Friday the 13th Ep. 10 - Student Bodies / Unmasked Part 25

We bid a fond farewell to the Friday slasher trend with two parody films: STUDENT BODIES (1981) are stalked by The Breather in a rare early cycle spoof, then Jackson gets a touch of the melancholy in UNMASKED PART 25 (1988).

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
you
Hello and welcome to Get Me Another, podcast where we explore those movies that followedin the wake of blockbuster hits and attempted to replicate their success.
My name is Chris Ayanakone and with me are my co-hosts Rob Lamorgus.

(00:29):
I knew it.
I knew that was coming.
And Justin Beam.
The guy with the gum.
The guy with the gum.
my God.
Today is the 10th and final episode in our Get Me Another Friday the 13th series.

(00:50):
And as always, it has been quite a journey.
My goodness.
And you reach the end, you're like, my God, the road that we have traveled.
Gentlemen, this is episode 10.
We're here.
We are the final girl.
That's what I've always wanted, thank God.
And honestly, it's a journey that we have so thoroughly enjoyed taking with you, Justin.

(01:17):
So much so, we are thrilled to announce that Justin will be joining the show permanentlyand we look forward to many more episodes and series together.
Woo, thank you guys.
I'm so excited.
Every time I come on, it is an absolute blast.
the highlight of my weekend when we get to record this stuff.
And it's been like, you talked about the journey a few minutes ago.

(01:39):
This one really cemented it.
It's like, I really want to be part of this team.
So thank you so much for welcoming.
it has been our pleasure.
And we are just, we just looking forward to the future and all that will bring.
And, and again, we have a lot of exciting stuff planned for 2025, but first we have tofinish up this series.
So today we are going to look at two.

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parodies of the slasher genre, one from early in the cycle, 1981, and the other from alittle bit later in the decade.
So first up today is 1981's Student Bodies.

(02:23):
Hello, it's me, the heavy breather from every horror film you've ever seen.
You know me.
First I terrorize my victim by the telephone.

(02:53):
Then I choose my murder weapon.
A gun?
Nah, too easy.
A hatchet?
Nah, I always use a hatchet.
For this movie I want something very frightening and deadly.

(03:19):
Then I climbed the stairs to surprise my victims.
Why do they always live upstairs?
This movie's a comedy, so killing's not so easy.
Sugarless.
The movie's called Student Bodies, so I picked a typical American high school.

(03:41):
This is Mr.
Peters, your principal.
You're naked!
Yes, Toby.
All these years I've been secretly naked underneath my clothes.
Meet the rest of the faculty.
The shop teacher, the guidance counselor, the janitor with the IQ of a handball.

(04:04):
What's he doing?
See student bodies, a killer comedy.
Now we've ended a few previous series by looking at parody films, including our Halloweenseries where we talked about National Lampoon's Class Reunion, another early slasher

(04:29):
parody, which to be honest was one of the more unfunny comedies I've ever seen.
Yeah, it felt like it was made by people who neither watched nor liked.
horror movies or slasher movies.
Absolutely.
Student Bodies actually came out a year earlier than that film.
And and we should say at the outset, it's certainly aiming at both Halloween and Fridaythe 13th, as well as a number of slasher films from that early part of the decade.

(04:56):
Yeah, I'm getting big like prom night vibe.
A of prom night, a of prom night, lot of when a stranger calls, especially the early part.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I guess Black Christmas, you could say if they reached back further.
for sure.
For sure.
Student Bodies was written and directed by Mickey Rose, a comedy writer who worked withWoody Allen, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin and Sid Caesar.

(05:17):
It was produced by Michael Ritchie, who seems to have also been an uncredited director onthe project.
Ritchie directed numerous comedy films in the 70s and 80s, including The Candidate withRobert Redford, The Bad News Bears, The
Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy and 1985's Fletch as well as its sequel Fletch Lives.

(05:40):
Richie actually took his name off this movie and used the pseudonym Alan Smithy, whichhonestly is the first time I had seen that credit for a producer rather than a director,
but it could have been because he was DGA.
yeah, I bet that was it.
Yeah, it is kind of weird to see that outside the director realm, but I love this.
insider club that is Alan Smithy.
it's amazing.
You go through the list of credits.

(06:01):
It's kind of a wonderful thing unto itself.
That'd be kind of a fun thing to explore at some point.
Just all the films where the directors have been like, wash my hands of this.
I'm done.
I'm out.
Yes.
could do the extended Dune for that case.
Cause that was, Dune could be the first three time.
Get me another film.
If we did that.
my goodness.
Get me another Alan Smithy would be an interesting concept for a series.

(06:27):
Student Bodies was shot in and around Houston, Texas and features a cast of largelyunknown actors, including Kristen Ritter, but not the Kristen Ritter from Jessica Jones,
just to be clear, Matt Goldsby, Joe Talorski, Joe Flood, Mimi Weddle, and Jerry Belson.
Here credited as Richard Brando as the breather.

(06:49):
Now the breather is the film's villain.
He is a slasher who wears green rubber gloves.
He calls his victims.
and makes genuinely obscene breathing sounds.
My goodness.
I mean, you guys both did a little bit of breather action there.
We heard a little in the trailer, but it is distinctly obscene breathing.

(07:11):
Well, it takes the Michael Myers panting into the stratosphere in terms of how intense itis.
I should also mention the breather uses a variety of odd
household items to kill people.
So it's not just a knife or an axe or a machete.
It's, you know, paper clips or an eraser or something like that.

(07:34):
That to me just shows that these people at least they know what they are making fun of.
Yes.
That even at this early stage, how people were killed and with what was already entrenchedas one of the hallmarks of the genre.
It's like one of the it's like what's the car fight?
Or God Jesus, what's the car chase in an action film?

(07:57):
It's, know, how are you killed in a horror film?
Which, you know, earlier in the early seventies, sixties, whatever, I don't think how, howyou were killed wasn't as big of a deal.
I agree.
I agree.
And that, that came, that certainly, you know, during this period became a thing.
I remember, I think it was.
Joe Zito in some of the interviews for Friday the 13th, the final chapter, you know, theactors would come up, how am going to die?

(08:21):
You know, very excited to learn how they were going to be going out.
And at this point it became a body.
The body count became the thing.
And this movie really lampoons that throughout, which we're going to get into here.
But I remember looking at Fangoria and by the time they got to Friday the 13th, I thinkpart three, when each new
sequel would come out, Fangoria would do a kill list.

(08:43):
Amazing.
And it would be all the ways the people in the film died.
what implement was used, how they went down and how it all played out.
So it very much became within the slasher realm by this time, a game of how was it doneand how bad was it?
How bloody was it?
Right.
Absolutely.

(09:04):
So this film, you know, again, it knows the genre that it's in, which is again, more thanClass Reunion can say.
We open with this title card that reads, this motion picture is based on an actualincident.
Last year, 26 horror films were released.
None of them lost money.
So right there, you know, it's giving you a sense of where this film is placing itself andwhat it understands about the genre.

(09:29):
This is the kind of parody it feels, even though Brooks has done it, Mel Brooks, beforethis point.
This feels more just tonally in line with the Zucker Abrams, Zucker style, which is verysimilar and adjacent.
You know, it's, similar adjacent where you're building, you know, a quote unquote singlestory as opposed to, know, but with all of the references, which can be from different

(09:54):
films in the genre.
You're lamp.
Sure.
No, that was my, my biggest note at the outset was that it feels cut from the same clothas 1980s airplane.
Although I don't know if it.
I don't think it reaches those heights.
No pun intended, but it's it's there.
You know, it's in that same ballpark and a lot of fourth wall breaking, which goes withthis tone and style.

(10:17):
I can't remember if class reunion had any, it certainly wasn't fourth wall forward likelike student bodies is right.
And I mean, I mentioned in our first episode that airplane and Friday the 13th were thetwo most profitable films.
for Paramount Pictures in 1980, Paramount which also released this film.

(10:38):
So they're looking at it, they're like, hey, putting those concepts together does not seemlike a bad bet.
And while it did okay in its theatrical run, student bodies actually played a fair amounton television through the 80s because it's actually relatively mild in terms of sex and
violence.
It's another USA up all night staple.
Yes, because the comedy for this one means that they didn't...

(11:03):
showing a bunch of gore would have not really been the point of this movie.
would have actually undercut what you were doing.
Yes.
Cause they're, they're making fun of it in the sex as well, which they also make fun ofthe sex equals death stuff quite a bit.
yeah.
But again, then you don't want it to be sexy.
Well, and they always, the couples who get killed in this always get stopped before theycan, they always get stopped.

