out on. And that is VHS box art, which is bad in such a delightful and different way than movies, like thumbnails are bad. And I remember not wanting to walk down the VHS, down the horror aisle at the VHS store. Because Dr. Googles might get you.
00:52:00
Speaker
Dr. Giggles was literally the one I was going to mention. Oh, man. Thank you for stealing the thunder on that one. Well, sorry. but yeah did you did any Did either of you have a VHS box that was particularly memorable or scary? I remember the box for From Beyond that had the, like,
00:52:26
Speaker
white-haired guy whose face seem to be like of peeling off. Yeah that's actually so sorry I just because I wanted to look and see what some options were I googled horror VHS art and the first the first.
00:52:40
Speaker
ah Result is the from beyond box art that's why it's pretty memorable yeah yeah. ah For those of you who don't know the Dr. Giggles art, it is a shot of a doctor, ah which in some versions does have like laser eyes.
00:53:02
Speaker
I'm seeing a couple of these that have laser eyes, which I don't remember. oh And then it's like a shot of him like walking into a house with like a knife behind his back, which is weird because he's got a doctor's bag, which he would be able to have a knife it in and it's fine. um But it does have the tagline, which is among the greatest taglines of all time. The doctor is out of his mind. Amazing.
00:53:31
Speaker
There is something about the the orientation of a VHS box, where it's portrait instead of landscape, where like the image has to be in such limited context that I think it does make those images from boxes scarier.
00:53:58
Speaker
Like, the box art of Evil Dead 2, the VHS box art of Evil Dead 2, where it's the skull with the, like, human eyes in it. Yeah. Like, that's so much more terrifying than what Evil Dead 2 is, you know? Like, I think it's, I think it was intentional in many cases to, like, make those Boxes just as threatening and and oh, yeah scary as possible I mean, yeah, cuz I mean ultimately that's your advertisement for the movie, right? Like yeah, and I mean that's how you end up with They get gimmicky to like the I forget what the movie is But the one that's got like the motion sensor and it makes sounds when you walk past it. Oh, yeah um But you know, I definitely remember the box for 976 evil
00:54:55
Speaker
Yeah, it was like a, like a demon coming out of the phone. Yeah. And I think, I think on here, we talked about Ghoulies and the, the dude in the, the Turlet. Yeah. Yeah. I did not like that one. I did not like that one. The Ghoulies cover leads into my next, uh, movie moment. I'll never forget, honestly, actually, but it's not from Ghoulies, but it's a similar thing.
00:55:22
Speaker
So is it from critters? No, it is from. OK, so when I was in middle school. I remember going to this kid I know birthday party. I must have been in so I must have been in sixth grade. And I remember that birthday party being. One of the first times, if not the first time, like sheltered little Southern Baptist, Matt.
00:55:51
Speaker
was exposed to a lot of a lot of things, including like porno mags. like like The kid whose birthday it was had a much older brother who like had his like room. like The party was in the basement of their house. The older brother's room was also in the basement. And like the older brother had Cherie magazines and stuff.
00:56:21
Speaker
And the kid like went in and got them and brought them out. And ah you know I saw stuff I had never seen. And and also, we like watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'd never seen that before. And we watched a horror movie, an R-rated horror movie, which I was you know never allowed to do. And the R-rated movie horror movie we watched was Sleepaway Camp 2.
00:56:50
Speaker
and Interesting choice. Yeah. Not the original Sleepaway Camp, Sleepaway Camp 2. The one with Bruce Springsteen's sister in it. That's right. Yeah. And that movie has a scene where one of the teenage girls is killed by like being drowned, I guess, in an outhouse. And there are also leeches in there.
00:57:18
Speaker
And so there's a thing where like, she's coming out of the toilet of the outhouse covered in leeches. And that was too much for me. But I, I remember like, because I was at this party, I had to act like it wasn't too much for me. So I was kind of like, whoa, whoa, man. But like, in my head, I'm like flipping out.
