Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Spookies

Yep, 1986 was a great year for genre movies — and also “Spookies” came out. In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe consider this overstuffed, underdone but super fun turkey of a horror movie. (originally published 09/10/2021)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind, This is Rob
Lamb and today we're gonna We're gonna go back to
a much older episode of Weird House Cinema. This one
originally published nine ten, twenty twenty one. It is gonna
be our look at the nineteen eighty six film Spookies.
This one's This one's very uneven. I think we described
it at the time as being overstuffed and underdone, but

(00:26):
it's still a heck of a lot of fun. So
if you enjoy b movies with there are maybe a
little rough around the edges, Spookies might just be the
film for you.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Let's jump right in.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
And this is Joe McCormick. And to set us up
for the movie that we're gonna be talking about today,
I wanted to discuss a problem that often arises when
you're making a monster movie, and that is the problem
of picking which kind of monster to commit to. You know,
it's like maybe the family's going out to dinner and

(01:14):
everybody's trying to decide, Oh, where should we go? You
know somebody, you know, brother Daryl wants to go to
the steakhouse, and Grandpa wants to go to the Mexican restaurant,
and so forth. Everybody wants something different. They can't all
have it at the same place unless you go to
the king size buffet where you can get a little
bit of everything on your plate. And that's what's going

(01:36):
on with the movie today. They decided, why commit to
just one kind of monster? You know, why make a
movie just about a like monster baboon hag Bride or
a little diminutive rubber merman goblin or fart zombies or
a cast member from Cats that has a hook hand.

(01:58):
What if you could just put them all in the
same movie and let them all run wild.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, and that is very much the case with the
movie we're talking about here today. This is gonna be
Spookies from nineteen eighty six, a great year for genre films,
though I can't lay we can't credit Spookies for really
being a part of that. This is this is not
a great movie. This may be one of the worst

(02:24):
movies we've we've discussed for Weird House, but you know,
we're still gonna We're still gonna focus on the positives.
It does have some positives, and I think the Monster
Buffet is the big one, because you know, when you
mentioned this, I was trying to think of other films
that really hit the same caliber, you know, of just
having multiple different types of monsters, and I mean I
thought of Gremlins too, but then again, even though those

(02:47):
are diverse types of Grimlins, they're still Grimlins. I thought
of Monster Squad, but that is still a case where
those are all like universal monsters that are that have
been historically paired together, so it's not that weird. It's established.
Or I thought of, say, Thirteen Ghosts. Both versions of it,
but especially the later version of it was a lot

(03:07):
of fun. Had thirteen very different types of ghosts, but
they were all still essentially ghosts.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I keep meaning to watch that one, Rachel and I
love those like late nineties terrible monster movie remakes, you know,
the nineties what's it called House on Haunted Hill and
all that, and thinking we're going to watch thirteen Ghosts.
Maybe this is the year it is? It is. I've
heard it's loud. It's the main descriptor I've heard applied
to it.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
It's loud, it's got a good cast, and get some
neat ghosts in it.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
But but okay, yeah, I see the point you're making.
So yeah, monster Squad, and that combines all of the
classic universal monsters into one thing. So you got like
a an off brand creature from the Black Lagoon, you
got a wolf Man, you got a Mummy, you got
a Dracula, and so forth. But this one, Yeah, I
like that. This is like a Monster Squad, but for
obscure or previously unknown monsters or monsters that you would

(03:59):
not think of is going in a monster movie. So
it does have sort of sort of like dirt caked
fart zombies that the just exude flatulence as they chase
people around in a room. And it does have this
like Baboon bride creature. It does have a like a
lady who turns into a giant spider. I think maybe

(04:19):
she's supposed to be a certain kind of yokai. But
it's also got like a if you bought a one
of those grim reapers that goes on your lawn for
Halloween and raises the scythe up and down and goes
ooh when people walk by. But it came to life
and started attacking people. It has that, and it's also
just got a.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Jawa, yeah, sort of a yeah, kind of a child
vampire Java running around.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
There's there's a lot of a lot of stuff here,
and there's not really a good reason why it's all there.
This is not a movie that's really concerned why people
or monsters have any reason to be in the same
place at the same time, and yet there they are.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Well, this movie did get me thinking about one thing.
I think maybe, maybe maybe the weird structure of this
film gave me a sort of insight into a curiosity,
a type of curiosity that powers the construction of certain
horror movies. And it is I think the same type
of curiosity that leads people to make those This might

(05:21):
be overly nerdy and obscure, but have you ever seen
those videos people make on the internet where they just
take like some like real time strategy video game and
they just keep pairing different kind of units from the
game against each other and seeing which one wins. You
know what I'm talking about. Yeah, Okay, so here's my
you know, power Mechmarine versus the the Alien Screamer Queen,

(05:43):
and you know which one will be victorious. You just
do that one hundred times with the different types of units.
I think sometimes eighties horror movies especially kind of work
that way, but they work with a certain kind of
monster or slasher and then with certain types of human
stereotypes or personality archetypes. So it's like, what does a

(06:05):
nerd versus hockey mask slasher look like? Or what does
preppy rich kid versus merman grimlin look like? You know,
it's like the bug fights, but with human stereotypes on
one side and different types of monsters on the other.
Does that make any sense? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I can see that definitely being a part of
the alchemy going into some of those pictures. But in
this case it's not. This does not feel like the
product of an alchemy lab. This seems like the lab
has been ransacked and all the liquids are mixing together
on the table and making random explosions.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Oh, this movie does have some really good random explosions.
You don't see him coming.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
No, so, spookies, I guess we should talk about what
the basic Elevator Vader pitch here is. Basically, the plot,
such as it exists, is that people, random people are
drawn to a weird house in a graveyard where a
warlock is trying to bring his bride back to life,

(07:06):
and equally random monster's rampage through the shambles of what
is essentially a kind of resurrected film. I also was
thinking of it in terms of what if Troll Too
had lacked vision and just featured more monsters.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
What if troll Too was more of a hodgepodge instead
of like one one director's clear artistic vision realized to
its fullest extent.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Right, So yeah, I think for me this film was
worse than Troll Too.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
This.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
I think this is the worst film we've looked at
on Weird House, and I think ultimately I would like
not to return to its level. But there's still some
fun stuff to talk about here.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well wait, then, how did you end up on this one?
What led you to Spooky's.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
I was familiar with the title, and I had signed
up for Shutter to watch a previous film that we
had covered. I forget which one, and I was slipping
around and there was Spooky So I thought, well, I'm
going to start watching it. Let's see what this is like. Okay,
So that's that's how it came to be, and oh

(08:10):
in the other part this is important too. This was
right before the Labor Day weekend, and I knew we
had a shortened week coming up, and we were talking
about doing another movie that I think we're going to
be doing for next week that is a much better
film and has some more I gotta know discuss it
has some some plot points in it, they're going to

(08:30):
be worth discussing more. And I thought, well, let's save
that for next week when we have a little more time.
Spookies is perhaps the right amount of movie for what
we have time to put together.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Okay, got another question. The title Spookies. Does it refer
to the buffet of different kinds of monsters? Are they?
Are they the titular spookies?

