H!TITDS - Jack-O (1995)

Jeff-O and Rick-O discuss this most important Halloween movie in which Michael Myers does not appear. It's Jack-O from 1995 and it's pretty much inevitable. Spooky!

Jeffrey's blog:
https://nessuntimore.blogspot.com/

http://doomedmoviethon.com
http://doomedmoviethon.blogspot.com

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Trick or treat, Sean. This is the night of heavenly fright.
Witches on broomsticks are up to their tricks, and poltergeists wail to the moon.

(00:22):
Which looks like a silver balloon Frankenstein's monster is having a ball Scaring the goblins right off of the wall.
Bogeyman grants and our favorite best. And children are king and queen. They wish you a merry.

(00:56):
Creepy Halloween. Halloween, and Halloween is the Halloween show.
I'm Halloween. I'm here with Halloween. Hi, Halloween. Hello. Ween. Oh, oh, oh.

(01:21):
Folks, it's Richard. I am here with Mr. Spooky, Mr. Jeffrey Cuckoo. Hi. Call me Jeffo. Oh, man. Jeff. Jeffo Lantern, that is.
I'll take Jeff for 200. Folks, yes, it is the Halloween season. Welcome to your October.

(01:43):
Presumably I edited this episode and got it out on time in the October month. There's me patting myself on the shoulder here for maybe doing that. Well, you know, Richard, every day is Halloween. That's right. I have a mirror.
So, we're going to talk about a spooky movie. It's called Jacko from 1995. It was directed by Steve Latshaw.

(02:10):
Now, are you familiar with any of the other works of Steve Latshaw?
No, I was perusing his work. I love his IMDb profile picture. It's gorgeous. He's got a big, what is that, like an eight and a half gallon hat?
Yeah, not quite 10. Yeah. So yeah, he did a bunch of things with Fred Olin Ray early on that all look really interesting. I've not seen any of them besides this.

(02:38):
film but i would like to check out more um there's biohazard the alien force uh bikini drive-in i just picked that one up on blu-ray uh death mask dark universe i think is the big one that was a big
Big hit. Yeah, that's the one I want to see as well. And he also, his last, his latest was 2012's Return of the Killer Shrews. If you were worried about those killer shrews coming back, well, they have.

(03:06):
See, that's terrifying because, you know, I've got a good dose of shrewish, shrewishness. So is Biohazard, the alien force, is that a sequel?
to i don't wasn't there a fred olin ray movie called biohazard or what's there sure is yes okay um so i am confused about this one i don't know maybe maybe

(03:33):
I'm looking at the beautiful poster here. Excuse me, the VHS tape. Fred Olandre is a producer. Okay. And there's a guy in the back who looks like Christopher Mitchum. And it turns out it's...
Christopher Mitchum. Heck yeah. There you go. But yes, I know nothing about this director beyond this masterpiece known as Jacko. Well, it's enough.

(03:58):
We've learned a lot just from this one film. We've learned we need to check out more of the works of Steve Lashaw. Yes. This had three writers. We got Patrick Moran.
Fred Olin Wright himself and Brad Linneweaver, which has a beautiful last name.

(04:18):
So Patrick Moran is the script writer of this film. He wrote it very, very quickly. One thing that is not surprising, should not be at all surprising about this film is that it was made very, very quickly for an absolutely insane.
main reason that we will talk about later. I'm excited. However, Patrick Moran, he collaborated with Steve Latshaw on a bunch of those early movies like, what was it? Dark Universe.

(04:47):
and, um, vampire trailer park. Yeah. Or no, they didn't do vampire trailer park together. I take it back.
And they didn't do Dark Universe. I'm just talking out my ass. No, no, no. It's IMDB's doing this. So it says he's a writer. And then when you click, it takes you to the page. And then it's producer stuff.
And you have to keep expanding all the windows. And for some reason, these things keep disappearing. I'm also very confused. Well, he was at least producer on Vampire Trailer Park and Dark Universe. There you go.

(05:21):
And Jacko, he wrote the script for. And importantly, he's also a member of our cast because he is wearing the Jacko costume. Oh, he's the titular O. He's the titular O. Mr. O. Oh boy.
What else do we need to know about this movie? It's amazing trailer. I'm going to drop in right here. Mr. Jack will snap your spine, cut you in half with a scaly vine. Dad.

(05:50):
A master's real. A fairy tale born from a legend. A truth more terrifying than the tale.
Only one man had the courage to stand against the forces of darkness. But when a secret that laid dormant for nearly a century is accidentally unearthed.

(06:13):
A vicious Avenger is summoned to fulfill an age-old prophecy. Sent us a demon from hell.
Then I'll cry before you die, Mr. Jack will stir your eyes. Mr. Jack will, Mr. Jack will. Guided by a vision.
The young boy stands between good and evil. Haunted by his family's secret past, he must face and fulfill his destiny. Only Sean can stop this monster.

(06:47):
Give us the boy back. Evil lurks in the shadows.
Honestly, that might be one of my favorite trailers in a while, because like...

(07:12):
It really gives you the beats of the movie. And they got a trailer guy. Oh, man. I get bummed out when a trailer doesn't have a trailer guy. You need a trailer guy. Everybody needs one. Yep.
I would like to be a trailer guy. That seems like a sweet gig. Oh man. You just have to keep working on your voice and imparting very dramatic things. Or you go in the opposite direction. He's Jacko.

(07:40):
Like, like, uh, I was having a conversation with Lieta and she, she didn't know who emo Phillips was. And I was doing a bad emo Phillips impression. So that could be my thing, you know, like now.
Mr. Jack will snap your spine.
Cut you in half with a scaly vine. In theaters 1995. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. So in front of me on the internet system, I have the Jacko VHS tape.

(08:11):
from Triboro Films. And here's the plot on the back of the VHS tape.
the legend of jacko is all but forgotten to the townspeople of oakmore crossing except in the nursery rhymes of children almost 100 years before warlock walter machin
Machin? Machin? Machin. Machin. Walter Machin was hung for murder, but before he died, he raised up the fury of a demon creature to take revenge on the unwitting townspeople.

(08:44):
Many died before it was destroyed and buried forever. Until now.
When a trio of grave robbers, a.k.a. Good Time Charlies, stumble across Jacko's unmarked grave, they unleash the vengeful monster to continue its bloodthirsty quest.
90 minutes. I think that's more or less true. That's what happens in this movie. Hey. Feels good when we get one, right?

(09:13):
Oh, yes, the taglines. I read the tagline. Mr. Jack will snap your spine, cut you in half with a scaly vine. And it's harvest time. It's harvest time. Hey, coming at you.
Now in Harvest Colors. So yeah, spoiler alert, we're going to spoil this movie for you guys. I think this is yet another time...

(09:37):
When we're going to tell you some of the stuff that happens in this movie and it doesn't matter. You need to see this for yourself. You know, like let our podcast be your.
Couples therapy. Yeah, couples therapy slash spark notes. Somewhere in between. Exactly. What's the difference? Really, there's no difference.

