THE WAX MASK Commentary Track

Episode Transcript
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(01:33):
And then I just took a nap. Idon't even do the intro.
Welcome to the sleepiestepisode of Box Office Pulp.
We're rebranding. We're gonnabe like an ASMR thing where we just
talk you to sleep during someof our favorite movies. Hello, I'm
Robert Osborne.
I feel like we would getfamous doing that.
For some reason, I want to bethe Joe Pera of movie podcasts.

(01:56):
Cody Alf explainscinematography to you at night.
Every episode is me describingthe plot of the movie Werewolves.
Once again, this would havebeen funny if people actually heard
me talk about werewolves forthe last hour. Hour that was not
recorded.
Cody Wax so poetic, sopoetically about the time Frank Grillo
was a United States Marine whowas also a scientist fighting werewolves

(02:20):
in theaters now.
It's good to have hobbies intheaters now. I'm not releasing this
until we actually record otherwax museum movies.
No, Mike, it's going to beimmediately dating us. No, it's going
to be much funnier if we justkeep saying welcome back to Wax Month,
which has now been extended toWax Quarterly, which has now been

(02:40):
extended to the Year of Wax.It takes us six years to record.
Four titled it in a text conversation.
Winter's Wax and I'm WaxSeason of Wax. We didn't say how
long the season was going tobe. Look, some stuff happened. Some
tragedy happened to my life. Ididn't really feel like recording.
Trump got elected Again, wedidn't feel like recording. Stuff

(03:03):
went down, and now we arereturning from whence we came, which
is covered in wax.
Can we just actually spreadthis out to be seasonal? Like once
every four months? We're like,here's a wax commentary. Enjoy. Who.
Who knows what's gonna happen,folks? Maybe you get more wax, maybe
you don't. I don't know. I'mjust running the thing, so. Welcome
to Box Office Pulp, your onestop podcast for movies madness,
moxie, and tonight, the finestItalian imported wax you've ever

(03:27):
seen. I'm your host, Cody.Joining me today are my co host,
Mike. Say hello, Mike.
Oh, God, I'm gonna puke.
That's how Mike starts everyphone conversation with me. He just
calls me up in the middle ofthe night and says that.
It'S the only way I can sleep.
Well, that's why we're makingthis into an ASMR podcast. So people
go to bed without calling meup and saying they're gonna throw
up.
How's everybody doing rightnow, baby? Everybody. Everybody looking

(03:50):
forward to watching the moviewith us?
You got your popcorn, Jamie,Give me your best asmr.
Careful, you might catch feelings.
I was waiting for you to,like, rub your fingertips against,
like, some tin foil or something.
Oh, wait, wait.
Oh. Oh, no.
I wish I had my nails longagain. Damn.
Oh, it sounded like you werebreaking something. I didn't like

(04:10):
that.
It sounded like you werecrunching roaches.
Oh, I don't like that either.You know what?
I'm not going to say what thatwas now.
Good. It's a mystery andshould remain that way tonight, folks.
We are of course continuingour wax coverage with. Is it wax
mask or the wax mask?
The wax mask.

(04:30):
The wax mask.
The wax mask. You know what?It does have a fucking name.
You know that? I tripped overthat too. It turns out it's surprisingly
hard to say the wax mask.
Personally, I am onlyreferring to it by its original Italian
title. The tears I shed carvetrenches in the wax that is my face.

(04:52):
A solid joke.
It's all downhill from here.
Yes. Speaking of downhill fromhere, I got a little funky with the.
The drink of the evening,folks. If you want to drink along
with me, you're going to haveto pause this podcast for about a
week. But once. Once you havethe pre. The actual cocktail itself
is very simple. So I infusedwhiskey with a candle. So you're

(05:21):
gonna have to start off byfinding some food grade beeswax.
Specifically, you want thefood grade stuff, because who knows
what they're putting into likethose lavender ones that they're
using for candles. I don'twant anyone dying from this. Make
sure you are getting the foodgrade wax. What you're gonna do then
is it comes in like littlepellets. So you're just gonna dump
a bunch of those into a bottleof glass. A glass bottle would probably

(05:44):
be a nicer way to say that.And then what I did was I just put
that glass bottle into someboiling water and just for a couple
of minutes until all the waxpellets had melted. Took it out with
tongs and just kind of swungaround my head a few times, got burning
water everywhere and thencoated the inside of that glass with
the wax. At that point, you'reready to go. You just pour in whatever

(06:06):
liquor you want, let it sitfor at least three days. I did like
a week and then just filteredout. This won't actually change the
flavor of the alcohol, but itwill change the mouthfeel, which
is the most pretentious thingI plan on saying. Tonight we'll see
if I can top myself. The. Inthis case, I got some Jack Daniel's
Tennessee honey. So I put thatin with the wax and it changed. It's

(06:29):
silkier, it's smoother, itfeels different in your mouth, I
swear to God. So anyways, onceall that's done and you're good to
go and you have your honey waxwhiskey, you're going to take 2 ounces
of that, you're going to take1 ounce of lemon juice and 1 ounce
simple syrup, and you're goingto make yourself a nice, easy, simple
whiskey sour, which I am aboutto test right now. How do the ASMR

(06:51):
guys do it? Are they likeputting the microphone up into the
booze and like slurping or.
I think there's a lot ofslurping and lip smacking mostly.
I mean, some more experiences.I don't usually go for those kind
of vocal triggers, but I. I'veseen around.
All right, that sounds likeextra work. So I'm just going to
enjoy this. Pretend I'mgoobing all over the mic. That's

(07:11):
pretty good. That is actuallya very good cocktail.
Now, Cody, sing Tennessee Whiskey.
I don't know the lines.
Neither do I. I just know thetitle of the song.
Oh, no. So there you go,folks. If you want yourself a nice,
smooth, silky honey whiskeysour. That's all you gotta do. Just.
Just take a bunch of beeshostage, make some wax booze.

(07:32):
And remember, folks at home,if you don't have Any food grade
wax. Any old wax will do.
Box Office Pulp goes to jail.
Because.
Ernest goes to jail. But it'sBP guy. Box Office pulp is innocent.

(07:53):
No, he's not.
I'm more imagining it's theplot of the movie, the prison.
I was thinking more ErnestGoes to jail, but okay, sure, I like
that too.
What about Ernest Goes toCamp? Yeah, it's that plot, but instead
he's in a prison.
I was about to say, Mike, doyou view camp as prison?
It depends on what's happeningto me.

(08:13):
I guess that kind of was theAddams Family values, right? Like
it was a camp, but it was.That was a prison.
Yeah.
All right.
We're here to talk about sadmovie. Honestly, more to think about
it, Ernst Goes to Camp was a sad.
Oh, I thought you're talkingand family values. I'm like, no,
it's not.
No, no. That was a fun rompfor everybody.
Yeah. Okay.
Horny too. So horny it'salmost uncomfortable.

(08:33):
Well, this, this doesn't haveanything to do with wax. I'm getting
us back on topic here. Mike,do you want to count us down to start
off the waxening?
Just interesting little sidepart that has nothing to do with
anybody watching this, but wehave decided to actually watch the
original Italian languageversion with different subtitles
that are from the English dub,which has different dialogue. So

(08:58):
if we aren't immediatelyreacting to something ridiculous,
it's because we just don'tremember that original scene and
it's not happening in front ofus. So just to let you know that.
For me, this is going to belike watching a whole new movie.
All right.
And this should line up withthe Severin release that is available.
So I don't know if people are.
Getting it from anywhere else.Is it even on streaming?
It's on tubi.
Oh, cool. Good for tubi.

(09:19):
And it, it comes and goes offof shutterlock too. All right, one,
two, three.
Oh, cool. Mine was like fiveseconds ahead. That won't cause any
problems.
Now for 20 minutes of opening.Opening logos.
Hey, that's how modern filmsare made too. Well, this gives me

(09:41):
a lot of time to get throughmy movie.
Fun facts presenter.
This was directed by Sergioand we hit my first Italian game.
I am going to butcherStivaletti. Stivoli does not have
a ton of feature films on hisIMDb but he's very well known for
his special effects works. Sohe's got credits for phenomena, demons,

(10:04):
demons two, the church,Dracula, 3D, dark glasses. So he's
still out there doing specialeffects in films. Speaking of which,
that neat little Eiffel Towercomposite shot we just passed. Or
am I ahead of you? Right. Areyou seeing it right now?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
The ludicrous CGI fireworksthat just scream. It's 1997.

(10:26):
They were excited to trysomething out and they do. Stivalett
does admit. Yeah, it doesn't.That shot does not work. But there
actually was more that wentinto it than it seems, so. Which
actually comes around tomaking it a little bit impressive
for the time.
Like, that was a hard shotconsidering too. You got the camera
moving all over the place. Yougot the composite inside of the frame.

(10:48):
They made that a tough shotfor what I'm assuming was a fairly
low budget movie.
There's always somethingweirdly beautiful about whenever
a ludicrous amount of work isput into a shot that doesn't work.
I like it, though. I actuallylegitimately like it.
Oh, I'm obsessed with that onemoment that's in, I believe, the

(11:08):
extended cut of the two towerswhere Legolas screams. They run as
if the very whips of theirmasters were behind them. And then
suddenly they're in front of asunset that is only in the movie
because they nearly killedthemselves filming that and then
got the dailies back. Arelike, oh, this scene sucks. Well,

(11:30):
it's still going in.
We should mention here thatStivaletti was appointed by Dario
Argento to direct this movieafter Lucio Falci passed away. So
there. There's a lot ofdiscussion about how different the
movie would have been in itsoriginal form with its original director,
but we'll never really know.So just appreciate what you got.

(11:51):
The script was very different.
Yeah.
Yeah. If I'm not mistaken, themore steampunk sci fi elements that
are sprinkled in here were allSergio, right?
Yep.
Yes.
The original one was actuallymore of like, more of like a sweeping
epic about, like, the historyof, like, Italy. And it was supposed

(12:13):
to take place in Turin anddidn't have, like, pretty much any
gore. Was like the first draftand Argento got very mad because
Butcher Fulci. Why is there nogore here? But he just didn't have
interest in. In doing that atthe. At the time. And yeah, it was
a lot more classical in that way.

(12:33):
Yeah, Fulci, which isinteresting because he was making
this movie or trying to makethis movie while in very poor health,
but Fulci also thought of thisas like a way to reinvent himself
and try and make something alittle bit more in the Fantasy edge.
That was less hard edge horror.
Yeah.
So it's. It's fascinating tome. The guy was basically dying.
He's like, nope, still time. Ican. I can change this direction.

(12:54):
I'm gonna win that Italian Oscar.
So this film was written byDaniel Stropa and Lucio Fulci. We
just kind of discussed howdifferent the writing ended up from
the final product. But it'sdefinitely got some Fulci still in
it. Our cast is RominaMandello. I'm sorry. As Sonia Lafont.

