Eric's October Challenge Movie Journal, Part Two

Halloween is over, except in our hearts. Join Eric once more as he runs down the second half of his October watchlist, offering thoughts on first-time watches including The Stendhal Syndrome, the Spanish-language version of Universal's Dracula, Offseason, Basket Case, Lord of Illusions, Satan's Rhapsody, The Bloody Pit of Horror, Books of Blood, Tourist Trap, Five Nights at Freddy's, The Night Strangler, The Hole in the Ground, The Haunting of the Queen Mary, Psycho II, Insidious Chapter 3, and Blind Beast.

Also I don't know the ethics of utilizing works created by AI in a I'm-not-profiting-off-this context, but just in case a citation is needed, this episode's art was created by Stable Diffusion.

Episode Transcript

(00:30):
Hello world. I posted the first part of my October challenge movie journal last night.
And as you can see, it has taken the world by storm. Simply everyone is talking about
it. But it's actually Halloween today, so I figured, hey, why not go ahead and talk

(00:55):
about the next 16 movies on the journal. As of this recording, I've seen 33 altogether
with another 21 movies to go, if I watch all the ones that are on my watch list. But I guess
since it's Halloween today, it is officially sort of over. So I don't know. Hey, it doesn't

(01:17):
have to be official because I'm just doing this for fun anyway. And posterity, which is why I'm
recording it. So we left off with, we're all going to the World's Fair. So next up is The Stendhal
Syndrome, which is the first of a couple of Italian movies that I watched this year.

(01:39):
Whether you watch a giallo specifically or not, I think you do need to watch at least one Italian
horror movie every October because it represents a pretty good scene for horror that country,
which is funny considering that horror movies were banned both from being made and from being

(02:01):
watched under the rule of Mussolini, which is why you don't really get any horror movies to speak of
from early cinema up through the late 50s, which is when they made like,
I have been Piri and Kaltiki, the immortal monster, which Mario Bava, I think sort of
ghost directed both of those. But from 1996, we have The Stendhal Syndrome, which is,

(02:26):
I said the title already, but that's Dario Argento's take basically on the rape revenge thriller
and starring his own daughter. I don't know, is it Asia or Asia Argento in the lead, but she plays a

(02:46):
cop who falls victim to the murderer that they are currently investigating in Rome. And he follows
her back to her, I forget where it is, but the small town where she grew up, she goes back to be
with her family and he follows her back there and continues tormenting her and she becomes obsessed

(03:08):
with revenge for good reason. And then a lot of mysterious things happening. It seems like at
a certain point in the film he's dead, but then people keep dying all around her. So did he not
actually die? Did she only leave him for dead? And this is probably the last film in Argento's

(03:30):
period that I think is considered sort of of interest for Argento fans, not sound mean.
Maybe some people would say the card player. I haven't seen that one. I've heard it has some
Argento-esque sequences, but in terms of being a consistent work all the way through, well,

(03:50):
even some people would debate that because there is the sensibly, this is the first Italian movie
to feature CGI. And some people take issue with that. I thought it was used pretty well because
the Stendhal syndrome of the title is this idea that you are put into kind of a hypnotic state by
art. So there's a couple of sequences where, and it's mostly represented in the movies by

(04:14):
paintings, where Asia Argento's character is like looking at a painting and becomes hypnotized and
starts to feel out of her control, like she's drifting into the world of the painting. And they
use a mix of CGI and real locations to represent that transition between worlds. It's up for debate

(04:36):
how much the syndrome itself actually plays into the plot of the movie. It's sort of just this
background effect, but it's effective. But it's, you know, it feels like sort of the ultimate
statement of Argento's oeuvre as a whole is the idea of being so transfixed by art that you drift

(05:00):
inside it. I mean, there are moments of deep red where he's moving the camera around like a cafe
and everybody is, the clothing and makeup kind of make people look like they are objects in a
painting. And they're all doing the mannequin challenge basically just like remaining completely

(05:20):
still as the camera moves around and you feel like you're inside of a painting almost where
nobody's moving except for your main characters. And it's a surreal little flourish inside of a
movie that otherwise seems to take place in some version of our real world. And the Stendhal
Syndrome has, I'd say, a really great performance by Asia Argento. She's a cop, so she's very

(05:50):
like tough and with it, but she's also extremely vulnerable and it's probably the most
lucid in a lot of ways of Argento's movies, at least in the ones that I've seen.
Because like I said, even something like deep red, which is supposed to take place in the real world,
does have these like little moments that go like, that feels like it's pretty heightened,

(06:15):
or the characters are not emotionally reacting in quite the way that they might in real life
to give it kind of a dreamlike feeling. And the Stendhal Syndrome has some of that, but it
probably feels the most like any Argento movie I've seen of like relatively straightforward
emotionally. But I did like it quite a bit. It's got a great score by Ennio Morricone.

(06:38):
That's always a plus. Number 18 is Dracula, the Spanish language version, which was shot.
Most horror fans sort of know the legend of, is it a legend? I don't know. The fact that when,
because of the fact that Todd Browning's Dracula was made so early in the cycle of sound film,

(07:03):
they didn't really have techniques like dubbing yet to sell films to foreign markets.
So they would just shoot an entire different version in another language to capitalize on,
if you want to sell a movie to South American countries or whatever. So they filmed the version
of Dracula in Spanish with different actors, Mexican actors. And Dracula is probably the most

(07:30):
well-known of these alternate versions because of the fact that the crew and the director,
I think, was American, not Mexican, but there was an idea that they wanted to sort of outdo
Todd Browning's Dracula. And the film is notorious for being better made overall, like utilizing more

(07:52):
camera movement. And I think the pacing of the film is generally better in terms of the way that it
keeps the scene moving. And the Todd Browning version, I've talked about this on the podcast
before, is I really liked Todd Browning as a director, typically in terms of his silent films.
And obviously he did like freaks and then even his lesser known stuff like The Devil Doll and

(08:17):
The Unholy Three and stuff like that. I think his movies usually have a pretty lively pace about
them, but his version of Dracula is just really slow moving to the point that it becomes a bit
tedious, I think. And so the Spanish language version, it did hold true, I think, in that it

(08:40):
is a better made movie. It feels like it moves along in a better clip.
Most of the actors are doing comparable or better work than the actors in the original. I think
that the actor who plays Renfield is doing, I wouldn't say he's doing better than Dwight Fry,
because Dwight Fry does put in a pretty iconic performance, but the actor playing him in the

(09:01):
Spanish version is, I think, a little bit better at sort of flitting back and forth from
madness to sanity. I feel like once Dwight Fry goes over the edge, there's no longer any point
at which he's even trying to convince anybody that he's actually sane. Whereas this actor is sort of,
he'll have a really big nervous reaction to somebody saying something about Dracula or whatever,

(09:23):
and then he'll just immediately, almost in a cat-like sort of way, just regain his composure and be
like, hmm, I can't say I know anything about that. And then he'll just immediately, almost in a cat-like
way, and just trying to put on this mask of sanity, which is really fun. And obviously,

(09:46):
the guy who plays Dracula himself is no Bell and Lagozzi, but I'm glad we have both versions,
I guess. And one thing that I didn't realize about the movie was, or that I hadn't heard before,
is that it actually has a much longer running time. It's like 97 minutes or something in
comparison to the English language version, which I think is like 70 something minutes.