00:57:46
Speaker
And it's a thing I thought about for days after that because it was like, like, you know, scary horror movie stuff, but also gross in a way that I was not anticipating.
00:58:01
Speaker
Man, um so i have I have a kind of similar one now that you mentioned that. My friend who lived on the street from me when I was in elementary school, um I think, yeah, they must have had HBO because if I would go spend the night over there, we would sometimes see what was on HBO. I definitely, the first episode I ever saw of Tales from the Crypt was at his house. um It was one with ah Danny DeVito uh and he plays this like gross guy and he gets a um yeah he plays the penguin but like um no this is like a a poem reader or something tells him about a certain woman that she'll inherit a lot of money and then she'll die and so he marries her and then the twist is uh
00:58:54
Speaker
she murders him and inherits his money. And then she dies in the electric chair. Uh, I may be misremembering some details, but that's the, that's the gist of it. So there was that, but but also one time we were like flipping through the channels and it was playing the movie, uh, class of Newcomb high, which is another trauma movie. Um,
00:59:18
Speaker
I think I told the story on here about one the time I made my dad rent Toxic Avenger and I watched 30 seconds of it before my dad turned it off. I feel like many people our age had that same experience. Yeah. I liked the cartoon again. I was good returning to that topic. I liked the cartoon. I had the action figures. I was like, I'd like to see the movie and literally 30 seconds in so many, uh, closeups on boobs and butts. And my dad was like, I don't think so. And he turned it off. And then later he was like, I watched, I fast forwarded through some more of that movie and no, that wasn't for you. And then I finally watched the whole movie like last year. And I was like, my dad was right. Um,
00:59:56
Speaker
it It is, of all the R-rated movies that got made into cartoons, the most unlikely and weird one might be Toxic Adventure. Yeah, very it could very well be. But so anyway, Class of Newcomb High is another trauma movie. We definitely didn't watch the whole thing, but i um but a couple of images from it have lived in my head to the point where I keep going, I should i should go back and watch it, because I think it's on, I wanna say Peacock probably. um I think most of the trauma movies are on Peacock. um The two scenes that really stick with me, and I worry that some like real trauma fan is gonna hit me up and be like, no, that's not even the right movie, idiot. um But the two the two scenes I remember,
01:00:35
Speaker
and are someone gets condemned to go to the gas chamber and they open up a door that is like, of course, helpfully labeled gas chamber. And um inside is just a big fat dude eating beans. um And he's going to die from of getting farted on by a fart. Oh, yeah right. Gas chamber. I actually happened to be a friend of mine. Yeah.
01:01:02
Speaker
and then um And then there's another one where like the main guy and girl are running around the high school and ah they decide to try and hide.
01:01:13
Speaker
in one of the classrooms and they find the door that is again, healthfully labeled sex education. And they open it up and it is just like a room full of beds. And they're like, eh? And they go in to have sex. Those are the two scenes I remember from class of Newcomb High. And so yeah, part of me wants to revisit and be like, what is that rest of the movie actually like?
01:01:40
Speaker
Did either of you ever have a moment where there was a scene that you distinctly remember from a scary or spooky movie that like was seared into your brain as a scene from a particular movie that you went back and watched that movie and is not there.
01:02:06
Speaker
I have definitely had that happen. I can't I could not name a a specific example for you right now But I have definitely had that happen. Well, there is I I have one definite example one clear example of It's it was a bit I remembered being in a Friday the 13th movie and It's not even like a scary scene or a particular scene That was bad from the movie But I remember that my my brother and his friend had like rented what I remembered as being a Friday of the 13th movie, but must have been something else. And the tape was in my family's living room for like a day before they were going to go return it to the video store. And just
01:03:05
Speaker
for the hell of it. Like I must've been eight or nine years old for the hell of it. And just cause like to catch a glimpse of what might be in one of these movies. I remember popping the tape in and just watching a little bit of the opening credits, like what had to be like 40 seconds of the opening credits. And in my memory, what it was was this like camera panning over like a table, like like a dinner table with a tablecloth on it, full of like rotting food.
