Weirdhouse Cinema: Empire of the Dark

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe delve into the low-budget 1991 horror odyssey “Empire of the Dark,” starring Steve Barkett and Richard Harrison. When the gateway to Hell opens in Northern California, only Richard Flynn can harrow Hell itself to save his ex and stop an immortal cult.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
And this is Joe McCormick.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
As we've discussed before on the show, a great B movie,
or even a bad movie so bad it's a good
movie has to believe in itself. Absolutely. It has to
feature some mix of genuine talent, effort, and enthusiasm. It
has to leave you saying, man, look at what they
attempted or or look at what, at least in places

(00:39):
they actually pulled off. You know, there's always an audacity
to film. That a movie reaches any state of completion
and finds even a modicum of an audience is an
amazing accomplishment. And today's selection, I think is a testament
to all of this, because we're going to talk about
a film that is an amazing achievement, Steve Barquette's teen

(01:00):
ninety one Northern Californian odyssey Empire of the Dark.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
I mean, I want to burst into a round of
applause just hearing you say those words. This movie is
an amazing achievement. I absolutely loved it.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, yeah, I feel like this one exists excitingly somewhere
between nineteen nineties The Final Sacrifice and nineteen seventy nine's Phantasm.
It's much better in many ways than The Final Sacrifice,
and not on the same level as Fantasm as well.
But to me at least, it feels like a cinematic

(01:35):
world akin to those films, a low budget of cold
adventure set in rural or small town North America, in
this case northern California. I believe film near Redding, California,
and it centers around a non traditional action oriented leading man.
So in the grand tradition of Reggie Banister and zap Rowsdawer,

(01:56):
here we have Richard Flynn.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
I was thinking of Richard Flynn our party agonist. Here
is a cross between Rousedauer and Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman.
Don't you see that?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. There
were numerous times watching the film, or even before we
watch the Looking at Steels, where I was like, this
actor feels like a character from Mister Show.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yes, yes, and we get to see him in this
movie with and without a mustache. I don't know which
way Steve Barquette goes in real life. But in the
movie he looks so disturbing without the mustache. It's like
his soul is disfigured by not having the mustache on
his face.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Oh, I wouldn't say that, but he wears a mustache.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, yes, no, that's what I mean. I don't mean
to insult the not I'm just saying like he was
born for this mustache. The character was I can't speak
because he disappears into the role. Who knows what the
real Steve Barqutte is.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Like, Yeah, and as we'll get to like he's I
think he's really fun in this, Like his passion is evident.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
But again, at the same time, you know, not your
traditional leading man, and that's part of the charm of it.
I found at least one review on letterbox where someone
was like, I love this film because the hero reminds
me of my dad.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
There's like action dad energy here. Oh yeah, And it
makes sense as well, because it is a father and
son efforts.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
As full discuss one might speculate. And I don't want
to try to psychoanalyze Steve Barquette because again I don't
know what was going through his mind. But you could
read this movie as someone trying to grapple with feelings
of both love and ambivalence about fatherhood.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, yeah, the the deep read on Empire of the Dark.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yeah. But also a lot of sword fighting in there.
That's a major theme as well.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yes, yeah, and really fun sword fighting.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Again.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
I want to stress you know, this film we're you know,
we're gonna have some fun with some aspects of it.
And it is a film that definitely has a cult following.
Is often described as so bad it's good, but a
lot of stuff in this film is just good. It's
just very entertaining. Like a lot of passion went into
making it, and you can in that passion just shines
off the film.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
It has the the zesty flavor of a small town
film production, like a labor of love. Again, I don't
know if how accurately that would really describe it, but
this is not one of those B movies that is
made by like disinterested, workaday professionals from the LA film industry,
you know, sort of the second or third tier down there. Instead,

(04:29):
it is a B movie made by passionate and exceptional amateurs. Yes,
the cast feels like it's full of those people who
are like beloved small town characters people friends would describe
by saying, oh, she should be in the movies. Yeah,
you know, you can just imagine like people saying that
about all the people in this film.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, yeah, with a few people here and there that
have different Hollywood backgrounds, but yeah, a lot of locals,
a lot of local energy here.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
But yeah, there are so many ways this fun amateur
film energy manifests. One is, if this makes any sense,
the in multiple scenes, the implausible sexual tension between characters.
This just like doesn't really make sense, but it's there.
Another one is the way almost all the characters in

(05:21):
the movie are presented as legendary in some way. It's like, oh,
Steve Flynn, there was never a better detective than him,
except Eddie Green there is never a better detective than
him either, and they're best of friends. And oh, in
zoup An, he's just like the greatest psychic there ever was, Like,
you know, it's like everybody's the greatest.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Well, you know, it's late. It's like dungeons and dragons.
You know, your your adventuring party should be made out
of be composed of exceptional individuals, and thus we have
exceptional characters in Empire of the Dark that are wrapped
up than this occult plot.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Like I'm thinking about the scene where we first see
Steve Barquette practice sword fighting with his sword fighting constructor,
which itself is it's a great scene, but they just
kind of throw in there. It's like, oh, by the way,
my friend, the character you haven't met yet, he's also
gotten really good at sword fighting. They just like and
throw that in there so that like later when he's
also gonna sword fight, it'll make sense.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, I think one of the great things about this
film is that, you know, there are a lot of
films with similar production values that are they're very much
in the exploitation domain. You know that they're on some
level that they are going after what can what are
people going to pay for? You know, what's what's what's hot,
you know what's grizzly or sexy enough to sell. And

(06:40):
you know this film has some gore in it, and
it has a little bit of a little bit of
sexual tension, as he already referenced, But on the whole,
it's the passion that shines through. Like like like Barquettes
set out to make a film with a lot of
sword fighting in it with a King Kong style monster
in it, like all the things that he loves, Like
it's a pyramid of his entry.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
The King Kong style monster. He is so excited to
show you this monster. Halfway through the movie, I think
he forgets the rules he established at the beginning, like
that it can't escape into the world yet. Yeah, because
we have a scene where it comes out into the
world and then they just go back to the cave
and it's like, I don't know, will the monster be
set free?

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (07:21):
No shade. But it reminds me of like playing action
figures with my daughter, you know, like when you get
really excited about what this one's gonna do. Oh, what
Wolf can do is you know, you set out some
rules in the beginning, but then you just get so
carried away you can't really follow them.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, an almost childlike enthusiasm for sure. All right. I
do not have an elevator pitch for Empire of the Dark.
It's really hard to nail it down and condense it
in a way that refers to other films.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
In a world where Hell is real and that people
have secret sons, one cop will go to Hell to
solve some problem.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
It works for me. It works for me, all right. Likewise,
I don't know that this film ever had a traditional
trailer of any sort. But let's let's go ahead and
play just a little bit of audio to give you
just a taste here.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
Wow, Angela, Angela, Angela.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
All right, if you would like to see Empire of
the Dark before proceeding with the rest of the episode,
or you want to check it out later or rewatch it,
maybe you saw it in the past. Well, it's available
for streaming in various locations Legit streaming locations, and you
can also pick it up on Blu Ray from VCI Entertainment.

(09:12):
This is the disc you have, right, Joe.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
It's a three disc collection, so it's a It comes
with a Blu Ray disc, a DVD, and a bonus
disc that has got I think like commentary and extra
features and stuff. I haven't gotten into all of the
bonus features yet, but it's loaded up nice and the
four K transfer looks great. I mean, this is I

(09:34):
don't want to oversell it. You know. This is not
like a Terrence Malick film or something. It's not like gorgeous,
but it it is not ugly. It is not it
is not drab and boring to look at, like, they
keep the frames mostly colorful, the shots are I mean,
there are some shots that are composed in funny ways,

(09:55):
but they generally keep it visually varied and interesting. Like
I've noticing how many of the sets have just like
random color variations in them. It's like they're trying to
give you something for your eyes to enjoy.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, I can't wait to discuss so some of the
more breathtaking sights in this particular movie. Yeah, all right, Well,
let's get into the cast and the crew here, starting
at the top with Steve Barquette. He plays Richard Flynn,

(10:31):
but he is also the director, the writer, the producer
or one of the producers. He's the editor, He is
a fight and sword choreographer, and he is a stunt man.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
I'm just expecting it all expecting in the credits to
see Steve Barquette catering. Come on. Yeah, it's almost like
Neil Breen levels of all over the credits.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
So who was this guy? Well? He lived nineteen fifty
through twenty twenty three, born Stephen of Fayad Barquette in
Oklahoma City and was a film fan from an early age.
Collecting and obsessing over classic Hollywood cinema. Clearly he was
a fan of King Kong. Again, this film features a
King Kong style monster, and I assume the kitchen scene

(11:18):
or the kitchen that factors into a couple of different
scenes in the movie had to have been his kitchen,
because you also see I think a King Kong poster
of some sort of King Kong merch that is proudly
displayed again in the kitchen.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
Speaking of his merch, did I tell you that when
I was watching part of a video interview with him,
he has the exact same attack of the Crab Monster's
poster in his office that I have in mind. I
felt a real soul connection there.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, yeah, get I get that he was a big fan.
I saw I found a nineteen seventy film interview he
conducted in Tulsa with the actor Buster Krabby. This would
have this is a guy that played like Flash Gordon
and some of the old ceials, and they were talking
about the old serials. But this is like noineteen seventies,
like black and white TV, and he's the guy doing

(12:03):
the interview. Okay, And of course it's clear that he
was also a big fan of swashbuckling pictures because a
lot of swashes buckled in this film, especially in the
last quarter of the picture. So his first film credit
was a nineteen seventy three short film written by Ray
Bradbury called Night Collar. Not sure if this ever saw
the light of day, but it's listed in the well,

(12:27):
it's listed on the databasis, and it's also referenced in
his obituary. He apparently learned more about film when he
was able to visit sets and post production activities at
family friend Danny Thomas's studio, so he get a little
behind the scenes action, got to see how the sausage
was made. And then beginning in nineteen seventy eight, he

(12:47):
started working on this movie that would become The Aftermath.
He wrote it, directed it, starred in it, produced it.
It's a post apocalyptic adventure which also featured Sid Hague
and Lynn Margulis. This was Andy Kaufman's partner late in
his life, and then came Today's Picture nineteen ninety one's

(13:08):
Empire of the Dark fantasy horriswashbuckling adventure Yarn And after this,
according to his obituary that I read on Gold Country Media,
he left Hollywood. Not sure if this means he left
the actual geographical Hollywood or if he left Hollywood in
a spiritual sense, but he apparently kept touch and kept
in touch with his various Hollywood friends and acquaintances, and

(13:31):
so he continued to help out with smaller acting and
behind the scenes roles, particularly on the films of friend
fred Olin Ray, who is also one of the producers
of this film. Fred Olin Ray, I think he's come
up in passing before in the show. We've never talked
about a fred Olin Ray picture, but he was a boot.
He's a B movie director who directed such films as

(13:52):
nineteen eighties The Alien Dead, nineteen eighty three Scalps, and
nineteen eighty eights Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers. I apologize, I'm gonna
end up mentioning Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers a few different times
as it connects to other actors in this film.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
That is the kind of movie I associate mainly with
fred Olin Ray, kind of like a sexy lady robot
that kills you movies.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yes, yeah, that's that's the sort of picture that I
knew him mostly from making. But it was weird. I
was catching up on, well, what's what's Fred Owen Ray
been up to? And he's still making movies and it's
a weird mix of mostly feel good Christmas romances like
legit like not like, Oh, it looks like a Christmas romance,
but then the ladies come out with chainsaws. No like.

