Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Debo's Rain. Process won't be right side up again. Tempo's
Raid smells of sulfur in Satan's domain. Tempo's Rain, the
morning Star anointed Prince Sypane Tempo's Rain, look upon his
works and go in Saint Tempo's Raid.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
This movie rules despite what of the same.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Tempo's ray.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Gosh A meaning judge and watching Rabbish, you gonna come
out and stop me?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
All right?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
This is Dick Miller.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
If you're listening to Junk Food Cinema, who are these guys?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
In the name of Satan, Ruler of the Earth, King
of the World, I command the forces of darkness to
bestow their infernal power upon us. Come forth from the abyss,
open wide the gates of hell and greet me with
a new episode of Junk Food Cinema, brought to you
by the shat Isback dot com, Dad gam dot com
(01:48):
dot Bad Day to forget your umbrella. This is, of course,
the weekly Culton exploitation film hast So Good It's scary.
I'm your host Brian Salisbury and Hargo this week. I'm
not sure what he's doing involved in ernest Borg nine
mass but I don't know if that was specifically for
this movie somebody.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
He told me he's installing a phone somewhere.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
He's operating the very last payphone in hell. Like even
I think the underworld has moved on from that technology.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
But he made He wrote a horror movie called The
Plaque Phone.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It's about an evil dentist who calls me dirty Teeth.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
The plaque Jo yep.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
So in Car Gilstead. Returning once again this week is
the Grand High Priest of the Cult of Junk Food,
the host of the Overheaded podcast, and a general horror
movie Maven. Mister Scott Weinberg.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Aha, call me Borg nine.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
You know you think there's a robot version of him
that's like Borg seven of nine.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Yeah, I already did that. I did a joke on
Twitter where I I mean on Blue Sky should say
where it was just Borg nine something something Star Trek
joke in progress because I couldn't think of it. But like,
here's the thing is there is there a less intimidating
actor out there than Ernest borgnine.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I don't know, Man, after you see this, I agree
with you in general, but after this movie, I'm not
sure I could call him unintimidating.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
That's true. Or I think the word you're thinking of
is disintimidating, disintimidating.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I am I disacquiesced to uh be inclined to call
it disintimidating.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
All right, wait, but let's do this like we talked
about Wait the Devil's Reign. You told me to watch
Race with the Devil. What They both came out the
same year, and I'd be willing to bet money that
they both had were in a double feature and a
drive in somewhere in Tennessee or South Carolina or even Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
See. I think the problem, Scott is that this month
we've been doing a lot of oughts Tober and you're
stuck last year when we were doing oats Tober.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Uh. Just a random recommendation. If anybody out there has
never seen Race with the Devil, check that one out.
It's fun.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Previous episode Race with the Devil one of my favorite
weirdo movies from this era, and a fitting double feature
I think is this week's film. As we are still
very much in the Halloween spirit, I am breaking from
(04:23):
the Ostober thing that I just started. I know, I
am completely all over the map. That is how I work.
It's almost like I am racing with the devil all
across that map, but I wanted raining or raining with
the devil. As it turns out, because.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
This week this movie, the producer said, I want you
to make go write a script called the Devil's Rain,
and the producer meant, ore eig n.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I think they started with a poster. I mean, if
we can be honest, I think they definitely started with
a poster.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Oh that's a great. Oh, it's one of the best
posters of the seventies, absolutely awesome. By the way, we
do want to just have a moment of silence because
Yester or two days ago, we lost, Speaking of movie posters,
one of the greatest artists that film lovers have ever experienced.
I just want to say rest in peace to Drew Strusen.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
The man who drew the movies. I mean, the absolute icon.
Like if you appreciate posters from the seventies and eighties
and even into the nineties, if you have the fondness
for that very particular style of poster that made the
movie seem larger than life, well.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
It was so great. He was so great at that
because you would like draw in little set, you know,
if there was a like Indiana Jones is a perfect example.
You'd have like a little taste of the action scene
and then but always all, not always, but in almost
every case what shines through in his work are the
faces of the actors. You know, there's like, you know,
(05:47):
like look at the Dreamscape poster or god, even look
at the Police Academy posters that he did. The Police
Academy posters are pure art. Whereas the movies are kind
of weird junk. He just, you know, no matter how
maniacal or crazy or otherworldly or sci fi crazy the
(06:09):
movies were, most of his posters are focus on the
eyes and the face and the character of the actors,
and it's just beautiful. He will never see another one
like him.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
One of the rare artists that could make the advertising
for a movie feel like as much a work of
art as the movie itself.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Exactly, look at the posters for like Star Wars, Back
to the Future again, even Police Academy. They make you
want to see the movie.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
They really do. I mean, he was the absolute best
at It's the end of an era and definitely raise
the glass to the great Drew Strusan. Getting back to
this week's movie. It's one that's been on my short
list since I saw it for the first time about
two years ago. It had been on my watch list
for about ten years before that. So we're talking about
something that's been on my shelf for a very long
time that I finally a couple of years ago took
down and opened. And man, I love this movie and
(06:59):
has a reputation for being a legendarily bad film, but
I decry these charges as baseless. Today, we're gonna talk
about a little movie from nineteen seventy five called The
Devil's Rain.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Hundreds of souls held captive in an eternity of helles,
they become the Devil's worshippers and his demons. The Devil's
Rain conceived by the producer of a man called Horse,
created by the masters of magic of the planet of
as Heaven. Help us all when The Devil's Rain rated PG.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
The Devil's Umbrella.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
How you want to see Bill Shadner in The Devil's Rain?
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Devil's Rain ri A I an. You know, this is
so much fun to watch because it almost every featured
part is an actor that like people of our generation. No, yeah,
you know, it's like Ernest Borgnine. What Tom's scaryt Wait
(08:08):
is that John Travolta? Is that wait? Ida Lupino?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Good lord, Yeah, we need to We need to just
run down this cast before we even touch upon the plot,
because the cast of this movie is worth the price
of admission. We've got the great Ernest borg Nine, We've
got Bill Shatner, We've got Tom Scarrett, We've got Keenan Wynn,
We've got Ida Lappino, We've got baby John Travolta in
his first film. This movie is so in league with
(08:33):
Satan that Anton fucking Levey is even in this film.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Oh yeah, good point.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, the actual High Priest of the Church of Satan,
Anton Levey has a bit part in this movie. Holy
fucking shit.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
If you read the Wikipedia page, there's also an implication
that this is the film that inspired Travolta to join scientology.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
There was some critic who wrote a review of this
movie that called it the ultimate cult film because it's
a movie about a cult. During the production of it's
it's a movie, it's a movie about a cult that
established a cult status that within the production a member
of its cast was indoctrinated into his own cult and
(09:22):
it's about the occult, and it's about the accult occult
of the occult. This is, in fact, the ultimate cult film.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Yeah, it's it's a it's a fine I've I know
some people who think that it's very dull until the
very end. Uh and and I'm my my take is
it's just kind of a procedural of you know, Shatner
and then Scaret tracking down this cult. And I think
it moves pretty well. Yeah, not a whole lot happens,
(09:51):
but it's still I think it the the the setting
is interesting, and you know, you're you're curious to see
who's gonna come out on top, the faithful or the
evil cult. And you know it's not a slam bang
excitement every five minutes, but it's like eighty eight minutes.
It moves quick, and the cast alone makes it meat.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
See. And here's what I'm gonna say. This was a
point on the pentagram of the discussion of this movie
that I had for later, but I'm going to spin
it around and put it right up top now. Okay,
because the thing about movies about the Devil is that
they never fail to scare the shit out of me.