01:03:43
Speaker
And i then I got freaked out and stopped it and took the tape out. And no Friday the 13th movie starts that way. Yeah. did Have you ever figured out what movie it was? No. I have no idea. Was it a trailer?
01:04:00
Speaker
I don't know. i like It seems like it had to have been a Texas Chainsaw Massacre or something. Could have been Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, but I don't remember how that one starts. yeah but like I didn't like it when I would rent a movie and I'd pop it in and they'd have some dang trailer for a horror movie before I got to watch what I wanted to watch and not be scared. Yeah, that's... I mean, those had to only be on R-rated movies, right? like I mean, Matt, i my parents were cool.
01:04:33
Speaker
ah Okay, all right now so now Memories popping to my head that ah things that scared me and have stuck with me when I was a kid and when I had to go ah i Yeah, I talked about how I had to go to the the church um after school and until my dad could take me home and I sometimes I would watch TV and And before cartoons um came on in the afternoon, they would show the color remake of Dark Shadows, the the vampire soap opera, and but also there was an anthology series called Tales from the Dark Side. And ah yeah and so, that side you know about Tales from the Dark Side? So the closing credits
01:05:21
Speaker
would be like panning across like the sun is setting behind a bunch of spooky trees and there'd be like a creepy voice like saying goodbye and then we'll return with tales from the dark side and like if I turned on the TV too early for cartoons I would definitely see that before uh I don't know comic strip or whatever which was the show I wanted to watch the most uh and I would get freaked out because definitely Again, it's like the simple image of the sun setting behind spooky trees is much scarier than any of the contents of any episode of Tales from the Dark Side. Right, because your imagination like creates whatever it wants to create as to whatever the show was before that. Yeah. And I feel like I feel like that is a thing. I mean, look, maybe there are kids now who still have that experience. But like,
01:06:22
Speaker
jim generally kids now aren't gonna turn on a TV and see the tail end of a show. Yeah, because I mean, everything's on demand now. Right. i mean they They might do what I did and see like the first minute of a horror movie before they get scared and turn it off.
01:06:40
Speaker
um But yeah, like there are certain like ephemeral things from the media of our youth. It just doesn't exist anymore. Like the VHS covers and seeing like the tail end of a of a TV show. ah That's part of why I feel like I saw the TV glow is such an effective movie. Cause I think it does capture that whole idea of like something you see as a kid
01:07:18
Speaker
being so much scarier and darker and more meaningful than it ultimately is. Like the scene where, as an adult, the lead character goes back and watches his favorite show. And it's- The Pink Opaque. The Pink Opaque. And it's totally different. Yeah. It's such a great scene in a movie. It's very much like if you were to revisit, like, are you afraid of the dark or something now as an adult? Yeah.
01:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, like the Pinko Bake is is very much Buffy, but also very much. Are you afraid of the Darker? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That movie's great. It's a great movie. Yeah. Anyone who listening to this who doesn't mind a spooky movie and wants to see Chris, I think you might actually like that movie.
01:08:08
Speaker
Yeah, i and so I've talked about this because it's like, obviously because of some of the thematic material in the movie, i've I had people asking me who would not normally be interested in seeing a horror movie um asking me, you know, is this too scary? Is this going to freak me out? And the answer is like,
01:08:30
Speaker
Probably not like in terms of what's on the screen, right? There's not there's not really on-screen gore. There's not there's some like creepy costume designs, but like The fear of it is not like shit jumping out at you It's the end of it. It's like you going have I wasted my life? Like that's a different kind of fear Great awesome. Sorry. Hey look It's a good movie. It's a good ass movie. and the answer And the answer is the answer is written on the road in fluorescent chalk at the end of the movie. um It's not too late. You know that I take...
