Weirdhouse Cinema: The Hidden (1987)

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1987 sci-fi film “The Hidden,” directed by Jack Sholder and starring Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Nouri and Claudia Christian.

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And
today on Weird House we're going to be talking about
the nineteen eighty seven cult sci fi action film The Hidden,
directed by Jack Shoulder, starring Kyle McLaughlin, Michael Neori, and
Claudia Christian. Big spoiler warning at the top of today's episode.

(00:35):
As always, we're going to be talking about the plot
of the movie in a lot of detail, and this
movie today contains major twists and surprises which are pretty
bizarre and I would argue quite pleasing to follow if
you go in cold. So this is one where you
really might want to think about watching the movie without

(00:57):
listening any further. I will give a warning the top
that The Hidden is incredibly violent, like tons of on
screen murder and blood squibs, almost non stop gunfire. But
if you have the stomach for that sort of thing,
if you know you can be into like eighties R
rated cop movies that have that kind of violence, And

(01:18):
if you want something that is I would say one
part like hardcore eighties cop movie with ultra violence and
all the cop cliches just kind of you know, meat
loaf mouth ribbing of cops going at each other, and
then another part absolutely wacky. I really would recommend watching
this movie without reading or listening to anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, just know that it's the sort of cop movie,
an LA cop movie from the eighties that we would
cover on Weird House Cinema. And then you're good to go.
And if you're wondering where you can find it, well,
this one's pretty widely available to stream. I watched it
on the Warner Brothers Blu ray, which is a rather
nice little package. It features a director's commentary track plus

(02:00):
a special effects feature. I rendered this one from Atlanta's
own video dro.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah, so if you want to pause the episode, go
watch the hidden and then come back. Here is your chance. So,
now that we're done with the warning, we can go
on with the description and talk about how for the
first ten minutes or so of this movie it seems

(02:26):
like it's gonna be a routine cop movie. It just
starts off with like a violent bank robbery and then
a car chase, a bunch of shooting and explosions, and
then suddenly I think it's about thirteen minutes into the
movie you get this hard shift into sci fi horror
when a spree killer and just general crime maniac languishing

(02:49):
in a hospital bed after the opening action scene, suddenly
barfs up a black slug from outer space into the
mouth of another page in the hospital, transferring the real
thrill killer of the movie, which is an alien parasite,
into a new human host so that he can continue

(03:11):
he can escape the hospital and continue his rampage. And
then so that's the villain of the movie. And then
Michael Newry and Kyle McLaughlin will spind the rest of
the film chasing this alien slug psycho as it hops
from body to body, committing random acts of violence, also
acts of theft and gluttony. It's just generally a creature

(03:32):
of desires, and it's going around always looking for a
new sports car to steal, and they're going to be
chasing it the whole time. And then we may have
more secrets to learn beyond that initial reveal as well.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
That's right, we won't spoil all the spoilers during this portion.
We'll get into some of them during the plot. But yeah,
i'd say this particular cocktail of a film is roughly
two parts. Even nineteen eighty five's To Live and Die
in La so strong elements of that, you know, like
the hard, you know, gritty contemporary crime saga told from

(04:07):
the standpoint of you know, mostly police characters. But then
there is there's a little bit of Terminator in there.
There's also, as we've already alluded to, a strong dash
of alien parasite films, bringing to mind things like seventy
five Shivers or of course, the various adaptations of The
Puppet Masters, in which there's some sort of indo parasite

(04:29):
that controls the body.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Was The Puppet Masters an uncredited inspiration on the movie
we covered from the fifties called The Brain Eaters.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
I believe it was, Yes, yeah, this will quote. Yeah.
The whole idea of like a parasite controlling you, of course,
is gonna it's gonna fit very snugly in sort of
the Macarthy era, you know, Blacklist era of Hollywood, when
there's the you know, the fear of like some sort
of communist parasite from outside is going to you know,
change your romance, tick partner or your best friend into

(05:03):
a communist. That sort of Thing.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Maybe we should actually take a minute here to talk
about the body hopping scenario in sci fi and horror movies,
because you're right that that scenario is similar to other
types of subgenres, like you know, replication like you would
see in The Thing, or you know, an invasion of
the body snatchers, but this is a little bit different

(05:27):
in that it involves possession of the original bodies. So
these are movies where the villain is some kind of
alien or monster or demon that can take control of
the bodies of human beings and then goes about hopping
from one victim to the next, using the human disguise
to its advantage.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
And it is a specific entity. And that's I think
another thing that sets it apart from some of the
other films I was trying to I was trying to
think of other films that fit this category, and like,
if it's a situation where a like demon in general
are possessing people left and right, well that's that's not
really That only match up with the Hidden It has
to be a film in which there is a single demon,

(06:08):
So not a demon that is Legion, but just a
demon named Legion.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, Okay, Well I was trying to think of examples,
and I thought of a few. There's a movie I
actually have never seen in full. It's one of those
I saw like half of on TV years and years ago,
but Fallen from nineteen ninety eight with Denzel Washington and
John Goodman. I know it's a demon movie. In this case,
it's a demon possessing human victims. I don't know what

(06:33):
the demon's goal is in that movie. I think, is
it just trying to take over the world or something?

Speaker 2 (06:39):
You know. I think I watched parts of this. I
had it like on in the room in the dorm
room when in college at some point, but I was
like doing something else, I was studying or something. I
don't know, but I think this film obviously you have
some great actors in this. But one of the things
about a body hopping film, as we're describing it now
is in general, you're talking about a film where you

(07:01):
don't have a single enigmatic bad guy player. You're gonna
have to have multiple people play the bad guy, to
be the sleeve for the bad guy, to be the
body for the bad guy, and that could be anti
climactic in some cases. I think this film does it
really well. And we'll discuss all the ways that it
does such a good job with it.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
You mean this film The Hidden or this film Fallen
the Hidden?

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah, my memory of Fallen is too vague to remember
how well they played it. Like, I think John Goodman
ends up being possessed at some point, and if so,
I'm willing to guess that plays really well because John
Goodman is a great actor.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
He can do he can do lovable and hateable and
does both in the same movie sometimes. Yeah. Ever seen
Barton Fink? I mean yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's great
in that. But yeah, it does does both there. But
and so there's another body hopping movie that came to
mind for me. Rob. Have you seen Shocker the West?

Speaker 2 (07:53):
I've never seen Shocker? No, I know this is This
is one of your faves. I've heard you talk about
it multiple times.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
We're gonna have to do Shocker on Weird House one day,
and we may also have to review the old segment
from the Ciskel and Ebert TV show where Gene Siskel
is just trying to explain why he thinks Shocker is
a great movie, Like he's got words seem to be
failing him. But so the premise of this movie is

(08:19):
You've got a serial killer played by Mitch Poleggi his
Skinner from the X Files. And this serial killer works
a day job as a TV repair man, and when
he so, he gets caught for his crimes and they're
preparing to execute him in the electric chair, but before
that happens, he does some kind of satanic ritual involving

(08:40):
a TV and jumper cables, which transforms him into an
electricity ghost who can travel through power lines and come
out of electrical sockets, come out of TV screens, and
he can also possess human beings, so he jumps into
people takes control of their bodies. A motive of the
body hopper in this movie seems to be it's mostly revenge,

(09:02):
like he wants revenge against the protagonist of the movie,
who is a high school football player who happens to
be psychic played by Peter Berg. This character helped catch
the killer in the first place, and I think also
he just wants to keep on doing crimes and he's
going to do them in Electricity Ghost Slash, possessing human
bodies for him.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah. I never saw this one, but I do remember
the trailers for it. I saw the trailers for it
when you know, as a child, I just believed everything
that the trailers were throwing at me. I thought this guy,
the main character, was going to be the next Ready Krueger.
I don't remember if they actually made that promise, but
they probably heavily hyped from the creator of a Nightmare

(09:43):
on Elm Street, and I was like, Oh, this is
going to be the next big franchise.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Well, yeah, I think that's what they were going for,
because he's already late sequel Freddie in terms of he's
doing a lot of he makes like jokes, he has
one liners. He's like a wise, cracking, sinister kind of villain. Yeah, yeah,
not soft spoken. Another one actually to complete the You know,

(10:08):
so you got the Freddy analog on one side the
Craven verse. Also, did you know that there is a
Friday the Thirteenth movie that's a body hopping movie.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
This this is something I always forget about, and I
don't think i've seen this one in full, but yeah,
I mean it makes sense that they would begin to
run out of things to do in the Friday the
Thirteenth franchise.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
So Friday Thirteenth Part nine Jason Goes to Hell is,
in my opinion, the worst of all the Friday thirteenth movies.
It is enlivened only slightly by some well one thing
that sort of perks it up for a moment is
the presence of a bizarre character named Creighton Duke played

(10:49):
by the actor Steven Williams, who is some kind of
bounty hunter who's supposed to be hunting Jason Vorhees, the
hockey mask guy in the Friday movies. It's been a
while since I've seen this one, but I recall there's
a part where he divulges lore about how Jason can
only be killed by another vor he Is from the
Vorhe's line, it's like from a Varhe's was he made

(11:11):
only by a Varheez? Can he be unmade? And they
also have to use a magic dagger? But in this
movie Jason. One of the big criticisms from fans of
the series is that for most of the movie, or
at least half of the movie, Jason doesn't look like Jason.
He's not the guy in the jumpsuit with the hockey mask.
He's body hopping. So it's in the beginning of the

(11:33):
movie like a bunch of FBI agents or something kind
of blow Jason up into pieces and then some and
then there's like a medical pathologist who's doing an autopsy
on the remains of Jason's body, and I think gets
like hypnotized by Jason's evil heart and then eats his
heart and then gets body possessed and like turns into Jason,

(11:55):
but doesn't look like him except in a mirror, so
it's just a regular looking guy walking around. And then
he trades bodies a few more times in the movie,
so he exists as this weird little like fecal rat
snake demon who like goes out of the mouth. I
think he gets like pooped out of somebody's mouth into
somebody's other somebody else's mouth, much like the Slug and

(12:18):
The Hidden actually quite mechanically similar. I'm going to say
this effect in the Hidden looks a lot better than
the one and oh, Jason goes to Hell.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
I don't even know what it looks like. And Jason
goes to Hell, but it's perfect in the Hidden, so.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yes, so I can't I can't prove, but suspect that
both Shocker and Jason Goes to Hell were influenced by
the Hidden.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
You know, I mean the Jason goes to Hell concept here.
First of all, it's also I think this movie bombed
for a lot of people because the title sounds like
you're getting Jason, you know, in the Divine Comedy that
he's going to go to help on. Yeah, it's going
to be incredible, Like, what a great title. And then
it doesn't deliver on that. But by enlarge, the concept

(13:02):
of like, oh, we are all potentially Jason now, like
that could have been really good if the well wasn't
so poisoned by this movie. I could imagine going someone
going back to that, you know, because it's like all
you have to do now they got a hockey mask on,
they're killing people. You know, it's a you know, it's
you know, this type of person one minute, this type
of person the next. Who will the next Jason be?

