Weirdhouse Cinema: The Guyver

It’s time for more big meaty monsters slapping meat on Weirdhouse Cinema, as Rob and Joe discuss 1991’s “The Guyver,” a biomechanical slapfest full of wonderfully weird casting and an array of glistening special effects by synthetic flesh wizard and co-director Screaming Mad George.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And I hope you
like slash wipes because today's movie is full of them.
Today we're gonna be talking about the nineteen nine one.

(00:26):
I don't even know what genre to call it movie.
The Giver geiver spelled g u y v e r.
I don't know what that means. Everybody I told about
this movie asked mug iver, and I had to say, no,
just geiver. I don't know where that word comes from.
But you're gonna hear it a lot if you watch
the film. That's right. Yeah, this this film is it

(00:47):
is kind of hard to classify because they're they're aspects
of it that are really cranked up to the extreme,
and there's plenty of other things that are very traditional
about it. It's a it's a PG thirteen major motion picture.
It's a manga turned anime turned live action feature. I've
I've seen some people claim that it might be the
first Western adaptation of a manga. Uh. It's also I

(01:11):
guess you would classify this is a Tokusatsu film. Uh,
you know, very much like you know, various power rangers
and so forth, you know, costumed uh or you know,
mechanized or otherwise superpowered individuals fighting monsters. Essentially a rubber
monster costume slapfest. Sure, yeah, it's it's essentially in many

(01:34):
a large extent, you can make a case for this
being a kid's film. The effects are are rather extreme
in some cases, which really push it over the edge
and make it something that I'm not ready to show
my my son. Uh. It's definitely a monster movie. It's
got plenty of monsters, and it is a film that
I guess you would describe as a comedy. It certainly

(01:54):
tries to be funny many times and has I think
one legitimate and intentionally funny line. Maybe I don't know.
I was wondering who this is for. I enjoyed The Diver,
but despite much about it, it's this is one of
those movies where it's really not fit for adults and
not fit for children. It's got it's got a very

(02:16):
kids movie kind of sense of humor, the like silly
trombone music and everything, but it's also got uh stuff
that's obviously not fit for it. I mean, there's some
language in there, and like, the monsters are disgusting, so
I don't know exactly how to feel about this. But
also it's got, on one hand, Olympian makeup effects just

(02:38):
like squelching latex, mucous membranes and and kiten. This cod
pieces that are great they deserve formal apotheosis, but also
comedy that is so bloop de bloop and and cringe
that it will make your pets embarrassed. It even has
silly wraps. The comedy is dreadfully painful. It does have wraps.

(03:02):
I was delighted when I when I because because I
don't think I had either I either had not seen
this in its entirety before or I had forgotten the wraps.
And uh, you know, it's delightful that we have an
actual monster rapping on screen. Yes. Now, one thing I
was wondering is this movie came out in nine. How
well do you think it fits with my general theory

(03:23):
that the most culturally eighties year in American media was nine?
I would I would think it would lines up with
that pretty well. Yeah, because yet for most of the
aspects of the film, you could certainly make a case
that that's the effects are maybe more you know, bleeding edge,
oozing edge even uh you know, but certainly I think

(03:47):
match up well with some of the you know, the
better special effects we saw in the in the nineteen eighties. Okay,
what's the elevator pitch on this? Uh so? Uh, what
I was thinking of is what if power Rangers were discussed? Thing? Yeah,
I think that's about right. It's like David Cronenberg's Mighty
morphin Power Rangers. Yeah, this this film was also it's

(04:09):
It was released as The Giver, based on you know,
the manga that turned to anime, uh, The Giver, but
it also was released with the title Neutronics, at least
in some places, especially I guess in France, because there's
this wonderful poster um that is perhaps more true to
the spirit of the film than the more widely seen

(04:30):
like American poster. But it says Neutronics left film, and
then it has the various monsters from the picture roughly
re enacting the Breakfast Club poster poses. Yes, that's what
I thought. Yeah, yeah, and much in the same way
that the Texas Change saw Massacre too did the same thing.
But it lets you know, something about the spirit of

(04:51):
the film. I think this is making Michael Berryman's monster
the Judd Nelson Okay, and it's making uh, spy Williams
Crosby the Anthony Michael Hall. All right, let's hear some
trailer audio. Yeah, I have. Now. I think one of

(05:42):
the reasons Rob correct me if I'm wrong, but I
think one of the reasons that we were zeroing in
on this is because it was actually directed by someone
who's special effects we have enjoyed in other weird house
cinema movies, which is screaming Matt George did. Did he
do effects on Arena? Yeah? He did. Uh. In particular,
he did the one monster named Sloth, which is this

(06:04):
really you know, strange looking creature. It looks like a
giant mutated grasshopper man that our hero boxes. That was
a really good one that kind of made the movie.
And I see some of the same d n A
if you will in that monster in one of the
final beasts we come across in the Guiver. Yeah. When
you think of screaming Mad George's effects, you often think
of insect mutations. You think of of of dripping, oozing,

(06:29):
melting and morphing flesh. Uh you know, he's a he's
a wizard of the synthetic flesh. I would say, I mean,
there are very few artists out there in the special
effects field that you might think of as being like
true all tours. You know that where they there's a
you can recognize their work, or at least you can
if you're sort of clued into their style. And I
would argue that Screaming Mad George born uh Joji Tani

(06:53):
is one of them. So we spoke a little bit
about him in that episode we did on Arena, but
I wanted to go a little deeper this time, since
he's heading this baby up. So I turned to a
book titled Monsters, Makeup and Effects, Volume One, Conversations with
Cinema's Greatest Artist by Heather Wixon, which is, you know,
available wherever you get your books in different formats, but

(07:13):
it features a long interview with Screaming Mad George. So
I was interested to learn a little more here. So
according to the interview, you know, he grew up in
Japan inspired by cartoons and manga and anime, and he
realized early on that while he struggled with story and
certainly with finishing stories. He had plenty of ideas, and
he realized he was better as an illustrator. So one

(07:36):
of the things would seem hard or frustrating, he would
turn to drawing, and then eventually turned to oil painting,
and after high school he attended the School of Visual
Arts in Manhattan and he started getting into music there
as well, first in the punk era band The Disgusting Uh.
And when he was part of The Disgusting, he would
do things like disembowel himself on the on the stage

(07:58):
with like fake blood and fake uts and so forth.
Cool so you could think of this as like a
preguar sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, I guess so, like
really extreme stuff. It sounded like um. But then The
Disgusting UH morphed and it became a new band, The Mad,
in which he switched up his persona to be less
about the gore and more about the bizarre. And I

(08:19):
think this is where he becomes screaming Mad George, and
then the name ends up sticking. I looked up some
of The Mad's music and you know what, I thought
it was great. It's so they're a little known punk
hardcore band, uh, and yeah he is. It had Screaming
Mad George on lead vocals. I found an album of
their's called We Love Noise with the noise with a

(08:41):
Z instead of an S, and uh, if you if
you want to check out one of the songs on there,
I recommend the one called I Want to Be a
Devil and uh it's good stuff. Yeah, I was. I
was impressed by what I heard of it. This is
a album, but uh, yeah, I I don't know what
I quite expected. I guess with Screaming Mad George, I
was kind of thinking it's gonna be just just pure chaos,

(09:04):
you know, or it's gonna be madness. Um, and there
is madness there, but it's also pretty well structured and
uh riffs and stuff. Yeah yeah, And I guess that's
part of the like the Screaming Mad George thing is
like there's this persona of madness in this name that
implies madness. And you'll see interviews where people were like, oh,

(09:24):
you worked with Screaming Matt Georgia and this what was
that like? And they're like, well, he was very quiet
because he was super obsessed with, you know, touching up
all these details the whole time. But he gets all
his energy out on stage. I guess yeah, yeah, or
you know, in the energy, the madness comes out through
the designs and the effects. So in the interview uh
in this uh this book by Wicks, and he also