(10:06):
yeah who needs who needs like an ai therapist i just talked to spark notes hello this is the doomed show you can't spell it without uh ai i guess hello
oh man i i would love to like fire up ai and have it write a script for an episode but i don't want to use all the resources yeah it would also be bad yeah yeah it'd be fucking terrible also but you know

(10:34):
I'm pretty good. What was I saying? Yes. So, happy Halloween. We're going to talk about Jacko right now. But first, let's talk about this cast. We've got some important characters. Oh my gosh.
Going by the IMDB roll here, roll call. First up is one of my favorites, Linnea Quigley. Linnea Quigley, Scream Queen herself.

(11:00):
Horror, exercise, guru. AKA, why is it 16 years into my career and I'm still having to do nude scenes? Like, she's beautiful.
Not even going there. She's gorgeous, but...
I feel like 95. I'm like, give the lady a role where she doesn't have to get naked. Or maybe she wanted to. I don't know what's going on. I don't think she really cared too much. She has a very long shower scene. Very gratuitous.

(11:31):
oh brother so here's the thing she is she is top build in this film and she's in a lot of this film like you know yeah she disappears for a while after getting like bonked on the head but she she still even comes back at the very end
She filmed for three days. Three days. That's it. Wow. She plays Carolyn Miller. I'm surprised her character has a last name. She.

(11:58):
She is our babysitter slash party girl. She does not make it to the party, sadly, but her job was too important. She had to stick around because of her deadbeat sister, who we'll talk about in a moment.
Then we got Madison K. Brown, who plays Linda Kelly. She is the mother of all time. She's the mom of our hero, Sean.

(12:26):
sean kelly and this lady steals the movie for me uh she makes a face in this movie that is freaking amazing when she's interacting with some uh
some, what do you call it, trick-or-treaters. And for a while there, I just had that screenshot of her giant eyes and her very evil-looking smile.

(12:51):
looking down at these amazing and terrified trick-or-treaters.
She's credited in this film as well as Biohazard, The Alien Force, another Latchaw movie, and most recently in 2002 in Hollywood Vampyr as Rebecca Wicks. She's got an alternate.
name that's cool damn bebecca wicks i like it i'm intrigued by this hollywood vampire i've i've heard tell of it it sounds absolutely ridiculous it like um it's a movie that like

(13:23):
talks about how goths are like the most persecuted class of citizens dude and like it begins with like an ayn rand quote it's it sounds insane
The trailer is playing while I'm looking at IMDb. I'm very scared. But if you scroll down, it also recommends Goth, which I have seen. Goth from, what year was that? 2000...

(13:47):
2003, okay. Like, right when I started DoomedMovieThon.com, this was one of the very first free movies that I got, because Brain Damage Films, I think it is, used to send me all the free shit.
And my friends came over and they were cat sitting. They were looking after our animals and they were sitting around like, hey, Richard said we should watch some of his movies while we're here. And my friend's girlfriend picked goth.

(14:16):
And they were so mad at me.
This was terrible. And I'm like, okay, why did you pick that? I mean, did you look at the cover? I like that the cover of that and Hollywood Vampyr are basically the same cover. That's why I was so...
I also, weirdly enough, like unrelated, I saw this film cover the other day and saved it to my phone. Like, oh, I got to check out Goth later. See, dude, I'm loving it. That's getting around. That's so fun. Next up, we got Gary.

(14:47):
Doles who plays David Kelly dad I love this guy too I love this whole cast but he's really fun he and his wife will be doing a lot of incredulity
now and then there'll be a lot of bickering between them him and uh so him and the actress who played rebecca wicks the actress who plays uh his wife um they're they're not in a ton of stuff right i don't think he's in anything else really right

(15:14):
I don't think so. However, they are both featured in the seven minutes of footage on the Blu-ray disc of a failed movie that Steve Latshaw was making called Gator Babes.
Yes, yes. I've seen a little bit of the Gator Babes footage. Yeah, they only did seven minutes, but it was really quite an intense seven minutes, like a real sizzle reel. Would you call it seven minutes in heaven?

(15:42):
Yes, I would.
this footage also appears at on the drive-in screen in bikini drive-in that later movie. So, you know, whenever this, this will be a running theme throughout this episode, whenever like.
Somebody in the Fred Olin Ray universe has a movie that like never quite gets finished or off the ground. If they shot any footage for it, it will be reused in some form. Hell yeah. Waste want want want.

(16:12):
So the director's son, presumably, is this kid named Ryan Latshaw. He's both Sean Kelly and his own ancestor, Andrew Kelly. It sure is Steve Latshaw's son.
We can see him directing a little bit of in the extra features on the disc. That's so adorable.

(16:34):
And I have a few different quotes from this essay that Steve Latshaw wrote in Reflection on this movie that was published a few years back. And here he is talking about casting Ryan in the film.
Well, I guess sort of the aftermath of this. Quote, I used to embarrass Ryan with the DVD. Every time he had a new girlfriend, I'd wave the disc and ask the girl if she knew Ryan was a movie star. Of course, he'd have to show the movie to the girl, and it was always a hit.

(17:03):
Now he's grown up and married with a young son of his own. He asked me to send him a DVD. He thought his son might like to see it one day. That made me feel real good. Oh, that's so wholesome. I love it. Next up.
After Sean. Happy Halloween, Sean!
We'll talk about that. We got Vivian Mackin, a.k.a. Catherine Walsh. Catherine Walsh, who plays Vivian Mackin. She is our witchy woman.

(17:34):
See how high she flies. And this lady is quite an interesting character in this movie. She's here to try to save some lives and end the curse. She's also here to...
Bury some bodies for no reason. Love her. She's also here to destroy a marriage.

(17:56):
Now we got Rachel Carter. She plays Julie Miller. She plays Linnea Quigley's deadbeat sister. This lady, man, holy shit. She is a pain in the ass.
Love it. She's been acting. She's also working. Got some strange things. She was in Night Orchid. Night Orchid. My favorite kind of orchid. Oh, that cover is hideous. What?

(18:22):
That is one of the ugliest DVD covers I've ever seen. Night Orchid? That is really just... bad wow they wanted to put pictures from the movie on the front instead of the back yeah and thus made the art harder to look at they made it work my my favorite credit of uh

(18:43):
rachel carter is um that she was an audition assistant on the blair witch project which i recently watched that like super long documentary about the making of um
glare witch and the audition process was actually like a really big long ordeal it took them like a long time to find exactly the right people so it's very cool that she was a part of that

(19:04):
That's incredible. I need to see this documentary. Yeah, it's on the second site Blu-ray. It's really long. They need a feature length making of part two. That would be fun. That would be...
Amazing. I will say that nobody involved in that long documentary that I watched has anything at all good to say about Part 2. Oh, well, you know.