And what I find so fascinating about that is like,
I am open to the idea of faith, but I
(10:34):
am not what you would call a religious man. Now,
I did marry a devout Catholic, so she and I
have very different reasons for being terrified of the Devil.
And Ernest borgnine must believe in the Devil a little
bit as well, because evidently the shooting of the film
was plagued by eerie events and accidents, and it caused
Ernest borgnine to vow never to work on a project
where the Devil was the subject matter again. So he
(10:56):
gets it, he understands. But even though I am not
what you would call an over religious person, the devil
is a subject a concept for horror films that scares
the pants off of me. And what I have found
is that.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Wait in your year and now you're not wearing pants.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I never wear pants when I'm recording with you, Scott,
But that is beside the point, my cool. What I
have found with movies about the Devil is that slow
and steady wins the race for me. The more you
can milk the dread and the atmosphere and the tension
of just the unknowing. And it's like the slow pull
into the darkness, like when the sun is going down
(11:32):
and the shadow is just slowly crawling across the landscape.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
I believe that's the title of Cargill's next novel, Milking
the Dread, Milking the Dread the good title.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Weirdly enough, it's about his time on the set of
The Princess Bride. I'm not really sure what that's about,
but it's about.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
It's about a cow that loves the devil. A devil.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Wait, wait, wait, wait wait does that movie? Does that
movie star Ernest Bovine?
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Thank you, I'm hanging up. This is not right.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I don't think you're able to hang up. You're trapped
in here with me.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
We're both trapped in here with the shat.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
With the shat, with the chat.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
What's interesting about what's interesting about Shatner's seventies is he like,
he did this, and a couple of years later he
did Kingdom of the Fighters and oh, oh well, all right,
hold on it. Yeah, And it was like at that point,
obviously he had already done Star Trek and it was
kind of already it was a cult item. But he
didn't become like the he was. He was still pre
(12:44):
I can't see him as anything but Kirk.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Right, right, No, And we'll definitely talk about that because
there's a specific reason for the progression that you're talking about,
and I'm super excited to get into that.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
But as far as the proliferation of reruns in the
Star Trek movies.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
No, no, it's something, it's something way more insidious. But
the thing about pacing of these type of movies and
why it works for me is that when I feel
like I'm being slowly pulled into the cult like that,
there's an actual indoctrination going on through the pacing of
the movie. I understand why movies like this aren't, you know,
aren't swashbucklers, why movies like this aren't wham bam, thank
(13:21):
you man. And they take their time. And I think
the the absolute best example of what I'm talking about
is ty West House of the Devil, the movie that
for years the naysayers would would point out the fact
that it's, oh it's too slow, Oh it's boring, Oh
it takes the time. It's the slowest of slow burns.
And I'm like, for me, when the subject is the Devil,
(13:42):
that's what I want. I want it to feel slow.
And painful and like I am being pulled into this,
like you know, the shining for exact.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
That's how I feel about movies about houses.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
You want to be slowly pulled into the house. Yes, absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
So it's like you're you're there for the devil. I'm
there for the house. You know. I've only seen House
of the Devil, believe it or not, once, and I
really I love it. I think it's great and like
there's a difference to a big difference between slow and boring.
Big difference. I've seen, you know, somewhat kinetic action movies
(14:17):
that get super boring. They're like, you know, an overabundance
of action can be boring too. I if the premise
and the and the characters are interesting, I love a
slow burn.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah absolutely. I mean that's the thing that works best
for me. And I also love that as much as
you love House of the Devil, you're a big fan
of the HGTV show House Hunters of the Devil too,
mm hmm. I also sell possessed properties.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Like Lee Marvin in Shout at the Devil. I was
gonna say, we should do an entire series. Did I
say that already? We should do an entire series of
movies A Devil in the title.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Tom Selleck and the Devil's Daughter or Satan? Is that
Satan's daughters? I don't think that might be Satan's daughter.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Here's one called to the to the Devil a Daughter.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
That's a hammer film if I remember correct.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah, it's time or time.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Stop. It's Hammerton.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Oh you were singing. I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
There's also Devil aka Devil Elevator that I call Devil Elevator,
produced by m Knight shamel En. Takes place in Philly,
the Philadelphia Elevator.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
The movie was one of the dumbest plot devices of
all time. If a piece of toast lands face down,
it means Satan is among us giant question mark.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Oh wow, you remember more about that movie than I do.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I wish I did.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
There's another there's another subgenre, elevator horror, The Lift and
the Lift. There's a remake. The same director remade it.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, I believe the original directed by Dick Moss, the
greatest director name of all time. Uh, he made his
own film from Dare Lift to the Lift.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Yep. There's a couple other ones too, I think, But anyway,
I'm trying to think of a more devil, more devil
names the devil times.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Five, devil times five. I mean, if I'm outside of
the horror realm, Devil in a Blue Dress is a
movie I'd love to cover on this show.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Damn good movie.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
That would be part of a nineties noir series that
we would do.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Yeah, I'm just trying to There's got to be more
devil in the title.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Uh, there's the Devil's Candy.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Uh. Yeah, there's a good one.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I mean there's Yeah, there's probably a thousand other movies.
People are screaming at us. You know what, Pause the
podcast and just scream titles at your radio right now
as you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Did you ever do evil speak on this podcast?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
We have not done evil speak yet.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
All right, we got to do that one day. Next
time you need me, We're gonna do evil speak.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Oh yeah, no, that's absolutely a movie I would not
do unless you were available.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Movie scared this shit out of me when I was
a kid, and then I saw it when I got older,
and it's still slightly scary and a lot more ridiculous.
That is anything where it's about Clint Howard Resire brings
a demon to life through like an old, ancient Commodore
sixty four computer. It was only the computer technology of
(17:05):
nineteen eighty one. It brings a demon to a military academy.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
It's great, ironically to bring this back to the movie
we're talking about today. The only game I really played
on the Commodore sixty four was the Star Trek game.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Oh and William Shatner was there.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
There you go. I'm using, Uh, we're gonna need the
Stargrove to do the to do the Devil's rain Dance.
To get us back on subject here For anyone who
hasn't seen The Devil's Reign in nineteen seventy five, this
is a movie that takes place out in the desert
near a ghost town, and the film opens like, Here's
the thing I love about movies, especially from this era,
is like the way that they would just shoot their
(17:43):
shot man, the way that there was just like there
was something about the cinema of this era where we
were trying stuff. We were swinging for the fences and
we were going whole hog like the up The opening
of this movie is super upsetting because it's just oil
paintings of hell with almost imperceptible sound sounds of crying
and wailing as we're going.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah, it's weird to see a contemporary film that opens
with a hieronymous Bosh gallery. But that's that's the artist
of all those those hell escapes, and you know, and
it really does set a nice stage.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
I didn't realize Titus Well of Her also painted, but
apparently they're Bosh painting, so that, oh god. He was
also known as the Mighty Bosh, the mighty Mighty, the
mighty Mighty Bosh Stones.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
I don't know how you do it, but you inspire, like,
my jokes are usually better than that, but you inspire
me to just not care.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Slowly pulled into the cult of Salisbury, your jokes will
be sacrificed upon the pyre of Satan. A no, but
this movie opens with this family, the matriarchy, which is Idelipino,
who is a fucking Hollywood legend, and she's in this
movie talking about how where the hell did the father go?