(09:48):
mentions that he eventually started doing um industrial music. And
I'm thinking maybe this is from the project Screaming Mad
George and Psychosis. They put out an album called Transmutation
in Okay. That would make sense historically. Yeah. So anyway,
he moves uh to the West Coast to study effects
under under effects legend Rick Baker. UM apparently kind of

(10:10):
like Pestored Baker. He's like, hey, you know, I need
to come out there and learn this from you, and
Baker agrees. Uh. He moves out there just in time
for Baker to take a year off and Baker has
handed cocoon duties off to Greg Cannon. So that's where
George ends up getting his start. He's basically working for free. Uh.
He's sent out to buy materials for things that the
effects crew are building. But um. But in the in

(10:33):
the interview Screaming Matt, George says that this was actually
pretty great because he learned what all these basic underlying
materials were and it gave him more insight into what
was possible from a material standpoint when it came to effects.
From there, he ended up working for Steve Johnson on
Poltergeist Too, where George was put in charge of the
Geeger designed vomit monster. Do you remember the sequence? And yes, yes, yeah,

(10:57):
probably one of the most memorable and maybe maybe the
best moment in the entire picture, and one that's usually
pretty easy to find on streaming sides. But he has
some of individual vomits up this humanoid creature that then
scampers off under a bed or something. It does look horrifying. Yeah,
it's it's a great sequence. Uh. Next up he did
he worked on Big Trouble, Little China, where he was

(11:19):
assigned the build of the eye creature, the floating beholder
monster that we have in that movie. Okay, yeah, and
I knew he worked on Predator at some point, right
yet Predator, Lost Boys, Spaceballs, Nightmare for the dream Master,
in which he did the cockroach stuff. Yeah, okay, and
then you know, and I'm skipping there's sir. I'm not

(11:41):
gonna mention every picture that he was involved with, because
you know, he's very much part of a crew and
many of these, but at us at some point in
all this ends up meeting up with horror director Brian
yasna Um who was called and so he Hasna called
him in to do effects on what would become Society,
a bizarre our body horror film that is essentially about

(12:03):
classism in Hollywood. Now, if you're familiar with this film,
you know that it's loaded with fleshy, weirdness and nastiness,
bodies fusing together and so forth. Um. But much of this,
according to this interview, according to George here Uh seems
to have come about because the original script by Woody
Keith and Rick Fry called for just tons and tons

(12:24):
of blood. It was just gonna be a real blood fest.
But yasna didn't want to do a big bloody ending,
so he asked George. He says, well, what else could
we do visually to get around just, you know, having
a really bloody finality to this film. Well, one of
Screaming Matt George's early influences was the work of Salvador
Dolly and so he and he instantly thought about that,
I guess about melting clocks and you know, using forms,

(12:48):
and he realized that was the way to go, and
of course this becomes like one of the signature aspects
of this motion picture. Okay and so yasnah. Then eventually
goes on to produce the film we're talking about here today,
The Giver, And originally he just wanted screaming Man George
to do the special effects, but George talks his way
into the director's chair and uh and we'll get into

(13:09):
how that breaks down in a bit um. After Geiver,
George worked on a number of other pictures such as
is Freaked, which is excellent, Children of the Corn, Three
Tales from the Hood, Space Truckers, Beyond Reanimator. He's also
done some i think uncredited work on various projects, but
he's turned increasingly towards his own artwork and gallery shows.

(13:30):
And he apparently also has a long jest dating project
that he hopes to direct one day, something titled Animus.
Oh well, my butt will be in the chair for
that one. Yeah. Um. I was just reminded of Beyond Reanimator,
which is not the sequel to Reanimator, but I think
the third Reanimator movie, and that's the one that had

(13:51):
this great theme song that went along with it. Do
you know what I'm talking about the movie er Dead
Bones Bones Bones song. I don't think I've seen that
animator film major film. Well, you should at least look
up the song. It has like a break where the
guy goes reanimate your feet. Well that's that sounds incredible. Yeah,
uh So, Screaming Matt George did effects on Geiver. He's

(14:13):
also one of two directors. Uh The other director credit
goes to Steve Wang Uh Taiwan born American makeup artist
and filmmaker, who was I believe just connected to Screaming
Matt George through the effects industry. He'd done makeup on
Hell Comes to Frogtown. Later on he'd work on stuff
like hell Boy. He also worked special effects on films

(14:35):
like Predator, Monster Squad, Nightmare five, Grimlins to uh so
much more. And apparently he was brought into co direct
with Screaming Matt George because he had more experience with
action directing, having previously worked as a second unit director
on roller Blade Warriors Taken by Force from nine Who Sorry, Rob,

(14:55):
that reminds me at some point we need to do
one of the roller Blade movies in order to at
least discuss why roller Blade movies were their own sub
genre of science fiction for for a period there. Why
were there so many? You had the what the Solar Babies,
the Prayer for the roller boys, this thing. Yeah, yeah,
there's I mean, what was aanna do? Is that? When

(15:17):
a roller movie as well? I think that's a different
kind of thing that has roller skating in it. Okay,
At any rate that I agree we should definitely explore
this sub genre later, um, later on. But um, yeah,
as far as Steve Wayne goes, apparently the way they
split it up is like Steve handle handled anything that
was like action scene oriented in The Giver, so that

(15:37):
screaming mad George could just focus on effects and effects
scenes like anytime somebody's face is splitting apart and somebody's
transforming into a monster, that sort of thing, and then
if a monster is slapping another monster, that's Steve went okay, alright.

(16:01):
On the the writing side of this, uh, the screenwriter
was one John Purdy. This was his first screenplay. He
went on to write and direct nine seven Star Portal
and a handful of other films. But it's based on
the manga by Yoshiki Takaya, who was born nineteen sixty
and Uh he well. He also created the manga Hades

(16:23):
project Or Amer, which was adapted to anime in nine eight.
He's best known internationally, at least for creating the Geiver
manga bio booster Armor Geiver, who started in nineteen eighty five,
and I believe is still considered it like an active
title to some extent um. This property was adapted into
an eighty six anime film and eighty nine anime TV

(16:45):
series prior to this, and uh, and I think they're
still uh like anime Geiver projects that are seeing the
light of day. Okay, I think we've established that the
monster costumes are the star of the film, but beyond that,
it actually has a lot of star power in it.
You would be shocked how many recognizable actors are in
this thing. Yeah, and I think that's what put me

(17:06):
over the top for actually covering this, because it's kind
of this has been on our radar for a while.
But when you it's one thing to think, Okay, it's
got cool monsters and it's got cool effects, screaming man
George is involved. But then yeah, you look at this
cast and it's just a buffet. It's like the casting
is really as odd as any effect in this film.
It truly is. So let's start with the good guys,

(17:26):
I guess, and uh, we have to start really with
I believe this was the top billing for the picture,
that is Mark Hamill playing the character Max Reid. I
think they're trying to pull a bit of a trick
on us with the box art, because if you were
to believe it, it suggests that Mark Hamill is the
titular Geiver. It shows half of the Geiver armor mask

(17:50):
and then the other half of the face without the mask,
and it's Mark Hamill's face. You can tell because he
has the late eighties Mark Hamill mustache. That's right. They
have to kind of really look to see the mustache.
Um At first, I couldn't really tell because one of
the other's tremendous furry pyramid. Yeah, because the thing is
the actual Geiver character, who's also named Sean Barker, is

(18:13):
played by this guy, Jack Armstrong, who for whom this
was his biggest role. He mostly did TV before Geiver,
Guiding Light, All My Children, Quantum Lead Alf and then
after Geiver he did mostly TV as well, The Tick
Days of Our Lives, West World, Mr Mayor. He even
popped up on like the parts you know. Uh, but