(13:23):
Could have worked?

Speaker 3 (13:25):
I mean I think anything could work if done well.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
But it's just was not done.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
It doesn't do it for me. I get a lot
of tolerance for Jason movies. Also, even like the not
good ones, I can just I have a good time
sitting through those, but this one doesn't do it for me.
All right, But yeah, so and then I was also thinking, Okay,
what's the motive of the monster there? I think I
think it's just Jason, like it wants to, you know,
he does what Jason does, even when he's in somebody

(13:50):
else's body.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, rise out of water, destroy teenager, that
sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
Well, I do think in this case, he's trying to
destroy the people who could I don't know, he's trying
to destroy his relatives or something, because they're the only
ones who can unjason him with a magic dagger. Okay, yeah,
and self defense new lore introduced in part nine, Thank you.
But anyway, this got me thinking about trends and themes

(14:21):
in body hopping movies as opposed to other types of
horror and sci fi movies. And it got me thinking
about how they're really like two different kinds of body
hopping scenarios in these movies. And I just made these
terms up. I would call this like common deering versus repurposing.

(14:41):
So in your commandeering story, the original person who gets
possessed in some way remains alive and could, in theory,
reassume control of their body.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, and generally there'll be a scene where someone's like,
I know, you're still in there, Sally, Yeah, remember this
photo of your dad, remember this stuff to animal and
or the other side of that too, is like the
possessing entity like brings out the evil side of the
person it's possessing.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
That's sort of right. Yeah, And sometimes they're fighting for
control of the body. But so and it can have
different versions, like so the commandeering story, it could have
the person sort of rendered unconscious by the process of
the monster taking control and using their body. But other
times it's like they're conscious and aware, but they're just
powerless to control their own actions, like they are being

(15:31):
forced to sit in the passenger seat of their own
body while somebody else takes the wheel. Whereas I would
say that the repurposing version of this storyline is the
original person is gone and their body is now simply
a shell or a vehicle to be used by the monster.
I think this is the case in The Hidden I

(15:52):
don't know if you can think of a counter example,
but I don't think we ever get any indication that
the original person could or does survive in any way.
I don't think so. It seems like once the monster's
in there in the Hidden There, the person is dead
and the monster is just using the body to blend in.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
That largely seems to be the model here. I mean,
it's complicated by the fact that the possessing evil entity
generally has no intention of you know, returning the vhs
at the end of the rental. You know, he drives
them all like he stole them, you know, generally into
the ground and into an explosion, that sort of thing.

(16:32):
And then also we see cases where he is possessing
a body that he is either already fatally injured or
about to die, or may in fact be dead.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, that's right. So I was thinking about the ways
that these slightly different ways of dealing with the scenario
bring up different themes, like how commandeering scenarios in storytelling
generally introduced themes of agency and control. It's like you're
talking about with the scene, like I know you're in
their sally. You know you can fight back. And these

(17:03):
can often be metaphors for like real situations that make
people feel as if they're not in control of their
own actions, or situations where people act against their interests.
So subjects like addiction or compulsive behavior, temptation against our
better angels, and things like that. Whereas repurposing scenarios, I think,

(17:24):
tend to be more about external threats, about trust and suspicion,
and they raise questions like can you ever really know
another person? And are other people really who you think
they are? And I think that The Hidden does in
fact deal more with the latter themes than with the former.
It's not really about agency and control, but it is

(17:46):
very much about are people really who you think they are?
And that comes through in multiple ways. The themes are
kind of subtle because on the surface level, it really
is like a meathead action movie, like it's a bullet
hell plot. It doesn't usually stop to get very, you know,
very thoughtful. The ways in which it's thoughtful are just

(18:08):
kind of for you to find on your own mostly,
But I think these themes are there, like it asks
can how can we really trust that people are who
they say they are? And that applies to politicians seeking
power and to family members seeking love and intimacy. It
is a question raised in multiple ways by the story.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I would agree that that that
depth is there for you to explore on your own
if you want to.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
In between explosions, Yes, but I would also say that
of all the movies we've been talking about, I think
The Hidden makes better, weirder and funnier use of the
body hopping plot convention than most of the other movies
that I can think of that do some version of this.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
I would agree this movie is tremendous if you're on
board for the eighties cop violence, and I have to
distress like the violence in this film. You know, it's
nowhere near like the RoboCop level of like disturbing violence.
You know, it's it's a there's a lot of shoot
them up in a lot of squibs, like you said,
But on the whole that the tone here is fun.

(19:18):
It is not a feel bad motion picture. It isn't
It is body horror, but not not body horror in
the sense that we often think about it today.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, I would say I agree with you about the
violence because like most of the stuff, it moves on
from pretty quick. But there is some violence in it
that feels pretty nasty because it is the alien doing
its crime spree, and not just like fighting cops, but
just like randomly killing like random civilians.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you if you don't want to
see that kind of thing, because obviously it does mirror
things that happen in our real world. Give it a
skip or you know, wait till you're in the right
mood for it. But but if you're willing to stomach
all of that, it's pretty fun.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Uh So elevator pitch. I mean, we've sort of gone
over this, but I would say it's like one part
by the Numbers hardcore cop thing. It's one part like
satirical science fiction. It's Kurt Vonnegut in a way almost.
I don't know if that's a little bit overpraising it,
but it's it's a little bit Vonneguty. It's one part
proto Twin Peaks and another part just watching somebody play

(20:22):
Grand Theft auto.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, and I'll give it
an alternate elevator pitch. I'm just gonna say Space slug
the motion picture. Oh yeah, all right, Well, let's get
into the folks behind this one. And I'm going to

(20:45):
add another spoiler warning here because in running through the cast,
I am going to go ahead and reveal many of
the people who end up getting Space Slugged that end
up being possessed and becoming the meat suit for the
parasite because it's ultimately important for evaluating the actors performances,
I think because absolutely some of the if we just
told them, oh yeah, this guy plays a dude in

(21:05):
the hospital, like that doesn't tell you anything like that,
they really get to shine when they are possessed by
the space lug.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah. I agree. This is again why I put the
spoiler warning right at the top of this episode, because
this is one where we really just like, you can't
talk about it at all without spoiling some of the surprises,
and we have to be able to talk about it.
So yeah, we're warning again if if you didn't heed
us the first time and you want to keep and
you want to watch it with some surprises still intact,
stop here, go watch it and then come back.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
I have to say this. I'm I'm really I really
enjoyed this one. I had never seen it before, and
I'd really heard very little about it. It'd come up
previously on Weird House Cinema because of a connection we're
going to get into here. But since it has kind
of maybe flown under the radar to a certain extent
and you know, still has its I think has its
own sort of cult status. But but it isn't the

(21:55):
sort of thing that's just going to be naturally spoiled
for everyone out there. So I think it's a lot
easier to come in fresh on this one versus certain
other like spoiler heavy movies out there.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Yeah, it's not like knowing that Rosebud is a sled.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah yeah, all right, Well let's get into it here.
Let's start with the director who we mentioned earlier. It's
Jack Shoulder born nineteen forty five, American director whose credits
go back to nineteen seventy three with the film The
Garden Party, which he also wrote adapted from the Catherine
Mansfield short story. After this, in eighty two, he wrote

(22:31):
the hockey mask slasher movie Alone in the Dark that
had Jack Palance, Donald Pleasants, and Martin Landau in it,
and that came out just a couple of months after
Friday the Thirteenth, Part three, the first movie I Believe
in which Jason actually wore the hockey.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
Mask, right, no hockey mask in one or two. Jason's
not the killer in the first movie, and the second
movie he wears a bag on his head, which actually
is creepier than the hockey mask. But the hockey mask
is a better choice overall in making him an iconic
and recognizable villain because the bag is creepy, but it's
not distinctive.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah. So, as far as I can tell, these two
movies both just kind of have the same idea at
the same time for different reasons. And to be cleared,
neither was the first kind of like killer movie in
which the killer wears a hockey mask.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
All right, well, do you know what the first one was?

Speaker 2 (23:22):
I do. Let me try to remember what its more
pleasant title is.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
No, it is a film called Act of Vengeance from
nineteen seventy four. As far as I know, there may
be something earlier than that, but that I think is
the earliest motion picture in which a killer or villain
of some sort has a hockey mask on.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Oh does it have an alternate title? You didn't want
to say out loud?

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Correct? Yeah, you know it has a I've never seen it.
In my understanding, it's an imperfect film that doesn't really
handle its themes very well. Okay, So yeah, after a
loan in the Dark, he goes on to direct nineteen
eighty Five's a Nightmare on Elm Street too, Freddy's Revenge.
This is one that has. I don't know. I think

(24:04):
for a while was maybe considered a lesser Nightmare installment,
but I believe has has been reevaluated a lot in
like over the last couple of decades anyway, in large
part because of its homo erotic elements.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah. So it's a movie that has clearly a lot
of like gay themes coming through. And I think that
used to be received more with mocking and derision because
it was perceived as like an unintentional thing about the movie,
and it's like, oh, it's so weird that it has
all these gay themes when it's not supposed to. And

(24:38):
then I think the more recent strain and interpretation is like,
well maybe it was just supposed to.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, yeah, that's my understanding of it. I don't think
I've ever seen that one. I've of course seen the
first Nightmare, and I've seen I've seen a lot of
the sequels after that, maybe not like a committed viewing,
but sort of like you know, high school viewings. But
I don't think I ever watched two. But we'll have
more to say about Nightmare on Elm Street. This movie
has a lot of Nightmare on Elm Street connections. Yeah,

(25:07):
let's see this. So after this movie, he did The Hidden.
The Hidden was his follow up to Nightmare two, and
subsequent films included eighty nine's Renegades, ninety nine's Wish Master two,
two thousand and one's Aracknid, and he also just did
a lot of TV work, including episodes of Tales from
the Crypt. The episode in particular is a Fitting Punishment,
which is a good, if not super fun episode. I

(25:29):
believe this is the one that's set at like like
a black funeral home and has some really good actors.
This's come up on the show before because of you know,
dip connected actors. Let's see. He also did an episode
of the TV show Generation X, which was like a
marvel thing Mortal Kombat conquest, as well as at least
one episode of The Trimmer's television series, which I don't

(25:51):
think I've ever watched that either, but does have a
good cast.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
I'm going to say that of the Jack Shoulder movies
I have seen, the Hidden is Head and Shoulder is
the best one. I think this is like a crowning
achievement here. Yeah, though I haven't seen every one of
his movies.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
But yeah, it's really solid, like if The Hidden was
your first Jack Shoulder movie to see, you'd be like,
I've got to see all the other things this guy did.
Let's see that Mortal Kombat conquest.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
But the Raknid from two thousand doesn't quite live.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Up to Yeah Yeah, but it is really solid. And
I didn't have the time to really get into the
commentary track, but I did check out the special effects feature,
which has some thoughts from Shoulder about the film, and
I thought he was very well spoken about some of
the choices they made, and we'll get into some of
those as we discussed the plot. I will note that

(26:43):
there is a sequel to this movie, nineteen ninety three
is The Hidden two. It features no returning talent outside
of archive footage, but Todd Masters was involved in the
special effects, which is a good sign, so if nothing else,
it probably has some interesting effects work in it, all right.
The screenwriter on this film is someone we've talked about

(27:03):
in the show before. It's Jim Coff born nineteen fifty one,
writer and producer who was involved in a little film
from nineteen eighty one called The Buggins Unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
This is like several levels above the Bogins as a script,
I think, yeah, No, I mean The Buggins was fun,
but like, this is actually an interesting and funny movie.
It has a lot of cliches and stuff in it,
But I would class this as like a really good script,
And I don't know if I'd say the same about
The Buggins.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, but both are bug movies. In fact, you could
make an argument that the space lug in this movie
is a bugin in the sense that if we're going
to use boogin as a as a general term for
some sort of a mysterious, nasty insect type creature.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
What if the Buggins did what the Yeah, so you
take that story. But the Buggins just crawl into people's
mouths and possess them.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Why not? Why not? We don't know the full life
cycle of a bogin.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, I guess that's right. Man. Can you imagine putting
Kyle McLaughlin in that cabin? That really would have mixed things?