We're not sure. We got William Shatner over here, who
(18:57):
is her son, even though he's only like seven years
younger than her, And it's like, I'm gonna go out
and look for Dad, not sure where he went, whatever, whatever.
Then Dad turns up on the doorstep, or at least
a version of Dad turns up on the doorstep with
his face half melted and these deep black, cavernous eyes.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, I'm firmly convinced that the origin of this movie
was somebody came up with the melty mask effect and said,
can we build a movie around this? And they were like, yeah,
we'll call it the Devil's Rain because it's that's the
rain that because it's a cool it's not like bladder effects,
it's not that, but it's just lumpy, goopy, melty face.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Dude. I love the weird goopy special effects across the
board in this movie. That's that's one of the big and.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
That's really the whole thing. It's like, you see this
great goopy effect and then you're waiting for more, and
they hold it, they reserve it, they don't give it
to you, and then in the last five or ten
minutes you get a lot of it.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Everybody's melting. Everybody's fucking melting by the end of this
and it's awesome. Effects in this movie are a huge
selling point for me. And I love the way that
they were able to achieve this, and basically you have
this this effects company that would put tubing that they
had flat iron under these prosthetic faces and then they
funny because I watched.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
This movie on tubing, hey oh with ads.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
And then one of three things that would be pumped
through the tubes. It'd either be smoke air or colored
methyl cellulose. And basically they would use a smoke cookie
to pump smoke through these tubes, and which is basically
this device that looks like a urinal cake that produces
a lot of smoke. It's not unlike when we were
kids and we had the snake like wait for the
Fourth of July. We'd buy all these like random packs
(20:41):
of fireworks, and the box of snakes would be nobody's
favorite because you would just light it and it would
kind of uncurl this long smoke turd. But there'd be
a lot of smoke even though there's no actual like
fire going on. But they would they would pump this
like this methyl cellulose and then they would use a
series of colors to make it look wax like. And
just like all of these like really creative practical effects
(21:02):
they're doing to create this face melting effect. That is
so shocking and so upsetting, and I love that we're
opening with that. That's how you start a fucking horror movie.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Right, No, it's like we're gonna tease you with this
new novel gross effect and you're gonna want to see
more of it, and we're gonna hold it till the
very end. That's you know, that's just filmmaking. That's this good,
you know, that's like enticing your audience to stay tuned absolutely.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And all the dad says is something about Corbus and
give him the book. What does that mean? We don't
know yet, but we're gonna send William Shatner out to
figure out what the hell is going on. And this
is the other thing I really love about this movie, Scott,
is this is what we like to call a relay
film because it starts off seeming like it's gonna be
a movie about Idelapino's character, and then the baton kind
(21:48):
of gets handed to Shatner and Shatner's doing this investigation
of this ghost town and trying to figure out, like,
what does Corbus have to do with his dad's face
melting and what the hell is going on?
Speaker 4 (21:56):
So like, yeah, the battle, I look like the wager
between the two of them, where borg nine is says,
you know, I'll risk my soul against you, my faith
against yours, and Shatner loses that bit.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah, But so for that portion of the film, we think, oh,
this is a William Shatner movie. But then we switch
again and we're introduced to Shatner's younger brother played by
Tom Scarett, whose wife is a psychic medium of sorts,
and they're kind of testing the science of psychic capabilities
and telekinesis, et cetera, et cetera, and it becomes his movie.
Like the way this movie kind of keeps handing it
(22:30):
off to different members of the family at first seems
a little bit jarring, and then once we get all
the background, once we know the story of why this
curse is happening and what the actual conflict is between
this particular family and Ernest Borgnin's character, it makes total
fucking sense that it's a family affair and we're basically
getting every living member of this family in on the
(22:50):
protagonist game.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Well, and you know, you call like the relay or
the baton being passed, and by the time we settle
in with the Scaret character with his wife played by
Joan Prather or Prayther, I'm not sure you know the
movies are now it's halfway over. Well, I think that partially,
And of course that is a testament to the editor
(23:12):
and who is the editor on this film, oh or
Michael Khan.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Dude. That's the other thing about this movie is right,
you cannot fuck Yes, You're absolutely right. You cannot fucking
write this movie off because it has so many incredible
artists behind the camera, and one of them is the
great Michael Kahn.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Michael Kahn works with Spielberg a lot early in his career.
Here's just an example of things that Michael Kahn edited,
Close Encounters nineteen forty one, used Cars, Raiders, Lost Dark, Poldergeist,
a couple of Doom, the Goonies, the Color Purple, Fatal Attraction,
Last Crusade, Iraq, Andophobia. One of the best editors you'll
(23:52):
ever see. And the idea that like, you know, you
said it without exactly saying it, but the fact that
it like goes between different characters and you know it
helps keep the plot and the character development moving quickly.
I think a lot of the a lot of the
energy to this film is not the director, but it's
(24:15):
Michael Kahn, So you know, it's just amazing. If you
look at his career, last thing he cut was oh
a lot for all of spielberg stuff. Still, his lastest
seven movies were Bridge of Spies, The BFG, The Post
Ready Player, One West Side Story, and The Fablemans. He's
still doing it.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, Basically, Michael conn is on retainer. Spielberg has just
has him on retainer for his movies.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
That's fucking He's ninety four right now.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And he's still doing it. Man, God, based still cutting.
Do you think it was Do you think it was
upsetting for Bill Shatner that this movie was edited by Cone?
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Oh? My god, that's so true. And I also, you know,
we have to give some credit, of course, to the director.
I'm not sure how to pronounce his last name. I
never have, but the reason I know his name, Robert
west orwis it's fust okay. He directed both doctor Fibb's movies.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yep, welcome back to the show, mister FoST because the
abominable mister Fous directed the abominable mister Fibes movies.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Yeah, and those that first one in particular is really good.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
And and he is a person who very much like,
very much like a Fred Decker. One bad movie sank
his entire career, and I think it's completely unfair because
this isn't a bad movie. I'm just gonna say that,
I don't think The Devil's Rain is a bad movie
at all.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
No, no, no, it's what it it's I think it's
what it tried to be.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Its failure of the movie is what basically killed his
feature film career, and he never made one again. And
that's so fucking unfair because he doesn't lose interesting things
in this this movie Devil's Rain.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
He directed other things after this.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
He never directed a feature film again after this.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Oh really, Oh okay, because I well, I know he
did in nineteen eighty it was obviously it was a
TV movie, but he did the ill fated Stepford Wives
Remate sequel.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
That is correct, But yeah, he kind of had to
retreat into television because you unfairly was kind of put
in director jail for this movie.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Interesting, I did not know that after these messages, we'll
be right back on a dream vacation witness an unspeakable evil.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
I sure take a child pranktive Cenis and get trapped
in an unbelievable nightmare. Peter Fonda and Warren Oates Race
with the Devil. When you race with the Devil, you'd
better run for your life. Race with the Devil rated PG.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I also want to throw some love to Alex Phillips Junior,
who was the cinematographer on this movie. He was a
Mexican cinematographer cinematographer who early in his career shot two
of the Blue DeMont movies. The map asked luchador movies,
Blue Demon who Those movies were insanely popular in Mexico
at the time. But he also shot one of my
all time favorite movies of any genre, of any year,
(27:10):
of any decade. Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia for.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Peck Oh wow, oh yeah, that's a great film. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
And also Alex Phillips Junior, welcome back to junk food
Cinema because he also shot Fade to Black and Sorceress.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Whoa eclectic mix there.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Yep ended up doing second unit photography on Total Recall
as well. So this is a guy who had a
very interesting, very varied career, and I think he does
a great job in this movie of taking full advantage
of those American West landscapes and really selling the isolation
of this ghost down. This fucking ghost down is crazy
cut off from the rest of civilization.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Oh did we not even mention Eddie Albert?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
We haven't even gotten No, you're right, I left him
out of the cast. See this cast bench is so
deep that I forgot about Eddie Albert.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
It's a lot of great character actors, and you could
tell this's probably some And that they shot over the
course of like two and a half weeks where where
it was This shot Durango, Mexico.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
So it shot in Mexico, which makes sense then that
they got mister Phillips to shoot it. And yeah, just
absolutely here I am talking about the American West, and
it's the fucking shot in Mexico.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
You could be fair. That's where it's like, Yeah, I
think it's meant well did they ever say specifically?