(14:36):
He seems to be making just a ton of just
straight up feel good Christmas movies with only the occasional
horror movie thrown in the mix.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Oh there's another guy. I forget the guy's name, but
I discovered him by accident a few years ago. There's
a guy who makes like feel good Canadian Christmas movies
and just like like disturbing horror films.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
It's kind of I mean, he's coming back to exploitation
cinema to a certain extent. Like what do the people want?
What will they go for?

Speaker 5 (15:04):
Well?

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Will get their juices running? You know? Sometimes the answer is,
you know, it's it's bikinis and splashes of blood. Other
times it is romance during the holidays involving a prince.
So that exploitation energy, that that sort of Carnie vibe
can take you just about anywhere. So Barquette worked on

(15:25):
the following Fred Olnray films, eighty nine's Beverly Hills Vamp,
ninety one's Wizards of the Demon's Sword, ninety three is
Dark Universe, ninety fours, Dinosaur Island, ninety five's Bikini Drive
in Hard Bounty and Attack of the sixty Foot centerfolds
and and and also Droid Gunner, And also nineteen ninety
six is star Hunter, which is a Predator knockoff I

(15:47):
think Invisible Mom from the same year, Masseus from the
same year, and finally wrap it Assault in ninety seven.
So again, when you're really busting out these b movies,
it's you know, it's multiple per year, like it's this
is you know, Roger Korman energy, or at least as
much Roger Corman energy as a normal human conmuster.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
It sounds like a lot of posters with machine guns
on them.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yes, yeah, though I do want to stress that, like
fred Olin Ray movies, they're not all the same. Some
of them actually, some of them have pretty good casts.
Some of them are a little more clearly in the
exploitation bucket than others. There's a lot out there, and
I certainly haven't seen them all. One more note about
fred Olin Ray I only learned today that he was

(16:28):
also an indie pro wrestler in the late nineteen nineties.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
I had absolutely no idea until you shared this with
me and you linked a clip show and Machi's in that.
It doesn't look like top level wrestling, so you said,
indie pro wrestler. This seems like more small events and
local kind of things.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, this would be like gymnasiums and National guardener armories
that sort of thing. But in this clip, fred Olin
Ray wrestling as Freddie Valentine. He gets in there occasionally
with the likes of Terry Funk and sab So guys
were very much indie legends of the day.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
There's a lot of special effects involved. There's like people
they slam their head on a table and sparks shoot
off of it. I don't know what that's about. And
then he's in the ring with an alligator.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know about the alligator. There's something
on his instagram about it as like an alligator death
match or something. I don't know. I can't even imagine
how the rules for that work.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
If you lose, do they make the alligator the champion
of the circuit.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
I don't know the alligator's wearing the belt in some
of those shots, So maybe the alligator was the champion
going in. I'm not sure at any rate. Yeah, this
is a fact. I feel like I should have known
given some of my interests, but this one was a
new one for me. All right, Let's move on through
the rest of the cast here. Okay, so we've covered
our hero, our hero, Richard Flynn played by Steve Barquette.

(17:50):
Then we have a character named Terry Nash. We'll learn
this is possibly Richard Flynn's son, and it fittingly he
is played by Christopher Barkatt, who is Steve Barquette's actual son.
It's a beautiful moment of father and son bonding on screen.

(18:12):
And Christopher had also acted as a child in the Aftermath,
the previous the postbocalyptic film that his dad did, on
which he is also credited as a model builder. And
in fact, I've found an image here and I believe
this was shared by Christopher himself, where you see him
as a child hanging out with the various sets and

(18:34):
some toy dinosaurs from the Aftermath.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
In Empire of the Dark. Much like his father, he
wears a notable mustache and they almost like use the
mustache to make it clear that, oh, this is your son.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
I love Christopher Barquette in this because while his father,
Steve has has an undeniable charisma about him and is
like clearly putting a lot of passion, sometimes almost too
much passion into a given scene, Christopher is clearly like
not a born actor, and I think I think he
knows it. You know, he went on to work mostly

(19:08):
I think in production design and as far as films go.
So he has a very green energy on screen, which
can be a wonderful thing in a movie like this.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
He is reserved, but it comes across as a kind
of nerdy little dignity. Yeah, yeah, it's nice, all right.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
And then playing Terry's mother and Steve's long lost love,
we have Tara Hendrickson. She plays a character Angela Nash.
Dates not public record for her, nor were they available
for Christopher Barquette. But Tara Hendrickson is a musician and
an actress who's appeared in a lot of TV shows
and in small supporting roles over the years.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
All right, let's talk about some of the antagonists. We get,
we got, we got a cult in this movie.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yes, and this is the character Arkham, you know, like
Arkham Asylum, and he is played by Richard Harrison born
nineteenth thirty five, a veteran international action star. I wasn't
that familiar with this guy, and I started digging into
his filmography and it's so incredible. It just takes you everywhere.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
I really got it in my head that this guy
had been in one of the Ninja movies we watched
last year when I watched Ninja three The Domination, but
he was not in it. I checked. He just seems
like he would have been in it. It would be
a safe.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Bet because he was in a lot of Ninja movies.
So he started out in the nineteen fifties in the
US as kind of a handsome, muscular bit actor, you know,
appearing I think more or less in the background in
films like nineteen fifty eight South Pacific. He pops up
in the nineteen sixty one Vincent Price film Master of
the World, but he was quickly lured overseas to the

(20:50):
wild world of Italian cinema, where he started appearing in
various peplam, spy and spaghetti westerns, including four different Myrtle
Lindsay films, including nineteen sixty four's Messalina Versus The Son
of Hercules. He stars as what is it Glaucus in this,
who I think was actually either like a minor sea

(21:12):
god god or the son of Minos and not an
actual son of Hercules. But you know, when you're doing
a nineteen sixties Italian film, you know it's all right
to ben the mythology a little bit.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
I just had to look up to see if Richard
Harrison was in the last Umberto Lindsay movie I saw,
which was a House of Lost Souls. It's sort of
Umberto Lindsay's take on the Shining, but I think massively
scaled down ambitions That one I remember being a kind

(21:42):
of a good laugh. But no, he's not in that one, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
I think He's mostly known for at least a couple
of different cannibal movies, not ones that we've covered on
the show before. But anyway, back back to Richard Harrison here.
He ends up branching out during the nineteen seventies to
become a truly international exploitation film star, appearing in European,

(22:06):
Hong Kong, Turkish, Filipino, and Egyptian films. These included the
nineteen seventy one Western his name was King opposite Klauskinski,
as well as the nineteen eighty Joe Domato film or
Gasmo Nero, along with so many ninja movies, Like I
can't even begin to describe how many ninja movies are
in this guy's filmography, including nineteen eighty five's Ninja Terminator

(22:30):
and nineteen eighty six is the Ninja Squad, both directed
by Godfrey Hoe and featuring Harrison in a red and
yellow Wholka Mania style ninja outfit outfit with a headband
that says ninja just so there's no confusion about how
he's coming to kill.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
You, uh pre labeled.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah, there's just so much wild stuff in this guy's filmography,
Like there's a nineteen eighty three Iranian comedy filmed in
Italy in which he plays President Grover Cleveland.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Oh, you can't make a comedy without Grove Cleveland.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
It's just wild. Like I saw part of an interview
with him where he was like, you know, I probably
probably did too many cheap films. I don't know if
that's possible. You know, working professionals, you got to be
in you got to be in films, and they can't
all be top notch productions. Was he in too many
CD and Ean F grade films? Maybe? I don't know.