Speaker 2 (28:07):
That would have it might have been interesting. Kyle McLaughlin
does bring a special charm to things. One more thing
about Jim Coff, I'll just say that, as we reference
in that episode on the book Ins, a very successful
career He wrote his screenplay credits on such films as
ninety eight, ninety eighth Rush Hour, two thousand and four's
National Treasure, twenty sixteen's Money Monster, and one hundred and

(28:30):
twenty three episodes of TV's Grim, which he also created
and produced. All Right, yeah, let's now, let's get to
Kyle McLaughlin, who plays FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher in this film.
Born nineteen fifty nine. We previously discussed McLaughlin in our
two part episode on David Lynch's Dune, in which he
played paul A Tredes in his film debut. We have

(28:51):
to that's always kind of mind blowing to realize that
though he had previously been an extra in nineteen eighties.
The changelingk McLaughlin, of course, is in a accomplished American
actor who excels really especially when you think about like
things that you've seen Kyle maclaughlinin where he really steals
a show. I find that he's really great at navigating

(29:11):
this space between traditional handsome, almost innocent, you know, seeming
at times leading man. He has that charm for sure,
and in that sense, you could you could put him
in a time machine and send him back to the
fifties or the sixth or you know, certainly the fifties,
even though you know the forties, and he would excel.
You know, he has all the all the tools he
needs to succeed there. But he also can vary with

(29:35):
great skill. He can enter into weirder, darker territory, and
so he kind of has a foot in both worlds. Well.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
I think this is the thing that makes him the
perfect actor to be a David Lynch lead. I mean,
he just fits right in with the David Lynch sensibility
of the character in the world that is, at one
sense leave it to beaver and in the other sense
exploring the darkest and strangest things in the human heart. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, and they able to just really dig into those roles.
So yeah, McLaughlin's great in everything. Two time Emmy Award
winner for his work on David Lynch's Twin Peaks, and
of course he also worked with Lynch on eighty six
is Blue Velvet. He remains highly active today, with notable
roles on TV's Fallout. He was on the at least

(30:23):
the first season of The Lowdown. The Hidden was only
his third credited acting role, following Dune and Blue Velvet. Afterwards,
he'd appear in the eighty nine TV movie dream Breakers
before starring in Twin Peaks.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
So he was an FBI agent in this movie before
he was Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks, sort of the
role that I think for a lot of people defines him.
Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Like? I would think so, I mean, that's where he
That's where I think I weirdly enough saw him first,
just because you know, even if you didn't watch Twin Peaks,
it was all over TV. I think I was aware
of Twin Peaks before I was even aware at least,
you know, so level before I was aware of Dim. Yeah,
and yeah, he's great here. He plays that in the
FBI agent sense. You know, he plays a fish out

(31:07):
of water. You know. We have this gritty world of
hard boiled LA detectives, you know, who are just trying
to get through the day, and then here comes this
FBI guy in a nice suit, in a nice car,
and he's pursuing this strange and dangerous killer and seems
to have knowledge that the LA detectives do not have.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
I I mean, so there are multiple movies where this
movie makes a step change into a different type of weirdness.
And one of the big ones is the scene we
already talked about and we will talk about again where
there is a space slug vomited from one mouth into another.
Like that's a big change. But I would say there
is also a more subtle shift in the tone of

(31:50):
the movie when Kyle McLaughlin arrives, because you meet the
other cops first, but the other cops are all movie cops.
They're all these like tough talking, macho cop guys talking
their cop cliches. And then when Kyle McLaughlin appears, he
has such a different energy. There is this this soft,

(32:11):
kind of wise, but kind of aloof a little bit
reticent strangeness about him that is so ill fitting with
all of the other characters. You're right that it's a
fish out of water, but it's a I don't know,
it's a fish out of water unlike any I've ever
seen before that in this like cop movie world, this
strange ethereal being walks into it and is like, Hi,

(32:35):
I'm the head cop now.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, yeah, so we should also, you know, we can
also say that in any of the different cliches that
this movie is playing with in different tropes, one of course,
is the buddy cop scenario, or in this case, it's
the the hard boiled LA detective who must team up
with this FBI outsider in order to chase the bad guy.
And in this our main hard boiled LA police detective

(32:59):
is Detective Tom Beck played by Michael Norri born nineteen
forty five. And I would also argue that he I
think he's also our structural protagonist in many ways as well.
We meet him first, it's his understanding of this FBI
agent and his sort of you know, what he's learning
about this killer. Thereafter, it's his point of view that

(33:22):
we're mostly interacting with.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, I would agree with that, certainly in the first
half of the movie.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, and then the explosions happened, certainly. Yeah. But yeah,
Michael Norri, I thought he's really great in this one
thing you mentioned, you know, all the cops are you know,
they're spouting a lot of the lingo, a lot of
the cliches are in play here. But that being said,
I've seen a lot of cop media over the years,
as have most of us, because it's like half of
everything that's out there. And I did feel like all

(33:49):
of the purely cop scenes were really well done. I mean,
you have a great cast of character actors that are
filling out the rest of the police precinct here, so
you know, everybody's doing a great job. Everything feels like,
like realistically gritty and doesn't feel you know, they're kind
of going for that to live and die in La Vibe,

(34:10):
which isn't you know. It's not too far into any
kind of like noir or neo noir. It's maybe a
little more in keeping with some of the like the
mainstream cop TV show stuff that's out there, you know,
I'm thinking about even stuff like The Wire, you know.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, you're right. I mean, it is doing a thing
that is familiar with the cops, but it's doing it
pretty well. Yeah, And I would also flag that it's
doing a slightly different thing because we're used to seeing
these like gruff, hard working cops that are like, you know,
ribbing each other and everything. But the context in which
they're doing that in this movie I picked up was

(34:47):
that these cops are overworked. They're public servants who are
being there being sort of overworked work to the bone,
and we are seeing them coping with that scenario. So
it's kind of like RoboCop in that sense.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah. Yeah, there is a strong sense of burnout too,
certainly to Michael Nory's character a detective back here. So yeah,
Norri's great in this. I wasn't super familiar with him.
His credits go back to nineteen sixty eight, and at
this point he had already played Count Dracula on NBC
in a nineteen seventy nine TV serial. But don't get

(35:23):
too excited, because it was the Curse of Dracula, in
which the Prince of Darkness is teaching college in San Francisco.
So still, you look at the stills and you look
at Michael Norri in this film, and you can totally
imagine this guy playing Dracula, regardless of the tone.

Speaker 3 (35:38):
You know, I was trying to think who Michael Norri
reminds me of other actors who were in the same
kind of zone. He's a little bit more macho, but
very much reminds me of Chris Sarandon, who also played
a Dracula character. They have similar like, you know, voluminous, lush,
curly hair.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Yeah yeah, yeah. He also reminded me just a little
bit of Stephen Bauer. M Okay, yeah, So but anyway, Yeah,
Noori's great. Here, let's see he another major thing he
was in. He played Jennifer Beal's romantic romantic interest in
the nineteen eighty three film Flash Dance, which I haven't
seen in a bit, but you know, amazing theme song
on that. As we've discussed in the show before.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
Hold on, was that the the fulchy musical movie flash Dance? No?

Speaker 2 (36:22):
No, Flash Dance is the murder rock I think he
murder rock? Yeah, murder rock would have been, in my opinion,
would have been tremendous had the music been good. I didn't.
I really wanted to be on board for murder rock,
but I did not like any of the murder rock music.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
Oh that's a bummer.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but
at any rate, Nori's subsequent film output includes nineteen nineties
Captain America from Albert Pune.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Oh, the one with Salinger in it with what's his name?

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Uh? Oh?

Speaker 3 (36:55):
I always forget his first name? Hold on, yeah, J D.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Salinger's son, is that, yes, playing Captain America.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
That's right? Hold on, let me, I'm sorry, DJ Salinger.
I think I just looked it up. Sorry, I always
forget his first name, Matt Salinger, as we've talked about
how maybe we should do the Pune Captain America at
some point, especially because I've seen it, but it's been

(37:22):
so long I barely remember it. I remember it being funny.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
I definitely watched it.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
I remember it being funny. But the strange thing is,
after we did the episode on Nemesis, I was reading
that there's apparently another cut. There's like a substantially different
re edit of Pune's Captain America, which people say makes
it a lot better. So I don't know, and check
it out.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, all right, let's see. Other films include nineteen ninety
ones The Psychic and ninety five's Hologram Man. But with
lots of TV work on major shows including The OC
and Damages, and he recently recently appeared on the popular
series The Pit. Yeah, all right, let's talk about some

(38:13):
getting a little factioning with the rest of the cast
here and spending a little less time with them. Let's
get into some cops of note here. One of them
is Lieutenant John Masterson, played by Clarence Felder born nineteen
thirty eight, American character actor of stage, screen, and TV's
credits include eighty six as Ruthless People and eighty nine's

(38:33):
Nightmare on Elm Street, The Dream Child. He acted on
Broadway and worked extensively in television. He's also written and
produced solid as one of the cops is the Lieutenant. Here,
he indeed gets possessed by the space Slug and has
a great run in space Slug possession mode.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah, he does a rampage inside a police station much
like the original Terminator movie. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah, So we'll come back the specifics of that later,
but he's great. Loved him, all right. We also have
Lieutenant Ed Flynn and he's played by klu Galligher. Small
role does allow the you know, the character to have
the old Gulligher shine and you know you always can
recognize that voice and that drawl, but does not get
space slugged, which I took his relief.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
Oh wait, you didn't want him to get slugged. I
didn't want him to get slugged.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
No, No, I didn't think he needed he needed to
take one off. Last time we watched the Clue Galligher movie,
he got killed by mute cat. So I was like,
let him have this one. Let him have this one.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, okay, oh that was Uninvited.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, nineteen yeah, yeah, was that ninety eight?
Do I have that wrong in my notes?