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I don't think they ever say specifically, although it's interesting
that they live out in this like very much Southwestern
type community, and when we find out the backstory of
the conflict between Corbus and this family, it's like it's
the Puritan colonial setting. It's like, man, this curse follow
them all the way across the continental of the United States.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
And I think it also takes place in the same
geographical location of Race with the Devil and the Hills
have Eyes.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Dude, that would be an awesome triple feature. I would
love that triple feature.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
There's something about I mean, you could say it about
any period of time or you know, but there's something
about like the mid seventies that's so fascinating. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, Now this period when we're like we're fully coming
out of the studio system. We've gotten far enough into
the decade that independent filmmaking is starting to really take hold,
and we're breaking from a lot of the rules that
used to govern, like you know, away from the Hayes Code,
and like so many interesting things happening that by nineteen
seventy five, Yeah, you're full on into the decade of
(29:23):
really sort of avant garde filmmaking, dangerous filmmaking.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
I would say, can we can I throw you some
passages from critics of the time. Sure, a lot of
critics call it kind of confusing or you know, muddled,
But Jonathan Rosenbaum said, if there is anything to recommend
this confusing x horror exercise. Then it surely isn't the
(29:49):
direction which veers throughout from the pedestrian too this stilted.
Nor is it the script which raises more questions at
a single reel than it can resolve in three, while say,
effects are piled on it every possible juncture, with gore
virtually used to plaster over every gaping loophole. I mean,
I don't nobody there's no gore until like the last
(30:11):
fifteen minutes, is there?
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah? Not really. And also, by the way, I don't
think this plot is confusing at all. If anything, it's
overly simple. Like it's basically this there's a book. There's
a book of evil, of evil. That a book of evil.
I sound like fucking mushmouth alves.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
It's got like all the names in it, right, It's
like a it's like a directory of.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
The knock list. It's the Satan knocklers. They're trying to
find the names of all the undercover agents whatever. But no,
it's like we just the book. Is the mcguffin. The
High Priest of the Church of Satan is this guy
played by Ernest Borgnine. Ernest Borgnine, who before he was
an actor, was in the fucking Navy who is a
gunner's mate and took pardon several of the biggest battles
of World War Two, like a highly decorated navy.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Man and Charles Darning too. Anybody out there, Oh well,
Charls Derning has had a very storied military career.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Of all the movies, we talked about him on our
Solar Babies episode and how he has like three purple hearts.
It's fuck.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Wait, wasn't that mean?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
That was that you and me?
Speaker 4 (31:12):
I think so, but maybe we did that on over
Hated Free Plug. A great A great film critic who
I know personally is Alan Jones, a British gentleman who
specializes in horror, and he called it colorful, if if confusing,
satanic shocker worth persevering through the muddled setup for the
(31:33):
effects laden climax, where most of the cast are reduced
to screaming, oozing slime.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I don't understand the problem. As a podcast that recently
covered the stuff, I don't have a problem with casts
being reduced to slime. That's not a problem for me.
But also, the plot is pretty simple. The plot is,
you know, this guy needs the book, This family knows
where the book is, and then he basically just wreaks
havoc upon them. He takes the father, and then he
takes that.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Goes out, and the borg turns out to be, you know,
more troubled than he expected, and he goes missing, and
then his younger brother goes out looking for him.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
That's it. That's the whole plot. I mean, yeah, there's something.
There's some sort of magical mcguffin at the end that
I don't know if it was a sequel setup or
what they were doing with it. But again, in movies
about the devil, do you know how many times the
ending is basically the thriller video ending where it's like,
we think it's over, but then ah, that's a staple
(32:28):
of Satan films. People.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Here's a great quote. Roger Ebert did not care for
the film.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
He did not.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
He said, all of this would be good, silly fun
if the movie weren't so painfully dull. The problem is
that the material is stretched too thin. There's not enough
here to fill a feature length film. Now I don't
agree with that, but I kind of, in a little
bit think that there needed to be kind of a
tent pole, right in the middle of a act of
a good Monsters scene, there needed to be some horror
(32:57):
in act too, So I will agree with Ebert to
a I don't think it's dull, but yeah, you could
have had some kind of good super you know, extra
horror stuff in the middle. There.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
What I love about Ernest Borgnine, despite the I mean
beyond the fact that he never stopped acting, never retired,
was literally working up until the day he died. I
have all the affection and respect for him in the world,
especially since, according to him, he wasn't even paid for
this movie. Apparently during a panel of twenty ten, he
said the movie was financed by the Mafia and he
never was paid for his work in the film. I mean,
(33:30):
that sucks for Ernie Borgnine, but Mafia, thank you for
Devil's Reign. But when I mentioned to bring me the
head of Alfredo Garcia, I came across a story in
the research that feels like something that would have happened,
you know, like in that movie, or at least on
a peckinpause said it was during the filming of Veracruz
in Mexico when him and Charles Bronson decided they had
some extra time in their hands. They wanted to go
(33:51):
to the nearest town to get some cigarettes, but they
were still in full like bandido costumes with bandolero's and
pistols and everything, and they just gone on their horses
and took off for the near town. And while they
were doing that, they get spotted by this truck full
of Federals who think that they're bandits and held them
at gunpoint until they could verify who they were. So basically, man,
they're just like, we're not even gonna take our costumes off.
(34:12):
We're gonna get on these horses. It's the most fucking
it's nineteen fifty four. It's the most Charles Bronson and
Ernest Borgnine thing you could ever hear is that while
filming a movie in Mexico, they decided, well, let's go
get cigarettes while we have the time on our hands,
not take our costumes off, and then get held at
gunpoint by federales. Like, yes, these are the Ernest borgnine
stories I love.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
If that's not enough to make you love Ernest borgnine,
just go watch Escape from New York and that'll do it.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Dude. He's one of my favorite character actors of all.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Is he not so beautiful in Escape from New York
and the purest kind of the best kind of action
sidekick who's just always there for Snake. He's always helpful,
he's got a car, he knows how to get around. Oh.
I love he is the like because there's so many
nasty characters in that movie, even a lot of his
allies are nasty. But org Nine as Cabby is so great.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
And I love like in this movie where he gets
to really chew scenery, like you know, like Black Peter
chewing on a tin can. Wouldst thou love to watch
this movie deliciously? Yes, you would. The actual Satanic ritual
scenes and the production design of like the Satanist Church
are absolutely.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Oh he sells them. He's creepy, you're right, sell Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
He definitely sells it, and they like again in any
other movie, especially when if you know him from Escape
from New York where he's such a big kid in
that movie, and I feel like so many of the
roles he's played for performance.