(13:16):
Robert Hossain as BorisVolkov. The rest of the Italian names
were going to make me looklike a real big dummy, so I have
omitted them from my movie.
Fun facts.
Our cinematography is bySergio Salvetti. He was also the
DP for City of the LivingDead, the Beyond, the House by the
cemetery, and zombie 2. PlusDr. Jekyll likes them hot. A movie

(13:41):
I didn't know existed until research.
Well, I'm ordering that onAmazon now.
Jamie, you have to report backin and tell us how that one turned
out. Oh, God. It's just amurderous row of Italians. Our music
is by Maurizo Albani. Beni, ifyou're Italian and I have just sworn

(14:05):
at you in your native tongue,please write me a note explaining
how I've done wrong. Thiscannot be allowed to stand.
I mean, you were. You were.You were pretty much wrong. Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
Our editing is by PauloBanasi, and this was released April
4, 1997. Granted, it's anItalian film, so the release schedule
is probably very differentthan ours, but it blows my mind when

(14:27):
a horror film comes out in,like, April. Right. Because they
typically come out in eitherAugust where they're just trying
to finish out the summerblockbuster season, or they get dumped
in January. April's such anodd time for me to see a film put
out, and our budget here wasabout $3 million in 1997 money. It

(14:47):
unfortunately didn't do verywell at the box office. It made about
a quarter of a milliondollars. So that probably explains
why there's not like, a WaxMask two or three or four. But apparently
it did fairly well on dvd.Not. Not probably enough to make
up for losses and get a sequelor anything, but.
Oh, well, before we get awaywith it, away from it, can I just

(15:09):
say a stern voiceover sayingRome 12 years later over an Italian
couple. Fucking is the mostItaly thing I've ever seen Al before.
Real quick, guys, I have todescribe to you the poster to Dr.
Jekyll likes them hot. Whichis Dr. Jekyll tiptoeing into a young

(15:35):
woman's apartment, like in aTom and Jerry cartoon, with his slippers
in his hand to not make noise.And she's standing on the other side
of the door in her nighty witha rolling pin.
Right on.
Cinema.
This doesn't look Italian.This looks British. What is this?
Carry on, Dr. Jekyll.

(15:59):
And my faith is my bed. It'san amazing line.
So to. To go back to thesubtitle difference here, just because
that's fresh on my mind.That's probably one of the biggest
barriers I've had for gettinginto Italian films because so many.
So many of them are. Theydon't have great, great subtitles

(16:21):
and it makes them feel verysilly. And it's hard for me to get
into the mood of the picture.That's probably more of a me problem
than anything. But also, it'sjust kind of fascinating when you
go back and watch these thingswith different subtitles and realize
how it impacts the entire filmwithout really changing the plot.
Like, sometimes the lines canbe different enough where plot points

(16:43):
are different or, you know,they. They put in some exposition
that wasn't there before.Sure. But most of the time it's just
flavor differences and thoseadd. Yeah, it can make a completely
different movie. If the dub isGod awful enough.
There is a reason anime fanstake proper localization very, very

(17:04):
seriously. Because you canjust ruin a text and not realize
it.
Like, come on, it says thesame thing, sort of.
And this dub is like extraspecial because they add in things.
I mean, my joke at thebeginning, I'm gonna puke is. I don't
know why they add that to acop saying that at the beginning
of the film. That's one of thefirst lines in the movie is, I'm

(17:26):
gonna puke. Well, don't do ithere. To characters who aren't even
on screen. And I think. Andsomeone who kind of. I. I don't know
how true this is necessarily,but this was from somebody.
Who.
Knew a little bit more indepth of, like, dubbing, particularly

(17:48):
of Euro films, which is whenthis came out, because of the period
it was coming out, most of thestalwart, like, casts that would
be involved in the dubbing hadeither died or retired. So who would
usually come in to do a lot ofthese movies weren't there anymore.

(18:10):
So they were just kind ofbeing thrown to whoever the fuck
to do the dubbing. Andoccasionally you get. I think there
are, like, a couple of, like,actual actors, but they play, like,
bit characters that have,like, three lines. Everybody else
is just kind of random. Andthere wasn't a lot of effort, I think,
put into the dubbing scriptsnecessarily. So you get whatever

(18:37):
the. Is going on in the dub ofthis movie.
Well, you have. It's likesomebody making a parody of an Italian
dub. Because no matter thetone, everyone is so gregarious about
everything.
Yes.
So, Detective, sit down. Tellme about these terrible murders.
You.
And your wife have been makinglove lately. Yes.

(19:01):
Jamie, I appreciate thatyou're just turning this into some
sort of Conan o' Brien sketch.
And don't get me wrong, I lovethis movie. Even with the dub.
I honestly, if I had tochoose, like, when re watching this
movie, I probably would gowith the dub just for. I don't know.

(19:21):
There's something. This is avery dark movie, but it's dark in
a way that's so cartoonish andover the top, it occasionally borders
on comedic. And while the dubdoesn't make the movie funny, it
just kind of adds to theslight dreamlike or like.

(19:42):
Oh, it makes it very pulpy.
Yeah, very pulpy. Yeah.
Yeah. Because this is like afantasy horror movie, which I think
throws people off wheneverthey watch it, because that means
it has a very different tone.
It's like if you.
I'm not comparing Suspiria andthe Wax Mask to the other in any
way. I just want to make thatclear. But if you went into Suspiria

(20:05):
and expecting, like, oh, justa normal ass horror movie, you'd
be confused. But if you havefantasy on your minds, you like,
okay, I can go with this. Thiskind of works the same. It is not
like a straight classicalhorror movie. It's more of a fantasy
movie that.
Well, I would interject. It's.It's definitely fantasy, but, like,

(20:27):
this whole bit here, very gothic.
Yeah, it's fantasy intersectedwith, like, a more classical artsy
horror.
It's very po in a lot of sensibilities.
Very much, yeah.
Which apparently was like,what. What Fulci was going for whenever
he was hashing this out withArgento. Kind of like what you were

(20:48):
saying earlier, going for moreof a classical horror movie.
That.
Something a bit more likesomething I could imagine Bava directing
rather than Fulci.
Could you imagine if Bava didthis? I am. I am. Like, I. I'd be
down for baba. Just remakingsome of these. No offense to our

(21:09):
current batch of filmmakers.
Now, I was talking about thisa little bit with Mike while you
were preparing your drink.Earlier, I. I don't know what exactly
I was expecting from Wax Mask,since I only like, knew.
Cameo.
That's actually his real head.The head he walks around with now

(21:30):
is the dummy.
That's the wax.
Not everybody knows that he'sa master, but I was not expecting
this. It's like, specificallya murder at the Wax Museum story.
Walked through a giallo thatis also a gory late 90s slasher movie

(21:53):
and an extremely. Like, I'mvery. I'm not very familiar with,
like. I don't know if you'dlike, call them like Neo Giallos
or what, but just like 90s andbeyond era Giallos, but this is the
first one I've seen that'spost A Nightmare on Elm street.
And it's.

(22:13):
To me, it's fascinating seeingwhat Americans took from giallo in
the 80s and seeing that, like,reinterpreted as a 90s film. And
considering Sergio wantedEnglund for the role initially, I
feel like that's veryintentional. There's a lot of Freddy
Krueger esque imagery in here.

(22:35):
Well, it's funny you mentionedthat, because I've always kind of
stood by the idea that Screamis just American jello, but they
took them and kind of filteredit through and went like, let's lose
some of the wackier and keepthe stuff that works. So it's American
ice jello. More so maybe thanjust a plain old slasher. I think
it has more in common with agiallo than it does necessarily.
Even a typical Americanslasher like Halloween, that it was

(22:58):
aping. But that's a discussionfor another podcast.
Just a quick note, that wouldbe an excellent episode or series.
Just what America did with thegiallo, like tracking that from Halloween
to Nightmare to Scream andeverything in between.
That'd be cool.
God, it's blowing my mindthough, realizing, okay, so this

(23:18):
came out in April of 1997, sotheoretically, like, you could have
found a theater somewherethat's showing these two Scream and
this at the same time. Andthey feel like they were made in
completely different eras.
I miss Mad Scientists, Labsand movies.

(23:39):
Also talking aboutinspirations and what this movie
feels like. I find it kind ofinteresting that on the special features
for the Blu Ray, they get intoit in, like, two different spots
where the director Stavellettimentions that he saw a cure for wellness
and thought, oh, this is verymuch Wax mask. Not necessarily accusing

(24:00):
them of, like, stealing hisideas. He mentions, like, I don't
know if the director ever sawmy movie. But I feel like he took
some of my ideas and stuff Iwould have put in a sequel, and he
made it into that movie.
So I think that was reallyinteresting. Yeah.
Yeah. So I guess if you'relooking for a comparison, you could
maybe go with the kind of toneyou got from A Cure for wellness.
Obviously, very, very, verydifferent movies filmed very differently,

(24:23):
but some of the mad Scienceideas and especially the gothic trappings
towards the later end of Acure for wellness are shared in this
film.
I feel like we're about fiveyears out from the Internet remembering
a cure for wellness happenedand then discovering it in a big
way.
I mean, I absolutely adorethat movie, but it is also very long,

(24:45):
so I can see why people wouldnot necessarily revisit it, because
you need, like, three hours ofyour life to revisit it.
I had to recently rewatch theBatman over the course of a week
and a half, so I get that.
Yeah, that's the thing. I lovethe Batman too, but, yeah, it is
a long one. Died from fright,you say? To shreds, you say. Also,

(25:12):
unfortunately, I don't thinkthe glowing eyes on the Medusa are
a wonderful effect.
Doesn't quite work.
It's like we're suddenly in aHarryhausen movie. A little bit.
Yeah. For something made in1997, it just feels off. Like, if
this were made in the 80s,they would have had to actually make
a puppet head that glow withglowing eyes, and that would have

(25:33):
been a much, much bettereffect. Yeah.
Stivaletti really just wantedto experiment with the.
The.
The new effects that were onthe market at the time. So he was
just kind of, you just excitedabout and, like, convincing Argento
to. To include visual effectslike that. And some actually aren't

(25:55):
that bad. I mean, I thinkactually some of the morphing effects
in the third act aren't. Yeah.
Honestly, it gives this moviea very unstuck in time feel where.
If you hadn't told me it was1997, I don't know if I would have
been able to place when thefuck this movie was filmed.
Oh, yeah. Again, that's thewhy. Like, the Scream comparison

(26:15):
throws me off. It's like,wait, even the same year?
No, even the shitty CGIfireworks look like they could have
been in a movie from 1993 instead.
Also, I'm kicking myself inthe ass right now because 1997 was
when Scream 2 came out. Scream1 was 6. 96.

(26:37):
All right.
Yep. I. I done goofed. I goofed.
And walked out of this. Andthen Gone to the next theater to
see Men in Black.
Oh, God. Now that's a double.
Watching this movie. And justquietly from the next theater, you
can hear.

(27:03):
I want to talk about a. This.
That.
The. Something that civilitybrought to the movie that fascinates
me. And why, like, one of thethings I really dug about the first
time I watched it, which isthe alchemy aspect of it, and making
it more of a mad scientistmovie instead of a angry artist.
Because I want to see morepeople, more creatives come at a

(27:28):
project with, like, this kindof idea of, okay, the thing is unrealistic.
Like turning people into waxstatues. You can't actually do that.
Like, you can't just coverthem in wax and call it a day.
That's where they drew theline. Like, no, no, no, that's not
realistic.
What we need is mad Science.