(10:10):
And so you get some sequences that have been added in. The most notable one is that you actually get
a sequence on board the Demeter, which in the original, I think they just show some footage of
the crew working in the storm. And then you have the ship washing up ashore with the captain bound

(10:31):
to the wheel that you see in shadow. But here you actually see Dracula getting out of his coffin on
the Demeter and hunting the sailors and stuff. So that's probably the most notable addition.
And then a lot of the other stuff that gets added in, I would say, it does, I said that the
individual scenes are better paced, but the movie as a whole is maybe about equivalent because it

(10:53):
moves along in a better clip, but also they added in an extra half hour. And I'm not sure how much
of that is actually necessary. So I would say the ultimate conclusion to me is that it's pretty much
equivalent to the English language version. It just has different strengths and weaknesses.
After that comes Off Season, which is a movie that was released last year. I was looking at the

(11:20):
AV clubs list of like the best horror movies that came out in 2022, because I don't really have much
of a way to, unless they talk about an individual horror movie that breaks through to the mainstream
on some of the movie podcasts that I listened to, which tend to focus more, they're not horror
exclusive. I don't really have any, I don't tap into the horror scene specifically anymore. I used

(11:44):
to listen to a couple of different horror podcasts and they either went to funked or I just kind of,
well, mostly they just went to funked. So those were the ones that used to sort of keep me
up to date on new horror stuff, but I don't really have that anymore. So now I just kind of have to
hear what filters through to the point that I hear about it, like Black Phone or X or whatever,

(12:09):
are sort of like relatively high, not high brow, but high visibility releases. But then stuff that's
kind of under the surface or like even something that's at the level of like a girl walks home
alone at night is something that I feel like it might slip through the cracks and I just might not
hear about it quite so much if it comes out now. So anyway, I looked up the AV Club's list of like

(12:35):
best horror movies of 2022 and I wrote down the ones that seemed interesting and Off Season was
pitched basically as like a New England Lovecraftian type of cosmic horror story and they sold it as
like it has the feeling of like a radio play, like an old time radio play in terms of just being

(12:56):
really low key. And I thought that sounded appealing. The actual movie itself is just okay.
I gave it a five and a half out of 10, meaning like, you know, there's just barely enough there
for me to recommend it, but I don't think it's great. The story is about a woman who gets word

(13:18):
that her mother's grave site back in this small New England town, or it's actually an island,
where she grew up, her grave site was desecrated. So she's returning there with her husband from
wherever they live to try and suss out what happened and what they can do about it and fix
it up and all that. And then it comes out that like her mother, who was a famous actress,

(13:42):
in her final days, she was like begging her daughter, like, do not bury me in that town
where I grew up. Like, do not, please, for the sake of my soul, do not bury her there. And her
daughter just kind of dismissed it as like she probably just has dementia or something,
but she intends to follow the, you know, directive until the lawyers are reading the will and they

(14:09):
tell her like, this will specifies that she does have to be buried there. And the daughter's like,
no, she told me very specifically, she didn't want to be buried there. Somebody must have changed it.
It wasn't in the will last time I saw it. And they were like, oh, well, it's in there now.
Nothing we can do about it. You know, we can't verify with her whether it was changed or not,
because she's dead. So we just kind of have to go off this. So she does wind up getting buried there.

(14:34):
And then all the typical scenes that you expect from a New England Lovecraftian pastiche happen.
You know, the graveyard in the mist and the ocean waves rolling up upon the sandy beach
under a gray sky. It's all there. Unfortunately, the atmosphere is, it never quite gets there

(15:00):
because the cinematography, it's hard to describe, but it just feels kind of overlit.
Like everything is too, there's too much clarity and you can see everything. So the things moving
around in the fog, which would normally be very like elusive, amorphous shapes that you can't

(15:21):
quite make out what they are. Just everything just feels a little bit too safe. And also the music
is really like overblown. Like when they go there, they get to the gravesite and they see that
the tombstone is like cracked in half or whatever. There's like this big dramatic musical sting.

(15:42):
And it sort of works against that low-key atmosphere that I think New England horror
kind of needs to sustain, at least until you start seeing like demons or whatever.

(16:05):
And then there's just all the cliched scenes that you expect, like the characters walking into the
pub and everybody there is having a good old jovial time laughing and joking and taking
swigs of their beer. And then the moment these outsiders walk in, everybody goes dead silent
and swivels their heads and looks at them with this like ominous glare. And I feel like that moment was

(16:29):
so cliched even 40 years ago that John Landis was kind of playing it, not for laughs, but he
was playing it in kind of a tongue-in-cheek way in an American werewolf in London. And then you have
that moment here and it's just kind of played straight and you're like, I don't know. I don't
necessarily think that you always have to wink at the audience when you're engaging in cliches, but

(16:53):
you do have to give it, you have to impart some kind of a twist to it, I think. And this movie
just doesn't really seem interested in trying to impart any particular kind of spin to anything
that it's doing. It's just kind of doing it in this really straightforward kind of way.
And there just doesn't really feel like there's anything original about it.

(17:14):
But I will say, the ending is sort of semi-interesting. So given that the movie
is like 90 minutes, it's sort of kind of worth watching if Lovecraftian mythos in New England
and towns appeals to you at all. It's like, you might get just enough out of this to make it worth

(17:36):
your hour and a half. Next up is Basket Case, which is, what's that filmmaker's name? Frank
Hindenlotter. Basket Case from 1982. I don't know what to say about this movie, except that I didn't
enjoy it. I just thought it was kind of boring. It's about a guy who checks into a, they call
it a hotel, but everybody living there feels more like a boarding house. Like everybody's living

(18:01):
there long-term or something at this sleazy boarding house in New York City with a colorful
cast of characters, of course. And this guy checks in and he's got a basket that he's always carrying
around. And sometimes he seems to be like whispering to it when he thinks nobody's around.
And eventually you find out that the basket contains his brother, who used like this small

(18:26):
misshapen blob that used to be attached to him at the hip. And then against the guy's will,
when he was like a preteen or whatever, an operation was carried out to remove him from his
conjoined twin. But the twin survived unexpectedly and became murderous. And now they share a

(18:50):
telepathic link and it's getting in his way as he's trying to take care of his brother and track
down the surgeon who performed the operation to take revenge upon her. But then he meets a receptionist
for one of the doctors and starts up a romance with her. And wouldn't you know it, that
that brother in the basket, broller in the basket, that's my Daniel Day Lewis impersonation from

(19:14):
There Will Be Blood, just a broller in a basket, is making things difficult for him and seems to
make it hard for him to have a normal life. And yeah, I don't know. I didn't really find there to
be much of interest in the movie. I just thought it was kind of so dedicated to being like, I don't
want to say in bad taste because I don't think it necessarily is, but it just, I don't know. It

(19:41):
seems so concerned with being outlandish in its premise that it kind of forgets to actually get
you invested in what's going on, like as though the shock value is enough to carry you through
this 80 something minute movie. And for me, it wasn't. All right, next,
I don't know if I could pick a favorite era of horror movies, but I do find something really

(20:04):
fun and comforting about 90s horror, which is not that surprising considering that's the era I grew
up on. But there just don't really seem to be that many that I haven't seen yet. So it kind of,
again, like it gets harder and harder every year to find some that I haven't seen yet.
Because either I watched it at the time or there are some that just look really bad that I'm like,

(20:29):
I don't think I would even get a nostalgia hit out on that one. But I watched Lord of Illusions,
which is a Clive Barker film about magicians. Kevin J. O'Connor plays a magician who seems to
be doing it for real basically. And I think that's kind of the story of the movie.