Speaker 1 (08:51):
I guess, I guess so.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
I mean I've never heard of spooky as a now
and that's an adjective, right.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Mm hmm. I think the title sometimes it makes me
think of things like the jeepers creepers, or phrases like that,
or the hebgb's or something where I'm like, oh, well,
maybe the idea is this film is supposed to give
me the creepies like I have the creepies now because
I watch this film, you mean the Spookies, the Spookies,
what I say, the creepies, Okay, creepy Okay, yeah, I
mean I have the Spookies because I watched the film.

(09:21):
I don't know's that's as much as I could figure out.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Well. I wondered also though, if it was if it's
a little like short and kind of short cute word
with an S at the end, because it's in the
era of the Gromlins type movies, so you know, Grimlins,
Critters and all that. If it was trying to cash
in on that Goolies that sort of thing. Oh exactly

(09:46):
did they think, Okay, we need something like that to
get the people picking up the box in the video store?
How about spookies? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, it was probably something like that. All right, Well,
let's let's give everyone a taste of the trailer audio
here so you'll know what you're getting into a little
bit more.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
It's this supposed to be it's sort of like a
Parcheesi game or something.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
I know what this is.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
I mean, I've never seen one like this before. It's
Ouiji board. How do you play it? Don't you?

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Ney Dice? Is something you.

Speaker 4 (10:17):
Don't play Ouija board is a tool for communication, communication
with the dead.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
All right, Well, one way you know this is going
to be a really good movie is that it has
three directors.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, yeah, and from the get go it apparently had
two directors. Now, when you get into the production history
of this film, we're not going to really get into
it a lot. There's a whole documentary that is a
special feature on the Vinegar Syndrome Blu ray for this
and that feature is that that making of feature is

(11:02):
longer than the film itself, has a lot of interviews
and if you're if you're super into all the nitty
gritty of the production of this sort of film, then
I would say go check that out. But ultimately I
feel like a lot of it was maybe maybe too
much for me. Like I ultimately I love a movie
of this caliber, but I don't necessarily need all the
ins and outs of how it is made. But you know,

(11:25):
your mileage will vary. But essentially, the key factors to
keep in mind here is you had you had these
two directors. You had Thomas Dorin and you had Brendan Faulkner,
and they were the initial directors and the producer was
this guy Michael Lee, who was has been described as
as like a video nasty millionaire who made a lot

(11:47):
of money importing films into Britain during the period where
a lot of these were banned. His company, I think
was was vip Co Vipko, and he wanted to produce
a film. These guys already had sort of a pre
existing vision and then as a producer he had a
certain amount of insight into what he wanted. They shot

(12:07):
this film that was going to be titled Twisted Souls,
and then that relationship fell apart and another director was
brought in to finish it, and that's this director, Genie Joseph.
She ended up directing additional footage and completing the picture.
And so what we have on screen here is is

(12:29):
one picture, but there you can tell where stuff was added.
There's this whole additional plot.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Where there are characters who you never see on screen together,
so you can tell. I think what the framing narrative is.
So if I understand correctly, the plot about the party
kids who drive around in the woods and then end
up at a house, a random house in the woods,
go into the house and then are attacked by a
buffet of different kinds of monsters. That was the original film.

(12:58):
And then the framing there rative where there is an
evil old warlock who is who is sacrificing people who
wander into his house to the monsters in order to
revive his dead bride. That is the framing narrative. Yep,
that was that was later added to sort of boost
this up to feature length, right.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
And you know, ultimately, like I said, I don't want
I don't want to get into all the ins and
outs of the production. I did watch the Future att
but or the feature rather, it's it's pretty too long
to be a feature at but I.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Would say that the feature here.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, I you know, I don't think the film was
ever going to be good. This is not like this
was on track to be something and and it was
changing into something else. I don't think there's a case
to be made for like release the Twisted Souls cut
or anything of that nature. I don't. I think the
film is as fun and memorable as it is because

(13:57):
you have so much weird stuff going on, and you
have these two different energy is involved in it. So yeah,
I mean, it wouldn't be Spooky's if it wasn't this ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (14:08):
I gotta say it does make for some extremely funny moments,
the inner cutting between the different plots, because first of all,
it gives it an energy similar to Pod People, where
it has at the beginning like the A, B and
C plot, and it's frantically cutting back and forth between
them at such a pace that you are constantly trying
to figure out which movie you're in. But then also

(14:31):
to stay on the mystery science theater theme for a second.
It sometimes seems almost as if the Warlock in the
framing narrative is sort of riffing the movie in the middle.
So like the kids will be walking through the house
and one of them will make a comment to say, like, wow,
so the lights in this place still work, maybe somebody
lives here, And then it'll cut to the Warlock a

(14:54):
different room, different place. You're not even sure where he is,
but he'll go someone does still live.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, that was a moment that I definitely laughed out
loud out.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
The resulting energy is weird and wonderful. It also feels
a bit like the stuff with the Warlock that was added.
It's like you decided to make a horror anthology, but
you only had the one picture to draw upon, because
there's certainly been cases where you have like different productions
that were unfinished or were recut, and then you have
them re released as part of a horror anthology with

(15:30):
some sort of framing narrative in place. But in this case,
it's just one the one picture.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a framing narrative around one movie that
was not going to make it to feature length. I'd
say that core movie is what maybe sixty minutes?

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how much stuff
got cut. I know some stuff got cut, but is
it stuff that would have really that I really wanted
to see instead of this wizard and his strange cat creature.
I'm not sure. All right, Well, let me go ahead

(16:07):
and mention some of the other projects that some of
the other folks were involved in here. So Thomas Durant
again co director, co writer on the Twisted Souls portion
of this. Interestingly enough, he was the voice of the
monster in Devil's Express, starring Warhawk Tanzania. Ooh yeah, so
I got to give him credit for that. He also

(16:29):
worked on a spattering of other genre pictures. Brendon Faulkner,
also the co director co writer on Twisted Souls, wrote
and directed the nineteen ninety two film Killer Dead Jeanie Joseph,
who finished the film. She wrote and directed the nineteen
eighty seven horflick Mind Benders.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
I have not seen this, but I looked it up.
Apparently it's also known as Invasion of the Mind Benders,
and the VHS cover definitely made me laugh out loud.
So it says Invasion of the Mind Benders. And then
it has like a lady on and she's shooting rays
of light out of her eyeballs over a guy who's
looking up enraptured at a bunch of clouds. And then