(27:48):
But no, but here's the thing.What I love, though, is Stivaletti
didn't go, now let's figureout how that would work in the real
world. Instead, he went, ifwe're already going to be doing a
fake thing, why don't we do amore fun fake thing on top of it?
So alchemy and Mad Science. Sohe's actually, like, turning them

(28:08):
into wax creatures who arethen still alive, but they're trapped
as wax statues.
Do you.
So creative for a premise thatwe've seen so many times over the
past history of filmmakingthat every time really is just. And
then they case the body in waxand that's.

(28:30):
It's been.
It's scary.
Well, it makes me think alittle bit about why we don't have
so many wax movies anymore.And one of the big things is, well,
if you're going to be topical,why would you do a period piece and
do wax figures? If you'retrying to do someone making a movie
about, you know, playing Godor making monsters in their own image,

(28:54):
you're going to go with robotsand AI. You're going to go for the
new topical ideas. The waxfigures don't necessarily make as
much sense as they used to.But then you also have the fact that
if for a wax museum piece tomake any amount of sense, it almost
has to be a period piece,which is going to be more expensive.
If you've only got a couple ofbucks in a camera, you're going to

(29:15):
try and find something thatyou can film in a contemporary setting
because it's going to save youso much on production. And I think
it's unfortunate becauseyou're not going to get things like
this anymore unless you haveenough money and you can convince
a studio to go all in.
Look at the Dark castle Houseof Wax, which has to base its entire
premise around what ananachronism that wax museum is.

(29:40):
Yeah. Now I shouldn't saythere aren't horror movies that are
period pieces becauseobviously we do get a couple of those
every single year that are,you know, lower budget. Ones that
probably don't even play inmore than like two theaters. But
it's, I imagine, a huge uphillbattle for those films get made compared
to, you know, a contemporaryset slasher film or something like
that.

(30:01):
Yeah, I mean, there's onlyreason westerns exist.
Yeah, I, I mean this got luckybecause most pretty much the wax
museum itself is a placeStivaletti was already renting for
his studio and they justturned it into the wax museum. So
that's how they were able tokeep the budget down because he had
two weeks to put this movie together.

(30:22):
Yeah.
Charles Band style.
Well, and the whole originhere is kind of fascinating to me
too because I don't thinkArgento and Fulci were particularly
close or friends or anything.No, but Argento still saw that Fulci
was in poor health and didn'thave money to cover his own health
care and, and gave him thisproject. You know, they collaborated

(30:45):
on this so he could help outanother guy that he didn't even really
like that much.
It was fascinated me because Idid not know about that until going
through Mike's notes. Andspecifically Argento did not like
Fulci because he felt he stolehis style. And the mental image of

(31:06):
Dario Argento in a theaterplaying zombie, shaking his head
his fist and coin. That son ofa. I was gonna do the eye effect
first.
It's, it's.
It's a very like sweet story,honestly. Especially when you watch

(31:26):
the behind the scenes stufflike they didn't like each other.
But Argento still gets chokedup talking about Fulci and Fulci's
death in a way that reallywill surprise you because I just
assumed Argento is heartless.
But yeah, it was a big move.Like, oh, wow, that is. Yeah, that's
surprisingly kind.
And he kind of, he kind of in,I don't want to say invents a story

(31:50):
about like how Fulci died, butyou could tell he kind of wanted
it to be like be poignant insome way. Like he doesn't know if
like that's like that folchthat Fulci forgot to Take his insulin
because he was too wrapped upin watching a movie. It's like, you

(32:10):
can't prove that necessarily.I mean, I guess you could buy some
context clues, like lookingaround, like, what was going on.
Yeah, but he just kind ofliked that being the story. And there
was something, like, reallynice about that.
Sorry, we're missing the mostmenacing cotton candy scene also.
Dear God, they're doing a jobon that cotton candy. Is that really
what it was like back in theearly 1900s? Because how. I can't

(32:34):
imagine how a cotton candykept on.
I honestly, I think I likecotton candy more if it's. It's cloud
like. Like that. I like how itdoesn't have any specific shape.
It looks like an innocent dayon the town in the 1900s walking
by. Oh, look at the. Look atthe shadow man and his child.

(32:55):
Dark man locked at night. Wheneverything made sense.
We used to be a society.
But going back to, like,Argento, like, wanting to give Fulci.
Fulci something to make himfeel better. The thing that Argento

(33:17):
and Fulci wrote before WaxMask, they wanted to just do a remake
of something they both lovedas children, essentially, like something
that they had, like, somesentimental value to. They wrote
them. They wrote a remake ofthe Mummy?
Yeah, of all things.
And they worked really hard,but then dropped it because they

(33:38):
couldn't come up with a newtwist on the Mummy. I would argue
just Fulci and Argento filminga Mummy one day would have been worth
it. I'm kind of mad thatdidn't happen. That's maybe in a
drawer somewhere.
It's not like they hashed itout and we're like, ah, we just can't
find the hook. You made themovie, you wrote it and then decided

(34:00):
that it wasn't good enough.Like, ah, that. That's again, that's
somewhere. That's just in adrawer somewhere.
Can we just for a second talkabout what was going on with the
color there for a moment?Like, it just turned into a sepia
thing for half a scene andthen immediately back to full daylight
color, which is fascinating.
Wax vision.
Yeah. Like, the first time Iwas watching it, I was thinking like,

(34:22):
oh, okay, maybe it's likethey've been out all day and it's
a transition to nighttime. Andthis is the sun going down. We're
getting dusk. No, that'sdefinitely not it. It's just wax
vision.
My God, the wax. Only see in wax.
He's more wax than man now.
Also, just. Just to return tothe The Argento and Fulci thing,

(34:45):
again, because again, likethis, this is something I didn't
re. I didn't know theslightest thing about until going
through the research. There'ssomething so striking to me about
the fact that they didn't talklike there was like a distant rivalry,
but they did not work in thesame professional or social circles

(35:08):
at all. But Argento was at afilm festival in 1994 and just saw
Fulci wheeled out by his agentin a wheelchair and just immediately
thought, that's wrong. I hatethis person. But no, no, no, he's
an Italian horror director.This isn't right. We have to fix

(35:28):
this. And I'm fascinated bynot. Not to. Not to upon the good
old days as like anythingthat's any more innocent than. Than
Hollywood or movie making ingeneral today. But it kind of feels
like filmmakers had a sense offraternity and.

(35:51):
Yeah.
Solidarity that they simply donot have anymore. Like, that's not,
that's not a moment I couldimagine happening between any rivals
today.
It's the nice ending of thePrestige. But there's a bunch of
different examples of Argentohelping out people that he worked

(36:13):
with. Like he would give themmovies like, here, use my name. I'll
be a producer. We'll get thismade. You can have a film. And you
know, it really paints Argentoin a much different light when you
realize he's. He's helping outeveryone. He's kind of doing the
Roger Corman thing for his owngroup of Italian filmmakers.
Yeah, he's, he's delightful, surly.

(36:39):
It's just all the moreevidence that man, movies are made
by filmmakers, not moviestudios. Movie studios do not create
community. Movie studios donot take care of the community. That
is all people. And if therearen't, if there aren't mentor figures,

(36:59):
if there aren't elderstatesmen to kind of look after people
like that, then who the isthere to do that?
Just so everyone at homeknows, this was edited for clarity.
Jamie then went on a two hourrant about Moana 2.
And the live action remake ofMoana coming out.
Yeah, within a year.
And a live action remake ofMoana 2.

(37:21):
Oh, no, it's a vicious circle.
Anything to keep the rock busy.
He put in that Shazam muscle suit.
I love that. Every wax moviehas to have like a kind of scary
disfigured henchman.
This one has two. Or is it two?
Od.

(37:45):
This guy always looks morelike a.
Better title than Matt Quacks now.
Also, oh, man, the chemistrybetween Characters. Just another
thing that kind of turns meoff in these movies because again
with the dubs and all this, itnever really plays the way it should
for me. It always just feelslike every character.

(38:08):
Hates the other characterpretty much. I don't know why.
It's.
That's just a thing with dubsin general. It's really weird. Even
good dubs, it just doesn't. I.I guess maybe just because they tend
to record it separately. Like,there just feels like there's something
missing.
Yeah.
Look at Boris's robe here, bythe way. Spectacular.

(38:30):
Just gonna mention the robe.He's. He's getting a full Invisible
man vibes.
Oh, yeah, we were. We weretalking about this before recording.
Like, there was apparently a.A bitter back and forth between Sergio
and Argento over whether ornot this dude should be named Boris.

(38:50):
And Argento swore he would winthe day when the dub was recorded.
It's true. I mean, yeah, as aproducer, you could get away with
that.
This main villain was almostcalled Charles. I don't think that
quite has the same ring to itas Boris Volkov.
Right.
Apparently, Sergio's big pointwas Boris is historically accurate.

(39:15):
Dario.
Well, the Frenchman named Charles.
So them screaming abouthistorical accuracy in front of the
gigantic glowing steampunk alchemy.
Machines, the giant steampunkhearts in the. In the basement of
the wax museum.
That they use to reverse lifeand death. It's so.

(39:37):
I love this movie.
How do we feel about theTerminator comparisons at the end
of the film when the giant.
You mean when the Terminatorshows up?
When the Terminator shows up.Because everyone in the movie, like
all the interviews and stuff,swears up and down like, no, no,
no, no, no, no. Totally. Wewere not going civil.
Eddie says it. He felt it wascoming from the. Even though he talks
about, like all the visualeffects where he wanted to do because

(39:59):
of Terminator 2, but he says,like his. Him and James Cameron were
coming from the same place,which was automatons, which is technically
correct. But also that's justthe Terminator. That doesn't make
it less cool. There's a waxcyborg skeleton and it is.
We'll have more to say. I wantto interrupt, though, because I absolutely

(40:20):
love these silent moviethrowbacks. Silhouettes. Like very.
Absolutely Nosferatu kind of stuff.
Just so robot hand.
And then it cuts the robothand. It really jumps.
Big fan. Anytime a G turns itsslasher into a full on super villain.

(40:44):
Well, the look here too, youknow, he's. It's basically the look
from House of Wax, you know,when Vincent Price is running around
in his black cloak and blackhat, it's. It's kind of that. I know
there's. There's some hints inhere that this is House of Wax. They
obviously didn't want tototally remake that movie, but you
can't tell me they didn't pullbits and pieces from that film.

(41:05):
Legally, they're not. I mean,legal. I mean, then they tried doing
the. Well, it's actually basedon a Gaston Laro story.
Are we getting into that?Mike, do you want to go into the
backstory of.
We can go into the backstoryof that. So Argento and Fulci originally

(41:27):
had this. Wait, wait, why is.
I'm sorry, I'm distracted bythis mustache.
Man, which I think is fake.Actually. I'm not sure which. Which
facial hair is more fake, the.
Giant goatee or the mustache?
The giant goatee is prettyfucking spectacular, though. I wish
I could pull that off. But.And ironically, all of this led to

(41:52):
Argento's Phantom of theOpera. But.
Sorry, I just want to back upbecause I really. I just pointed
that guy out because in mymind, it was like, that's Salvador
Dali. What is he doing in this movie?
Oh, my God.
It. Sorry, I'll stopinterrupting now.
So they were going to call itGaston Larose the Wax Mask, because

(42:16):
of it would be based on aparticular story that was called
like, the Wax Museum orsomething like that. Now, a couple
things. One, it that ended upnot being called Gaston Larose stuff,
it technically still ends upin some credits here and there. They
would eventually say, because.Because there isn't. They. Nobody

(42:40):
could find what story theywere talking about, that it was just
inspired by the writings ofGaston Laro. Like the tone, which
is not inaccurate. I don'tknow if that's on purpose, but it's
not inaccurate. So people havebeen able to discover that in the
80s, there was a Gaston Larocompendium of a bunch of his stories.