01:09:10
Speaker
a handful of pills every morning to not experience that emotion. I i know i know how you feel about emotions, yes. um ah all likes a good one yeah Only the ones that are roughly this thing that's happening to me right now rules and the other ones you can take. her Why would I like other emotions? i don't I don't know. Why would I eat something besides filet-a-fish all the time?
01:09:34
Speaker
My point is, for people who are not normally horror movie people, who are concerned about things like gore or jump scares, don't worry about that. um You should check it out if you're interested in it. I think you can handle it. um I saw someone call it like... i we We were debating whether it was even a horror film, and I was i was like, every site agrees that it's a horror film,
01:10:02
Speaker
But he was like, no, it's like a not coming of age film. It's a coming of age film where you never come of age. And I was like, wild. they don't they don't have They don't have that as a tag on Letterboxd, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I think it is horror, but it is a type of psychological horror that, like,
01:10:25
Speaker
isn't gonna make squeamish people squeamish. it's yeah It's a different thing. The dysphoria monster that lives on the moon is maybe, right? like It depends, right? like what is your where Where is your brain at? like That might freak you out in a different kind of way. And so that's why I hesitate to say like it's not scary at all, but it's not scary in the traditional way that other horror movies might be scary.
01:10:54
Speaker
yeah it's It's great though, it's one of my favorite horror movies. of Oh yeah, it's it's definitely it's definitely in my top three for this year. yeah but why So have we have we done all of our things we can't forget? No. Okay, Chris. No, i am I am haunted by a litany of things, Matt. I think we've done about an episode's worth though.
01:11:24
Speaker
Fair, fair. if If there's not another one you wish to share, Chris, I would like to ask Benito about movie recommendations ah for for this year. Yeah, 2024 has been a good year for horror, in my opinion.
01:11:41
Speaker
um some pretty good stuff. ah Obviously, we were just on my I saw the TV glow, which is all I think it's on max now. So if you haven't seen it yet, it's definitely streaming somewhere. I can't remember what it's streaming. Let's see. Let's see if it's on Maxwell.
01:11:59
Speaker
ah It is on Maxwell. You're right. Yes. Um, let's see. I recently watched one that I really liked, um, called the Vordelach, which is a, uh, French, uh, vampire movie based on the same, uh, story that the Boris Karloff segment from black Sabbath, um, is based on. So it's, uh, about a ah father returning home to his, his kids having been transformed probably.
01:12:32
Speaker
into a vampire um it's really good I don't there's like a particular hook that I don't want to spoil because it's such a really good um moment ah definitely recommend that one um it's what's inside is kind of us sci-fi tinged thriller more than a horror per se although it's one that I recommended to Kyle Starks and he was texting me the whole time like I love this movie but i I'm having a terrible time watching it um because if you know Kyle he's weird about body horror
01:13:11
Speaker
And while I hadn't considered this as a body horror movie, it does include ah mind swapping as an element, and that was freaking him out. ah so So Kyle probably shouldn't see the substance, is what you're saying. that I am saying that. I also told Kyle not to watch VHS Beyond, ah which i ah VHS Beyond is pretty good. There's a couple segments that would make him lose his mind. Terrifier 3, super fun.
01:13:40
Speaker
um Yea, VHS Beyond, pretty good. ah There's a ah short, we'll call it, but it's about an hour long, on YouTube, um called Milk and Cereal. Cereal, like, serial killer. um That is very fun. It's just like... a couple of kids they're not kids they're like 20-somethings um and it's a it's ah basically it's found footage and it's about um two guys who have a prank based YouTube channel who are doing more and more extreme pranks to each other until it gets completely out of hand and it's it's really good I mean for something that someone made for $800 it's like
01:14:23
Speaker
really well made. So I do recommend that one. um this is all you This is a movie from last year. But Benito, you told me to watch it and I watched it and it was surprisingly good in so many ways.