(18:34):
but even this Jack Armstrong character kind of looks like
a young Mark Hamill. So does it leaves you wondering,
like what how did the casting come together on this?
I don't know, I don't know. It's like it's like
they wanted Mark Hamill, but then they got him on
set and they're like, Okay, now you need to shave
your mustache and he's like, I'm not gonna do it.
So they're like, okay, so we're gonna have to recast

(18:54):
you as this other character and get a clean shaven
guy to play the Geiver. Yeah, like they wanted to
look skywa Palker and he was just not doing the
Loke Skywalker thing anymore, which you know, it is understandable.
It was a huge role. It made everyone, I mean,
it submitted him, like even today, much much further along
in Mark Hamill's career. Uh, you can't separate him from

(19:15):
Lake Skywalker, even though at this point we know that
he's also a phenomenal voice actor who's brought to life
so many iconic characters. I mean, instantly, I think of
the Joker, of course, from various animated projects and video games.
He also did a wonderful job as skettech Uh, one
of the villains in the Dark Crystal Age of Resistance. Ye.
Really good. Yeah, and just just a really robust voice

(19:38):
acting resume. Mark Hamill around this time, I guess he was.
He was popping up in plenty of stuff like he
never I had read somewhere that he had taken a
few years off after Jedi, But you look at his
filmography and it still looks pretty solid, like it. You
don't see a lot of gaps uh during this time. Well,
a lot of the live action, non Star Wars stuff

(19:59):
in there is not super great. Yeah, there's well, like
one that pops up is um the Steven Lisberger film Slipstream.
I've seen that one. It's I do not remember much
about it other than that Mark Hamill has a mustache. Okay,
there's another one he's in. He's in and I don't
think he has a mustache. And this one, but it's
a Jess Franco movie, Night of the Eagles, which co

(20:23):
stars Christopher Lee. Okay, well I need to see that. Yeah.
I think it's a wartime Germany film. So everybody's in
a Nazi uniform. So I think there's some sort of
I'm not sure if if Hamil. I think Hamill's character
maybe plays Um an anti Nazi. That's uh, you know,
Um in disguise or something. Okay. I also have to
point out that Mark Hamill does show up on one

(20:43):
episode of the Outer Limit series. It's it's a pretty
good one. So look for look for that if you're
a Hammel completest. Okay. Well, so we got Jack Armstrong
playing our our young dope hero Sean who will become
the guiver. We have Mark Hamill. He plays a character
named Max Reid, who is a CIA agent. I have
some questions about how the CIA works in the universe

(21:05):
of this movie, but we'll get to that when we
break down the plot. But then I guess our other
main good character would be the character um. Is she
named miss Key or Miszuki? I've seen it both ways. Well,
you know, sometimes there is a disconnect between what's what's
listed and then what people are actually saying in the movie. Yeah,

(21:26):
but this character is played by Vivian Wou, Chinese actor
who made her big screen debut in Ven's The Last
Emperor Um, playing the consort of the titular last Emperor
in the film, but she's She was also in playing
of other films, including Teenage Mutant, Ninja, Turtles three. I
think this is the Turtles in Time movie. It is. Yeah,

(21:47):
she was in The Joy Luck Club that was same
year as Turtles three. She also shows up in a
lot of TV appearances, such as Millennium Highlander, the TV
show Tales from the Crypt and Murder. She wrote, well,
is it time to talk about the bad guys? Though?
Oh yes, so many great bad guys in this and

(22:08):
that's even before they transformed from their human form into monsters.
So topping it off, we have we have a character
named Fulton Balchus who is uh he's the head of Zoanoid,
which I guess we'll get into that later, but think
like alien monster thing disguised as a human. But he's
also a CEO of the Chronus Corps. He has a

(22:30):
he has a pink eyeball that pokes out of his forehead.
Sometimes played by the always wonderfully reptilian David Gale, who lived.
He died the same year this film came out due
to heart surgery complications, so this this was one of
his final films. But uh, yeah, he was. He was

(22:51):
an English born actor who worked on the New York
stage and it's probably best remembered as Dr Hill in
the first two Reanimator films, But he did a fair
amount of TV work, a lot of non genre work,
but he increasingly became known for his horror and sci
fi appearances. He was Impulse Pounders Tales from the Dark Side. Uh.

(23:14):
He was in The Brain, which we discussed previously on
the show. He played the the TV host psychiatrist who
was like actually brainwashing people to follow the giant alien brain. Yeah, yeah,
and he you know what, David Gale. One thing I
appreciate about him was he understood that a villain is
supposed to be hated, and he would commit to making

(23:37):
his villainous performances as absolutely disgusting and loathsome as possible.
He was like, I want the audience to physically recoil
when they see me. So he adds in all these
little notes of just these facial expressions and posture and
stuff to not just say his lines and make it
clear that he is the bad guy, but to be

(23:59):
just like pulsive and unsettling in every possible way. Yeah,
it's the He was committed for sure. It's just a
full bodied performance with their debts to his facial expressions
that most people did not have. Uh so, yeah, this
is another which is wonderfully reptilian performance in this film. Again,

(24:19):
even before he turns into a reptile. Yeah, I mean,
he sells it so well. It's like there's a part
later where the Vivian Wou character like knees him in
the crotch, and despite mostly not really getting involved in
the drama of this movie, in that scene, I was like, yeah,
get him. Yeah, well, well we'll come back more to

(24:41):
Gale's performance because it is it is stand out. But
there there's oh man, he's got such a crew working
under him, because yeah, Balkus can't do it alone. He
has these other zoonoids which are again monsters disguised as humans,
and the I guess the his his second in command
is number two is the illinoid Lisker, played by Michael Berryman.

(25:03):
Another legend. Yeah Born. We talked about him briefly on
beast Master to the beast Master two episode because he
pops up at the end of that and kind of
a cameo. You know, well it just you know, shows up.
He recognize its Berryman, and he he kind of you know,
acts afraid, I guess and runs away. But in this
movie he really has the opportunity to flex his acting muscles.

(25:27):
So horror, action, romance, even uh comedy, Berryman can do
it all. Berryman was of course born with um with
hypo hydraulic ectodermal dysplaysia, a rare condition, leaving him with
no sweat glands, hair, fingernails, or teeth. And this gave him,
of course a unique look that was you know, utilized

(25:49):
in such films as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
The Hills Have Eyes. Those kind of I guess helped
put him, um, you know, put put him in the spotlight.
But he's been in various other films and TV shows
over the years, a ton of stuff, Uh Star Trek,
The Voyage Home, Weird Science. He's one of the like
biker mutants. I think that shows up, Uh Star Trek,

(26:11):
The Final Frontier, The Devil's Rejects, The Bizarre and Problematic,
The Evil Within, and and many other films. Uh so, yeah,
he's he's a bona fide legend. All right. Then we
have another zoo annoyed named Ramsey and this one is
played by Peter Spellos board N and this is this
is one of the actors that I did not recognize,

(26:34):
but as it turns out, you know, he's a pretty
well known voiceover actor, especially in English dubs of anime.
So he's done voices in uh, the English dubs of
such titles as Pandaico Panda that was like an early
Miyazaki project, Ghost in the Shell, Ghost in the Shell,
two point oh Street Fighter to the animated movie he
he does the English voice for Sagott and that. Uh.

