August 11, 2025 • 46 mins
It's nearly time for new Chat out of Hell, but first there's a summer blockbuster film club!
And what a blockbuster it is, as we watch 13 episodes of the SyFy original series Ghost Wars. Don't say we never do anything for you.
Chat out of Hell returns for series 5 on Monday 25th of August, where we'll dive into Meat Loaf's early days with Objects in the Rear View Mirror from Bat out of Hell II and Tear Me Down from Couldn't Have Said it Better. See you then, Loafers!
Keep your comments, reviews and arguments flying in to chatoutofhell@gmail.com
Chat out of Hell is a is a review podcast: all music extracts are used for review/illustrative purposes. To hear the songs in full please buy them from your local record shop or streaming platform. Don't do a piracy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam (00:05):
what is this?
Emma (00:06):
This is Chat out of Hell Film Club, a bit of cheeky extra
Chat out of Hell fun where wereview some kind of punishing
film featuring Meat Loaf and orJim Steinman, or in today's
case, some kind of punishing TVshow.
Sam (00:23):
Who is Meat Loaf?
Emma (00:24):
Meat Loaf was a singer, which we all know already, but
he was also an actor who playedthe part of Doug Rennie in the
TV series, Ghost Wars.
Who's Jim Steinman?
Sam (00:34):
Jim Steinman is a composer, et cetera, whose reputation is
thankfully un tarnished byhaving any kind of association
with the TV series, Ghost Wars.
Emma (00:44):
Who are we?
Sam (00:45):
We are Sam Wilkinson and Emma Crossland, and that's all
you need to know.
All right.
Emma (00:49):
welcome to Chat Out of Hell.
Film Club
Sam (00:52):
Bow.
Now, now, Now you put in a lotof effort to that ding today.
Emma (00:58):
thank you.
I really did.
as much effort as I can muster.
I am currently recovering fromthe COVID.
Sam (01:04):
Yeah.
Emma's retro listeners.
Emma (01:06):
Yeah.
You cool.
Kids have probably moved on tosomething like, I dunno, giraffe
flu, but I've gone old schoolwith a bit of lovely COVID.
Sam (01:14):
I'm sure the listeners will join me in saying, ah, sucks to
be you.
Emma (01:19):
thanks.
Sam (01:20):
Now that I know you're not in mortal danger, I can be a
dick about it.
And you're on the way up, right?
Emma (01:24):
Yeah, I'm on the way up.
I apologize if I sound a littlebit croaky and rough.
Sam (01:28):
But Emma, your um, condition, condition
Emma (01:31):
Condition.
The past.
Sam (01:35):
you, your condition has been perfect for watching the TV
series Ghost Wars,
Emma (01:39):
Yeah.
been borderline hallucinatingfor about a week.
Which has been perfect for this.
Sam (01:44):
Listeners.
This is our once per series filmclub in which we dive into the
cinematic or televisual works ofMeat Loaf or Jim Steinman.
This time Emma chose the sci-fiseries Ghost Wars for us to
watch.
What is Ghost Wars?
Emma (01:59):
Really stupid.
You probably want a bit morethan that though, I do.
It is a sci-fi horror seriesabout a bunch of people stuck on
an island with evil ghosts,
Sam (02:12):
spooky ghost.
Emma (02:14):
spooky
Sam (02:17):
Meat Loaf is in it playing the part of Doug Rennie.
The sort of local grumpy oldman.
Emma (02:23):
Do you want a few basic facts about Ghost Wars?
it was created by a guy calledSimon Barry, who has done lots
of other fantasy horror typeprogramming, including something
called Warrior Nun that's onNetflix that I have not watched
yet.
Sam (02:38):
I watched one episode of Warrior Nun.
Did you let me tell you that oneepisode was a fucking drag?
Emma (02:43):
Oh no.
Sam (02:44):
Oh, no.
When you hear Warrior Nun, youwanna turn it on and have a nun
punch a dude in the face?
Emma (02:49):
Absolutely.
Sam (02:50):
No dude punching in the whole episode.
What?
Yeah, it like, the end of theepisode was basically, oh,
maybe.
She should punch dudes in theface.
It was one of those,
Emma (02:59):
is it setting it up for the next episode and is full of
dude
Sam (03:02):
Well, I don't know.
I think it's this modern trendof like, the whole first season
has to be set.
I can't remember who did this,I'm ripping it off from someone.
If you did a show calledSkateboard Dracula, the whole
first season would be about howDracula gets his skateboard.
And then you only see him do anOllie right at the very
Emma (03:18):
You wanna crack on with this stuff, don't you?
You don't want it to drag outfor an entire
Sam (03:22):
Yeah, exactly.
If you're watching SkateboardDracula, you want Dracula on a
skateboard.
If you're watching Warrior Nun,you want nuns punching dudes.
If you're watching Ghost Wars,you wanna see ghosts having a
war.
Emma (03:35):
If you want to see ghosts having a war, I wouldn't bother
with this.
It was made by the sci-fichannel.
And it premiered on October thefifth, 2017.
So it's a pre pandemic worldGolden age.
A golden age.
A pre pandemic
Sam (03:51):
Yes.
Although it is a bit prescient.
cause it's about a town that'sin quarantine.
Emma (03:57):
Yeah.
I guess it is.
Sam (03:58):
Yeah.
And some of it is about the waythat the towns folk behave when
they're not allowed to go
Emma (04:03):
Yes.
we've said Meat Loaf is in it.
He plays Doug Rennie.
I've got down here a grumpybastard.
Sam (04:10):
I think that the part of Doug Rennie is very much
encapsulates the way Americasees itself.
Emma cus he.
The way small town America sees.
For the benefit of the tape,emma fell asleep.
Doug Renny is the way small townAmerica likes to think about
(04:32):
itself in that he's got valuesand they're small c conservative
values, but ultimately at theend of the day, he sticks up for
what's right.
Yeah.
Emma (04:41):
Yeah.
Sam (04:42):
And also he's a bit of a cock This is a 13 episode.
Wasn't supposed to be aminiseries, but it was one'cause
it never got recommissioned forseason two.
Emma (04:51):
They're called limited series now,
Sam (04:53):
Oh, is it?
Okay.
Oh, hello.
13 episodes of 45 minutes each.
Normally on Film Club, we dogive you a painfully in depth
rundown of the media inquestion.
We're not gonna do it for all 13episodes, but we are gonna get
quite spoily.
So, top level, some of GhostWars is quite all right and a
lot of it is shit, but littlebits of it are quite good.
(05:16):
And if you knew about them goingin, you wouldn't enjoy the good
bits.
Yeah.
So if the idea of a sci-fiseries about an isolated Alaska
town being attacked by ghosts ina tonally awkward way appeals to
you, go away and watch it.
We're gonna spoil it foreverybody else.
Emma (05:32):
As a sort of side note if we were a podcast that reviewed
a TV series, you usually coverlike one episode per episode of
the podcast.
Yeah.
So we are really cramming it in
Sam (05:43):
here.
Yes, we are.
We often do little jokes abouthow we're the only Jim
Steinmanologists out there.
obviously a lot of people do,know more than us and have done
more research.
I'm confident that this is theonly podcast in history that is
gonna do this much talking about
Emma (05:57):
war.
If we're wrong, please point usin the
Sam (06:01):
words.
Please do let us Emma's gonnakick us off.
Episode
Emma (06:04):
one.
We meet local outcast RomanMercer.
He's a bit psychic and can seeghosts.
His best friend is a ghostcalled Maggie, the towns folk of
Port Moore, which happens to beon an island linked to the
mainland by only one bridge.
They don't trust Roman, mostlybecause of something his mum did
that I can't quite remember.
(06:25):
Especially Doug Rennie played byMeat Loaf.
Roman is trying to leave town.
He's on a bus out of town whenthe earthquake hits.
He's the only survivor of thebus journey.
The ghosts have been awakened bythe earthquake and are capable
of deceiving the humans bymaking them see things that
aren't real.
In this case, they make it looklike the bridge to the mainland
is still intact when it's reallybadly broken.
(06:47):
Episode two.
Sam (06:49):
A man on a boat finds a big dead whale.
Bit rough shit.
There's loads of dead whales.
This guy's Billy, local smugglerthe mayor's his sister and also
the lady mayor has a lady,doctor, wife.
How modern.
Their kids who are also ladies,but young ones, keep drawing
some curly haired guy.
I bet he's dead.
(07:09):
Spoiler alert, he was dead.
Shit.
Here comes Dee out of BattlestarGalactica.
That was a much better show.
Much better.
I wish Meat Loaf had been inBattlestar Galactica and we
could talk about that.
Anyway, she's doing it withBilly and she works at an evil
science lab just outside oftown.
Billy's boat gets fucked up sohe can't leave.
He goes to the pub when nobodywants to speak to him.
(07:31):
Roman comes in.
He wants to talk about ghosts.
Billy's up for it.
Everybody else wants to do apunch at him.
So Billy goes off to see thelocal vicar.
Father Dan We know that FatherDan is cool'cause despite being
a Catholic priest, he's got longhair and studs in his coat.
Billy's mate tries to fix theboat but gets ghost murdered in
the engine room.
(07:53):
Ghosts are murdering people allover the place, Roman is just
knocking about the place, notreally fixing any ghost
problems, but then he does fixthe ghost problems on the boat
and they sail away, but it turnsout bloody hell, you can't sail
away.
And the boat is back at thetown.
OMG, episode three.
Emma (08:11):
It's science time.
We learn about Lambda, thescience company doing creepy
science things.
A bunch of people die in theincident that was caused by the
science machine.
Of course, they come back tohaunt the surviving scientists,
leading them to discover thatelectricity makes them go away.
We meet Dr.
(08:31):
Landis Barker, who is one of thegood science people, episode
four.
I'm trying to keep it succinct'cause
Sam (08:40):
no, no.
talked That's fine.
Yeah.
The local towns folk are beingrough.
The lady mayor has a rough timetelling them what to do because
they're bellends.
The priest offers the church'shelp and the mayor gets in a
grump separation of church andstates in the constitution.
Town bullies who are previouslypicking on Roman now offer to
hang out with him because theyhave a ghost in their house and
(09:01):
he can deal with it.
Boy.
Marcus, who is the son of thelocal mortician, gets strangled
by a ghost, but then he getssaved by the doctor lady and he
talks something about awhistling man.
And then he laughs in church andsays it's all nonsense and does
a vomit.
He's definitely a demon boy.
Father Dan tries an exorcism andthe boy dies.
(09:22):
Whoa, that's pretty rough.
Dan does a big old pray in hischurch and suddenly discovers a
secret spooky altar room in thebasement.
Episode five.
Emma (09:32):
It's Meat Loaf's time to shine.
He's been horrible up to thisepisode, but now we see he's
capable of being neighborly whenhe helps Sophia, who's just lost
her son sort out her shower thatseems to be spraying blood,
which turns out to be rust.
as a favor to the ghost ofMaggie, Roman agrees to talk to
Doug, but Doug pulls a gun andRoman runs away.
(09:55):
Doug is planning to use that gunto kill himself, but he just
can't do it as every time hetries the ghost of Maggie ups
the haunting and rattles somepans or something.
Maggie shows Roman how to winDoug around, which works at Doug
now believes Roman's ability.
He invites Roman over to aparty, bygones and all that.
Then we learn how Maggie died.
(10:16):
She was attacked at home byfamily friend Rodney during
another beer and pizza night.
He spiked her drink, thenattempted to rape her, but she
had a bad reaction to the drugand died.
Ghost Maggie has had enough ofRodney still being allowed to
hang out with her dad.
So she grabs him, throws himonto her bed where she died, and
carves guilty into his chestDoug is furious and kills
(10:41):
Rodney.
Maggie can now rest in peace,but tells Roman that the other
ghosts can't be reasoned withand need to be wiped out.
Episode six,
Sam (10:51):
this whole electric thing is catching on.
The mayor kids are now drawingMarcus the dead boy, who they
say has become a ghost, butthey're not allowed to tell
anyone.