(43:03):
And one in it was the storythat's they were talking about. It
was called the Waxwork museum.It's. Yeah. 1980 collection. Gaston
Lerose Bedside Companion.Companion. Now, here's the interesting
thing now, and.
A few people have.

(43:24):
Were kind of able to maybepinpoint. So it might have been published
first in like the twenties orsomething like that. So did some
digging. So that book,particular book is edited by. Where's
his name? Peter Haining. Now,Peter Haining, as it's been discovered

(43:55):
in some of his other booksthat he's edited for some of these
collections he's done, he willoccasionally just make up a story
and throw it in there or useother stories. Now this I'm. I'm
going to read a bit of acomment someone made. This is way

(44:16):
back in like 2012. I did somedigging and it was about painting.
And he ended up going. Thisperson ended up going into the Wax.
The Waxwork Museum. Thank youto. To Michelle Perry. Now, when
I read his 1980 collection theGaston Laurel Bedside Companion,

(44:39):
I had a nagging feeling that Ihad read one of the stories the Waxwork
Museum somewhere else as byanother author. Eventually I realized
I was thinking of a Frenchplay by Andre Delord and George Montiac,
the text of which I had readin the British Library. Intrigued,
I did further research andfound that Andre Delord had turned

(45:00):
his play into a short storywith the same title. Comparing the
French text of that story withthe Gaston Leroux translation which
appeared in Haning's book, Iwas able to establish they were were
indeed the same exact story.The book's copyright page credits
BP Singer Features Inc. Asyndication agency supplying fillers

(45:21):
to newspapers and magazinesfor permission to repent reprint
the translation of One by One.Alexander Peters is entirely possible
that Haning may have been. Mayhave been convinced by the agency
that he was buying bonafidetranslations of Laureau's stories,
but was actually just buyingsomebody else's story and then sticking

(45:45):
Leroux's name on.
Turns out this was all basedon a Goosebumps books and they were
just embarrassed to admit it.
The Goosebumps books don'twear the wax.
Mask inspired by the writingsof R.L. stine.

(46:08):
Oh no. This dog's gonna kill me.
I just like that. That meanstechnically Wax Mask is the latest
in the famous series ofItalian knockoff films.
What I love is this makes it.It's like six levels down of copyright
infringement.

(46:28):
Technically, this movie is a crime.
We say over murder.
That hand rip too. I want totalk about that gag because that
was a good one. You don't seehands ripped off like that. And that
looks like it was stop motion.We're getting a little bit everything
here.
I love the stop motion beingunnecessarily stop motion too. It's
so unsettling.

(46:49):
And then the guy just has aheart skewer. Like he's got a kebab
going of organs.
Why we do not know. But he.
So I can. I can definitely seethe point of like, yeah, violence
was inserted into this moviebecause then you have these Flashbacks
where all of a sudden it goesfrom being this kind of drama to
the Terminator ripping peoplein half and putting their organs

(47:12):
on a spike.
This movie has such aninteresting tone that I don't think
a lot of other films comeclose to. Like, this is like there's
a certain kind of schlock thatI really like that there is isn't
a lot of. And that's likeartsy schlock. And this is like artsy

(47:33):
schlock.
I think that's how peopledescribed Hannibal season three.
Yes.
Which probably actually doestake a lot of its influences from
the Italian horror genre. Sofull circle, baby.
That first half. Definitely.
And I want to make sure it.
Just goes to shocker when Ithink of prestige Schlock.

(47:55):
Yes. Is this a sub genre untoitself or is this just aesthetic?
It's.
It's adjacent to the schlockgenre. I think schlock is kind of
like an umbrella genre andthere's little offshoots here and
there.
Well, I'm not just talkingschlock itself. Like artistic schlock.

(48:17):
Like I want. I want a. Like afancy theater just doing a month
long playlist of artisticschlock and trying.
Elevated shock.
Yeah. Elevated popcorn. A24.Schlock. Schlock 24.
We're just playing slice every day.

(48:40):
Do you think this guy got castbecause he kind of looks like Dario
Argento when he was younger?
Probably.
I just kept thinking goth Bill Maher.
He's definitely got the hairthese days.
That's the best Looky Louportrait ever.
It's a little Scooby Dooduring the special features. It's

(49:02):
hilarious to me becausethey're so frank compared to the
PR pieces you get on mostcurrent release movies. So they're
interviewing Dario Argento andhe's just talking about like, oh,
man. Jesus. The guy. That'show Argento talks.
Why is he Patrick Warburton?
Oh, baby. Oh, better, better, better.

(49:25):
Uncle Ben.
But it's talking about, I'mgonna turn.
You to wax, Uncle Ben and bring.
You back to life.
Then Toby Maguire pulls the cranks.
Vader, don't turn me into thesad man. Peter, don't do it. No,
you.
You're using the Vulture's youth.

(49:47):
The Tablets of Time.
That's exactly what all thespecial features are like on the
disc. It's amazing now. Sothey're just very open about all
the things that are going onbehind the scenes. So the. The one
that stuck out me the most wasRobert Hussein. Apparently was having

(50:10):
an affair with one of theactresses in the mo. Yes. And, and
the husband found out andRobert Hussein used all, all of his
acting skills to convince thehusband that they weren't actually,
they were training for themovie. And it was, they had to go
through their lines withoutclothes because it's very hard to
act naturally while naked.

(50:32):
Yes, it, it was to free her,so she had to act new. This was incredible,
this entire story. And I 100%believe Hussein is that much of a
pimp, honestly. Look at him.
He looks like a man who has anaffair with your wife. That is exactly
what he looks like.
It's just like the most Frenchactor story I've ever heard.

(50:56):
He came, he saw, he conquered,he immediately went back to France.
So they had to rush all of hisscenes in like one day he.
Stayed around just long enoughto sleep with a man's wife.
I mean, he was, he was therefor, you know, the movie proper.
But listening to like theproducers and the director talk about
it, it's, it's fascinatingbecause the producer's like, yeah,
this is Robert Hussein'smovie. This is about the villain.

(51:18):
And the director is like, no,no, no, it's about the girl. It's.
That's, it's her movie.
So I just want to say usingstop motion on actual people to replicate
the movement of an automatonis brilliant. And I want to see if
the directors do that.
Yeah, I always love it whenthey do stop motion with an actual
human being because you can'tmake them perfectly still. So it

(51:39):
always ends up being like alittle twitchy and weird looking.
I'm specifically thinking ofAsh's hand infection in the Evil
Dead. There's a beautiful shotof the infection just racing through
his hand and it's barely evena second long if that. But you can
just see Bruce Campbell had toleave his hand fucking on a table
for six hours to get the shot.And I, I love the weird janky effect

(52:05):
you get with that kind ofstuff. So anyways, I guess everyone
in this casting crew just.
It's a horny movie.
Just a horny movie. But thenyou have, you have some of the. They,
they had an actress who'sbeing interviewed on the special
features. And it's hilariousbecause she's just like, didn't enjoy
this one at all. It's the auntthey, yeah, they didn't want to cast.

(52:28):
Like, who is the wife of theproducer, by the way.
Yeah, she's like, they didn'twant to cast me because they thought
like, you know, I was, I wasjust getting preferential treatment
and all this other stuff, butI still got the movie, and I. They
weren't nice to me, and Ididn't like them. I didn't like the
lead actress. Right afterevery other person who's being interviewed
has talked about how much theyloved working with the lead actress.
She did not seem like apleasant woman at all.

(52:50):
My favorite thing is, even inthe promotional material for this,
when the movie was beingreleased, Sergio was like, I don't
give a shit about this movie.I'm helping Dario Argento out. My
next movie, that's gonna bereally good.
But it's. I laughed every timebecause before this actress made

(53:12):
a comment, she would be like,well, I gotta be honest. She should
have some variation of I gottatell the truth. Like, no, you don't.
But please, please do. Andthey seem to.
Whoever was editing thatseemed to be enjoying lingering on
her sometimes just so youcould like, yeah, she was like that.

(53:38):
I do appreciate Severin. Ithink it was Severin that put out
the special release of this.Did a ton of interviews, which has
got to be a hard sell becausethe collectors are going to get this
and go, oh, it's in Italian.And kind of zone out. Or not pay
attention, or not even wantthem because of the language barrier.
But they still put in theextra effort. They got interviews

(53:59):
with the composer, they gotinterviews with the director. They
put a new commentary in. They.They still went for it, even though
there was that language gap.
It's a pretty release.
Yeah.
I don't know if this is justme, but it was so distracting the

(54:20):
first time I was watching it.That's all I can think of now. There
is something intangibly modernabout this building in a way that's
really, like, anachronistic.Right. I don't know if it's just
the way the hallway looked orsomething, but it's odd seeing someone
in period dress walking around this.
Yeah. I think the handheldalso goes a long way of like.

(54:43):
Yeah.
Taking something away from.But not even in a bad way, like,
you know, Michael Mann sort ofperiod piece sort of way.
That was the first thing thatcame to mind because just think of
Public Enemies and. And howstrange that film feels because he's
experimenting with digitalhandheld photography. And it's just
like. But. But it's the 1930s.What's happening?

(55:05):
Didn't they fuck with theframe rate, too, a little bit in
Public Enemies?
Yeah, well, back. Back then, Idon't think there. There wasn't really
frame rate on digitalphotography that was the same as
film frame rate. So yeah, justthere, there is a lot of extra frames
and it just made it look likepeople were wearing costumes, which
is what they were doing.

(55:25):
So there's just something toolike you expect if you're watching
a movie about the 30s, itshould just be like in black and
white or something. You know,it's not. It feels like this is wrong,
this isn't the past.
And it's weird because Iremember American Gangster came out
around that time. I believethat was, that was Ridley Scott.

(55:45):
And yeah, that's a Scott picture.
The second you get to like the70s, it is perfectly okay for it
to just look like a modernmovie. Like your brain doesn't, doesn't
zone out because like AmericanGangster is like modern Ridley Scott
as. And yet that. It's not anachronistic.

(56:05):
But.
But yeah, the second you go.The second the clothes significantly
change, you have to change filmmaking.
I think so.
I think with like a scene likethis, that handheld just makes it
feel like you're walkingaround in the room, which makes it
seem less artifice.
Well, it's, it's such a jumpbecause they use it for that scene.