(26:57):
And in his physical form, he's popped up in everything
Freddie's Dead, the Final Nightmare and married with children two
Men in Black two in this movie, his character I
think has a Russian accent. Did I hear that right?
I don't. Yeah, I don't remember him talking so much.
He doesn't talk as much. Uh. He shares a lot
of screen time with the Zoelenoid Striker, who is played

(27:19):
by Jimmy Walker born Jimmy Walker gets a lot of
screen time, especially in monster form in this movie. Yes,
and which and when he said, when they were all
these these characters, when they're in monster form, their voiced
by the the the actor. But yeah. Jimmy Walker stand
up comedian and actor, probably best remembered as JJ on

(27:40):
the sitcom Good Times from through nineteen seventy nine, where
his catchphrase was oh Dino might Does he say it
in the movie, Yes, he does. Yeah, this this, This
is not the sort of movie that's gonna resist giving
the people what they want. They want that catchphrase. Well,
it's been like they save it till the very end.

(28:01):
It's a stinger. It's just all the other action is gone.
And then it just cuts back to Jimmy Walker's monster
character there and he just says dynamite. They're like, say,
you have to say it, this is why we cast you.
Um I joke, but he's actually I really enjoyed this performance.
Like he this is he is the one who raps.
I think he wraps in both human and monster form. Yes,

(28:24):
but it's like the cuss. It's a very style comedy movie,
silly rap. Yes. Yeah. I don't think anyone is going
to go out on a limb and say this is
a great rap. As far as wraps performed by by
monsters in horror movies, I don't know, Like that's that's
a really low bar. I mean you're up against the

(28:45):
crypt Keeper at that point, the crypt Keeper rap um. Okay,
so that's that's one Zoe anoid. Then we also have
our female Zoe annoyed Webber played by Spice Williams Crosby,
who I believe is supposed to be like the the
wife or girlfriend of the Michael berryman Zo Annoyed. This

(29:05):
movie has Zoo annoyed romance. Yes. Yeah, there's this wonderful
scene where they're they're in the van and they're just
talking about their future plans together about possibly what they're
traveling to Brazil. Yeah, we want to go to Brazil
one day. It's so sweet. And then they've got to
go kill the Earthlings. Yeah so. Uh. Spice Williams Crosby
or or Spice Williams as she was was often credited,

(29:28):
at least at the time of this film, actor, stunt
woman and all around just muscle woman. Um. Her biggest
role was playing the cling On Vixus in Star Trek
the Final Frontier. She did a lot of TV popping
up on The Master that is, The Master Ninja TV series, Uh,
Deep Space Nine, Seinfeld, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, among many others.

(29:51):
Uncredited Vampire and from Dust Till Down, and as a
stunt player, she did a lot of stunts. She did
stunts in this film, for example, She's worked on tone
of big movies and as a stunt double for Shirley McClain,
Denise Crosby, Vicky Lawrence, Kelly Preston and others. Wow, in
her full monster zoanoid films, she kind of looks like

(30:12):
a furry owl slot, kind of like an owl bear
from Dungeons and Dragons. I was gonna say, she looks
like she's like a giant bat without wings. Yeah, all right,
And then this is more of a minor zoe Anoid.
He's a he's a zoe anoid who stays in the
lab for the most part and doesn't go out on
the field assignments. But we have Jeffrey Combs playing Dr East.

(30:34):
Dr East. He only shows up in the last twenty
minutes of the movie. Yeah, yeah, Jeffrey comes of course,
is the reanimator himself. The re animator was, of course
Herbert West, so in here he's Dr East. Ye. Yeah,
And of course he was in the first two Reanimator
films alongside David Gayle. But but like Gayl he you know,

(30:56):
he have essentially built up this career as being kind
of a horror icon. I would say Jeffrey Combs is
kind of one of the few you can point and say, Okay,
twentie late twentieth century horror icon. Yeah, I mean, I
guess it started with Reanimator, right, but that that sort
of got him into a bunch of other stuff, Like
he ended up in The Frighteners, which is a much
forgotten movie, but that was like a big mainstream horror movie.

(31:17):
That's one of the interesting things about Combs is he
kind of bridges the gap between stuff like Reanimator, from
Beyond Castle, Freak and Necronomicon Book of the Dead. He
there's that side to his work, but he also shows
up in some of these these big budget, like late
nineteen nineties horror features like House on Haunted Hill. He

(31:37):
has a really frightening role in that as like a
murderous surgeon ghost. Oh. But also in The Frightenners, he
played It's been a long time since I've seen that,
but I recall he plays like an FBI agent who
turns out to be like a like a cult obsessed
maniac who's got these like scars and tattoos all over
his body. Oh cool, I know I never saw the Frighteners.

(31:57):
I remember he gets some mono long where he's like,
my body is a roadmap of pain. It comes was great.
He's great at chewing the scenery. Like He's not in
this movie much, but he makes the most out of it. Yes,
he did a lot of TV work as well. He's
done voiceover work. Um. And, as with his appearances in
Robot Jocks and Transfers to which we covered previously, this

(32:21):
is a minor but fun role agreed of. Of note here,
we do have a movie within a movie that pops
up as one of our chase sequences ends up moving
through a movie set and uh and it features uh
one notable appearance anyway. Uh. Leanna quickly shows up and Lenaea,
I'm sorry. Lenea quickly shows up playing a scream queen.

(32:43):
She's credited as scream Queen. Um, I guess she's sort
of playing herself. But she's of course best remembered for
playing I guess, various characters, but especially the punk zombie
from Return of the Living Dead, along with various other
films like Silent Night, Dead Night and Night of the demons.
Oh man, Yeah, Return of the Living Dead. What's that

(33:04):
line she has? She's like, don't you just love death? Um.
The other fun thing is in this movie within a movie,
the director of this picture shows up because he basically
we have one of our monsters wander in there and
they think he's part of the film, and so the
director comes up and he's like, no, let me tell
you how we're shooting this. And the director is played

(33:26):
by this guy, Michael Dieke, who was another special effects guy,
sometimes actor and at least one time actual director whose
work makeup and special effects and a bunch of things.
But he's also one of these guys that is six
foot six in height. So you know what happens if
you're a special effects guy and you're that tall, you're
wearing a monster costume at some point. So, as it

(33:47):
turns out, he was the Mummy Entails from the Dark
Side the movie and the creature in Sellar Dweller the
Mummy was that the segment that had like Steve Bishemi
in it. Yeah, maybe a Christian Slater in there. It's
a pretty terrifying mummy, as I recall, because it's actually
like it starts removing people's brains through their nostrils. Oh

(34:09):
and Michael Deeke also played the character Horn in Arena.
That was all the main boss that are alien that
our boxing human boxer had to combat. Oh yeah, so
many fond memories of Arena that just keeps coming up
and it ages well in my memory. Just a wholesome film. Yeah. Um.
As for the music in this film, it is by

(34:31):
Matthew Morse, very forgettable score, but it was apparently apparently
released as an album in Japan. It was Huh. It's
got a lot of that that late eighties studio sound,
like the really bright bass guitar that might actually be
just a midi bass that somebody's playing on a keyboard,
has oceans of reverb on the drums. Uh, and also

(34:54):
that that horrible musical punctuation of physical comedy, like you know,
one of the goober Mont Stirs is acting dumb and
then we get the bloop to bloop trombone music. And
it also is a movie it has like those doink
spring sound effects for the slapstick. Yeah, there's a lot
of a lot of slapstick in this which I guess
is unavoidable to a certain extent because it's it's a

(35:15):
rubber monster movie. It is a rubber monster meet slapfest. Uh.
Though there are some good gooey stabs and by thrown
in for good measure, and at least one really awesome
looking giver clothes line like clotheslines one of the monsters,
and there's a nice bump in there. All right, shall

(35:39):
we do? Shall we jump into the plot of the Giver? Sure? Well?
I have a question to begin with, which is when
I first started watching, I had to go back and
turn off the auto Russian dubbing that my DVD started with.
So was this movie a big hit in Russia or something?
Why is it that our video, our disc from the

(35:59):
draw him as a Russian DVD. I don't know. Yeah,
they did the same thing for me. It started off
and then it was I didn't realize it was Russian
in first that well, maybe it's supposed to be like
an alien language or something, because he was playing over
the the opening narration, and then I quickly realized, oh no,
this is a this is a foreign language audio track,
And sure enough track one was Russian, Track two was

(36:21):
the original English. Okay, well, anyway, so this movie begins
with a Star Wars style text crawl over a starfield background,
which is read aloud for you as it rolls by
good choice. So it says, at the beginning of time,
aliens came to Earth to create the ultimate organic weapon.
They created mankind by planting a special gene into man.