They also drew, everybody else'sdied and now they've drawn their
babysitter.
Mrs.
Dr.
Mayor makes a house call to anold lady who being weird.
Rodney's sister shows up anddemands a trial for Doug.
(11:14):
Spoiler alert, that never comesto anything.
That plot thread just never getsresolved.
Billy beats up some people whohave a go at the mayor about it,
so she makes him Sheriffchildcare lady gets murdered by
a ghost.
Emma (11:27):
Oh, hang on.
You've gotta go into detailabout that.
Childcare lady is somehow pushedover into a badly stacked
dishwasher where she's stabbedin the head by a knife.
Sam (11:38):
I was just about to mention this before that though, Emma.
She goes over to the sink andsees a kitten down in the
garbage disposal.
Yeah.
horrible Which, which sherescues.
And then that turns out to be adisembodied ghost hand'cause the
ghosts can make you hallucinate.
Then she falls over onto anincredibly badly loaded
dishwasher with a carving knife
Emma (11:59):
pointed straight over her
Sam (12:00):
head.
This whole show is a Casualtyslash X-Files crossover.
Marcus comes along and stealsone of the mayor kids away.
They get to the forest andthere's a big glowy orb there
that has the stolen Mayor kid injust like the one in the alt
secret room in the church.
(12:21):
They rescue the child, And thenwe cut back to Mrs.
Mayor's old lady patient whoturns out to have been dead all
along.
Oh God.
And she also tries to do amurder at Mrs.
Dr.
Mayor, who finally comes aroundto the idea that ghosts might be
episode seven.
Emma (12:41):
Oh shit.
The power's gone out.
What will they do?
The ghosts are allergic toelectricity.
Without it, they can attackEveryone hides out at Father
Dan's church while they try torestore power.
A bunch of other stuff happens,including ghosts getting into
the church to fuck things up abit.
Roman learns and his mother isdead and not sending him letters
(13:04):
from wherever he thought shewas.
And Billy gets blown up by theelectricity.
Oh, no.
Dead Billy?
Episode Eight.
Sam (13:13):
Oh, dead.
Billy Dan's still trying to fixthe power, but Billy's ghost is
stood there.
He's been deaded.
He gets pulled into Ghost Worldand has a look around at all the
spooky stuff in the church.
In Ghost World, the glowy thingat the church is a cube.
Is that important?
Not really.
(13:35):
Billy gets taken to Lambda whereMrs.
Dr.
Mayor attends to him and saysthat she probably can't save his
life.
But then she does.
Meat Loaf takes charge at thechurch and is a good old
community leader.
Gets on with burying the newpeople who died last night.
Father Dan does a big cry whilehe hugs the weird glowy thing
down in the bottom of thechurch.
I realize now why the weirdglowy thing is shot in gloomy
(13:56):
light because the prop is just atent with a light in it, wrapped
in some bits of string.
Father Dan is very sad.
Billy's ghost goes to see Roman,who is entirely unsurprised that
he's dead and he is being amassive cock about it.
Just an absolute bellend.
From Billy's ghost perspective,when he sees Roman get mad, he
(14:19):
has all electric in his eyes,and that.
Billy's ghost pops to the bigscience machine at Lambda and
sees it glowing.
Then we cut to the spare copwho's flirting with Mrs.
Science Pal, one of the secondtier scientists who works at the
science machine.
Emma (14:40):
is Mrs.
Science Pal, the person
Sam (14:42):
bar ke.
That's Carla.
Yes.
Billy actually returns to hisbody after chasing off the ghost
of Ryan, the horrible scienceboss.
Then the egg thing in the churchbirths some sort of horror
creature.
It's a slimy, gross version ofMarcus's mom.
Ooh.
Rescued mayor child and Marcus'Ghost mum both slink off to the
(15:03):
dead scary old woman's house andvom up eggs or something.
They put them in a corner.
Thus confirming or maybe not thelifecycle of the ghost.
Episode nine
Emma (15:19):
loads of stuff happens in this.
A helicopter arrives with Lambdapeople, including their CEO
Daphne which seems like astretch for a CEO to come to an
emergency of this level.
You'd think that they'd safe intheir castle at home.
I wonder why she's turned up..
There can't possibly be a reasonfor that.
Oh no.
This is all stuff I don't give ashit about.
(15:42):
Marcus's ghost mum is leadingpeople to their deaths.
Daphne, the CEO is trying tofind a cure for death with the
big science machine that startedit all in the first place.
and the artifact in Father Dan'sbasement.
Episode 10.
Sam (15:57):
Following a fire at the creepy old lady's house, the
Lambda goons have recovered theburnt body from one of the eggs,
This time the egg ghost isScience Pal, who disappeared
last episode, But the ghostwasn't quite ready and can't be
revived.
Daphne, grumpily, demands anautopsy Dan has become a piss
head lady mayor has stoppeddressing like a mayor, which
(16:19):
shows how bad things have got.
Science Pal's weird ghost bodyis insta healing every time they
cut out his liver, another onegrows back..
A passing British doctor is veryexcited, as is Daphne.
And then she says, Mr SciencePal signed away the rights to
his own body when he became aLambda employee.
This is satire.
(16:41):
Science Pal's body escapes fromthe lab.
And we have a few moments of asort of Alien type adventure.
Where the security goons arebeing hunted around the pitch
dark base, but it's not longenough or scary enough to
matter.
Science Pal's body goes home tothe bar to see his wife Carla.
They get into sexy mode and doit on the bar.
(17:02):
She's definitely gonna getpregnant with a ghost child.
That's probably gonna happen inseason two, right?
That's the sort of thing that'llbe, they'll save that for season
two as a big plot point to hangsomething off.
Oh, well, Dan attacks Marcus'sghost Mum and ties her up in the
church basement alongsideScience Pal and Abigail.
There's a boring conversationabout faith.
(17:23):
Dan decides to set fire toeverybody in the basement, but
then a ghost dressed as thedevil pops off and traps him in
the church.
Yes.
A ghost dressed as the devil.
Nobody mentions it, but it'sthere.
He decides to start the fireanyway.
Oh, for fuck's sakes.
He's been messing about with hislighter so much that it's run
out of fuel.
(17:44):
He prays a lot until one of thecandles, lights of its own
accord and sets it off.
Everybody burns in a bad bit ofVFX episode 11.
Emma (17:53):
Oh my God.
It's a weird ghost alien baby.
Carla having done a sex with herhaunted husband is now pregnant.
Deputy Norm, who I believe waspreviously known as the spare
cop.
Yes.
Steps in to look after her,she's fairly indifferent towards
this and is suspiciously verypregnant.
despite only doing it yesterday.
(18:15):
She's also hungry.
hungry for meat, and she sendsDeputy Norm out to find some.
But those pesky ghosts trick himinto believing that he's finding
regular meat for her.
Really, it's people, the rottingcorpses of people.
YY yum, yum, yum.
Yum.
Later she goes into labour.
(18:36):
The pregnancy has taken a day orso, but Norm is under her spell.
S which proves that, sex is badfor you kids.
He helps her deliver her alienworm child.
Roman arrives, shows Norm thetruth.
The baby feeds on Carla untilNorm kills them both.
Phew.
Episode 12.
Sam (18:55):
Fucking Nora.
Here we go.
There's a lady in the showersinging Walking on Sunshine.
Oh, that's nice.
But she wasn't in the shower atall.
She was setting herself on firebecause ghosts tricked her into
believing it.
This will be proper horrible ifthe CGI was up to it.
It's still fairly creepy'causeshe keeps singing while burning
(19:16):
to death.
But the VFX really has taken thehorror down a few notches.
Winston, local dickhead, comesand extinguishes her, but it's
too late.
Norm is heartbroken.
He's pissed up at Carl and Sal'sgrave.
You would be too.
A hand reaches up out of thegrave, but he knows it's an
illusion and he scares it offwith his electric taser.
(19:38):
He says,"couldn't give me fivefucking minutes.
Fucking ghosts." Over at thebar, some of the towns folk
survivors are having a big partyslash orgy.
They're boozing up their last,it's the end of days.
There's also quite a bit offighting.
Meat Loaf comes along and sortsthem out.
He has a go at them forpartying, but Winston says it's
(19:58):
hopeless, so you might as wellget pissed.
Meat Loaf responds by smashing apassing bloke's own drink on his
head.
Carla's memory deserves morethan to be tarnished by you
clowns", he says and boots himout.
Daphne is on the floor of heroffice being groped by Ghost
hands.
Her assistant comes and savesher, but she had it under
control.
Leave me alone, you idiot.
They want the science machine toturn back on so that they can
(20:21):
close the ghost door thing, butthey need the other half of a
special meteorite, the one thatRoman has.
Roman meets with Billy andLandis who says that Roman
exists in a quantum superposition so he can perceive the
meteorite as both cube and lumpat the same time.
(20:42):
That must be important to theplot, right?
No, not really.
Winston goes to bother Norm atCarla's grave.
Norm is drunk and very sad andmakes bad decisions.
Winston convinces him to start acoup in the town and form a a
gang of idiots with shotgunsgoing around, locking up people
for shit's sake, just when Istarted feeling bad for Norm, he
(21:02):
had a rough one last episode.
And now look at him.
He pulls a gun on the mayor andtells her he's quit as a cop,
"I'm just a concerned citizentrying to keep my neighbours
safe.
You should try it sometime.
He says".
How Norm?
How there are fucking murderghosts.
You utter fuck nut.
She doesn't have anti ghostpowers.
The election didn't cover this.
(21:26):
Norm captures the mayor andtheir family.
He locks up Meat Loaf again forgood measure.
Norm and his gun twat rock up toLambda.
Billy is fucked off and wants todo a murder at them, but he's
holding the mayor hostage.
There's a bit of palava, butultimately it ends up with Norm
getting taken down into theLambda base and then having his
soul removed from his body sothat they can, in the final 10
(21:50):
minutes of this episode, pull afreaky Friday.
Roman uses the weird meteoriteto put Billy Norm's body so that
he can then drive back into townand rescue everybody and then
put all the people back in theright bodies.
Norm though is too sad.
He doesn't want to return to hisown body.
So he just wanders off.
He's dead now or is he?
(22:12):
We'll never know.
Norm's body gets buried besidesCarla, which is nice to a
degree, but also pretty rough onher husband, who also died
yesterday.
The coup is defeated.
It's completely, almostirrelevant to the plot.
I don't, it, I, it felt like itwas gonna lead up to being the
big plot point of the finale,but no, it happened and then
(22:33):
it's over again and everybody'sback to the status quo.
Episode thirteen,
Emma (22:38):
Final episode.
A bunch of the remainingcharacters, including Billy and
the CEO of Lambda, Daphnetemporarily die in the name of
science in saving the town andthat.
Roman is their guy because hecan see and talk to the ghosts.
The only way they can open thegate to get rid of the evil
ghosts is for one of them toactually die.
(22:59):
Billy volunteers, which is metby minimal protest from his
girlfriend, he dies.
The door opens, the ghostinfestation is cured.
The others return to theirbodies.
It's fine.
They're all a bit sad aboutBilly.
And then we have a celebrationat the pub.
But where's Roman?
And the chief science lady?
(23:19):
Daphne.
You remember her?
Oh no.
They fucked off with the magicartifact and the science lady
has been possessed by Maggie.
She plans to live as the sciencelady who is conveniently a
billionaire.
The end.
Sam (23:35):
Oh, you missed one bit there.
Oh.
Some kids playing outside thechurch.
See the ghost of Father Dan.
We don't
Emma (23:41):
We don't care.
Sam (23:43):
End of season end, and then this was never recommissioned.
So end of show
Emma (23:48):
oh God, what a slog.
Sam (23:51):
What did you think about this TV show, Emma?
Emma (23:53):
It's very silly.
bits of it are quite compellingand quite fun.
Bits of it are an absolute slog.
Sam (23:59):
doesn't know what it
Emma (24:00):
Well, I've put a list together.
Okay.