Speaker 3 (39:41):
That's definitely wrong.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
That's definitely wrong.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
It's much eighty nine, more like.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Yeah, it feels like seventy eight. Yeah. So yeah, he
was in The Uninvited And we previously talked about that.
He had a great TV heavy run as an actor
in mostly westerns back in the sixties, but then became
a horror movie staple in the nineteen eighties, and in
this film, in the Hidden he was coming off roles
in a Nightmare on Elm Street Part two and The

(40:05):
Return of the Living Dead, which is a big one.
That's that's a huge part of his you know, late
career turn back into horror.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Very funny. In Return to the Living Dead and Nightmare
on Elm Street Part two, he plays the protagonist's dad,
I believe, and I think he gets attacked by an
exploding parrot.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Oh nice, all right. Another cop of No We Have
willis Cliff Willis, and he's played by Ed o' ross
born nineteen forty nine, American character actor with a great
face and a knack for playing tough guys from cops
to gangsters, and then back to cops again, and then

(40:42):
back into gangsters again. In fact, he played the gangster
Itchy in nineteen nineties Dick Tracy. I included images of
this character Jove, you don't remember. I think his whole
thing is that, you know, like all the villains in
Dick Tracy, if you don't remember, are like comic book mutants,
and they're not supposed to be mutants, but they take
a special effects, makeup heavy approach to portraying the the

(41:08):
unrealistic way that they were portrayed in the original comic books.
Itchi's whole thing, though, is he's just Itchy. I think
he has psoriasis or something. I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
I remember there's one called little Face. The little face
and a big head.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, yeah, really, I mean it feels like body heart.
When you have characters like that and prune Face and
shoulders and so forth, all of them looks like monster men.
Itchi less so, but also memorable. And if my vague
memory is correct on this, I think Itchi had a
pretty strong run in the film. I think he had
a fair amount of screen time. Some of these mutant

(41:43):
mobsters got killed off pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Other credits. Other films people might know him from include
eighty seven's Lethal Weapon, eighty seven's Full Metal Jacket, eighty
eight's Red Red Heat, as well as Action Jackson and
nineteen ninety two's Universal Soul. He also played a cop
twice on Seinfeld and is still still active, still playing cops,
I imagine. So, I mean, you know, like I say,

(42:09):
a great, great character actor with a you know, a
real real shine for playing you know, kind of heavies.
I also have to really give him credit because he's like,
what is he six sixth billing here in this film?
Very much playing a supporting role, but on like the
poster for the addition that I rented, and really one

(42:31):
of the main posters for this film in general. His
face is plastered all over it. So half of his face, yeahs,
half of his face on the poster. So what a coup, right,
I mean, well done. I don't know how it happened.

Speaker 3 (42:44):
Well, if I had to guess, it's because some climactic
events take place while he is being space slugged.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
That's right, he gets space slugged and he's he's really
good in that role. Yeah, all right, let's talk a
little bit about the Beck family. This again we have
Detective Beck, and this is the Detective Beck's wife and child,
you know, side characters, but important ones. His wife, Barbara Beck,
is played by Catherine Cannon born nineteen fifty three, mostly

(43:13):
a TV actress whose biggest main cast shows were Father
Murphy and Beverly Hills nine O two one. Oh. And
then we have the little girl, Juliet Beck, played by
Kristin Clayton. Child actress. She played a little girl in
Nightmare on Elm Street three as well as Nightmare on
Elm Street four, and was also a little girl in

(43:33):
an episode of Freddie's Nightmares, Oh.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
The Freddie TV show. It's strange that we have all
these Netmore on Elm Street connections going beyond just the
second one, which.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah, like it would make sense that there would be one,
you know, tied to the movie that the director had done.
But it's just in general, a lot of Nightmare on
Elm Street energy here. She was also in the Gromlins
movie Munchies Strike Back in ninety four. That was a
Jim win Norski film. All right, and then we have
some civilians of note. First of all, we have, let's

(44:03):
see Jack deav Rise. I believe his name is Debreez Jacktavrees.
We never really get to know this guy because this
is our initial parasite host.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
We only know him under the influence of space slug.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Yeah. And he is played by Chris Moulky, American character
actor with a very expressive face. Again, another great character
actor with a with wide range. But he might be
most recognizable to many folks out there for playing the
villainous Deputy Ward in nineteen eighty two's First Blood. That
was if you don't remember that as a Rambo movie,

(44:36):
that was the first Rambo movie, right, This was the
first one. That's one where he's in the woods, right.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
Right, because you know, you know the titles, the progression
of titles. You got First Blood, First Blood, Part two,
Rambo and then Rambo three and then Rambo.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah. So yeah, Molky's in that one, playing kind of
a sadistic deputy. He's he's been active since the mid seventies,
still highly active today. Also a blues musician. Other credits
include eighty four's Dreamscape, as well as Runaway, the Michael
Crichton tiny robot movie that we should probably do at

(45:11):
some point. He was in nineteen nineties K nine thousand.
This is a cyborg dog movie. I included the poster
for you here, Joe, and I encourage everyone to look
it up. Looks incredible.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
It looks like a cross between Rin ten ten K
nine Cop and night Rider.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Yeah, this particular box art says man's best friend, crime's
worst enemy. The dog of the future is here. The
robot dog, I think a cyborg of some sort. I
don't know, don't know the details, don't know how much
is dog, how much is machine? Oh but anyway. Molki
was also in Ghost in the Machine from ninety three,

(45:51):
which we previously covered on Weird House Cinema. But I
don't recall off hand who he played in that or
how significant his role was.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
I don't remember. I mean funny, this is not our
only connection to Twin Peaks. In the Hidden he was
also in Twin Peaks. He plays Hank. He plays one
of the bad guys in Twin Peaks.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he has a lot of range,
but he does bad guy well. And in this he yeah,
as we'll discuss. Yeah, he's our first host of the parasite.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
His role in Twin Peaks is kind of interesting because
he's part of like a succession of never ending. There's
a worse guy revelations in Twin Peaks. You know, there's
like kind of a scary guy at the beginning, and
then there's a scarier guy who scares that guy, and
then there's a scarier guy who scares the scarier guy,
and this is like the third scariest guy.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
All right, let's see. Another civilian of note is the
character Jonathan Miller played by William Boyett, who lived nineteen
twenty seven through two thousand and four. Believe it or not,
another tough guy actor with a lot of crime and
cowboy roles going back to the nineteen fifties, played a
lot of cops, played a lot of military guys, mostly
in supporting roles. His other film credits include seventy nine's

(47:03):
When a Stranger Calls, ninety ones The Rocketeer, as well
as Strays, a Killer Cat movie which also featured Claudia
Christian who's in this, as well as ninety five's Theodora
Rex That was a film that starred Whoopy Goldberg, a dinosaur,
Carol Kine, and Bud Coourt. Amazing, but Boyet is great here.

(47:24):
In fact, for me, I thought he was a real
highlight of the film. We never meet his human character,
but his body gets to play host to the alien
parasite for an extended stretch and probably the I mean
there's a lot of violence in his stretch, but also
there's a lot of humor in his stretch. But he's great.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
I'd say his arc is the funniest of all of
the possessions in the movie.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Yeah, Yeah, he's really good. He has really great steely eyes.
Reminded me like not only his eyes but also kind
of as like general build. I got a little bit
of a George C. Scott kind of vibe from him.
And yeah, he does a really great job generating the
feeling of unknowable alien presence that is doing expected things

(48:10):
but also unexpected things and it's strange quest to survive.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
He has eyes that say I'm hungry. It's like I
want I want that, which he says also out loud
a number of times.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, he is a the the entity. As we'll discuss,
it is interesting to try. You spend a lot of
the movie when things are not exploding, sort of trying
to understand what it wants, and in many ways. What
it wants is very obvious. It's some sort of a
creature of yeah, of want and desire. It it wants

(48:44):
to control, It wants to survive, It wants to cause pain.
But it also like it just it likes music, really
likes music, heavy metal, heavy metal especially. It doesn't really
I don't think it would like ambient all that much.
And anytime things not rocking it can produce anger. But
we never really explore why. We're just kind of left

(49:05):
to sort of imagine, like, you know, what is it
about the music that is it enjoy music in the
same way we do, or is there some something else
that ties into its alien nature that's important here.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
It seems to like, you know, it likes breaking the law,
breaking the law, and I think it's that the spirit
of breaking the law in heavy metal, that is what
it likes about heavy metal.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Fair.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
I don't know if it's the sonic qualities quite so much, though,
then again, I don't know. We do see it kind
of bobbing its head to the music occasionally, Yeah, but
it also likes using loud music to intimidate other people,
you know, like it likes to turn up the loud
music in the in the diner and refuse to turn
it down when when asked.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah, all right, so yeah, I enjoy I look forward
to talking more about this performance. Other like non police
characters of note, here we have the actor John McCann
playing Senator Holt TV actor going back into the Field,
whose film credits include eighty three's Erotic Images as well
as Scarface. He does pop up in Scarface. And then

(50:07):
we mentioned Claudia christian Is in this. She plays this
character Brenda, and Brenda is essentially a This is another
case where we get sort of two performances because when
we meet her, she's a sort of world weary, you know,
slightly worn out and much in the same way that
the cops are tired out. She's very tired. She's a
dancer at this club. But then she gets possessed by

(50:29):
the bas slug and becomes a machine gun toting alien
psychopath as well and gets to really blow things up
terminator style. Yes, so we've actually talked about her before
because she popped up in nineteen eighty nine's Arena Arena
being the sort of Star Trek the Alien Boxer movie
that I thought it was a lot of fun and
had some great Aliens in it. But yes, she is

(50:51):
one of the supporting human actors in that film.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
I had forgotten about that, but you're right.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Yeah, most people, I think, are going to be familiar
with her work on the sci fi or I would
say most people of a certain age are going to
remember her from Babylon Five, where she played Commander Susan Ivanova.
I don't know if people were watching Babylon Five these days,
because it was, but it was at the time, you know,
a very ambitious sci fi series that got into the

(51:18):
sort of space opera treks sort of universe area made
at the time really captivating use of computer generated effects,
and so that makes me wonder like how well it
has actually held up to modern viewing. But I remember
at the time thinking it was really cool.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
I actually never watched it, but I got the impression
that it was trying to be a rival to Star
Trek to create a kind of equally expansive lore and
its universe and all that.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had some some really neat alien
species and cultures and all. Let's see, Okay, who else
do we have here? Oh yeah, Danny Treehouse shows up
as a prisoner.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
He has one line, but it's very memorable.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Yeah he does, Yeah, he yeah, and it's it's a
role with lines. He shows up blade in the film.
He's an inmate during the big showdown at the at
the jail. And this was pretty early on for him.
This was his fourth credited screen appearance, very soon on
the heels of his appearance in eighty five's Runaway Train.