(23:24):
But he also directed four films, including nineteen eighty six's
Tarraf Force Commando, and has various writing credits as well,
I think, on six different films, including fred Olin Ray's
nineteen eighty seven film Scalps.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
In this one, he plays the the cult big bad
who most of the cult activity is like his minions,
going out and doing stuff in the world. I think
I noticed that most or maybe all of Richard Harrisons
scenes are all in the same set. They're all in
that cave with the altar, making it seem like maybe
they shot him all around the same time.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
But I just had the one day and then they
have one photograph of the mountain of parking lot.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
God, that's right, Yes, the photo which might have been
at the studio parking lot.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yeah, But he's but you know, he kind of he
gives it as all. He's not holding back. There's like
a scene where he sort of makes out with a
bloody knife and he goes for it.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's probably the most seasoned actor in
the cast, and I think it shows and he was
clearly no stranger to films that might ask him to
sacrifice a victim or lick a bloody blade. He's like, yeah,
I'm down, let's do it all right. Moving on into
some more of the supporting staff here, and this is

(24:34):
where some of the fred Olin Ray connections are going
to really begin to surface. So we have a character
by the name of Madame Oleska, and she is she
has like a seer, she is aware of movements in
the supernatural realm.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
She has knowledge of the dark arts.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, and she is played by Don Wildsmith born nineteen
sixty three. She is a fred Olin Ray B movie
repeat player. Her credits include nineteen eighty six's Armed Response.
That's an example of one of the fred Olin Ray
movies that has a pretty strong cast. I haven't seen it.
I can't speak to its quality, but it's got a
lot of good actors in it. She's also in nineteen
nineties Alienator, and she's in Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers. So she

(25:17):
also pops up in a non fred Olin Ray film.
Nineteen eighty six is Surf Nazis Must Die.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
I don't know how many different movies she gets decapitated,
but I feel like that's got to be like a
checklist thing for an actor. At some point you're like,
I got to be in a film where my head
gets cut off and she gets it here, she gets
her check.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
I do not remember if she is decapitated in Hollywood
Chainsaw Hookers. It is spent over two decades since I
saw that one, and I'm probably not going to rewatch
it anytime soon. But it's very likely it is a
film about about chainsaws. But I should also point out
it's not particularly accurate when it comes to Hollywood Chainsaw

(25:56):
or presumably hookers either, So there you go. But we
also have the male lead from Hollywood Chainsawhookers in this film,
John Henry Richardson playing Sheriff Eddie Green.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
This is Flynn's dependable cop friend. You know, when we
first meet him, he's acting kind of agro on a
phone call, and I just assumed this guy, Oh, this
guy's going to be a jerk that we're going to
have to deal with through the movie. But then no, No,
it's like a total reversal where he's just like you
can always count on Eddie.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
There's no real ambiguity in this picture. If we know
exactly who the good guys are and exactly who the
bad guys are. The only bit of ambiguity is is
that a real woman's face or does she secretly have
a monster face? But you know she's going to have
a monster face, so anyway, John Henry Richardson, another fred
Olin ray, regularly pops up. He's also an alienator in

(26:49):
various other films. He's also in Jim Winnarski's Munchie, which
is some sort of a Gromlin film that I have
not seen. Okay, all right. Another interesting character that we
have in this film is Guy Zupan, played by Joseph
Pilato who lived nineteen forty nine through twenty nineteen.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
He has one of the funniest and most unexpected character
reappearances in this movie that I can recall in a
film in quite some time.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yes, yeah, I can't wait to get to that. But
Joseph Pilato is an American actor, best known to many
of you, I imagine for his role as the villainous captain
Henry Rhodes. This is the guy who gets his torso
torn open by zombies and George Romero's nineteen eighty five
film Day of the Dead.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
I would not have made this connection at all. I
totally remember this character in Day of the Dead, but
he's like, yeah, he's the villain in Day of the Dead,
the human villain. He's like, you know, because a big
theme of that movie is it takes place in a
bunker along after the zombies have taken over, and it's
this sort of like last bastion of humanity. They're trying

(27:55):
to figure out how many other humans are left out
there and where they are, and you've got the camp
of the scientists versus the military guys, and the military
guys are led by this kind of unstable captain who's like,
you never know if he's just going to be done
with it, and you know he's like, okay, yeah, I'm
done with you scientists anyway. So he's a very compelling

(28:17):
villain in that. But I did not realize this was
the same guy at all.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah. Yeah. He also he was also in nineteen seventy
eight s Dawn of the Dead in a small role,
and he also pops up in Romero's and Night Writers
from eighty one. That's a weird one. That's a picture
that we've had listeners write in and say, hey, you
should cover Night Writers. Oh in. His other credits include
pulp Fiction from ninety four. I believe he has just
a very small role in that. And he's also in
nineteen ninety seven's Wish Master Choke on him. Indeed, all right,

(28:45):
you mentioned the sword training scene, and the sword trainer
is played by Jan Bryant. She also has has credit
for stunts in this and yeah, she plays our sword trainer.
And she is an actual sword master, choreographer, performer, and instructor.
She's done stunts and fight choreography work, you know, sword

(29:06):
fight choreography work in such projects as two thousand and threes,
Mastering Commander, the Far Side of the World, nineteen ninety
eight's The Mask of Zorro, ninety one's Hook, and ninety
two's Army of Darkness.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
So in the movie she plays the main character's sword
training instructor. And but the sword training scene, it looks
like they're supposed to be just actually swinging like fully
sharpened broad swords at each other, and I was like,
what is that how sword training actually works? But then
they anticipate it, or not anticipate, they addressed it in

(29:39):
the scene. Flynn is like, Wow, I'm really thanks so
much for agreeing to just go like full sword, full
swords in practice with me. You know, this really boosts
my confidence. And I was wondering, like does that come
from her, like as a real sword instructor. Is she
like this would never happen? We need to address like
why they would.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Be like, yes, I am the I shall write around it.
So that's Jan Bryant. And then her husband, Dan Speaker,
is also in the film, and he's also a world
renowned sword master and stuntman. He plays the character Brian.
Brian is like the second in command cultist.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Yeah, yeah, Brian Devray. They say his last name every.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Time another performer, I have to say Jan Bryant. She
has a certain amount of like natural charisma there. Dan
in this role anyway, doesn't come off as natural of
a pure actor, you know, so I think maybe his
expertise is more behind the sword as opposed to you know,

(30:40):
up there spouting dialogue.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
I agree, he has a certain twinkle in his eye
when he's standing there grinning like a chipmunk in the
Jawa hood while he's holding a knife over a baby.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yes, yes, in general, though, I want to say big
hats off to Bryant and Speaker here and Steve Barquette,
because all of the sword play in this film is
genuinely a great deal of fun. Yeah, it's especially the
last quarter of the picture. It just buckles so much
swash and it's delightful. Yeah, all right. Two more behind

(31:11):
the scenes credits just to reference here. Jim Davidson is
credited for visual effects. Also dates unknown on him As
a visual effects artist. He's worked on everything from the
first two Reanimator films to Terminator two and Batman Returns
and much more. And then. The composer here is John W. Morgan,
who lived nineteen forty six through twenty twenty five. Composed

(31:34):
the score for a nineteen seventy short adaptation of Ray
Bradberry's A Sound of Thunder, also The Aftermath, and also
two thousand and four Starship Troopers two Hero of the Federation.
That's the one directed by Phil tippittt I don't.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Know if I can bring myself to watch a Starship
Troopers sequel directed by Phil Tippitt, though I mean, yeah,
I don't like I like Phil Tippet's effects. I don't know.
I love the original Starship Troopers.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
I think I mentioned this. Obviously, we're big Phil Tippet fans,
and if we were to watch something he directed, it
would probably be his passion project Mad God. But I
mentioned this off to you off Mike before. But there's
a season two episode of TV's Poker Face in which
we have a character based on Phil Tippett surrounded by

(32:22):
Phil Tippet's actual models and sculptures and so forth.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
I'll have to watch that sometime.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
It's pretty fun. It's pretty fun anyway. John W. Morgan
here seems to have been something of a specialist in
the re recording of existing scores from old movies, particularly
movies from like the nineteen thirties, and I saw that
he has a credit for doing some score reconstruction work
on Peter Jackson's King Kong from two thousand and five.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Already you ready to get into the plot.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Let's do it. Jump in.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
So the movie begins by showing us an object of
implied significance and power. And at first I was not sure,
like whether this object the movie is showing is supposed
to be understood as within the narrative or outside the narrative.
It is a physical artifact filmed in real space, shaped
kind of like a cross between a fish and a sword,

(33:24):
and it's like mounted up on a rack and illuminated
with these rainbow lights. But then we see a title.
It says the Nautilus Film Companies. I was like, oh, okay,
so this is supposed to be a submarine.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, it's like Disney's Nautilus.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is supposed to be the
production company logo. It's like the Toho logo.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
I love this though, when you get to see a
film company logo that you've never seen before and you
know you're not going to see more than a couple
of other times.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
Yeah, yeah, what was this actual artifact? Where did this
come from?

Speaker 2 (33:56):
It looks like somebody somebody's do it yourself model the
Nautilus and they're like, that's the logo, that's the studio.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
So after that we pull up on another image with
moody lighting. But this one, I guess is actually supposed
to be in the story. It is Stone Hinge, or
at least a look alike. It's kind of a clone Hinge.
In silhouette, we see the big stones with a Jack
O'Lantern orange sky in the background, and then the clouds
move across the moon, and we can hear the wind howling.

(34:23):
And the next we're somewhere else underground in a vast cavern,
fuming with vapor. Among the crags of a cliff wall,
we see a monstrous face made out of stone. I
would describe it as a cross between a goat and
a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, there's a little bit of rain core energy to
this guy as well.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah, a little bit of that absolutely now. Next, somewhere
else in this foggy cavern, we hear voices echoing, echoing
so much that it's kind of hard to understand what
they're saying. But I had to. I did some rewinding
here to make sure I was catching it all. So
here's what's up. You got two dudes in your standard
I worship the devil Robes, YEA. One guy is younger,

(35:04):
with dark hair and a beard, and the other guy
is older, looking a bit like a cross between Charlton
Heston and Ted Turner. He's got a robust mustache. This
movie is full of robust mustaches, and this guy is
of course Arkham. This is Richard Harrison.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
One point about mustaches. I think it's worth noting that
this again is a film from nineteen ninety one, and
so much about it feels nineteen seventies, early nineteen eighties. Yeah,
Like to the point I was watching it, my wife
came in. I was like, check it out. This is
this is how I'm spending several hours in my week
this week. And she was like this. She just couldn't

(35:42):
believe that this was a movie that came out in
nineteen ninety one. She's like, no, this has to be
this has to be eighties or even seventies.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
I agree, it feels older.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yeah, and you see, and part of it is this
is a film with old, old and old soul in
many respects, but also it has like facial hair from
different era.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah. So the characters are standing around in this dusty cave.
It's got torches, an altar, and a bunch of thick
nautical style chains. Gotta have some really big chains. And
then the altar, actually, I would say, appears to be
a wooden console table covered with a green tablecloth. On
top of the table, you got four little votive candles,

(36:22):
and then something that may be a fruit bowl, but
which they are actually using to be like the sacred
chalice of the devil. You know, the chalice of the
bloody throat. And then they've also you gotta have a
mystical dagger, so they got a mystical dagger. Off to
the side, there is also a lady in bright red
lingerie with a sheer red nightgown. She's wandering around like

(36:44):
she's hypnotized.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
This is the most lingerie ever, Like this is Yeah,
this is like Victoria's Secrets nineteen ninety one to the max. Yeah,
if you were a thirteen year old in nineteen ninety one,
you just might assume that this is what ladies wear
underneath the clothing.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
So the younger cult fellow says, this is the twentieth girl.
All the preparations have been completed, Master Arkham. And then
the older guy with the mustache says, does your young
bride suspect anything? And the younger guy says nothing. So,
is this lady in red here the bride? I was
confused the first time, But no, she is not the bride.