I've called it a list of thingsthat this show has.
Number one, a secretive sciencecompany.
Number two, a big sciencemachine that blasts a hole
through dimensions.
Number three, a GhostbusterNumber four, the, you try to
leave, but no matter where yougo, you come back to where you
(24:20):
started thing.
Number five, murder ghosts.
Number six, ghosts that createinsanity inducing
hallucinations.
Number seven, alien pods.
Number eight, alien birth numbernine, body jumping, number 10,
creepy children.
Just one of those would've beena lot.
(24:41):
It really packs it
Sam (24:42):
in.
It does pack it in.
Can we talk about the bigscience company?
Yes.
Okay.
So Emma,
Emma (24:46):
a big science company.
Sam (24:48):
Are you familiar with the 1990s video game Half Life?
Emma (24:52):
I am aware of its
Sam (24:54):
Half Life was the story of a big science company, Out in
the middle of nowhere.
And the big science company doesa big science experiment, just
like in this show.
And are told by their bosses todo more science, just like in
this show, and open up aninterdimensional rift, just like
in this
Emma (25:11):
show.
OMG.
Sam (25:12):
And the logo of the big science company in Half-Life was
a Lambda.
Furthermore, the Ghostbusterselectric gun in this show, Uhhuh
looks a lot like the Gausscannon in the video game.
Half-Life, Half-Life is one ofthe most influential games of
all time.
it cannot be accidental.
(25:32):
No.
I would like to talk aboutwhat's good cause there were
some good things.
Yes.
The episode about Carla's ghostbaby was very well
Emma (25:42):
It's really creepy and there's a lot of horror
Sam (25:45):
A lot of horror.
It, there's a lot of horror.
Like there is some good horrorthroughout the whole show.
I'm a ghost story guy.
I am not really a gory horror.
Yeah.
Emma (25:52):
I quite liked the bit where there was a torso hung on
the back of the bathroom
Sam (25:55):
Yeah.
We laugh.
Whoa.
eating so that was quite good.
And a lot of the stuff with thecreepy ghost children early on,
or creepy ghost child
Emma (26:04):
early on, See, I would've loved it if it would've just
been the creepy ghost kids.
Yeah.
I love a bit of creepy ghost
Sam (26:09):
have been, could have been the whole show out of creepy
ghost child, A lot of this showis filmed in some quite gloomy
conditions.
And then about halfway throughyou realize that's because the
props are not suitable forseeing in daylight.
Yeah,
Emma (26:22):
Yeah.
We tried to make it look
Sam (26:24):
like the big
Emma (26:24):
big glowy ghost
Sam (26:27):
the the fire VFX, which, oh God, do you know what if I had
that fire VFX, maybe I wouldn'twrite as much fire into my
Emma (26:34):
script, Just thinking is this the only VFX we've got for
fire?
Isn't there another one we canplug in?
Is this, oh God, can't we buyanother?
Really?
We've run out of money.
Sam (26:44):
Could we imply fire?
No.
Could we set actual fire to
Emma (26:48):
no.
We can't actually burn one ofthe cast
Sam (26:51):
everybody who burns to death is very quickly
unrecognizable anyway because ofthe fire.
So set fire to a dummy, it'sfine
Emma (26:58):
it's fire.
Sam (26:58):
What were you expecting when you saw the name Ghost
Wars?
Emma (27:01):
was expecting a war with ghosts.
Like presumably the humansagainst the ghosts.
Which.
Technically.
Sam (27:10):
Mm, but not really.
No.
I was expecting somethingsillier it's a very silly name.
It silly.
And this is quite a dark andserious show.
It's trying to be quite a darkand serious show when it lands.
It is dark and serious.
Emma (27:24):
If it had have been sillier, I think it would've
been more enjoyable.
Sam (27:27):
Yeah.
Probably with the big sciencemachine.
Yeah.
Which is either a particleaccelerator or a something else.
Emma (27:34):
It's just a big science machine.
Sam, let's not get
Sam (27:36):
nobody's ever quite sure
Emma (27:38):
I do love a big science machine.
Sam (27:40):
Cast.
Were any of them any good?
No.
No.
Emma (27:43):
No.
Well,
Sam (27:44):
Roman the lead.
Yeah.
Shocking.
bad.
There's we've talked a fewseries ago about Streets of
Fire.
Yeah.
Which had an incredibly woodenmale lead.
Yes.
Emma (27:54):
Yes it
Sam (27:55):
Roman went to the school of on Streets of Fire acting.
There's a bit early on inepisode one where we were just
learning about Roman and whathis deal is, and then Maggie
appears way jumps out on him asa ghost.
And he says, Jesus, Maggie, youscared the life out of me.
Emma (28:15):
Wooden, a nd also very badly written.
So considering he's meant to bethe lead.
I cannot stand him.
Sam (28:21):
I had no interest in his welfare,
Emma (28:22):
No interest in his welfare.
The bit with his mom couldn'tgive a fuck.
Yeah, that's
Sam (28:27):
true.
Did we co cover that in therundown?
I don't remember really.
But yeah, there's a bit whereRoman's mum, he thinks she's
disappeared, gone off on herown.
And through the series weunderstand that she's been run
out of town just to generallybeing a bit of a dick.
Yeah.
She's doesn't seem to have doneanything particularly bad.
And then on the process of beingrun out of town, Father Dan was
(28:48):
so drunk, he crashed into a treeand killed her
Emma (28:51):
Father Dan is a very bad
Sam (28:52):
Father Dan is not a top priest.
Emma (28:55):
No,
Sam (28:56):
I did quite like Vincent Donofrio's performance Yeah, I
thought it was good.
It's a tropey character.
he did a good job of him.
Yeah.
He's the priest but he's, oh,he's a little bit into ghosts
and shit'cause he's got longhair and he's battling between
the horrors that he sees and hisfaith
Emma (29:14):
Because everything's quite badly written.
It's quite hard for me to wantto empathize with any of the
characters.
Sam (29:20):
Oh, absolutely.
All the characters go throughsome sort of character
development in one episode andthen the next episode
immediately go back to their oldways.
Yeah.
Meat Loaf.
We should talk about Meat Loaf.
We
Emma (29:30):
Considering the nature of this podcast, what did you think
to his
Sam (29:33):
I think it was probably one of the better things in it.
Yes, I agree.
The character of Doug is notalways well written.
It, he does have some nicemoments, but he is trying to
play the staple of the communityholding everybody together.
Emma (29:48):
in the sort of what's right.
After the revelation aboutMaggie.
He is, yeah.
Yeah.
Up until that point, he's justdifficult.
Yeah.
But he has a real transformationwhen he discovers why his
daughter died and that turns himinto more of a pillar of the
community.
Yeah.
And at the, in the very lastepisode he's wanting to be the
new
Sam (30:05):
Yes.
He is wanting to be the newsheriff while awaiting a murder
charge for which he will befound guilty.
Emma (30:11):
Yeah.
But that doesn't seem important
Sam (30:13):
No, apparently not.
Because Rodney's family whovowed revenge at one point,
never appeared again.
Yeah.
The ghost might have got him.
But if I were writing a show, Imaybe just wouldn't mention that
bit.
But Meat Loaf's Performance,he's All right.
Emma (30:29):
he's not a bad actor.
Sam (30:30):
Definitely better than the thing we watched him in where he
played a big sexy sex vampire
Emma (30:36):
Oh, creepy.
Sex
Sam (30:37):
groping women's boobs and that actually Meat Loaf as a
grumpy old man probably shouldhave played more grumpy old
Emma (30:43):
men.
Yeah.
Sam (30:45):
Grumpy old, slightly right wing men.
Emma (30:46):
There was comic moments where he just like knocked
people out.
Yeah.
That was, you could tell that hewas relishing getting that sort
Sam (30:52):
from Yeah.
I think he, he was one of thehighlights of
Emma (30:55):
this.
Yeah.
Which is good.
'cause that was our reason forwatching.
Sam (31:00):
Oh, God.
Imagine if Meat Loaf would'vebeen awful in it.
Oh, we wouldn't have had
Emma (31:04):
any fun.
Do you wanna know what thepeople of the internet had to
Sam (31:07):
say?
I would bloody well, love to
Emma (31:09):
From Rotten Tomatoes?
This got, like 70 somethingpercent overall, which seems
Sam (31:14):
Well, would you like me to complain about modern review
standards?
Emma, why do I have to give fivestars for standard performance?
Five stars is for perfect.
Okay.
Emma (31:25):
We've had this rant from you.
Oh
Sam (31:28):
you before.
Emma (31:28):
you have.
Sam (31:28):
have.
Emma (31:31):
Anyway, somebody said, terrible series cheap.
CGI, bad acting, terribledirecting and editing made me
cringe at how bad it was.
I could not finish the firstepisode.
Which I think is a shame becauseif they're given it beyond the
first episode yeah, all that'strue.
But it's a bit of a romp, isn'tit?
Sam (31:50):
It is a bit of a romp.
Emma (31:51):
And then somebody else said a bit farfetched, but the
mountains are very
Sam (31:56):
now.
Is, that's one of my notes fromthe first episode are like, oh,
Alaska's so pretty.
I really wanna see more of it.
And they spend so little timelooking at any of the rest, of
the scenery in the followingepisodes.
There's a bit of stuff in thewoods and you see some dead
whales floating in the harbour.
But
Emma (32:11):
But
Sam (32:12):
wanted.
Emma (32:14):
sweeping
Sam (32:14):
vista.
Exactly.
I wanted Twin Peak style.
Look at how isolated they are inthe beautiful wilderness.
But I never got that becausethey filmed it in somebody's
back garden in Vancouver.
Probably.
Emma (32:25):
It won some awards.
Sam (32:26):
razzies,
Emma (32:27):
no, it won Leo Awards, whatever they are.
And the awards it won are bestcostume design in a dramatic
series.
Best sound editing in a dramaticseries and best hairstyling in a
dramatic
Sam (32:43):
Do we know for which costume, sound and hair that no
just
Emma (32:48):
in there.
Hair design It's Just what's aload of bullshit?
Sam (32:52):
They did have quite good hair.
Hair
Emma (32:54):
Their hair was all fine.
It wasn't notable in any, itwasn't particularly wacky.
Sam (32:59):
Well, I suppose that's if you are making a sci-fi series
about ghosts attacking anisolated Alaska town full of
rednecks and people aren'tnoticing the hair.
Oh, it's Father Dan's hair,isn't it?
Emma (33:10):
Oh, I'm also a big fan of like Billy's general look.
Sam (33:14):
Yeah.
Billy is a sort of swarthysmuggler guy with a mustache and
a
Emma (33:19):
Billy's a lot of He's a smuggler.
He's a
Sam (33:23):
He's a sheriff.
Emma (33:24):
a sheriff.
He's a sheriff.
He's a fighter.
He's a bitch.
Sam (33:26):
He's a lover.
He's a sinner.
He's a saint.
Emma (33:31):
Oh, we wouldn't want him any other way.
Sam (33:33):
No, sir.
Emma (33:36):
Sam, do you believe in ghosts?
Sam (33:38):
No not eight.
Okay.
Alright.
Richard Herring
Emma (33:42):
just asking.
That's all.
you believe
Sam (33:43):
in ghosts Emma?
I
Emma (33:44):
I don't.
Okay.
But I am very easily spooked.
That's
Sam (33:48):
what humans be.
Emma (33:49):
Earlier this year I was watching a load of episodes of
Uncanny on the iPlayer and
Sam (33:55):
do you wanna
Emma (33:55):
explain it's, well it was the tv version of the podcast,
Uncanny, which investigateshappenings
Sam (34:01):
happened to people who have always just gone through a very
difficult mental trauma.
Yes.
Yeah.
I won't say I don't listen toUncanny, but ethically it is
dodgy
Emma (34:10):
as fuck.
Well, I was watching the TVversion of it'cause I needed
some distraction.
And I was in the mood forsomething a bit.
Spooky.
Yeah.
I was in the mood and I knowthat it's all bullshit.