(56:26):
And then we jump back to hereand these are all, you know, like
static shots of the. Thetorture dungeon with the mysteriously
colored goo in the backgroundand the electricity effects.
And civility. Did not want todo handheld, but.
Well, I think handheld wouldhave been very difficult for the
effects. Right. If you'retrying to rotoscope in all the lightning
effects that was, you know,even in 97, I mean, digitally drawn

(56:47):
in or whatever, that it'sstill, I'm assuming, much more difficult
if you have a free roamingcamera compared to something locked
down.
So why do I feel like eitherMike Mignola or Guillermo del Toro
had this particular scene inmind when they create. When they
were designing Cronin.
This feels. I mean, obviouslythere's no giant bugs or anything,
but it looks like it could bea set from Mimic.

(57:09):
Yeah.
I am obsessed with how thisscene and the similar sequence at
the end of the movie look somuch like old sci fi covers. Especially
the color palette.
Yes. Oh yeah, they're superold pulp covers.
Like old.
Yeah. I love it so much.
Basically this looks likesomething from Heavy Metal.

(57:35):
I'm just thinking thisactually reminds me of not this specific
effect going on right now ofhim waxifying people, but the, the
whole torture dungeon justreminds me of something out of like
old, old, old school LooneyTunes. Like whenever they would meet
a Mad Scientist dude have verysimilar kind of stuff. You know,
electricity arcing everywherein vials of mysterious goo bubbling.

(57:59):
That's what I want. Bring thatback. I want more Mad Scientist movies.
I never really thought aboutit, but it's funny to think of how
low key the inspirations forthose visuals were and like, just.
Just old like Universal Sci FiMonster. I think how much that was
exaggerated in animation tothe point where that just became

(58:20):
what Mad Science looked like.
We're kind of talking overthis, but I would wager to say this
is probably Stivaletti'sfavorite part of the movie. Like
the way it kind of lingers onit. This for him is the big tentpole
moment of the film. Andcoincidentally it happens at the
exact middle of the movie. Sothis is in my mind, this is what

(58:45):
he wanted. This is the wholereason he made the picture, because
he wanted this scene.
There's so much ooky going on.
And to our earlier pointshere, this is their new inn on the
Wax Museum because we've seenit a dozen times where someone is
being covered in wax and beingmade into a living statue. And this

(59:05):
gives it that fresh angle of.Nah, it's not quite that. It's not
as simple as dumping them inwax. They're being transmogrified.
More horror movies really needto pull from alchemy.
Damn, this high. Bill.

(59:30):
Pictured being a criminalMastermind in the 1900s.
Well, it left all the bloodaround, but they can't do anything
with that.
Luckily in Italy everyone'salways making love, so you can just
kind of like bust into places.
This has been something that'sbeen on my mind since watching this
Mike. And I know very littleabout Italian filmmaking. So I'm

(59:51):
curious if maybe like youcould shed a little bit of light
on this. There seems to be avery fascinating parallel between
sex and death in Italiancinema, especially G allo. But it
seems very, very differentfrom how American movies tie together

(01:00:13):
sex and death, which is in avery classically Christian death
is the punishment for sex. Waylike one leads to the other. But
in Italian cinema, it seemslike death and sex are. Are more

(01:00:33):
like sisters. More likethere's something that's leaked together
through sensuality and playoff each other rather than one leads
to the other.
Yeah, she's talking about the wax.
Oh. And it's sexuality is somuch more open. I mean in cross Europe
in general. But yeah, in Italyespecially is just nudity and sexuality

(01:00:58):
are just not something that'sparticularly shied away from in and
not Even like, where nudebodies sometimes aren't necessarily
sexualized. Also, this originis metal as fuck.
He's getting the Joker treatment.
I'd love to see this happen toVincent Price.
No.

(01:01:19):
My Beautiful Face and the.
And then Skeletor comes out,comes about and says he'll be back.
Freeze frame.
But yeah, there's kind ofthroughout, like, all, like, Italian
literature and stuff, there's.And cinema, there's a symbiotic connection

(01:01:39):
between sex and death becausethey're both. They're both seen as
kind of like the opposites ofeach other. I mean, besides, like,
the pleasure aspect. Butthere's also the one makes life,
one takes life sort of thing.So they're the exact opposites of.
Of each other. And I think,like, that freedom they like playing

(01:02:00):
off of a lot.
Yeah. The thing that first gotme thinking about that, like, years
and years ago was just seeingMilo Menara's art for the first time.
Where the two things that dudedraws relentlessly throughout his
career is the moment ofinsertion and people getting their

(01:02:23):
throats cut. Both with equal.Drawn with equal vigor.
So a while back, we mentionedthe idea that this isn't exploring
the wax museum as a form ofartistry upon the creator. And I

(01:02:44):
definitely agree with thattake because this one, it's more
focused on kind of a madscience advancement and the Wax museum
is more incidental. But it'salmost like, well, why even bother
having the wax museum if theguy making the wax figures doesn't
really give a shit about theartistry behind his displays? So
I guess it's inherently goingto be part of the movie that the

(01:03:06):
guy is a little bit of anartist. But the movie makes zero
effort to really expand onthat idea for once because it's always
kind of percolating in theback or a major key component of
a wax movie, but not here,which sets this one up so much. Sets
this one so apart from all theother ones.
Yeah. And I think thatactually kind of goes back to the.

(01:03:27):
Honestly, the sex thing in away, because it's exhibition. Like,
he's kind of owning thesepeople and he's putting them on display.
And he is kind of like,churned up in some sort of sensual
way about this. So he's doingthese experiments, but also this
is like his means to an end.Like he's creating this gallery of

(01:03:50):
them.
Yeah. As compared to VincentPrice in the House of Wax, where
he is in love with hiscreations. Vincent Price wants those
statues because he is in lovewith them. So it is obviously Possessive.
But a lot of it is sad in adifferent way, where he's maybe not
trying to control them, but totry and make companionship for himself.

(01:04:11):
Yeah.
Here's a question I've beenmulling over. I'm curious what you
guys think. Would youconsider, if not entirely informed
and in function, a Bucket ofBlood to technically be a wax movie?
I rewatched it recently, andthat was on my mind too, because

(01:04:32):
obviously it's not the exactsame thing, but it's hitting pretty
close. Right. He covers hisvictims in a thick layer of modeling
clay and turns them into art.
Yeah. And it's doing a very.It's playing on some similar themes.
I mean, the Mystery of the MaxMuseum and Wax Museum are definitely

(01:04:55):
doing the. Like, they're moremeta in it, I think. I don't think
people appreciate, like, thoseare, like, early meta films about,
like, violence and stuff.Particularly, like, having the wax
figures be specifically of,like, executions and things like
that. Things that wereattended by large galleries of people.
Like it was entertainment.

(01:05:16):
Yeah.
And in a way, Bucket ofBlood's kind of doing a similar thing
of, like, using violence as away to show art and create community
and building an audience,because people crave that in some
way, even if they're notconsciously aware of it.

(01:05:36):
I very much see most waxmovies being about the relationship
of a creator. Like, they'reabout making art and they want to
make art, and that's the wholething they're after. Whereas A Bucket
of Blood, yeah, Dick Millerwants to make art, but to your point,
Mike, he's doing it for thecommunity. He wants to be part of

(01:05:57):
the artist community and hewants to be famous. So to me, that's
kind of the line in the sandfor A Bucket of Blood compared to
House of Wax. He's not doingthis necessarily because he loves
art itself. He's doing thisbecause he would like to become famous
and he thinks he might havesome sort of skill in the movie.

(01:06:17):
Lampoons that whole communityand how silly it is he'd want to
blend in with these peoplebecause most of them are, you know,
very goofy, beatnik kind of guys.
Lousy beatniks.
I love that. Douchebag. Coolpeople have always plagued America,
no matter what the generation.I found that very comforting when
I first watched that movie.There's another. Another thought.

(01:06:44):
We're talking about, like.Like, themes in these wax movies
and, like, how, like, thedesires of the artist play a part
in that. Do you think that.And maybe this is more so prevalent
in, like, the. Like reallyolder wax movies, there's maybe kind
of a, a vaguely Christianthread or just a vaguely anti human

(01:07:12):
arrogance thread to thesemovies of, look at this jackass trying
to essentially plagiarizeGod's creation. Look at, look at
somebody trying to turnsomething that is already in its
idealized form into art,because now a person with it.

(01:07:37):
That's where I think alchemybeing used is so interesting. Because
what, you know, what is. Whatwere alchemists trying to do? They
were essentially trying to beGod. You know, that was kind of beyond
science and that was justcreating out of thin air, essentially
morphing the. More morphingthe world to what they wanted. So

(01:08:01):
kind of like extending that tosomething like creating like wax
statues that recreates thehuman form, but in the way that,
you know, Boris Wanset isdefinitely playing with those kind
of ideas.

(01:08:22):
We've always seen the, the waxmuseum being an offshoot of the Frankenstein
kind of story too. You know,making the body controlling the body.
And then Frankenstein takes adifferent jag because it starts talking
about like, oh, I'm terrifiedand regretful of what I've done.
Normally in the wax movies,it's like, no, this is fucking great.
I want to make more waxpeople. More wax. More wax. And in

(01:08:47):
that line too, you can maybeeven lump in stories about the golem.
You know, anytime where a manhas made a humanoid monster something,
something in his image, but perverted.
Golem, which ironically, Ithink that was an actual real Gaston
Laro story that I think theydid all they did actually borrow

(01:09:08):
from for this a little bit.
I think the, the majordifferentiation between a golem story
and a wax story would be waxstories are all typically about science.
And the golem is going to be areligious story. So they, they can
be shaped very similarly, butthere's very different machinery
under the hood.

(01:09:29):
I think there's also like,golem stories are more like direct
vengeance. There's somethingmore. The, the wax stories seem to
be more about punishment. Thenit's like straight vengeance. Like
there's a point trying to beproven. Not even directed at anyone

(01:09:50):
specific, just the world at large.
I mean, well, with golem,right, it's always justified. To
begin, the Jewish communityneeds a protector and they're given
one. And then it goes too farand they lose control over that power.
So it's almost like theoriginal nuclear power story, right?
Like, oh, no, we made nukes.We've won World War II. Oh God, everything's

(01:10:11):
very bad now, as.
I feel like with the Waxmuseum stories. There's. What is
a wax museum horror movie, ifnot a movie about the horror of desecrating
the dead? I mean, in every waxmuseum movie, what are the exhibits
if not tainted grave sites, essentially?

(01:10:41):
I think a lot of those kind offears probably started popping up
when grave robbing was so invogue. I mean, going back to some
of the inspiration for thismovie, like and the Alchemist, some
of the alchemists thatinspired Stability's take on Boris,

(01:11:01):
that was stuff that they wereinfamous for or at least rumored
to have done, which was graveRob and steel bodies to do their
experiments on. And that ismost likely true. And I think grave
desecration and bodydesecration is something that is
like kind of a. Like it's inall of our. Like, in everybody's

(01:11:25):
mind, but is also sort of ataboo subject. Almost. Like, it's
just. It's unfathomable forsome people to. To grasp. And it's
a. It's a horrifying idea. Andthat's why I really like how it's,
you know, you don't see graverobbing or anything in, like, Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, but it'stalked about like, this is something

(01:11:47):
that's. That sets up thehorror that's going to take place,
is mentioning that there'sgrave desecration going on, that
people are stealing bodies forsome reason.
Yeah. On top of that, it'sfascinating to me when you go Back
to the 30s, the 40s, how manymovies were made about grave robbing?