(17:09):
next to it, it's got a tagline says controlling a
mind is a dangerous thing.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
I like how this does look like a horror paperback
from the eighties, so.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Oh yeah, it's got looks more like book art than
movie art. And a plot description from IMDb on Mind
Benders says, two teenagers notice a sudden change in their
fellow students. No one is able to explain this zombie
like behavior, which, at the command of an unseen alien,
makes them punish transgressors with merciless violence.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
All right, So most of the there are a lot
of people involved in this. There's a lot of there's
a lot of loving attention pay to the monsters, and
we're ultimately not gonna be able to mention all of
them by name, but I want to mention a few
of them, as well as the the writers involved here.
So Jennifer Aspinall was in the makeup department, went under
work on a lot of projects including Westworld, Captain Marvel,

(18:08):
and Saturday Night Live. There's a Frank m farrell who
was one of the writers on the screenplay. He also
produced nineteen eighty seven Street Trash. That's a melt movie
that we've discussed before. Anne Bergund was a writer additional
material plus costume design. She was also associate producer on
nineteen ninety four's The Mask, Yes, the one with Jim

(18:31):
Carrey in a green cartoon face.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
So did Anne Bergund do the costumes in this, because
we're gonna have some commentary on the costumes.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
She at least did some of them. But also you
have this guy Tom Mulinelli who is credited with art direction,
art department and costume design. This is another individual who
worked on Street trash. Okay, there's a guy by the
name of al magli O'schetti who plays Lewis Wilson in this.
I don't remember which one Lewis Wilson was, but he
also did special effects photography. He went on to do

(19:03):
visual effects in a lot of big pictures including Star Trek,
The Undiscovered Country, Water World, The T two Bill and
Ted's Bogus Journey, The Adams Family, Jason Goes to Hell,
and many others.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Oh. In fact, so I see the connection to T
two there. But the camera operator, the steadycam operator in
this movie, j Michael Murrow, I think, also did steady
cam for a lot of James Cameron movies, including Terminator two.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, this is an individual that I believe Michael Weldon
pointed out as being involved in this picture in his
write up in one of the Psychotronic in the Psychotronic
Video Guide or the Psychotronic Video Guide or the Guide
to Film, I can't remember which one. Now, getting into
the actors a little bit, there are a number of
actors in this who didn't really have any other credits.
But my favorite actor in this whole picture is Peter

(19:51):
Ascillo Junior. He plays Rich is oh I would say,
the richest character in this film. How would we describe him?
He's the he's the cut up, He's.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
The He's a ham.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
He's a ham.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
He's a constant, glorious ham. He's a ham. Who's you
get the sense that he's improvising a lot of his lines.
There are scenes of just where where it feels like
what happened is they just turn the camera on him
and they're like, Rich, come on, you know, just riff
a little bit. And so he'll like wander around kind
of bumping into the other characters and be like, hey, hey,

(20:27):
how's your sinuses and stuff like that. He also is
plays a character who loves beer, and it's clear he
loves beer because even after the monsters started attacking and
all everything goes crazy, he's still always got his beer
in his hand.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, he's a lot of fun in this He's like
this tall, mustachioed guy that was apparently in real life
was just always on, just was always the goofy cut
up and was much beloved, and so he brings that
exact same energy to this role. His character, Rich has
a puppet named Muk and so he's off. He's constantly

(21:05):
interacting and harassing the other characters with this puppet. And
he wears a T shirt that features an image of
himself and the puppet Muke on it. Right, So he
lived nineteen fifty three through twenty seventeen. He played an
uncredited zombie and Down of the Dead, and then went
on to do a lot of bit parts and things,

(21:27):
often freaks and crazy, sometimes background work. I noticed he
pops up even in an episode of thirty Rock playing
paparazzi character, so you know, just somebody clicking a camera
in the background. But then we also have this character Duke,
who is Duke also interesting. How would you describe Duke
to everyone?

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Duke is a fabulous bully. He's sort of the like
tough guy, bad guy, bad boy of the group. It's
hard to convey by describing, but a lot of the
scenes with Duke in them have this bizarre rhythm and
logic that you sort of get, You get a feel
for as the movie goes on, but it can't really

(22:07):
be compared to anything else I can think of. I'm
going to try to describe one scene just to give
you an idea of like of duke rhythm, and it
goes like this, so like they're in the house and
Duke just pulls a box off the shelf and he
opens it and an amulet flies out of the box
onto the floor. And then this other character named Carol
picks up the amulet and she says, isn't it wonderful?

(22:31):
And he goes, pretty damn weird. If you ask me,
what is it? Art or something? Think it's worth any money?
And then he, immediately from saying this line, turns his
head to the side and sees a door that has
just been behind him the whole time, and then he goes,
what the hell is in here? And he starts jostling
the lock frantically, and then he breaks a chair across

(22:53):
the door and starts shoving a board into the door
jam trying to pry it open. This is Duke energy.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
Would yes, yes, very much so he In my notes,
I noted that he was essentially a discount Phonsie in
a trash bag because he's wearing this weird costume.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
He's wearing plastic clothes like a shirt and pants that
are they look like they're made from the same material
material as like black heavy duty garbage bags.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if it's like a workout
thing or what.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah, I don't know that that that is literally what
it looks like it's made out of. And I yeah,
I have no explanation.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
My one of my early theories watching this film was
that he was perhaps like the frontman of a band
or something, and that are the characters, the human characters
in this film. It's essentially like a band and some
hangers on and like maybe they're older producer. But this
is a complete misread on my part because there's nothing
to support that in the film. There's nothing to support

(23:58):
any actual connections but between any of these human characters.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Well, this gets you to something about the movie, which
is that it has one of my absolute favorite horror
movie tropes, which is the utterly implosable friend group. You know,
many eighties movies especially have this. The eighties were the
decade of the implausible friend group movie. Though you know,
it still happens every now and then. But I think
you probably know what I'm talking about. But if not,

(24:22):
just picture this. Okay, so it's a horror movie. You
got a group of friends hanging out. Maybe they're going
to somebody's uncle's cabin in the woods, or they're driving
around looking for a party as in this movie or
something like that, and the group consists of people who
would never in reality be hanging out together. What you
usually get is either one or two of each teen

(24:44):
subculture archetype that the movie wants to show, So you
get like a jock, a nerd, a punk, a stoner,
a preppie, rich kid, et cetera, instead of what you
would imagine would happen in reality, which is you'd have
like a group of jocks, or like a group of nerds,
a group of stoners, and and that would be the

(25:05):
friend group.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah, yeah, I mean sometimes I guess in your better films,
you see a diverse group of people brought together by
circumstances that then have to survive the monster. Oftentimes maybe yeah, yeah,
like maybe it's uh, you know, it's stoners and greasers
because they're both fleeing a storm or something and we're