It's all, I don't believe inghosts at all, but all in the
back of my head.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I got proper, like spine tinglystuff and I had to do things
(34:32):
like run upstairs to bed atnight in case the
Sam (34:34):
Stop me.
Oh I, but that.
I've occasion.
I won't, I'll take out the wordoccasionally.
Yeah.
That happens to me.
I love ghost stories and ghostfiction and it does things to
your brain you go, Oh
Emma (34:46):
But now I don't believe
Sam (34:48):
And now I'm worried that when I cook up a lovely steak
tonight for my tea, it's gonnabe will it be a human leg?
The season ended on acliffhanger.
Yeah.
What's gonna happen?
The ghost of Father Dan is back.
Roman and Maggie in Daphne'sbody are sailing off to Seattle
to live the high lifebillionaire life, but they know
(35:09):
that body is dying, so they'regonna have to keep moving her to
another body.
And then it was neverrecommissioned.
No.
So last night I messaged youasking you to write me a pitch
for Season Two Ghost Wars.
I've written one as well.
Excellent.
Do you wanna go first or do youwant me to go?
Emma (35:23):
let you go first.
Okay.
Sam (35:25):
So this is my pitch.
Communications gets restored tothe mainland.
The mayor lady radios for helpand reports what happened.
Repair crews come along and fixthe bridge and nobody believes
them because why would you?
Someone in the Alaska Stategovernment points out that a man
awaiting trial for murder isn'tan ideal Sheriff.
Doug gets whisked off for atrial, which will ultimately end
(35:47):
in the ghosts of some executedmurderers wrecking up the
courtroom, like in GhostbustersTwo.
Meanwhile, the meteorite thingyturns out to be summoning ghosts
everywhere it goes.
Roman and Maggie fuck up Seattleon arrival filling it with
ghosts.
The whole town gets ruined.
They realize they have to escapeto save everybody from bad
(36:08):
ghosts and go on the run in acar.
Sinister government agents startfollowing them around, trying to
get the meteorite as they go ona ghost raising road trip across
the continental US.
The midseason twist?
Those government agents areghosts, OMG.
Emma (36:25):
O.
Sam (36:26):
It turns out there's a faction of ghosts who are
goodies and trying to get thebaddie ghosts to turn their
lives around.
They include Abraham Lincoln,Daphne's mum, mother Teresa,
Elvis, and in a massive twist,Judas Iscariot, who has changed
his tune since Bible times.
Emma (36:47):
my God.
Sam (36:48):
The ghost of Father Dan lures the Port More children to
Lambda and they take it oversomehow.
Doesn't matter, the kids startdoing some evil shit portals or
something, I don't know.
But then the ghost of Judascomes in and has a word, and it
turns out that it was him thatlit the candle in the church
back in season one.
This shatters Father Dan's faithsome more.
Even though he's evil now, andanti-God and anti Jesus, he
(37:11):
still thought he was anti theGod of the Catholic church and
that Judas would be a baddie andon his side.
At the end of the season, Romanand Maggie make it to the White
House to install Maggie in thePresident's body.
Then they find another portal inthe White House basement that
leads to a third dimension,which is full of dinosaur
ghosts.
(37:32):
The season ends on a cliffhangeras the president possessed by
Maggie gets possessed in turn bya T-Rex and the ghost of Abraham
Lincoln takes over the USgovernment to finish his own
term in office.
The ghost of John Wilkes Boothpops up at Lambda and steals the
electric Gun credits roll.
Emma (37:52):
I'd buy it.
Yeah, At first it sounded almostlike you were taking it
seriously.
Dinosaurs are a really nicetouch.
Sam (38:00):
I just thought what VFX have they already got loaded
over at the sci-fi channel.
So Emma, that's my ghost warsseason two.
But what's yours?
Emma (38:10):
So I'm taking it in a bit of a different direction.
It starts where it left offimmediately.
Okay.
Maggie and Roman are sailing offinto the distance with the
artifact.
But wait back there on theshore?
Who's that?
It's the towns folk.
And who are they led by?
Why, it's Doug Rennie and he'spropping up the freshly
reanimated corpse of Billy.
(38:31):
Billy didn't die just so thosespooky kids could take over and
rule the world with their ghostpals.
Doug had been secretly workingon reanimation since Maggie
died, and he's finally got it.
But Maggie's soul was too faraway with Roman in the boat, and
Doug warned everyone aboutRoman.
Doug fires a rocket launcher atthe boat.
(38:52):
He found it in the Lambda labsand the boat explodes killing
Roman.
And the body that Maggie nowinhabits and sinking the
artifact beneath the waves.
Roman and Maggie are now ghostson the island, and they're
pissed off.
They seek revenge, buteventually you have to work with
the people again.
As the artifact, which is now atthe bottom of the sea, is
causing a plague of ghost fish.
Sam (39:14):
That
Emma (39:14):
some reason is a massive, scary problem that causes weird
hallucinations and probably somemore cannibalism.
That's my
Sam (39:21):
Lovely.
Oh, I like ghost fish.
Interesting that we both wentfor Ghost Animals to resolve our
third act problem.
Listeners, if you have a pitchfor season two of Ghost Wars and
at least one listener does, Iknow it's you, Charlie, send it
into us.
Regular listener CharlieEtheridge Nunn did send some
comments on Ghost
Emma (39:41):
War.
Oh, fantastic.
Sam (39:43):
Charlie said this on our Facebook page,
facebook.com/chat.
Out of hell, I love watching badattempts at capturing the magic
of the early seasons of Lost andsci-fi provided a great many of
them.
I remember being disappointed inthis one for not really doing
enough with ghosts or wars andMeat's performance was pretty
underwhelming.
And then in case you're stuckfor things to talk about,
(40:04):
Charlie says, here's a selectionfrom Common Sense Media who are,
they're a Christian website whogive guidance to parents on
what's okay to show kids, butthey're weirdly positive on
ghost wars.
Emma (40:16):
bizarre.
I suppose there's a
Sam (40:19):
there is the religious bent and taking series one at face
value at the height of his lossof faith.
Father Dan prays and somebodylights that candle.
That's true.
Ergo God is real.
Charlie send us a pitch forseries two.
Would you
Emma (40:34):
you
Sam (40:35):
and any other listeners if you have a pitch for series two,
season two, it's AmericanBritish TV is also made in
seasons but it's sort ofcomplicated, we do serieses and
seasons.
You have a pitch for a seasontwo of Ghost Wars, send it in
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
If you'd like to watch GhostWars, you can find it on Netflix
in the UK, probably otherplaces.
(40:57):
Google it, but if you do want towatch Ghost Wars, have a word
with yourself,
Emma (41:01):
If you find yourself watching Ghost Wars we accept no
responsibility.
Sam (41:05):
Do you know what?
I'm gonna say, it's all rightfor having on in the background
when you're doing somethingelse.
Emma (41:10):
Oh God, yeah.
Sam (41:11):
yeah.
If you've got on, if maybeyou've got a podcast to record
about it, and need to takemeticulous notes on every single
bit of every episode, it's a bitof a drag.
Emma (41:21):
you've got COVID, and you're trying to do all of those
pace yourself, darling.
Take regular breaks, hydrateproperly.
Have a lie down, but try not tofall asleep while watching it.
'cause believe me, you are gonnahave some fucked up
Sam (41:34):
dreams.
Ghosts in your head.
Anything else to say before werate this?
Emma (41:43):
No, no further comments on the c On,
Sam (41:46):
the series, ghost Wars.
We did mention Meat Loaf for alittle bit.
Uhhuh, if you're here for theMeat Loaf content.
Emma (41:53):
Sorry.
Yeah.
Sam (41:55):
We'll be back with proper stuff next time.
But yes, Emma.
Earlier this week, I set up asupercollider in my basement and
plugged a piece of meteoriteinto
Emma (42:05):
Have you got a big science
Sam (42:06):
You've got a big science machine I've got a big science
machine in the basement Ofcourse you can.
Yay.
I turned it up to 105%, And theresulting resonance cascade gave
me the following rating scale.
Emma (42:18):
Sorry, just let me recover from the cascade.
Sam (42:23):
Oh, that is uh, the name of the event that happens in Half
Life.
that was one for all the
Emma (42:29):
Uh,
Sam (42:29):
Uh, This show was created by Simon Barry.
Yes.
So the resulting rating scalethen is, was this a Simon Barry?
A Simon, Not as Good as TheStephen King Novel Carrie, or
Simon Far Below Par-ie.
Fuck off.
Emma (42:44):
What?
Well, Oh, I can't I can't dobetter, but that doesn't mean I
have to approve of what you'vedone.
Sam (42:51):
What is it, Emma?
Emma (42:52):
Oh
Sam (42:54):
it's not a Simon Barry.
It's I assume maybe this is hisbest work.
I think it is better than BattleNun or what?
Warrior Nun.
Emma (43:01):
If it is mid tier, it's the bottom of the mid
Sam (43:03):
we, we are stretching our ratings
Emma (43:06):
Yeah.
we
Sam (43:07):
started off rating five minute songs and now we're doing
13 hours of ghost story on ascale of one to three.
Emma (43:16):
It's definitely not top tier.
Sam (43:17):
It's not top tier.
As far as TV goes, I've had muchworse
Emma (43:22):
Yeah.
I'll agree with that.
I think it's somewhere in themiddle.
But probably the bottom of
Sam (43:26):
I doubt I'll ever see or think about Ghost Wars again
unless I get a pitch for GhostWars series two to
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
Emma (43:35):
I won't ever be revisiting the series.
I won't ever watch it again.
It's not like one that's it'snot planted any
Sam (43:43):
You're not gonna watch it again to see the uh, the little
clues that were left in theearly episodes.
Emma (43:48):
Can't be bothered mate.
Can't be bothered.
Sam (43:51):
This is a Simon, Not as Good as the Stephen King Novel
Carrie.
That was film club.
Emma (43:58):
Oh, what a slog.
Sam (44:00):
Alright, mate.
No, it is lovely to see you too.
Emma (44:03):
this.
Watching it, what a slog.
Sam (44:05):
Yeah, But we do it to ourselves.
So yeah, thank you forlistening.
If indeed you did and if youdidn't, I hate you.
I'm a spooky murder ghost.
Emma (44:17):
I have to make an amendment.
Okay.
To, to something from ourprevious
Sam (44:21):
Oh, okay.
Emma (44:22):
I said that I was gonna bring Testify from the album
Couldn't Have Said It I made amistake.
Okay.
I'm actually gonna bring Tear MeDown from the same album.
Sam (44:30):
Oh.
Well, I've not started listeningto it yet, but, a lot of people
don't listen to Film Club, sothey'll be horrified.
Emma (44:39):
No.
They'll be surprised.
Surprised.
Sam (44:43):
Surprised.
So we are back with proper Chatof Hell in two weeks time.
Yay.
Where we will be listening tothe following songs.
Emma (44:51):
Tear Me Down from Couldn't Have Said It Better
Sam (44:54):
Objects in the Rear View Mirror from Bat out of Hell Two.
We're gonna dive into MeatLoaf's youth and childhood and
there might even be a ghost init.
Who knows?
go away.
Listen to those that won't takeanywhere near as long as
watching all of Ghost Wars.
There's no excuse for not doingyour homework this time.
If you have any thoughts oropinions on those or on Ghost
Wars or on anything, at thisrate, we'll be talking about the
(45:17):
news on Film Club in a fewseries' time.
you might as well share yourthoughts on any media.
Send it tochatoutofhell@gmail.com.
Find us on Instagram andFacebook and all that sort of
stuff.
Do tell your friends about thepodcast.
It will be nice if you did.
Emma (45:33):
Please do.
Sam (45:34):
that.
felt a bit pathetic
Emma (45:35):
Oh, did feel.
Sam (45:35):
there.
my friends.
please tell your friends.
Tell your friends about thispodcast.
Why not?
If you enjoy it, they might too.
And if they don't, they're nofriends and we still wanna know
about anybody who has told adate about this podcast.
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
That's it.