(37:20):
They're talking about somebody else. This lady is a random,
different person who's gonna be the lucky twentieth victim of
human sacrifice. Your young bride is his young bride Somewhere
else not shown here.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, the demon that we're gonna we're gonna eventually learn
that the demon's name is Malius, who apparently it requires
twenty victims, which feels like a lot. It really feels
to me like Mallius has just kind of softly retired
from attempted world domination and has just set his sacrifice
rate really high. So it's like, nobody's gonna actually summon

(37:54):
me twenty twenty victims. Okay, if you do twenty victims,
I'll show up. And he's like, they're not gonna do it.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Oh, it's like somebody wants to leave their item for
sale on marketplace, but they don't really want to sell it,
so they set the price too high.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah, yes, yes, said it. Twenty victims. Nobody's going to
do that.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
So after this, Master Arkham says another line that's hard
to hear. I think he says, the dark of the
Moon is nearly upon us. Though here's one where the
time that I watched this on the YouTube rip, the
YouTube subtitles translated it as art of the Moon is
merely a box.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
Master Arkham tells the younger guy, and his name is
Brian Devray, that he will soon become one of us.
And it was only after he said that that I
noticed there were actually some other little dudes in the
foreground here Robbie attached to the screenshot. I didn't notice them
the first like two times I watched the scene, these
other little guys in the foreground, watching the action right

(38:48):
in the position of Joel in the box, except they're
like dressed in the little brown culthoods like Jahwa's.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Oh wow, I didn't notice the seating.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
They ought to be pointing and making little rifts.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
I have to point out out this cave set that
we're on here pretty darn good. You know. It's definitely
a Star Trek level good cave set here.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
I'd say my opinion is this part of the cave
set is in the medium quality zone. We'll get some
sets that look significantly worse and some that look significantly better.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
I think, yeah, there's a there's a lot of sway
on the quality in this picture.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Yeah. So anyway, Master Arkham here tells Brian Devray that
he has to bring his wife again, remember the different person,
bring his wife and his infant son to this place
tonight so they can perform the ritual and Brian does
not need any convincing bring wife, infant son, got it now,
Master Arkham. He starts after this, he starts a sidebar

(39:43):
with his boss. He like wanders off to the side
and he lifts his arms up in the air and
starts shouting hear me Meleias. He promises Meleas that in
a few hours the ceremony will be completed and then
Meleias will be free for all times. So remember that
whatever they're doing the ceremonies, that's gonna set Melias free.

(40:03):
And then there's this little moment where there's like a lull,
like Arkham kind of calms down and wanders back to
the other people after yelling at Meleeas. But then he
starts up again with yes, Meleas, I will do your bidding,
which is funny in the same way as in like
Manos The Hands of Fate, when Torgo will stop talking
and you think the scene's over, and then there's a

(40:25):
long pote pause and he starts talking again.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Also Master Arkham, well, while not having any red fingers
on his robe, is giving a little bit of the
Master from Manos, and Brian Devray is slightly Torgo though
a bit more suave.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, anyway, so master Arkham stabs the poor lady who's
standing here. He stabs her with the mystical dagger. She
instantly falls down.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
Dead and right in the belly. Instant.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yeah, and then he kind of makes out with the knife.
As I mentioned earlier, he's got a real good like
ooh the knife on his mouth. And as I was saying,
you know, most of the production values we've seen up
to this point, costume sets, etc. You could say, I
would argue, are like mid level or below. You know,

(41:13):
they're very much in the B movie range. But then
suddenly we are presented with what I really think is
actually a very admirable creature effect that is photographed beautifully.
So this human sacrifice wakes up some kind of monster.
I guess this is Melias, the dinosaur goat face that
we saw on the rock earlier. We hear it gurgleing

(41:35):
in the cave, and then we see the shadow first
of a giant three fingered et hand reach up into
a shaft of yellow orange lights surrounded by smoke, and
then the beast rears up and we see the dark
outline of its head against the glow as it roars.
Now the creature will not look quite as good when
we see it in direct lighting later, but in this scene,

(41:58):
I think it looks fantastic. Rael this part of the
movie with me too, and she was impressed.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah. And again it's kind of surprising because this film
will be, you know, very much in that sort of
nid be movie range. Sometimes it'll dip down into ce
movie range, but then other times it'll really suddenly fire
up like this to the point where you're like, did
I take something? Is something kicking in? Why is this
film suddenly so effective? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (42:23):
And then here's a great thing after this For a
second time, we get the production company credit. Remember, like
it already told you this was from the Nautilus Film
Company when it showed us the submarine sword. Now it
shows us the clone Hinge scenery again and hits us
with the Nautilus title card again. So after this, the
music turns from ominous to kind of sad as the

(42:45):
cast credits start rolling, just in time for us to
see the man of the ninety minute, Steve Barquette, Like
his name comes up on the screen and it shows
you a little shot of his face, except he looks
so sad. In the shot they selected, he's just staring
off into the distance as if he's thinking, like, how
am I going to pay for all these rented swords. Also,

(43:07):
during the rest of the credits, we are treated to
Gustav d'orre's illustrations from Dante's Inferno.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
Yes, yes, these will keep popping up these. This is
clearly basically storyboarding for the picture.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah. So, then after the credits, somehow we're still not
in the present action of the movie. We pick up
later in the prologue, which is twenty years before the
rest of the.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Movie, which I guess would put us in the nineteen seventies,
where again, so much of the film feels like it
is at home, and also all of these exterior location
establishment shots that we get also feel very nineteen seventies.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
That's right. So we come up on a police station
at night with this a frame sign out front that
says police. I only mention this because we will get
some hilarious establishing shots of that sign many more times
in the movie, sometimes zooming in on the sign after
showing it to you, like to really emphasize the point,
this is where the police are rob Do you get it?

(44:02):
And then we get our first look at Steve Barquette
as our hero Richard Flynn. Later in the movie he
will have a mustache, but in this prologue we're supposed
to really get the full force of his youth and
innocence and vitality, so it's clean shaven Flynn again. He
really reminds me of Bob Odenkirk. Here he is in
a dingy police office with no visible windows, maps pinned

(44:25):
up on the wall, in full police uniform, with a
black tie, a badge, and a revolver on his hip
and Rob in this scene just look at the Something
about the lighting I think is making it look really squalid,
Like he's got high beams hitting him from two different angles,
so he's casting a double shadow on the wall.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Anyway, the phone rings and Flynn answers seems to be
a collect call. He accepts the charges, and then we
get an establishing shot of what looks like a train
depot in Siberia. But I think this is supposed to
be the Maple Street warehouse, which we're about to hear
much made about. So this call is from Angela, Richard

(45:04):
Flynn's former lover. She says she has to see him
right away, and he's very confused because apparently she just
broke up with him like the day before, and she
said she could never see him again. They could never
see each other again. The problem is Angela is married
to somebody else and that caused a problem, as you
can as it, I guess it often does. But after

(45:27):
she implores him please meet up with me, he agrees
he's going to come meet her at the Maple Street
warehouse as soon as he gets off work. And then
suddenly the call is cut short because somebody in a
cult robe comes up behind Angela and snatches her away.
The line goes dead. It's hard to hear, but right
at the end of this phone call, I believe Richard
Flynn says women, It's like, well, yeah, women always like that.

(45:50):
They call you for help and they get abducted by
the minions of Malius.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Richard Flynn is just he's a very charismatic character, and
he has he has some that he injects here and there,
and then of course constant sex appeal. But yeah, there
are a few there are a few moments that are
supposed to be funny and in some cases legitimately are
to some degree.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
So Flynn heads over to the Maple Street warehouse in
full copy uniform with the hat and the heads inside
for a look around. He's whistling, tossing his night stick
into the air for fun.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, really feels like a Mister Show sketch at this point,
it does.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
Yeah, he like he's walking around in the warehouse. He
at one point knocks on some interior door and then
here's a distant scream. It's Angela. She calls for help.
She calls out Richard, help me. So this he goes
into action mode. Flynn pulls out his revolver, shoots the
lock on the door. But then we see the door
when it's open. It looks like something he could have

(46:49):
just pushed through. It's like thick cardboard basically. On the
other side, he is attacked by monsters in cult robes.
These are not just dudes in cult robes. They are
full on reptilian demonoids with rows of razor teeth, and
the demons also have swords.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, these guys are great. I love them. They're they're
kind of a combination of like ring rates but also
full sized phantasm dwarves. You know. Yeah, they've got the
monster faces that at times, you know, at times the
monster faces maybe come off a little bit Halloween mask,
but on closer inspection you can tell that a lot
of a lot of care went into their design and
then later and they also suffer a great deal of damage.

(47:28):
There are lots of shots of these guys getting shot, stabbed, decapitated,
and so forth.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Flynn messes them up. He fights them off with a
combination of revolver gunplay and hand to hand combat. Flynn
is very rambo. He's like a you know, he can
do it all, though in one scuffle he does get
stabbed in the shoulder, so he's he's wounded, but he's
forced to press on. And as Flynn plunges deeper into
the labyrinth of the Cursed Warehouse, he keeps hearing Angela

(47:56):
call out to him. We see somewhere in the stone
cavern that both Inla and a baby presumably this is
her infant son referenced earlier, are being held captive, and
Master Arkham and Brian Devray are standing over them with daggers,
grinning satanically, holding the daggers up like this dagger is
gonna come down any moment, but not yet, not yet

(48:17):
and so I guess this is the final human sacrifice,
the final sacrifice, if you will, that is gonna set
Melias free. So Angela, we keep cutting to her, and
she keeps screaming, Richard, help me save my baby a
lot many many times, and we will. It will feel
like it goes on a good bit here. Eventually Richard

(48:39):
finds a wall in the warehouse where a portal opens
to Hell. And yeah, it's just like the warehouse, like
you can see the electrical panels next to it, but
just one wall of the warehouse got a portal to Hell.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah it's a big one too. You could drive a
truck through this thing. Maybe it's big part of it.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Yeah, it's kind of tattered. It's got like flat fluttering
kind of like tattered bits. I don't know, but it's
like spilling over with pulsing light. And they've got the
fog machine working hard. But he's like, well, I guess
no other choice. I got to run into Hell. So
he runs into Hell. All the time, we keep cutting
back to Angela calling out for help and seeing the
guys in the cult robes with the daggers. You know,

(49:17):
she is imperiled by the slowest descending knife in movie history.
And we see Master Arkham really concentrating. He's like this,
the knife is going down, and it made me realize, like,
why is the knife going so slow? Maybe it is
a case of the slow blade penetrating the shield. Right,
Is this a Chris knife kind of thing?