(36:45):
They created zoe annoid's, humans who can change at will
into super monster soldiers. You with me so far? Okay.
Eons later, the zoe annoyed leader called the Zoa Lord
has a A wakened and formed the Chronos Corporation to
further develop the zoe anoid technology for world domination. Okay, well,

(37:08):
how did he get the funding for that? Yeah, he
awakened from what where was he was asleep? And then
he's like, I'm a CEO now, yes, And so he
becomes David Gale and puts on puts on a suit,
suppresses his zoe annoidiness and says, no, I will I
will dine on salads for lunch. I will wear a
tie um and and that's what he does. And then oh,

(37:31):
but the text goes on. It says among the alien
remains was found the unit a bio boosted alien armor
warned by the aliens. It serves as an ordinary shield.
If the wearer is human, it increases his natural powers
a hundred fold. He becomes the Giver, but how to

(37:51):
activate it remains a mystery. By the way, I think
all of this opening text crawls completely superfluous, because he
would learn all this stuff throughout the movie eventually anyway.
But all it really does is create additional plot holes. Yeah,
but then it also says Dr Tetsu Segawa, a research
scientistic chronos since his danger if this unit is activated

(38:16):
by the Zoo Lord. Now the doctor has stolen it
and is on the run. So we're in the present
tense now, and then we see what was just described.
We We open on a damp, dark, steamy bit of asphalt.
There's concrete everywhere. We're in the We're in a sort
of liminal space somewhere in I think future Los Angeles,

(38:36):
and there's a scientist in a lab coat. I guess
this is doctor Tagawa, and he's running around in the dark,
and he flips open a metal suitcase and inside we
see the Geiver. It is disc shaped overall. It's sort
of like Iron Man's little power pack, but it sort
of looks like a metal ball surrounded by leather flaps.
You got anything to add to that? Now that that's

(38:58):
that's what it looks like. It looks like alien technology,
so you know, we buy it and it flashes ominously
and makes sound effects. So uh. We see doctor to
Go hiding the guiver among a pile of trash. I
think he crams it in a plastic lunch box and
then he takes the empty metal suitcase and he runs
off because he's being pursued by some heckling bad guys

(39:20):
in a van. They're the kind who are like they're
they're driving up on the overpass above and looking down
at him and they're like, hey, there he is. We're
gonna get him. And then they eventually catch up to
him in a concrete canal. So again I guess this
is l ah. But the bad guys in the van
include Michael Berryman, Spice, Williams Crosby, Jimmy Walker, and Peter
Spellos and all in human form. All in human form

(39:43):
at this point, but they're being goofballs. There are antics
of plenty, and I have to say, Michael Berryman, it
looks pretty sharp in this when he shows up. When
he actually gets gets out of the vehicle and starts
walking around. Oh yeah, he's dressed in all black like
down to the ankles. He looks like the high priest
of Zoanoidism, and he says, he says to to Gawa,
he says, it's not too late. You can still come back.

(40:05):
But Togawa reacts to this by turning into a fishman,
like a giant bipedal fish head monster rips up out
of his skin, and at first Jimmy Walkers like, let
me have him, but Berryman steps forward. He's like, uh,
this is a job for the boss, so strap yourself
in for some morphin sequences because Berryman is going to

(40:26):
warp spasm and turn into a big creature. I mean well,
while he's warping, the fish Monster says um. He says,
these inhuman experiments must stop. So he's still speaking English.
But Berryman morphs through several stages. He becomes a kind
of cross eyed half pumpkinhead, and then eventually he becomes

(40:48):
a big old grimlin beast with giant yellow fangs, but
they're underbite fangs like the Orcs in the Warcraft games. Yeah,
and it's an impressive looking monster. Costume, a full body
costume here and with kind of a cool stance, like
you really buy this as a big physical threat, right,
and then they fight. You get the good meat slapping
sound effects. Somebody somebody was whipping steaks together right next

(41:11):
to a microphone. And eventually the Berryman Beast grabs the
fish Monster by the head and crushes his brain. And
they retrieved the suitcase and roll out, and then we
cut two credits. Yeah, yeah, that's it. The unit has
been returned to the zoanoids. So after the credits, we
meet our our our good guys. We go to an

(41:31):
i kedo studio where our dope young hero Sean is
sparring with fellow students. He seems to be not good
at aikido. He's repeatedly getting thrown But then Vivian Wu
comes in and apparently there's a romance butting between her
character miss Key and Uh and Sean, because he's like,
can I give you a ride home tonight and she's like, yeah,

(41:53):
I guess it's better than the bus and he's like,
oh shocks, I think she's supposed to work in the
office at the aikido studio. Yeah, yeah, that's the cential kid. Yeah, okay,
So the aikido instructor starts teaching everybody how to do
a throw. So she's like, Hi, everybody, come watch this,
and so Sean's distracted. In Meanwhile, Mark Hamill walks in

(42:15):
behind Vivian wou Or. He kind of skunks in. And
in this movie, he wears this outfit that is white
slacks with a belt, a red sweater tucked into his pants,
and this huge suede coat hanging open. And again it's
hammil so you better believe he has a mustache. So

(42:36):
he takes miskey aside into the office. He explains, I'm
Max Reid c i A. I've been investigating the Chronos
Corporation where your father worked. Uh. First of all, he
says worked, like she doesn't know yet that he's been
had his head crushed, and he just starts off where
your father worked and uh. And the other thing is yeah, okay,

(42:57):
So in the world of this film, the c i
A investigates domestic corporate malfeasance. Anyway, so he starts to
tell a story that all gets re enacted while he's narrating.
So we're watching this happening, like we we fade to
Mark Hamill in the dark, smoking a cigarette, sitting on
a big concrete wall, and he narrates, I've got some
bad news for you. Your father and I had a

(43:19):
meeting tonight. He was delivering something he'd gotten out of
Chronoss Lab. Said it was important and dangerous. He never
made it. They got to him first. I couldn't quite
make out what was going on, but it was violent
and weird. Anyway, your father is dead. I just wanted yeah,

(43:40):
I wanted you to know your your dad died really
weirdly weird. It couldn't make it all out, but it was.
It was weird, just so good and uh yeah. So
he's like, we couldn't get to him in time. Uh.
But we see in the re enactment that Mark Hamill
has a couple of suits that he works with who
were constantly sort of chasing him around in the movie.
We find up in the end that they're working with

(44:01):
the Zoo Annoys the whole time. But the suits are
on the scene with him and they go down to
where Togawa was, but there's no more sign of the
Fishhead monster. Now he's just a slimy human skeleton. Meanwhile,
Sean out there has been watching through the window at
this conversation miss Key is having with Reid, and he
has been ignoring the aikido demonstration, which immediately turns into

(44:22):
him being made a fool of in front of the
whole class. They're like, you know, hey, show, let's do
that throw we just demonstrated, And he doesn't know what's
going on, so he gets thrown and thrown and uh,
and I should not his sparring partners wearing a shirt
that says kill them All, which I don't think is
a reference to the first Metallica album. So I don't
know what it is. You could just be booleg right,

(44:43):
Oh I guess so, yeah, it's not the logo, but
it does say that, so make your own metallic. Sure.
After all this, the aikido instructor sits down with Sean
and and she's like, Sean, you have to learn to
control your temper or nothing I teach you is ever
going to help you out there. But you know, she's
not thinking of the tingency in which he receives some
alien power armor, right, that is that is activated by