(19:30):
I have lots of good things to say about it. That's a future episode there. I'd love to deal with an episode on that. Maybe Leah and I will fire it up. I love part two. I love it. So do I. I watch it more than the first one, and I certainly don't watch it more than that.
beautiful 2016 one, which...
I would never sit through again. I unfortunately have seen them all many, many times. Well, you know, the first one, the best scare in the movie. Sorry, not the first one. The reboot, remake.

(20:03):
Blobbity Blue in 2016. If they had just put that the best scare not in the trailer.
Well, unfortunately. They did it, and it ruined the surprise. People would have screamed in theaters. The people who didn't know it was coming screamed, but then that was two people out of the whole theater. Yeah.

(20:25):
I hear you. I hear you. Oh, my God. Let's see. Next, we have a couple. We have a wonderful couple who I love. And this is, I believe, Richard and Amanda Watson.
They are played by Bill Cross and Helen Keeling. I wrote them in my notes as the villains from a John Waters movie. Absolutely.

(20:49):
But yeah, well, we'll go more into there. They're a little prickly – a pair of prickly pears in the neighborhood. Who in the frick is the guy who lives in the neighborhood?
Who's like, happy Halloween, Sean! The guy from the beginning? Yeah, who is that? That's Sims, played by Bernie Fadello.

(21:11):
Okay. So Bernie Fidello, he acted in one of the other movies that Latchaw made. I think he was just a neighborhood guy because he was not an actor. He was actually a medical technician.
And he died of a heart attack just a few months after the release of this film. So this was his final performance, sadly. He's hilarious. He's so good.

(21:32):
Is there anybody else we need to talk about? There's a couple other important people. Some of the biggest people in this movie, actually. Oh, shit. I had to...
Folks, full disclosure, my scrolling hand is real tired, so I didn't go all the way down. They are quite a ways down, yeah. Oh, man. Let me go. Let me get some frickin' Ben Gay on my arm here.

(21:56):
So we have a triple threat here of horror royalty in John Carradine, Cameron Mitchell, and Brink Stevens. Oh boy.
So, yes, folks, sweaty Cameron Mitchell in the house, although I wrote in my notes.
cameron mitchell's menthol theater so he's just staring at the camera and smoking cigarettes he sure is so let me tell you a little bit about their appearances in this movie um you you may wonder at first like what how

(22:26):
are these two men in this movie considering they were both dead by the time it came out in fact John Carradine had been dead for eight years
Holy shit. He died in December of 1985. Damn. So it was not the last role he played, but it was the last that was released six years and 11 months after.

(22:49):
His death. It came from an unfinished movie called Cannibal Church.
And so they used all the footage, like the forward facing footage is him. You would notice that he's in scenes with other actors from, you know, this film. And they did basically they did a Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 with him. They just had a guy.
who kind of looked like him, which on the trailer, one of them said, yeah, he was kind of ugly. So he looked like John Carradine.

(23:17):
Thanks. Thanks so much. As Fred Olin Ray throughout the commentary refers to it, as Steve Latchaw, who's very annoyed in general with Fred Olin Ray, says.
Fred impishly refers to the film as plan nine from out of state. Oh, that's good.

(23:44):
I love it so much. More about the relationship between the director and producer of this film later. But Cameron Mitchell. So this was the final film role for Cameron Mitchell as Dr. Cadaver, who sort of...
horror host on the halloween tv programming um it was not released until a year after his death now the thing is dr cadaver was going to be the host of an anthology film But it didn't end up being completed, so they just used it here instead.

(24:14):
A similar deal with Brink Stevens, who appears in one of the horror films on Dr. Cadaver's program. This is hilarious. Her footage was vacation footage that was shot.
by Fred Olin Ray when they were on vacation in Salem, Massachusetts. Cool.
there's more footage that was shot in San Francisco and it's mostly just like her being like hot and naked so he says something like it was a real you know a real pain to a film and

(24:47):
It had no real purpose. They were just like, we'll make a film out of it, maybe. It was going to be called The Coven, and then it just never happened. It's about four minutes of footage in total.
I love Don't Blink Brink. She is one of my favorite people.
I reached out to her years ago about doing an interview. And she was like, I don't really want to do an audio interview. Can you just mail me your questions? I'm like, okay. So I mailed her my questions. I emailed her my questions.

(25:17):
And then she sent back like paragraph long answers. Like she really put a lot into it. I was very grateful. Very sweet lady. That's very nice. But yeah, I remember watching a movie and it was...
Some random eighties movie. And there was a nude scene and I was like, Oh, there's a body double. And my, I was, I'm such a dork. I was like, is that Frank Stevens, but. And I went to IMDB and sure enough.

(25:45):
Scroll to the trivia. Brink Stevens appears as so-and-so's body double. I'm like, I'm a terrible pervert. Awesome.
Thank you, Slumber Party Massacre. You could pick Brink Stevens and Lena Romay out of a lineup. Yes.
Well, in the Coven vacation footage here, she is in, as Fred Olin Ray puts in his commentary over the soundless footage, quote, in the most beautiful condition of her life.

(26:18):
That's an interesting way to put it. Very interesting way to put it. Yes. There's another scream queen in this movie called Don Wildsmith.
She has a brief role as sorceress in some of the footage because, of course, you know, our pal Sean is watching some horror movie stuff on TV that's hosted by Cameron Mitchell.

(26:39):
And there's a sorceress lady who smacks a demon or something. He's getting fresh with her. He smacks him. Yeah. But this lady was in all kinds of fun stuff like Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.
evil spawn and surf nazis must die so yeah we got a lot of a lot of talent in the uh
Not actually in this movie, people, movies. The didn't sign up for this job movie. Not only am I getting too old for this shit, I'm dead. Actually, on that note of our two dead actors.

(27:12):
wanted to share another quote from Steve Latshaw's essay. He said, quote, late in their careers, both John Carradine and Cameron Mitchell were known for appearing in an endless array of low budget horror, sci-fi and action movies. Many of these movies were awful.
with these two great actors hired to do cameos so the producers could take advantage of their name value. One day on our set, his wry smile perfectly in place, Pat Moran, who is the writer and Jacko, pulled me aside and showed me a book called The Guide to Splatterfilms.

(27:41):
volume two and it was a list titled the top 10 reasons you know this horror film is a piece of shit
And in this book, near the bottom of this top 10 list, reason three was one of the stars is John Carradine. Above it, reason five was one of the stars is Cameron Mitchell. We had a twofer. Hmm. I'd like to think.

(28:01):
that means the negatives canceled each other out. Holy crap. That's awesome. It made me think of those splatter movie guides. Have you ever read those? I haven't.
they're fun they're fun they're they they don't really lead you to good stuff they're just more like i mean there's some good stuff in there but it leads you to a lot of movies you're like wait do i only care about gore oh wait no i don't yeah

(28:26):
Sometimes you have to learn. Sometimes. Oh, man. I'm sorry I tried to skip the most important people. So like I said, we're going to breeze through this plot.
And we want you guys to be excited for your pumpkin shoulders and your candy corn earlobes. So we're going to talk about Jacko the Plot.