(25:26):
holding up in the same place and now we're have
we now we have to fight goblins or something.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Right, That's more like you'd get in a Night of
the Living Dead. You know, different people are sort of
driven into a house by the zombies attacking. It's not
like they were all hanging out to begin with.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Right, But in this film everyone was hanging out to
begin with, and we're given no explanation why that would be.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
You know, And I think there are a number of
reasons this happens. Number one is what I was talking
about earlier. It's kind of the bug fights mentality, Like
you want to see different human cultural archetypes being faced
with violent struggle or extreme circumstances with that kind of
like bug fights or video game unit versus unit mentality.
It's just kind of a basic curiosity about like how

(26:10):
does this one work? But there's another version of it.
I think this is sort of there at the core too,
which is that the dead teenager movies of the eighties
are often, in essence clumsy and vulgar morality plays, and
as such, in a way you get them trying to
sort of recreate the dynamics of the Canterbury Tales. So
whereas in the Canterbury Tales you might get the knight's

(26:32):
tale and the partner's tale and the Wife of Bath,
here you get the jock's tail and the punk's tale
and the NERD's tale, and those are the little vignettes
you see them them go through before they finally meet
their end at the ultimate confrontation with the monster or
mad slasher or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
I would have liked to have seen Rich's tale. I
guess we do see Rich's tale to a certain extent here.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah, I kind of Rich, I see Partner's tale sort
of right, but also a Miller's tale, one one of
the good humorous ones. But I totally agree with you.
It works better when there is some kind of external
circumstance that can assemble people who are not naturally friends.
But in this movie, yes, it's just like, well, they're
all hanging out together for no for no reason, they

(27:16):
appear to hate each other.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, yeah, there's there's tension from the very beginning. Yeah,
but we don't really know why there's. It's not explained.
But it's the kind of tension that eventually erupts into
a full fledged fist fight between two of the characters.
In fact, between Duke and the older guy who I
thought was maybe a manager of some sort. They have
like an epic quiet man asque this fight.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yes, and.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
I'm not really sure why it occurs.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Oh man, that seems good. Oh and and like their
girlfriends are They're just like watching them fight, and one
of them is like, should we stop them? And the
other one is basically like no, just let them go.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
And they've been beset by multiple monsters at this point.
So yeah, it's just not a good time for a fistfight.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
Okay, Well, are you ready to talk a little more
about the plot?

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yes, such as it is, let's get into the plot.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
So one of the first things that had me laughing
in this movie was, I know this was the title
of the original film before it was recut and supplemented
by the additional footage, but this credit was given to
Twisted Souls inc Twisted Souls Incorporated. I don't know. That
sounds like a tattoo company or something. I'm not sure
what exactly, But so you get an opening on a graveyard.

(28:32):
It's very ed wood style graveyard with some kind of
flimsy looking tombstones, and then there is a stone crypt
cover on one of the graves that starts throbbing, like
it's stretching and deforming, and immediately I thought, oh, that's
a nice special effect. I think that could be similar.
There's a similar effect actually in the original Nightmare on

(28:54):
ELM Street where you remember the scene where a character
is lying on a bed dreaming and then on the
wall behind them, like Freddy's head sort of stretches out
through the wall. And I think, I'm not sure, but
I think that was accomplished just by using like a sheet,
a flexible sheet as the wall. And then so you know,
the actor sticks their head in there and it looks

(29:15):
like the wall is actually bending around some surface, some
objects coming out of it. I think the same thing's
probably going on with the grave here.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah, that was a great scene in Nightmare. That was
a great scene. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of
this short story the Yellow Wallpaper.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Oh okay, what was Spooky's actually based on an early
script treatment by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I think I recall
reading that somewhere. So we keep seeing this graveyard right
out in front of the big white mansion. There's a
big white mansion. It's the house for the movie. Looks
kind of like the White House because it has these
pillars out in the front.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Well, it does have an interesting history because it turns
out this is the John Jay Homestead.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
That's right, What a bizarre connection. So this Spooky the
movie with fart Zombies was filmed at the ancestral home
of John Jay, one of the US founding fathers, the
first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, one of the
authors of the Federalist papers. I didn't know this when
I watched the movie, but it made me think back

(30:17):
on it, and I'm like, could this be interpreted as
containing any federalist propaganda? I couldn't. I couldn't really make
that work. But anyway, so we'll keep seeing this as
the setting. They show you a lot of the setting
and then it cuts to this dude in white gloves
sitting doctor claw style, so it's a high back chair.
He's got his back to the camera, he's got his

(30:39):
hand on a cane and white gloves. He's got a
big old ring on and he is talking to a
winter green coffin and he says, I conveyed no longer.
The final foolish victims will be here very soon. So
just doing a really excellent accent that kind of comes
and goes. He doesn't always have the accent.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, it's not very consistent. There are times where it
feels like it's fifty percent low pan and fifty percent
major taught from.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Raiders of the Lost Arc.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
You know, it's oh yeah, it kind of he's going
for some sort of a German accent, like that's what
he's aiming for, but there's a bit of drift to it.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
The vinyl foolish victims. Yeah, yeah, well, actually that may
maybe that connects more thematically than I realized, because of
course Duke does turn out to be wearing vinyl clothes,
so at least one of the victims is vinyl in nature.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
That's true, that's true.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
But okay, so we get a read on the Warlocks plan.
This guy is going to sacrifice victims in his house
in order to resurrect his his wife, I think, and
we're led to believe at the time that, like you know,
they loved each other dearly, but she has long departed
and she will soon be raised and they will be

(31:52):
happy together forever.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yes, yeah, it's all right. So it seems that at
this point in the thing, I'm like, like, all right,
let's see how this occurs. Let's see how this happens.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Then we cut to this might be movie B or
movie C. At this point, we cut to a guy
running around in the woods who looks like a cast
member from Cats. He looks like a jellical cat going
to the jellicle ball and he has a hook for
a hand.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, some sort of a weare cat with a hook
for a hand in this kind of strange costume running
around looking, you know, very creepy. You know, I'm not
saying that these are you know, it's not thriller level
of creature creation here, but it's pretty good and I
am legitimately creeped out by this guy.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Oh and we also get the cast member of Cats
observing a kid with a backpack who's just wandering around
by himself in the woods.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Right, is this billy or is he just a billy?