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Hmm, yeah, I mean that's one read on it. I
will say that sacrificial stabbings do take place at a
just glacial pace in this film. Like the knife's coming
down here, it comes here, it comes any second now,
right through your heart.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
Sometimes they recock the knife like they're almost down, they
lift it way back up again.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Well, you know, it's like they say, measure twice, stab.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Once, right exactly. Yes. So Flynn is running around trying
to find Angela and the baby to save them. As
he's going, he keeps stopping at these little vistas throughout Hell,
and we're treated to a very interesting milange of cheap
looking sets again, but also some pretty good looking sets
or models, and then some fantastic looking painted backgrounds.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, some of these Matt paintings remind me a bit
of those fantastic in tiers in Indiana. Jones and the
Temple Temple of Doom, which I guess that was the
Temple of Tim the titular temple of Doom. Yeah, in
this case though it is Hell or the Empire of
the Dark.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Some of the best looking stuff is like the painted
backgrounds here. But there's one set that looks pretty good.
Is it more in the mid level, but it's pretty
good where there's like a rickety wooden bridge spanning over
a chasm filled with hot lava. And they've really wanted
to get their money's worth with this one because it's
built out, and he runs across it so that it
gets a lot of screen time.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Yeah, I think it looks great. I buy And eventually
lots of people and things are going to be falling
into that lava and it's convincing disbelief completely suspended.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Anyway, Eventually Flynn stumbles across the ceremony where the two
Meleias devil guys are. They're slowly lowering their knives and
then Flynn pauses to aim his service revolver, then dramatically
calls out, I only have one more bullet.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
And he's gonna have to shoot it across what seems
like a chasm.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
YEA went miles away.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah, and the matte painting slash sat here that we
we have does look incredible, Like just seeing this one still,
you would have to see this movie like it. It
feels like it has great doom vibes to it.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
Absolutely. But the knives, of course are coming down. They're
coming down slowly, still, very slowly, and the camera keeps
cutting different thing cult guys knives, Angela, the baby, Flynn
say my baby and help me, over and over. Finally
Flynn makes his choice. He shoots Brian Devray to save
the baby, and the wicked Master Arkham stabs Angela, and

(52:08):
Flynn gives a real revenge of the sith no and
then goes and once after this cut, it seems like
actually maybe he wasn't that far away, because he just
runs right up after this. And he runs up and
he beats Master Arkham on the head with the butt
of his revolver, and I think it seems to seed
him to death. It kills him. Yeah, And so after

(52:29):
a quick tearful goodbye to Angela's body, he grabs the
baby and he runs back out of Hell, stopping for
a long time at the Rickety Lava Bridge so you
can get a good look at it, and then finally,
as sort of the cavern is collapsing, he dives back
through the portal in the wall with the baby, and
the wall magically seals itself back up, so now he's
just a cop pulleding the baby. So after the prologue

(53:00):
we fade out and then we come back in with
some Bambi springtime music. It's a beautiful morning. We're somewhere
in the woods in the mountains of northern California. There's
a rushing brook and waterfall, tall trees all around. It's beautiful,
just a little slab of heaven. And here we also
see the Maison de Flynn, our Flynn household. Here is

(53:20):
a recurring setting for much of the rest of the film.
It's a big, rustic wooden cabin with yellow and green accents,
and some text on the screen tells us it is
twenty years later.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
I have a strong suspicion that we get both the
interiors and exteriors of this house, and that this is
in fact Steve Barquette's house.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
That is also what I believe. I don't have anybody
to confirm that, but it I think this is Steve
Barkette's house. Yes, he just looks really cozy in it.
It's like this is where he belongs.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
It's very lived in. You see movie memorabilia in places
like the kitchen, So I think this is.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
This house, and I like the colors inside. This is
like a good location to shoot, as I mentioned earlier,
Like it's not just boring drab colors and all the
like his kitchen is like green and yellow. It's weird
colors that are nice to look at. For example, in
the scene later where Terry gets seduced by a succubus
in the kitchen.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Yeah, and everything is fitningly feels very late seventies, early eighties,
even though it is technically the early nineties at this point.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
Yeah. So again, it's twenty years later. Our hero now
has a mustache it didn't before. He's sleeping on his
side in bed, Harry chest bared to screen and his
alarm goes off and he groans with displeasure. He's roused
by his girlfriend Stacy. She is a ray of sunshine.
She's giving him a little sing song voice sayings about

(54:49):
how it's time to get up and he and he
is just in Garfield mode, Garfield in his soul he
does not like mondays he doesn't want to get out
of bed.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Yeah. He declares that her love of mornings is frankly disgusting,
which is kind of legitimately funny.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Yeah, it's hard to explain that the movie from this
point on has a humorous tone that does not match
the prologue at all. Like the prologue is totally dark.
But starting here we get these things where Flynn will
basically look into the camera and like shrug and be like,
what do you what are you gonna do? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Yeah, In the prologue he's a heartbroken cop who's just
had a traumatic experience with Coultist in another dimension. But
this Rick we see now he's a happy, go lucky
ladies man with a as we're about to see a
driven interest in sword play.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
That's right, So we go straight after the wake up
to the sword training scene. We're cutting in in the
middle of a duel with Flynn dressed in sweatpants wildly
swinging a broadsword at a woman dressed in athletic gear
with the sword of her own. She's got fencing gloves on,
and the woman yells at him, Rick, you're a little
rough today. So they stop the duel, and she him

(56:00):
why he decided to learn sword fighting techniques. He says
he doesn't know, just got an urge a couple of
years ago. And this is the part where I mentioned
this earlier, where she says, you know, there aren't many
instructors who would let you freestyle with live steel like this,
and then Rick is just I'm in love with you,
just wild sexual harassment in this scene, but the instructor

(56:22):
laughs it off. It's like, nice, try, mister. Here's another
moment where Rick basically like she She's like, nice, try mister,
and Rick looks into the camera and he says, must
be my breath.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're begin to ham it up quite
a bit.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
Yeah. So next we're going to meet some other characters.
We meet Terry Nash. This is the character played by
Steve Barquette's son in real life. This is the young mustache.
And then we meet Eddie Green, the sheriff of Lava
Springs I guess wherever this is, or a detective in
Lava Springs. At least it wasn't exactly clear on his rank.

(56:59):
So Terry shows up at the police station to speak
with Eddie. We get again the establishing shots outside where
it's like police, police, police, and Eddie is in the
middle of a vulgar phone call with Milligan. You know Milligan.
He's sawing a Milligan And every time Milligan talks, Eddie
finds a way to repeat for the audience what Milligan said.

(57:20):
The gist of the phone call is that there is
a new demon slasher case in which young women are
being murdered. Seems like, yeah, probably by a demonic cult.
His men don't know what's going on, and he suggests
they should bring in outside help. Who should they bring in, well,
of course Richard Flynn. He may not be a police
officer anymore, he's no longer a brother officer, but he's

(57:42):
the best there ever was.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Yeah, this small town, rural area is like the epicenter
for cult related homicides in the nation, perhaps in the world.
Should we turn to the federal agency for help here? No, no, no,
I know a retired guy in the area. He's perfect
for this.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
The amount of cult murders here reminds me of I
think we've talked about this on the show before, but
you watch some of Sons of Anarchy at really, at
least right it's supposed to be a small town in
northern California that has like ten thousand murders a year.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
Yeah, yeah, it's maybe it's a similar area. Maybe it's
around around Reading. It's just all sorts of cult activity
and outlaw MC he's just tearing it up.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
Yeah, So Milligan does not whoever Milligan is, does not
want to bring Richard Flynn onto the case. So they
have a disagreement about this and the call ends when
young Terry wanders into Eddie's office. Terry explains his business here.
He's trying to get in contact with Eddie's friend, Richard Flynn.
What do you know, what a coinky dink. Flynn is
a private detective now and he's working down the road

(58:48):
in Lava Springs. Terry has tried writing to him and
calling him, but he gets no response. It's like Flynn
just doesn't want to talk to Terry, and Eddie says,
it's not like Richard Flynn to do that. He doesn't
cold shoulder people for no reason. Well, Terry says he
thinks there might be a reason in his case. He
explains that his mother was Angela n Ash. That's the

(59:11):
Angela from the prologue so Eddie lean he knows some
of this story. Eddie leans forward and he says, so
you're the baby Terry presumably wants to meet the man
who saved his life from Melias when he was a baby.
I'm not sure exactly how much of the story he knows,
does he? They don't make this clear, like, does he

(59:33):
know that he was saved from hell? He's been to hell,
but he was too young to remember it. Unclear again,
But beyond that, he also has an important lead that
he wants to share with the police. It is a
polaroid of who is that why? It's Brian Devray and
master Leo Arkham. Arkham is in what looks like a
tracksuit or at least kind of a sports windbreaker. They're

(59:56):
standing in the parking lot outside of what looks like
a bank, and Eddie recognizes them instantly, but they're like, wait,
look at the modern cars in fashion in this picture.
This couldn't have been taken twenty years ago. This was
taken two weeks ago, and those two were supposed to
be dead. So that's all the convincing Eddie needs. He's like, Okay,

(01:00:17):
I'm on board. I'm going to help you. Terry get
some FaceTime with the great Richard Flynn.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Yeah, the actor playing Arkham here, Richard Harris, and he's
like wagging a finger at him in this picture, almost
like saying they're not going to trick me into film
in any additional scenes. Brother.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
So meanwhile, another subplot kicks off at Rick and Stacy's house.
Stacy is some kind of newspaper reporter and the paper
is sending her to interview a psychic investigator named guy Zupan.
Rick says, kind of an odd assignment for you, isn't it,
And she says not really, it's related to the demon