(01:12:10):
That was a hot topic. And Ithink you can get away with those
because you're not showinganything too explicit, but you're
still bringing up taboo ideasthat would be terrifying to an audience.
So you can get around the HaysCode very easily and still have something
disturbing. So you're gonnaend up with a ton of movie like the
Flesh and the Fiends, whereit's like, okay, cool, let's get
a couple of good actors andjust have them hauling around dummy

(01:12:31):
corpses.
There's something very harshabout when something's horrible is
happening to you when you'realive. Like, yeah, that's. That's
terrifying to imagine, butit's the. I don't know what happens
to me after death, and I canstill be fucked with. I think it's

(01:12:53):
something like really eats atpeople when that idea comes up.
Well, also, in his bookWasteland, Scott Poole puts forth
a really interesting theoryfor why so much of people's macabre
interests went to. In thedirection of, you Know, grave robbing,

(01:13:18):
the display of bodies forsport, the desecration of grapes.
And it is explanation for thatis just world with. With the horrors
of World War I and a lot ofpeople in Europe and America dealing
with their very first exposureto mass death and just seeing disfigurement

(01:13:41):
and just, you know, massgraves and things like that, a very
suppressed desire for playingwith dead bodies kind of arose in
the. In the subconscious ofpeople, as he puts it, wanting your

(01:14:02):
own death doll to explore themacabre feelings that all of this
death that's surrounding youis bringing up. And I think there's.
I think there's a lot of truthin there. I mean, after World War
I, there was a briefresurgence in wax museums around
America. Like, why else wouldthat be going on? I mean, the. The

(01:14:25):
poppy, like I remembercorrectly, like, even like Turing.
Companies of Frankensteinreceived a splurge in popularity
after World War I. Like,leading into the film being made
is. People got really, reallyinterested in. Yeah, but what. What
would it look like if somebodydied and like you. You just dug them

(01:14:46):
out of their grave? What wouldit look like if you. With a dead
body? Are there stories aboutthat? Is that okay to talk about.
Curiosity about death? Thething we don't talk about, but we
all have.
One thing I want to shoehornin is I just finished reading a book

(01:15:06):
called Food for the Dead onthe Trail of New England's Vampires
by Michael Bell, who is afolklorist who spent years tracking
different vampire storiesthroughout the New England region.
And, yeah, there was somefascinating ones there from the 1700s,
right after the RevolutionaryWar, of consumption going through

(01:15:28):
the country. So people weredying of tuberculosis and they didn't
quite understand it. Theydidn't know what was causing it.
So whole families might catchit and people would die maybe slowly,
or some people would get thedisease and die within months. So
they didn't even quiteunderstand how the disease worked
or what its scale would be.And so people would turn to folk

(01:15:48):
medicine in some cases, to tryand deal with these things. So one
of the ideas was, okay,someone in this family is a vampire,
and they are draining the lifeessence from their family from the
grave. And the only way todeal with this is to go dig up the
graves of everyone in thefamily who has died of consumption

(01:16:08):
over the years, check thecorpse to see if it had, you know,
unusual signs of decay, likethe body wasn't decaying fast enough
or at all. Check the organs tosee if they still had fresh blood
in them. And then if theyfound one they thought was suspicious,
they would cut out the heart,burn it, and then mix the ashes into

(01:16:30):
water or some other kind ofliquid and make it into a medicine
for the remaining afflictedmembers of the family to drink and
cure themselves.
Which.
That's bonkers. That wasobviously. Obviously there weren't
thousands of cases of this,but it happened several times. It
wasn't like one isolatedincident where there was one person

(01:16:51):
that got dug up and, you know,had their. Their corpse mutilated,
essentially. It was a thingAmericans actually did at some point
because they just didn't havethe science to help them figure out
how to get around these issues.
I just like the idea of thatbeing proposed to the family and
them just going, I knowexactly who that motherfucker is.
I don't even have to look.We're going to Dave's grave.

(01:17:14):
Well, all the cases in thebook, it would be like they would
dig up, you know, like five orsix family members that died over
a period, like 10 years orsomething. I'd be like, no, this
one's fine, this one's fine,this one's fine. There's something
about Mary, take her heartout. But even then, like, these are
legends essentially at thispoint, right? Because they happened
several hundred years ago. Sothe stories that get passed down
would be stuff like, oh, andthe corpse was turned in the grave.

(01:17:37):
That's how we knew it was the vampire.
But it's somehow gotten lessfat after dying.
There. There was one piece inthere where the. The folklorist was
talking about, like, he. Heinterviewed a person who was a child
when one of these happenedback in, like, the. The very late
1800s. So it still was a thingthat could happen relatively recently,

(01:18:01):
like a couple generationsback, that there was a living memory
of these kind of events. Andthen, you know, he talked to people
in these towns and try to getopinions from them. And it doesn't
connect that neatly to theidea of corpse robbing, but it's
in there because they stillhad to convince family members and

(01:18:23):
community members that it wasokay to dig up the grave of the dead
and fuck with the body. Whichled to some other interesting techniques
too. Like if you had asuspected vampire, some of them,
they would decapitate the headand put it by the feet as a way to
tell the vampire, no, you'redead. You got. You gotta. You gotta

(01:18:44):
move on. Your head doesn'tbelong here. You know this.
You gotta accept that you're dead.
Yeah. Or they would turn thecorpse around. So it'd be facing
the dirt instead of the sky.So that way if the vampire's soul
left its body, it would go thewrong direction. Never, never reach
its family members to torture them.
I love how stupid some peoplethink the universe is. Oh, you just

(01:19:08):
have to fool that eternal spirit.
Getting even further away fromthe point of this movie. I love thinking
about this. When a lot ofthese legends formed, this was well
before Dracula was written,well before the movie version came
out. So the idea of what avampire was to someone in the 1700s

(01:19:31):
bears zero resemblance to thevampires we think of when we think
of Dracula. And that's thevampire now, right? Like, pretty
much all the vampire mythos isstuff we've pulled from Dracula.
So the old folk legends ofvampires, they might as well be talking
about aliens instead ofvampires. Like, these are totally
different creatures than whatyou would think. It wasn't a guy

(01:19:51):
who popped out of the gravewhen the sun went down and started
sucking blood. It was likesome sort of corrupted soul that
would leak out of the graveand go find family members and drain
them of essence beforereturning back to its own grave site.
Which honestly means it makesway more sense to see like as inorganic

(01:20:12):
superstition, to look at itthat way than to imagine our modern
interpretation of vampires asjust a race of monsters. Yeah, like
folklore is a lot lessDungeons and Dragons than you might
think from the modern era.
This is one of the best partsabout reading through anything from

(01:20:32):
Mike Mignola, like when he'smaking Hellboy Story. He has done
a lot of the folklore readinghimself. So he's coming up with weird
ass versions of monsters whereit's like, hey, history said that's
how it happened. They werejust a bunch of entrails connected
to a throat.
That's why that's what I love about.
His stories are always veryfun because they're so different
from like what you wouldexpect a werewolf or a vampire should

(01:20:54):
be.
Oh yeah. And so I want to seemore projects take like, go back
to like the old folkloricversions of things. So I love about
the movie Vampir since thatcame before. No, you know, before
Dracula for Nosferatu and allthat. The vampires in in that are
super, like region specific.And I love that so much. Like all

(01:21:17):
the rules have nothing to dowith any kind of vampire lore that
would take over. It's all justvery specific to like one area in
the world of how these thingsoperate. And like the whole like
you have to stab them to theground with like a steel pole. To

(01:21:38):
trap their soul to the earthand all that. And like the. Ah, it's.
I'm going to interrupt for asecond because I. This is probably
my favorite kill scene. Andthis was full on Fulci. They took
this from the script anddidn't mess around with it much.
The blood on the recordplayer, the man next to his own face.

(01:22:00):
It's a very fulcy scene. Theonly thing that's missing is eye.
Gouging, which I thought iswhere it was going when the guy initially
pulled out, you know, the. Theice pick.
I still can't believe theydidn't put eye gouging in as like
an ode to Fulci. It.
It was very surprising. Ireally. You know, he just kind of
stabs him. You get the spurtof blood, but would have made 100

(01:22:20):
more sense to me if he justgets him right in the eyeball. No.
So I love that wax beautifulback there, by the way.
Yeah. The melting face. VeryOoky. We got another one, boys. Oh,
well.
We can still open though, right?
It's fine, it's fine.
Just the bobbies from theabominable Dr. Fives are there. Oh,

(01:22:43):
it's all this them model.
You know, Fives is like fivepoints away from being wax museum
movie.
I can. Yeah, I can. I can kindof see that. I mean, it's. It's like
a Six degrees is Kevin Baconkind of deal. You can probably make
anything a wax movie if youreach far enough.
Grant. I guess a lot ofVincent Price movies kind of just

(01:23:06):
become waxwork movieseventually, but without wax.
He had a decent number ofmovies too, where he was like some
sort of tortured artist. Andyes, his motivation was the Corman.
One where he was an actor. Itwasn't Corman, but was it Theater
of Blood?
Theater of Blood, Yes, Theaterof Blood.
He's having so much fun inthat movie.

(01:23:29):
What was. What's the otherone? Oh, there's the mad magician.
Yes.
So an artist of a differenttype, you know, more of a performer.
But I think Price made a goodnumber of those kind of movies where
he's. He's playing some sortof insane artist.
Why didn't they ever have himplay like an insane cook?
I'm scratching my head. I'mtrying to think like, oh, wait, did

(01:23:50):
he ever have one of those? Idon't. He just had the TV shows where
he'd show you how to cook.
Yeah. The only time he playeda chef was in Theater of Blood.
Yep. I mean, it could havebeen worse, right? The Early Vincent
Price roles were all stufflike Tower of Terror kind of deals
where they're just putting inthese way back period pieces or some

(01:24:12):
sort of like aggrieved, youknow, 1600s era kind of nobleman.
Oh, God speaking. Did you guyssee that the Vincent Price cooking
video is getting a prestigiousBlu Ray release?
It is. I saw that a while back.
That's awesome.
But I thought just the. I'mpretty sure I saw that just the other

(01:24:34):
day, like with the date and everything.
Hopefully. Hopefully you'reseeing a different one than I was
seeing because the one I sawwas Region Locked. Ooh.
It's possible. I'm just amazedthat that exists in general. Someone
lovingly restored that.
I would buy it if it wasregion free or.
I'm sorry.
But yeah, the only one I'dseen was a release that was coming

(01:24:55):
out that was going to bespecifically for Europe.
Can we do a watch along withthat of that?
I think that'd be delightful.
Just making the food as itgoes. Yeah. Right now you can buy
the book cooking price wisefor $17.
By the way, taking us backlike eight minutes into the conversation,

(01:25:17):
we were talking about how muchweirder actual folklore is compared
to like the Hollywood versionof folklore. I had to dig out multiple
folklore books from thebookshelf next to me because I googled
this and couldn't finddocumentation on it, but. You guys
ever heard of the Sticky Dogof East Tennessee?