(28:53):
The film has two credit sequences. I wrote in my notes why, and I wrote the first sequence is brought to you by Font Maker's Discount. Some fonts cost less than others.
Listen, Richard, you ask why and Jacko answers, why not?

(29:15):
Oh, man, but the scariest scene in the movie is front-loaded with Sims going, trick-or-treat, Sean! The Pumpkin Man will steal your soul!
so you got a grown man hanging out with a kid in front of a fire out in the woods where's this kid's parents i don't know

(29:36):
But he's being handed a jack-o'-lantern and a very interesting man is saying, trick-or-treat, Sean. Jacko, Mr. Jack, the pumpkin man.
He introduces us to the old nursery rhyme here, which it feels like every time that someone does the nursery rhyme, it's totally different. And it's also not a nursery rhyme I've ever heard.

(30:02):
oh shit yeah it's all over the place it's all over the place we'll have to do uh we'll have to consult one of those uh urban legend dictionaries or urban legend encyclopedias and find all of our jacko information
Can't confirm it. So yes, we get a nice old timey sequence with some old, some, some old timey people, including Sean's ancestor.

(30:29):
And there's a very subtle John Carradine cameo in the form of a photo while...
Dad is preparing to go take on the Jacko by making a big crucifix. See, they have to have this somewhat anachronistic framed photograph of John Carradine just to remind us that he is in this movie.
Like, why is it on a barrel?

(30:54):
like inches away from where dad is building this thing like well we couldn't get permission to film inside i guess i think it's like putting you know the uh the the photo of your sweetheart inside of your like fighter plane it's like
Dad wants to know what he's fighting for here. So we have a double dream. We get the nice Sean is asleep and then he wakes up from the dream and then it's something scary happens. He wakes up again. I love that.

(31:23):
is this when we see the birth of jacko is this how we see jacko's it happens during a dream um okay yeah
It might be then. I don't remember when it happens. It happens at some point. It happens when the good time Charlies are Charlien, which I think might be a little bit later. This boy has lots of bad dreams. We'll get to that. Okay.

(31:46):
so I have this wonderful thing as soon as we see where this film is set I feel triggered by my childhood if I recall correctly this was filmed
Closer to Orlando? It's Apopka, Florida? Apopka? Yeah, yeah, that's closer to Orlando than where I grew up. I grew up down in Jupiter, Palm Beach area down there.

(32:11):
nightmarish places and i love saying this jupiter florida a city so terrible that they set an entire season of american horror story in it yep that happened to me it was not about my life no
But I got triggered by these kids, these three kids. We got freaking Sean and his friends walking through suburbia. And I'm like, I'm freaking out. One of the kids is named Ravi, but he's played by someone named...

(32:39):
Thor Schweigeroth? Hell yeah. That is a pretty badass name. But anyway, this trio of kids, they're talking about Jacko and the rhyme, and then the one kid Robbie is telling Sean about the witch.
This witch that lives in the neighborhood, here she comes. And it's Vivian in her very nice compact car. And there's the most ineffectual bullying of this witch I've ever seen.

(33:08):
where Robbie wants to throw a rock at the car, and he does it so wimpy, and the rock doesn't even hit her tire, it lands next to her car.
But Vivian the witch, she senses all of this hostility. And she's just sitting in her car, glaring. Straight ahead. And thinking about how her life sucks or something. And then Robbie and Sean start fighting.

(33:33):
And she breaks it up and scares him. It's so amazing. There's just so many great non-scenes in this movie, Jeffrey. They sure are. I love this.
Anyway, that night we find out about his parents and they're going to have a beautiful haunted house for Halloween. Excuse you, Richard. It's a haunted garage.

(34:00):
Haunted garage. They didn't commit to the whole house. But yes, they're going to collect money because they want to give to the poor. Because, Sean, some people have less money than we do.
Love this. But yes, our good time Charlies, who do not survive to the end of this movie, they're going to go out and cause some mischief.

(34:23):
And they're wonderful beer drinking. And this one girl's making out with the shitty best friend who's terrible. And oh, my God, it's so good. But they disturb Jacko's grave.
You know, some movies only give us one set of opening credits. This movie gives us two. It also gives us two groups of good time Charlies. Yes. Yes. That's great. And it's...

(34:48):
Two guys and a girl, and then later it's two girls and a guy. It's totally different. It's called equality. We have to balance the scales. One of the good time Charlies stumbles upon...
the grave of the ancestor and goes, I found something old and dead. Hey, I love it.

(35:11):
Then we get Linnea Quigley's beautiful gratuitous shower scene and her deadbeat sister who can't answer the phone because she's too busy spending time with Jim. I don't think we talked about poor Jim.
No, we skipped him. He's the motorcycle jacket wearing guy. His IMDb picture is amazing. He's the 50s greaser who somehow found his way into this movie.

(35:34):
Oh, my God. He looks so different now. It's so fun. He looks like a guy who would sell you insurance. He sure does. Please tell me about this birth scene that I don't remember. Well, so...
There's there's a birth scene that also involves at the same time. This is the major footage from John Carradine as our baby boy is dreaming and sees his parents like.

(36:03):
in a summoning circle
With with John Carradine at the same time, the good time Charlie's who have disturbed Jacko's grave have now caused him to emerge from the earth in a very earnest, scared, stupid type way. He's like one of the trolls.
popping out of the ground sure
I love it. And, you know, again, we're cutting back and forth between this and the scene with Sean. His parents look like zombies and they turn around, they go, help us, Sean.

(36:36):
Another important detail here is that, you know, Sean is he's dreaming during this and he has a framed Christmas photograph of himself by his bed. It pops up throughout the movie. At one point, it's even like stepped on by someone. It's a weird.
Weird, weird detail. But yeah, Jacko awakens. He comes out of the ground like a troll. He kills our three good time Charlies. There is blood splashing all around. Oh, yeah. My favorite detail about this scene is that.

(37:03):
He he like he's killing them all. He kills the first two just with his claws, which seem pretty deadly.
But then he goes and picks up a scythe and does the exact same thing as he did with his claws, which is slash a throat. It seems like he didn't need the scythe. I mean, it looks cool, but you know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's iconic for this forgotten film.

(37:26):
I think I found something. Something old and dead. I do love that we get to meet the villains.
The John Waters villains people. It's a couple who watch conservative TV with one of those talking heads who's spouting.

(37:50):
things that are just normal now. Yeah. Very fun. If you, if you like living in a hellscape, but they're like, Oh yeah, this guy's right. He's all right.
They're really angry, angry people about those freeloading liberals and everything. It's very funny. The lady has a British accent. She sure does.
She proves that she's British later in the movie when she makes toast. Oh God, absolutely disgusting. I did not know that she was real British until that happened. It is. Leah and I watch a lot of British TV and we know.