I'm off to go listen to whateverEmma just said Not Testify.
Emma (45:56):
Tear Me Down.
Sam (45:58):
Tear That's the end of film club.
We're both vaguely rememberinghow to do this, so we'll be back
at full speed next time.
We'll see you again in two moreweeks time for a proper Chat Out
of Hell.
Bye bow.
Now.
Now, Now.
what is this?
Emma (00:06):
This is Chat out of Hell Film Club, a bit of cheeky extra
Chat out of Hell fun where wereview some kind of punishing
film featuring Meat Loaf and orJim Steinman, or in today's
case, some kind of punishing TVshow.
Sam (00:23):
Who is Meat Loaf?
Emma (00:24):
Meat Loaf was a singer, which we all know already, but
he was also an actor who playedthe part of Doug Rennie in the
TV series, Ghost Wars.
Who's Jim Steinman?
Sam (00:34):
Jim Steinman is a composer, et cetera, whose reputation is
thankfully un tarnished byhaving any kind of association
with the TV series, Ghost Wars.
Emma (00:44):
Who are we?
Sam (00:45):
We are Sam Wilkinson and Emma Crossland, and that's all
you need to know.
All right.
Emma (00:49):
welcome to Chat Out of Hell.
Film Club
Sam (00:52):
Bow.
Now, now, Now you put in a lotof effort to that ding today.
Emma (00:58):
thank you.
I really did.
as much effort as I can muster.
I am currently recovering fromthe COVID.
Sam (01:04):
Yeah.
Emma's retro listeners.
Emma (01:06):
Yeah.
You cool.
Kids have probably moved on tosomething like, I dunno, giraffe
flu, but I've gone old schoolwith a bit of lovely COVID.
Sam (01:14):
I'm sure the listeners will join me in saying, ah, sucks to
be you.
Emma (01:19):
thanks.
Sam (01:20):
Now that I know you're not in mortal danger, I can be a
dick about it.
And you're on the way up, right?
Emma (01:24):
Yeah, I'm on the way up.
I apologize if I sound a littlebit croaky and rough.
Sam (01:28):
But Emma, your um, condition, condition
Emma (01:31):
Condition.
The past.
Sam (01:35):
you, your condition has been perfect for watching the TV
series Ghost Wars,
Emma (01:39):
Yeah.
been borderline hallucinatingfor about a week.
Which has been perfect for this.
Sam (01:44):
Listeners.
This is our once per series filmclub in which we dive into the
cinematic or televisual works ofMeat Loaf or Jim Steinman.
This time Emma chose the sci-fiseries Ghost Wars for us to
watch.
What is Ghost Wars?
Emma (01:59):
Really stupid.
You probably want a bit morethan that though, I do.
It is a sci-fi horror seriesabout a bunch of people stuck on
an island with evil ghosts,
Sam (02:12):
spooky ghost.
Emma (02:14):
spooky
Sam (02:17):
Meat Loaf is in it playing the part of Doug Rennie.
The sort of local grumpy oldman.
Emma (02:23):
Do you want a few basic facts about Ghost Wars?
it was created by a guy calledSimon Barry, who has done lots
of other fantasy horror typeprogramming, including something
called Warrior Nun that's onNetflix that I have not watched
yet.
Sam (02:38):
I watched one episode of Warrior Nun.
Did you let me tell you that oneepisode was a fucking drag?
Emma (02:43):
Oh no.
Sam (02:44):
Oh, no.
When you hear Warrior Nun, youwanna turn it on and have a nun
punch a dude in the face?
Emma (02:49):
Absolutely.
Sam (02:50):
No dude punching in the whole episode.
What?
Yeah, it like, the end of theepisode was basically, oh,
maybe.
She should punch dudes in theface.
It was one of those,
Emma (02:59):
is it setting it up for the next episode and is full of
dude
Sam (03:02):
Well, I don't know.
I think it's this modern trendof like, the whole first season
has to be set.
I can't remember who did this,I'm ripping it off from someone.
If you did a show calledSkateboard Dracula, the whole
first season would be about howDracula gets his skateboard.
And then you only see him do anOllie right at the very
Emma (03:18):
You wanna crack on with this stuff, don't you?
You don't want it to drag outfor an entire
Sam (03:22):
Yeah, exactly.
If you're watching SkateboardDracula, you want Dracula on a
skateboard.
If you're watching Warrior Nun,you want nuns punching dudes.
If you're watching Ghost Wars,you wanna see ghosts having a
war.
Emma (03:35):
If you want to see ghosts having a war, I wouldn't bother
with this.
It was made by the sci-fichannel.
And it premiered on October thefifth, 2017.
So it's a pre pandemic worldGolden age.
A golden age.
A pre pandemic
Sam (03:51):
Yes.
Although it is a bit prescient.
cause it's about a town that'sin quarantine.
Emma (03:57):
Yeah.
I guess it is.
Sam (03:58):
Yeah.
And some of it is about the waythat the towns folk behave when
they're not allowed to go
Emma (04:03):
Yes.
we've said Meat Loaf is in it.
He plays Doug Rennie.
I've got down here a grumpybastard.
Sam (04:10):
I think that the part of Doug Rennie is very much
encapsulates the way Americasees itself.
Emma cus he.
The way small town America sees.
For the benefit of the tape,emma fell asleep.
Doug Renny is the way small townAmerica likes to think about
(04:32):
itself in that he's got valuesand they're small c conservative
values, but ultimately at theend of the day, he sticks up for
what's right.
Yeah.
Emma (04:41):
Yeah.
Sam (04:42):
And also he's a bit of a cock This is a 13 episode.
Wasn't supposed to be aminiseries, but it was one'cause
it never got recommissioned forseason two.
Emma (04:51):
They're called limited series now,
Sam (04:53):
Oh, is it?
Okay.
Oh, hello.
13 episodes of 45 minutes each.
Normally on Film Club, we dogive you a painfully in depth
rundown of the media inquestion.
We're not gonna do it for all 13episodes, but we are gonna get
quite spoily.
So, top level, some of GhostWars is quite all right and a
lot of it is shit, but littlebits of it are quite good.
(05:16):
And if you knew about them goingin, you wouldn't enjoy the good
bits.
Yeah.
So if the idea of a sci-fiseries about an isolated Alaska
town being attacked by ghosts ina tonally awkward way appeals to
you, go away and watch it.
We're gonna spoil it foreverybody else.
Emma (05:32):
As a sort of side note if we were a podcast that reviewed
a TV series, you usually coverlike one episode per episode of
the podcast.
Yeah.
So we are really cramming it in
Sam (05:43):
here.
Yes, we are.
We often do little jokes abouthow we're the only Jim
Steinmanologists out there.
obviously a lot of people do,know more than us and have done
more research.
I'm confident that this is theonly podcast in history that is
gonna do this much talking about
Emma (05:57):
war.
If we're wrong, please point usin the
Sam (06:01):
words.
Please do let us Emma's gonnakick us off.
Episode
Emma (06:04):
one.
We meet local outcast RomanMercer.
He's a bit psychic and can seeghosts.
His best friend is a ghostcalled Maggie, the towns folk of
Port Moore, which happens to beon an island linked to the
mainland by only one bridge.
They don't trust Roman, mostlybecause of something his mum did
that I can't quite remember.
(06:25):
Especially Doug Rennie played byMeat Loaf.
Roman is trying to leave town.
He's on a bus out of town whenthe earthquake hits.
He's the only survivor of thebus journey.
The ghosts have been awakened bythe earthquake and are capable
of deceiving the humans bymaking them see things that
aren't real.
In this case, they make it looklike the bridge to the mainland
is still intact when it's reallybadly broken.
(06:47):
Episode two.
Sam (06:49):
A man on a boat finds a big dead whale.
Bit rough shit.
There's loads of dead whales.
This guy's Billy, local smugglerthe mayor's his sister and also
the lady mayor has a lady,doctor, wife.
How modern.
Their kids who are also ladies,but young ones, keep drawing
some curly haired guy.
I bet he's dead.
(07:09):
Spoiler alert, he was dead.
Shit.
Here comes Dee out of BattlestarGalactica.
That was a much better show.
Much better.
I wish Meat Loaf had been inBattlestar Galactica and we
could talk about that.
Anyway, she's doing it withBilly and she works at an evil
science lab just outside oftown.
Billy's boat gets fucked up sohe can't leave.
He goes to the pub when nobodywants to speak to him.
(07:31):
Roman comes in.
He wants to talk about ghosts.
Billy's up for it.
Everybody else wants to do apunch at him.
So Billy goes off to see thelocal vicar.
Father Dan We know that FatherDan is cool'cause despite being
a Catholic priest, he's got longhair and studs in his coat.
Billy's mate tries to fix theboat but gets ghost murdered in
the engine room.
(07:53):
Ghosts are murdering people allover the place, Roman is just
knocking about the place, notreally fixing any ghost
problems, but then he does fixthe ghost problems on the boat
and they sail away, but it turnsout bloody hell, you can't sail
away.
And the boat is back at thetown.
OMG, episode three.
Emma (08:11):
It's science time.
We learn about Lambda, thescience company doing creepy
science things.
A bunch of people die in theincident that was caused by the
science machine.
Of course, they come back tohaunt the surviving scientists,
leading them to discover thatelectricity makes them go away.
We meet Dr.
(08:31):
Landis Barker, who is one of thegood science people, episode
four.
I'm trying to keep it succinct'cause
Sam (08:40):
no, no.
talked That's fine.
Yeah.
The local towns folk are beingrough.
The lady mayor has a rough timetelling them what to do because
they're bellends.
The priest offers the church'shelp and the mayor gets in a
grump separation of church andstates in the constitution.
Town bullies who are previouslypicking on Roman now offer to
hang out with him because theyhave a ghost in their house and
(09:01):
he can deal with it.
Boy.
Marcus, who is the son of thelocal mortician, gets strangled
by a ghost, but then he getssaved by the doctor lady and he
talks something about awhistling man.
And then he laughs in church andsays it's all nonsense and does
a vomit.
He's definitely a demon boy.
Father Dan tries an exorcism andthe boy dies.
(09:22):
Whoa, that's pretty rough.
Dan does a big old pray in hischurch and suddenly discovers a
secret spooky altar room in thebasement.
Episode five.
Emma (09:32):
It's Meat Loaf's time to shine.
He's been horrible up to thisepisode, but now we see he's
capable of being neighborly whenhe helps Sophia, who's just lost
her son sort out her shower thatseems to be spraying blood,
which turns out to be rust.
as a favor to the ghost ofMaggie, Roman agrees to talk to
Doug, but Doug pulls a gun andRoman runs away.
(09:55):
Doug is planning to use that gunto kill himself, but he just
can't do it as every time hetries the ghost of Maggie ups
the haunting and rattles somepans or something.
Maggie shows Roman how to winDoug around, which works at Doug
now believes Roman's ability.
He invites Roman over to aparty, bygones and all that.
Then we learn how Maggie died.
(10:16):
She was attacked at home byfamily friend Rodney during
another beer and pizza night.
He spiked her drink, thenattempted to rape her, but she
had a bad reaction to the drugand died.
Ghost Maggie has had enough ofRodney still being allowed to
hang out with her dad.
So she grabs him, throws himonto her bed where she died, and
carves guilty into his chestDoug is furious and kills
(10:41):
Rodney.
Maggie can now rest in peace,but tells Roman that the other
ghosts can't be reasoned withand need to be wiped out.
Episode six,
Sam (10:51):
this whole electric thing is catching on.
The mayor kids are now drawingMarcus the dead boy, who they
say has become a ghost, butthey're not allowed to tell
anyone.
They also drew, everybody else'sdied and now they've drawn their
babysitter.
Mrs.
Dr.
Mayor makes a house call to anold lady who being weird.
Rodney's sister shows up anddemands a trial for Doug.
(11:14):
Spoiler alert, that never comesto anything.
That plot thread just never getsresolved.
Billy beats up some people whohave a go at the mayor about it,
so she makes him Sheriffchildcare lady gets murdered by
a ghost.