Speaker 5 (35:35):
In uh uh uh a party, he's very likable in
a lot of his stuff and he realized, Oh with
my big eyes and my you know, sweet voice or whatever,
he's like the next door neighbor plumber.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
He always reminded me of a plumber. He's like, you know, uh,
he's like the next door neighbor you wish you had,
you know, And he knew that and used it to
you know, be counter scary and stuff like this. I
love him in Poseidon Adventure too. Oh god, he just
the best. He's one of the best character actors. And
(36:08):
you know, he was of my mom of our parents generation.
He's like a boomer generation character actor. But he had
more than enough spillover into the seventies and eighties that
you know, guys like you and I still love him.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Dude, when you described him as a plumber. Can you
imagine if they had made a Mario Brothers movie in
the early early eighties and Ernest Borgnine was Mario.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Oh my god, he would have been perfect Mario. Absolutely,
he would have been great.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I'm not going down that pipe until I got time
to work my own pipe. That means jerking off. That
would be Ernest borgnine as Mario.
Speaker 4 (36:44):
Mario and Idio showed it up in like so many
ensemble things. He was like, no, if Irwin Allen was
doing another disaster movie, he'd be like, did we cast
Ernest Borg nine in the last one. Yeah damn it.
You know, like, uh, he's just he showed up in
so many things, and he was just very amiable, likable, affable, charming,
you know, just just likable.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
And the sudden transformation of Borg nine into Goat nine.
I love that fucking makeup when the devil just fully
takes over and he's just got instantly got a goat head.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
It is and it could it risks being silly because
it's like all just right there on the screen. It's
not done in shadows or anything. But the makeup effects
are so good. The mask is so cool that you're like, yeah,
all right, I'm cool with that.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
And his performance is so good that you buy it.
Like he really does, like completely commit to this role
and like actually try to make the two versions of
this character distinctive, like the high priest version and then
when he's fully taken over by the devil and he's
Goat nine with the goat head. He makes that you
know a little bit more a little bit distinctive from
(37:49):
when he's just a priest. And I fucking love it.
It's so good.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I liked it too. I had forgotten
about the big mask he wears for the last ten
or so minutes, and it adds a lot because again,
like you said, he sells the you know, evil priest
within five minutes. You're not you know you you buy
this character.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
On thousand percent. I also love that he's got this
like Lieutenant the second in command who whenever he's got
the goat head on. This dude is wearing a helmet
that one makes him look like Peacemaker, just like what
is Peacemaker doing in this Church of Satan? Oh well,
I guess this is another alternate timeline.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
That Anton is that Levey or.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
No, no, I think LaVey is. So as we go
through the movie, we see this flashback in which basically
during one of the early colonies, Borgnin's character or at
least an ancestral version of him, or like I don't
know if it's right.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
The origin of the book and the Curse right.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Right, So he's formed a cult of Satan in a
puritanical colony, which is like, I'm sorry, dude, that is
that's ballsy when you're like, no, I'm just going to
start the Church of Satan in the middle of the
most puritanical witch burning era of it. Like it's like
to me, that's living out in the open, and I
appreciate that about him. But he's got this cult that
(39:10):
one of the members is an ancestor I guess of
William Shatner's character, and his wife ends up having a
crisis of conscience and goes to the local leaders and
lets them know what the activities are going on. The
the you know, the townsfolks show up, they burn the
house down, they burn all the members of this cult.
And basically, not only is this borg Knight's character reincarnated
(39:34):
trying to get his power back through the book, but
also exact some revenge on the family that caused his
demise back in the day as well. So that is
the reason for the curse on this particular family, which
makes the structure of this movie work entirely as we're
going from protagonists to protagonists within the same family.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
Yeah, yep, and you know there is again for and
again why. I don't know why this movie is considered
confusing by professional film critics and get it.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
And I love this character played by Joan Prather, who
is Tom Skarett's wife. Who is this She's very much
a psychic. She's having all of these previous life memories
and she can kind of touch things and feel the
history of them. She's also very much allegedly because we're
dealing with a very litigious group here, but allegedly the
person who on set got baby John Travolta in his
(40:29):
first film here into scientology.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
So oh yeah, and you're here, this is like it
ties in and maybe you saw it as well. But
there's an Australian film critic named Michael Adams said it,
quote the ultimate cult movie. It's about a cult as
a cult following was devised with input from a cult
leader and saw a future superstar indoctrinated into a cult.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Yep, that's the one I was referring to earlier. You know,
that's exactly that's that's yeah, said that, and it's right,
like this is in fact the ultimate cult film. But
when her character gets involved and it's just her and
Tom Scarrett trying to infiltrate this cult, and one of
the things about this, called another great makeup effect, is
that when you basically give yourself over to this cult,
you lose your eyes. I want your eyes, pig like it.
(41:14):
They just become these vacuums like these sockets, and there's
like these weird sort of pussy ridges around the eye sockets.
It's terribly, terribly upsetting, and I love the way that
they play with that. You know, we got Idle Lapino
in this makeup and then you've got Shatner in this makeup.
And this is why, Scott, this is why The Devil's
(41:35):
Rain is the perfect movie to discuss as part of
Halloween spirit. Yep, we all know that in John Carpenter's Halloween,
the terrifying white mask worn by Michael Myers is known
to be a mask of William Shatner. But a lot
of people when they hear that, go, that doesn't look
anything like William Shatner. How is that William Shatner. Well, yes,
(41:56):
they spray painted it, they tease the hair, etcetera, etcetera.
But what you might not no, and what is still
the subject of some debates, so I will say allegedly again,
is that the mask is specifically a mold of the eyeless,
satanfied William Shatner from this very movie.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Yeah, there's a handful of masks like you said that
completely without eyes, and even the ones that aren't Shatner.
You're like, oh, yeah, I see where the Michael imagery
comes from. Because without you know, without the eyes, you know,
it looks like a Michael's mask.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
I mean, when you look at the Michael Myers mask,
there's no expense to assume that it.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Was like an extra mask that didn't turn out all
that great. So they had it on set and maybe
they used it, maybe they didn't, but it was made
from Shatner's face, and it's just a great little piece
of horror trivia. Absolutely, after these messages, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Clean.
Speaker 7 (42:54):
It won't do you any good because just when you
think you've seen it all, don't look at the eyes.
Along comes the Devil's Pride. See the Devil's ministers initiate
the innocent and blood rituals. See men kill.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
To protect the women they love from the Devil's eager had.
Speaker 7 (43:21):
See the women chosen to be Satan's mate become frenzied
children of the Knight.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
This is the way the Devil appears, not with a leer,
but with peer.
Speaker 7 (43:32):
This is the movie for those who think they've seen
it all. This is the Devil's bride. She'd rather be
dead than with the Devil's pride.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Here's the thing about Shoutner and the reason why I
have come to respect him so much, especially for this era. Yes,
he became pretty damn famous off of Star Trek, but
you got to remember Star Trek when it first aired,
That's not when it became popular. Star Trek un popular
in reruns. Star Trek was not a hugely popular show.
Like what didn't the original series only get like what
(44:08):
three seasons?
Speaker 4 (44:08):
I think?