(01:00:56):
slasher case. Oh, that explains it anyway. She heads out
for the interview and Flynn accidentally so yeah, so she leaves.
He's left alone at the kitchen table in the house,
and he accidentally drops his Velcrow wallet on the floor,
which falls open to some goth glamour shots of Angela

(01:01:17):
from twenty years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Yeah. Yeah, really ridiculous looking headshot, you know, very very stylish,
not the kind of thing you normally would see in
a wallet. But hey, what do I like? I don't
even have photos of my wallet anymore, So I guess
I'm out of touch with this practice.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
She looks like a cross between a shampoo commercial and
a lou Reed album cover. Yeah yeah, But he sees
the photos in his Velcrow wallet and this sends Rick
spiraling into a soft focus memory which consists of a
frankly hilarious erotic scene between Flynn and Angela where he's

(01:01:55):
his outfit in the scene is very good choices.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Yeah, yes, this is a full undershirt on love scene
Blue Tank Tom Yeah yeah, brings to mind Toast of
London if anyone watched that show.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
But also in this erotic scene, there's a bunch of
exposition as they have. Actually it's not in scene, it's
like within the flashback. There is a further secondary flashback
to breathy conversations they have had at other times about
why she won't leave her satanic husband Brian Devray and
run away with the Rickster. So Rick says, please don't

(01:02:34):
marry Brian Devray. He says that religious group he hangs
out with, there's something very wrong about that whole setup,
but she has made up her mind. Basically. I like
how this suggests that it's not fully secret that he's
in this satanic cult. That's just like part of his
you know, in the social scene, everybody knows. Oh yeah, Brian,

(01:02:54):
he's part of the Melias cult.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Yeah. It kind of a complex romance triangle that is
being portrayed here for a movie that's not particularly invested
in how human beings work. So we don't really fully
understand all the ins and outs here.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
But she's got her mind made up. Basically, she says
she loves Rick more than anything, but quote, our needs
are different, and for that reason and presumably other reasons,
they cannot be together. She's going to marry into the
Cult of Melias and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
They needs that Melius. That's what the needs are exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Rick pledges that, however far away, he will always love her.
And anyway, we go on to the next thing in
the present action of the movie, and this is a
great sequence, the supermarket creep hunt. Yeah, so here we're
going to get to see the Rickster in action doing
what he does best. He is no longer a cop.
He's a bounty hunter now, chasing down America's most wanted

(01:03:53):
out of a three ring binder of mugshots and wrap
sheets that he keeps in his Toyota pickup truck. So
Rick pulls into a grocery store parking lot. He parks
diagonally so that he's taken up at least three spaces,
and then he gets out to scope out the scene.
Sure enough, the creep that he is hunting is walking
into the store right now. Now. At first, I assumed

(01:04:16):
what was going on here is like, oh, okay, this
criminal is hiding from the law. He's sneaking out of
his you know, hideout to get some groceries. But I think, no,
it seems like maybe this guy has come to the
grocery store intending to commit crimes here at the store,
or at least for some unspecified reason, he came heavily armed.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
By the way, the grocery store is called Holiday Market.
I just thought, well, I'll look that up. It seems
this is a chain that still exists in California. Some
really good early nineties grocery store nostalgia. Just looking at
the shelves full of items here.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
Yeah, I found myself becoming lost in the location here
because the great late eighties early nineties small town super
vibe here. It feels very much like the one that
I grew up with in my hometown. In fact, the
one in my hometown still basically looks like this. It's
still wow going back in time.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
There's an end cap on one of the aisles that
has a header on. I can't even tell what's on
the shelves there, but the header says incredible edibles. And
I was like, wow, that's just a phrase that's from
my childhood. I don't even remember what that refers to.
But maybe my store had one of those.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Two Yeah, now probably not. Probably not calling things incredible edibles.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Probably means something else. Now. Yeah, Anyway, the scene goes
on for a while. This is like a long scene,
but long story short. The Rickster follows the creep into
the store. He pretends to be browsing the baloney whenever
the guy looks his way. And meanwhile, Eddie and Terry
are driving around and they see Rick's truck parked outside

(01:05:54):
the grocery store, so they pull up. They also park obliquely,
so the two cars together look like they'res taking up
like eight spaces and they go inside. And then right
when Rick is about to grab the creep, Eddie sees
him and he yells like, hello, fellow police officer.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
And that sets the creep off. He's like it's blasting time.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
That's right. The boloney cover is blown and the creep
whips out his shotgun and goes berserk. This leads to
a shootout and a hostage situation in the grocery store. Eventually,
Terry the young stash. He comes through in a pinch
and he distracts the creep by throwing a bag of
bread at him, which, like, that's the item. He didn't

(01:06:38):
throw like a can at him. It's a bag of bread.
But this gives Flynn a chance to draw a bead
on him and gun the creep down. Any more details
you want to mention from the supermarket sequence.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
I would just say this is I think one of
the first scenes where we realized that even the good
guys are pretty cavalier about homicide. It's kind of like,
you know, we had to shoot a guy, but hey,
the sheriff was physically present, no paperwork required, everything square.

Speaker 3 (01:07:04):
Yeah, they're the good guys. They saved the day. But
after they shoot the guy, they like walk up to
his body on the grocery aisle floor and Eddie's like,
he looks good down there. Flynn's like, that's where he belongs.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
On the floor next to the what sight was this
the bread section?

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
I think it's the bread Eyele.

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
Does he really belong in the bread aisle? I don't know.
I don't think that's the case.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Look at all the canned chili brands on the I
was just I can't even like Flynn is blocking some
of them. It looks like they had like fourteen different
kinds of canned chili back then.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
It looks like those little microwaveable chili cups are next
to it. I feel like I look at those and
I feel burns in my mouth.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
So Rick also has a flashback in this scene because
there's one point where a lady is screaming, like, save
my baby. This is you know, he's got to save
the hostage, and she screams it the same way Angela
did in the cave all those years ago. So we
since the Flynn cannot get Arkham and Brian Defray out
of his head anyway. After the dust settles, it's clear
Eddie expects Flynn to appreciate how Terry Nash saved the

(01:08:09):
day with that bread pitch, But when Flynn realizes who
the kid is, he clams up and he abruptly walks away.
It seems like he just can't deal with facing the
child of Angela and Brian Defray. It's too painful for him.

(01:08:31):
Next scene is the meeting between Stacy and the Great
psychic guy Zupan. What do you think, rob is Zupan's
hair a wig? He has some voluminous frosty hair, and
he's wearing a three piece suit, so his look is
quite distinctive.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
Yeah, I think so. I think this is one of
the reasons we didn't recognize this actor. Glasses suit. Yeah,
the hair, the hair, at least at the very least,
it's done up in a very big way that I'm
not used to seeing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
His hair looks. It's like one of those artificial Christmas
trees that has the snow on the branches.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Yes, and frosting. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
So the gist of this conversation is that Zupan does
not normally speak to the press. He doesn't want publicity
for his great psychic powers.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Psychics are like that exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
The reason he contacted her is that he knows who
the Demon Slasher is, but he doesn't know where he is.
Zupan says he has been searching for the demon Slasher
for many years and he's followed this cult all around
the world. Finally they have come back home, back to
Lava Springs. He says, quote, ten girls have died, ten
more will die before the next full moon. And he

(01:09:39):
explains the cult did the same thing here twenty years ago,
and one of the girls they murdered was Zupin's daughter.
And we get a flashback to the hypnotized lady from
the prologue. Here he's got a photo of her on
the mantle and it's not but I almost expected it
to be a frame from her death scene.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
The Red Lingerie.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
Yeah. So later the Rickster has a nightmare in which
he's like back in the hell cave and he sees
Angela surrounded by white light and fog. His bed, by
the way, is also in the hell cave, with like
the you know, the bannis, the headboard and everything, which
looks funny.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
But fog machine full blast here. Yes, it looks pretty
great for this sort of scene.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
Powerful fog storm billowing in. But then also I want
to note in the stream, rick is wearing the same
blue undershirt he was wearing in the erotic flashback scene
from earlier, which presumably took place more than twenty years before.
So at this point, like that tank top has some
serious mileage. I know this is a dream, but he's

(01:10:42):
dreaming of a tank top that he wore twenty years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
I mean, sleep shirts can last a long time. They
start falling apart, they become basically transparent, But it doesn't matter.
It's your sleep shirt.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
That's true Anyway. In the stream, Angela tells Rick that
she's not really dead. She is still alive somewhere and
he has to come find her. Then, somewhere else we
see that demon, the Meleas Demon, roaring in the glow
of hell, and Rick is startled awake in his bed,
and then he immediately gets a phone call from Eddie
once again pleading with him to make some time for

(01:11:16):
the kid for Terry Nash. So they're going to meet
at nine o'clock in the morning at the Church of
the Blessed Saint. He says, meet in Sister Mary's office,
and Rick's like, oh, yeah, I know where that is.
I was like, I bet he does. Okay, After this,
there is oh, this is one of the scenes that
I'm not sure it makes sense given the logic of

(01:11:38):
the rest of the movie. So there is a lover's
lane demon attack. It seems like the movie needs a
monster attack, doesn't it where like the demon meleeas goes,
except the demon is kind of too big to attack
human size. It's like God zillicized. But they make it
work anyway. So we head out to the woods in
the middle of the night to a parked sports car

(01:11:59):
with a couple making out inside. By the way, we
cut to exterior shots of it, and it's a hot
wheels car, but there is a full moon. The owls
are hooting and you know, they're kissing, and suddenly the
woman inside the car, she stops kissing, and she says,
did you hear that? What was that sound? And the
guy says, the first time I watched it, I think
it sounded to me like he said, that's just my

(01:12:21):
pants exploding. But I think he the second time it
sounded like he said, that's just my shorts expanding. I
don't know either way. Beautiful riding. But he later suggests
that the sound was probably just a rabbit. And then
of course it's not the shorts expanding or the rabbit,
it's of course Melias. So from above here comes the

(01:12:43):
giant demon attacks the car, scratches up the guy and
kills him. I guess. Then the lady runs off into
the woods. Demon follows her. I guess eats her too.
I don't know. I guess it doesn't eat them because
the police find the bodies later.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
Yeah, it just just kills them. Yeah, they are victims.
And there are a lot of victims credited in the
credits for this picture. Most of them are women, but
we have at least one male victim who is credited,
and none of them, for the most part, have any
other acting credits. But there's one victim who's credited only
as Dealer Dan. So we were talking about this off Mike,

(01:13:21):
is this Dealer Dan? Is this Dealer Dan's big scene?