(52:18):
That was a film where the made use of his
experience as an actual incarcerated individual. And I believe he
was also Eric Roberts boxing coach on that film. But yeah,
at this point he's been in a bazillion films and
still still very much active. Oh and we have another
nightmare connection here. Last actor I'm gonna mention for this movie,

(52:40):
we have Roy the Dog playing the dog Jake dates Dog,
the dog that.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Has given free reign of crime scenes.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
By the way, Yes, yes, because he is. Yeah, he's
one of the lieutenant's dog, So Roy the Dog. I
couldn't find any dates for Roy. I believe he's currently
living upstate and is fine. Though has not been in
movies and decades. Jake's big breakthrough came in the form
of nineteen eighty four Is Up the Creek, in which
he played Chuck the Wonderdog. Jake's other credits include eighty

(53:09):
five's The Explorers, nineteen eighty eight's a Nightmare on Elm
Street four, The dream Master, eighty eight's Two Moon Junction
that's a Zalman King film, and oh yeah, the nineteen
eighty eight talking horse movie Hot to Trot starring Bobcat
Goldway and John Candy. Oh and he's also in Peter
Bogdanovich's Texasville in nineteen ninety. So really quite a canine

(53:30):
filmography here.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Yeah, that is quite the RESUMEA. So this is our
fourth now Nightmare on Elm Street Connections. Yeah, yeah, strong
nightmare energy here for sure. Amazing.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
And I'll just mention real quick that the visual effects
supervisors credited here were Lorenzo Contreras as well as Justin
Claren Beck. I don't know either of these individuals super well,
but for their credits include let's see. Contreras worked on
Blake Trinity two thousand and four, Sin City two thousand

(54:03):
and five, two thousand and seven's The Missed, twenty thirteen's
Warm Bodies, and clari Ambeck worked on eighty seven's Lost
Boys eighty eights, Phantasm two and eighty nine's National Lampoon's
Christmas Vacation and then getting to the music here. Michael
Convertino born nineteen fifty two did the score. His first
score was actually the one to Tim Burton's nineteen eighty

(54:25):
four short film Franken Weeney. Subsequent credits include eighty six's
Hollywood Vice Squad and also Children of a Lesser God
from the same year, Bull Durham in eighty eight, ninety
fives Things to Do in Denver when You're Dead, and
ninety seven's Jungle to Jungle.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Saw that one in the theater Okay as a child.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Even Jungle to Jungle probably needs a score. Not every
film needs a score, but hard to imagine Jungle to
Jungle going without one.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Just you know, we're not haters here, but that was
not one of my best theater going experiences.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Finally, I will mention real quick that the soundtrack on
this film is really fine. We mentioned that the alien
really likes the music, so there's a lot of you know,
there's a lot of needle drop in this one. It
features Let's See the Truth, the Lords of the New Church,
hunters and collectors, and concrete blonde. Yeah, and maybe one
or two other artists that we'll mention when we get

(55:33):
into the plot.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
It's got a metal band called Shock Paris that they
play the opening song, or not the opening song. The
song's in the opening chase scene. I guess we're about
to talk about it anyways, do so okay? Yeah, yeah,
time for the plot? Anything else?

Speaker 2 (55:48):
I think that's it, let's jump into it.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yeah, okay. So the film opens on grainy, black and
white security camera footage from the lobby of a bank,
and at first there's just quiet, uneasy music playing. We
see customers coming and going, lining up for the tellers,
security guards wandering around. Nothing much is happening. Then a
tall man in a trench coat enters the frame and

(56:11):
he stands with his back to the camera, not moving
for a few minutes while people walk around him. And
then from the back of the bank where the vault is,
we see a group of men in uniform coming out
through the lobby. I think these are supposed to be
armored truck couriers. And when they get close, suddenly the
man in the trench coat whips out a huge shotgun
and just starts blasting. He kills the couriers seemingly also

(56:34):
just kills some random people standing around. He walks over,
he picks up a few small bags of cash, and
then before he leaves, he stops and looks straight up
into the security camera and gives a huge grin all teeth.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
And it's alarming how quickly this starts, Like the shotgun
blasts begin when we just have the security camera footage,
which I thought was just going to be there to
play behind the credits. I thought, nothing's really going to
get started. I could get up and you get a
cup of coffee, or go use the restroom if I
need to, because nothing's happening yet. But no, this movie's
off to the races already.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Yeah. So now we're out of the security camera footage.
We're in full color and we see outside the bank,
and to my surprise, this is a branded bank massacre scene.
So you see the like the logo up front it
says Wells Fargo Bank. It's like, did they pay for
that placement?

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Yeah? Did they tell them what sort of movie they
were going to be filming there on a Sunday morning?
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
I don't know. So once the perpetrator is outside, we
see that this is Chris Maulky. This is the guy
I always think of his Hank from Twin Peaks. He
kills another security guard on the way out, and then
he after all of the shooting, he plods rather calmly
toward his car. He pays no attention to the people
who are screaming and running for cover all around him.

(57:50):
There was a weird thing I noticed the second time
I watched this, which is his clothes. We mainly see
he's got a trench coat on on the outside that
he was concealing the shop, but underneath the coat he
is wearing what looks like a pink and lavender plaid blazer,
a pale pink shirt with a yellow and blue striped tie,

(58:12):
and low rise loafers like a little slip on loafers.
So apart from apart from the trench coat, he doesn't
look dressed for crime. He's dressed more likes he's like
the mayor of Easter Bunny Village. And suddenly he just
grabbed a shotgun and threw on a trench coat and
went to do crime.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
Yeah, and that's telling Yeah, and second viewing, because we
know that he has spacelug, that he is. This is
just a body worn by something, and it is not
the first body that it has worn.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
Right, But there's no indication of this at first, so
we're just watching a guy doing crime. He just he
So he goes to his car, which is a black
sports car Ferrari, I assume, because we will learn that
this villain is obsessed with Ferraris. He tosses the gun
and the money into the car. He gets in and
then he pops in a heavy metal cassette tape and
then revs the engine and peels away, and pretty much

(59:03):
the whole time here his expression, his expression is totally flat.
There's no excitement, no urgency, no distress. It just kind
of stonefaced. And this leads into an extended, high octane,
hyper violent car chase where Mulki is driving. He's like
the car just screaming through the streets of LA with
police vehicles in pursuit. He's got his metal blasting. And

(59:28):
this is the part where it very much reminded me
of watching somebody play Grand Theft auto. He's just careening around.
He is paying no heed to human life or property.
He's just out there having a good time. And the
song that's playing I wanted to look this up because
I was like, is this maybe Iron Maiden or Judas Priest.

(59:48):
It's roughly in that zone British fast tempo metal, kind
of rob halford sounding vocals, But I looked it up
and it's not either of them. It is called on
your Feet by a band called Shock Paris, but Shock
is spelled shok. I think this song was selected in
part because it one thing, is just fast metal, so

(01:00:08):
it sounds appropriate, but also it has lyrics that sound
vaguely like they are advocating the commission of crimes. It's
very you know, take take what you can. You know,
the fires are raging, it's all for the taking, that
sort of thing. So the cops chase Mulky around LA
while he's evading them, and Mulky he's mostly stone faced,

(01:00:29):
but he does kind of smirk a little bit when
he gets opportunities to hit random civilians with his car.
He also takes an opportunity to drive through a pane
of plate glass that some installers are carrying across the road,
and that was funny because that was like, okay, the
glass movers moving the glass. That did not work in
a melon card, but you could have seen that coming next.

(01:00:51):
But by this point we start to get to get
the picture that maybe the bank robbery wasn't primarily about money.
This guy just seems to enjoy break in the law.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Yeah, it is a full blown rampage.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Yeah. Meanwhile, elsewhere we meet up with another character. This
is Detective Tom Beck played by Michael Newy. He is
interviewing the neighbors of the character played by Mulkey, who
we learn is named Jack Devrees, and his neighbors say, oh,
such a polite man, very nice man, a real gentleman.
So it seems like this guy Davrees has been on

(01:01:23):
a multi day crime and murder spree, and Beck, along
with his partner, Detective Cliff Willis played by ed O Ross,
are working the case. In the middle of an interview
with the neighbor, Willis comes running up to tell Beck
that they know where Devrees is. He's in a car
chase in West Hollywood, so they hop in their car
and go to intercept. This car chase ends in a

(01:01:44):
police barricade of the road. When Beck and Willis show up,
we meet another character, Detective Sanchez played by Richard Brooks.
The police line up behind their cars crosswise on the road.
The aim shotguns. Dvrees approaches the roadblock at full speed
and he's still bobbing his head to shock Paris, so
he doesn't seem worried at all about this barricade. He

(01:02:06):
never slows down. He just smashes straight through in a
hail of gunfire, seemingly like taking tons of bullets in
the process. And then his car eventually comes to a
stop when it crashes into a wall behind the barricade.
Defrees gets out of the car the crash car, he's
covered in blood, and then he smiles, like what a

(01:02:26):
great time we're all having. The car explodes in a
gigantic guzzoline fireball, as you know cars in these movies
are wont to do. And I guess that we think, well, okay,
that's the end of Defrees. He exploded in Fireball, right,
couldn't be any more of him, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
But that it's not necessarily the case. And really this
is gonna this is going to teach us what to
expect out of the space lug here and it's it's
it's hosts. We're going to quickly learn that whatever body
it's controlling, it can take a whole lot of damage,
and it doesn't seem to have to worry about any

(01:03:04):
risk to itself. So it's not that it is I
mean it's it's not that the body is maybe even
protecting it, but maybe like it in and of itself,
it cannot be harmed by bullets. Yeah, so anything, any
damage you're doing, it doesn't care. It knows it cannot
be hurt by what you were doing.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
That's right. Yeah, we'll talk about that more later. But
here we cut to Mulky in a hospital bed. He
looks like melted, burned to a crisp and detectives Beck
and Willis are in the room with him, where a
doctor tells them that this guy probably is not going
to survive the night. In fact, they have no idea
how he is still alive at the moment, and the
detectives are like, good, hope he dies. For some reason,

(01:03:43):
the doctor tries to argue with them as they're walking away, like,
I don't know, why would the doctor bother trying to
argue with them about that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
I mean, it could be I mean, granted, these are detectives, right,
but I mean I've been in hospitals before where I've
seen medical staff put but police officers in their place,
you know, so, I think sometimes it does come down to,
you know, whose turf this is?