(20:51):
You know, doing it for real basically. And so you kind of borrow a lot of beats from stories about
magicians and con men. They always have the story of like, what's real? What's an illusion?
You know, we saw somebody die, but did they actually die? Or was that all part of this fake

(21:12):
overall con or prestidigitation of life? And it's called Clive Barker's and he actually did write
and direct it. Unlike some things which are just like Clive Barker's bloopity bloop directed by
somebody you've never heard of before. And it's a fun movie. You know, again, if you like 90s

(21:38):
movies, it kind of has that throwback to film noir vibe that was so prominent in the 90s. Or
film noir or like pulp, pulp comics and stuff. Like, you know, the Phantom and movie or was it
called the Phantom? I think it was where he was in the purple suit. Mr. Titanic himself, Billy Zane.

(22:03):
And the Rocketeer, you know, there was that like pulp retro throwback movement of the 90s. This is
kind of part of that because you got Famke Jensen, who I mentioned. Oh, yeah, this was the second
thing that I saw her in outside of House on Haunted Hill, but she plays the magician's wife and
she's kind of a femme fatale. You're never quite sure like whose side she's on. And she seems to be

(22:27):
perhaps indulging in some romance with the main character who is a, is he a private eye or just
somebody who happens to get caught up in the investigation? I don't quite remember. And then
there's a backstory about how Kevin J. O'Connor, the magician years before the events of the story,
he went out to this like basically like cult desert compound looking kind of thing where all these

(22:52):
members were, you know, shaving their heads and wearing the clothes of their leader. And then he
was a guy who was actually practicing magic, but he seemed to have some bad plans. He wants to kind
of end the world for reasons that are never quite elucidated. And he's clearly bad news. So they
start off by not killing him, but keeping him at bay with this like metal mask that they put on him

(23:18):
and then they bury him. And then his disciples years later are attempting to revive him. So
they're going on a killing spree, you know. I don't know. It's a pretty fun movie. I gave it a seven
out of 10. Next up is another silent film. I say another because on the first movie journal, I

(23:41):
covered Destiny. This one was called Satan's Rhapsody. It's a very, very, very, very, very
simple film. It's about a man who is a man who is a woman who lives in a house and he's a man who
lives in a house. And it's called The Rhapsody. It's another Italian movie, but this time from

(24:01):
1917. And it's, you know, the fun thing about silent movies is they only had to be like, you
know, 40 minutes long to be considered feature length. And that's what this one is. And it's a
great screen show you got going. So one of the things about the screen show live is
the first thing that happens on this screen is you're different. You'll just be pictures coming

(24:28):
in like it was made like the shape or like animation and Chopin, 1830s. But the negotiated
rhythm. And then there's a bit more of that mountains guitar. It's quite up to the expression
his name is Alba, like Jessica Alba, but Alba means like sunset or something like that in

(24:48):
Italian. So if I forgot to capitalize it, there would just be like, the sentence would
be structured around the idea of a sunset. And I was like, what are they talking about?
Oh, right. Sunset is the main woman. And yeah, it's just a story about an old rich lady who
makes a deal with the devil to get her youth back and then falls into sort of a low triangle

(25:10):
with two brothers becoming infatuated with her. And then one of them becomes increasingly
arduous to the point of threatening to end his own life if she doesn't reciprocate his
love and that causes complications. And yeah, that's pretty good. If you like silent movies,

(25:32):
I'd say watch it. And then two Italian movies in a row because the next one is The Bloody
Pit of Horror from Italy in 1965. And he, I mean, I guess this is true across filmmaking
in general, but Italian horror of the 60s is so different from Italian horror of the

(25:53):
70s. This movie is not a Jallow, but it does feel like it's taking its cues visually from
Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace in terms of these really vividly saturated colors,
like just like this super technicolor. Like it almost looks like a musical in terms of

(26:16):
the vividness and saturation of these colors. Like there's a lot of reds and mainly reds.
And it's about the beginning has the prologue where you have the actors and these kind of
party city looking medieval costumes putting this guy to death. He's a medieval executioner

(26:41):
who seems to enjoy his job too much and maybe has done some extracurricular executing, but
they kill him in his executioner's outfit. So he's wearing like, I guess not pantaloons,
but like pantyhose looking like red tights and no shirt. And then like the hood, the

(27:01):
crimson hood on his head. And he gets killed in an Iron Maiden that has a window where
you can see his face. So he gets that cross-eyed look that people tend to get in horror movies
when they're getting killed. So it's pretty silly. And then flash forward to contemporary

(27:21):
Italy where there a group of models and photographers are breaking into the castle where this happened.
Not knowing its history, but thinking that they can do a shoot in this torture chamber.
Basically I think as like references for the paintings that this cover artist is going

(27:42):
to paint for these horror novels, which were so popular at the time. So there's a lot of
imagery that Jalot was based on or inspired by the film genre, was inspired by basically
sort of like whodunit novels that were initially translated from other languages, mostly English,

(28:05):
like Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler, that type of hard-boiled, I guess Agatha Christie
is not hard-boiled, but these like murder mysteries with like lots of pulp and sex and
violence. And then Italians started writing original stories in Italian that were translated
and that were also given these iconic yellow covers that publishers decided would catch

(28:29):
readers' attentions. And so that imagery is what inspired Mario Bava to make Blood
and Black Lace, which also has to do with models getting killed one by one. And Bloody
Pit of Horror is sort of like that, but instead of concerning itself with like mod, chic,
it's medieval torture chamber imagery in modern day. And it's a pretty ridiculous movie.

(28:58):
The person who winds up being the killer who's killing the models and photographers across
the castle has a lot of monologues about his perfect body. He's got like a six pack and
biceps that he's very proud of and that seems to feed in somehow to why he feels the need
to be killing everybody. It's never quite clear. And then your main hero and heroine

(29:24):
are escaping death traps and trying to fight them off. I don't know. Yeah. What's there
to say about it? It's pretty fun. If you like cheesy horror, certainly it's a lot
of fun to look at like the visuals, like I said, and the cinematography is very vivid.