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
This is Dealer Dan's big scene? And yeah, this is when,
I mean the world knows him as the man whose
pants were exploding, but also the scene where Dealer Dan
eats it here in the woods. I'd like, how how
does that interact with what we later learned about the
fact that Meleus is supposed to be imprisoned under the
earth and cannot roam free.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
Hmmm, I guess, yeah, it doesn't make sense. Yeah, he's
not fully free, but he does get to come out
and terrorize the neighborhood. Maybe he is permitted only to
come out and kill within a very tight area surrounding
lot springs.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
Maybe he's got like a time limit or a distance
of proximity.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Anyway, after this attack, Terry Nash sits up in bed.
He's somewhere else where, he's in his bed. He wakes
up and he has had a vision of these events
in his mind. So I guess Terry is psychic too.
I don't think this has already come up in the movie,
but he just knows, and he at least has Cult
of Melias related remote viewing powers. So as soon as

(01:14:26):
he wakes up, he calls Eddie on the phone and
he's like, there's been another murder.

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
Yeah, this area is a hotbed of psychics.

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):
Yeah. From here, we go on to another interview scene.
So after meeting with guy Zupan, Stacy goes to chat
with somebody that Zupan referred her to, somebody named Madame Oleska.
This is another psychic and she's this lady is a
fan of sequins. She's wearing a very shiny, sparkly dress,

(01:14:53):
she's got interesting hair, and she is going to tell
Stacy about the Dark of the Moon ceremony. Any other
details you want to mention about Madame Aleska.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
Oh, I'll just say that this is this again. Is
Don Wildsmith's playing Alesca, and you know, clearly graduated from
the fred Olin Ray school of acting. I love everything
about the performance. I love the ridiculously fake accent she's
employing here, Just tremendous.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
Yeah, so we sort of already know the gist at
this point, but she's going to explain that the Satanic
cult here is called They're called the Perennials. She says,
it is a terribly sadistic and savage religion, almost as
old as man itself. They're called the Perennials because they
never die. They have mastered a means of cloning, though

(01:15:41):
not in a scientific sense, is what she says.

Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
Okay, magic cloning, gotcha?

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
But does what does the cloning have to do with anything?
Are they making copies of people? I don't remember that?

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
Well, it's just it's how these villains are still alive
after being murdered twenty years ago by our hero.

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
Yeah, I guess so. She says they can only be
killed with sacred steel, and that's a knife or a
sword that has been blessed I guess by cleric. So
Madame Molesca explains that while most Satanic cults are only
inspired by Satan, the perennials are quote actually linked to him,

(01:16:18):
so they are soldiers of Satan. But also I thought
their master was Melias, not Satan. That's a little confusing. Also, anyway,
don't get don't get caught on details like that, because
it's time for an action scene.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
There's Satan approved. Satan.

Speaker 3 (01:16:33):
Yeah, a kid tested, Satan approved, and we're going to
move on to a tremendous sword fighting scene from here.
So the cult is laying a trap for Richard Flynn.
We come up in the middle of the woods somewhere
where a lady is appearing to have car trouble again.
She's having car trouble, just like surrounded by trees, and

(01:16:54):
the rickster pulls up in his truck. He offers to
take a look at the engine for her, and while
he's looking down under the hood, she pulls a dagger
on him like she's gonna stab him, but he catches
it just in time and slugs her. And then and
then all of these all these cultists run out of
the tree is like Rick is attacked by the guys
in the robes again picture like Tall jahwas or kind

(01:17:16):
of lower budget ring raths. They are armed with swords
and then there is a massive roving sword fight through
the woods over bridges that ends with Rick finally jumping
off into the river to escape. And I love this
fight scene.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of passion went into this.
There's a lot of fun, fun sword play, very exhausting
looking sword play. Yeah, and it ends with with our
hero taking a quick jump into the end of the river.

Speaker 3 (01:17:44):
You get the feeling the Rickster he cannot be stopped
and like the sword fade, the sword fighting lessons really
paid off. There's also I was thinking, what kind of
action hero is he. He's kind of presented the way
Indiana Jones is in in that like in one since
he's really tough and a good fighter and all that,
but there's also a comedic exasperatedness to him, like, oh

(01:18:08):
not this again. Yes, anyway, the next scene is oh well,
then the next scene he makes his appointment, so the
Rixster is now dry even though he jumped in the river,
and he's made it in time for the meeting. In
Sister Mary's office at the church with Terry Nash and Eddie.
Here we find out that these cultists keep trying to
kidnap Terry. I don't think we've ever seen this happen.

(01:18:30):
We're just told they tried to kidnap him, and Terry
claims that Arkham and Brian Defray are still alive. The
Rickster says he does not buy it. There is a
rob I don't know if you caught the same thing.
Very weird detail from the scene. Sister Mary says that
not only did she raise Terry Nash, she raised his
mother as well. Like, wait a minute, it's nineteen ninety.

(01:18:54):
She looks about thirty maybes, so Terry is twenty years old.
Angela seems like she was at least in her early
to mid twenties in nineteen seventy one. So Sister Mary
does not look anywhere near old enough to have raised Angela.
She doesn't even really look old enough to have raised Terry.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Yeah, no, not at all. Yeah, she looks very young.

Speaker 3 (01:19:16):
Really.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
When they introduce this nun, I was like, oh no,
this is going to be another romantic interest for Rick
here it doesn't go that direction, but yeah, there's no
way this lady is old enough to have raised both
of these people.

Speaker 3 (01:19:30):
There's some almost flirting between them.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
But because I mean, you can't help it, Rick, Rick's
charisma is undeniable, you know, vows aside, she can't help
it flirting.

Speaker 3 (01:19:40):
So somewhere in here, there's also a little peak inside
life in the cult where the you know, Arkham and
Devray are in. They're whipping a guy because he failed
to kill Richard Flynn earlier, and you know, give him
the dagger. There's a scene after this where Flynn is
sleeping outside next to a campfire with a bottle of
whiskey in his hand. He has more dreams about Angela.

(01:20:01):
She appears and warns him of danger, and then Eddie
comes up on the campfire to share the bottle of
whiskey and they have a Manda man talk. It seems
Flynn actually does believe the cult is back. He just
doesn't know if he can trust that kid because he
is the son of Brian Devray after all, or so
he thinks. I don't know if folks out there have

(01:20:21):
really caught on to where this is head agent. It's
a little obvious, but anyway, he's convinced that something is
up because he talks about how he randomly got an
urge to learn sword fighting two years ago and now
suddenly he's being attacked by men with swords. Doesn't that
mean something?

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
I mean, it would seem like he's the chosen one.
But if he's truly the chosen one, it seems like
maybe he would have been inspired to take up a
ranged weapon. They could take out people with long swords
before they close distance on it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:54):
It shouldn't be like super soaker full of holy water.
That's got to be the better option, right.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't have to worry about accidentally
hitting a bystander.

Speaker 3 (01:21:02):
Yeah. Anyway, there's also a scene here where we go
back to Sister Mary's office and she lets him in
on the secret. She implies to him that Terry is
not Brian Devray's son, he's Rickster junior. And she does
this by like showing him a picture of Terry Rick
has seen. But he shows him a picture He's like,
it's funny. He doesn't resemble Brian Devray at all, but

(01:21:24):
he does resemble someone else. And then Flynn stares wide
eyed at the camera like oh brother, yeah. So after this,
Flynn finally hangs out with Terry and they bond over
the fact that they are both receiving psychic dream messages
from Angela. I wonder if she's dressed in the dream

(01:21:45):
messages to Terry the way she is in Flynn's dreams anyway,
but she's saying in these dreams, she's like, I'm still alive.
You've got to come save me. After this, Flynn, Eddie,
and Terry have a meeting with Madame Alesca had to
get another scene with her, and she fills them in
on the cult, the fact that Angela is still alive

(01:22:06):
and that if the cult succeeds in their ritual, which
is going to be, they're going to try to sacrifice
Angela and Terry together. If they knew that, the demon
will be set loose from his underground prison and he
will be free to take over the world. So they
need Angela for the sacrifice because she is like the
most perfect human who ever lived. She is an angel

(01:22:27):
of light. It's almost there right in her name. And
once the cult finishes their standard twenty murders, which they're
already close to completing, they're going to move on to
the final ceremony with Angela and Terry.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
I was wondering about how this is supposed to work.
Does Terry become like the body of Malius? Unclear?

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
I think they're supposed to just sacrifice the both of
them together and then Melias can just come out of
his cave. It seems like that's what they're saying. Okay,
all right, fair enough, but they so anyway, they've got
to stop the ceremony from happening, obviously, or it will
be the end of the world. So after this scene,
I was like, oh, well, then it's clear you got
to just put Terry on a plane at once, fly
him off to Guam where the cult can't get him.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
Right, Yeah, you'd think at least get him out of
the county.

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
But no, that's not how it works. And then there's
some funny if It almost feels like a scene is
missing from the editor or something, because immediately after their
scene with Madame Molesca, we go to a scene where
Stacey walks into Madame Moleska's house sometime later, and it's
all dark inside and Madame Moleska is sitting in a
chair and she's not responding to Stacy's greetings and then

(01:23:34):
Stacey walks up and her head falls off Madam Moleska.
Her head just rolls off onto the floor.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
Yeah, there's like a rope around her neck. And at
first you're like, oh, she's been strangling. It's like, oh, no,
she's been decapitated.

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):
Yeah, so the cult got her sometime in between these
two back to back scenes with her. But Rick, Eddie
and Terry arrive on the scene and now they form
a plan. They're going to hold up at Flynn's house
and wait for the cult to come to them. But
first Flynn says, sake steel. We'll give them all the
sacred steel they can eat. So here we get a

(01:24:06):
sweet sword training montage. If only it could play Eye
of the Tiger, but this is an all time power
up montage. All of the guys train with the sword
instructor from earlier. We see Sister Mary blessing their blades
with holy water. They like pose for the camera making
crosses with their swords. She's putting these cross shaped daggers

(01:24:28):
around their necks. It's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
Yeah, they're getting decked out.