Speaker 2 (32:48):
I think it's billy. Yeah, And then you get to
Movie C, I think. And then in Movie C we
meet our implausible friend group which are driving around the
woods in two different cars. Car number one consist of
a bad boy driver. This is Duke. He's wearing his
black plastic clothes. He's being an aggressive jerk from moment one,
just screaming at his passengers about spilling beer on the

(33:09):
upholstery while he's sort of zipping around in the dark.
And then you see car number two. The driver is
this much older guy who reads as like the ultimate
narc hanging out with these teens around him. He's wearing
a suit and tie. He is at least fifteen years
older than everyone else. I thought he was supposed to

(33:29):
be somebody's dad, but I think he's just a member
of this friend group who looks like he could be
their dad.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, and it's never explained, And based on some of
the behind the scenes interviews that I saw, I don't
think they knew either. This was not something where they
cut out some scenes that explain something. No, it's just
it's just this is what they was put together, and
they had no idea whether connections were supposed to be.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
And there's immediately a rivalry between this guy. We find
out his name is Peter, and Duke. The drivers of
the two cars don't like each other. Peter is talking
about Duke. He says, I told you we shouldn't have
followed him. First. He starts a fight at that party,
gets us all thrown out, embarrasses the hell out of us.
Then he gets us lost out here in the middle
of nowhere. So I guess Duke's calling the shots. They're

(34:17):
all just they're riding for Duke. And Duke. Duke is
not is not proving his worth. Duke is leading them astray.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, it's just it's so ridiculous. I can't even begin
to follow it. I guess part of it is the
problem of having this many monsters in a film. You
need not one, but two car loads of people to
serve as victims, and then you get this kind of
a situation.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yeah, I guess that's true. Some some movies get around
that with a van.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
That's true, or just hey, yeah, just have two groups.
You know, there's the one van, there's the other. I mean,
troll Too sort of managed this right, sure, or the family,
and then you had the like the boyfriend and his
crew that were coming in another vehicle.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
They don't have to know each other before they get
to the house. If you just want to serve them
up to a buffet of monsters, they could just both
arrive at the house.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
I mean, I guess they just wanted to have lots
of dynamic dialogue between all of these people.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
Yeah, and then so then we cut back to Billy.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
I guess this is movie two or b B plot.
He's in the woods eating a snack cake by himself,
and then he gets startled by a guy wearing a
denim tuxedo who's like, hey, give an old man a light,
and it's very creepy, U though the guy's not old.
And then the kid gives him a light. Why does

(35:40):
this kid kid have a lighter? I don't know. And
then the guys like go home, and the kid's like, no,
I have plans, big plans. And it turns out his
parents forgot his thirteenth birthday and that's why he ran
away from home. So he's just running around in the woods.
And then the kid walks away from the guy, and
then the guy in the woods as the kid walks away,

(36:01):
is just immediately killed by the jellicle cat. He gets
like slashes on his face, like while the kid is
still in frame walking away.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
It's yeah, it's such a weird series of events because
it's yet this kid runaway kid, you know, running into
a drifter in a way that feels like sort of
a Slice of Americana kind of tail, right, But then
the drifter is just just torn to pieces by the
by the wear cat.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, and then so we get a bunch more stuff
with the which plot the A plot I guess or
B plot the one with the warlock trying to resurrect
his wife. We start seeing his face and I got man,
this is a dry, dry warlock. His face is just
caked with some kind of powder. He needs moisturizer.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
It is.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
It's bad.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
But we also get to see his his wife in
the coffin and she kind of looks like a blonde
Winona rider. Yeah. But eventually we cut back to the party,
party boys, the party kids in the cars. They're they're
driving around. Eventually they they get blocked by an obstruction
in the road. I think, I think bust for Jones
throws a tree branch on the road in front of
Duke's car and then they have to stop and move it.

(37:09):
And Peter, mister Nark, gets out of his car and
he's like, listen, Duke, we've been driving around for two
hours in circles, getting nowhere fast. And then Duke says, right,
let's get out of this place. And then I wrote
this exchange down because this was good. Peter says, what
are we doing now? Duke says, we're partying. Man, something

(37:30):
you're too old to appreciate. Huh. If any of you
people want to come have some fun, come with us,
and then Peter says, this is ridiculous. Do you even
know where you're going? And Duke says, yeah, I'm going nuts.
I'm going nuts because I got to stand here and listen.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
To you so snappy, so snappy. That's some man it
material right there.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
That's like a sit back from the typewriter and kind
of like.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Go ah, yeah, all right. But we come back to
the kid. We come back to Billy wandering around. He's
going to find the White House as well.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah, he wanders around, he finds the White House. He
goes inside, of course, because you know horror movie logic,
you just come across what appears to be an abandoned
house that is not your house, and you just go in.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah, I mean, I guess it's you know, we've talked
about tales. So many old tales involved leaving the trail
or you know, entering into the wild place where you're
not supposed to go, and in stories that involve a
haunted house. And essentially this is a haunted house picture.
It's just haunted with random monsters instead of ghosts. It's

(38:32):
like people are drawn to it. People will find a
reason to go into that haunted house, be it for
shelter or for treasure or in this case with with
with the main characters, for the potentiality of partying.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Right. Uh and and actually the kid also goes into
the house with the for with partying in mind. Yes,
because apparently so his parents forgot it was his birthday.
That's why he ran away from home. He wanders into
the house. Uh, they're oh at this point, there's also
this is when we start seeing a jawa running around
just like a like a child in a in a

(39:06):
brown hooded cloak. But anyway, Billy the kid, he is
in the house and he walks into a room full
of birthday party streamers and sad half inflated balloons, and
he goes cool. He says, hey, a surprise party, so
he didn't forget after all, This is really great. So

(39:27):
the again, the logic of this is that this boy
thinks his parents threw him a surprise birthday party in
a random house that he walked into in the woods.
And then he opens a box that he thinks contains
a bowling ball, but in fact it's a head and
it is the Warlock's head, and he goes Happy birthday.

(39:47):
Billy moahahaha, And yeah, of course there you go.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
But between the old warlock, who we find out his
name is Creon, Creon, Yeah Creon and Billy please, Yeah,
they have this kind of discount Mike and the tall
Man vibe from Phantasm. Yeah, yeah, creepy old man who's
mysterious and seems to command supernatural powers. And oh and

(40:13):
there's of course there are jawa s creatures in both films,
though of course Phantasm is on certainly on several levels
ahead of this. Yeah, an order of magnitude or two
above Spookies in terms of quality.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
But the thing you can always say on behalf of Spookyes,
is Spookyes has more variety. Yes, you know, the Phantasm
may have like three or so interesting kinds of monsters,
Spookyes has at least nine. Right, So of course, eventually
the party kids arrive at the house and they're like, hey,
here's a house. Let's go inside and see if there's

(40:48):
a party. This is not the only I gotta say,
this is not the only movie where this happens. This
is sort of standard eighties horror movie logic. You just
arrive at a place and you think they're might be
a party there, and so you go inside and try
to party.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
Right, And I think Rich has brought like snacks and beer, right,
that's another part of it. So they have brought a
certain amount of party with them.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
He has red stripe, and he has chips, and he's
consuming them in almost every scene from here on out.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
He's ultimately an optimist. He was like, this is not
the party we intended to go to, but we're going
to have a party here. We are going to enjoy
ourselves in this just obviously haunted house.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Then there's a weird sequence after this where the catman
chases Billy birthday boy Billy around, chases him outside, and
then like buries him alive. I think, yes, like this
bar scene.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, Like watching this for the first time and not
really knowing anything about the production, you're thinking, well, Billy's
going to be around for a while. But no, the
wear a cat ambushes him like like massacures his face
like squatt, you know, just I don't know if he
uses the hook or just his cat claws, but swipes
him across the face. There's blood. Billy falls into a