(29:48):
After that, Books of Blood, speaking of Clyde Barker, Books of Blood came out in 2020. So,
whatever there's a 30 plus year build up from a really influential horror novel or
a novel of any kind to a film adaptation, I don't know, brace yourself because it's
probably not going to be very good. And Books of Blood, I did read the first three volumes

(30:13):
of the Books of Blood. I think there were six altogether. From what I remember, and
I think the IMDB trivia confirms this, Books of Blood is sort of in, it's not an anthology,
but it's like pulp fiction. I've talked about this also on the podcast before, is I forget
what the term is, but there is a term for when there are separate stories, but they

(30:34):
take place in the same universe and characters spill over, like somebody who's in the background
of one story turns up as the protagonist of another story. Or like you see in this movie,
you see a character starting across the street and then almost getting hit by a car and it's
just presented as like a lone incident. But then in the later story, you see like these

(30:57):
characters are the people driving the car. So, you get the scene again from their point
of view where they almost hit the girl. And yeah, I don't know. Like this one was not
directed by Clyde Barker and it shows like it's so standard in its approach. The cinematography
is really standard. The dialogue is really standard. The acting is really standard. And

(31:22):
the thing that's like can be off-putting, but is also really distinctive about Clyde
Barker's work as a director is everything is just kind of weird. People don't really
act like normal people quite so much. They always feel a little bit like off-kilter even
before anything sensibly weird happens. And the way things are edited and shot is like

(31:44):
it might not work for you, but at least it's got its own sense of style. And Books of Blood
just feels like the most standard plug and play, you know, this type of lighting, this
type of, you know, kind of boring standard leading actor type acting, this kind of dialogue,

(32:06):
this sensibility to the way the characters interact and form relationships. And apparently
Clyde Barker had a hand in coming up with the new stories for the anthology. And the
only thing that actually comes from the book is from the prologue or sort of the wraparound

(32:26):
device. I don't remember specifically what, but there's passages at the beginning, which
I think is not actually a story unto itself, but it's just sort of there to introduce the
concept of the book, which is like the first sentence is like the dead have highways or
something. And that's exploited at a couple of different moments in the movie and sort

(32:50):
of feeds into one of the stories, which is about a psychic who talks to dead people and
then a professor, a skeptical professor wants him to jump through all the hoops to prove
to her that what he does is real. If you're doing a Clyde Barker adaptation, you should
at least give it some personality. So I don't know. I guess if you're the sort of person

(33:12):
who doesn't really care so much about filmmaking, but just is like, well, you know, if a movie
is like a base level of competence and then on top of that, it gives me like an image
that I haven't seen before, then I'll be satisfied with it. Then I guess this movie
is for you because there are a couple of moments that it's like, I guess I haven't seen that

(33:33):
image in a movie before, but I was just really, I can't even say disappointed because it's
not like I had high hopes in the first place, but I was annoyed really that it all just
felt so standard. So like template by the numbers for filmmaking. Something that does
not feel standard is my next film, Tourist Trap from 1979, which is about a group of

(33:59):
kids or you know, early 20 somethings who their car breaks down. Is it sabotage or was
it just a coincidence? Who knows? And then they wind up getting some assistance? Question
mark. Is it actually assistance by an older guy? They keep calling him like an old coot

(34:21):
or whatever, but he's played by Chuck Connors, most famous for the rifleman, who at the time
that they filmed this in the late seventies would have been only in his late fifties.
You know, I get defensive about the idea of calling people in their fifties old now that
I'm in my heading into my late thirties and like, Oh, that's not that far away. Fifties

(34:42):
is an old, 50 is the new 30. But you know, people aged faster back then I think. And
then the crux, I hate that I keep saying the crux, but the conceit of the film is that
it's gradually uncovered that like somebody is running around on the estate that this

(35:04):
guy, this Chuck Connors guy owns in this desert, you know, in the middle of nowhere. That's
seems to have telepathic abilities. And there's a lot of like mannequins and wax figures that
are getting brought to life and coming after people is the basic premise. And if I had

(35:26):
to say which of the movies I've watched so far was the creepiest, I would probably pick
Skinnamorink. But tourist trap does vacillate back and forth from like kind of cheesy late
seventies, low budget horror filmmaking to like genuine nightmare imagery. Like the killer

(35:47):
is chasing after the main girl at one point, like outside in the dark and he's got a mannequin
head. And then the mannequin head, like the mouth keeps opening and the mannequins like
Molly. And I guess it's explained by the fact that the guy has telekinetic powers, but it's

(36:13):
sort of like, how is he making sound come out of their mouth? It doesn't really make any
sense but it does have a kind of nightmare logic that kind of sticks in your brain. Like
even though it's a movie that's well over 40 years old, it does feel like some of the
stuff in it is so potent that it still kind of sticks with you. And it also has a bizarre

(36:34):
sense of humor sometimes. And Chuck Connors, it's funny that a significant portion of people,
including Stephen King, because he talks about this movie and Danse Macabre, talks about
Chuck Connors being miscast. And I honestly thought his performance was really good, you

(36:55):
know, because I grew up watching the Rifleman. My dad loved TV westerns. Well, still does,
he's not dead, and then I know of. And he was like the wholesome single dad rancher who
occasionally had to use violence to solve his problems. But there was always some kind
of moral at the end about like the fact that telling his young son that he was trying to

(37:18):
race to be a good person, like violence is not always the best solution, Mark, you know,
or whatever. You know, try to find a way around it, try to work with people instead of just
shooting them with your rifle, even though that's what I do every episode. So I thought
he did a really good job from that perspective in this movie of playing a kind of gleeful,

(37:42):
implemented, telekinetically abled villain. Anyway, I lost some audio. I just recorded
all my thoughts about the Five Nights at Freddy's movie, and then Audacity popped up and said,
we lost a bunch of your audio. So I guess I'll try and recapture what I just said. But yeah,

(38:08):
Five Nights at Freddy's was I think the first movie of this that I saw in the theaters.
And that was the ideal way to see it because it's barely mediocre as a film. There were
lots of young people in the audience in cosplay, you know, talking very excitedly before the

(38:30):
movie and even during all the previews and stuff, like chattering very excitedly. Like
this is clearly an event as evidenced by the fact that it's breaking all kinds of October
box office records and knocking Taylor Swift out of first place at the BO. And you know,

(38:50):
so it was probably the best atmosphere in which to see this film because of the fact
they were cheering during all of the Easter eggs and like applauding YouTuber cameos,
none of whom I recognize at all. And like stomping their feet or going like, mmm, you
know, like having a big reaction when somebody said like a spicy line of dialogue or something.

(39:16):
The best way in which to see the movie, having said that, it's not a very good movie. The
problem is just that it's, I don't know, it's tough to talk negative about stuff like this
because I think people are so eager to just dismiss all of your complaints as like, oh,
well, you're not a fan of the video games. So how can you have any, or like you hate

(39:36):
movies that are just for like the common person or movies that are for fans of a thing or
something. But I don't know. I feel like as a person who is a fan of things, I feel like
it is in my best interest to be honest about movies because I don't want movie studios

(39:56):
to keep making bad ones and just expecting me to fall in line and pay for the ticket
when they could have done better. And they chose not to because it was just easy. You
know, like the five nights at Freddy's movies were going, movie was going to be successful
no matter what. And it just kind of has that feeling of like somebody somewhere along the

(40:20):
line was like, yeah, we could make this better, but why bother? Like why put the effort into
it? And I don't know, again, like I know there's a certain type of person who will say that
I am anti-fan because of that, but it's like, no, I want you and the fandom to have a better
experience like you deserve better. And you're not going to get it because you just kind

(40:42):
of line up at the trough and just eat whatever garbage they feel that justified in feeding
you because it's a foregone conclusion that they're going to get your 12 bucks for the
ticket or whatever it winds up being. I don't know, I get a little bit annoyed with fandom
that way. I think they call it toxic positivity. You know, like you don't have to say that

(41:03):
this is great just because it's long awaited and it's an adaptation of an IP that you already
feel strongly about. Like you can be critical. It's okay. I don't know. It's just like this
weird street cred thing of being like, I love that it was the best thing ever and just being
in denial about its flaws because that's the community that you're fitting into or something.