(45:05):
his temper exactly, so in that case, like she's giving
him exactly the wrong advice. You should you should learn
nothing in class, and you should just get mad. But
now it's time to check in with the bad guys, right,
So we get our first David Gale. Seeing David Gale
is in his office, in his corporate office, wearing a
tie in a suit. He's some kind of business big
wig sitting at a desk, and Michael Berriman shows up

(45:28):
with the suitcase and and of course David Gale is
very pleased. What's his character's name again, Balcus or something? Yes, yes,
Balcus is very pleased. He says it's a good thing,
you got it because and then he's like toying with him.
He walks around the back of Barryman. He's like touching
his head. He goes, I wouldn't want a hair on
your lovely head. Hurt. But oh, there's a problem because

(45:53):
he opens up the case and remember how to Gawa
switch the guiver out? Well, of course there is no
guiver in the case. Instead, it's a toaster and he
he starts to have a magnificent freak out. He says,
what is this some sort of masochistic joke? And he
goes into a full on telekinetic rage. He grows a

(46:14):
third eye out of his forehead and makes Michael Berryman
start punching himself. Yeah, we have like slapping himself in
the face and kind of like clawing at his own face.
It's a wonderful performance by Berryman. And then and then
Bacha says, uh, just snarling at him. At this point,
he's like, I'll have you slap yourself into oblivion if

(46:35):
you don't find it. So, yeah, I guess you assume
that this is his standard assassination method, is psychically making
people punch themselves to death or at least zoe annoids.
I mean he is the Zoa Lord, right right, Yeah,
maybe it only works on zoe anoids, that's true, not
that it matters. So in the meantime, Sean drives down

(46:57):
to where miss Key's father was killed and uh, he's
he's riding on a scooter and he happens to stumble
across the actual guy for in its hiding place, and
he takes it with him, and we we get a
whole scene at the at the crime scene with Miskey
there and Max Ree that's Mark Hamill there and they're
talking about it, and Mark Hamill's suit bosses they're like
still chasing Ninja turtles and he's like, I'm on my

(47:20):
own time. So he's going around flashing his CIA credentials.
But apparently this is just a private investigation he's taken
up for, you know, out of the goodness of his heart. Yeah,
that doesn't sound dangerous at all. And then later Mark
Hamill takes mis Key home and explains to her that
her father contacted him because he wanted to pass something off,

(47:41):
this thing, the Geiver, and he says it's the most
dangerous technology since the Adam bomb, but he doesn't understand
what it is, so he's asking her. Uh. She of
course has no idea what it is either, but she
hilariously is repeating the words of the scene. Is she's
there in her house, she's in tears over her father's death.
And he's like, what do you know about the Giver

(48:03):
And she's like the guyver and he's right, you know that, yes,
the diver um And she says, like he was a scientist,
how could he get involved with something like that? Anyway,
Sean comes to the door to to check on mis
Key and he sees Mark Hamill in her apartment. I
don't know what he like sees him in a mirror
through the door. He gets very upset. I think the

(48:27):
implication is he thinks that, like, I don't know that
miss Key and Mark Hamill are like dating now or something,
But it doesn't make any sense because like he saw
them at the crime scene. It's clear he's some sort
of official. Yeah, this is actually one of them. I
think this is the only line in the film that
that made me laugh. This is because after after he

(48:48):
sees Max Reid in the mirror, storms off, Max Reid
walks back up and says, that's a lousy place for
a mirror, And I did laugh at that. I was like, Okay,
that's pretty good line. That's pretty good, like so good
that I have. I have a hard time believing it
was originally in the script. Yeah. Yeah. But then we
get to a pivotal scene because on the way home,
remember Seawan's he's still got the he's still got the

(49:10):
Giver in his backpack, and his scooter breaks down in
a in a dark alleyway full of full of steam
and trash and graffiti, and while he's trying to fix it,
I guess he has jumped by a gang of bozos
and yellow bandanas. I think they're supposed to be like
a dangerous criminal gang, but they're also like all the
bad guys in this movie, kind of blood bloop Trombone.

(49:32):
Goober's like just acting silly. Yes, some of them look
like they're in their mid forties and uh, and you know,
it's probably the case where the gang consists of whoever
was in the stunt crew. Yes, yeah, but oh another
guy in the gang is the guy that Sean was
sparring with a Nikedo class earlier. Also anyway, the gang
starts beating him up and as they're attacking him, oops,

(49:56):
Shawan accidentally face fuses with the Guiver and then we
get a transformation sequence. Strap yourself in for these morphin sequences.
It is wet meat and electricity, and the gang guys
are saying, oh God, get back, it's gross. He's sick
or something. Rob How would you describe this transformation and

(50:16):
what he looks like in the Giver suit? Oh, I
mean it's it's pretty great. It's like, um, the suit
itself is kind of like like somebody's been turned inside out.
It's like there's certainly a feeling of like of of
an actual exoskeleton and you see the viscera and their
steam coming out of the sides of the mast. There's
a horn. Uh. They're also the ball and extra balls

(50:39):
of the unit are there, and they're kind of like
squirming around. Uh. It's it's a really cool looking suit.
It has like elbow blades that pop out, um, but
it does. It is also, of course very much a
rubber monster suit and uh and and has those limitations
in place. But yeah, it's very much the Cronenberg Ee
Power Rangers costume that we teased at the beginning. I'll

(51:01):
also point out that one thing, the thing that yucked
me out the most about the suit activating and like
the tendrils going around him and like growing over him,
is that he's not nude underneath it. I think I
would have felt better if he was nude. But there's
like a layer of full clothing between him and the
new flesh. Like if you're gonna forge with the new flesh,
I don't I don't want like a sweaty T shirt

(51:23):
there in between, Like just let the flesh touch the flesh, right, Yeah, yeah,
may maye the old T shirt die? Yeah yeah, Your
diuiver suit's just gonna get infected. This way, but so yeah,
it's kind of insectoid power ranger armor, that hinging heroes
sort of thing, but with with this this kitaness quality
and then these gross wet muscles underneath the spitting out

(51:44):
the steam and this gas mask thing on the face
with the big eyes and in guiver form. Of course,
he's he's a monster like. He easily beats up the gang,
he breaks their bones and at one point he almost
stabs the dude to death. Um. And then we get
another slash wipe. But I don't think I've been mentioning
them every time, but there's slash wipes a plenty. So

(52:05):
this movie is just like one corner to the other
loves it. Uh. And we get another scene with Michael
Berryman going back to David Gale to get yelled at
and berated again. Uh. And this is the scene where
they decide, oh, well, you've got to go kidnapped to

(52:26):
Gawa's daughter, so let's let's kidnap miskey. Obviously, but I
wanted to point out in this scene, David Gale is
sitting down I think, to eat, like he's making human
breakfast or something. But he gets up to walk around
and he has a napkin dangling out of his soup jacket.
And then also there like he's using the toaster that

(52:47):
was brought earlier to make himself toast, which I think
is supposed to be funny, but like toast pops up
out of it and it's burned and on fire. So
I think the joke is that that that David Gale's
character does not understand how human cuisine works. Yeah, this
this this moment, I guess I was supposed to laugh,
but instead I groaned. But then I think I laughed anyway.