(01:25:40):
I have not. Tell me more.
The Sticky Dog is a. Oh, no.The God hand is after her. I'm sorry.
Berserk.
The Sticky Dog is a dog that'ssticky checks.
Yep.
And once you touch it, youcannot become unstuck from it as

(01:26:03):
though it is covered in tarand it just runs across the town
dragging you behind it. And ifpeople touch you, they get stuck
as well. So.
Yeah, like a human centipedeof sticky dog.
Yeah. So there's just themental image of just a tiny little
yappy dog running across adirt road in Tennessee with like

(01:26:26):
a building, being drug minded.It was also unrelated to the Tennessee
long dog, which is just. Whichis a really long dog that has no
ass. Like it just keeps goingand going and going and going, which
to someone in Appalachia wouldbe the scariest thing they've ever

(01:26:50):
seen in their lives.
That dog ain't got no wind.
I. I'm really glad a StickyDog wasn't what I thought you were
going, which was whenever youejaculate and it just kind of runs
down and you don't clean itup. That's what a sticky dog is.

(01:27:12):
That's the urban dictionaryversion of a sticky dog.
I hope people who arelistening to this commentary were
expecting that kind of visual.
This is, this is the kind ofthing that drives people out of Tennessee.
They don't want to liveanywhere near a sticky dog of either
variety.
So I like how that's, that wasthe joke being made over the visual

(01:27:35):
effect of flying intosomeone's wax DNA.
All waxed up and nowhere to go.
I'm sorry. There have beeninstances in the past of a large,
strong, sticky dog hightailingit through the woods, around and

(01:27:57):
over rocks in search of water,with as many as six or seven screaming
children stuck to its back,never seen alive by their parents
again. I love the sticky dog.
I, I the best part of thesticky dog to me is that it means
that you are on the sticky dogforever. So there's just a dog covered
in.
Goo and skeletons, skeletons,child skeletons just.

(01:28:21):
Decorate for Halloween yearround. Run around with like eight
skulls stuck on its back.
It's just the critter's.
My God, I look awful in thisphoto. Put it together, put it together.

(01:28:44):
Come on.
I love this. So this is howhe's found out. This is when it brings
it all crumbling down. Theveins and the photography.
The amount of mad sciencesthat have been taken down by photography
enthusiasts.
That's why, like it's a waxmuseum. You just put up a sign up

(01:29:04):
front that's like, nophotography, guys. Sorry, no God.
What do you think the overunder is on? How many actual honest
to God crimes have been solvedinside of dark rooms.
In the world of movies or in.
Real life actually got beenable to go, it was him and then just
blow the case wide open. Thathas to have happened at least once.

(01:29:30):
You know, I'm actually gonnabet against it, except for maybe
actually in like the 1940s.
Like, God, pop culture did notprepare me for how little dark rooms
would factor into adult life.
Pop culture doesn't prepareyou that dark rooms are actually
dark?
Oh, they're not. They don'tjust have a red bulb in there.

(01:29:55):
It turns out a dark room, youknow, is dark and can't have light
in it.
I mean, it's got to haveenough where you can operate slightly.
There's the red light thing.Makes a small amount of sense to
me. Obviously it's not glaringlike in the movies, but I feel like
they probably have a littlebit of light in there, right?
I mean, I would imagine theyhave to have a little Bit of something

(01:30:17):
that's an exaggerated a ton.But yeah, yeah. A lot of photographers
have said, like, yeah, we justoperate in the dark when we're in
there. All of the light thatis usually in movies and TV in regards
to a dark room would destroyall the photographs.
But look, I'm okay with that.I want to see what's happening in

(01:30:38):
there. I don't want like a twominute scene where it's all black.
I'm gonna have. I'm gonna havemy werewolves experience where they're
gonna be like, oh, I guess themovie's done. And they're just like,
it's dark. It's over.
The audience was not there forthat story, Cody. It's before the
recorder was on.
And it's because. And becauseit's about the. It's about the movie

(01:30:59):
Werewolves. They'll never hearthat story because we.
Won'T talk you on werewolvessome more and piss off Frank Grill
all over again.
Yeah, I'll do it again. Iheard. And this was on IMDb, so it
has to be true. In del Toro'sfirst Hellboy, there's a scene where
Agent Myers gets knocked outand screen goes to black and then

(01:31:20):
Elsa starts talking to him. Sothe screen is still black, but you're
still getting some exposition,dialogue, that kind of stuff. And
it's like a 40 second scenewhere it's like slowly coming back
to color. I have heard thattheaters would often cut prints because
they thought there was justsome sort of printing error and there
was just 40 seconds ofblackness in there, so they would
just chop that scene down.Again, it came from IMDb as a fun

(01:31:42):
fact, so it must be true. Andtheaters definitely did this back
in the day.
I believe theaters would dothat. Theaters are terrible.
Well, specifically theaters inour lifetime seem to have gotten
extremely weird about silenceand darkness.
And I should say too, this wasearly enough where there were still

(01:32:04):
film prints instead of justlike a digital file you were playing.
So you theoretically did haveto have as a projectioner, Projectioner,
projectionist, some. Someknowledge of splicing film together
in case it ever broke or tore.So it could have happened. It seems
sound enough in that sense. Istill really don't know if I believe
it or not. But it's a fun story.

(01:32:25):
Theaters hate movies.
Sharing it with you.
I don't care if heartbreakfeels real in a place like that.
It was. I feel like people aregoing, like years from now are going
to be clowning on the factthat those Nicole Kidman intros became

(01:32:51):
a meme because people thoughtthey were stupid. And AMC interpreted
that as, oh, people reallylike these. Let's air them forever.
Why don't people go to thetheater anymore?
I mean, we tricked them intoputting Morbius back in theaters.
People. People don'tunderstand you.
Do not blame the Internet.

(01:33:17):
It's really hard to take thischaracter seriously when none of
his clothes fit. Just bugs me.
This is. It's been driving meinsane the whole movie. Because there's
an Italian film from, like,the 60s that's very reminiscent,
I would say, the start of thisfilm, where the guy is just kind
of taking the bet to hide inthe wax house for a night. It's essentially

(01:33:39):
the same setup, but the guymakes a bet with Edgar Allan Poe
to, like, stay in a hauntedhouse for one night and meets ghosts.
And it's because I can't thinkof the title of that movie. And it's
like, oh, man, this is this.Like, come on, Somebody saw that
thing before they made this.
I like mischievous scamp Poe there.

(01:34:00):
This is the worst blind actingI've ever seen, by the way. I just
want to point that out.
I'm very amused that thisdirector went on to do the effects
for dark glasses a couple ofyears ago. Italian blindness.

(01:34:25):
I keep expecting her to justwalk right into a big hole.
Wax faces.
Anyways, this was the actresson the special features that had
all the dirt, which. It's abummer, too, because she's like,
oh, I can't. That's all I wantto say after, like, bringing up three,
like, nasty stories. Like, no,you've got more. Give it to us. Also,

(01:34:52):
no one really had anything nice.
To say about her either.
No. The director's like, Ithink she did a very fine job. I
think she was excellent atbeing blind. And then it cuts to
her being like, my performancewas. I didn't like it. She didn't
even think her own performancewas good.
I appreciate the consistency.
She's very honest. Yeah,Abrasive maybe, but honest. So you
have to appreciate that.

(01:35:12):
It's called being maximumbattalion. I can say that because
it's my people. You can't say that.
Or I feel like Germans areallowed to hate Italians.
Germans aren't allowed to hateanybody anymore. They lost that ability.
But America has done such agood job with our hatred since then.

(01:35:36):
Look, it's a rule. Only onecountry gets to be hateful. Period
of man.
Finland, it's your turn now.Hold on. Are we trying to say the
French are nice to all theirneighbors? Because I don't believe
that. I think they probablyare mean to their neighbors.

(01:35:58):
Higher quality of life thaneverybody. So they're protective
of it.
Oh.
I mean, aren't the Frenchunder fascist rule again?
Oh, yeah.
Keep track of these things.
To be fair, everybody else. Iwas gonna say, you can say that about
most major countries now.Italy is checked about that. There

(01:36:18):
was a coup.
Ah. I think France just had avote of no confidence in their government.
So they're, I think, currentlygoing into a new election or something.
I don't know. I don't.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Primeminister was removed.
Yeah.
France, this is Bob TalksWorld Politics now.
Get used to it. This is thenew Bill Maher.

(01:36:40):
Yeah.
Because the old one dies inthis film. I've always been fascinated
by how France does seem tohave an objectively better standard
of living and an objectivelybetter, like, understanding of a
lot of things, especially,like, labor relations, but is also
terrifyingly on the brink offascism at all times. I don't know

(01:37:02):
how you can be both.
Jamie, you've been lied to byBig Baguette. I do.
I do appreciate Boris'svillain speech here in the third

(01:37:24):
act. Like, no, no, no, no, no.I just pose them in the moment of
death because that makes themimmortal there.
It's not weird at all. You're weird.
I'm the good guy.

(01:37:47):
Now we're put on my supervillain mask.
I love that mask so fucking much.
That seems like one trick ortreat. Studio should be making. They
should get the rights to thisdirt cheap and start putting that
out for Halloween.
That can't be expensive. It'srubber and a screen.
So we're getting close to whenHossein actually leaves the movie

(01:38:08):
because he didn't like makeup.So it's somebody wearing a mask of
his own face, which actuallyhas a cool Uncanny Valley quality
to it. That really works.
That is a point we haven'tgotten into too much about, really,
at these movies. It's theearly version of the Uncanny Valley,
all of them. Right. The wax ofit's Close to man. But early off.

(01:38:34):
I think I mentioned itearlier, though, but the actor here
had his own project he had todo, and the producer's like, I get
his point. So they jammed allof his scenes together to try and
film them in, like. Well, notall of the scenes, but his remaining
scenes together in, like, aday. So I'm sure that probably influenced
some of the idea to, like.Yeah, can we just make him a Terminator

(01:38:54):
fully?
God, if only they had they haddone that on the Goldbergs, Things
would have been a lot lessawkward. T1000, Jeff Garland comes
out and starts shooting the Family.

(01:39:15):
Oh, God.
He's not gonna be here next season.
I just imagine. I loveimagining him emerging from, like,
he just busts out.
Jeff Garland falls into a vatof molten wax, and a robot comes
out the Curb Enthusiasm theme place.

(01:39:39):
Boy, there have been, like,nine murders here. We just can't
get a clue. This is tough.
You think in designing themakeup or the application process
or filming or. At any pointwhen making this movie, one person
on set said, looks like DarthVader without the helmet. Right.

(01:39:59):
There's a little bit of that.It really does remind me of Vincent
Price from Although in theshot. Definitely more Vader. It does.
It reminds me so much ofVincent Price, especially with the
cloak and all that. It's like,clearly they're just trying to make
Vincent Price again.
Mystery of the Wax Museum hadthe best monster face.
That was pretty good, though.
This one also has theTerminator, so it's.

(01:40:22):
It's up in the air. Whichone's better?
Really?
Light me on fire. You. I lightyou on fire. I love that so much.
Being attacked by a man who'son fire, who you just lit on fire
is so amazing.
That's how I play video games.If someone hits you with a flamethrower,
you got to run into them andburn them before your character dies.