(41:25):
I don't know. It annoys me. And it annoys me like people complain about like latter-day
Marvel movies or something. And I'm like, the writing was on the wall, dude. Like they've
been bad for a long time now and you kind of stuck with it because you were invested
in those characters. And so you sort of told yourself that they were still amazing because

(41:47):
it's like, well, I remember when the Tony Stark movie was something to look forward
to so therefore I must love Avengers Endgame or whatever. And it's like, no, it was already
bad. They were already badly done movies, but they just had your goodwill from because
you were in at the ground level when they were actually trying. And it wasn't just all

(42:07):
like cashing in on your fandom. I don't know. Like don't, if you're a fan of something,
don't let movie studios cash in on you because you're being exploited. They could be making
something actually good and you're not doing yourself or me, who has to also see these
movies to engage in the cultural conversation, even though I gave up on Marvel a while ago.

(42:32):
But you're not doing anybody any favors by like pretending something that is crappy is
good. You can actually demand quality. Like have some self-esteem, have some self-respect
people. Anyway, that was a long tangent. The main problem with Five Nights at Freddy's
is just, it has a really boring story. Josh Hutcherson is like a guy who can't hold down

(42:53):
a job because he's really got PTSD over the abduction of his little brother when they
were kids. They were at a campsite. He saw his brother get abducted, like shoved into
a car and taken away and he's never been able to forgive himself for not being there
even though he was also a kid. And now as an adult, he's trying to balance his issues

(43:19):
of being haunted by that memory with trying to raise his other little sibling. This one's
a sister. Why are there so many siblings in this movie? Like pick one or the other. This
script just tried to do way too much while also being incredibly paper thin and the movie

(43:41):
is two hours. And like I don't care about this custody battle where Josh Hutcherson
is trying to fight his aunt for custody of his little sister and he has a hard time connecting
with her and whatever. Like who cares? I don't care about this. Just show me the animatronics
killing people. And they do show you that. There's exactly one scene that is really fun

(44:07):
where a bunch of intruders who are colluding with Josh Hutcherson's aunt, who for some
reason, I don't remember why, but in order to gain some kind of leverage in her custody
battle, it involves them having to break into Five Nights at Friday's. Oh, I guess it's
because Josh Hutcherson is the security guard there. So the idea is like if we go in and

(44:28):
trash the place, then it'll look like he's bad at his job and he'll get fired and then
it'll be easier for me to get custody of Ami or whatever. And it's purely because she wants
the checks she gets from the government for having custody of this kid. And the aunt is
played by Mary Stuart Masterson of Fry Green Tomatoes and Benny and June fame. And she's

(44:52):
a great actress. I really love her in those older movies, but like why was she cast in
this? I mean, she needs a job, so I don't begrudge her for showing up here and getting
the paycheck, but there's just nothing for the character to do. Like anybody who is over
the age of 40, because we're automatically trained to hate a woman who wants something

(45:18):
out of life and is not 20 something. So all they needed was an actress who could get a
mean glare on her face and not look 20. And that would have done it. And for some reason
they cast the very overqualified, over talented Mary Stuart Masterson in that part and then

(45:40):
gave her nothing to do. So that's pretty aggravating. And it's just so low energy apart from that
one scene that was actually good and is directed with, it reminded me of like a Sam Raimi,
especially Sam Raimi doing the PG-13 thing like in Drag Me to Hell where you have to

(46:02):
like kind of substitute things for like the gore. You have to show it in a little bit
more of an artful way. So they do like shadows on the wall and just kind of like out of focus
stuff and abstractions and stuff. That is fun. And it feels like a fun artistic choice
as opposed to like, we have to do this because this is PG-13. Like at one point you see one

(46:27):
of the intruders gets swept up into the mouth of the animatronic and then it cuts to their
shadows on the wall and you see her legs kicking as she's trying to get out of the mouth. And
then suddenly the animatronic chomps down and her bottom half just like falls out of
the, falls on the ground in shadow form. And it's like perfectly PG-13, perfectly gruesome

(46:50):
and horrible. So that's really fun. And it has like kinetic camera movements and the
music is really good and the editing is really, goes along in a nice clip. And then the rest
of the movie is just like, I don't know, it was co-written by the guy who made the games

(47:10):
and I don't want to cast aspersions on him for being a self-proclaimed Christian, but
it does feel a little bit like that. Like when you see a Christian film and it's like,
this is trying so hard to convince me that it's meaningful even though this is like a
paper thin premise. That's kind of what happens with this movie is like, we're supposed to

(47:35):
feel like Josh Hutcherson's emotional struggles are like meaningful. And it's like, who cares?
This is Five Nights at Freddy's. Can't you just let it be a fun, kinetic action, horror,
comedy film? Why do I have to like pretend that I care about his recurring dreams? Like

(47:56):
it presented in such a way that like, I don't know, whatever. I don't care about any of
this. And yet you're telling me that it's so important. It's not important, Scott, whatever
your name is. And so the biggest problem is just that it ends on a really low energy note.
Like there's the final confrontation with the founder of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place

(48:22):
and there's like a lot of buildup to it and he comes out in his gigantic animatronic suit
and his voice is all like filtered through the, it doesn't really make a lot of sense,
he's got the glowing eyes and the voice that's like half human and half animatronic. And

(48:47):
you're expecting something really big and then it's just like, nothing happens. It's
just so low energy that it's like, this is going to put me to sleep anyway. But if you're
going to see it, see it in the theater with a crowd of fans, because that'll make it a
lot better. Next up is The Night Strangler, which is the second of two Kolchak movies

(49:11):
that Dan Curtis, I think Dan Curtis directed both of them. He at least directed this one.
In the early seventies, Richard, written by Richard Matheson of I Am Legend and Hell House
fame. Kolchak, if you're not familiar, was played by Darren McGavin and it eventually
became a TV series called, what was the TV series called? Because the first film was

(49:39):
called The Night Stalker and then this one is called The Night Strangler and Kolchak
was the main character. And then the TV show, okay, the TV show was called Kolchak, The
Night Stalker. So I guess he is. So I guess he is The Night Stalker. The idea is that
he's the reporter who's out there hitting the pavement, stalking the night, trying to

(50:01):
uncover these supernatural elements that the cops deny their veracity and these kinds of
things. So he's got to get past the bureaucracy and also face down the supernatural entities
and that kind of thing, which is a really fun premise. And if you can tell by the description,
that sounds like it was probably the inspiration for the X-Files. It was. And Darren McGavin

(50:25):
even appeared on the X-Files as, as it was like Arthur something, I think, but like the
founding member of the X-Files, he shows up from time to time and tells Fox Mulder about
the exploits of this department when it was young in the, I guess it was supposed to be

(50:46):
the seventies also, or maybe even like the fifties, I don't remember. But his casting
in that was a tribute to his role as Colchak, the Night Stalker. Darren McGavin, again,
if you're not familiar, is most famous for being the dad in A Christmas Story. And The
Night Strangler is about women turning up dead. They've been strangled, but they also

(51:09):
have blood missing. So it's sort of like, I think the first movie is about a vampire.
So it does feel a little bit weird that they have a supernatural creature in this movie
who's not a vampire, but he's also taking blood from their necks. So you're like, I
don't know, couldn't you have figured out a different monster? And yeah, Darren McGavin
is the main reason to see it. And it takes place in Seattle, which is pretty novel because

(51:33):
apart from Frasier, like Seattle is not a city that gets a lot of love in like movies
and TV, I think. You don't really get much of an idea of the character of the city in
a way that like, even if you've never been to New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, you
probably piece together how they feel from how often they are the setting in movies and

(51:57):
TV shows. And then Seattle has like an underground city because of the fact that like, I guess
because of like flooding or something. But anyway, there was like an initial version
of the city and then they built over top of that a new ground level, I think. Yeah, just
to keep out water or whatever. So there's this whole underground city that as it's portrayed

(52:21):
in this movie, at least is like fully intact. Like there's still buildings and like intact
buildings and curtains on the windows and all that. Like it just looks like it's just
an abandoned city basically, but it's always night there because there's an artificial
sky overhead, which is the ground for the above city. So anyway, that's a good setting.