(42:02):
doug grave and then the cat starts burying him alive
and buries him alive and you never see Billy again.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
What.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, this plot line does not return. It's just like
a like thirteen year old child does get killed like
at the beginning of this movie, and then it doesn't
connect to anything.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, it didn't connect anything, like speak you don't have
your you don't have a child, be your sort of
throwaway victim unless there are other child characters involved and
they have a relationship with that child, or you know,
the adults have a relationship with that child. It generally
needs to mean something for that to take place, and

(42:41):
in this movie it means absolutely nothing.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
It just seems like an idea somebody started having and
then they just got there like, oh, okay, I don't
know where I'm going with that. I'm done with that,
onto other things.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah. Of course this was part of the bit that
was filmed afterwards to complete the film, so we can
ultimately excuse it that way. But when the context of
the film itself as as a solid, you know, sort
of cohesive viewing experience, it's it's very alarming.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Okay, So now you've got the party kids in the house,
and I guess maybe we should mention who all of
them are, because again, like, clearly you're supposed to be
getting I think, a list of types, you know, your archetypes.
So you've got Duke. He's the bad boy, he's the
he's the tough guy, bully, wearing plastic bad boy clothes.
And then Duke's girlfriend's name is Linda. She's his long

(43:31):
suffering girlfriend, and she's dressed in these bright eighties colors
and spins a lot of the movie rolling her eyes
at Duke's behavior. You know, it's just kind of like, oh, brother,
that's our Duke.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Then you've got Peter, the you know, the seventy five
year old accountant, who I guess maybe you might think
was one of the protagonists. At first, I thought the
protagonist of the film was going to be Peter's girlfriend, Megan,
because she at least initially has that sensible protagonist energy

(44:04):
in a horror movie with the group like this. But
I notice more and more as the movie goes on
that that evaporates, and then she mainly becomes characterized by
like just making statements of fatalistic despair. She just says
things like there's no escape. Every one of us is
going to die.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Wow. So she starts out as the Sigourney Weaver potential
Sigourney Weaver the picture and becomes the Bill Paxton of
the picture.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Yes, Meghan, Yeah, the Descent of Megan. On the other hand,
a supremely positive and optimistic force within the film is Rich,
the jokester who's got a puppet who loves beer and chips,
and he just sort of like he bumbles through every scene.
There are moments where he shows flashes of fear, but
there are other times where he's being attacked by a

(44:50):
monster and he's just like, yeah, okay, come on, you know,
if you're going to kill me, bring it on. And
then we got a couple of characters named Adrian and Day.
Adrian is I think supposed to be a British fancy
fashion lady wearing this like cool cream colored jacket, and
her boyfriend Dave is like also I think supposed to

(45:13):
be a kind of like fancy rich guy. He's an
allergic man with sinus problems. He's wearing a khaki jacket.
I think these two are supposed to be fussy and fancy.
They're like rich city people who are just over it
and they want to get a cab back to Soho
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, Yeah, they're kind of what the what are the
characters in Christmas Vacation Todd and Margo, they're sort of
the Todd and Margo of this.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Oh okay, Yeah, they're kind of like American psycho people.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yeah. Now she's played by Charlotte Alexandria, who is a
French actor who apparently did a lot of fairly diverse
smattering of film in Europe before coming over and playing this.
And in the documentary they mentioned I haven't seen this
actually verified anywhere, but they said that she played the
Virgin Mary in the Life of Brian.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Hmm, okay, but I don't know about that. And then
the last two people there is Carol, who's got curly
blonde hair and seems like maybe she is of like
a spiritual persuasion. You get the vibe like she could
do your horoscope, I think. And then you've got Carol's boyfriend, Lewis,
who has no characteristics that I could identify except that

(46:19):
he wears denim and I think he's played by somebody
who did some effects for the movie.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yes, yeah, definitely, And there's a lot of that in this,
especially when you get into the monsters. People in the
monster suits are not are not necessarily designated actors. They
are also involved in other parts of the production.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Yeah, and so here's where you get into that scene
I talked about earlier where they're just like finding things
and Duke is just continually turning his attention from one
destructive project to another. He's like prying open doors and
smashing stuff. And at one point somebody's like, Duke, stop
doing that, and he goes like, I don't care about
this old creep joint. But he gets the door open

(46:59):
and he gets attacked by a desiccated corpse. It just
like a corpse falls out of the closet and he's like, nah,
it's fake.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
The thing about that corpse, this is just so this Yeah,
this is just a scene where the corpse falls out
of the closet on him. But later on in the
film we see that this corpse is completely articulated and
can be brought to life. There's so much love and
detail that went into the creation of the various monsters
in this so I will say that that is That's

(47:29):
the best thing I can say about this film is that, Yeah,
a lot of love went into the creation of these
various zombies and corpses and monsters and grim reapers of
whatever the case may be.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
You know it has. So after this, they get into
a wijaboard scene, and this is sort of when all
hell breaks loose, right Like they start they find a
wig aboard. Of course, Carol is the one who's like, oh,
I know how this thing works. It is a tool,
she says, it's not a game, it's a tool the
dead can reach out to us. And so they play
with the wig aboard and the Warlock ends up telling

(48:05):
them answers to questions through it, like they ask, will
we ever leave this house? And he says no, and
then and then the warlock transforms Carol into a demon
by making a vein on his forehead throb and the
camera zooms in on the vein on his forehead, and
then Carol turns into like one of the demons from
Evil Dead.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Right, Yeah, yeah, it's it's overtly Evil Dead ask and oh,
and I should point out that the Ouiji board has
pictures of the various monsters on it, So I think
the Ouiji board is supposed to be involved in the
summoning or unleashing of this various monster, but we don't
know exactly how or why that is the case.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
One thing I found funny is that the warlock in
this movie keeps making chess metaphors for what he's doing,
and they're often inappropriate or I don't see how they
apply to what he's talking about. Like he's like, it's
just like a game of chess, but he's referring to
trap everybody in a house. Yeah, do you have to
trap your opponent? I mean, I guess you you form

(49:06):
traps for people in jail. I don't know. It didn't
seem super applicable.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah, Like, I don't think there's even enough. There aren't
quite enough monsters to be an entire chess set anyway, right,
But it's close, it's actually pretty close.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
But here's where you get to the standard. You know,
you probably if you've seen horror movies before, you know
the format. After this, the the you know, all hell
breaks loose. Various monsters are unleashed, and the party crew
barricade themselves inside the house and they're gonna of course
split up and get attacked one by one by different
types of monsters. I like how after they first barricade