Speaker 2 (44:09):
So yeah, something crazy short like that, because it wasn't
a hugely popular show until it kind of hit syndication
and reruns after the fact, and shortly after the original
Star Trek series was canceled his wife, Shatner's wife, Gloria
Rand left him and took off with his money, like
basically left him destitute. So with very little money and
(44:31):
no acting prospects because he was just the guy from
that canceled show. He was living in a pickup truck
camper and basically taking bit parts to make ends meet
until he got enough notoriety and you know, star power
to get higher paying roles.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Star Trek ran from sixty six to sixty nine, and
then Star Trek the Motion Picture was seventy nine. So
there's the right smack dab in the middle.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
So for that ten years, nobody knew that Star Trek
was gonna be a huge cultural phenomenon. And with this
is when he's doing Kingdom of the Spiders, Devil's Reign,
all these movies that you know now kind of get
lampooned and mocked, But all that was was an actor
trying to just just keep a roof over his head,
like not even he was living in a fucking truck
(45:20):
camper and taking movies like this. And what I love
about him is knowing that, knowing what he was up against,
Shatner's still fucking bringing it.
Speaker 6 (45:28):
Man.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Shatner's buying into this one thousand percent back and forth
he has with Ernest borgnine, like where he's resisting him
and then like when he's you know, he's being sacrificed
and the screaming he's doing, Like, Shatner is great in
this role, and I will hear nothing to the contrary.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
And and you know the part of what he's made
fun of is like, you know, his his delivery and
his over the top. I don't know, if I'm a
film director, I'd rather have a guy like Shatner, who
can modulate between very calm and really like that gives
me a wide array of emotions to work with, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
I mean, this movie unfairly has an embarrassment of riches
in its cast. But you look at other drive in
movies from this era, the truly bad ones are the
ones that cast people who are like blocks of wood,
actors that you couldn't pick out of a lineup the
next day and have absolutely zero charisma. William Shatner is
a guy that's gonna give you his all. He's gonna
he's gonna be Shatonaryan, sure, but at least Shatonaryan is
(46:29):
gonna be interesting to watch and compel the fucking audience.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
But like in this movie, he's not overplaying anything.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
No, he's not. He's playing it exactly as you would.
And I love the scene where he's trying to fend
them off with this cross around his neck and then
borg nine just snaps his fingers and turns it into
a snake.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
Yeah, there's some other stuff from the seventies of his that.
In seventy eight he did something called Land of No Return,
a thriller, the Third Walker a drama, and then seventy
nine start the motion picture. But he also, like in
eighty two, he did not only did he do Star
Trek two, which is one of the best sci fi
(47:07):
movies ever made, but he also did Airplane two, in
which he's like the really the saving grace, he really
is the only thing that's really new and fresh in
Airplane two. And he did a Canadian horror film called
Visiting Hours.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
I remember Visiting Hours. That's a hospital, yeah, slasher movie
if I remember correctly. And in Airplane too, he's parrotying
himself and doing an amazing job of it.
Speaker 4 (47:32):
Yeah, and then eighty four through ninety one it's all
Star Trek. So yeah, Uh, the guy's had a fascinating career.
He's ninety four. May he live to be one hundred
and two, and.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
Like everything, here's the thing, Like I've heard stories from
other cast members about how like William Shatner, you know,
it's hard to work with this and had an ego that.
But like, when you start looking at some of the
things that William Shatner has done, just like philanthropically, if
you look at some of the stuff he's un philanthropically
from nineteen seventy six to nineteen eighty, he jogged multiple
times for charity in support of late Canadian AMPT Terry
(48:07):
Fox and his cross country marathon. He produces and hosts
an annual Hollywood charity horse show that he founded in
nineteen ninety that's raised more than one point two five
million dollars for children's charities. He recorded a special message
for the crew of NASA Space Shuttle Discovery. In twenty eleven.
He auctioned a kidney stone to Goldenpalace dot com for
seventy five thousand. The money goes to Habitat for Humanity.
(48:27):
He narrated a television documentary about the endangered humpback whales
in nineteen eighty six, and during the filming of Star
Trek three, The Search for Spock in eighty four, a
fire broke out on the studio a lot threatened to
destroy the entire Genesis planet set. Shatner was one of
several cast and crew members who helped to put out
the fire, actually wielding a fire host. It's like, I
don't know, guys, he kind of seems like he's a
(48:48):
fucking mench and I love that he very much liked
Borg nine, seems hell bent on working up until the
day he kicks the bucket and God bless him for it.
And also right before this, he taught I'm scart and
Joan Praither were all in Big Bad Mama for Roger Corman,
right right.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
And he's Canadian, and.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
He's Canadian, so he's got to be a nice guy
somewhere in there, right, absolutely right.
Speaker 4 (49:11):
I mean I've heard some you know, not evil, but
I've heard some bitchy things about him. You know that
he was he was difficult to Leonard Nimoy, and you know,
he was kind of a diva. And it's like, yeah,
everybody goes through their phases. He maybe he had a
phase where he was a difficult little bitch. All right, whatever,
we I didn't have to work with him. I could
just appreciate the art.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
Yeah, true story. And if nothing else, the wig that
they put on put on him in that flashback. He
deserves all the Laurels in the world for having to
wear that wig on screen.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
I mean, you know, I like a guy who will
do movies like Devil's Raining and Kingdom as Fighters, which
is a cheesy spider movie but has one of the
most haunting final shots you ever see.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
Yep. Absolutely. And in this movie. The other thing I
love is that everyone gets their moment, Like even in
a cast this packed, every act gets that moment, like
Keenan Wynn, who's one of my favorite actors, as the
sort of local town sheriff who kind of wants to
know what's going on but kind of doesn't want to
get involved, and this is sort of ineffectual, but he
gets a great moment where he's kind of under the
spell of this cult and he gets thrown down a
(50:15):
well and explodes when he hits the bottom. Okay, don't
get an explanation for that.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
Don't care.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
That's awesome Devil powers, that's all devil powers. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 6 (50:26):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Satana's x Makina is what you really need to buy
into by the end of this movie. And I have
seen so many movies that operate under Satanus x Makana.
The Devil has unmentionable, unnameable powers that go on forever.
You'll never understand all of them. He's like Superman in
the comics. He's got all the pact exactly.
Speaker 4 (50:44):
I mean, you're watching a movie about the Devil and
people randomly explode. You're like, I guess the devil did that.
It's like, bro, what do you go to question?
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Or like Tom Scarett getting physical with the cult members,
whereas Eddie Albert like does the big sort of the
big proselytizing and you know, getting the sermon against them, like.
Speaker 4 (51:02):
He's kind of the gung Ho he becomes like the
gung Ho sidekick for a minute.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
And then Anton Levey and his wife are in the
flashback in small parts. They're the founder of and the
high priestess of, respectively, the Church of Satan at the time.
So again I want you to imagine they make this
movie even five years earlier. There is no way in
hell they're gonna put the leaders of the actual Church
of Satan in this movie because the theater like what
(51:30):
do you call them, like distribution people are gonna be like,
absolutely not, We're not showing this movie anywhere if you're
putting actual Satanists in it. But it's nineteen seventy five, baby,
we're trying. Shit, We're throwing everything at the wall and
seeing what sticks. And I love it.
Speaker 4 (51:44):
All right, let's play a game. We'll steal a game
from from overheted. I'm gonna name a movie with the
word devil in the title, and you tell me what
you'd rather watch, The Devil's Rain or that film?
Speaker 2 (51:56):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (51:56):
Let's go all right, well, the aforementioned Devil from twenty ten,
The Devil's Rain. Okay, would you rather watch The Devil's
Rain or The Devil Wears Praduct?
Speaker 2 (52:07):
Devil's Rain?
Speaker 4 (52:08):
You rather watch Devil's Rain or The Conjuring Three? The
Devil made Me do it?
Speaker 2 (52:13):
The Devil's Rain, I.