(38:24):
we know that disgusting toast anywhere we'll talk about the toast later uh it's great they're just they're just the light in this movie everyone else is so terrible no i'm kidding but more importantly um
Sean's going for a ride. He sure is. So Linnea.
quigley is his babysitter right and she's a great babysitter it seems like even though she is a bit of a party girl a good time charlie she's beloved of the parents to a degree they tolerate her because they're like well

(38:57):
Well, you know, you take care of our baby boy. So she comes over like pre babysitting just to, I guess, like firm up.
time and stuff i guess it seems like this could have just been a phone call but whatever yeah um she comes over with her sister and uh what's his name fred right there's jim fred jim fred whatever is the actor's name fred

(39:26):
Maybe. His name is Tom Ferda. That's where my brain got it. That's good. A little word association. I love it.
So Linnea is being very flirty with Sean, which is weird. She's like, how's my boyfriend? I think she says to the dad, I like little boys. Very strange. Yeah, she flirts with dad.

(39:50):
too and he does a he's like hey dad can I go look at the motorcycle and he looks Linnea Quigley right in the eyes and goes yeah Sean you can look
This dad has so many different women vying for him. It'd be funny if that wasn't in the script.

(40:11):
He just started flirting with her. That'd be great. So Sean walks over to Jim's motorcycle and Jim's like,
hey, what, you ever ride one of these before? And Sean, being a child, says no. And then Jim's like, all right, well, hop on. And he does. And, you know, it's a stranger. He's never met Jim before. And they're just driving.

(40:31):
driving down, riding around. Now, here's the thing. Both mother and father are like...
mildly disturbed by this like they come and pull him off once they they come back and they're like oh how oh we didn't say you could do that just but um but ultimately i gotta say jim was being very safe i mean they're not wearing helmets

(40:53):
that's not good right but apparently you didn't have to back then i don't know no he's going he's going all of 20 miles an hour he's going very slow so it wasn't that bad again these these are the good
The good, good time, Charlie. It was either an innocent event or the beginning of a segment of Forensic Files. You decide.

(41:22):
oh man but this whole time our pal witch lady vivian is hanging out and just stays at the house way too long and just freaking the wife out and freaking mom out it's so fucking funny i
love this and it's it's because she has volunteered to help with the haunted garage something that does not need any help yes and then she does nothing to help as well because it's all covered

(41:49):
It's a fog machine. You turn the fog machine on. You're good. Look out, because this Halloween, Toys R Us is your Halloween headquarters.
You'll find every trick or treat under the moon. A monsterous selection of costumes and a dungeon full of decorations at prices so low.

(42:11):
you'll howl. So this Halloween, bring the entire family to Toys R Us for a Halloween selection so huge. It's scary.
So, yes, Halloween night, it's supposed to go like this. Linnea Quigley and her sister are going to co-babysit, and then she's going to take Sean.

(42:34):
Sister one is going to take Sean trick-or-treating. And then after that, sister two is going to take over because Linnea wants to go party.
And they need a babysitter because instead of having Sean just be involved with the haunted garage, they have to get him a babysitter so he doesn't have to help. And I'm like, what planet is this? Absolutely insane.

(42:58):
The kid would be pissed if he didn't get to help. And even if he didn't want to, I mean, you could just pull a Steve Latshaw and force your son to act in the film. So it's Halloween night.
And there's some goings on at the British house, the house of the British lady and her awful husband, the friends.

(43:24):
of uh sean go to trick-or-treat what happens when they try to get candy
What do they get? I don't think I wrote down what they end up giving them. What do they give them? Nothing. So the guy runs a grocery store, so they assume he's going to have all the best candy. Instead, they get a lecture.
So I wasn't sure because Steve Latshaw said that these characters were based on a real couple, like in his neighborhood, who would give out chick tracks for Halloween rather than candy. Sure, sure.

(43:58):
That's amazing. Trick or treat. Looking for a handout? Yes sir, we'd like some candy. You want some candy? Does this look like a candy store?
I make my living selling food. You want something from me, you pay for it. Got it? Good, now get out of here.

(44:24):
So they throw some TP at the house. It's very funny. And then one of the grown-up trick-or-treaters doesn't even go up to the house. They just pop a hubcap off of... this guy's car and flinging at the tree which accomplishes something back at the house we have my favorite thing of

(44:52):
Mom interacting with the trick-or-treaters. Her demented face is just like...
It's gold to me. Is this when the conservative stooges get freaking horrifically murdered? I think so. So they're watching this terrible conservative... like talk show host on TV who's talking about liberals stealing your air.

(45:15):
That sort of thing. They talk about taxes, all that great stuff. The wife at one point says that. Well, no, actually, I think this is the not the wife. This is Richard. Richard says he implies that cable is.
liberals and antenna is for conservatives he

(45:36):
He walks outside because of the disturbances of the youth or Jacko, which is who he discovers. He sees Jacko. He assumes it's a trigger trader. He calls Jacko Bucko. And it's like, wow.
You were close. You were real close. That's pretty good. That's pretty good, Bucko. He then threatens to cut Jacko's belly open before having his own belly cut open by Jacko. Oh my god, that's so funny.

(46:04):
So is, wait, is that a buckle lantern? That's a buckle lantern. Okay. Meanwhile, his wife, she is, she's inside doing the creepy British cut up the toast thing.
Cutting the toast into strips. And the camera, especially on the Blu-ray, lovingly detailed. Just soaked in butter. Maybe margarine. Margarine. Because she's British. And then she...

(46:34):
sees jacko and goes i must get a weapon i must get a weapon and she grabs a butter knife slips and then the knife goes right into the toaster and she gets electrocuted and turns into
The funniest corpse ever. Yeah, she turns into John Carradine. Oh, the effects are so good. This lady is just like...

(46:57):
They just shoot an entire smoke machine in her face.
And then some clever cutting. And then we cut to her as a less sexy John Carradine. Some great electricity. Yeah, animated. The animated electricity. So this film is on Blu-ray.
I strongly recommend picking it up to our listeners because I agree. Do you own it? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So they, they reconstructed it. This was a movie that was edited. It was filmed on 16, but edited on tape.

(47:31):
And they had to scan in the footage and re-edit the film, match the soundtrack up with the exact cuts.
and they did it they did it over like six months they said it took them and there are like all of those scenes with uh these sort of optical special effects like
that scene the toaster death um some of the earlier moments and some later moments very small moments they had to stay in sort of like up-res video but the rest of it looks great you know about as good as 16 millimeter look there's shots at night.

(48:04):
with people hanging out in the woods and the smoke machines are going and all this stuff that look like they were filmed yesterday they look gorgeous i love so glad i freaking got this this is awesome and they may still be selling the edition that
has a signed slipcover by Linnea Quigley. It's got her name on the back with a little heart. It's cute. Oh, bless her. So after the lady turns to bacon...

(48:32):
We get some more craziness with Jim and Kelly being pursued by Jacko out in the woods. She does not want Jim getting handsy and slaps the shit out of him. It's amazing.
And then there's a lot of like spooky scares and fake outs. And then Jacko cuts his frigging head off.