Speaker 3 (01:24:32):
This crew is ready, so it's basically it's time for
the final showdown. They're all at Rick's house. Rick falls
asleep in a chair outside by the water. They've got
some guards around the house, or I think they're cops,
but I don't know. They're playing clothes officers. Those guys
are quickly killed by cult monsters and the car trouble
lady from earlier. The car trouble Lady then wanders into

(01:24:54):
Rick's house and starts to do a demonic temptresus thing
on Terry, the staging of which is really hilarious. She
like is wearing a trench coat and then she like
wanders into the kitchen, which is now filled with fog,
and like takes the trench coat off, and she's in
her underwear and she's like, Hi, Terry.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
More lingerie, Yeah, Victoria's secrets.

Speaker 3 (01:25:14):
Yeah, And she sort of sex hypnotizes Terry and they
start to kiss, but then whoops, she's actually a hell monster.
She's got a demon face.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
Yeah, but still has the same body as before. So
I guess, you know, Terry could have been forgiven it
be just stuck with it. But yeah, this whole scene
is amazing, Like, I love how she you know, she
wanders into the house out of a night that is
dark with intensely illuminated smoke, and we're going to keep
cutting back to Rick outside where it is broad daylight,

(01:25:48):
like not day for night, just broad daylight, and in
a way that like you couldn't have possibly missed this
in the edit, it's just more of like, well, i'll
I really want to get this movie finished. Yeah, here's
what we what we have.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
Yeah, yeah, so he's in the chair, Yeah, broad daylight.
But he wakes up and he like sneaks around and
he sees what's happening, and in the end, Rick and
Eddie fight off the cult attack. They survived the attack,
but Terry is taken away to the underworld.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):
Yeah, by Melias shows up, right, Oh I forgot about that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
Yeah, like the big guns move in.

Speaker 3 (01:26:25):
They thought he couldn't come out, but okay.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
Limited excursions, I guess. So really on the cultist side,
we have the leader like and then the vice president,
and then we have it seems like miscellaneous human cultists. Yeah,
and then we have full on demon faced cultists, and
then we have Melias who can also show up at
least for short bursts of energy and assault.

Speaker 3 (01:26:50):
Yeah, a lot of different kinds of enemy classes. Some
of the cultists in robes are humans and some are
demons with monster masks. Yeah, uh so, now of course
we got to go to the final showdown. The cult
has Terry and Angela for the Dark of the Moon ceremony.
Seems humankind is doomed unless one man can go in

(01:27:11):
there with a machine gun and a sword and defeat
all of Hell. So most of the rest of the
movie is just one long, massive overkill action scene of
the Rickster versus Hell.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
Yes, and it's amazing. There's just loving so much swashbuckling.
They're running around through Hell. We'll get to go over
that bridge a whole bunch of times. Lots of quality
kills on the demon cultist bodies of demon cultist and
humanoid colts couldest plummeting into lava lakes. Oh yeah, that
sort of thing. It's just NonStop, so many legitimately cool moments,

(01:27:50):
so many humorous moments. It's it's tremendous. There.

Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
Let's see to mention a few highlights from the final action,
you know, the final third of the movie, All this action,
the part where Rick is just being whipped by demons
with whips and he's like, oh no, I can't I
can't you know. They've got him cornered and they're just
whipping him.

Speaker 2 (01:28:10):
Over to D four damage to me, over and over again.

Speaker 3 (01:28:14):
Yeah, and then he's saved by Terry. So Terry like
wakes up from the sacrifice slab and he runs in
with the sword and he gets the demons. So he
comes to the rescue. Terry like proves his metal. You know.
Then we get a great fight that is Flynn versus Arkham,
where you know, Leo Arkham, the big bad guy, gains

(01:28:34):
Richard Harrison and they're going to fight, but oh, Flynn
has been caught without his sacred steel sword.

Speaker 2 (01:28:41):
Yeah, he has one of the cultest swords that's not
going to work against the master.

Speaker 3 (01:28:44):
And Arkham points out the rules. He's like, that sword
won't work against me. Your sword's over there, and he
uses force lightning on Flynn.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
And it looks pretty good. It looks pretty good for a.

Speaker 3 (01:28:55):
B movie, Yeah, and he so he like force lightnings
Flynn and then Flynn's on the ground and Arkham comes
up to him and he raises the cult dagger and
he's like, looks like we will have our sacrifice after all.
But then I was like, wait, so it could have
been Flynn instead of these. I thought it had to
be Terry and Angela.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
Yeah. I love it when a movie suddenly gets really
vague with what kind of sacrifices required. Reminds me a
Monster Squad a bit, where it's like, so wait, wait,
who could have been sacrificed? And why it seems like
you're being particular for no reason.

Speaker 3 (01:29:27):
Yeah, but of course, how does Flynn, how is he
going to get out of this? Remember earlier sister Mary
gave him that little metal crucifix around his neck. Well,
it turns out that can be also sacred steel. So
he stabs Leo with the with the crucifix, got him.
But then we haven't defeated all the bad guys because
we get a Melius attack. And here this is the

(01:29:47):
stop motion we were alluding to earlier. It's not the
best ever, but it's not bad. It's pretty cool monster
stop motion.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
Yeah, I mean you can the stop motion movies that
we watched in Weird House tend to be of a
very high or approaching high caliber. So you know, it's
unfair to compare something like this to the works of
the great Ray Harryhausen or to Phill Tippett for example.
But that being said, it's totally fun. It's JANKI and

(01:30:16):
cool and and he tears a guy in half. Who
does he tear in half? Joe?

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):
Oh boy, we get the return of when this guy
showed back up, I was aghast. It is the return
of guy Zupan, remember.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
A character I'd completely forgotten.

Speaker 3 (01:30:33):
Yeah, with the frosty hair, and he's I think when
he shows up again in Hell, he's still wearing his
three piece suit and the.

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
Overcoat dress for success.

Speaker 3 (01:30:42):
Yeah. Yeah, So he's wearing the suit and he's got
a shotgun and he's like, I'm here, I'm fighting now.
It starts shooting the monster and I didn't remember what
happened to him, but he gets torn in half, you say.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
I think so, yeah, yeah, there is some sort of
where he gets bitten in half something. We get some
nice stuf motion monster mayhem here, but.

Speaker 3 (01:31:02):
We get so. Of course, this buys Flynn time to
escape from Hell. So he runs out of the cave.
But oh now, Meleeas is coming. Meleeas is coming to
the mouth of the cave, and the whole time Eddie's
been waiting outside with like a bomb rig to explode
to close the mouth of Hell.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
Police issue hell Mouth closer.

Speaker 3 (01:31:19):
Yeah, so they close the mouth of it, they blow
up the bomb, the hell Mouth closes and seems like
the evil is defeated. So Flynn and Angela are of course,
Angela is rescued. She's alive again, what do you know?
And it seems like they're about to kiss, but then
there is a last scare because oh, here's Brian Devray
and he's running up and he's gonna he's gonna attack them.

(01:31:40):
But Terry comes through and guns down Brian Devray and
then Brian Devray somehow like falls on a sacred blessed
steel sword. Yeah yeah, and they're like, uh, They're like,
what did you say to him? Flynn whispers something to
Brian Devray and they're like, what did you say to him?
And he says I told him to go to hell. Well,

(01:32:00):
and then that, of course, Flynn and Angela kiss, and
it cuts to Terry and Eddie who are looking on
happily and framed by a rainbow. Yeah yeah, it's a
rainbow in the skies.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
Like yeah. With In this context, the rainbow is supposed
to mean God's promised to never allow Melias to climb
out of the hell mouth again, I guess that's what
it means.

Speaker 3 (01:32:27):
Well, Rob, I think Empire of the Dark was such
a wonderful find. This movie was not on my radar
at all until you suggested it for the show, and
it's it's a new fave for me.

Speaker 2 (01:32:38):
I forget who recommended it to me or what list
I saw it on, but I came back around to
it in a few days before our selection for this episode.
And yeah, like I said, it has its own following
their showings of this movie. So if you're if you,
if you look out in the right places, you may
get a chance to see this one on the big
screen as intended. One question we didn't address, Joe, what

(01:33:02):
is the Empire of the Dark? Should we take this literally?
Is Hell that the hell dimension that Dark characters go
into repeatedly? Is this the Empire of the Dark? Is
our world the Empire of the Dark? Or is the
Empire of the Dark a matter of the heart?

Speaker 3 (01:33:19):
These are all very good questions, though, you know it,
the cult in the movie never feels all that much
like an empire. It feels like very like they have
not assumed power yet. You know, the cult is our
heroes are not the plucky rebels rising up against the
imperial authority. The cult in the movie is very like
not yet ascendant.

Speaker 2 (01:33:40):
Yeah, I don't think they have the infrastructure to really
become a global empire. Regional Maybe maybe they can tackle
reading and that's about it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:50):
I think maybe the idea is, actually, this is probably
what it means. The heroes are preventing the Empire of
the Dark from being created. It off at the roots.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
There you go, that's the I think that's the correct interpretation.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):
And there's a rainbow there to let you know that
it worked.

Speaker 2 (01:34:07):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (01:34:07):
I can't get over that rainbow.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
It's so beautiful, so beautiful frame this one put it
on the wall, all right, Well that was Empire of
the Dark. Guess we know we have to have some
fans of this picture out there. There's so much in
this picture to discuss that we didn't even get to
really everything. There's so many nice little details that are
you know, either snapshots of the passion that went into it,

(01:34:32):
or the or the budgetary constraints on this particular dream.
But you know, all of it is just so authentic
and wonderful, so tremendous fun. If you haven't seen it,
definitely check it out. Yes, all right, In the meantime,
we'll just remind you once more that Stuff to Blow
Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with
core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we

(01:34:54):
set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a
weird movie here on Weird House Cinema. You can follow
Stuff to Blow your Mind on various social media platforms,
but if you want to follow Weird House Cinema in particular, well,
you can go to letterboxed dot com. We are Weird
House there, and that's a great way to look back
on all the films we've covered over the years and
sometimes get a peek ahead at what comes next. And

(01:35:16):
also wherever you get your podcasts, you can also subscribe
to Weird House Cinema exclusively as a playlist. That's another
option out there if that suits your listening preferences.

Speaker 3 (01:35:27):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
Your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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