(49:39):
themselves inside, Peter, the older guy, he it seems he
recognizes they've reached this point in the plot and then
explains as much. He pretty much says, for the rest
of the movie, we will now be picked off one
by one.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
And so they split up, like Duke and Linda go
one way, and they end up encountering some zombies that
keep far. We can talk about that if you want.
I'm not sure what to make of that scene. And
Peter and Meghan and Rich go another way, Dave and
Adrianne stay put. They encounter some grimlins.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
I think, yeah, so let's talk about those fart zombies.
They're credited as being the Muckmen. Even though they don't
look particularly mucky. They look very dry to me, like
sort of dried dog biscuit mummies.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Yeah, crumbling and short, short, short crust.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Yeah. And it's in a basement and they are wine
casts and ultimately they're defeated by melting them with wine,
which is when the effect looks pretty good, I have
to say. And the muckman don't look bad, but clearly,
at some point in post production, and I think the
making up gets into this a little bit, they decided, well,
let's add fart noises, and I think The rationale was

(50:48):
they look kind of swamp thingy, so maybe swamp equals
he equals fart noises. Yeah, but it also reminds me
of some behind the scenes stuff I heard about the
cartoon Invader Zim where they were talking about putting together
a scene and if they didn't feel like the scene
was funny enough, they would just keep adding sound effects

(51:10):
to it until they were satisfied. And so that's what
this felt like to me, Like they were thinking, this
needs something, this needs something else. Maybe the answer is
fart noises.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
It also reminds me of something I think I recall
Stephen King writing years ago about how when he's writing
a scene and he's trying to make it really scary
and he can tell it's just not scary, and he
doesn't he can't figure out how to make it work.
Then he just dials up the grossness factor. It's sort
of like to salvage something that he can't otherwise figure

(51:42):
out how to make work, just make it disgusting.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
Right, And so that's what they go for here. I
don't think it works. It just comes off as as
kind of awkward and dumb. But I have to say
the muckmen themselves. I don't think they look bad. I
think they look pretty good, which is, you know the
same thing i'd say for most of the creatures in
this Well.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, i'd say that's the best thing about the movie
is at least a solid two thirds of the monsters
look great.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
And you never know what you're gonna get. It's just it.
It'll be totally unexpected.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
So another kind of encounter we get is that the rich,
fussy people, Dave and Adrian, they're they're they're sort of
being catty at each other. They're at each other's throats,
and then they get groblin. They oh, yeah, wait, sorry,
is the term gromlin or groblin?

Speaker 1 (52:36):
I say gromlin, but it's a made up word, so
you can certainly say groblin instead.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
No, no, I want to respect your your your terminology here, gromblin. Yes,
So they get Gromlin. They get attacked by a little
green rubber grimlin merman with a like fish gator tail,
and there is a long scene of Adrian fighting the
Gromlins while synth Funeral Music plays music choice very weird.

(53:00):
It's like a shopping mall version of Mozart's Requiem. While
she's struggling with this little rubber critter.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Yeah, it's a it's it's it's actually not a bad scene.
Like she she's good in this fighting making it. It's
one of these where a person is often fighting a
puppet or fighting just a prop, you know, and acting
like it's attacking them. But she she does a good
job with the scene. And then also ultimately the Gromlin
looks pretty good. Yet it's well designed. It it's not

(53:28):
like it's not hobgoblins level. It's maybe a little above that.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yeah, i'd say above hobgoblins, definitely below grimlins. Maybe on
the level of ghoulies.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Oh no, it's at some point in here we get
an update on the Warlock framing narrative, which which is
this probably won't be all that surprising, But it turns
out the lady in the coffin, who is being revived
by the evil magic of the Warlock, does not want
to come back from the dead. She does not like
the Warlock guy, and she was just fine with her
eternal slumber, not interested in his his satanic, you know,

(54:04):
magical deal, and she's just like, get me out of here.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Sometimes dead is better, you know.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Yeah. Oh, but to mention some of the other monster scenes,
which which are mostly pretty great. So Adrianne gets attacked
by those who she beats the Gromlin she like hits
it with the fire poker I think, and crushes it
with a bookshelf or something, ye, and then she runs off.
Then she gets attacked by a different creature. This time
it is the creature from the Electric Intestine's Lagoon. Very

(54:32):
nice looking monster, very.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Mute, sy, very creative. I don't I can't think of
another film where a monster uses like belly tentacles to
not only grab but also electrocute a victim and in
doing so melt her face off with like a stop
motion effect, which is really nice.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
There's another monster we get to see I mentioned earlier,
like the the zombie baboon bride Hag, which is where
the warlock lady escapes or you know, the Warlock's bride
escapes and she gets away from him, wanders into some
catacombs and then she gets attacked by this baboon creature.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
Yeah, puppeteer is clearly in shot in the lower left
hand corner of the screen at one point, but yeah,
still still a fun sequence. Nice, but probably one of
the ultimately one of the weaker looking puppet creatures that
we encounter, and also one that doesn't I really don't
know what exactly they are you going for here?

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Now? Somehow, as you mentioned earlier, Duke and Peter end
up in a fist fight. The characters reunite. Megan's like, well,
we're all going to die and that's just how it is.
And Duke is like, I want to fight, and Peter's
like okay, bucko, and so they just start slugging it out.
And does this fight end with Duke dead? I don't recall.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
I do not remember either. Yeah, I don't remember what
actually kills Duke.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
I think the Grim Reaper does. Oh yeah, because the
great Yeah, like a statue of the Grim Reaper comes
to life and then it attacks them. I think it
kills Duke and Peter. The old guy literally dives right
through a closed door like busts strike he does.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
Yes, yeah, I mean it's all in ball. Yeah, it's
always insane enough when someone like throws himself through glass
in one of these films, which yeah, I mean people
can and do throw themselves through glass sometimes if the
circumstance is right, but in movies it takes on an
entirely different air. People often pop up completely unscathed. They
do it with just on the fly, without a lot

(56:36):
of thought. But in this case, it's not even a window.
It's a wooden door.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Yeah, that was a nice detail.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Fortunately made completely out of bals of wood.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
The jokester rich At some point you thought he was
gonna get killed earlier by one of the evil dead zombies,
but then he just keeps wandering around with his beer
and his chips, and he eventually wanders into it like
a lady leads him into a cave, and then she
transforms into a giant spider So I think she's supposed
to be like a like a spider woman creature of

(57:06):
some type, and she she sucks all his fluids out,
which is a nice effect.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
It is. It's a nice effect. It's a fun sequence,
but also one that raises questions about sort of the
the energy economy of this film, because a lot of
work went into this. They have like a custom Spider
Woman layer there there's a different actor playing this sort
of Japanese Joragumo spider woman, and she doesn't just she