(48:54):
And his severed head is the funniest thing. It looks like I made it. Like, I am bad at anything that's sculpt-related. His face is making a very specific face. I don't know what it's supposed to be, but it's...
super cute i love it they show a still image of it in the special features and it's beautiful sean is out trick-or-treating with um good old uh

(49:18):
Oh, no. Is the haunted garage going crazy first? The haunted garage has been throughout these scenes. Dad says to them. Yes, please talk about it.
please talk i love the haunted garage we've mentioned it a little bit it's dad's it's dad's whole reason for being so it reminds me very much of like have you seen that documentary the american scream about oh you know i have

(49:40):
yeah it's a beautiful film about people just absolutely obsessed with making home haunts and um you know this is like an early version of that like dad's got the desire he's got the passion but boy he does not have the resources uh so He...
the the garage is just the garage it's got a big sign out front of it it says haunted garage i think it says we aim to spook or maybe he says that i don't know oh man inside he's got a fog machine going that he sets up

(50:12):
By the way, he's dressed like he's he's dad killer. He's a vampire. He looks more like Count Floyd more than anything. He's set up one of those like annoying witches that goes.
Bye. he's got one of those um he's got a little place where you stick your hands in and you feel the inside out person which is like oh there's his eyeballs there's his guts and it's just like he peeled those grapes he peeled those grapes you know he did It's a really bad...

(50:47):
thing right it's not good um however it is like the talk of the town um some of the kids when they walk by the conservative scrooge house they see richard's corpse outside his gutted corpse and they basically say boo
on haunted garage will be better so they got loyalty that's good i love that um and uh at

(51:11):
At one point, kids are in the haunted garage. They're not particularly impressed by it. You know, they're feeling like the grapes and the spaghetti and stuff. But then they see Jacko and they flee. And dad's really excited. He's like, ha ha, it worked. It worked.
Both his wife and Vanessa, right? They both are just like Vivian. They're like, it was probably something else. No, man. It's so good. Poor dad.

(51:39):
No, that witch makes that sound that you described. At my school, in my middle school, they were plagued with those. They were little cicada keychains.
And when you press their belly, it went. And what we would do is we'd put them deep in our pocket and like kind of cover it with our hand and then hit it.

(52:03):
And then slowly faded in and faded out by covering the sound of it. Drive our teachers nuts. Yeah, I can imagine. I love that sound. That sound shows up in a Breeders album on Last Splash.
Yeah. Love it. Classic sound. Boy, it's the sound of Halloween, I guess. So, so Sean.

(52:26):
is running around trick-or-treating with linea quigley which is the most heavenly thing i could ever imagine this wonderful child and jacko attacks
Trying to get to Sean because, you know, he needs Sean to die for this so he can't be killed himself or get revenge on his ancestors. And he has been killing people with his scythe.

(52:52):
you know, bellies, throats, heads chopped off, you know, but he uses the not business end to just knock the babysitter Linnea out. He at the playground, which the playground also like.
How many playgrounds in Florida look just like that? So freaking hilarious. And so Sean has to run for his life. And of course, he gets quickly captured while Vivian is explaining that, you know...

(53:19):
She's explained to the parents why their son's in mortal danger and that only Sean can stop this, blah, blah, blah. Sean isn't doing so well. He's in a makeshift grave.
And they are throwing dirt in this kid's face. A really novel use of a scythe here to just use that as a shovel to push, scoot dirt onto this poor boy.

(53:44):
I feel like this actor, his dad was mad at him, so they said, yeah, he's like, yeah, keep throwing dirt right in his eyes.
I love it. I love it. And the parents and Vivian show up. Vivian gets dispatched. I was kind of sad to see her go because...
The drama in that marriage will go away now. They'll have nothing to talk about. Listen, there will be other babysitters and neighbors.

(54:10):
And then Sean rises from his makeshift grave and helps to defeat our pal Jacko. There's some amazingly confusing CGI happening that's awesome. And then...
he's defeated jacko um unrealistically because we know there you can't stop the real jacko from what did he do like rip out your spine with a vine or something i don't remember yep i think so

(54:40):
And then we have a happy ending walking through Florida winter. Now, folks.
It looks freezing out here. And I know Florida doesn't get cold, but you got to understand people who live down here cannot handle the cold.
when it's 30 here we think we're going to die so here's the thing some of us do here's the thing so yeah it was shot in february and march the film was and um

(55:10):
In the behind the scenes footage, which largely focuses on Linnea when she's down there, she is freezing cold. They're all wearing like huge jackets while they're filming. Yeah.
Not good. It does happen here, I swear. They find out that, you know... sean's alive the parents are walking in there they're promising him a delicious pancake breakfast or whatever and then linnea is waking up from being knocked out

(55:42):
Her sister is crawling out from under a freaking drainage ditch thing. So she survived. Jacqueline didn't get her either. They have a cute little reunition. They reunited. It's very cute.
It's a spooky reunion. And then they meet up with the parents and Sean and they're walking down the street. And then what do we see? A jack-o'-lantern on a stick.

(56:06):
And on this stick is Jacko's head with the eyes glowing. It's not over, Jeff. Jeffo. Jacko 2 colon Jeffo.
I'm telling you, man, I get everybody back for the sequel. It'd be so great. So folks, that is the movie. Jeffrey, however, has acquired a little, uh,

(56:32):
trivia goods oh boy what do you got for us about this movie there's so much trivia about this movie so i've given a lot to you already there's more you can find in the great uh
a vintage commentary track that's included on the blu-ray as well as an essay as i mentioned that steve latshaw wrote all of which are super informative so i'll just share some of the the hits with you here

(56:57):
As I mentioned, the film was shot in February and March of, I believe, 92 or 93. One of the two. Doesn't look like 95. No, it's not.
And because of that, the director had to purchase the pumpkins way in advance back in November. So they were all rotting. In fact, you know, they shot most of the film in his neighborhood.

(57:24):
in Apopka, Florida. And he says, quote, we covered yards and sidewalks up and down the street with rotten pumpkins. We stole shots of our kid actors in front of a local school bus and used my own home as the home interior and exterior of our movie family.
Damn.

(57:47):
That's funny. Now, the writer of this film says that the initial idea from Fred Olin Ray was that Jacko was going to be a small...
jacko creature like a little a little um imp or um the inspiration was like the zuni doll from um a trilogy of terror and it was going to have magical powers but they decided not

(58:12):
to do that, that that would be much harder. So we'd rather just put a guy in a suit. So they did that instead. Carradine and Vivian's characters are both named after Arthur Mocken, who is a really important author of The Weird.
who specifically wrote about sinister fairy people, going back to the original version of Jacko. Anyway, this fact that he snuck that in really annoys Latshaw in the commentary.