Speaker 4 (52:16):
Think that's three. Yeah, that's three.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
That's three yeah.
Speaker 4 (52:19):
Would you rather watch The Devil's Rain or Late Night
with the Devil? Hmm.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
I really liked Late Night with the Devil, but it's
it's a oh man, that's so close. I think the
edge still goes just by a hair to The Devil's Rain.
But it's by a hair, all right.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
This is if you've seen this one, you're definitely gonna
give it to this. Would you rather watch The Devil's
Rain or I Saw the Devil?
Speaker 2 (52:44):
I saw the Devil. That's a great for movie. Well,
another movie, by the way, another movie that takes its
time and is methodical with its plotting. It doesn't have
a huge number of set pieces like the actual plot
is very small and contained, because that's when these movies
work the best.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Yeah, The Devil's Rain or the aforementioned House of the Devil.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
You don't want to put a lot of free space,
a lot of negative space between the audience and Satan.
You want them to feel like they're in the room
with him and they can't get away from him. The
more space you put between the audience and the devil,
the less they are afraid, the more they feel like
they have an escape. That is why devil movies with small,
contained plots and methodical pacing always work better.
Speaker 4 (53:26):
I agree, sorry to rant there, Devil's Rain or House
of the Devil.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
That's going to be a House of the Devil, but
again only because I think it's one of the absolute
best of this subject.
Speaker 4 (53:37):
The Devil's Rain or Devil in a Blue Dress.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
Okay, if it's not October. Devil in a Blue.
Speaker 4 (53:45):
Dress, here's when we didn't cover The Devil's Rain or
Sidney Lumtz Before The Devil Knows You're Dead.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Not a bad film, Yeah, I like it, a very
good film. But I mean the the Man and Me
will do literally any task except not watch The Devil's Rain.
Speaker 4 (54:06):
Here's one that's a bit obscure, but I've seen it.
You may have also. Would you rather watch The Devil's
Rain or Christopher Lee in nineteen sixty eight The Devil
Rides Out?
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Ooh, The Devil Rides Out's a good one, but okay, good, Yeah,
he's still going to go Devil's Rain though, Okay.
Speaker 4 (54:23):
And we'll end with this one. I wouldn't be surprised
if you've seen it. It's a bit obscure. Would you
rather watch The Devil's Rain or Nicholas Cage in twenty
twenty three's Sympathy for the Devil?
Speaker 2 (54:34):
I have not seen Sympathy for the Devil. Okay, that's
one of the few Nicholas Cage movies I haven't seen.
Speaker 4 (54:40):
It's not bad. It's not bad. It's pretty basic, but
it's fun.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
I'm really glad you did that game, because the thing
that it revealed to me is that I did not
expect this movie to hold up so well against other
satanic competition. Again, I will argue that this is actually
a really well done movie in this subgenre, but I'm
even pleasantly surprised to find out how well it.
Speaker 4 (54:59):
Stood up to Do you want to keep going. I
got some more.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Let's go well.
Speaker 4 (55:05):
Martin Scorsesey at one point promised to make this book
into a movie. It's not a movie yet, but an
amazing book. Eric Larsen's The Devil in the White City.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
I am currently listening to the audiobook of that like
literally today. No, I'm not like literally before we started recording,
I was driving around running an errand listening to that book.
Speaker 4 (55:23):
It is great. It was the first thing by Eric
Larson I ever read, and it is great. Okay, well,
let's go back to the beginning of this episode. Would
you rather watch Oh my God, I forgot the title,
Oh My God, The Devil's Rain or Peter Fonda and
Warren Oates in Race with the Devil.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
That's Race with the Devil Bybee.
Speaker 4 (55:41):
Yeah. That one's a little more, a little more action.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Y See. That's the thing. If you want to double
feature Devil's Rain and Race with the Devil, you're gonna
get your full dose of action from Race with the Devil.
And then maybe you'll cut this movie a little bit of.
Speaker 4 (55:53):
Slack for not having car chases in it, right, And
then I guess we could end with have you seen
Christopher Lee and Richard Widmark in nineteen seventy six is
to the Devil a Daughter.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
I can't say with one hundred percent certainty that I've
seen that one.
Speaker 4 (56:09):
I have, but it was literally like in the late
eighties or early nineties, So who even knows. There's a
twenty twenty three one I want to see now called
The Devil Beneath.
Speaker 2 (56:22):
I don't know that one either.
Speaker 4 (56:23):
Nineteen ninety nine Toby Maguire and Skeet Ulrich in Ride
with the Devil.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
That is an excellent Western for sure.
Speaker 4 (56:30):
Yeah, I have not seen it, but I know that
it was well regarded.
Speaker 2 (56:35):
Yeah. I mean again, if it's not Octobate, right, Yeah,
if it's not October, I might go with God, what
do we just fucking say that Angley movie was called
Ride with the Devil. Yeah, yeah, I'd go with that one.
Outside of October, it's October, It's Devil's Rain.
Speaker 4 (56:51):
Yeah. I think that it's best known as like a
good movie, but a bomb.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
So that might be why we need to talk about
the ending of this movie. Again. We've set up from
the very beginning that we have this face melting effect
that happens within these cult members and the entire time.
Ernest borgnine wants this book to summon the Devil's Rain.
We don't even know what that means. It is the
ultimate meteorological mcguffin, right, We just know that it's something
(57:20):
bad that's gonna happen if he gets the book. He
ends up getting the book summoning the Devil's Rain, but
because of something a combination of things Eddie Albert has
done and Tom Scarrett has done, the rain falls and
ends up melting all of the Satanists. And this finale
of just these cloaked, eyeless Satanists melting into puddles like
(57:42):
it's the end of Grimlins. To the New Batch is
that I start.
Speaker 4 (57:46):
Singing Devils Rain, Devil's Rain.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
Do you ever dreamme of devil oh coded rain boo?
Speaker 4 (58:03):
Anyway, Yeah, I was doing Prince, Who are you doing?
Speaker 2 (58:07):
I was? I was not doing Prince. I want to
say new Addition, but it's not a new edition. It's
one of the bands from the early nineties who sounds
like New Addition.
Speaker 4 (58:13):
Anyway, So the Devil's Rain like, but it doesn't it
kill his entire like.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
Cult Soul for Real is the name of that band. Okay, yeah,
it kills the entire cult, And honestly, I love how
proud the effects department clearly is of this, because this
sequence goes on for several minutes.
Speaker 4 (58:31):
Yeah, it's like, you know, you've dealt with some threatening
and ominous and mildly creepy stuff, but if you want
some horror and like the kind of thing that will
you know. I didn't, but I guarantee you there are
some of our gen X brethren who saw this movie
and just remembered the last ten minutes and it gave
him nightmares for the last forty years.
Speaker 2 (58:49):
Absolutely, And I just love that you get borganine exploding
and then the church catching on fire and exploding. So
don't tell me there's no action in this, God damn it.
But this twist ending, this twist ending, because throughout the
whole movie, we've had this weird giant Faberge egg TV
in which we've just.
Speaker 4 (59:07):
Seen, Yeah there are souls in there.
Speaker 2 (59:09):
Yeah, these like whaling souls trapped inside of this Faberge
egg TV that looks like literally your grandmother would have
had in her living room. And yeah, it's just like
weird trapped. Now suddenly our female lead is trapped inside
of it and Ernest borgnine isn't really dead and what's
going on? We just hear her wailing over the credits
like it's again a very upsetting ending and no it
(59:31):
doesn't make a look of sense. And no I don't
fucking care.