(53:07):
Uh so that the toaster work for me. I guess
it is a good Gayl's performance is so good here.
And then when we come back to Sean, we get
a version of the classic werewolf hangover seen you know
what scene I'm talking about. It's in a werewolf movie
or something of that sort of. The protagonist wakes up,
sometimes in their own beds, sometimes in a strange place,
but in their regular body, and they feel around on

(53:29):
their torso with their hands and gaze intently into the mirror,
wipe their hair back with a size if to check
it is that really me? What a relief? And then
they wonder aloud if it was all just a bad dream,
or maybe they don't remember anything at all except a
strange feeling that something terrible happened last night. But of course,
here our protagonist did not become a wild kinnido morph

(53:51):
but a weird armored insect fighter with elbow knives. Yeah,
he may not remember it, but that that geiver costume
crawled into series of holes in the back of his neck.
Oh that's right. Yes. When it goes away, it like
it sucks into these like fang holes at at the
base of his skull. And then in the following scene,
there was some dialogue that was so bewildering to me

(54:13):
I had to just include it verbatim and recreate it here.
So we get to a scene with Mark Hamill, you
know the c I a guy Read. He's arguing with
the two suits. Uh. I think he was like, y'all
need to look into the Chronos Corporation. And they come
back to him and they're like, we checked it out,
Chronos Corporations, Fine, n b D. Nothing to see here,
and uh, And so Read is they're walking on the

(54:36):
sidewalk and Read says to them one thing, what the
hell is a scientist doing? In the middle of the night,
walking down a concrete riverbed in his lab coat, fishing,
and then the suit says back to him, who knows
some people will do anything to land a fish, even
tell a fish story. Then Read says, yeah, well it

(54:58):
ain't fish. I sme, l it's a rat. It's so good.
That's that's some David Namnett stuff right there. What is
a fish story a fish? I guess it's like the
it's an exaggeration, right, like a big fish story like this, Okay,
And then something smells fishy, but also sometimes you smell

(55:21):
a rat. It's it's all, it's all. It's perfectly constructed,
tight tight, yeah, okay. Well this all leads up to
this big middle section of the movie that is a
long extended fight sequence, and how we get there is
uh is that the bad guys, the Zoonoids, go to
miss Key's apartment to try to kidnap her, but just

(55:42):
in time, um Sean and Max meet up there and
they rescue her and the three of them run off
into a warehouse where they are pursued by the Zoonoids,
and along the way they stumble across this film set,
which which is where Jimmy Walker's character accidentally he he
runs into a woman. She starts screaming, but then there's

(56:03):
like a director saying cut and it turns out she's
an actress shooting on location in this alleyway and they're
supposed to be a monster there, but it was a
different monster that was supposed to be there, and yuck, yucks. Yeah,
absolutely essential, it's in the movie. But they move on
to the warehouse and then there's just like a long,
long fight sequence. I gotta be honest, in this scene,

(56:25):
like I loved the reveal of all the monsters, but
the the sort of like running around in the warehouse
and the fighting kind of went on a long time.
For me, it did. Yeah, there's a lot of meat
slapping in this uh this sequence, there are some good
moments of of goo and slicing. But also like the
more you see these monsters, you know, even though the

(56:45):
Guiver costume looks amazing, the monsters, the zoonoids look amazing,
you know that there are scenes where just by virtue
of them being floppy monster costumes, they're gonna you're gonna
get a little bit of flop. You're gonna get a
little bit of of movement there that betrays the you know,
the the underlying synthetic nature of the whole thing. Uh.
But if you like a good monster slap test, they

(57:06):
they got it here. And I think this may be
the fight sequence where we get that really strong clothes line.
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, they're definitely good things about it.
I think one thing that made it a little less
than it could have been was the doink doink music
that just that kind of sucks some of the soul
out of it. Oh. But one of the important things
in this big warehouse fight sequences that the Michael Berriman
monster discovers the secret the weakness of the Giver suit,

(57:30):
which is the ball on his forehead and which I
think is called the control metal. And they defeat the
Giver by ripping out the ball from his forehead. And oops,
now our Guiver hero is dead. Yeah, he just deflates
and melts. Uh, pretty great, great melting thing. So Miskey
is captured by the monsters. Both I think Miskey and

(57:52):
and Read are captured by the monsters, and they're brought
back to the headquarters of the Chronos Corporation where Fulton
bach Balkas for he he looms over Misskey's unconscious body
very creepily, and then she wakes up and he launches
into an expository monologue. So we find out all kinds
of things. So he takes on a walk through what's
called the growth corridor, which sounds like a zoning policy

(58:15):
buzz phrase. Uh, Robert, how would you describe the growth corridor?
You know, your standard cloning, that mad science laboratory with
lots of shadowy things and I in tubes that will
flanch or jump at the glass if you move too
close to them. Yeah, yellow liquid, that kind of thing. Uh. So,

(58:35):
David Gale says, these are zoannoids, genetically altered human beings.
You see, my dear, A long time ago, when the
planet was barren, the aliens descended upon the Earth and
created man. And miss Key just says aliens. He goes,
that's right. Man was created as the ultimate organic weapon.

(58:58):
And these are the next step in the evolutionary process.
Warriors developed by the aliens from the human species. In
past times, they were known as werewolves, minotaurs, vampires. And
you always got to appreciate when a writer tries to
co opt all existing Earth history and mythology as actually

(59:18):
this other new thing I just made up, so you know, like, yeah, Mermaids,
Jack the Ripper, UFO abductions. Actually that was all just
Dr robot Nick acting throughout history. Yeah. I remember the
second Matrix movie did this right where they're like vampires
and where that was. That was that was part of
the Matrix. Yeah. I feel like it works better if

(59:39):
you pick like one thing you're like, oh, this one
unexplained phenomenon from history was actually this new thing I
just made up. When you say all of it, I
don't know. Well they don't. Don't throw shade on the
zoonoid religion here, okay, But anyway, so he goes on
and he says, can you imagine these lovely creatures in

(59:59):
the White House, in every seat of power in every
country around the world. A great part I did laugh at.
Oh my god, so good. Uh, let's see, and then
Miskey wants to know what the Giver is, and Gail
explains that the Giver is an organic weapon that the
Aliens created. He basically rehashes the same stuff we already

(01:00:21):
learned in the opening text crawl. He's like, it becomes
a protective suit of armor and there's only one of
them that's ever been found, but he doesn't know how
to activate it, and that's why he needs her help.
He says, you saw it work. Tell me how did
your friend activate it? Of course she refuses to explain,
and then Gail threatens to turn her into a zoo anoid,

(01:00:42):
and we we wander into the laboratory where we meet
Dr east Jeffrey Combs finally showing up in the in
the last reel, and he's when we come in. He's
like shoving some weird critter into a disintegration tank as
it screams in protest. It's like a scene from the
Muppet Show. It's pretty cool and there's more exposition. Dr
Easton his colleague explained that the giver, which is now

(01:01:05):
just a ball with some like goop hanging off of it.
They say that the control metal is alive and it's growing,
and Balkus, of course is overwhelmed with pleasure and fascination
and oh and then over on the other end of
the room we see that Mark Hamill is now in
the tank being turned into his zownnoy. This recalls the
tank he's in an empire strikes back and I think

(01:01:27):
David Gale is like, you know, turn tell me how
to activate the the Guiver or I will. I will
turn him into his ownoid and you too, And she's like,
all right, I'll tell you everything. It was like this
and then oh the old need of the Cross grabbed
the Giver and run so she she outsmarts him. Uh,
and then we we get this sequence where she she

(01:01:47):
like grabs the Guiver and she's holding it over that
disintegration tank and she's like, I'll do it, I'll drop
it in and one of the monsters knocks it out
of her hand and into the monster version of jeff
Ricomb's mouth. He swallows it and then it erupts from
inside him, revealing fully formed Geiver with sewn inside. He says,

(01:02:08):
I came back for you, so we learned, uh to
take it all back. Geiver can not only regenerate itself,
but regenerate the person it has fused with. So so
Shan's okay, yeah, And I don't know about his clothes though,
did it because again I would hope that it's that
you're just nude under the diver costume, especially in this case.
Well he definitely is this. Yeah, spoilers, but uh, Oh