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
You know, well, I could imagine that happening if they're
trying to do something that the cop. But like they
just express a sentiment and then walk away. He like
chases after them to be like, you're wrong to say that.
So I know he's standing for the battles, doc, right, yeah, yeah,
he's standing up for the value of human life, or
at least what he thinks is human life. But then

(01:04:25):
Willis explains their point of view. They're like, no, this guy.
He just starts rattling off the list of every horrible
thing this guy has done. He lists all of the murders,
and then after the murders, he moves on to talking
about all of the Ferraris this guy stole. But it's like,
is that important to mention after you've already talked about
the murders.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Think about the ferraris, the poor blameless Ferraris.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Yeah so, but yeah, so he explains all the gruesome
murders into pravities and he just leaves the doctor standing
dumbfounded in the hall. Well, the two detectives, they head
back to the station station, we meet a few more
characters and get some plot exposition. We meet Klu Guliger
as you said, Gulligher. I guess it's Gulligher. Yeah, yeah,

(01:05:09):
I can't remember which one it is, so I don't sorry,
I assume you're right. So Clu Gullagher as Lieutenant Ed
Flynn and Clarence Felder as Lieutenant John Masterson, they're the
bosses at the station, and these are going to be
your guys who are there to say, you're a loose
cannon mcgarnagald, you got a hand in your badge, here's

(01:05:30):
your new partner, all that kind of stuff, taking it
too personal, taking it too personal. So they're having an
argument about who is going to be assigned to the
protection detail for a visiting politician named Senator Holt who
is expected to announce that he's running for president while
in the city, and we see some Senator Holt ads
on TV later. His brand is I'm a good politician.

(01:05:53):
I'm the kind who does good things and helps people,
and so Flynn wants Flynn wants Michael Newi assigned to
protect the senator. After all, it would be terrible for
the department's reputation if something happened to him while he
was in the city, and Masterson wants him to use
the Edo Ross character instead, He's like, he's a change
de man now. They don't say what his issue before was,

(01:06:16):
but anyway, the argument is neutralized by the arrival of
a new character. There's somebody from the FBI who needs
to meet with Lieutenant Masterson. The door opens and in
walks Kyle McLaughlin. So this is pre Twin Peaks post
done Kyle, and he introduces himself as Agent Lloyd Gallagher,
who is in town running down a federal case against

(01:06:39):
their suspect of devrees. He needs to borrow their best
man to help him work the case while he's in town,
so he needs Beck. Beck is not happy to be
paired with Gallagher. I think, for one thing, it's just
going to be additional work for him. Like he has
his own cases to deal with and nobody's around to
take those over, so he's just also now got to

(01:07:02):
go around hand holding this fed all day on top
of all of his own cases.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
This is definitely a cop movie that acknowledges that there
is paperwork to be done and that you know this
not just super copping it up all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
Yeah. So, as we mentioned earlier, there are a lot
of cop movie cliches here, dynamics that feel familiar, but
they're done pretty well here. So some of the things
that will be familiar are mismatched new partners, federal versus local,
jurisdictional conflict, killer on the loose. You know, the clock
is ticking, but the cliches feel fresh to me here.

(01:07:39):
I think for two reasons. One is the sci fi element,
which will come into play pretty soon in the movie.
And then the second thing that I think really makes
them feel different. Even the things that are familiar feel
different is the presence of Kyle McLaughlin. Like his screen presence,
he is not a normal law enforcement movie character or

(01:08:00):
Gallagher has this soft, gentle, ethereal presence. I kept thinking
of him like he was a ghost who had come
back from the other side to like bring knowledge or
whisper warnings about the crimes of the future or whatever.
And I think there are a lot of things about this.
One is the way that McLaughlin plays the character. Another

(01:08:23):
thing is the way even his makeup is done. Like
I think he's a little bit overpowdered, making him slightly
look a little bit corpse like, but also look kind
of young and innocent, and.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
Yeah, that's a good that's a good note. Yeah, and
he does have that young and innocent quality, but also
at the same time he's very confident, yes, and seemingly unafraid.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
Yeah, confident, but not brash. It's a it's a very reticent,
soft spoken confidence, if that makes any sense. Like, he's
a hard contrast with Michael Newry's character, who is tough,
cynical and just flush with attitude and testosterone. And that
is also the general tone of the detective's open office,

(01:09:07):
which is it's like a high school locker room. You know,
it's just like this constant back and forth of crude
jokes and insults and all that. Meanwhile, coll McLachlin comes
into the room and he's just a warm breeze off
the sea. And so anyway, you know, they compare notes
and Gallagher fills back in about his fugitive. It is Devrees,

(01:09:28):
So uh oh, this is new information for Gallagher. His
suspect is already in the hospital about to die. Nuri
thinks like, oh, okay, well that means I don't have
to help the FBI guy after all, you know whatever,
this is already done. Gallagher receives this information with urgency.
He hurries off to see the purp, but he will
not get a chance because the next we cut to

(01:09:51):
the hospital and we get one of the most amazing
scenes in the movie. Devrees, still burned to a crisp,
is lying on the hospital bed. And at this point,
if you go in without knowing anything in advance, you
might still think this is a totally normal terrestrial killer,
you know, serial killer movie or not serial killer, you

(01:10:11):
know crime crime and cop movie. But we see him
lying there. Chris Malkey's lying on the hospital bed sharing
a room with another patient in the bed next to him. Now,
normally I would wonder, if there is a suspected mass
murderer under arrest in the hospital, do they have him
share a room unattended with another patient. I don't know,

(01:10:33):
that's a little I do understand the hospitals do a
lot of cost cutting.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
Yeah, and they can be crowded certainly, depending on what's
going on.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
But I would tend to think, I don't know, you
wouldn't just leave another guy in there with the with
the guy who just you know, ran the ferrari through
the police barricade anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
But necessary to grease the plot here.

Speaker 3 (01:10:52):
Right, so suddenly defrees sits straight up in his bed, awake,
He in a profunctory way, just yanks all the tubes
out of his body, staggers over to the guy in
the other bed, pulls the other guy's tubes out, holds
the other guy's mouth open, opens his own mouth, grimaces,

(01:11:13):
and then behold the glory of slug. So out of
the mouth come these tarantula legs, just hairy black spider legs,
coming up past the lips, gripping the outside of the
chrismulky face and pulling the rest of the body out
through the lips. The rest of the body is this

(01:11:36):
black slug, the size of a bread loaf, with whipping tentacles,
with the hairy black tarantula legs, and a sort of
head that looks a bit like some a sea creature,
kind of a sea horse head, but covered in a gelatinous,
translucent membrane like a slimy, clear plastic bag that all

(01:11:58):
oozes out of Devreeze's mouth and then into the mouth
of the other patient. It is one of the greatest, like,
what the hell scenes I've ever seen, Like ten thumbs
up to the scene.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Yes, the space slug transfer scene. It just incredible, incredible
bit of effects work here in the design of the
creature is tremendous as well. In that special effects feature
on the disc that I checked out, they pointed out
that apparently the original script called for it to be
some sort of an amorphous black mass, so maybe something
that was maybe more blob like, or even maybe more

(01:12:33):
plasma like. I don't even know if it was necessarily
even liquid like. Maybe it's something else, But the effects
team moved more towards an indo parasite design, and I
lovingly keep thinking of it as a space slug, and
we're going to keep calling it a slug, but it
does have slug like qualities we already have touched on,
how you know, kind of has Tarantula's legs at the start.

(01:12:56):
By and large, it kind of reminds me a little
bit of certain Noodi Bronc species, you know, which is
to say, it looks really alien, unique design, and so
much of its functionality is also visible in the design.
You know, the long trailing tentacles, those are going to
come into play later. We come to imagine that those
must weave throughout the body of the possessed, you know,

(01:13:18):
almost almost like puppet strings. Ah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, is like they
go to every finger in tow. You know, they they
are the things that control the body with by by
twitching the little nerves.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
Another great thing, the really interesting thing that the Shoulder
had to say about this sequence is that they shot
this sequence and they did it. It's so well done here,
And he pointed out, you only need to see this
once in the movie, so you're not gonna there are
gonna be plenty of other host transferences that take place,
but you're not going to see another one exactly. This

(01:13:53):
is the only time we're going to get the long
drawn out transfer sequence. And yeah, he says, like, once
you've seen it the one, you don't need to see
it again. You know, you don't have to. It's it's
burned in the audience's mind. And I don't think it's
an effect sequence that anyone is soon to forget it.
And it totally stands up.

Speaker 3 (01:14:11):
I absolutely agree with that as a as a creative
choice as well. It is much better to do it
one time very well than to show it multiple times,
because we can imagine what it's like the other times. Totally. Yeah.
So the next thing we see after this is doctors
are now in the room using defibrillator paddles to try
to resuscitate the man who just received the slug. Somehow

(01:14:33):
the process shocks the doctor who's doing the defib and
sends him tumbling to the floor. And then suddenly the
new slug host sits up. He opens his eyes and
he has this expression on his face. It's that Boyett
expression that's just like I want I'm hungry.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
Yes, yea, so good. It's just such a great performance
here because yeah, he's like, he's like, I'm hungry. I
need guns, need diner food, and I need some heavy
metal music and I need all of it at the
same time. Right.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
Meanwhile, Agent Gallagher arrives at the hospital and gets a
debrief from the doctors. We learned that the sky miller
had a bunch of things wrong with him. He had
severe gastritis, he had a triple bypass surgery, he had
a massive coronary and somehow he just walked out of
the hospital. Docs say they cannot explain it. Quote, but

(01:15:35):
they say, quote, I know that's not the man you're
looking for. Jonathan Miller would never do anything to break
the law. He has a very kind, very honest gentleman.
It's the second time they've used the word gentleman to
describe somebody who's been possessed by the space Lug. And
then from there we cut immediately to Miller in a

(01:15:55):
record store shoplifting heavy metal cassette tapes, just putting them
in his jacket pocket, just one after the others. Pretty great,
Oh Maiden, Yeah, getting some Maiden. And then the cashier
sees what he's doing and tells him to stop, and
then Miller beats the guy to death with I think
he's got a stun baton or something. He takes it

(01:16:16):
from the guy, beats him with it, steals all the
money in the cash register, also steals a boom box,
and then walks out onto the sidewalk just blasting his
metal tapes everywhere he goes.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
I have to wonder it was like a shock baton,
like this was just standard issue for record stores back
in the day. Because there was like a small record
store in my hometown when I was in high school,
A friend of mine worked there, and I remember her
showing off the stun baton that they kept behind.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
The desk, and she's supposed to use it if I guess, Yeah,
tried to steal steal a cassette.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
Yeah, so I guess standard issue.