Emma (11:27):
Oh, hang on.
You've gotta go into detailabout that.
Childcare lady is somehow pushedover into a badly stacked
dishwasher where she's stabbedin the head by a knife.
Sam (11:38):
I was just about to mention this before that though, Emma.
She goes over to the sink andsees a kitten down in the
garbage disposal.
Yeah.
horrible Which, which sherescues.
And then that turns out to be adisembodied ghost hand'cause the
ghosts can make you hallucinate.
Then she falls over onto anincredibly badly loaded
dishwasher with a carving knife
Emma (11:59):
pointed straight over her
Sam (12:00):
head.
This whole show is a Casualtyslash X-Files crossover.
Marcus comes along and stealsone of the mayor kids away.
They get to the forest andthere's a big glowy orb there
that has the stolen Mayor kid injust like the one in the alt
secret room in the church.
(12:21):
They rescue the child, And thenwe cut back to Mrs.
Mayor's old lady patient whoturns out to have been dead all
along.
Oh God.
And she also tries to do amurder at Mrs.
Dr.
Mayor, who finally comes aroundto the idea that ghosts might be
episode seven.
Emma (12:41):
Oh shit.
The power's gone out.
What will they do?
The ghosts are allergic toelectricity.
Without it, they can attackEveryone hides out at Father
Dan's church while they try torestore power.
A bunch of other stuff happens,including ghosts getting into
the church to fuck things up abit.
Roman learns and his mother isdead and not sending him letters
(13:04):
from wherever he thought shewas.
And Billy gets blown up by theelectricity.
Oh, no.
Dead Billy?
Episode Eight.
Sam (13:13):
Oh, dead.
Billy Dan's still trying to fixthe power, but Billy's ghost is
stood there.
He's been deaded.
He gets pulled into Ghost Worldand has a look around at all the
spooky stuff in the church.
In Ghost World, the glowy thingat the church is a cube.
Is that important?
Not really.
(13:35):
Billy gets taken to Lambda whereMrs.
Dr.
Mayor attends to him and saysthat she probably can't save his
life.
But then she does.
Meat Loaf takes charge at thechurch and is a good old
community leader.
Gets on with burying the newpeople who died last night.
Father Dan does a big cry whilehe hugs the weird glowy thing
down in the bottom of thechurch.
I realize now why the weirdglowy thing is shot in gloomy
(13:56):
light because the prop is just atent with a light in it, wrapped
in some bits of string.
Father Dan is very sad.
Billy's ghost goes to see Roman,who is entirely unsurprised that
he's dead and he is being amassive cock about it.
Just an absolute bellend.
From Billy's ghost perspective,when he sees Roman get mad, he
(14:19):
has all electric in his eyes,and that.
Billy's ghost pops to the bigscience machine at Lambda and
sees it glowing.
Then we cut to the spare copwho's flirting with Mrs.
Science Pal, one of the secondtier scientists who works at the
science machine.
Emma (14:40):
is Mrs.
Science Pal, the person
Sam (14:42):
bar ke.
That's Carla.
Yes.
Billy actually returns to hisbody after chasing off the ghost
of Ryan, the horrible scienceboss.
Then the egg thing in the churchbirths some sort of horror
creature.
It's a slimy, gross version ofMarcus's mom.
Ooh.
Rescued mayor child and Marcus'Ghost mum both slink off to the
(15:03):
dead scary old woman's house andvom up eggs or something.
They put them in a corner.
Thus confirming or maybe not thelifecycle of the ghost.
Episode nine
Emma (15:19):
loads of stuff happens in this.
A helicopter arrives with Lambdapeople, including their CEO
Daphne which seems like astretch for a CEO to come to an
emergency of this level.
You'd think that they'd safe intheir castle at home.
I wonder why she's turned up..
There can't possibly be a reasonfor that.
Oh no.
This is all stuff I don't give ashit about.
(15:42):
Marcus's ghost mum is leadingpeople to their deaths.
Daphne, the CEO is trying tofind a cure for death with the
big science machine that startedit all in the first place.
and the artifact in Father Dan'sbasement.
Episode 10.
Sam (15:57):
Following a fire at the creepy old lady's house, the
Lambda goons have recovered theburnt body from one of the eggs,
This time the egg ghost isScience Pal, who disappeared
last episode, But the ghostwasn't quite ready and can't be
revived.
Daphne, grumpily, demands anautopsy Dan has become a piss
head lady mayor has stoppeddressing like a mayor, which
(16:19):
shows how bad things have got.
Science Pal's weird ghost bodyis insta healing every time they
cut out his liver, another onegrows back..
A passing British doctor is veryexcited, as is Daphne.
And then she says, Mr SciencePal signed away the rights to
his own body when he became aLambda employee.
This is satire.
(16:41):
Science Pal's body escapes fromthe lab.
And we have a few moments of asort of Alien type adventure.
Where the security goons arebeing hunted around the pitch
dark base, but it's not longenough or scary enough to
matter.
Science Pal's body goes home tothe bar to see his wife Carla.
They get into sexy mode and doit on the bar.
(17:02):
She's definitely gonna getpregnant with a ghost child.
That's probably gonna happen inseason two, right?
That's the sort of thing that'llbe, they'll save that for season
two as a big plot point to hangsomething off.
Oh, well, Dan attacks Marcus'sghost Mum and ties her up in the
church basement alongsideScience Pal and Abigail.
There's a boring conversationabout faith.
(17:23):
Dan decides to set fire toeverybody in the basement, but
then a ghost dressed as thedevil pops off and traps him in
the church.
Yes.
A ghost dressed as the devil.
Nobody mentions it, but it'sthere.
He decides to start the fireanyway.
Oh, for fuck's sakes.
He's been messing about with hislighter so much that it's run
out of fuel.
(17:44):
He prays a lot until one of thecandles, lights of its own
accord and sets it off.
Everybody burns in a bad bit ofVFX episode 11.
Emma (17:53):
Oh my God.
It's a weird ghost alien baby.
Carla having done a sex with herhaunted husband is now pregnant.
Deputy Norm, who I believe waspreviously known as the spare
cop.
Yes.
Steps in to look after her,she's fairly indifferent towards
this and is suspiciously verypregnant.
despite only doing it yesterday.
(18:15):
She's also hungry.
hungry for meat, and she sendsDeputy Norm out to find some.
But those pesky ghosts trick himinto believing that he's finding
regular meat for her.
Really, it's people, the rottingcorpses of people.
YY yum, yum, yum.
Yum.
Later she goes into labour.
(18:36):
The pregnancy has taken a day orso, but Norm is under her spell.
S which proves that, sex is badfor you kids.
He helps her deliver her alienworm child.
Roman arrives, shows Norm thetruth.
The baby feeds on Carla untilNorm kills them both.
Phew.
Episode 12.
Sam (18:55):
Fucking Nora.
Here we go.
There's a lady in the showersinging Walking on Sunshine.
Oh, that's nice.
But she wasn't in the shower atall.
She was setting herself on firebecause ghosts tricked her into
believing it.
This will be proper horrible ifthe CGI was up to it.
It's still fairly creepy'causeshe keeps singing while burning
(19:16):
to death.
But the VFX really has taken thehorror down a few notches.
Winston, local dickhead, comesand extinguishes her, but it's
too late.
Norm is heartbroken.
He's pissed up at Carl and Sal'sgrave.
You would be too.
A hand reaches up out of thegrave, but he knows it's an
illusion and he scares it offwith his electric taser.
(19:38):
He says,"couldn't give me fivefucking minutes.
Fucking ghosts." Over at thebar, some of the towns folk
survivors are having a big partyslash orgy.
They're boozing up their last,it's the end of days.
There's also quite a bit offighting.
Meat Loaf comes along and sortsthem out.
He has a go at them forpartying, but Winston says it's
(19:58):
hopeless, so you might as wellget pissed.
Meat Loaf responds by smashing apassing bloke's own drink on his
head.
Carla's memory deserves morethan to be tarnished by you
clowns", he says and boots himout.
Daphne is on the floor of heroffice being groped by Ghost
hands.
Her assistant comes and savesher, but she had it under
control.
Leave me alone, you idiot.
They want the science machine toturn back on so that they can
(20:21):
close the ghost door thing, butthey need the other half of a
special meteorite, the one thatRoman has.
Roman meets with Billy andLandis who says that Roman
exists in a quantum superposition so he can perceive the
meteorite as both cube and lumpat the same time.
(20:42):
That must be important to theplot, right?
No, not really.
Winston goes to bother Norm atCarla's grave.
Norm is drunk and very sad andmakes bad decisions.
Winston convinces him to start acoup in the town and form a a
gang of idiots with shotgunsgoing around, locking up people
for shit's sake, just when Istarted feeling bad for Norm, he
(21:02):
had a rough one last episode.
And now look at him.
He pulls a gun on the mayor andtells her he's quit as a cop,
"I'm just a concerned citizentrying to keep my neighbours
safe.
You should try it sometime.
He says".
How Norm?
How there are fucking murderghosts.
You utter fuck nut.
She doesn't have anti ghostpowers.
The election didn't cover this.
(21:26):
Norm captures the mayor andtheir family.
He locks up Meat Loaf again forgood measure.
Norm and his gun twat rock up toLambda.
Billy is fucked off and wants todo a murder at them, but he's
holding the mayor hostage.
There's a bit of palava, butultimately it ends up with Norm
getting taken down into theLambda base and then having his
soul removed from his body sothat they can, in the final 10
(21:50):
minutes of this episode, pull afreaky Friday.
Roman uses the weird meteoriteto put Billy Norm's body so that
he can then drive back into townand rescue everybody and then
put all the people back in theright bodies.
Norm though is too sad.
He doesn't want to return to hisown body.
So he just wanders off.
He's dead now or is he?
(22:12):
We'll never know.
Norm's body gets buried besidesCarla, which is nice to a
degree, but also pretty rough onher husband, who also died
yesterday.
The coup is defeated.
It's completely, almostirrelevant to the plot.
I don't, it, I, it felt like itwas gonna lead up to being the
big plot point of the finale,but no, it happened and then
(22:33):
it's over again and everybody'sback to the status quo.
Episode thirteen,
Emma (22:38):
Final episode.
A bunch of the remainingcharacters, including Billy and
the CEO of Lambda, Daphnetemporarily die in the name of
science in saving the town andthat.
Roman is their guy because hecan see and talk to the ghosts.
The only way they can open thegate to get rid of the evil
ghosts is for one of them toactually die.
(22:59):
Billy volunteers, which is metby minimal protest from his
girlfriend, he dies.
The door opens, the ghostinfestation is cured.
The others return to theirbodies.
It's fine.
They're all a bit sad aboutBilly.
And then we have a celebrationat the pub.
But where's Roman?
And the chief science lady?
(23:19):
Daphne.
You remember her?
Oh no.
They fucked off with the magicartifact and the science lady
has been possessed by Maggie.
She plans to live as the sciencelady who is conveniently a
billionaire.
The end.
Sam (23:35):
Oh, you missed one bit there.
Oh.
Some kids playing outside thechurch.
See the ghost of Father Dan.
We don't
Emma (23:41):
We don't care.
Sam (23:43):
End of season end, and then this was never recommissioned.
So end of show
Emma (23:48):
oh God, what a slog.
Sam (23:51):
What did you think about this TV show, Emma?
Emma (23:53):
It's very silly.
bits of it are quite compellingand quite fun.
Bits of it are an absolute slog.
Sam (23:59):
doesn't know what it
Emma (24:00):
Well, I've put a list together.
Okay.
I've called it a list of thingsthat this show has.
Number one, a secretive sciencecompany.
Number two, a big sciencemachine that blasts a hole
through dimensions.
Number three, a GhostbusterNumber four, the, you try to
leave, but no matter where yougo, you come back to where you
(24:20):
started thing.
Number five, murder ghosts.
Number six, ghosts that createinsanity inducing
hallucinations.
Number seven, alien pods.