(11:27):
They always get murdered.
before they can actually have sex.
It's not like it's afterwards.
It's an anticipation of, it's like, they don't even get to have the fun part before theyget killed.
No, but there are a lot of horse head bookends for them.
So many horse head bookends.
my God.
So we open with this shot of a suburban house and it's got the caption Halloween.

(11:50):
And then we fade out and we fade back in on the same house.
And this time the caption reads Friday the 13th.
then it fades out again and back up again, this time reading Jamie Lee Curtis' birthday.
So again, this is the world that we are entering.
And this opening sequence is really with a teenage girl in a house babysitting and it'sbasically a riff on the brilliant opening sequence from When a Stranger Calls.

(12:16):
Yeah, although I think you get a lot of the steady cam that is very reminiscent of theMichael Myers POV at the beginning of Halloween.
Definitely.
But the setup and execution does seem to borrow more from when a stranger's calls.
I love in this sequence, I'm sure you're getting to some of it, but, where the camera, youhave a freeze frame, I believe on an unlocked door and then the words unlocked flash on

(12:39):
screen.
Yes.
That type, that style of gag happens a lot where they are breaking the fourth wall to callattention to staples of the genre tropes, in order to make fun of them.
Absolutely.
So before we enter the house, the breather, our killer calls the babysitter on the phoneand it's exactly what you would expect.

(13:04):
You know, now we all had to give it a go.
so I had to do it as well.
but you get a lot of great visual gags here.
Like she hangs up the phone and then it rings again and it's accompanied by this, likeshe's, she's, she's going for the phone and there's this very sort of psycho sounding
music.
She picks up the phone.
And then the music is coming from the other end of the line.

(13:24):
It's like, okay, this is very aware that it's a movie.
Which establishes the entirety of the runtime of this film.
Anytime anyone picks up a phone from that point forward, it's the breathers voice on thephone.
It doesn't matter where the phone is or how long it's picked up.
It's absolutely hilarious.
And then the phone starts jumping around after she doesn't answer it enough.

(13:45):
yeah.
It starts jumping around and then she finally answers it.
And there was this visual gag that guys,
I was genuinely stunned by.
I was shocked.
I was like, my God, as a white liquid substance oozes out of the telephone receiver andI'm just like, holy shit, that's crazy.

(14:06):
I mean, I'm not a brood, but my God, was, I was taken aback for a movie from 1981.
So our baby, sir, she goes into the kitchen to get some fried chicken out of therefrigerator.
And I mentioned this, the fried chicken, cause it is Kentucky fried chicken.
Holy shit, this movie has an insane amount of product placement.
Blatant.

(14:27):
my God.
Like, like for a movie of this time, it's massive.
Yeah.
Dr.
Pepper is like J and B in a Giallo film.
There's so much Dr.
In football game, there's a guy with a Dr.
Pepper t-shirt on.
Yes.
Aside from like they're drinking, it's like, it's amazing.
And the can is front and center next to the babysitter, which this phone situation ishappening.

(14:49):
There's a Dr.
Pepper can that's like,
dominant, you can tell that the shot is framed around the can.
It is, it is, it's, it's crazy.
And this is one of the few shots with her in the kitchen where it is actually directlymimicking a shot from Halloween or any other horror movie.
don't do it a ton, but the character walking back and forth in the kitchen and then thecamera following them so that you're constantly, in the background looking for someone to

(15:16):
pop through or whatever.
which was the,
That was the Nancy Loomis character, I believe.
Right.
Yeah.
That was in Halloween.
This is, this is pretty much a, you know, a pretty good copy of that, but they don't do alot of it in the movie.
They don't take a lot of shots.
So that's, you know, it was interesting that they did it here at the beginning.
also have to mention there's a ridiculous amount of dishes in the sink.

(15:40):
Like it's, it's, it's an upsetting amount of dishes in the sink and it gets remarked onlater.
So then her boyfriend shows up in the house unannounced.
I gotta be honest, I think this movie has a lot of randomly funny, but kind of quietlyfunny lines.
Some of the big gags didn't land for me as well as some of just the off the cuff lines.

(16:04):
He kisses her.
What's that chicken he takes?
It's chicken!
Okay, there you go.
So the babysitter and the boyfriend, they go upstairs to have sex, and she asks if he'sclean.
And again,
randomly funny lines.
What kind of question is that?
Of course I'm clean.
Besides, you can't wash herpes away.
I'm like, my God.

(16:26):
during the sequence, another one of my favorite low key lines is when he's kissing her andshe's, forget what she's preoccupied if she's heard the sound or whatever.
And he just says, Julie, you're not responding to my maleness.
So then, you know, she has him take a shower.
And he goes into the shower and the shower and his subsequent haired blow drying are goingto cover a lot of noises that the breather is going to make as he, as he, as the breather

(16:57):
enters and, know, we're, we're going to head for murder spoiler folks.
And I love that again, running joke, you know, he, orders him off to the shower and hesays, orders get me hot.
There's a lot of blank gets me hot in this movie with increasing.
Increasing absurdity.
So we get this first-person shot as the breather approaches the house, complete with heavybreathing and lot of mumbling under his breath.

(17:24):
breather talks to himself a lot.
These stairs are going to kill me.
I hope I don't die first.
And it's interesting because it's funny, but it's also the first time I can think of thatwe've gotten something resembling an internal monologue from a killer.

(17:45):
And it's really like, this is the killer's, you know, unfiltered thoughts and we as theaudience are getting them.
That's not something you see.
And it ties in with where our second movie is going to go.
Usually there's, we're inferring from the environment, from things that we discover whenthey enter the killer's lair or whatever it might be.
We're trying to figure out who and why, but in this one, it's right up front from the verybeginning.

(18:08):
And it's a real time thing.
It's not just once in a while.
mean, you're, you're hearing him narrate everything he does as he's making his way up thesteps here in the beginning is the first indication of how absolutely absurd.
All of that's going to be.
And it keeps ratcheting up as we, as the movie rolls.
I wish I could get the guy with the gum.

(18:30):
man.
I do a pretty good breather.
That's a, that's a disturbing revelation.
last one was very good.
Yeah.
So the breather, he opens up this roll top desk filled with weapons.
There's literally like a knives, there's hatchets, there's a gun, a noose, there's ratpoison, but he ultimately chooses a paper clip.
And he goes into the bedroom with the paper clip and kills the girl while the guy's in thebathroom with the hairdryer, which honestly feels like a reversal of what it usually would

(18:59):
have.
Usually be the girl who would be in the bathroom and then come out and find that herboyfriend had been killed.
Here it's the reverse, which I thought was interesting.
The guy comes out of the bathroom only to realize, you know, after a moment that she'sdead.
At first he sees her in bed and she thinks she's, she's just, you know, in bed.
And then, you know,
God, she's dead.

(19:19):
And then the killer attacks the boyfriend with a black plastic bag.
That is the one.
That's the one weapon the killer uses the whole movie.
Right.
The they're going to suffocate you inside of like a hefty trash bag for the least likelyweapon of all of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But then we don't we cut to the sequence of the parents coming home and they're cominghome to the house.

(19:40):
They're complaining about the price of going to the movies.
We hear the wife scream.
but it turns out she's screaming at the state of the kitchen, which as I mentioned earlieris absolutely disgusting.
At the dishes first.
That's the first thing she comments on.
Maybe it's his own fault for paying the babysitter 75 cents an hour.
mean, I know it's 1981, but that still doesn't feel like a good rate.

(20:03):
She needs to talk to Steve Christie.
I think he tipped more than that on his cup of coffee.
for sure.
Finally, the couple makes it up to the bedroom where they discover the two bodies and weget,
Another of the film's running gags, the on screen body body count.
here is one and two.
And every time someone's going to get killed, we're going to get that, you know, that bodycount counter on screen.

(20:28):
And it's terrific with the sound effect for it is or, you know, whatever stinger they do,it's it's it's very funny.
It sounds like a carnival counter or something.
It's like, yes.
It is not scary at all.
And there's another one of those little subtle moments in the kitchen too, where the dadfinds the piece of fried chicken on the floor and he finds that a piece of it has fallen

(20:54):
off of the chicken leg.
And so he stands up with the both.
He grabs a rubber band from on top of the fridge, puts it around the chicken with thechunk back on it, and then puts it back in a plate inside the fridge.
It's just such a random moment.
It is such a random moment and very funny.
Like it's.
There's a lot of random funny stuff.

(21:15):
I don't know if this movie quite adds up to the sum of its parts, but I enjoyed the partsa lot.
If that makes any sense.
don't know.
And that chicken bit just shows that this movie will do random outlandish jokes that havenothing necessarily to do with the horror or slasher genre.