01:14:40
Speaker
Yeah. it's And it's on Netflix, so you can you can watch it. it's ah It's Thanksgiving. Yeah. Which is an Eli Roth movie. Yeah, like which the good one. i don't know if yeah I don't know if I like any other Eli Roth movie. Nope. Not a single one. Nope. um but And yet somehow, Thanksgiving is incredibly fun.
01:15:07
Speaker
Like, the first cabin fever is... enjoyable in the way a fever dream is enjoyable. Yeah. Like, when that kid starts shouting pancakes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, that that is, like, a wild... we Talk about things I'll never forget. I'll never forget that kid shouting pancakes. Mm-hmm. In cabin fever. But that movie's not actually good. Thanksgiving is... like...
01:15:37
Speaker
shockingly funny and a good horror movie to boot. Like the gags in that movie that are also kind of like scary kills at the same time. Yeah. It's, it blows my mind that Eli Roth made it. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredibly balanced yeah in a way that it's very surprising. Yeah.
01:16:05
Speaker
You know how ah in Inglourious Basterds, the character played by Eli Roth, the Bear Jew? Yeah. Yeah. Was supposed to be Adam Sandler. Adam Sandler, yeah. And how, ah like, if you didn't know that was going to happen, and he walked out of that tunnel with a baseball bat, you would have lost your damn mind. Yeah. Yeah. I like that movie a lot. And that's still like, I'm mad that we don't live in that universe. But what what What is the the stated reason for al Adam Sandler not doing Inglorious Bastards? I don't know. I assumed like maybe he was just busy he making fucking grown-ups too. He was making grown-ups too, yeah. that' That's what I was going to say. Yeah. But like it's wild to me that Eli Roth made a good movie, made his one good movie, Thanksgiving.
01:17:04
Speaker
Which, ah so we watched, Marlene and I watched Thanksgiving at my mom's house while we were living at my mom's house while our house had no water. So it was already like kinda weird.
01:17:21
Speaker
ah And despite it being set in Massachusetts and having lots of Massachusetts references in it, it felt like Shelby, North Carolina.
01:17:34
Speaker
And we were like looking at each other every once in a while and being like, is this movie set in Massachusetts? Was it written by someone from North Carolina, which apparently not, but it felt oddly local, uh, in so many ways. Uh, but it's also weird that he made the his one good movie and then less than a year later, borderlands borderlands. Yeah. Uh,
01:18:04
Speaker
Yep. Arguably, he probably made Thanksgiving after he made Borderlands because Borderlands sat on a shelf for like three years. and That's true. but less Yeah, ah so I don't know like my faves from this year. We already mentioned I saw the TV glow um Oddity is one of my favorites ah Definitely see that if you want a more traditional like spooky um In a folklore vein um If you saw the movie caveat, it's by the same guy if you haven't you should see the movie caveat
01:18:36
Speaker
um I also really liked a movie called Strange Darling, which is kind of on the border of horror and violence movie like we were talking about. um and it does My recommendation there does get an asterisk. You can ask me about that ah ah offline, but it's an incredible looking movie.
01:18:57
Speaker
and Uh, it's, it's very cool. Um, so I do, uh, like that one a lot. Oh, if you want to feel bad, the devil's bath. That's, that's the feel bad movie of the year. ah So, um, yeah, no, I know you don't, but it, um, it's by the makers of, um,
01:19:16
Speaker
Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge and they made a new movie about the historical phenomenon of suicide by proxy. So check that one out if you want to um feel bad.
01:19:34
Speaker
Well, there you go. There's there's some recommendations about how to how to have fun or feel bad, which whichever you prefer. You can also go check out Benito's always invaluable list of movies to stream. Yeah, I made i made three lists this year. um Yes, there's the new screams to stream.