Speaker 4 (59:33):
Oh no it does to me. He's posing is her
and the real her is in the her soul is
now trapped and she's dead and now trapped in the egg.
Speaker 2 (59:42):
Right, we arrive at that, and that's fine. But what
I'm saying is there is nothing to tell it, to
guide us into that direction. It just happens because devil
again satanus x Makana, and I am here for it.
I don't care.
Speaker 4 (59:54):
Yeah, the devil doesn't care about your rules of screenwriting.
Who wrote the rules that screenwriting book? He's his name,
But yeah, the devil can do anything.
Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
The Devil's in the details. But the devil don't give
a shit about the details, you know what I mean. Yeah,
he's gonna do what the devil gonna do. If there's
one person I would believe has the power to do
whatever the fuck he wants, it's Satan. So I buy
into it immediately. And all I could think about is
this movie wrapped up on this viewing was this is
a film that's begging to be remade like it is.
Speaker 4 (01:00:23):
That's the guy who wrote the books on screenwriting, Sidfield, right, But.
Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
This is a movie that's begging to be remade like
the slow, methodical pace. If A twenty four did a
remake of The Devil's Rain tomorrow about this family, oh
my god, ari Astro could do a great version that
is this sort of pensive meditation about the sins of
the father and it's like we're all trapped in this
house in the dark, in the desert, and it's like
I could see it. I could see the fucking trailer
(01:00:47):
for it, and it would work so well, and it
would still have this big, you know, horrifying practical effect.
Ending it would work just as well, but you could
maybe iron out some of the things that audiences in
seventy five weren't prepared.
Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
I got it. We let's let's crowdfund this. We hire
ari aster to combine Race with the Devil and this one.
Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Race the Devil's Rain by ari Astor produce Race with
the Devil's Rain.
Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
You're yeah, they have to get home before the Devil's
Rain starts.
Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Let's go. Because they're all made of salt, they're all lots.
Why from the from the Old Testament?
Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
Could not the interpretation be that, like Shatner ends up
being the winner and that's why God's Rain melts the cult.
Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Yeah, and again like I just know what happens. I
know that the involvement of this family ends up overturning
the power of Borganine's character. Or does it, It doesn't matter.
All we know is that people are fucking melting and
it's awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
Yep. And it's infinitely more interesting than The Incredible Melting Man,
which should be a good horror movie but it's not.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
But it is not.
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Watch them become a melting hell on Earth when the
Devil's Rain.
Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
And that brings us to the junk food pairing. And
for this one, Scott I went specifically with Snackwell's Devil's
Food cookies. These were a staple of the nineties. These
were these products.
Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
They were soft, they were like little solos.
Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Yeah. I don't know that there's ever been a cookie
like it since this went off the market. But what
was crazy about Snackwell's products in the nineties is they
were marketed as a fat free and thus healthier snack.
So the US Dietary guidelines of the early nineties advocated
for a reduction in the consumption of fats right. However,
in an ironic consequence, Snackwell's products were an example of
(01:02:27):
foods that had a higher carbohydrate count and were later
cited as a likely contributor to the obesity epidemic of
the nineties and beyond. It's one of those things I've
talked about it before where the different health crazes, Like
we talked about this in the Stuff episode of all
these foods was like zero fat, zero fat. It's like, yeah,
just because there's no fat doesn't mean there's not a
whole heap of other unhealthy things inside that cookie. And
(01:02:48):
this was a great example of that. It was also
something that my brother, you know, who at the time
was not a kid that had a weight problem. His
favorite cookie were the snack Wells Devil's Food cookies and
he would just like you only got like nine of
them in a box, so he would just house all night.
Speaker 4 (01:03:03):
They were thick. Did you ever hear about how Coolwhip
tried to sue Larry Cohen.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
For the stuff did not That's amazing no, I just
made that up. Oh damn you, Scott. I was like,
how did that not turn up in my research?
Speaker 4 (01:03:19):
I would say my snack food pairing junk food pairing
would be well, the film was shot in Mexico, so
let's go with Mexican pepsi or Mexican coke. That he
used a real sugar instead of quartzrup.
Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
And maybe then you'll get the snack will effect, which
is it's the tendency to consume greater quantities of an
item that is deemed to be healthier. Like the snack
wall cookies are fat free, so like my brother, I'll
just eat the whole box in one sitting. That's the snackell.
Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
I mean, humans, we fall for that shit all the time.
I fell for it in a smoking fashion. I was
told that vape was considerably healthier than smoking, which it is,
but it's still not healthy.
Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
I feel like all the critics of The Devil's Rain
are the people eating o Lester chips and just looking
down their noses at regular chips. Oh, you're so unhealthy.
I eat eleestra and it's better. And then once those
people started shitting their insides out regardless of what.
Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
Yeahn't that what Olestra did made you poop a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
It like made you shit bricks man. It was terrible.
It was terrible for you. That was like another version
of the snack Will effect is the Olestra effect. And
I feel like that's what was happening with critics at
the time of The Devil's Rain. You are not superior
just because you like a different type of movie. This
movie is doing what it does very well and deserves
to be in the same echelon as something like Race
with the Devil, House of the Devil, and all of
(01:04:37):
the movies about the Prince of Darkness, including Prince of Darkness.
Speaker 4 (01:04:41):
Oh, I forgot that one. How about The Devil's Rain
or Devil Times five about five kids?
Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
Devil's Rain?
Speaker 4 (01:04:49):
Yeah, it's not that gooding, you know with that? Wasn't
also seventy five, was it?
Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
I had to be around that time. I tell you what, Scott,
thank you for weathering this discussion Devil's Rain with me.
And while you do your plugs, I will look up
when Devil Times five came.
Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
Out, I already got it. Nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Ah, damn it. We'll do your plugs anyway. God damn it.
Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
Oh yeah, follow me on a blue sky. I'm just
playing old Weinberg. And if you want to check out
a podcast, check out a free episode wherever you get
your podcasts of overheted. It is a podcast that I
love doing. Brian and I recently did an episode on.
Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
I Forget What the fuck did we just do? We
just did it? How am I?
Speaker 4 (01:05:30):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
We taking of Bernie's Two.
Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
Yes, you want to hear Brian defend Weekend at Bernie's
Two for forty minutes. Check out that episode, But that's
only on my Patreon, which is www dot patreon dot
com slash Scott E. Weinberg.
Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Change your perception of what a bad movie is. That's
what I'm imploring anyone listening to this podcast to do.
Really start to think about your criteria for judging the
quality of a film, because if you think a movie
like you.
Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
Look at it, it's easy to look at a nineteen
seventy five B horror movie like this and go bad.
But my question is, do you do you think that
that's the film they set out to make? And if
you to me, that's the first step of analyzing any art,
is you know, do you think this is what they
meant to make, and I honestly think that this is
what they meant to make.
Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
I'm going to tell you this right now. Anton LeVay
is credited in the cast, so I have no problem
believing that this is exactly the film they set out
to make, because you know, if this was a studio
hack job, his name would not have been in those
opening credits. So I believe one thousand percent that this
is entirely the movie that Foost intended to make, and
he made a damn good one, and I will defend
it from here on out. And if you want to
(01:06:42):
hear more of me defending movies that are questionable, you
can support us on Patreon, Patreon, dot com s Last
Junk Food Cinema, follow us on all the social media's
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And as we wrap
up this episode, I just want to implore you that
if you're going to live deliciously, beware of the snack
will effect.
Speaker 4 (01:06:59):
Yes, And I apologize for singing, I don't