(52:45):
And the character of Kolchak is really fun, but I'm not really a fan of Dan Curtis as
a director. I've seen a couple of his things and I think he just, he didn't really have
much of an eye for pacing. I feel like his movies are very flatly paced and they're
kind of just like, well, the script says this happens, so I guess in this scene this will

(53:07):
happen and it doesn't really have any like peaks and valleys or ebbs and flows in terms
of, you know, like it seems like everything that happens is of equal import at all times,
which makes the whole thing just feel kind of flat. But I watched that one because it
was on Svenguli and I like watching Svenguli from time to time.

(53:30):
Next up is The Hole in the Ground, which is from Ireland. It came out in 2019. It's
sort of a changeling story. Does every Irish horror movie have to be about changeling mythology
or at least the Fae folk? It certainly seems that way. A woman moves to a small Irish town

(53:51):
after apparently leaving her husband. They don't exactly say what happened, but she's
got a scar on her forehead that she says is from an accident. And over the course of the
movie, you know, her local physician questions like, is that actually from an accident? So
I think the implication is that her husband was abusive and she took her kid and left

(54:13):
him. And so they're living in this small Irish village on the edge of a forest. And
then in the forest they find this giant sinkhole. And one day she finds her kid playing nearby
the sinkhole. And then from there on, he seems like he might not be the same kid anymore.

(54:34):
He may have been, could be that he's a lookalike who's been replaced by a force that we don't
quite understand. So that's the movie is her sort of dawning realization that like, is
there something wrong with me or is there something wrong with my kid actually? And

(54:54):
it's very well shot. I thought the main actress was really good. Don't know her name. I'll
see. And let's see, what else? I don't know. I thought it was really good. It was moody
and atmospheric. Like it felt like, even though it takes place in Ireland and off season takes
place in New England, I felt like this is sort of like the right way to film moody and

(55:16):
atmospheric coastal town. Or it's not really coastal because I guess they're not on the
ocean that I remember. But like it's, you know, Ireland, so it's overcast a lot of the
time and just kind of has a gloomy feeling about it. And I thought that was the main
strength of the movie that and the main actresses performance or what really make it worthwhile.

(55:37):
And they say 24 and they are pretty consistent. I think about releasing generally pretty good
horror movies. Although this one is not as good as some of the other ones. And it's not
as weird either as like lamb or something like that. 29 haunting of the queen Mary.
This is one that I watched. My girlfriend picked it out basically just based on the

(56:03):
fact that it was being promoted on Hulu as a new movie of theirs. And here's some free
advice for if there are any screenwriters listening to this podcast. If you're writing a narrative
that has, or if you're writing a story that has dual narratives and one of them takes
place is a period piece and one of them takes place in modern day, it's a pretty safe bet

(56:25):
that you can just go ahead and eliminate the modern day portion and your story will be
that much stronger. It just keeps happening time and time again in both movies and novels
is like authors are so married to the idea of doing like parallel storylines in different
times. And the modern day storyline is just dull. It's boring. It's like that did not

(56:46):
need to be there at all. And especially with this movie, the hunting of the queen Mary,
of course the queen Mary is a ship that has a lot of ghost stories about it. So this is
sort of like a what if type of deal. And the modern day story is about this husband and
wife couple who are there trying to, cause you know, clean Mary is not an active ship

(57:09):
anymore. It's just like a tourist attraction. So they're there trying to convince the owner
that they should write a book about it or turn it into like a virtual reality experience.
But that's the, after the first time they visit their kid, it's hard to explain because
they keep changing the story about what happens, but their kid is there with them and he has

(57:31):
some kind of supernatural experience. And then later on there, there's two different
visits that it shows of them being there. And the second visit seems to be to find their
kid because he like left and maybe turned up on this ship again or something. It's not
really explained super well, but I don't care about this couple trying to like rekindle

(57:54):
their relationship and you don't really find out anything about substantial about what
happens to their kid until the very end. And even then it's really ambiguous. And you're
just kind of like, what was all that for? That was all for nothing. But the story that
takes place in the past and the movie is like, I think it's over two hours, by the way. It's
like two hours and four minutes or something. And the portion that takes place in the past

(58:15):
is kind of the majority of the runtime anyway. So if you cut out all the modern day stuff,
you probably have a pretty tight 70 or 80 minute movie is about like it starts with
this family. The father is wearing a mask that covers the lower portion of his face.
And this family is impersonating a first-class family because the dad is like, I don't want

(58:40):
to travel in third class anymore and get treated like garbage. So they're trying to con their
way into first class and they go into the first class dining area. And then the daughter
who has aspirations to be a movie star sees that at another table, there's like a famous
producer and everybody's in costume and eventually gets found out. So anyway, she goes over there

(59:06):
and tries to introduce herself basically to set up like, I want to be in the picture,
and the producer guy is like, get out of here, kid, you're bothering me. He's not very nice
or sympathetic to her aspirations. And then they basically get found out and then the
husband goes homicidal. And again, this is all basically in the trailer. So it's not

(59:27):
like it's a surprise or a spoiler, but yeah, husband goes homicidal, gets an ax and kills
everybody. And then the movie is sort of about figuring out like, why was he possessed or
did he just go insane and what exactly happened there? I like the audacity of the period story.
At one point, the guy who's dressed as Zorro comes over to the little girl after, again,

(59:53):
it doesn't really make a lot of sense because the girl's parents get found out and they
get kicked out, but then they don't kick the girl out. They just let her stay there. And
you're like, why is that happening? But she's just hanging out at the table all by herself.
And then the guy who was at the table with the producer who's dressed as Zorro comes
over and takes off his mask and the girl's like, gasp, it's Fred Astaire. And it's played

(01:00:16):
by an actor who doesn't look or sound anything like Fred Astaire, but it's just like, oh,
whatever, I'll buy into it because that's such a bad shit idea to introduce into your
horror movie that just came out this year. And then Fred Astaire helps her out and they
do like a dance routine together because he's trying to help her clinch the deal with this
producer who doesn't really seem to care that much. And the implication seems to be that

(01:00:42):
Fred Astaire dancing in this dining room slash ballroom is like stirring something up in
the ship and that's what causes the dad to get possessed. And I just thought that was
sort of a funny conceit to take a real life movie star and have there be like this crazy
dance number and then it turns out that that's what sort of ignites the whole set of supernatural

(01:01:06):
events as opposed to like, we accidentally read out of that book of ancient incantations,
you know, like what if instead of the Necronomicon, it was Fred Astaire that causes all the trouble.
So I thought that was really funny. And that's kind of the highlight of the movie that just
goes on for like way too long. Number 30 is Psycho 2. Have you seen the first Psycho?