(01:02:32):
you also forgot a crucial part of this whole sequence
is when one zoanoid swallows the unit another zoanoid uh
thrust their arm down that is going to its throat
to try and pull it back out in a moment
that it feels like it's pure screaming Matt George. This
feels like this is very much something that he would

(01:02:53):
have fought to include. Yeah, I think he's like old still,
let me get that and reaching down his throat. Yeah,
And then we get the the body burst and then
it's meat slap in time again. Right, we get another
big fight scene where it's fight fight, fight, Geiver versus zoanoid's.
The Geiver beats up a bunch of the zoanoids. He
kills the Michael Berryman zoannoid with an elbow, knife, jab

(01:03:14):
and eventually by ripping his head open with his hands.
So kind of weird that otherwise this feels like a
kid's movie because somewhat brutal. And as they're escaping, Oh no,
Mark camill, I guess they already ZOANOI did him because
he starts transforming into a disgusting giant insect. So you

(01:03:35):
get a whole morphing sequence like American Werewolf in London style,
except he's turning into a fleshy slime cricket but with
sad Mark Hamil eyes, Like he's got Mark Hamil faced
looking up out of the cricket head and he's like,
oh no, yeah, this is a horrifying sequence. I remember
catching this part on TV when I was a kid,

(01:03:55):
and this is probably this is the number one reason
I didn't show any of this to my son, uh,
because yeah, it's very Kafka ask It's just Hammil becoming
this giant Gregor asked bug. That's it's not only does
it have sad eyes, but it's like falling over itself.
It's just this loathsome thing that should not be Uh. Yeah,

(01:04:15):
this part was genuinely kind of kind of sad. I
was like, why are they doing this? He says like
it's too late for me. You've got to stop them.
Don't let them get away with this. Uh. And then
the Hammil zoonoid just dies. And then you get a
final show down between the Geiver and the zoannoid form
of David Gale, which we haven't seen up to this point.

(01:04:37):
All the other monsters have been transforming, but he had
stayed in human form except for revealing the little eye
in his forehead, and then now finally he he revealed,
Now I reveal my true form, which is a giant
insects lizard Windigo. It's like a you know, an insectoid
dinosaur with stag antlers. Yeah, and this is a pretty
great design. Um. On one hand, it reminds me is

(01:05:00):
some final evolutions of some of the pokemons that my
son has been showing me. But also the antlers are
kind of reminiscent of some Asian dragon designs. And I
was impressed, yeah, with the final showdown effects here, because
it's gotta be tough going from mostly all rubber suit
combat to suddenly having this giant and I'm I'm guessing
puppetry powered monster, but I think it looks really good

(01:05:23):
stomping around in the basement here. Uh. It ultimately a
good looking sequence. Oh yeah, agreed, I love this monster. Uh.
It is defeated in the end of by an inexplicable
blast from the Giver's chest, but the Guiver's okay, yeah,
this makes no This is one of those like what's
going on because the last time we saw the chest
glowing and all that was when the zoonoids deactivated him

(01:05:44):
and melted him down and just installed the unit. And
now he seems to be doing the exact same thing,
exact this time it utterly destroys his opponent and leaves
him unscathed. Yeah, and so he but then so the
guiver's okay. He goes up to miss Key and he's like, uh,
don't be afraid, it's just me, and she says, I
know it's you, Sean. Of course, why wouldn't she know?

(01:06:05):
But then the suit disappears, leaving a nude Shawn standing there,
and then she kisses him and then fetches him a
billowy lab coat. Oh god, Now this this is something
that I've read multiple times leading up to us watching this,
and that is something from the oh, the always wonderful
IMDb parent zone, Um so funny, yeah, which on one

(01:06:28):
level I've grown to greatly depend upon, because if it's
actually filled out and has meaningful content in it, which
isn't always the case with every film, it can be
very useful. Yeah, for for any viewer if you want
to know, you know, what sort of content is in
the film. It can let us know if there's something
in this film that maybe would disqualify it from something
we want to cover on the show. But it also
has stuff like this where under the like the the

(01:06:51):
the nudity section Adult content section of the parent Zone,
it says this is a user submitted thing. Again quote,
it's imply the guy is completely naked. Nothing is seen, however,
so implied nudity is um. Oh, I I love. I
think there should be warnings about all implied nudity. It's

(01:07:12):
like nothing, No, there're non actual naked people in this film,
but their nudity is implied and now you're imagining that nudity,
so look away. What was the one we were looking
at recently that had a note like it said something
like a character is threatened with a chainsaw to the crotch.
This may be distressing for some viewers. Yeah, that was
in the parent comments for Hell Hell Comes to Frogtown.

(01:07:35):
Oh yeah, so always always insightful but also good for
a laugh the IMDb parents. Then I think that's same one.
Oh yeah, and that's the same one that mentioned a
character who who is yelling something about Core's brand beer. Yeah. Yeah.
Sometimes it's just like somebody mentioned a beer in this film,
just so you know. Um, but anyway, but back to

(01:07:58):
the guy. At this point, all of the the villains
are defeated, right, all the zoe Annoids have been have
been killed, and in the world is safe. Yeah, but
then you've got to have a stinger. So the very
last thing you get is our our heroes walk away,
well not Mark Hambill, but our other two heroes walk away.
And then Jimmy Walker, having survived the Guiver showdown, still
in full zoe Annoid form, he just appears with one

(01:08:20):
of the other the c I a suit guys and
says his catchphrase from TV. He says, Dino might and
there you go. Yeah. The suit guys like, I've got
a job for you, and he's like, that will be
Dinom setting up a sequel. Uh. And there is a
sequel which I looked at and watched part of. I

(01:08:42):
don't think it. This movie actually flows directly into that. Um.
It seems to be some sort of a plot about
more zoe Annoids and something in a cave and uh
and I'm not mistaken, screaming mad. George doesn't like officially
doing anything and do anything on that film, and Stephen
Steve Wang is the is the primary director on that one.

(01:09:04):
They look like the monster suits are pretty good in
it as well. It looks like it has some fun monsters.
But I was I did not feel like I needed
to go any further. So if you were out there
listening to this, if you're a big fan of the
The Diver sequel, do right in and let us know
what what we're missing out on. UM. Likewise, if you
have familiarity with the the anime adaptations or the original manga,

(01:09:28):
I would I'd love to hear how this film stacks
up to all of that. Oh, but just to get
back to this film. Yeah, so we watched this on
a Russian DVD that we rented from Video Drome. UM,
it's still played for me on an Xbox just fine.
That's not always the case with some sort of a
foreign disk, but it does look like. There is a
nice Blu Ray Plus DVD special edition that came out

(01:09:51):
from Arrow Video and UM at first glance, I thought
it was like a Region two and you wouldn't be
able to play it here anyway. But I see reviews
for this edition saying that it's region free. So it
looks pretty good. Looks like it has some special features,
so maybe that's worth picking up. And this is also
the sort of film that you can watch by maybe
streaming it here and there. I don't know. Stuff pops
in and out on streaming availability, and if you have

(01:10:14):
a time machine you can go back and watch this
on Monster Vision. We were talking. I was talking with
Seth before we came in here, and he's like, I
think I've seen this before and there was some sort
of a host talking about it. Maybe it was a
al Vira, maybe it was Joe Bob, but yeah, it
looks like it was definitely Joe Bob because this was
featured on Monster Vision. Okay, all right, that's it for
this episode of Weird House Cinema, but we will be

(01:10:36):
back next Friday. We're mostly a science podcast here at
Stuff to Blow your mind with core episodes on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, but on Fridays we put aside most serious
matters and we just focus in on a weird film
like this one. Huge thanks as always to our excellent
audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
get in touch with us with v back on this

(01:10:58):
episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,
or just to say hello, you can emails at contact
at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to
Blow Your Mind is production of I heart Radio. For
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(01:11:18):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
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