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
Okay, so they So we're onto our second hop and
the body hopping crime spree. Agent Gallagher comes back to
the station and fills back in. Okay, Devrees is dead,
but we've got a second suspect to track down. Now
we're chasing Jonathan Miller. This leads into the setup for
the rest of the movie, which will basically follow a

(01:17:10):
pattern of the murder. Slug commits random crimes, seeks power,
seeks pleasure, ultra violence, and then hops into a new
body when the previous body becomes too damaged or used up,
and then Gallagher and Beck will continue to track the
slug through its hosts, occasionally getting close enough that there's
a shootout or a car chase. And during their partnership,

(01:17:34):
Beck and Gallagher first clash for various reasons, especially because
Gallagher seems to know things about what is going on,
like he's aware of the body hopping scenario and Beck
is kept in the dark, at least at first. He
only gradually becomes aware of the weirdness in play.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
So that's the main knowledge that Gallagher seems to be
entering in with. Presumably because he's FBI, he knows already
that there's something jumping from body to body and that
the crimes are not going to end with the death
of the suspect.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
Yeah, the relationship also develops because maybe it becomes apparent
that there's something Gallagher is not letting on about himself
as well. You know, we'll eventually discover what that is,
but we'll hold on to that for just a moment.
So one thing I guess we should do is just
mention the succession of host bodies that the barf slug

(01:18:28):
takes over. So you've got the Miller body first. In
this body, the alien goes to a diner, eats breakfast
while just like cooking the place with the metal from
his cassette deck, so he's blasting it at his table.
They ask him to turn on the volume and he won't.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
And then also just occasionally like belching and farting. Yes,
because this is interesting to think about. We see that
the parasite when it comes to stealing an automobile, goes
straight for high performance. You know what's the fastest sports
car that I can jump in and drive often with
its human host. It's especially with the Miller body. You know,

(01:19:04):
this is not a high performance. This is a Jalopy.
This one was already this one was was set to
be junked. But that doesn't seem to matter as much.
Like he can see he can steal he yet whatever
the gender of the alien here, it can jump into
a body that is already almost dead and it can
still do everything it needs to do. Presumably.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
I've got some thoughts about that that we'll come back
to in just a minute, But first I'm going to
mention the other things the boy at body does here.
He attacks a Ferrari dealership because he like sees a
lady driving a sports car on the street and then
chases the car on foot but cannot keep up and
then maybe having a heart attack or something. I don't
know if he's having trouble, uh, And then he's like, Okay,

(01:19:50):
I need to go steal a car. So he goes
to a Ferrari dealership just kills a bunch of people
in the process of stealing a Ferrari. U. Somehow off
of this lead, he ends up getting a bunch of
gun I think maybe the guy who was buying the
car was an arms dealer.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
Okay, yeah, yeah, he ends up going to his house
and getting a bunch of weapons.

Speaker 3 (01:20:09):
And he also there's cocaine everywhere in the sequence. Also,
it's like, you know the Ferrari dealership. It seems to
me it's just deriger that when you're buying a Ferrari
the salesman gives you a few bumps of cocaine.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
Yeah, he has the cocaine in the trunk of a
toy car in his desk.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
Yes. And in this sequence we start to see a
formulation that the slug host will speak. He says, I
want this car, and the alien often says, without elaboration
or explanation, simply I want X just says I want it. Uh.

(01:20:43):
And somewhere in the middle here also, I think this
may be after the cops go to the scene where
the where the scene at this guy's house where all
of the weapons were there is the most chekhoved of
Chekhov guns in movie history. I think where you just
see a cop walk into frame with a flame thrower,
and it's just like, look at this awesome flame thrower.

(01:21:06):
Wouldn't it be interesting if this showed up again in
Act three?

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
You know, I should have thought that, but I actually didn't.
When the when the first time I watched it, the
when the when the flamethrower does show back up again,
I was like, whoa.

Speaker 3 (01:21:18):
Oh, okay, well no, no, no, I mean I think
it was supposed to be a surprise, So I'm glad
it worked for you. I think maybe maybe I'm overly
attuned to check off guns. I'm always looking for them.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
Sometimes it's a lot more obvious, like how much time
is going to be taken to discuss the functionality of
the Chekhov's gun. Sometimes that's the case, you're like, oh, yeah,
this is coming back for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
So in the Miller Body this, the alien has continuous
vehicle maintenance issues, as we were just discussing, So there's
all this stomach gurgling. I think maybe he's literally having
heart attacks when he exerts himself, but he just pushes through.
And I think there's another subtle theme here in the

(01:22:01):
movie about the way the alien just uses up human bodies,
Like the alien seems superhuman when in his host and
I think it is the case that our Earth weapons
cannot harm the space Slug. We will later learn there's
an alien weapon that can be used to harm the

(01:22:21):
slugs in its own true form. But the bodies, the
bodies that it inhabits, can themselves be damaged. But it
seems like they can absorb an awful lot of damage
before they finally shut down, Like he will, the you know,
the space slug in Miller body and in these other
bodies will just keep getting shot and injured and still

(01:22:43):
keep pushing on. I was kind of thinking that maybe
it's not so much that the slug makes the bodies
super resilient. Rather, it's more like the slug is thinking,
I will drive this car until the wheels fall off.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
I think that's that. Yeah, it's absolutely drive into the ground.

Speaker 3 (01:23:01):
Yeah, right, So that a lot of the things that
would stop a human from being able to continue are
like needing to recover after an inner, an injury, or
trying to prevent further injury or something, But the alien
doesn't care about that. It's just it's just using our
bodies up. And this actually mirrors something we see with

(01:23:21):
other characters in the movie in relation to their work,
like the cops in the police station, or also like
the dancers, Like we see people just being worked to
the bone with more and more responsibilities piling up, like
there's no consideration of them as human beings. And you know,
I think we see that maybe Beck's home life suffers

(01:23:42):
from working too much. Yeah, so I think that's another
one of the themes here. It's something about like exploiters
using human beings up like their machines. They're just something
to be operated to the point of failure and then discarded.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
M Yeah, that's a good read. I like that.

Speaker 3 (01:23:59):
Also, though on the more comedic side, there are these
funny compatibility issues with the alien and the boyette body,
Like we keep seeing the slugs tentacles accidentally poking out
through an arm and spraying blood everywhere, and like the
one part where like a tentacle pokes out of the
arm and he's like, I get back in there, and
he like tapes it up with a bunch of packing tape.

(01:24:22):
There's another part where he's in a bar and I
think tentacles are poking out and bleeding all over the
place and the bartender is like, hey, what you got
going on and he's just like whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
Yeah. Luckily the la of this film is hell City
enough that the bartender is just like, are you're bleeding
all over the place? All right, fair enough, buddy, but
I just want to I check with you once. That's
the law, that sort of thing. But you know, I
mentioned how he doesn't seem too choosy about the bodies,
but the next body that he occupies is going to
be that dancer character played by Claudia Christian, and perhaps

(01:24:56):
in that in this instance, he does realize like, well,
this bodies kind of a piece of junk. This one
was already mostly used up when I jumped into it.
I'm gonna get a valuable body. I'm gonna get a
body that is, you know, in peak condition. And then
later he's going to realize, I think, or it's going
to realize, you know, there's physical condition, but there's also

(01:25:17):
sort of like their social status, there is political power.
And what if I got a body that already had
these powers just sort of you know, socially available to it.
What could I do with such a body? Then?

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
What if I got a body that could command other bodies?

Speaker 2 (01:25:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:25:35):
Yeah, so that I don't just run this body into
the ground. I can get a body that makes other
bodies run themselves into the ground.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:43):
Yeah. So anyway, so in the middle though, before we
get the Claudia Christian possession, there's a dinner scene. The
scene where they're working the case and Beck invites Gallagher
back to his house to have dinner with his family.
And this scene is interesting because as Kyle MacLaughlin seems
very perplexed but also peaceful and happy to observe family life,

(01:26:06):
Like there's a bit of us so this is how
you how you creatures live.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
But also there's like, you know, maybe a class difference here,
and also a single versus married slash family, right, a
sort of scenario like single guy just has no idea
how this works.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
Yeah, totally. It could pass as like we're starting to
get clues that maybe call MacLaughlin is not exactly what
he says he is, but you're not. It's not one
hundred percent clear like, oh, he's an alien, yet he
could be just another you know, like a guy with
a different kind of life. M It's like, I wonder
what it's like to be married, to be a father
or something like that. Oh, but also there are these

(01:26:44):
weird moments, like when he's at Beck's house, Gallagher has
a moment of staring in the mirror like curious and
almost kind of afraid, looking like looking at his own flesh.
Also in the scene, we learned that Gallagher does not
react well to beer, and Beck warns him to stay
away from alcohol thereafter. But back to the body hopping,
so at this strip club that the slug goes to,

(01:27:05):
it discards the Miller body and switches to the body
of this dancer named Brenda Lee van Buren, and in
this body, Brenda decides to do more crime. She leaves
the strip club. She goes back to her car to
have sex with a creep who was cat calling her
on the sidewalk. She kills the guy in the process.

(01:27:26):
Not sure exactly what happens here, we don't. It's kind
of filmed from a distance.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
Death by snoozsnow. That's all we know, I think so.

Speaker 3 (01:27:33):
And then this flows into a car chase where Beck
and Gallagher they arrive on Zcene. They find her and
they chase her in this car in their cars until
they crash into a building. This turns into a gunfight
where they pursue her onto the roof, and eventually her
body becomes badly damaged in the fight and she jumps
from the roof. Now, this whole time, during the fight,

(01:27:56):
Gallagher has had with him a strange weapon, shaped sort
of like a gun, but with no visible moving parts.
It's this solid piece of silver metal, and he seems
to plan to use it on the alien, but only
after the human body has been killed and the slug
emerges from the mouth, and so it can only harm

(01:28:18):
the slug in its exposed form. So here I guess
we should divulge the full final twist. So putting things together,
it starts to become clear that Gallagher is also not
what he seems. We discover that he is also an alien,
also inhabiting a stolen human body, the body of a

(01:28:40):
dead FBI agent, which is also driving a stolen car. Yes,
and driving a stolen sports car. Now he's not a
spree killer like this other alien. He's not on a
crime spree. We learn through subsequent developments. It doesn't all
come at once, but we will learn that he is
basically as sort of a energy being who is some

(01:29:03):
kind of alien cop or law enforcement. I think he
says he's from a planet called Altaire, which is the
planet from Forbidden Planet, and he is named al Hog.
He's been chasing the space slug across worlds because in
another life on another planet, this slug killed his partner

(01:29:23):
and his family. So when Beck starts getting some parts
of this, he doesn't get the whole story at first,
but he gets some parts of it, and he temporarily
jails Gallagher in the middle of the movie because he
doesn't believe this stuff. So Gallagher is not able to
kill the slug when it comes out of Brenda's body.
Before he can get down to it with his special

(01:29:44):
alien weapon, it has jumped into a dog. Ye uh oh.
I think this leads into a scene that feels to
me inspired by the thing when the dog sneaks up.
So it's Lieutenant Masterson's dog, the police chief's dog who
is allowed to freely roam crime scenes for some reason,

(01:30:04):
and this leads into the possession of Lieutenant Masterson, the
boss of all the cops, and this leads into a
rampage inside the police station like the scene and Terminator,
where you get a very heavily armed Masterson blasting through
the station. I believe the goal is to kill Gallagher.
He's trying to get to Gallagher in his cell and

(01:30:24):
eliminate him.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
Yeah, by the way, we would have never gotten to
this point had the LA Police Department been using K
nine thousand instead of traditional organic police dogs here.