(01:01:27):
Well, this is the second one. And it's about Norman Bates getting released from the asylum
after he's declared legally sane and going back to the motel in his old house and striking
up a friend because he gets a job at a diner. So he strikes up a friendship with an actress
there played by, or sorry, with a waitress there played by Meg Tilly. And then this just

(01:01:52):
about their sort of will they, won't they? But it's like a will they, won't they?
Like is he going to murder her? Are the old impulses going to come back and he's going
to kill her? Because she gets kicked out by her boyfriend early on. So he has her stay
at the motel and some of the old impulses are maybe coming back. But then there's like

(01:02:15):
strange things keep happening. He keeps getting notes that ostensibly are written by mother.
He's getting phone calls from somebody claiming to be his mother. And then Vera Miles, who
was Janet Leigh's sister in the original movie is back and she's very aggressively trying

(01:02:36):
to warn everybody like he's not cured. He's going to do it again. He's going to do it
again. He's going to snap and kill people. He killed my sister and you're just letting
him out. And so there's a lot of pressure on old Norman from a lot of different angles.
And then the movie is just sort of a twist and turn psychological question mark of like

(01:02:57):
what is actually happening and what is all in his head and who's doing what. And it
sort of reminds me of the immediate comparison I thought of was Die Hard with a Vengeance.
Because you know, the legend of that movie is that that was just written as a spec script
that had absolutely nothing to do with the Die Hard franchise called Simon Says. And

(01:03:19):
then the producers like came across it and thought that it would be a good vehicle for
John McClane. So they just like plugged Bruce Willis into it after the fact and turned it
into a Die Hard movie. And you know, if the script had been made in its original form,
assuming that it was essentially the same without the John McClane character or the

(01:03:40):
fact that Jeremy Irons character is revealed to be Hans Gruber's brother, which is a dumb
reveal not to re-litigate Die Hard with a Vengeance. But you know, if it was made just
about some madman who was taunting the police with riddles so that he could distract them
long enough to you know, rob Fort Knox or whatever Jeremy Irons ultimate goal is in

(01:04:02):
that movie, it would just be like kind of a passable 90s action thriller that like nobody
remembered a year or two after the fact. But because they stick John McClane in it, it
suddenly has sort of a longer shelf life in the pop culture consciousness. And that's
what Psycho 2 feels like is like, it's got a pretty decent able script. And the director,

(01:04:25):
who was also the guy who made Road Games, which is one of those Australian, you know,
Ozploitation movies that I think gets a lot of attention from horror fans now that everybody's
rediscovering things on DVD and streaming services and whatever. The direction is solid.
The script keeps you guessing. But if you took Norman Bates and the imagery of the motel

(01:04:49):
and that spooky house up on the hill that he lives in out of the movie altogether, then
I think it would just kind of, it might have become like sort of a cult classic along the
lines of like, I don't know, The Hitcher or something. Maybe not even that good or that
well remembered. Then, you know, it just probably wouldn't even be that well remembered today.

(01:05:14):
But it does have a certain reputation. And I think it's entirely because of the fact
that you've got Anthony Perkins in there doing his Norman Bates thing really elevates
it. Number 31, Insidious Chapter 3. What does that
say about this one? I was glad that they moved away from a different family than in the first

(01:05:36):
two Insidious movies. I know that this is already like eight years old at this point.
So everybody who's going to see it presumably has already seen it except for me. But I really
liked the first Insidious. I thought the second one, it was a mistake to go back to the well
of that same family again, which I think they also do with the one that just came out. It

(01:05:57):
just kind of felt like a retread that was just sort of like trying to convince you that it
was doing new stuff. But it was just sort of like, I don't know. So this one focuses on
a new family. I thought that was a good idea. I don't know. I don't have that much to say
about it. It's apparently supposed to be a prequel. So I think Lynne Shea's character

(01:06:18):
is no longer living after the second movie. Is that a spoiler? I guess so. So this is
sort of a prequel about her deciding that she's retired because it's getting too dangerous
with all these demons popping up all the time. And then the girl who's getting some demonic
intervention in her life after her mother dies sort of brings Lynne Shea back into the

(01:06:42):
fold. I forget what her character's name is obviously. Brings her back into the fold
and makes her fight the good fight again. And I don't know. What is there to say about
it? It's Insidious 3 directed by Lee Whannell this time, who only wrote the first two and
then James Whan directed it. He directed this one and I think he's an okay director. I

(01:07:04):
thought The Invisible Man was pretty good, but kind of overrated from how much people
loved it. It had a lot of stuff in it that just seemed a little too silly for me. But
I think he's generally a capable director. And that's what I would say about this movie
is like, it's capably done. The end. I feel like I had one other thought about it. What
was that going to be? Oh, my favorite part of all these insidious movies in general is

(01:07:31):
the way that what should be a very metaphysical or metaphorical even maybe idea, which is
like showing that every demon or ghost movie has to be about like, no, don't give in to
these ghosts or demons. You're stronger than them. Just have the stronger will or the stronger
faith or whatever. And the way that they represent that in the insidious movies is to have the

(01:07:55):
characters go into the further and then just start like beating up ghosts. And that really
makes me laugh. It's just so silly when there's like a scary demon lady with the black veil
over her face and the white makeup and she looks really evil. And then Lin-Chen is like,
I'm stronger than you. And she just like throws her out a window or something and flies

(01:08:18):
across the room like this is like a kung fu movie. It's just so silly and ridiculous that
I can't help but love it. And the last entry in this particular movie journal is going
to be Blind Beast from Japan. I feel like I've been talking about so many movies from
the USA on this round, but this one's from Japan. So hey, go me. I did it. Yeah. Blind

(01:08:44):
Beast from 1969 is the type of movie that I probably would have come across years ago.
I used to listen to a podcast called Cinema Diabolica, which did like Euro trash and sleaze
and Jalo movies. I forget what they were called, but there's like a specific sub genre of

(01:09:04):
Italian crime movies from around this time that were like super violent and histrionic.
They covered this type of like B movie cinema and Blind Beast is like kind of art housey.
And I think the sub genre is pinku, which I've never seen before, but it seems to be

(01:09:26):
sort of like a, from what I understand, I think it's like a mix of like horror, violence
and almost like pornographic content. Although again, this is made in the sixties, so it's
not that like, I think you see like a nipple like once, but it's really more about the
ideas, this kind of psycho sexual atmosphere or tone to the entire film. And it's about

(01:09:53):
a blind man who wants to be a great sculptor. And he has this idea that he wants to create
an art for the blind, like an art of the touch. So he abducts this model to basically force
her to be his muse so that he can like sculpt her body, which obviously is very icky because

(01:10:15):
the way that he develops a conception of her body is to feel her up basically. And it's
not really, whether you're blind or not, that's not really something you can do against
a person's will, at least not ethically. I'm not saying the movie is like pro this

(01:10:36):
guy, but it is trying to use this concept to explore ideas of like sadomasochism, violence
and sex and the link between pain and pleasure and all that. And their relationship goes
from being basically like what you would expect the relationship to be between a kidnapped

(01:10:58):
woman and her kidnapper where she's trying to manipulate him in order to be able to escape
for most of it. But eventually it develops into something much more perverse.
The immediate comparison that I would make is to Martyrs. I don't know why I said it
that way because I was sort of thinking about like in English you call it martyrs and then