01:19:59
Speaker
Yep. List, which is the one I've been looking at. Uh, there's also horror for babies. Yes. Which is that's, that's a double meaning because it's for both actual young people looking for gateways into horror and also for adults who are afraid. And then there's also a list of movies that are set at Halloween. Yeah. Which may or may not be horror movies. See how it is. Yeah.
01:20:28
Speaker
One of the movies in the list of movies set at Halloween is a movie I will watch anytime I can, and that is The Guest. The Guest. Now, that's a violence movie. One of the best. One of the best. ah It's so good. so ah Benito, I don't currently have a shutter subscription, so I can't watch all of the movies on your list yeah as of now. But I'll tell you the ones I'm planning to watch before Halloween if I can make it happen. Abigail. Nice. ah Which is a ah about a little vampire girl. Yes, it is. And chris Chris, I think that one's one you would enjoy because it's definitely big over the it's it is ah it is army of darkness level of ah kind of in that vein. No pun intended. Okay.
01:21:22
Speaker
And then I also am gonna probably try to watch, I would like to watch Totally Killer, which I hear is very fun. Yeah, it is fun. ah But when Evil Lurks is one, I feel like I have to. Yeah, um amazing. And another one that will make you feel bad.
01:21:41
Speaker
But yeah you, but absolutely Matt for you, super recommended. It's, it's really good. Yeah. i It's, I, I have it queued up on Hulu. I just have to, to get it watched because we did, uh, we did Maxine, which I thought was fun. Yeah. And we also watched, uh, long legs, which I wanted to like a lot more than I did.
01:22:03
Speaker
like Long legs is ah is a very difficult one to recommend because everyone has an extremely personal reaction to it. and i I swear it's all just about what you think of Nicolas Cage's performance. I mean, that that's a big part of it. yeah um to To me, my reaction to it is I think the good stuff is good enough that I can overlook Don't not so good stuff in an incredible atmosphere. Yeah, it's really well shot. Yeah, it's got a cool kind of like Not totally explained hook which I can appreciate. Yeah, because if they over explain it that ruins it but Nicolas Cage is Playing a character from a different movie. He's just going so big and
01:22:54
Speaker
Yeah. Um, it's in in, in a different way than he has gone big in other movies. yeah It's not the same way he goes big in Mandy or the way he goes big in mom and dad or other movies like that. It's a completely different kind of big. It's honestly like I'm well, if I say this, I might talk myself into liking it. It's, it's as big as it's him going big. Like he went in wild at heart. Yeah. It's that kind of Nicholas cage. He's, he's,
01:23:24
Speaker
he's being showy big like acting Nicolas Cage. and And he's doing a voice. And he's doing a voice and he's like i i but I wonder if I would think the movie was more effective if there was like a little bit less of him. I feel like there are maybe a couple of scenes that they could have just cut. Maybe so. Although i one thing I applaud about the movie, I think is kind of the restraint they showed with his character in the marketing. And um even in the movie, the first actor, so of the movie itself, where they don't show his full face or anything. until I think the marketing maybe works against it because they they did that stuff in the marketing where they like, like pixelated out his face and stuff. Like, like the reveal of his face was going to be like,
01:24:16
Speaker
ah Unbelievable. Yeah, and and I mean they definitely hyped it up with it's like when Micah Monroe saw Nicolas Cage for the first time on the set her heart rate jumped up to 155 or whatever. Yeah, I mean I've seen a lot of people complain about the marketing saying that it was overhyped and I'm just like they've got to sell the movie.
01:24:37
Speaker
It's up to you whether you buy the hyper not like if if you see the commercial and it says the best serial killer movie since Silence of the Lambs and you believe that that's on you right like I mean they have to sell the movie sure but also like if you oversell it I think it is a fair Complaint to say it was oversold sure but on the other hand it was ah an enormous hit and so it you know it worked and um It's but my point is it's difficult to recommend right like because it's it's because people have had such um different reactions to it and In very strong ways, I think so yeah, I feel like when a horror movie gets really hyped and
01:25:29
Speaker
culturally, I tend to then see the movie and be disappointed. yeah Whereas if I hear like good like groundswell buzz from people I trust about, how yeah hey, this movie's really good, then I watch the movie and a lot of times that move when I see that movie, I'm like, yeah, that ruled. But I had the same reaction to the first omen. I heard all this good stuff about the first omen and then I go see it and like it's got the clunkiest connection, like prequel connection to the original movie you can ever imagine.