(58:40):
track with um when Fred Olin Ray mentions it he's like yes we we had to make this movie really quickly we didn't necessarily check everything over it's very strange I will talk more about this tension
hostility in just a moment. Going off of the quick turnaround time, the composer had one week to do the entire score.

(59:03):
which he took to be a bit of a challenge. The composer is actually, his name is Jeffrey Walton. We mentioned him recently, I believe, because he also did a lot of David Dakota stuff, including Shrieker.
Oh, cool. Yeah. OK, so let's let's start talking about this commentary. OK, so I'm reading this to you from the IMDb trivia section.

(59:29):
It is 100% true of the actual commentary, though. And this is why you should listen to it. It only captures like a bit of the hostility, but it's good. So in the DVD commentary, Steve Latshaw and Fred Owen Ray have a lot of tension and hostility. It's pretty...
obvious that there is some bad blood between them at one point ray jokingly refers to a review which called this film a quote shit pickle

(59:51):
To which Lashaw gets angry and snaps, quote, we discussed this commentary before we ever got into this. And you specifically stated you would not make any reference to the shit pickle comment. And you laughed your ass off when you told me you were laughing when you said shit pickle. As a matter.
of fact you said shit pickle more than once you said that's so funny shit pickle shit pickle well you know what's funny to me you can sit here and do this fucking commentary yourself lashaw then storms out of the commentary before returning in a calmer demeanor

(01:00:19):
whoa that's so crazy oh man this comes pretty close to the end of the commentary and before that we have latshaw sniping at uh fred like constantly in all these moments like most
the time they're like you know they're just being informative they're talking relatively you know in a cordial manner but then every once in a while

(01:00:44):
Fred Olin Ray will make a comment about like, and not even like a mean comment, but a comment like, you know, this film's a little goofy, but it's, it's, you know, good fun. It's good. And like, that really makes Steve Lashaw mad anytime that happens. So it just is.
sort of building up over the course of the commentary to uh latch us um storming out he comes back like a minute later fred is like really flustered he um he's like he's like i can't really hit stop on this record

(01:01:12):
So we're just going to keep talking. And when Latchaw comes back, he's like, oh, did you forget your keys?
Oh, brutal. They do sort of pick back up. Latchaw says, I'm not going to let you ruin this for me.
jesus and then the actual commentary ends you know usually like commentaries go through the credits theirs ends a little bit early because um fred just trying to be like jovial again and like get the mood up says you know we've been friends

(01:01:43):
for a long time out here. And Latshaw says, we've been acquaintances.
And then Fred says, all right, I'm done. Fuck you. And Latshaw says, fuck you too. And it just ends. Holy shit, dude. This is crazy.
It's so good. Uh, I definitely, I've been sitting on a gold mine with this blue red. It's kind of a whole other movie that you get for the price of one. You know, it's a theater of the mind. That's what we call it. Right. Sure. Um, the other.

(01:02:17):
great piece of information that's revealed during this commentary involving um one of our good time charlies from the first group the uh the woman who's with them
She is a contest winner. She won a contest to appear in this movie. And specifically, it was a contest hosted on Phil Donahue's show.

(01:02:43):
No way. And Phil Donahue is the entire reason that this movie exists.
So it goes like this. This is from Latshaw's essay. He says, this movie and its really quick production schedule and post-production schedule was all host Phil Donahue's fault.
For the 94-95 season of his then highly successful show, Phil had decided to do something a little different. He would devote an entire hour to a Scream Queen contest. Celebrity judges, including Fred Owen Ray and Joe...

(01:03:17):
Bob Briggs actually was there too, would audition some young actresses for the part as a Jamie Lee Curtis style screen queen. The winner would be flown to Florida and appear in our movie. They would tape an audition episode, then send a crew with her to film her film.
I began suggesting animation.

(01:03:45):
effects, et cetera, until Fred gently reminded me that the budget would be very low. He confided the only reason the film was being done was because of the Donahue show. If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't be making the movie, said Fred Olin.
Wow, I owe Phil Donahue.

(01:04:13):
So so this actress, she's a New York actress. Her name is Kelly Lacey. She was very good on screen. They said they liked her and she was quite the trooper. No complaints about this New Yorker, said Lat Shaw.
She was always eager to do anything we asked. But the great the great detail here is apparently she made a poor impression on our costume designer who listed a series of complaints from Kelly about wardrobe. He says, I sided with Kelly, which may be.

(01:04:41):
I am now divorced all these years later. That costume designer was my wife later to become my ex. As for Kelly, we lost touch.
yeah what could have been what could have been so yeah that's a that's a just a taste of the the wonderful trivia about this movie that is uh that is like

(01:05:04):
A full-size candy bar and a freaking delicious candy apple and a whole freaking bunch of jujubes. That was amazing. Call it fun size. Man, I feel... grateful to you thank you for going on that journey it sounds like it was freaking fun as hell it sure was boy pick up that blu-ray people

(01:05:27):
Do it, do it. Was that a MakeFlix one? Yes, MakeFlix slash Retromedia, yeah. Okay, because, you know, I love that label, man. I got... lurking fear or no excuse me i got haunting fear speaking of brink stevens one of brink stevens best ones i didn't like uh teenage exorcist i tried

(01:05:49):
I was a little let down because she wrote that. And then they started like doing the kind of like airplane style humor of quotes from the exorcist, like repossessed style.
And I was like, all right, the movie's losing me. Eh, what can you do? But other than that, it was very fun. It was just, didn't do it for me. But yeah, absolutely, people, get yourself jack-o'd.

(01:06:16):
But Jeffrey, how do you feel about this movie? So this movie, to quote the film, is so white bread, white bread slathered in margarine. All right. So I have an interesting history with this.
movie because i swear before you know watching it for this i had watched it

(01:06:36):
Like five times on my own and remembered none of it. Just, it just like went, you told me that and I was just went into my eyes and immediately left them again. And I understand why, because it is like, it's.
It's very much like a collection of scenes, which, you know, you could argue that's most movies, right?

(01:06:57):
But they do feel like the structure of this one is weird. You know, we've got like dreams within dreams. We've got the two different timelines. We've got various groups of good time Charlies in scenes that kind of are.
it up and we go back to them multiple times like uh so it has a structure that you know i think makes it easy to sort of drift away from and not like have it sink in um however um this time watching it closely for the

(01:07:26):
episode taking notes on it um watching it a few times including with commentary uh i really appreciated it because the only thing that really stuck with me before was the mood the mood the aesthetic uh which i liked um but i
I appreciated it so much more this time. I think this is very much part of the Halloween canon. It has that vibe I'm looking for. You know, if it's maybe like a little bit less immediately appreciable than something like...