(21:35):
the bulk of them do.
It really is.
It's pretty focused on its parody target, but you know.
It also just has some outlandish, I don't know, like animal house type style stuff orwhatever.
definitely, definitely.
And the movie does, if it's got a central theme, it's established here, the idea that, youknow, death is punishment for sex.

(21:55):
And this takes that idea and just goes to the nth degree, to ridiculous extremes asparodies often do.
If there's anything that I think holds student bodies back a little bit, particularly incomparison to a film like Airplane, is that it doesn't quite have enough jokes.
Like airplane, top secret, naked gun, they are just one joke after another after another.

(22:17):
And sometimes you have visual jokes happening in the background while characters aredelivering jokes in the foreground.
And it achieves two things.
One, you keep the momentum going.
And two, if you don't find something funny, a new joke is on the way almost immediately.
Here, it's not quite something that student body was able to achieve, although I do find alot of the jokes funny.
It doesn't quite have that rapid fire.

(22:41):
quality that, in particular the Zucker Abrams, Zucker movies have.
the thing that airplane has also in its favor is that it has a story that is getting toparody.
Yes.
This movie, it, it airs more on the side of a, it's it's episodic.
It's a string of things that happen.

(23:02):
There is technically a main character who eventually knows they're in danger and is tryingto not be in danger, but that's
Kind of the extent of the story.
It's very like Friday the 13th in that fashion.
don't even have a Loomis character who's really after things in the way of Halloween.
So I think that's also where the joke per minute, you feel it even worse because there'snot stories.

(23:28):
So you're just waiting for funny.
you know, that is what this has to offer as opposed to something like Spaceballs orBlazing Saddles or
Young friend, where everybody in airplane is playing the circumstances of that, you know,the airplane that's going to crash.
They're playing all of that totally seriously.

(23:50):
The the the absurdity comes in that the world is absurd, but the characters are, you know,Lloyd Bridges is completely invested in the the the survival of the people on the
airplane.
and the survival of the airplane.
Here, I didn't feel that to the same degree outside of maybe Toby.

(24:10):
So we have a funeral held for the two teenagers.
Seemingly, the funeral was held at the local high school.
And here we're introduced to some of our main characters.
There's the Virgil girl, Toby Badger, and her boyfriend, Hardy.
Toby is played by Kristen Ritter, again, not Jessica Jones.
And I will say that I think guys,
she gives off some strong Cindy Williams kind of vibes like Cindy Williams in likeAmerican graffiti sort of thing.

(24:38):
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And, and I would also say that funerals get me hot.
Chris, you're not the only one because you have a pair of students here that, that at thefuneral, they, go off to, to have sex in a car, which of course is going to be, it's going
to be a thing.
That's also a funeral with cheerleaders.
with a marching band with the janitor there who's cracking jokes and saying things likesex kills as he pokes his fingers in clearly showing that he's wearing the rubber gloves.

(25:08):
It's just starting the assault of red herring elements that barrage you the rest of theruntime of the film here.
the whole world is centered around the high school.
Like there's no police investigating these crimes.
There's no town.
It's just the high school.
Yeah.
Toby will become our de facto detective trying to solve these murders.

(25:30):
And there's also a host of creepy school administrators and teachers.
Each one is stranger than the next.
There's principal Peters, who is a horny weirdo.
Mr.
Duncan, the shop teacher, only makes horse head bookends.
And he says the phrase horse head bookends so many times they should have counted that onscreen.

(25:54):
And then there's the elderly Miss Mumsley who apparently eats prunes, but nothing happens.
And every time one of these characters says something overtly suspicious, the word suspectflashes on screen.
It's like, okay, there we are.
And Malvert.
Mr.
Malvert.
And Malvert.
Yes.

(26:15):
The janitor, Mr.
Malvert.
I want to talk about him for a second because he is played by a double-jointed actor.
credited only as the stick, which is something.
He is something.
mean, is the way that he knows.
You can tell that he's a performer because the way that he has his elbows close to hissides and his four, mean, he's, he's so lanky every, all of his bones are twice as long as

(26:40):
most humans.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
And his arms are flopping around every, every, anytime he walks around and the way hemoves is like an acrobat kind of it's, it's, he's, he's a rubber man.
throughout the whole thing.
And he speaks of himself in the third person.
He gets confused as to who he is at a certain point.
He's such a bizarro character that I just love in this film.

(27:02):
that physicality.
think there isn't there.
He the one who has the bit where there's food trash on the ground during a walk and talkand he keeps swooping down to pick it up and eat it.
Yeah, yeah.
But he looks so graceful while doing it in a weird way.
It's like a circus clown doing it almost.
No, that guy definitely has sort of clown experience or, you know, that kind of physicalperformance experience.

(27:28):
The actor's real name is actually Patrick Boone Varnell.
And his only other credit was a 1984 TV pilot called Out of Control.
I think he was from the Houston area.
he's just, as you guys have said, he's fascinating.
He always makes you think he's going to do something dirty or inappropriate.
And then at the last minute, it's something else.

(27:51):
Like he opens up his fly and you think he's going to take out his junk, but it's reallylike the crossword puzzle that he wants help with.
And of course the word that he's looking for is creep.
So that we have the funeral.
One, one of the, you know, all of the kids are horny kids except for Toby.
and one of the, the horny couple, they sneak off to the car to have sex.

(28:11):
As you say, as after he says, funerals make me hot and they are murdered this time.
with a horse head bookend.
and this time Toby is found near the scene of the crime, although we, the audience knowthat she is innocent.
the identification via text continues to like when the windows open in the car, see theunlocked and open window.

(28:33):
It's in points to it with an arrow.
Yeah.
Things like that.
And, also another thing that keeps happening here, which is a hallmark.
When I think back, it's at this point in the series, it's interesting to watch somethinglike this lampooning.
all of the cliche elements of the slashers.
And when you look back, so much of this is legit, like dead on where a couple goes into aroom and inevitably in this film in particular, the man leaves to go usually get man

(29:00):
leaves to something.
And in this scene here, the guy's, I need to go get protection.
comes back with a full bag of groceries at the funeral back to the car.
Every.
time a couple goes off, whether it's under the bleachers or into a room somewhere, the guyalways leaves for a minute and then comes back after something bad's happened.
Exactly.

(29:20):
The next big set piece involves the homecoming parade.
Cause apparently all of the school's big events are clustered around this week.
And, you have this pair of kids that climb into the main float and, you know, in order tohave sex.
And of course the killer finds it again, the guy leaves for a little bit.
The girl is killed and then the killer comes back.

(29:41):
you know, and, and, and the guy is then killed.
they're both Chris, hold on just a second though.
We missed the locker room scene.
I had the locker room.
Did I miss the locker room scene?
I did miss the locker room scene.
I skipped around in my notes because the locker room scene is funny as hell.
It's, it's wild.
So all the girls are in there getting dressed, undressed, whatever after gym class.

(30:02):
And you're seeing this POV of the breather who's saying all these things like, I lovegirls.
I love girls sweat.
I love skin.
I love boobs.
I'm doing what mom told me to never do.
And then you just hear him whacking it and then falling.
Then you see the POV fall to the floor off to the side and then it fades out fades back inone minute later.

(30:22):
And then he's just alone with a girl in there and this extended chase sequence ensues.
through the bowels of the, of the school.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's where eventually he'll the girls Toby will come across.
Mr.
Malvern.
What I noticed in that scene.
Toby's got a sweater.
when she starts, she's fully clothed.
She's got a sweater that says, has a button that says no.

(30:46):
And then under, she has a shirt and then underneath it says, I said no.
And then under there's a button on her bra that says for the last time I said no.
It's so good.
And there's more gum on the steps too.
And so it becomes a recurring thing with the, with the breather with gum again.

(31:07):
want to kill the guy who's he chewing all the gum.
Like it's funny.
Cause the guy who wrote and directed this worked with Woody Allen and I can hear a littlebit of like early Woody Allen style humor in the breather's ongoing monologue.
now we do have the homecoming parade.
This is important because it starts to

(31:30):
We start to get into an interesting thing here because the killer is at the homecomingparade.
We see his galoshes that he wears marching in the parade.
And he has the marching band pants on too.
He's got the marching band pants on.
But also the principal and all the teachers are there as well, which would seem toeliminate them as suspects.