01:26:05
Speaker
ye um among other problems i had with that but like ah like weird fake outs and red herrings that like yeah that i mean that's true i think it gets a lot of credit just for.
01:26:20
Speaker
not being as bad as a 40 years later prequel could have been. It's well acted, and there's like it's like some of the scenes are good. Yeah, I think the weakest parts definitely are the connections to the other Omen movies. and um But as i've I've said in multiple places online, it's the same movie as Immaculate, so like pick one, but don't watch don't watch both. It's wild to me they're both on both on Hulu, um and you could log on and go, Hmm. I'll watch this one and this one. yeah just Pick the one you like. It's like, do you want to look at Sydney Sweeney? Then you should watch Immaculate. Exactly. Like, did you see Madam Webb and go like, I got to see her in more stuff? then Then you got to see Immaculate. Yeah. um All right. i think I think we've done it. We've done a Halloween special. Yeah. I'm back in the saddle after
01:27:20
Speaker
not living in my house for almost a month. Back and better than ever.
01:27:28
Speaker
Matt in the saddle again. Yeah. ah I'm Matt. I've said this in other places. ah here's here's the part where i get Here's the part where I get serious for a minute.
01:27:41
Speaker
I've said this in other places. What's that, Chris? Start the clock. Yeah. I've said this in other places on my Blue Sky and on the Ajax Discord and all of that. um But the the real truth of it is that ah you may not hear about Western North Carolina and Asheville on the news as much anymore. I think there is still stuff on the news about recovery and and all of that. um But you're going to hear about it less and less. And the people who live here are still going to be here trying to salvage their homes and businesses, trying to rebuild, trying to just get our basic infrastructure back. um We still don't have drinkable water and don't know when that will happen. So
01:28:38
Speaker
If you have the means and you're able to do so, then I would very much ask for you to go find the organization's local ah here in Western North Carolina to donate to. The biggest need right now is monetary contributions. um In fact, there are so many donations of things that there has become a storage problem here in Asheville where essentially they're begging people to go pick up supplies that are just sitting in warehouses continuing to pile up. So not that supplies are totally unneeded, but the bigger need obviously now is is monetary. You can donate to organizations like Beloved Asheville, like Man of Food Bank, um like other organizations that are providing help and assistance to people who need it.
01:29:37
Speaker
um There's also the Western North Carolina or the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund, which is very helpful. But also there are dozens of GoFundMe's for individual people who lost their homes and and have other needs. And I would ask you to to go find those and donate to those um because this city that I live in um is not is never going to look the same.
01:30:07
Speaker
And it's not going to be fully back to full recovery for a long time, probably years. So just keep ah keep us in mind. and And I was lucky enough to to get out of it with just some serious inconvenience.
01:30:36
Speaker
Um, there are a lot of other people who have had it a whole lot worse. Um, so, so help them out if you can. And that goes double for me.
Engagement and Support Platforms
01:30:47
Speaker
Bonito, before we wrap up, is there anything you would like to plug or let our listeners know about? Uh, yeah, sure. I mean, if you like hearing me talk about scary movies, um, the two best things you could do, uh, you could follow me on letterbox where I post my list, but also I post um reviews every time I watch a movie. um Usually short because if you want a longer form review for me you can get those on my Patreon. Patreon dot.com slash Benito Serino and a couple times a month I will post batches of horror movie reviews usually in groups of like six to eight depending on how many movies I've watched recently um and so if you want to find out what I've been watching throughout the year and basically get
01:31:34
Speaker
advanced warning of what's going to be on my list for Halloween. um If you want to see what the asterisk about Strange Darling is, it'll cost you one measly American dollar a month um to get access to the entire archive, so which at this point has got to be ah I mean, dozens, certainly, possibly into the hundreds of movie reviews for $1. But of course I have higher tiers where you can get other things. um And I have a shop if you want to support me without subscribing.