(57:31):
doesn't just like you know, suddenly reveal oh she has
half a spider face or suddenly she's a spider.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
No.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
There there's like five stages to this transformation, each one
involving some either impressive or ambitious practical effects. So and
that's not even counting the rich head that is then
deflated like a balloon when he sucked dry.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
Yeah, well it likes so much like the content is
severely like eyebrow raising but really great effects. But likewise,
with the very next scene, which is the Grim Reaper
fight on the balcony, like the old guy Peter ends
up fighting this, it is just death personified with the scythe.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
This is one that definitely reminded me of the Key
and Peel Grimlins two pitch meeting skit. There's the one
where the guy recommends that Hulk Hogan be in the
picture and they're like, WHOA hold the phone, you're talking
Hulk Hogan pro wrestler. It's similar to that. It's like, Okay,
we're gonna put the Grim Reaper in this. The personification

(58:34):
of death a highly symbolic character that is very rarely
actually incorporated into some sort of a film. I mean,
there are examples of this, obviously, including stuff like Bill
and Tad or I guess with the Final Destination films
to a certain extent without that character like really appearing
on the screen. But for the most part, like the
Grim Reaper is, is not a physical entity that you

(58:58):
talk about people encountering, unless you're dealing with a property
that is being fairly satirical or extremely symbolic.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
Well wait, sorry, thinking back to the Final Destination movies,
does Tony Todd actually play the Grim Reaper or just
a guy who knows about the Grim Reaper? Oh?

Speaker 1 (59:17):
I'm not sure on this. I have a very vague
memory of these films, and I don't think I saw
all of them. Tony Todd, of course, as the actor
played Candy Man, yeah, and is a great actor. Yeah,
I don't remember if he's just kind of the wise
man who knows the ways of death or his death embodied.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
I recall, like several of those movies have a scene
where the characters go and they meet him and they're like, hey,
what's up, And he's like and he tells them like
facts about death. He's like, I don't know, He's just like,
did you know. I recall in the first one, he
refers to the Grim Reaper as a mac daddy.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
Really yeh yeah, Now is Tony Todd I can't remember.
Is Tony Todd wearing like a black robe? Does he
have like a scythe pin on his shirt or anything?

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
I don't recall the capacity in which he has encountered
in the later films. In the first film, I think
he plays a guy who is interpreted as a mortuary worker.
Like they break into a morgue where one of the
people is being kept, and he's just there and he
tells them facts about death and then tells them that
like they can't escape death because death is a mac Daddy.

(01:00:23):
Well this, I mean, it's a great cameo. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
This Grim Reaper, however, can be defeated. And the way
they defeat him is pretty hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Yeah, they like knock it. So Peter I think, punches
him or somehow knocks him off the balcony and then
he explodes, just like explodes in a giant fireball, like
he's made of gasoline.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Yeah, like a truck that has gone off a cliff
in an action film or a Mad Max movie or something,
and then just burst into a just a big fireball
at the bottom. That's what death does when you knock
him off a roof.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
So there's some more just sort of like wrapping up
the plot kind of stuff. There is a scene at
the end that I got to say, as much as
I enjoyed some of the monster scenes early on, the
ending scene was excruciating. It just goes on and on
and on. It's basically a chase where the woman who

(01:01:16):
has been awoken from her eternal slumber by the sacrifices
within the house and is trying to escape her like
evil warlock husband. She runs out of the house and
then zombies keep attacking her and she just keeps running
from them, and it's playing this driving synth music that's
kind of like good and getting you pumped up at first,
but then it just goes on and on and on

(01:01:39):
and on, and I thought I was gonna start screaming.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Yeah this I had a similar experience like I've been.
I was kind of really more enthusiastic about these monsters
and some of the acting, but then this whole sequence
hits and I begin to feel like a little weird,
like a little nauseous, you know, like like it was
it was getting psychedelic in the ad sense, like this
scene is the brown acid, you know, right, yes, And

(01:02:04):
it did seem to go. I don't think it's actually
that long. I think it's maybe it's less than ten minutes,
but who it just feels it's just dragging. It really drags.
And then basically at the end we get our nice
like sort of crazy dark ending where Creon finally comes
bursting up through that grave, the pulsating grave from the
beginning of the film, he's laughing maniacally. We cut to

(01:02:24):
the Jaha child laughing maniacally, and then freeze frame on
Creon laughing, and that's it, roll credits.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Yes, yes, and that's Spookies. Spookies. You know, I can't
stop thinking about your comparison of the Grim Reaper with
the Hulkster from the Key and Peel Skit. Something about
that is connecting very strongly for me.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna have the Grim Reaper
in your picture, like I mean, I hate to criticize
the one thing that really works about this film, the
monster buffet. Like the Grim Reaper doesn't need to be
on the buffet. He like he needs to be an
entree that you order special, like maybe you have a
side item with that, but for the most part, like
this is the Grim Reaper. He's a big deal. He

(01:03:10):
needs to be your big bad instead of just one
of the random things summoned by the Ouiji board. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Yeah, it could be part of the buffet, but at
least needs to be a special part of the buffet.
So it's not just like one more thing you scoop
out of a steam tray. It is. It's the roast
beef carving station, you know. It's like the special the
end point. It's like this is where the real stuff is.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
However, I will say the Grim Reaper looks pretty cool.
Like all these you can question why these monsters are
in it, but ultimately all the monsters are pretty fun
to look at on screen when they show up. Some
of them look great, some of them look ambitious but interesting.
They are ultimately the stars of this picture.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
I want to be a RepA maniac, have fun with
my family and friends.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
All right, Well, is there anything you know? Sometimes we
do a deeper read of some of the things, some
of the aspects of a particular film, but this this
film's kind of like a it's like a meta material
that resist any stain or or water, of beads of
fixing to it. Everything just runs off of it. There's
not a There aren't a lot of deep thoughts we
can really have about Spookies. But that's all right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
It wicks away cognition.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
It does. Yeah, don't watch this film if you want
to want to have deep thoughts about virtually anything. But
if you want to see some some kind of groovy monsters,
it's worth taking a look at. Which leads to our
next point, where can you watch Spookies? Well again, Vinegar
Syndrome put out an awesome blu ray of the movie,
especially if you're a hardcore spooky fan. That's what you

(01:04:44):
need to pick up. It's a four K restoration from
the thirty five millimeters original camera negative pack full of
special bonuses. But you can also stream this film via
Shutter or a GMC. Yes, American Movie Classics, because this
is Spookies after all.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Is there a Criterion Collection edition? And I'm sorry I
keep making that joke.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Vinegar Syndrome is your Criterion edition for films like this.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
I promise I'll stop now.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Okay, all right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close
the tomb on this one and try and see it
shut But certainly we'll be back with another Weird House
Cinema episode next Friday. I believe we're going to be
talking about a film of superior quality, both objectively and
subjectively speaking. But in the meantime you can check out

(01:05:34):
all these episodes of Weird House Cinema that publish on
Fridays and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed
We are primarily a science podcast, but we set aside
most of the science on Fridays to discuss a weird film.
Core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, or on
Tuesdays and Thursdays, Artifact on Wednesday and on Monday. We
do listener mail rerun on the weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Huge Things, As always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Nicholas Johnson. 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 Stuffdblow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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