(31:53):
And as with the previous murder, Toby is found near the scene of the crime.
So the authorities really start to suspect.
that she is the killer.
It's at the end of this sequence, the homecoming parade sequence, that we have what Ithought might be one of the most genuinely funny things I've seen in any movie.
Because as I mentioned earlier, the film is actually light on actual sex or violence, andthey felt they needed to secure an R rating for marketing purposes, we cut to this very

(32:22):
serious man in a suit sitting behind a desk.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In order to achieve an R rating today, a motion picture must contain full frontal nudity,graphic violence, or an explicit reference to the sex act.
Since this film has none of those, and since research has proven that R rated films are byfar the most popular with the movie going public, the producers of this motion picture

(32:49):
have asked me to take this opportunity to say, fuck you.
Guys, this scene is amazing.
Yes.
my God.
It's just like the everything about it is perfect.
The need to secure an R rating for marketing purposes, the smile the actor gives at theend, the ratings card, which is usually the end of a movie.

(33:11):
I'm like, this movie is sort of meta in the extreme and I thought it was brilliant.
And this is a great place for it because you needed to have the movie not show a ton ofgore and not show any nudity for a while for this joke to play.
So, I mean, it sounds weird, but the placement of it had to be deep enough in in order toactually get the laugh.

(33:32):
think if you'd done it too early, it wouldn't have it wouldn't have been as funny.
100 percent.
It comes about a half an hour into the movie.
And the whole parade sequence plays with some other tropes, some of them less obvious,like the in a lot of these slasher films, you end up inside of a tent.
yeah.
And on the outside, it's just a normal tent.
But when you're inside, it's clear that it's some set that they've made.

(33:55):
with a larger size tent where all of a sudden an army of people can fit in there.
And here there's a parade with this bull on top of a float.
And that's where the killing happens that they climb down during the parade into the heartof the float, which apparently is big enough to hold three people.
It has a back door to it.
And then the killer, again, to this weapon thing that they're doing, they kill with aneggplant.

(34:19):
Cause he couldn't find any weapons and say, eggplant.
he, and he grabs it and then.
At the end of the sequence, after we cut back from the bit you just played about the guybehind the desk, it's, it's the shop teacher holding the eggplant up in, in the face of
Toby as though, well, of course this is the murder weapon.

(34:40):
Like he just blindly assumes there's no blood on it or anything.
He finds an eggplant.
Well, look, and she's obviously the one.
And this begins the real assault from all adults on Toby insisting that she must be thekiller.
Absolutely.
there's, again, no police of any kind.
The faculty are carrying out this investigation as if they are the highest authoritypossible.

(35:04):
And I think this in the aftermath of this death on the float is one of my favorite lines.
Hasn't there been enough senseless killing?
Let's have a murder that makes sense.
Absolutely.
Now that she's been found at two murder scenes, Toby is viewed as the prime suspect,although there is still no direct evidence.

(35:25):
Well, this is the scene you're talking about with Toby being accused by everybody, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
And the principal, the principal's got the paper clip.
this is yours.
Then he tucks it in his pocket.
Well, that's red herring moment.
And meanwhile, Malvert is in the background peeing in a bucket in the corner of the officefor the entirety of the scene.
It's like that one in Revenge of the Nerds 2, Nerds in Paradise.

(35:46):
where it has all of the alphabetas and they're in some suite at a hotel.
And in the background out of, in another room in the restroom is ogre just peeing and itgoes on for like five straight minutes.
And then you hear it stop.
then he just yells, nerd.
This is kind of like that moment with Malvert just back there.
And then finally someone turns to him and addresses it.

(36:09):
And then they see that he has read something red on his hands and he goes, Malvert pees.
Sometimes Malvern pees red.
And the explanation given is that before the remodel of the school, that used to be thebathroom and Malvern doesn't know the difference.
So they just put a bucket there.
So, you know, he won't pee all over the floor.

(36:29):
And then like he turns to the principal.
done.
No, now done.
Now done.
And then the phone rings and then we get to see this other.
riff on a trope, is how do killers alter their voices?

(36:55):
I appreciate your honesty.
What makes your voice sound so funny?
I'm disguising a smack.
How?
By talking through a rubber chicken.
I thought it sounded like you were speaking through a rubber chicken.
Listen, I'm going to kill next at the football game, Did you hang up?
No, I just said Click.
Yeah, so the killer alters their voice by using a rubber chicken.

(37:17):
But again, here's where it is.
You're in this weird headspace because
all of the faculty are there for this phone call and they're talking to the killer.
It's like seemingly all of those people would be eliminated as suspects after that phonecall.
And the principal even points out, because they all think Malvert might be it because he'sso weird, they're like, well, he's here when the killer called, he must be innocent.

(37:42):
The killer says he's going to strike next at the football game.
This time, attacking a pair of students who are having sex or planning to have sex underthe stands.
as garbage is raining down upon them from the stand.
Like the people are throwing, like, but it's not just, like a paper wrapper or somethingfalling.
It is like, it is like a hail storm of garbage under these stands.

(38:05):
And of course the guy says, garbage gets me hot.
And again, the guy leaves and the girl is actually killed with an eraser.
And the guy comes back, he sees the eraser, he kind of touches the powder and he tastes itand says, ugh.
Cut with chalk.
I'm like, it's 1981.

(38:25):
and, Toby ends up in that scene unconscious.
She's, she comes down the ladder.
She gets knocked out by, by falling trash.
And there's a helpful caption noting unconscious, not dead.
Important plot point.
Yes.
Prior to this little bit too, there's a weird scene where it has Toby sort of gettingcounseling.

(38:49):
Yes, the psychiatrist with the psychiatrist and he's like, and he's coming onto her in thebeginning and he's handy and she starts to tear up and she hands, he hands her a box of
tissues and instead of taking a tissue out, she takes the whole box and wipes her face.
And then every time he picks the phone up, which he has all these OCD things he's doing,the killers breathing on the phone and as she gets into explaining her situation at home

(39:16):
and how awful it is.
She reveals that her dad's actually abusive and he's an alcoholic.
And then he goes, don't call me daddy anymore.
After asking her in the beginning to call him daddy.
And then she wipes her eye with a calculator paper, with a pipe that he hands hereverything he hands her.
She inappropriately wipes her tears with it.
weird.
is, it is, this is a fundamentally weird movie.

(39:37):
It's an entertaining movie, but it is, it is odd.
Again, it's, it's, it's interesting and fun, which is why I am glad we decided to do it.
That was a.
That was fortuitous.
So speaking of weird, Toby wakes up after the killing at the football game.
She hides in an ambulance, which is taking the bodies away.

(39:59):
Now, where do they take the bodies to?
They take the bodies to the hospital.
Do they take them to the Wessex County morgue?
No, they take the bodies to the high school for reasons past.
It's like the whole world is this high school.
And this is the scene where we have the corpse.
that starts farting and just does not stop.

(40:21):
No, it does not.
my God.
And you know, you have one of the teachers explained, well, corpses can fart after death,blah, blah, blah.
And the corpse farts with such force.
It shoots the gurney out into the hallway with Toby on it.
It's- and before that, that same teacher makes the comment that penises can, that they canalso get erections at postmortem.

(40:43):
And then you see in the next shot,
The penis flop up and then flop down under the sheet.
It just kind of pops up, pops down, and then it farts again.
my God.
It's always wild.
But one of my favorite lines in this film comes up here where Toby and Hardy, they'releaving the, the nurses, the nurses slash quarters office and there's all this stuff in

(41:06):
the hallway and she asks, what's all this stuff in the hall?
And Hardy replies,
they're doing the non-musical version of Greece.
They couldn't get the rights to the music.
I'm like, that is funny as hell.
And then she also says, I have to go to the prom and find the killer.
Yes.
She says that too.
Yes.
Because that's where the killer says they're going to strike next.
so she goes to the prom.
One of my favorite bits, she disguises herself because she's, she gives off the appearancewith the clothes that she chooses a being rather flat chested, but so to disguise herself,

(41:39):
she.
takes a pair of balloons to give herself a bigger chest.
But the joke is that it's not a pair of balloons underneath.
It's, just, turn into actual breasts.
If that makes any sense.
And you have a lot of Foley work that no one, no one in on screen reacts to, but where youwill hear balloons rubbing against each other.

(42:02):
the entire time.
Jim Wynorski did that years later in.
movie called cheerleader massacre and also in hard to die where every time, every time itcuts to a scene, which there are many of girls taking showers, whenever they have their
hands even glance upon their breaths, it has that same balloon squeak.

(42:23):
And I can't help but think that he might've been giving a little nod back to studentbodies.
It's gotta be.
It's so, like she hugs the janitor at one point after he helps her and you just hear thesqueak of the balloons.
It's, God, it's funny as hell.
And the shop teacher gets excited by all this.
The shop teacher is one of the strangest characters.
like, we spend a lot of time at the prom.

(42:45):
is, Toby wants to get into the principal's office because she feels that's where theevidence is being held.
And if she can look at the clues, maybe she can figure it out, but she's got to get thekeys off of the principal.
The principal who also keeps cheese in his pants.
So mice will try and get it.