(01:11:21):
in France, I'm talking about the original French one. I think it's, I've heard it called
like Martyr or Martyrs or whatever, which I saw the very first time that I did one of
these October challenges. I watched Martyrs probably just like a year or two after the
movie actually came out and was underwhelmed by it. And Blind Beasts kind of made me draw

(01:11:44):
the same comparison in terms of the way that I felt about Martyrs was that it had a lot
of potentially very interesting ideas, but it seemed to be at a bit of a loss as to exactly
how to express those ideas. So at a certain point it started to feel like once you strip

(01:12:08):
away all of the shock value of this film, which I don't think a movie can be tedious
and shocking at the same time. So I wasn't really all that disturbed by Martyrs because
it was just like, I'm not invested in anything that's happening because it just feels so
trying to put forward a particular thesis and then using the violence to sort of support

(01:12:30):
that. But I don't know, the thesis is so kind of, I don't want to say thin, but there's
so much promise to the idea of what is behind this that when you just reduce it down to
a bunch of violent actions occurring against your main character, it just kind of becomes
boring because you're like, I would like you to explore the idea that you're actually

(01:12:52):
saying you're trying to explore here instead of just showing me a lot of really violent
imagery that doesn't really do anything to further the philosophy that you claim is underpinning
your film. And that's kind of how I felt about Blind Beast was like, I'm sure it was very
shocking in its day in 1960s Japan, even if it doesn't necessarily show a lot, like just

(01:13:16):
the idea of these characters devolving into this relationship of mutual torture and eventually
murder. I mean, whatever, you kind of know how it's going to end. I don't feel too bad
about spoiling it. But once you take away the kind of context of the time and place

(01:13:38):
in which it came out and how that would have had people perceiving this as scandalous,
once you can move past that because it's 50 years later and a lot of this stuff seems
kind of tamed by today's comparisons, it's like, what's left? It's a well shot movie.

(01:14:00):
I guess that's what's left. The area in which the model is being held, Captive has
all of these gigantic sculptures of different body parts. There's a whole wall full of
eyes and a whole wall full of noses and a whole wall full of ears. And then in the center
of the room, it's like a giant pair of breasts. And it's lit very moodily and the use of color

(01:14:27):
is really interesting and cool. But yeah, I think I kind of felt the same way I felt
at Martyrs where by the time you get to the last 10, 15 minutes when all of the really
I guess you would say perverse stuff starts happening, it's like, but I don't care about
any of this because it's not doing anything to further any kind of, it's like, it just
feels like a repetition of the same idea over and over again. And no matter how shocking

(01:14:54):
you set out to make the expression of that idea, it's like, I already got the idea. So
you kind of have to do something with it or develop it. I don't know, but I know that
from reading the reviews on IMDb, a lot of people have some very strong feelings about
this movie as an art house experience and like, oh, it's amazing what this movie dares

(01:15:17):
to do. And frankly to me, it's just sort of like, I don't really think it's daring. I
think it's just kind of wallowing. I don't even want to say wallowing because that makes
it sound like I was offended by it. I wasn't offended. I was just hoping it would move
on to an expression of its central theme that wasn't just repeating the idea over and over

(01:15:38):
again that like these characters are in a sadomasochistic relationship. Yeah, okay,
I got that. Now where does it go from there? And the answer is, well, it doesn't really
go anywhere. That's a sad note to end on. Oh, well, what I can say is a more positive
thing is this is not part of the challenge officially because like I said, I don't include

(01:16:00):
rewatches but my girlfriend and I did go to see, we saw just on a, I was looking at movie
theater showtimes on Monday the 30th, the day before Halloween. And I saw that Halloween,
the film titled after the actual holiday Halloween, John Carpenter's original was playing, I guess

(01:16:24):
probably as part of a fathom events thing or whatever at our local theater. So we went
to go see it and it's not a movie that I've ever like out and out loved. I always felt
like there are certain aspects of it that are kind of sloppy or feel a little bit hokey
from today's standards. And as we were heading home, I told my girlfriend, I was like, it's

(01:16:49):
funny that Laurie Strode has been like grandfathered or grandmothered, I guess, into being like
the most iconic final girl of all time. Because if you were to release this exact same movie
today, I think people would just be like yelling at the screen about how like stupidly she
behaves after she discovers Michael Myers is after her. Like she, after two times she

(01:17:14):
like stabs Michael Myers, one time with a sewing needle and one time with a knife. And
then she just kind of like, you know, ambles on over to the other side of the room and
like tosses the knife away carelessly and just kind of luxuriates there like, well,
that's done. And you know, if that happened in a movie today, people would be like ranting

(01:17:40):
against it on every platform that they could and giving it a low rating on IMDB. Because
they're like, oh, how could she be so stupid? But because of the fact that the movie was
already venerated as a horror classic by the time my generation was growing up, it kind
of got, you know, slotted into the spot of like, and she's the most amazing final girl

(01:18:05):
ever. But so anyway, those are the things that have always kind of bothered me about
Halloween in terms of the way that people really talk it up as such a classic, because
I think that there are a lot of much better made horror movies that don't get nearly
that much respect. However, all that to say, sorry if you're mad at me, all that to say

(01:18:26):
that like, seeing this one in the theater was a wonderful, a wonderful, simply a wonderful
experience. Because it is, seeing it on the big screen really allows you to get completely
lost in Dean Cundey's amazing cinematography. And one of the things that it made me think

(01:18:49):
about as I was seeing this, you know, image two stories high, I don't know, I don't
know how big a movie theater screen is. But seeing it on the big screen made me think
about like, one of the things that we've really lost with the transition from film to digital
as kind of the standard for horror movies, since horror movies tend to be made on a low

(01:19:10):
budget is the use of shadow in Halloween is so important to, I don't know why I emphasize
it like that, it is so important to the look and feel of the film because of the idea that

(01:19:31):
like Michael Myers could be hiding anywhere. And you just get this depth and density and
richness in the shadows, especially in that scene where Dr. Loomis and the nurse are driving
over to the asylum. And that is so just like, just pitch blackness in areas of the screen

(01:19:54):
that's just like pools of shadow that you don't really get that in digital because,
and also just the inherent softness of film compared to the HD hyper clarity of digital,
where you know, I said on bodies, bodies, bodies, I think that's a movie that uses
digital well, and I stand by that. I'm not saying that you can't do really great horror

(01:20:18):
movies on digital, but there's just that inherent lack of clarity or lack of light on film that
digital wants to pick everything up. Digital wants to be clear and precise and kind of
plastic. And yeah, with film, you just inherently get those deep shadows that really give you

(01:20:46):
that sense of like, the killer could be lurking anywhere because I can't see anything. And
not only can I not actually see what's there, but it just feels like you're being drawn
almost into like a portal of darkness as you look on the image created by a film negative
as opposed to digital when there is something that always feels just a little bit sterile

(01:21:08):
about it. So anyway, so I didn't have to end on a mediocre or on a middling mixed review
of Blind Beast, I'll say. Halloween is a pretty good movie. And if you get a chance
to see it in the theater, you should. Okay. I think I've talked myself out and I talked
you out long ago, listener. So I'll go ahead and sign off and say that maybe sometime in

(01:21:31):
the middle of November, if I watch another, if I watch the rest of these 21 films that
I have on my list, I will drop a third one of these. Don't hold your breath. Bye.