Number eight, alien birth numbernine, body jumping, number 10,
creepy children.
Just one of those would've beena lot.
(24:41):
It really packs it
Sam (24:42):
in.
It does pack it in.
Can we talk about the bigscience company?
Yes.
Okay.
So Emma,
Emma (24:46):
a big science company.
Sam (24:48):
Are you familiar with the 1990s video game Half Life?
Emma (24:52):
I am aware of its
Sam (24:54):
Half Life was the story of a big science company, Out in
the middle of nowhere.
And the big science company doesa big science experiment, just
like in this show.
And are told by their bosses todo more science, just like in
this show, and open up aninterdimensional rift, just like
in this
Emma (25:11):
show.
OMG.
Sam (25:12):
And the logo of the big science company in Half-Life was
a Lambda.
Furthermore, the Ghostbusterselectric gun in this show, Uhhuh
looks a lot like the Gausscannon in the video game.
Half-Life, Half-Life is one ofthe most influential games of
all time.
it cannot be accidental.
(25:32):
No.
I would like to talk aboutwhat's good cause there were
some good things.
Yes.
The episode about Carla's ghostbaby was very well
Emma (25:42):
It's really creepy and there's a lot of horror
Sam (25:45):
A lot of horror.
It, there's a lot of horror.
Like there is some good horrorthroughout the whole show.
I'm a ghost story guy.
I am not really a gory horror.
Yeah.
Emma (25:52):
I quite liked the bit where there was a torso hung on
the back of the bathroom
Sam (25:55):
Yeah.
We laugh.
Whoa.
eating so that was quite good.
And a lot of the stuff with thecreepy ghost children early on,
or creepy ghost child
Emma (26:04):
early on, See, I would've loved it if it would've just
been the creepy ghost kids.
Yeah.
I love a bit of creepy ghost
Sam (26:09):
have been, could have been the whole show out of creepy
ghost child, A lot of this showis filmed in some quite gloomy
conditions.
And then about halfway throughyou realize that's because the
props are not suitable forseeing in daylight.
Yeah,
Emma (26:22):
Yeah.
We tried to make it look
Sam (26:24):
like the big
Emma (26:24):
big glowy ghost
Sam (26:27):
the the fire VFX, which, oh God, do you know what if I had
that fire VFX, maybe I wouldn'twrite as much fire into my
Emma (26:34):
script, Just thinking is this the only VFX we've got for
fire?
Isn't there another one we canplug in?
Is this, oh God, can't we buyanother?
Really?
We've run out of money.
Sam (26:44):
Could we imply fire?
No.
Could we set actual fire to
Emma (26:48):
no.
We can't actually burn one ofthe cast
Sam (26:51):
everybody who burns to death is very quickly
unrecognizable anyway because ofthe fire.
So set fire to a dummy, it'sfine
Emma (26:58):
it's fire.
Sam (26:58):
What were you expecting when you saw the name Ghost
Wars?
Emma (27:01):
was expecting a war with ghosts.
Like presumably the humansagainst the ghosts.
Which.
Technically.
Sam (27:10):
Mm, but not really.
No.
I was expecting somethingsillier it's a very silly name.
It silly.
And this is quite a dark andserious show.
It's trying to be quite a darkand serious show when it lands.
It is dark and serious.
Emma (27:24):
If it had have been sillier, I think it would've
been more enjoyable.
Sam (27:27):
Yeah.
Probably with the big sciencemachine.
Yeah.
Which is either a particleaccelerator or a something else.
Emma (27:34):
It's just a big science machine.
Sam, let's not get
Sam (27:36):
nobody's ever quite sure
Emma (27:38):
I do love a big science machine.
Sam (27:40):
Cast.
Were any of them any good?
No.
No.
Emma (27:43):
No.
Well,
Sam (27:44):
Roman the lead.
Yeah.
Shocking.
bad.
There's we've talked a fewseries ago about Streets of
Fire.
Yeah.
Which had an incredibly woodenmale lead.
Yes.
Emma (27:54):
Yes it
Sam (27:55):
Roman went to the school of on Streets of Fire acting.
There's a bit early on inepisode one where we were just
learning about Roman and whathis deal is, and then Maggie
appears way jumps out on him asa ghost.
And he says, Jesus, Maggie, youscared the life out of me.
Emma (28:15):
Wooden, a nd also very badly written.
So considering he's meant to bethe lead.
I cannot stand him.
Sam (28:21):
I had no interest in his welfare,
Emma (28:22):
No interest in his welfare.
The bit with his mom couldn'tgive a fuck.
Yeah, that's
Sam (28:27):
true.
Did we co cover that in therundown?
I don't remember really.
But yeah, there's a bit whereRoman's mum, he thinks she's
disappeared, gone off on herown.
And through the series weunderstand that she's been run
out of town just to generallybeing a bit of a dick.
Yeah.
She's doesn't seem to have doneanything particularly bad.
And then on the process of beingrun out of town, Father Dan was
(28:48):
so drunk, he crashed into a treeand killed her
Emma (28:51):
Father Dan is a very bad
Sam (28:52):
Father Dan is not a top priest.
Emma (28:55):
No,
Sam (28:56):
I did quite like Vincent Donofrio's performance Yeah, I
thought it was good.
It's a tropey character.
he did a good job of him.
Yeah.
He's the priest but he's, oh,he's a little bit into ghosts
and shit'cause he's got longhair and he's battling between
the horrors that he sees and hisfaith
Emma (29:14):
Because everything's quite badly written.
It's quite hard for me to wantto empathize with any of the
characters.
Sam (29:20):
Oh, absolutely.
All the characters go throughsome sort of character
development in one episode andthen the next episode
immediately go back to their oldways.
Yeah.
Meat Loaf.
We should talk about Meat Loaf.
We
Emma (29:30):
Considering the nature of this podcast, what did you think
to his
Sam (29:33):
I think it was probably one of the better things in it.
Yes, I agree.
The character of Doug is notalways well written.
It, he does have some nicemoments, but he is trying to
play the staple of the communityholding everybody together.
Emma (29:48):
in the sort of what's right.
After the revelation aboutMaggie.
He is, yeah.
Yeah.
Up until that point, he's justdifficult.
Yeah.
But he has a real transformationwhen he discovers why his
daughter died and that turns himinto more of a pillar of the
community.
Yeah.
And at the, in the very lastepisode he's wanting to be the
new
Sam (30:05):
Yes.
He is wanting to be the newsheriff while awaiting a murder
charge for which he will befound guilty.
Emma (30:11):
Yeah.
But that doesn't seem important
Sam (30:13):
No, apparently not.
Because Rodney's family whovowed revenge at one point,
never appeared again.
Yeah.
The ghost might have got him.
But if I were writing a show, Imaybe just wouldn't mention that
bit.
But Meat Loaf's Performance,he's All right.
Emma (30:29):
he's not a bad actor.
Sam (30:30):
Definitely better than the thing we watched him in where he
played a big sexy sex vampire
Emma (30:36):
Oh, creepy.
Sex
Sam (30:37):
groping women's boobs and that actually Meat Loaf as a
grumpy old man probably shouldhave played more grumpy old
Emma (30:43):
men.
Yeah.
Sam (30:45):
Grumpy old, slightly right wing men.
Emma (30:46):
There was comic moments where he just like knocked
people out.
Yeah.
That was, you could tell that hewas relishing getting that sort
Sam (30:52):
from Yeah.
I think he, he was one of thehighlights of
Emma (30:55):
this.
Yeah.
Which is good.
'cause that was our reason forwatching.
Sam (31:00):
Oh, God.
Imagine if Meat Loaf would'vebeen awful in it.
Oh, we wouldn't have had
Emma (31:04):
any fun.
Do you wanna know what thepeople of the internet had to
Sam (31:07):
say?
I would bloody well, love to
Emma (31:09):
From Rotten Tomatoes?
This got, like 70 somethingpercent overall, which seems
Sam (31:14):
Well, would you like me to complain about modern review
standards?
Emma, why do I have to give fivestars for standard performance?
Five stars is for perfect.
Okay.
Emma (31:25):
We've had this rant from you.
Oh
Sam (31:28):
you before.
Emma (31:28):
you have.
Sam (31:28):
have.
Emma (31:31):
Anyway, somebody said, terrible series cheap.
CGI, bad acting, terribledirecting and editing made me
cringe at how bad it was.
I could not finish the firstepisode.
Which I think is a shame becauseif they're given it beyond the
first episode yeah, all that'strue.
But it's a bit of a romp, isn'tit?
Sam (31:50):
It is a bit of a romp.
Emma (31:51):
And then somebody else said a bit farfetched, but the
mountains are very
Sam (31:56):
now.
Is, that's one of my notes fromthe first episode are like, oh,
Alaska's so pretty.
I really wanna see more of it.
And they spend so little timelooking at any of the rest, of
the scenery in the followingepisodes.
There's a bit of stuff in thewoods and you see some dead
whales floating in the harbour.
But
Emma (32:11):
But
Sam (32:12):
wanted.
Emma (32:14):
sweeping
Sam (32:14):
vista.
Exactly.
I wanted Twin Peak style.
Look at how isolated they are inthe beautiful wilderness.
But I never got that becausethey filmed it in somebody's
back garden in Vancouver.
Probably.
Emma (32:25):
It won some awards.
Sam (32:26):
razzies,
Emma (32:27):
no, it won Leo Awards, whatever they are.
And the awards it won are bestcostume design in a dramatic
series.
Best sound editing in a dramaticseries and best hairstyling in a
dramatic
Sam (32:43):
Do we know for which costume, sound and hair that no
just
Emma (32:48):
in there.
Hair design It's Just what's aload of bullshit?
Sam (32:52):
They did have quite good hair.
Hair
Emma (32:54):
Their hair was all fine.
It wasn't notable in any, itwasn't particularly wacky.
Sam (32:59):
Well, I suppose that's if you are making a sci-fi series
about ghosts attacking anisolated Alaska town full of
rednecks and people aren'tnoticing the hair.
Oh, it's Father Dan's hair,isn't it?
Emma (33:10):
Oh, I'm also a big fan of like Billy's general look.
Sam (33:14):
Yeah.
Billy is a sort of swarthysmuggler guy with a mustache and
a
Emma (33:19):
Billy's a lot of He's a smuggler.
He's a
Sam (33:23):
He's a sheriff.
Emma (33:24):
a sheriff.
He's a sheriff.
He's a fighter.
He's a bitch.
Sam (33:26):
He's a lover.
He's a sinner.
He's a saint.
Emma (33:31):
Oh, we wouldn't want him any other way.
Sam (33:33):
No, sir.
Emma (33:36):
Sam, do you believe in ghosts?
Sam (33:38):
No not eight.
Okay.
Alright.
Richard Herring
Emma (33:42):
just asking.
That's all.
you believe
Sam (33:43):
in ghosts Emma?
I
Emma (33:44):
I don't.
Okay.
But I am very easily spooked.
That's
Sam (33:48):
what humans be.
Emma (33:49):
Earlier this year I was watching a load of episodes of
Uncanny on the iPlayer and
Sam (33:55):
do you wanna
Emma (33:55):
explain it's, well it was the tv version of the podcast,
Uncanny, which investigateshappenings
Sam (34:01):
happened to people who have always just gone through a very
difficult mental trauma.
Yes.
Yeah.
I won't say I don't listen toUncanny, but ethically it is
dodgy
Emma (34:10):
as fuck.
Well, I was watching the TVversion of it'cause I needed
some distraction.
And I was in the mood forsomething a bit.
Spooky.
Yeah.
I was in the mood and I knowthat it's all bullshit.
It's all, I don't believe inghosts at all, but all in the
back of my head.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I got proper, like spine tinglystuff and I had to do things
(34:32):
like run upstairs to bed atnight in case the
Sam (34:34):
Stop me.
Oh I, but that.
I've occasion.
I won't, I'll take out the wordoccasionally.
Yeah.
That happens to me.