(43:06):
It's very strange.
It's very odd.
So another pair of teens get killed in the wood shop.
These horse heads make me hot.
And this time the shop teacher is trapped in the supply closet during the murders andcomes face to face with the killer.
Yeah, but you got to, this plays out in a way that is...

(43:29):
This is an extended sequence, yes.
Well, so the shop teacher is watching
Toby at the dance talking with people and he's like just staring at her boobs.
Right?
So he runs off a sweaty mess and I don't mean mildly sweaty.
mean, like they dumped a bucket of water on him and he's mopping it off with this soakedtissue and he gets into, so what does he do to masturbate?

(43:51):
He goes into his shop class, grabs some, wooden horse head book, a horse head bookend andstarts carving it with the circular saw, just moaning.
And then it keeps cutting back to him and he's going like, he gets his, that's how he doesit.
That's his thing to do that.

(44:11):
And so he, and then he hides in the closet.
Where the murder happens.
We get, but then he comes face to face with the killer and himself is killed.
And we get a capture.
Again, we have the, the, the, kill count going, the body count going.
He's number 11 and the caption adds no longer a suspect.

(44:32):
I'm like, there you go.
So, Toby then breaks into the principal's office.
She gets the keys.
Malvert helps her get the keys.
He also gets the cheese at the same time.
Again, there's a point where she's like, no, I asked for the keys, not the cheese, but hegot both.
And she goes into the principal's office and she's caught by Principal Peters searchingthrough his office.

(44:56):
And this is where I got...
confused.
Like this is where the movie genuinely confused me for a moment because is this guy thekiller or is he just a horny ass pervert?
I've come to expect that everybody's a horny ass pervert.
So I'm not sure if he's just that or is he the killer as well?
Well, they're giving you the old one too, which is, which is not uncommon in slasher filmswhere you think it's one person, then they're killed and it's revealed.

(45:22):
it's the brother or whatever it might be.
And when she opens the cabinet, there's the rubber gloves in there that match.
There's a lot of indications that, well, of course it must be him.
So yeah, it's definitely setting him up as the guy.
But it's, it's also, you know, we've seen those rubber gloves on another female teacher.
They've been doing all of this.

(45:43):
And as you'd pointed out, I think in the parade sequence, I believe we would have seen theprinciple not with other people when we also see the breather, right?
Absolutely.
And all of that makes sense because we're about to break all of that information and thenwe will find out why it's been broken.

(46:05):
Right.
Yeah.
there is a moment early speaking to the rubber gloves during the hallway sequence, thewalk and talk you were talking about earlier, Chris, there's a moment in there where on
the right bottom, right hand bottom side of the screen, a black bubble pops up and therubber gloves are there doing sign language sign language during the dialogue of what
they're saying.

(46:25):
It's just kind of funny how they keep reminding you like leaning into that.
This is what you better be looking for.
But the movie is littered with people wearing these gloves from front to back.
Everybody's wearing these green rubber gloves and the principal, he like Toby turns awayfrom him for a second because she's looking at the evidence and then she turns back and
he's stripped down to his underwear.
He's got, I love New York tattooed on his chest.

(46:47):
Like the I love New York logo, like from, from the eighties and then
He goes and gets the school trophy and he returns wearing the rubber gloves.
But I gotta be honest guys, I didn't notice that he was wearing the rubber gloves at thatpoint.
I didn't notice that till I watched that scene a second time later as I was working on thenotes and I was like, for a moment I was still confused.

(47:08):
I'm like, is he the killer?
Is he not?
Is he just weird?
There's a lot of stuff going on in this scene when she's going through.
When she's going through the drawers, each one is filled with something goofy.
The first one she opens is just marbles.
It's all marbles and they spill out over the floor.
All over the floor, which are going to come into play in just a moment.
And then she's flipping through file folders, which are all just silly topics andperverted topics.

(47:31):
And eventually getting to one that says, look in the other cabinet.
And so she leaves that cabinet and that's where she encounters the one that has the rubbergloves and all of that.
And so when he comes in, he and they also start, he goes through this monologue about how,well, sex is dirty, sex is bad.
I'm the murderer.
Mr.

(47:52):
You're naked.
Yes, all these years I've been secretly naked underneath my clothes.
But did anyone notice any girls, any prompting candidates?
No.
All those lights and budding bodies changing from girlhood to womanhood like Mars into.
year after year right before my eyes.
Do you realize how that affects a man?

(48:15):
it makes you hot?
That's right, Toby.
It makes me hot.
Especially the naughty ones like Julie and Bertha and Joan and...
Do you want to know why I think they were murdered?
No!
Yes!
Why?
Because they were naughty.
Naughty?

(48:36):
Disgustingly naughty.
Each and every one of them was caught doing...
sex.
Sex?
Yeah.
That's right, Toby.
Yeah.
Sex is dirty and sex is bad.
Yes.
Yes, I agree.
I...
Well, I don't know.
I've never really done it.
But you would like to do it, wouldn't you?

(48:56):
Yes!
No!
No.
And then he slips.
And then he's, yeah, he goes and gets the school trophy and he's going to, he's going togo kill her with it.
And then he slips and falls and, and the trophy goes, he gets impaled on the trophy.
And I'm like, okay.
So I guess he was, but like, here's what I was confused by.

(49:16):
You've established like the killer's very distinctive voice and heavy breathing.
And at no point when, when she's talking to the principal,
Does he kind of slip into that?
And I was like, well, maybe it's not him.
I genuinely was wondering, is it him?
I'm still not sure.
Contrast that with the reveal in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, that Judge Doom is a tune where,know, when I killed your brother, I talked just like this.

(49:48):
That's how you do that.
And I'm like, they should have had him talk in that voice because they've set that up.
Maybe he just didn't have the rubber chicken to disguise as well.
Well, yes, I guess you need the rubber chicken.
My goodness.
So Toby, you know, goes into the next office where she finds her boyfriend, Hardy has beenkilled with a rubber glove stuff down his throat.

(50:08):
And here's the twist.
As you saw, it's the double.
It turns out that Ms.
Mumsley is the second killer and the principal was her son.
So while
he has been killing the girls, she has been killing the boys with the trash bags.
And again, Ms.
Mumsley present when the killer called the school.
At the funeral.

(50:28):
At the funeral, at the parade, everywhere.
So this is where, okay guys, I know we're talking about a really weird film and you're outthere thinking of my, I know someone's out there listening in podcast land, you listen and
think this is really weird, but it's not as weird as it's gonna get because Toby escapes.
And she's chased down the hall by Ms.

(50:49):
Mumsley.
And then she starts to run into characters who have already died.
And some of them in like really weird costumes.
Like some of them, it's just, it's, it's the surrealness factor gets turned up to 11.
The shop teacher is feeding one of his precious horse head bookends at a drinkingfountain.
Yes.
The shop teacher is, yes.

(51:10):
It's a 1981 parody version of Carnival of Souls.
yeah.
Yeah.
Totally.
Everybody looks dead.
Yeah.
Everybody's gonna make up makes them look dead.
Yes, it's very Carnival of Souls.
And then she's chased through the school, this chase goes on for a bit and then finallyshe dives headlong out a window and she wakes up in a hospital bed.

(51:34):
And it turns out the whole movie was a dream brought on by and I quote, sexual repressionand urban stress.
And it's set up exactly like Wizard of Oz.
Yeah, exactly.
Including the dialogue.
Yeah, like you were there and you were there and all the characters that in the dream arethere, but they're different.

(51:56):
Like the principal is actually the janitor.
The shop teacher is actually the French teacher, beret and all.
Malvert is actually like a sophisticate of some kind.
But her boyfriend, Hardy, is still her boyfriend and he still seems like an okay guy.
So now.
Toby and Hardy are out walking in the woods and she's like, well, maybe I, maybe it's timefor me to have sex.

(52:18):
Maybe it's time for us to, to do that.
And immediately Hardy turns on a dime and it turns out that in this world, he is actuallya killer himself complete with green gloves.
The reveal here is much more sort of much clearer than even the, the, the bit with theprincipal, which I was confused by.

(52:38):
And he kills Toby doing the breathing.
doing the breathing.
And then the final scene takes place at Toby's funeral and the funeral is being held likeit's an hour later.
There's a caption like one hour later and it's just like a very plain wooden cross withher name on it.
And he leans down, he's putting flowers by the grave and he's talking to her.

(53:01):
He's, I'm sorry, I had to kill you, blah, blah, blah.
And then Toby's hand bursts out of the grave and grabs a hearty by the throat.
So we end with a Carrie riff, which of course it's funny because that Carrie riff wasdirect inspiration for Friday the 13th.
And here we are and it all comes together.