01:32:08
Speaker
um I have a shop where you can purchase PDFs of things I've done, including one I just added that is a translation I did of 12 medieval ah ghost stories from England. And if you you can buy that PDF um for $5, it is one that I translated from medieval Latin myself with annotations and everything. So um check that out. You can also see I've got some King Arthur stuff up there. I've got uh some christmas stuff i've got some kids books i did um those are all in the store so you can subscribe you can get a free trial period you can get an annual subscription you can also i have a free tier and where you can get updates from me uh for free so i'm trying to make it as easy as possible for you someone who theoretically cares about me to get news information updates and content
01:33:06
Speaker
Uh, for me, your friend Benito. Um, otherwise I'm also on blue sky. Benito's Reno dot B sky dot app. It's not social. Sorry, dot B sky dot social. And, uh, your podcast with Chris is a Paca pals. Your other podcast with me is friends till the end, which we will have to discuss the future of.
01:33:27
Speaker
I know. I assume you're just going to shift to an all talking shit about me format. ah that's That's right. ah If you want to support War Rocket Ajax, you can go to our Patreon, which is patreon dot.com slash War Rocket Ajax. ah We will thank our new Patreon supporters on the next episode, which will also be Ajax 700, which I guess we should come up with an idea for uh it may just be a regular episode folks uh but uh you can go support us there uh and thank you to everyone who does support us there on patreon uh you can get in touch with us in these ways you can email us at our email address which is war rocket podcast at gmail dot.com you can follow us on blue sky at war rocket podcast dot bsky dot social you can
01:34:22
Speaker
Hit us up on Tumblr, warrocketpodcast.tumblr dot.com.
01:34:28
Speaker
You can join our Discord, go to our Patreon, our Blue Sky, our Tumblr, ask us for an invitation to our Discord, and we will send you one, and you can join that community of War Rocket Ajax fans, which would be great. Our website is warrocketajax.com. It is every episode of the show we've ever done. warrocketwiki.com is the fan-run repository of all the information you could want or need about this show, War Rocket Ajax.
Creators' Work and Social Causes
01:34:51
Speaker
If you want to find me and my stuff, go to MattDWilson.net to find links to my comics, my books, my other podcasts, and my social medias. I just put Copernicus Jones Robot Detective up ah available to buy, finally, again, on globalcomics dot.com. ah So you can go get those first six issues of Copernicus Jones Robot Detective on globalcomics dot.com now. Chris, where can people find you?
01:35:20
Speaker
Everybody can find me by going to the-isb dot.com. That's got links to the stuff that I do, including the podcast I do with Benito, which is is back on its irregular schedule, baby. That's right. We should have a Halloween episode of that probably before Halloween, probably. Probably. Probably it's already up, maybe. By the time this goes up? By the time this goes up. Mm. Depending on what you say after we it stop on this recording.
01:35:50
Speaker
ah Wow, this sounds promising guys. This sounds really promising ah Thanks for listening everybody ah we hope you enjoyed this discussion of horror and horror adjacent things and how they suck with us it is good to be back I I don't apologize for my absence from the show because a natural disaster happened and i i I wish it hadn't happened, but i it is good to be back. ah And we'll see you next week with Ajax 700.
01:36:29
Speaker
That's right, everybody. Until then, do not forget Black Lives Matter. Trans rights are human rights. As are abortion rights. Drag is not a crime. Do not vote for Republicans. Cops aren't your friends. Vote for Kamala Harris and we love you.
01:36:48
Speaker
we We love you. Me too. I also love you.