I love ghost stories and ghostfiction and it does things to
your brain you go, Oh
Emma (34:46):
But now I don't believe
Sam (34:48):
And now I'm worried that when I cook up a lovely steak
tonight for my tea, it's gonnabe will it be a human leg?
The season ended on acliffhanger.
Yeah.
What's gonna happen?
The ghost of Father Dan is back.
Roman and Maggie in Daphne'sbody are sailing off to Seattle
to live the high lifebillionaire life, but they know
(35:09):
that body is dying, so they'regonna have to keep moving her to
another body.
And then it was neverrecommissioned.
No.
So last night I messaged youasking you to write me a pitch
for Season Two Ghost Wars.
I've written one as well.
Excellent.
Do you wanna go first or do youwant me to go?
Emma (35:23):
let you go first.
Okay.
Sam (35:25):
So this is my pitch.
Communications gets restored tothe mainland.
The mayor lady radios for helpand reports what happened.
Repair crews come along and fixthe bridge and nobody believes
them because why would you?
Someone in the Alaska Stategovernment points out that a man
awaiting trial for murder isn'tan ideal Sheriff.
Doug gets whisked off for atrial, which will ultimately end
(35:47):
in the ghosts of some executedmurderers wrecking up the
courtroom, like in GhostbustersTwo.
Meanwhile, the meteorite thingyturns out to be summoning ghosts
everywhere it goes.
Roman and Maggie fuck up Seattleon arrival filling it with
ghosts.
The whole town gets ruined.
They realize they have to escapeto save everybody from bad
(36:08):
ghosts and go on the run in acar.
Sinister government agents startfollowing them around, trying to
get the meteorite as they go ona ghost raising road trip across
the continental US.
The midseason twist?
Those government agents areghosts, OMG.
Emma (36:25):
O.
Sam (36:26):
It turns out there's a faction of ghosts who are
goodies and trying to get thebaddie ghosts to turn their
lives around.
They include Abraham Lincoln,Daphne's mum, mother Teresa,
Elvis, and in a massive twist,Judas Iscariot, who has changed
his tune since Bible times.
Emma (36:47):
my God.
Sam (36:48):
The ghost of Father Dan lures the Port More children to
Lambda and they take it oversomehow.
Doesn't matter, the kids startdoing some evil shit portals or
something, I don't know.
But then the ghost of Judascomes in and has a word, and it
turns out that it was him thatlit the candle in the church
back in season one.
This shatters Father Dan's faithsome more.
Even though he's evil now, andanti-God and anti Jesus, he
(37:11):
still thought he was anti theGod of the Catholic church and
that Judas would be a baddie andon his side.
At the end of the season, Romanand Maggie make it to the White
House to install Maggie in thePresident's body.
Then they find another portal inthe White House basement that
leads to a third dimension,which is full of dinosaur
ghosts.
(37:32):
The season ends on a cliffhangeras the president possessed by
Maggie gets possessed in turn bya T-Rex and the ghost of Abraham
Lincoln takes over the USgovernment to finish his own
term in office.
The ghost of John Wilkes Boothpops up at Lambda and steals the
electric Gun credits roll.
Emma (37:52):
I'd buy it.
Yeah, At first it sounded almostlike you were taking it
seriously.
Dinosaurs are a really nicetouch.
Sam (38:00):
I just thought what VFX have they already got loaded
over at the sci-fi channel.
So Emma, that's my ghost warsseason two.
But what's yours?
Emma (38:10):
So I'm taking it in a bit of a different direction.
It starts where it left offimmediately.
Okay.
Maggie and Roman are sailing offinto the distance with the
artifact.
But wait back there on theshore?
Who's that?
It's the towns folk.
And who are they led by?
Why, it's Doug Rennie and he'spropping up the freshly
reanimated corpse of Billy.
(38:31):
Billy didn't die just so thosespooky kids could take over and
rule the world with their ghostpals.
Doug had been secretly workingon reanimation since Maggie
died, and he's finally got it.
But Maggie's soul was too faraway with Roman in the boat, and
Doug warned everyone aboutRoman.
Doug fires a rocket launcher atthe boat.
(38:52):
He found it in the Lambda labsand the boat explodes killing
Roman.
And the body that Maggie nowinhabits and sinking the
artifact beneath the waves.
Roman and Maggie are now ghostson the island, and they're
pissed off.
They seek revenge, buteventually you have to work with
the people again.
As the artifact, which is now atthe bottom of the sea, is
causing a plague of ghost fish.
Sam (39:14):
That
Emma (39:14):
some reason is a massive, scary problem that causes weird
hallucinations and probably somemore cannibalism.
That's my
Sam (39:21):
Lovely.
Oh, I like ghost fish.
Interesting that we both wentfor Ghost Animals to resolve our
third act problem.
Listeners, if you have a pitchfor season two of Ghost Wars and
at least one listener does, Iknow it's you, Charlie, send it
into us.
Regular listener CharlieEtheridge Nunn did send some
comments on Ghost
Emma (39:41):
War.
Oh, fantastic.
Sam (39:43):
Charlie said this on our Facebook page,
facebook.com/chat.
Out of hell, I love watching badattempts at capturing the magic
of the early seasons of Lost andsci-fi provided a great many of
them.
I remember being disappointed inthis one for not really doing
enough with ghosts or wars andMeat's performance was pretty
underwhelming.
And then in case you're stuckfor things to talk about,
(40:04):
Charlie says, here's a selectionfrom Common Sense Media who are,
they're a Christian website whogive guidance to parents on
what's okay to show kids, butthey're weirdly positive on
ghost wars.
Emma (40:16):
bizarre.
I suppose there's a
Sam (40:19):
there is the religious bent and taking series one at face
value at the height of his lossof faith.
Father Dan prays and somebodylights that candle.
That's true.
Ergo God is real.
Charlie send us a pitch forseries two.
Would you
Emma (40:34):
you
Sam (40:35):
and any other listeners if you have a pitch for series two,
season two, it's AmericanBritish TV is also made in
seasons but it's sort ofcomplicated, we do serieses and
seasons.
You have a pitch for a seasontwo of Ghost Wars, send it in
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
If you'd like to watch GhostWars, you can find it on Netflix
in the UK, probably otherplaces.
(40:57):
Google it, but if you do want towatch Ghost Wars, have a word
with yourself,
Emma (41:01):
If you find yourself watching Ghost Wars we accept no
responsibility.
Sam (41:05):
Do you know what?
I'm gonna say, it's all rightfor having on in the background
when you're doing somethingelse.
Emma (41:10):
Oh God, yeah.
Sam (41:11):
yeah.
If you've got on, if maybeyou've got a podcast to record
about it, and need to takemeticulous notes on every single
bit of every episode, it's a bitof a drag.
Emma (41:21):
you've got COVID, and you're trying to do all of those
pace yourself, darling.
Take regular breaks, hydrateproperly.
Have a lie down, but try not tofall asleep while watching it.
'cause believe me, you are gonnahave some fucked up
Sam (41:34):
dreams.
Ghosts in your head.
Anything else to say before werate this?
Emma (41:43):
No, no further comments on the c On,
Sam (41:46):
the series, ghost Wars.
We did mention Meat Loaf for alittle bit.
Uhhuh, if you're here for theMeat Loaf content.
Emma (41:53):
Sorry.
Yeah.
Sam (41:55):
We'll be back with proper stuff next time.
But yes, Emma.
Earlier this week, I set up asupercollider in my basement and
plugged a piece of meteoriteinto
Emma (42:05):
Have you got a big science
Sam (42:06):
You've got a big science machine I've got a big science
machine in the basement Ofcourse you can.
Yay.
I turned it up to 105%, And theresulting resonance cascade gave
me the following rating scale.
Emma (42:18):
Sorry, just let me recover from the cascade.
Sam (42:23):
Oh, that is uh, the name of the event that happens in Half
Life.
that was one for all the
Emma (42:29):
Uh,
Sam (42:29):
Uh, This show was created by Simon Barry.
Yes.
So the resulting rating scalethen is, was this a Simon Barry?
A Simon, Not as Good as TheStephen King Novel Carrie, or
Simon Far Below Par-ie.
Fuck off.
Emma (42:44):
What?
Well, Oh, I can't I can't dobetter, but that doesn't mean I
have to approve of what you'vedone.
Sam (42:51):
What is it, Emma?
Emma (42:52):
Oh
Sam (42:54):
it's not a Simon Barry.
It's I assume maybe this is hisbest work.
I think it is better than BattleNun or what?
Warrior Nun.
Emma (43:01):
If it is mid tier, it's the bottom of the mid
Sam (43:03):
we, we are stretching our ratings
Emma (43:06):
Yeah.
we
Sam (43:07):
started off rating five minute songs and now we're doing
13 hours of ghost story on ascale of one to three.
Emma (43:16):
It's definitely not top tier.
Sam (43:17):
It's not top tier.
As far as TV goes, I've had muchworse
Emma (43:22):
Yeah.
I'll agree with that.
I think it's somewhere in themiddle.
But probably the bottom of
Sam (43:26):
I doubt I'll ever see or think about Ghost Wars again
unless I get a pitch for GhostWars series two to
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
Emma (43:35):
I won't ever be revisiting the series.
I won't ever watch it again.
It's not like one that's it'snot planted any
Sam (43:43):
You're not gonna watch it again to see the uh, the little
clues that were left in theearly episodes.
Emma (43:48):
Can't be bothered mate.
Can't be bothered.
Sam (43:51):
This is a Simon, Not as Good as the Stephen King Novel
Carrie.
That was film club.
Emma (43:58):
Oh, what a slog.
Sam (44:00):
Alright, mate.
No, it is lovely to see you too.
Emma (44:03):
this.
Watching it, what a slog.
Sam (44:05):
Yeah, But we do it to ourselves.
So yeah, thank you forlistening.
If indeed you did and if youdidn't, I hate you.
I'm a spooky murder ghost.
Emma (44:17):
I have to make an amendment.
Okay.
To, to something from ourprevious
Sam (44:21):
Oh, okay.
Emma (44:22):
I said that I was gonna bring Testify from the album
Couldn't Have Said It I made amistake.
Okay.
I'm actually gonna bring Tear MeDown from the same album.
Sam (44:30):
Oh.
Well, I've not started listeningto it yet, but, a lot of people
don't listen to Film Club, sothey'll be horrified.
Emma (44:39):
No.
They'll be surprised.
Surprised.
Sam (44:43):
Surprised.
So we are back with proper Chatof Hell in two weeks time.
Yay.
Where we will be listening tothe following songs.
Emma (44:51):
Tear Me Down from Couldn't Have Said It Better
Sam (44:54):
Objects in the Rear View Mirror from Bat out of Hell Two.
We're gonna dive into MeatLoaf's youth and childhood and
there might even be a ghost init.
Who knows?
go away.
Listen to those that won't takeanywhere near as long as
watching all of Ghost Wars.
There's no excuse for not doingyour homework this time.
If you have any thoughts oropinions on those or on Ghost
Wars or on anything, at thisrate, we'll be talking about the
(45:17):
news on Film Club in a fewseries' time.
you might as well share yourthoughts on any media.
Send it tochatoutofhell@gmail.com.
Find us on Instagram andFacebook and all that sort of
stuff.
Do tell your friends about thepodcast.
It will be nice if you did.
Emma (45:33):
Please do.
Sam (45:34):
that.
felt a bit pathetic
Emma (45:35):
Oh, did feel.
Sam (45:35):
there.
my friends.
please tell your friends.
Tell your friends about thispodcast.
Why not?
If you enjoy it, they might too.
And if they don't, they're nofriends and we still wanna know
about anybody who has told adate about this podcast.
chatoutofhell@gmail.com.
That's it.
I'm off to go listen to whateverEmma just said Not Testify.
Emma (45:56):
Tear Me Down.
Sam (45:58):
Tear That's the end of film club.
We're both vaguely rememberinghow to do this, so we'll be back
at full speed next time.
We'll see you again in two moreweeks time for a proper Chat Out
of Hell.
Bye bow.
Now.
Now, Now.
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