(53:23):
It's a funny movie.
It's an interesting movie.
It is bizarre.
I think the movie's got some pacing issues a little bit.
Like there's scenes that go on a little too long and then there's scenes that don't taketheir time enough.
But it's an interesting snapshot.
coming so early in the slasher cycle, how much they, the filmmakers really nailed thetropes.

(53:47):
And I think that is in part this trend in particular with both Halloween and Friday the13th feeding it so early.
I don't know of another trend that is certainly not one that we have covered quite yet.
Maybe the Giallo, but it's a little bit of a different thing where so many films came out.

(54:09):
so fast, so early.
Yeah.
So normally this kind of parody is coming 10 years or so into a cycle.
Right.
Because you will have needed the audience to be familiar enough with the tropes in orderto make fun of them.
Spaceballs comes out a decade after Star Wars.
Yeah.
And, know, Don't Be a Menace, you know, comes out, I don't know, like six, seven years.

(54:32):
seven years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But
You essentially had five to 10 years worth of films come out post Halloween and Friday.
Yeah.
And so it's crazy that this could be possible, but all of the audience knew that would gosee this knew what to expect to be made, you know, to be made fun of.

(54:53):
mean, it can make a slasher movie in 1981 and people were going to that 1981 was just theboom.
You know, there were a few in 1980 and 1979, but 81.
When we did the Halloween series, the vast majority of them were 81 movies and a lot ofthe movies here for the Friday series, 81 was a big year for Slasher Boot.
But of course, the big thing is that 1981 puts this film well before Friday the 13th, partthree.

(55:20):
And that's interesting because our second film today is a different sort of parody andcomes a few years later, actually in 1988, towards the end of the 80s Slasher Boot.
This is Unmasked.
Part 25.
This is amazing.
Don't tell me, you're that guy in that movie, are you?
Precisely.
And after 25 sequels, he's ready to swing out on his own.

(55:44):
Jackson's through with special effects.
Now he wants the real thing.
It's a regular nightmare on Carnaby Street as Jackson goes after every new wave yuppieLondon Underground party-going poser in town.
Jackson's career is stuck in a rut.
and he just can't seem to get out of character.
You're a psychopathic killer.

(56:05):
Half human, half killer.
I'm a freak.
A freak.
Learn to live with it.
It's an outrageous movie within a movie within a movie.
Just your typical love story.
Boy's about to stab girl.
Boy meets girl.
Boy gets girl.
You came after all.

(56:25):
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude or anything.
It's just that it's late.
I didn't expect you to show up.
My name is Shelley.
Don't be shy.
Come on now.

(57:02):
Unmasked Part 25, also known as The Hand of Death, was written and produced by MarkCutforth.
and directed by Anders Palm.
what's interesting is this movie does not come from the United States, but from GreatBritain, which gives it a very unusual tone.
Unlike the European films we talked about back in episode eight, this film is not tryingto replicate America, but it's set in London.

(57:27):
And I want to say this about that, because there's something, I don't know what it is.
There's something sort of fundamentally unsettling.
to me about 1980s London.
I don't know, like, I don't know how to describe it.
There's something about the way 80s culture and style filtered through an English lensthat I just find strange and weird.

(57:52):
And this movie captures that as much as any movie I've ever seen.
It's just weird.
Yeah.
mean, there's, on one hand, this movie is, is what if Jason Voorhees was on the YoungOnes?
right?
The old British TV show with Rick Weil and many others kind of punk new wave culture inthe 80s.

(58:14):
It's funny because it the world at least as I've seen it, I was not in 80s London.
But this feels like a 1988 London that feels like a lot of 8283 London that I saw as faras what the the punk and art culture is but
I haven't seen the later version as much.

(58:37):
seems like it's kind of on that bridge between the 70s and the 80s.
Yeah.
Just because there's some punk aesthetic there, especially with how some of the characterswere going to encounter dress.
Absolutely.
But the music they listen to is decidedly not punk in the film.
then it also has this sort of 80s neon sheen to it in some ways as well.

(58:59):
So it's a real hybrid.
of cultural elements that is so fascinating.
There is something about that 80s neon sheen in in a in the context of England that I justthere's something about it that makes me it just like makes me unsettled.
I don't know what it is, but there's something about it that makes me unsettled.
I think I know why you're unsettled, Chris.

(59:22):
please, because I've tried to figure it out all week.
It's because this is an 80s slasher version of Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget MercyHump?
and find true happiness, which we watched in our A Hard Day's Night series.
This feels like Anthony Nulli's slasher film.
That's all I'm saying.
Well, that's a, now that you say that, that's a nightmare.

(59:44):
Like that's a genuine nightmare.
So Unmasked 25 basically asks the question, what if Jason Voorhees got lonely?
It stars Gregory Cox as the masked killer Jackson, along with Fiona Evans and EdwardBrayshaw.
And we open.
with a shot of London prominently featuring Big Ben and Parliament.

(01:00:05):
And all I could think of was, look kids, Big Ben, Parliament.
It's like how any movie set in Washington DC is going to show the Washington monument orthe White House or the Hollywood sign, any movie set in LA.
The title card in the version that I watched was actually read the Hand of Death as thetitle of the film.
That was one of the titles that was used.

(01:00:27):
that's, I mean, that comes very
into play in the final shot in the film that we'll eventually get to.
Yes, because the hand of death is a reference to the series of movies within the moviethat are being made based on this killer Jackson.
Essentially, it is a precursor to the stab series in the scream movies.

(01:00:47):
Right.
Yeah, except here.
And I know, there's, you know, details in this film to get in.
But I would have thought that this would have been the kind of premise that would makeyour head explode, Chris, because it often does.
Shades of Jake Speed here.
Yes, actually.
Yes, I had the same thought.
Yeah.
Essentially what this movie is positing is that Jason Voorhees is English and visitedAmerica for camp at some point where terrible things happened and he became Jason.

(01:01:18):
But then he came back home to London to be Jason in movies that people see.
But he is also Jason in real life killing people.
and is wondering like Clint Eastwood and under for in unforgiven whether or not he, hislife has taken the right path.
And my head exploded.

(01:01:42):
my God.
yeah, yeah.
All of that.
Exactly.
So we, we, we follow this couple, they're walking through London and, and they're a littledrunk.
They're headed to a party.
and they run into a version of the Harbinger character guy, this old guy who tries to warnthem not to go into this particular house because an evil child was born there and has now

(01:02:04):
returned for revenge.
And of course they ignore him because that's what you got to ignore the Harbinger.
If you don't ignore him, there's no movie.
Yes.
You're just like, yeah, we should go home.
And it's London.
So it's not crazy Ralph.
It's a uncouth Harry.
Exactly.
And then we have another another trope right off the bat.
We have the guy jumping out at the couple wielding a knife, but he's just their drunkfriend who's trying to scare them.

(01:02:29):
So you have the harbinger and the fake out scare right from the off.
He's the prankster.
He's the prankster.
He's going to he's going to get a pranksters.
He's going to meet a pranksters fate.
That's a good title.
The pranksters.
Yeah.
prankster.
That's all you man scrub it from this episode.
Don't let it out.

(01:02:50):
NDAs for all.
But doing this stuff early is rather important.
And it's the kind of thing that it won't it will it will drop this kind of thing as itgoes along.
But it does want you the audience to know that it also knows what these slasher movies andspecifically Friday the 13th movies entail.
Yes.
And it will do parody versions of them.

(01:03:12):
You're going to get, you know, a version coming up in a scene of the like, did you hearthat?
It's doing a lot of right things to let you know they know what they're talking about.
yeah.
Which is important because this movie isn't just a parody.
This, it wants you to know it knows the genre so that it can then drop that and do somereally crazy things that have, they have nothing to do with parodying Friday the 13th or

(01:03:41):
slasher films.
And this film, I mean, for all of the lack of subtlety in our first picture on thisepisode, this
I mean, really it plays everything so straight that it's never winking at itself.
I mean, I guess it does a couple of times toward the end, but it's not clubbing us overthe head with the fact that it's trying to sort of play these things to the audience's

(01:04:06):
humor.
The humor is not as blatant and certainly not as sort of cartoonish as what we were seeingin Student Bucks.
yeah.
Absolutely.
mean, it's closer to like the British office than the American office.
If that rings true for anyone who's, the, the, what, how the jokes are treated is verymuch your, you either get it or you don't.