(01:40:43):
Also a staple of any good waxmovie. The whole place has to burn
down.
Yes.
You just gotta. It's. It's. Ifyou don't do this in your wax movie,
what's the point?
It's such a staple that Ithink burning down a wax museum is
technically public domain asfar as storytelling goes. Oh, it's

(01:41:05):
so gnarly looking. I love it.
And every wax movie has thesame problem of wax just doesn't
melt like you think it will.So they have to use all sorts of
little tricks and speed up thefootage and all this kind of junk
to. To get what you expect to see.
And they have to do somethingdifferent in every single movie.
I mean, this one gets bonuspoints because, again, it's melting

(01:41:28):
the flesh off of a Terminatorthat still's got, like, some organ
stuff going on there. It'slike a general grievous deal. Yeah.
Imagine being in the theaterand this happens. It's 1997.
I do like Stoveletti's point.Like, no, it's not a robot. It's

(01:41:49):
actually a skeleton.
That's true.
Fair enough.
Yeah. It's Powered by magicgoo and hatred.
They're just not enough of theTerminator. The wax Terminator. Yeah.
It's. It's very brief.Although so weird because there's

(01:42:12):
five minutes left of this movie.
Dude.
Come on now. Now or never. Oh,right. Yes. The bill. The burning
building.
And RoboCops comes out andsteps on his brain.
Dragging Ray Weiss.

(01:42:35):
Bro. Bro. Wrong way. No. No.You're going in the smoke. No. Mysterious
stranger. Get back out here.
No. You can be loved now. Thenightmare is over.
But your hair. Slightlyfrustrating to me that this was 1997
and they didn't have a modelof the wax museum that could just
light on fire. So you getthose not great fire effects coming

(01:42:59):
out the windows. I love a goodmodel being burnt down or exploded.
So. And it's just so weirdlooking like it's organic inside
but not like guts and whatnot.
It doesn't. I mean, thebuilding itself burning down too

(01:43:19):
just doesn't feel that exciting.
No, I mean, you can tell it'sjust a building is not falling into
itself.
Yeah, it's. It loses out onlike the really high energy you need
to end the film.
I still don't reallyunderstand how any of this works
here at the end. Like, oh, Ithought it was that.

(01:43:44):
That was one of like five. Iguess he just had hanging around.
I guess he just copied himselfand had robots.
Yeah. I mean, I don't quiteunderstand this either because that
guy was revealed to like notbe evil. So he could have just walked
out with everybody else. Buthe's like, I gotta go back and get
the face I like the most.Considering you're like a wanted

(01:44:06):
murderer. Maybe just stickwith the face that's been proven
innocent.
No, he has to go with thebeautiful French man face. His fake
hands.
I just think this all thatthis means is unrelated. This guy
was a robot. Complete coincidence.
How does she get thatfireball? A good question. I do feel

(01:44:32):
like it should be. Do youremember the Terminator 2 toys that
let you inject goo onto theTerminator skeleton? He should have
a setup like that. Just basedhim his top hat.
I always like it when the evilscientist gets away to kill more
people later.
Oh, and on that one, he getsaway with a fourth wall break. That

(01:44:54):
little smirk at the camera. Sosmarmy, that motherfucker.
Turns out we were the wax maskall along.
So there you have it, folks.We've actually managed to get two
wax movies in the can. God,how many more of these do we have?

(01:45:15):
How many were we doing? We'redoing wax. The Wax Works, doing Waxworks,
Mystery of.
The Mat, Wax Museum and Houseof Wax, I believe was the agenda.
I think we're the amazing. Wewere grabbing. Yeah, yeah.
There was.
There's many, many others, folks.
There's a lot.
Yeah.
I don't think we've reallygone through the and made a definitive
list yet.

(01:45:35):
Wikipedia does in fact have alist of wax based horror movies.
I don't know if that's allencompassing, but it does have a
decent number.
We're doing wax work too.We're doing these in reverse order.
So we'd be doing Wax Work 2 first.
That's true. That'd beconfusing. Nobody's watched Wax Work
2 now. Now it came out in atwo pack when they put it on Blu

(01:45:58):
Ray. So you got both movies.People probably put the second one
in.
It's about time.
I feel like that's also theonly rate. The only reason anyone
has seen the Wishmaster moviesafter two is or just in combo packs.
I refuse to watch Wishmaster 3and 4.

(01:46:18):
Refuse. I found out AndrewDeevoff is the surgeon in Neon Maniacs
the other day and that blew my mind.
He is?
Yeah.
That's his.
I think that's his firstscreen appearance too.
How the did I never know that?I love Neon Maniacs.

(01:46:41):
He was the person from thatmovie who did something later. That's
a weird thought.
Who didn't disappear understrange circumstances.
The point got away from mebefore, but I was trying to tell
everyone, you need to go seekout chamber of horrors. 1960s. Oh
yeah, wax horror movie. Veryfun. That one has a scream release

(01:47:05):
that's a couple years old bynow. But I. I really enjoy that one
and I think. I think you guyswill too. Plus the killer has like
a Go Go Gadget replaceablehand that he can put in like a meat
cleaver or a gun.
Oh, so he's like this one.
Yeah, yeah, but in the 60s.What was the gimmick for that one

(01:47:26):
too? Isn't there like a. Like,hey, we're gonna play a loud warning
siren every time horror isabout to happen, if I'm remembering
correctly.
Anyways.
So there you have it.Dedicated to Lucio Fulci. It's nice.
It is. It's nice.
Just a nice little story.Okay, I'm officially out of things

(01:47:50):
to say about Wax Max. Oh no,we can't.
No, it doesn't have a name anymore.
I got so close to saying itcorrectly to finish things.
Guys, lately I've beenfollowing a lot of TikTok accounts
that have been telling me I'vereally got to get into wax.
Maxing wax. Max, you gotta Maxthe wax.

(01:48:18):
You got back in asmr. Yeah, sure.
Did you say it sound like yousaid mass. You gotta give him the
mass. The wax mass.
Oh, also, we can do commentaryfor Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum.
Oh, boy.
Let's not actually.
Boris Karloff. How does thateven work?
I watched the Boris Karloff FuManchu movie, and you know it's bad

(01:48:44):
when WB has to put in, like,the giant, like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
guys, look. That was someother dudes who made that one that's
just been sitting in the basement.
The ones they put in front ofthe Warner brothers. World War II
cartoons are hilarious.
Like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We have never even seen these before.

(01:49:04):
We just bought the building.
We're as mad about thesecartoons as you are, ma'.
Am.
We're gonna sell them, butwe're ashamed.
Gambling this establishment.
Yeah, prohibited. So maybelet's not do that wax movie.
We'll do the Frozen ghosts, though.

(01:49:26):
Oh, shit. Have I seen thatone? Yes. Yeah, I have, and I remember
almost nothing about it.
Can we do commentary for theTiny Toons episode? That's a parody
of Bucket of Blood.
Ooh, that does sound fun.
That was in the Night Gallery parody.
That was a fun episode.
Okay, I think I foundsomething we definitely have to do.

(01:49:50):
You can buy it right now inFull Moon Direct. It is called the
Exotic House of Wax. Oh,Legacy of. This is the description.
Legacy of lust. Most waxmuseums are boring, but there's a
new one in town. In this houseof Wax, when the heat turns up, the

(01:50:12):
statues turn on. Instead ofmeltdown, they strip down. The most
beautiful, most most powerfulpeople in the history of the world
immortalized in wax are aboutto come back to life for an extravaganza
of ecstasy. 85 minutes.
Well, okay. After that, Igotta go take care of some personal

(01:50:33):
business. So let's wrap thisup, folks. If you've enjoyed box
office Bulb, we'll be backwith more wax coverage eventually.
In our prolonged season ofwax, you can find more box office
pulp. Wherever you get yourpodcasts, we've got boxofficepulp.com
if you like. Going to ourwebsite. Makes me sound special being
able to say that we have one.So check us out. Leave us ratings,

(01:50:55):
reviews. Don't tell FrankGrillo I made fun of him in his new
movie Werewolves, or he willbeat me up. I don't want that. I
got enough problems in mylife. Yeah, I think that's about
it. Let's wrap it up and getthe hell out of here. You get more
out of life when you go out toa movie.

(01:51:17):
Now playing Dr. Jekyll likesthem. Huff.
I have been looking at thisposter and it's incredible. I especially
love the. The. The Italiandaughter. Jekyll E. I don't know
why.
Gentile. Senor, Senor. Again,the most British poster I've ever

(01:51:37):
seen.
Big Ben is in the background.There's a gas lamp. There's a man
in a very bad looking toupeewho's making like a werewolf transformation
face while holding sandals.
He appears.
He took off his shoes.
His.
His toe going through it likea hobo.
Also, I like how Big Ben isclear behind him.
Yeah. And this woman waitingbehind the door with a gigantic rolling

(01:52:00):
pin. She could make so muchlasagna with that thing.
Judging by the extensivemotion lines, she's shivering too.
So she doesn't want to kill aman tonight, but she will.
No, I think it's just becauseshe's wearing sheer lace. So she's
probably chilly from the draftcoming in from Big Ben. Or possibly
she is like waving that thing,the rolling pin around like Babe
Ruth and she is about to knockthis man's head 400ft into the River

(01:52:23):
Thames.
This movie was distributed byMedusa. So that's what. That's what
Medusa's up to.
Are we going to have to trackthis thing down? Yeah. Is this straight
up just a softcore porn or isthis like.
Actually it's hard to tell.Right? I don't know. God damn European
films. I never know what you are.

(01:52:44):
We do a triple feature withthis. Then Dr. Jekyll and Sister
Hyde, then Dr. Jekyll and Ms.Hyde, and then we never speak to
each other again.
The. The hammer. Dr. Jekyll,like the. The one where he changes
sex is actually kind of good.
I've always heard that'sactually fun.
Like that one is worthwatching, surprisingly considering.

(01:53:05):
Like, oh boy. Just from thetitle alone, this is going to be
one that didn't age well.
Ironically aged better thanDr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. Which. Holy.
And better than the new one.
We have so many gender bendingDr. Jekyll movies, none of them that
good.
Wait, wait. The movie wasoriginally titled Jekyll Jr.

(01:53:30):
Oh, that sounds like a sexeuphemism. That's. That is a softcore
porn movie. Oh, you want tosee my Jekyll Jr.
The Evil Genius Dr. Jekyll,Director of the powerful multinational
food company Pantak which hasflooded the world with a large number
of pollutants and harmfulproducts, accidentally drinks the
serum of good, turning into agood natured and placid Mr. Hyde.

(01:53:52):
Ellipses. That's where theplot description ends. They gave
up writing the plot description.
Whatever. You figure out the idea.
So the plot of this one is Dr.Jekyll's a piece of shit and he accidentally
takes his serum, which makeshim not a piece of shit.
This just sounds like a comedythat would star Doris Day in 1967.
So it's Joker, White Knight.
There's a character namedBarbara Wimply and a Jeeves and a

(01:54:15):
Pretorius.
Of course there's a Pretorius.There's always a Pretorius.
Okay, where can. Can I seethis? This seems silly. Are we still
recording? Go home. Quitlistening to us.
This is for us. Now go fuck off.
This is Willie's private time.Please remember to replace the speaker

(01:54:36):
on.
The post when you leave thetheater. This here show is brought
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