Speaker 3 (01:30:35):
That's a good point that slug would try to get
in the mouth and then be like in there exactly.
So yeah, yeah, So you have the possessed Masterson fighting
his way through the station, the other cops fighting back.
There's a great Danny Treyhoe cameo in the scene. What
exactly does he say? He calls somebody a hippie. He's like,
what did that hippie guy do? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):
What kind of dude are you? He also says something
like that, you know, just you know, sort of standard
you know, purps calling from cells in a movie like
this sort of thing. But yeah, super fun because it's
Danny trehow and it's like, oh yeah, he's going to
be in literally a million more films after this.

Speaker 3 (01:31:11):
So obviously, through this this attack, it actually confirms some
of what Gallagher was telling Beck about about it being
an alien that can hop their bodies. So Beck his
his trust is one. Now back back to Gallagher. Gallagher
and they are reunited in their interests in this big fight.

(01:31:33):
But it's not over when Masterson is defeated.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
Oh man, is this the Masterson though? Is Masterson the
one who suddenly he jumps out at them with a bazooka. Yes, yeah,
and he's gonna shoot them at point blank range with
a bazooka and nearly does, which you know, is is
ludicrous and great but also like totally uh, you know,
totally realistic for the space Plug to do, because Space

(01:31:58):
Lug can't kill itself with the Bazuko blastback. It just
wants to go ahead and kill these guys that are
standing in the way of its ambitions.

Speaker 3 (01:32:07):
Yeah, but so they temporarily get the upper hand on Masterson,
but Masterson is the Space Lug's not defeated. It body
hops into another person, into Willis Beck's original partner. Oh no,
it's Edo Ross.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
Yeah. Yeah, and again he has a great grim face.
And so once he's in slug mo tremendous, tremendous.

Speaker 3 (01:32:26):
So we've got real big problems here because this is
the guy who's been assigned to cover security for Senator Holt.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
Senator Holt, who is about to announce his presidential campaign.

Speaker 3 (01:32:37):
Yeah, so this leads to an attack on Senator Holt,
who in turn does get possessed by the Space Slug.
During this they're trying, Gallagher and Beck are trying to
prevent this. During the fight, Beck is severely wounded in
a shootout and he gets taken to the hospital. So
now Gallagher is left alone, and now the Slug is

(01:32:58):
a highly protect to politician.

Speaker 2 (01:33:01):
And I thought this was going to be kind of
the dark ending I was. I was watching the film,
I thought, oh man, the Slug is safe. Now the
Slug has ascended to a level of society where Tom
maclaughlin's character Gallagher cannot touch him anymore, and this is
just going to be kind of like the dark commentary
on society here. I kind of it ends up not

(01:33:23):
being the case. Yeah, I thought that too.

Speaker 3 (01:33:25):
But then, so what happens is at Senator Holtz next
prece event, he's he gets a question, somebody asks him
about his future political ambitions, and then he takes hold
of the microphone and in a phrasing we've heard from
the Space Slug many times already now, when he says,
I want that car, I want whatever he now says,

(01:33:45):
I want to be president. It's chilling and hilarious. This
is great.

Speaker 2 (01:33:49):
This is of course, years before the Treehouse of Horror
episode where King and Codos become So Kang. Yeah, the
Force Citizen Gang, before you know, they become Dole and
clint On. Uh but but very much the same energy.

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):
Uh yeah, but then remember we mentioned Chekhov's flamethrower. In
the middle of this press conference. In an absolutely shocking twist,
Kyle McLaughlin Babyface Kyle McGlaughlin appears below the stage at
the press conference with the flame thrower we saw earlier
at the police station and torches the possessed husk of

(01:34:27):
the politician. He's immediately surrounded by armed surrounded by armed
men until we see the alien slug crawl out of
Holt's mouth, and then Gallagher uses his alien weapon to
finally terminate it once and for all. So the slug
is defeated.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
Yeah, like, yeah, so the politician's body is blackened and yeah,
you know, totally scorched, and then the black slug comes
out of the mouth and then yeah, it's like screaming
or something, and he blasted with the alien gun. And
again everybody witnesses this and they're kind of like, I
guess they're like, Okay, maybe they're just still processing it.

(01:35:03):
But everybody sees it. There's no second guessing what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:35:06):
Here, So you might think there couldn't be any more
crazy twists coming after this, But then we get to
the final ending, the coda, which is, I don't know,

(01:35:26):
I've been very curious to hear what you think about this.
So in the ending, we go into Beck's hospital room.
We find that he is mortally wounded. He's lying in
a hospital that the doctors are making it clear he's
not going to survive much longer. We see his family
is distraught. He's lying there dying, and then Gallagher is
left alone with him in the room for a moment.

(01:35:49):
Kyle McGlaughlin leans over Beck's body and transfers himself into
Beck's dying body. Now he's not a black slug, He
is some kind of like yellow stream of energy, like
angelic light. But he takes over Beck's body and now
instead of dying, Beck makes a shocking, sudden, full recovery.

(01:36:12):
He pops up alive, and his family comes in and
they're reunited. His daughter's like daddy, and she seems maybe
a little concerned at first, but then it seems like, Okay,
he's going to be accepted, but it's not really him.
Nobody else knows, but we know it's al Hag, the
alien possessing him. So I was like, what the like

(01:36:36):
was this ending supposed to be sweet and happy or
creepy and grim or like darkly comedic. I really can't tell,
and I don't know, so, like, if it's actually supposed
to be a happy ending, I think it mostly fails
because while we can understand it from the alien's perspective,

(01:36:56):
like mourning the loss of his own alien family, it's
way too creepy from the perspective of Beck's family. But
I don't know. I think maybe it's just supposed to
be like a daring, like what the hell kind of
ending where it makes sense that this is what happened,
what would happen based on the characters that have been
set up. But you're also thinking, I really just can't

(01:37:19):
believe they did that at the end of the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:37:21):
It really I think you're right. I think it feels
like a case where it was written as just like,
let's go for it. What's the wildest ending we could
we could really put together here. But then I feel
like the director and the filmmakers involved here really probably
set down and we're like, Okay, how are we gonna
shoot this? Like what's what kind of tone are we
going to go for? And they kind of walk it
down the middle like they're not they're not completely going

(01:37:44):
for dark. Uh, they maybe live a little room that
wigal room. So if you you're not gonna maybe just
consume it as the happy ending that you know you
could I guess still could interpret it as. And it
leaves you this space to sort of think about it
and think about these bigger questions identity, Like, yeah, I
was thinking about it quite a bit, because on one level,

(01:38:06):
it does raise questions like, you know, you know, we've
talked about this in the show before, like are you
the same person you were before? You know, when you
go in and you go into anesthesia and then you
come out again, are you the same person after a
traumatic experience? You know, there's a case to be made
that you're not entirely you know, we change over time.

(01:38:26):
And on the other hand, I mean not as as drastically.

Speaker 3 (01:38:29):
As another fully formed personality possessing your body, right, especially
in secret.

Speaker 2 (01:38:36):
Yeah, So there's that angle, and then there's also the
like like what would what would I want to happen?
You know, like if I knew that I was dying,
and you know, I'm going to leave people behind, but
there but an alien that I know to be a
good nature could like step in and become me and
you know, continue to make me be there for my

(01:38:57):
family for a bit longer. I don't know, I mean, yeah,
there are all sorts of potentially, you know, there are
all sorts of caveats that come up a lot of questions,
how are you going to do this?

Speaker 3 (01:39:06):
You know, I assume you'd want your family to know though, right,
I mean, like the thing is like the aliens are
always they're blending in, like you never know that it's
them until like the secret comes out. I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:39:17):
I guess. Like one of the questions is what would
you do if you were in this position and you
could assume the alien could completely take on your identity?
We have no indication that that's the case here. If
that's a power that al Hag has, it is not
really spelled out. But if that were the case, like
would you want that, you know, if you could be
a perfect replica, and this perfect replica of you could

(01:39:39):
then continue to be there for your family after you're gone,
I don't know. And then then that kind of like
then spirals back into into these bigger questions about identity
and self and you know, and you know memories like
the person you remember you were ten years ago? Are
you still that person? Is that person still alive today?
Or you somebody different? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:39:59):
And so for well, I mean, this does bring it
back to like I think one of the major themes
here of the the body hopping is like how do
you know people are who they say they are? In
both senses? Yeah, In one sense that's like are people
identical to the person that they are claiming to be?
Like are you really my husband? Tom? But then the

(01:40:19):
other thing being like are you are you the way
that you say you are? Which you get with the politician,
you know, so they're like it's he's a guy who's
like saying nice platitudes. But it's always something we wonder
about people that we hand power to. Are they really
going to be like with the way they say they are?

Speaker 2 (01:40:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:40:38):
Or in either case, like is there at least metaphorically
an entity inside them that has its own designs that
you're not aware of, you know. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:40:46):
Yeah, though, I think that we can easily imagine that
this portrayal will not last too long without the family discovery,
because you know we saw earlier doesn't know how to
how Alca celster work has to be explained to him.

Speaker 3 (01:40:58):
Yeah, he eats the Alca Celtic.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
So like it's going to be like, you know, Dad's
night to cook dinner, and then what is our space
alien going to do? What is all ha going to
do about that? When he doesn't know how to make
you know, the back family pizza or whatever the case
may be, it made you boiled potato chips. Yeah, but
I love all of this. I love this about an
ending that really makes you think and ask all of
these questions and is just yeah, daring and weird. A

(01:41:20):
nice weird capper to a weird movie.

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
Yeah, totally. So The Hidden not going to be for everybody,
but I think it's very strong.

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):
Yeah. Yeah, this one's kind of a real gem that
I'd never know outside of discussing it briefly in Weird
House Cinema, I really didn't know anything about it. It
was just kind of buried there. So I'm super glad
that I got to jump into it totally. All Right,
we're going to close it out here, but we'd love
to hear from all of you out there. Do you
have memories of watching The Hidden? Do you have any

(01:41:50):
encouragement or warnings about seeing The Hidden? Part two? Right in,
we'd love to hear anything you have to share about
all of that other body hopping movies that we should
know about or remember. It's very possible we have there's
an episode, an episode of Weird Out Cinema where we've
talked specifically about a body hopping movie and we just
have forgotten that that's what it was. So yeah, right in,

(01:42:11):
we'd love to hear from you. Just a reminder. The
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and
culture podcast with core episodes and Tuesdays and Thursdays, but
on Fridays we set most of the serious stuff aside
and we just talk about a weird film here on
Weird House Cinema. If you use letterbox dot com, look
us up on letterbox. We are weird House. There, follow
us check out the list that we keep there. It

(01:42:32):
has a collection of all the movies we've covered over
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(01:42:53):
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Speaker 3 (01:43:01):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:43:21):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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