(01:04:29):
And we are fine with that.
It's kind of like return to horror high, which is, I mean, this whole, this, this wholesub genre of slasher mockup kind of comedy thing.
They're really, think there are only maybe three titles that fit in that, or maybe ahandful at most, but return to horror high is another one where it, plays similar to this

(01:04:51):
in that there's a lot of subtle references.
There's a lot of things that you have to be really paying attention to catch as you'rewatching it to really be in on all the jokes and to catch them.
And maybe a rewatch might offer you some additional insight into all that stuff, but it'snot real obvious.
It's, it's, it's definitely a more subtle type of.
of movie and there's stuff that I know I didn't catch the first time around that when Iwent back and looked at some selected scenes, I was like, okay, there's a little bit more

(01:05:20):
to that there.
So we go, we move into the house and we get this party, which is very eighties.
gotta say, I'll point out again, the colors, the bold colors in the rooms in theselocations, both
Well, this house, as well as when we get to one of the main characters houses, it's so,it's just so 80s stylish.

(01:05:45):
It's, it's amazing.
Like one of the, one of the party goers is the character will come to know as Shelley andShelley looks like she stepped right out of a Patrick Nagel painting.
Totally.
Amazing.
Amazing.
And this is supposed to be this haunted murder house where horrible things have happened,but it has electricity.
Some of the rooms are

(01:06:06):
are very clean.
Like the main room that they hang out in is drenched in neon elements, a very nice recordplayer, hi-fi stereo set up there.
then other rooms look like they're just in the sewer.
Other rooms look like they are heroin dens from train spotting.
Yes.
Like all they're missing is the worst toilet in England.

(01:06:26):
Or like street trash.
Like set pieces from street trash.
The nicer rooms and the party of people who know each other, but they're just being weird.
That aspect of it reminded me of college parties in Brownstones in Boston.
No question about it.
question about it.
Rob, I went to college in Boston too, and I know exactly what you mean.

(01:06:47):
Yeah, yeah.
mean, you we didn't have the killers.
Well, certainly not as much sex either.
Yes.
none of those things.
it was the 90s where there was still the echoes of this time.
There was still the echoes of the 80s in certain, like furniture pieces or light.
because things don't change on a dime with decades, things hang around for a while.

(01:07:10):
And I'm like, yeah, it did remind me of sort of college parties in Boston with thatarchitecture and stuff.
Well, I should mention the friend who scared the couple in the alley, the prankster, sooncomes across something that's really scary as he's attacked by Jackson, a killer wearing a
hockey mask.

(01:07:30):
Again, straight out of Friday the 13th, it's a slightly different kind of goalie mask.
but it's still a very clear goalie mask.
It's actually the goalie mask that's on the, this is gonna be the cover of the VHS box forFriday the 13th, part five, A New Beginning.
I was gonna say that.

(01:07:51):
Which is not what the killer actually wears in that movie, but it's the one that was onthe box.
Yeah, this is the goalie mask that looks like Humongous' mask.
Yes!
from Mad Max 2.
It's got that little ridge kind of thing.
And the holes in the cheeks and like that kind of thing.

(01:08:11):
So Jackson attacks this guy.
I mean, guys, I don't know if I was, couldn't have been more shocked when, I mean,couldn't have been more shocked when Jackson comes up behind this guy and just tears his
face.
right off.
Peels it right.
It wraps his hand around both sides.
So his fingers are kind of in the middle of his face and just peels it back.

(01:08:33):
mean, there was, there was the cum phone in student bodies and then the face being peeledoff in this movie.
mean, both of these movies literally left me sort of jaw dropped this week.
my God.
This is interesting.
And this is a, I, know, it's here for a couple reasons, I believe, cause you get a lot of

(01:08:55):
of bigger effects work with kills and this one, certainly than in student bodies.
But you look 1988, this now has become part of the language of movies in a way that it wasstarting to in the early 80s, but you hadn't quite, you know, the grand guinea we the
audience is going to demand to see these big effects all in every movie hadn't hadn't hit.

(01:09:19):
quite as hard it was still developing.
Yeah, because this is on the other side of Friday the 13th, part three, part four.
It's on the other side of films like The Mutilator, you know, where it's just been an armsrace of gore.
Yes.
But what's interesting is it's not the filmmakers aren't doing it gory in order to satisfythe horror audience or or even to parody what slasher films or Friday the 13th films have

(01:09:48):
done.
It's very much because of where the character of Jackson, who still has not spoken yet, Idon't believe.
No, he has not.
So he's been played like a silent Jason Voorhees so far.
without this extreme violence, the whole character arc of Jackson wouldn't make as muchsense.
You actually have to have this level of cartoon American slasher violence in order forwhat they want to do to play.

(01:10:16):
What the filmmakers want to do.
Yeah.
Yeah, and to that point, the next thing he does is he puts his hand through this dude'schest and pulls out his still beating heart like he's Mola fucking Ram.
Like, my God.
the effects are fantastic.
that.
It's so over the top.
You know, you're both horrified and it's hysterical all at the same time because it's soover the top.

(01:10:42):
And yet it looks so good.
Like you can see the heart beating.
in his hand.
I kept thinking as I was watching it about how easy it would be to cut a trailer for thisfilm and have it be completely deceptive about what the film was like.
Because you wouldn't have to strain to paint this as a straight ahead sincere slasher.

(01:11:03):
Totally.
Absolutely 100 % because it's got those moments, both the attacks as well as like thestalking and you know, the Jackson walking around in the house and you know, kind of
lurking in the background.
I mean, honestly, the state of the house with some of these rooms they go into should havebeen a bigger hint that there was something weird with this house.

(01:11:23):
We'll get to that in a bit.
But we have a sequence where this two, this couple, they go down like this ladder, likethey have to climb down this ladder to get to the room that they're going to have sex in,
which is just the worst.
my God.
It is the most.
disgust.

(01:11:43):
And you know, I have a problem with spaces like this.
I talk about it on every episode.
And I do too.
it's like people go to the most foul places to hook up in these movies.
And I think this one is the perfect cap to this series.
It is.
Because it is vile.
it's just.
It is.
Yeah.
It really is.
Like it makes, it makes the hunting cabin from body count look.

(01:12:10):
Like, that's a reasonable place to take a shower.
yeah.
And then they lay on the bed.
my God.
They're poking around this filthy room.
mean, surely just acquiring diseases by inhaling the air in there.
No question.
And then they lay down in the bed to get it on all giggly and stuff.
Like, wait a minute.
This is not like a sleeping bag in your bedroom.
This is this is a this is a filth.

(01:12:32):
This is a filthy stye.
Yeah.
I mean, it looks it looks like you would get.
tetanus just from walking in the room.
Like it's just, it's just, it's just crazy.
So the girl, she, she goes to the bathroom and, and, and while she's, she's in thebathroom, the guy takes a shovel to the face and man, he takes a shovel to the face from,

(01:12:55):
Jackson.
And then she comes back and she's cookie killed by it with a garrote wire.
And then we have a couple other kills in this house.
get, we get another couple that gets a classic double spearing.
like in Bay of Blood and Friday Part Two and Twisted Nightmare, this time up against awall with the implement going through the wall.

(01:13:16):
And that's, that's another one.
That room's so weird because it's one of the more arty rooms in the house and there's allthese like faces kind of painted on the wall.
It's weird.
It's, this house is insane.
This house is insane.
during this, when they're setting up this couple going upstairs into yet another filthyroom to get it on, the girl's getting undressed.

(01:13:40):
She's topless and all this.
The guy simply cannot undress.
I don't know how much he's had to drink, but I've never seen someone struggle so much withpants and he never really gets them off.
I he never takes off his pants.
Maybe he's around his ankles by the end.
Cause I saw his bare ass.
Yeah.
Maybe he's running and gunning.
just wants to pump very pale bare ass.
I'll, I'll mention he wants to come and go to the, by the way, Rob, have sad news for youabout the come and go chain of stores here in Iowa.

(01:14:05):
They're changing the name.
What's the come and go chain of stores.
KUM, KUM it's old.
It's old chain.
It's, it's their gas stations called literally come KUM and go.
And it's they're in on it now.
Yes.
And they sell hats and t-shirts.
I mean, they eventually got in on the joke, but finally they saw the light this last week.

(01:14:30):
There was a press release that ran in the paper about how they're deciding to change thename.
think it's going to be Maverick now.
Who's going to buy the Maverick?
Who's going to a Maverick t-shirt?
I can't tell you how many people have come through here and said, what the fuck is up withthese gas stations called come?
And I'm like, I cannot explain this.
And yes.
I it's it's finally going away.

(01:14:51):
But anyway, maybe he was looking to come and go this guy.
But the point of what I'm saying is that this is our first time that we really see thekiller.
yes, we've seen his hands.
We've the flash of the mask prior to this.
We get close ups of his eyes under the man like that's what you know.
And it's kind of shocking, though, because he's just wearing a trench coat and a nicebutton up shirt underneath, which makes you go, what?