(01:07:54):
You know, Hack-O-Lantern, sure. It's a little bit less goofy than that sort of movie, too, in some ways. But I really like it. I think it's great. I will definitely be watching it every year now. How do you feel about this one, Richard?
you know the way you feel about this one is the way i feel about what is the one hollow gate yeah that's how i feel about hollow gate i struggle with that one

(01:08:21):
Mainly because there's a lot of samey stuff that happens. Yeah. But anyway, about this film specifically, I heard about it.
a few years ago and it was before the blu-ray had come out i think and there was two options vhs or the out-of-print dvd which is hard to find very briefly hard to find

(01:08:47):
And I didn't want to spend a lot of money on the DVD, a used copy of the DVD. And I didn't want to deal with getting the VHS tapes. I didn't even have a VCR yet. So I found a download. And I was... quite taken with it the first time.
enough to where I was like, this is definitely going to be in our rotation. I didn't love it yet. And then the next year, as Lietta and I go through the 3,000 things we watch every year for Halloween, you know, we start September 1st and we watch stuff all the way.

(01:09:18):
through till uh till Halloween night and sometimes it spills over into November 1st but the second viewing was like oh shit I love this and that's when I found out that you didn't like it or you didn't remember watching it
let me talk about the things i love about this movie one is the two vibes that it gives off one is cheap

(01:09:40):
And the other one is Florida. I love the smoke machines. I love the marital strife. I love John Carradine appearing in the film wearing his own death mask.
I love all of the weird, awkward acting and dialogue. I love that the movie is at times forehead slappingly stupid.

(01:10:04):
And I just, I want to live inside this movie because I have, because I lived in Florida for the last, let's see. I've been in Florida for 38 years now.
So, yes, I know this place pretty well. But, yeah, oh, my God. And like we were talking about this Blu-ray, I can't even. I wish we were being sponsored by this Blu-ray.

(01:10:27):
But, you know, Jeffrey, before I let you go, we can't let these trick-or-treaters out the door without some treats. So I thought we could talk about at least one apiece. I'm going to cheat. I have two.
Things we love to get into this spooky mood during the Halloween season.
What have you got? So I wanted to pick one that's a little off the beaten track, one that maybe some people haven't heard of, and that's a little difficult to see. But if you look hard enough, you'll find it.

(01:10:58):
This is a short film from 2003. It's titled Spook House by the director Cameron Jamie. Have you seen this one, Richard?
No, I've not even heard. All right. So Spook House is more of I mean, it's a bit more of like an experimental film or like an art piece. Really, it's you know, it's available to be screened in museums. It is in.

(01:11:21):
I believe it was the year prior, in 2002, the director just went around Detroit filming local Halloween displays and haunted houses, much like Haunted Garage in this movie.
and put them behind really discordant music from the Melvins and just lets it play out. It's 23 minutes. It's great.

(01:11:48):
Um, it's, it's a great way to sort of like get in the mood. Cause it's a lot of great, you know, uh, imagery, uh, that sets up the spooky season. Um, and the movie is kind of deliberate. Like it starts off just like cruising the streets of Detroit and like not really.
you're seeing like little flashes here and there of Halloween. And then as the movie goes along, it starts getting like infected with more and more Halloween. It's super cool, dude. I'll seek this out. This sounds excellent. Nice. So, so what are your two?

(01:12:17):
So the reason I picked two is because the first one I thought of is something that has been talked about on the show before. So I wanted to do a little backup just to make sure people don't go home hangry. So you're fully allowed.
to snack on your Halloween loot while you're running around at night.
So the first one is the thing I've been craving for months and months and months long before Halloween arrived, which is Route 66, the episode called Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing.

(01:12:50):
which is a gorgeous, and it's not set on Halloween, but it's got your Boris Karloff and your Peter Lorre and your Lon Chaney Jr. hanging out in a hotel in sunny California.
And being silly and all kinds of hijinks ensue. I've heard of that one. I believe that episode has its own separate Blu-ray release. Does it not?

(01:13:12):
That I don't know. I've been watching it on like 2B for years. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it does. It's a pretty famous episode, I guess.
So, yeah, the reason I wanted it, too, is because Brad and I talked about this episode a long time ago. We did a Halloween special and mentioned that episode in particular. Oh, my God. That's so funny. Guess who put out the Blu-ray? It was Retro Media.

(01:13:33):
stop are you serious they sure did yeah it's out of print now it looks like oh no that's crazy but wow that's
amazing. Um, and of course my backup here to, to, uh, bring it back to, to the nineties or at least the early two thousands. I'm not sure when this episode came out. Um, it certainly feels nineties. I'm talking about party of five, the Halloween episode.

(01:13:54):
One of the absolute worst Halloween episodes and yet strangely comforting to me. If you're not familiar, Party of Five is about a bunch of orphaned kids who have to raise themselves.
And, um, this is very late in the season. This is after, um, the main character girl had left. Uh, good old, uh, I know you did last summer lady left. Her name is Neve, Neve Campbell.

(01:14:22):
Yes, Neve Campbell was still on it. Oh, she was still on it. Oh, Jennifer Love Hewitt left at that point? Yeah, Jennifer Love Hewitt. My brain wanted to say...
jennifer jason lee jennifer jason lee very interesting casting she came on in the left very quickly jennifer love hewitt had jennifer left the building and it was just it's just such a crappy episode but it's

(01:14:45):
really wonderfully charming and it's boneheaded bullshit and just maudlin and awful. It's very good. It's, it's so funny. Like you ever seen 30 something?
uh the tv show from the 80s late 80s it's like it's like
it's not even for teenagers at that point. Cause like party of five and one tree Hill and Dawson's Creek. And those are all for teenagers. But this one is like, they're trying to transition into like,

(01:15:15):
college age but they're going too far they're overshooting it and everyone's real acting like they're 35 it's great um yeah party five Halloween episode it's got the kid from uh the kid from
My so-called life is playing a nanny in the episode and it's, he sets up a haunted house and it's bonkers. It doesn't come close to dad's haunted garage. Few things do.

(01:15:41):
But that's it. Jeffrey, thank you for spooking us. And folks, thank you for listening. Hope you have a safe and cold, wintry Florida Halloween.
Hope the pumpkin man doesn't get you. Happy Halloween, Sean. We should make that your ringtone.

(01:16:07):
Happy Halloween. I'm never going vibrate again. And I'm going to stop recording after that.

(01:16:28):
folks thanks so much for listening to this episode if you'd like to write into the show Send an email to doomedmoviethon at gmail or hit us up at doomedmoviethon on Instagram or at doomedmoviethon on Twitter or at doomedmoviethon at Discord.

(01:16:53):
or go to HelloThisIsTheDoomed show on Facebook and message us there. If you want more HelloThisIsTheDoomed show, go to doomedmoviethon.com and click the podcast button for the archive, or go to YouTube.
and look up Doomed Movie-thon, and you'll find the classic episodes of Hello, This is the Doomed Show. And if that's still not enough, I have written some books, you know, about my love of movies.

(01:17:20):
over on Amazon.com. Just look up Richard Glenn Schmidt and you'll find Gialla Meltdown, A Movie-Thon Diary, Gialla Meltdown 2, Cinema Somnambulist, or Doomed Movie-Thon, the book.
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