(01:15:14):
That's our first hint that things are not.
what we expect them to be as he's wandering around the house in this trench coat.
and hair.
He has hair.
It's not the weird like zombie headed Jason behind the mask.
He doesn't look like the back of Darth Vader's head with the mask off from Empire StrikesBack.
He's got hair.
it's yeah.

(01:15:35):
So we then we get another, there's a girl, he comes across a girl by herself in this very,very red room.
It's very, it's
The lighting and the wall color, it's all red.
It's very red.
And she interestingly tries to bargain for her life.
Like she actually offers him sex.
And instead he takes this stand up lamp.

(01:15:57):
It's like this long stand up lamp with a light bulb, an uncovered light bulb at one end.
And he just puts it through her mouth, like through her head.
But then something real interesting, he picks up the body and starts dancing with it.
And he has a cigarette.
push through one of the holes in the front of his hockey mask like he's just had sex.
He's walking down the stairs, know, like carrying the cigarette and then he puts it out,you know, on the stairs.

(01:16:23):
And then he goes into the room where Shelley is now sitting alone.
And there's this great shot where he's coming up behind her with a knife and then suddenlyshe gets up and we see that she has a cane and she's blind.
I actually didn't, I did not realize she was blind up until this moment.
despite the fact she's wearing sunglasses the whole time we've seen her and she's, she'stalked with some of the other people at the party, but I just thought it was like an

(01:16:50):
eighties thing.
Like, I'm to wear sunglasses, you know, like I was, I was, was totally surprised.
And it wasn't until slightly later in the film as well, you know, at point when we willget there where I realized that this character's name is a nod to Mary Shelley.
is.
Yes.
Yeah.

(01:17:10):
So
He goes into the room where Shelley is sitting alone.
She like, this is where we get, and this is a term I used earlier and Justin corrected mebecause there was nothing cute about that meat, but this is a meat cute.
This is a real legit meat cute.
Like she drops something on the floor and then realizes that someone else is in the roomwith her and she starts talking to him, mistaking him for her blind date.

(01:17:35):
Again, no pun intended.
You came after all.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude or anything.
It's just that it's late.
I didn't expect you to show up.
My name is Shelley.
Don't be shy, come on now.

(01:17:57):
I'm so glad you've come.
I'm terribly lonely, you know.
I'm always the one without a date.
Well, Patty's ran out on her tonight, but usually it's me who...
We can be friends.
I'd like that, wouldn't you?
Pardon me?
She goes to shake his hand, and he wipes the blood off on his coat and then holds her handand he kind of moans a little bit right He growls, kind He growls, yeah.

(01:18:27):
Yeah, and which leads her to conclude that he can't speak while she can't see and
guys, I'm going to tell you right.
I was instantly rooting for them right from that point.
I was like, I, these guys are great.
I'm all in.
I love it.
It's the peddler scene from bride of Frankenstein.
The monster shows up at his little hut and he's like friend, you know, come, come have aseat, have a smoke.

(01:18:52):
And it's that entire exchange boiled down into this scene between these two, but mixedwith like a rom-com introduction.
Like that's it's, that with that.
With 80s New Wave London flavor, yes.
It's amazing.
And both Gregory Cox and Fiona Evans are absolutely terrific in the roles, the chemistrythey have.

(01:19:14):
yeah, they're great.
Even with the limitations placed on them, because like there's this extended period whereshe's doing all of the talking and it's almost like an extended monologue.
He's not saying anything except for the occasional groan.
And she brings him back to her place.
And it's just this whole sequence with her talking about her life.

(01:19:35):
And it's incredible.
And then we learned that Jackson can speak and with like a BBC English accent, no less.
Like it's very proper English.
You know, it's, it's amazing.
And, and, and again, I just love these two.
And his first dialogue is about his background.
And he's saying, you know, people don't like me and they think that I'm stupid.

(01:19:57):
And I hate wearing this mask because people think I'm a monster.
Yeah, he takes, removes the hockey mask and we see that he is, he is like Jason deformed,but Shelley doesn't seem to mind and the two kiss.
And honestly guys, there's a part of me that wanted the movie to end right there.
I want them to live happily ever after.

(01:20:19):
I, I, I, I, I was, I was all in on, on, on Shelley and Jackson.
He looks, he looks a lot like Toxie in.
Toxic Avenger films with a sloped eye kind of hanging down on one side.
And the makeup is so terrible.
Like for as good as the makeup was with the heart kill and some of the, the kills reallyso far, this just, it's one of these movies that I'm not sure needs to be in HD because

(01:20:46):
you really see the lines on his makeup, the entirety of, the entirety of the, of themovie.
And it begins here with this closeup where they're kissing and it's kind of.
also charming in a way too.
Yes.
That it's, that it's a simple makeup on him.
is probably not a movie we need a 4k edition of even if that were possible.
Like it's probably best as it is.

(01:21:08):
And, and again, I just, I love them both.
And of course the movie doesn't end here.
So, you know, they're not necessarily going to live happily ever after because there's,there's still more movie to go.
the two make love and Jackson, he tells Shelley a little bit about his backstory about howhis father was abusive to him.
There some things I must tell you about myself.

(01:21:29):
It's very difficult.
Don't be scared.
I want you to feel like you can tell me anything.
I'll understand.
Perhaps you should have known before.
It won't change anything.
I started to explain earlier.
They think I'm a monster.
We're all a bit of a monster.
First thing in the morning, I'm a terrible bitch.

(01:21:50):
You see, I had a horrible childhood.
My father was a drunk.
He was an evil man.
My mother and I were forced to flee to America when I was very young.
He hated us both.
No, that doesn't sound very pleasant at all.
He beat me as a child.

(01:22:11):
Mother as well.
It was awful.
I can never feel guilty for the things I've done.
Do you understand?
It wasn't my fault.
And he tells her he's done terrible things.
She replies, I wouldn't care if you were a mass murderer.
It's like, there you go.
And then he says, what do mean?

(01:22:32):
I mean, basically he's Jason Voorhees.
Him and his mother lived at a camp in America one summer where he was thought to havedrowned, but actually survived.
And then he lived alone in the woods, learning how to survive, but also learning fromwhatever books the people he killed left behind.

(01:22:53):
So as such,
He's well versed in the classics, including the poetry of Lord Byron, which he knows quitea lot about and can recite from memory.
And of course, Lord Byron was very close friends with both Percy Shelley and his wife,Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein after a laudanum-fueled summer at...

(01:23:18):
at the lake in Switzerland.
And this is where the film takes a real departure with just how we see the sort of quoteunquote monster in a movie like this, where the next thing they have breakfast outside at
this little table and then they go for a walk in the park or talking about wanting to walkin the park and all this.
So it's just like a normal couple.

(01:23:39):
And that's kind of how they're presented from this point forward.
It is.
And again, I, I,
I love these characters.
I love these two and I want them to survive.
I want them to win.
Jackson returns to the house from the opening, the filthy house, where we learn this iswhere his father still lives.

(01:23:59):
Surrounded not only by filth, but literally like decaying bodies because his father isalso a murderer.
And he tells Jackson that it's a madness that ran in his family for generations.
I was once a great killer, he says.
Yes.
And his mother, Jackson's mother, did not have those impulses.

(01:24:20):
So the two halves of Jackson are kind of at war with one another.
And he tells his father he's met someone and that he no longer wants to kill.
But his father, his father's just a jerk.
His father, he kind of reminds me of Jamie Tartt's father from Ted Lasso.
Like he's even kind of looks similar with the gray hair.

(01:24:41):
Yeah.
Although I saw him as a shrunken Hagrid from there.
But I think if you, that'll yeah, swish all that together.
And yes, there he is.
Like Jackson mentions not having any money and his father suggests taking the wallet ofhis victims to which Jackson replies, I wouldn't steal from them bad enough slashing their

(01:25:04):
throats.
So because of his disfigurement, Jackson avoids going out in public places during thedaytime, but Shelley encourages him to do so.
And we see more of them together.
I love the scene where they go window shopping together.
And he describes a dress that's in the window to her.
There is something about it that is so genuinely sweet.

(01:25:26):
And I was just like, again, I love these guys.
I want them to live happily ever after.
End the movie now.
I want them to live happily ever after.
Yeah.
And then they go to the Halloween store.
Then they go to the Halloween store where she offers to buy a hockey mask for herself.
Which is so sweet.
my God.
And so he doesn't feel awkward.

(01:25:47):
Like he doesn't know how to react to that.
Like it's like, he doesn't want to be made fun of.
He doesn't want to be pitied.
But then you have a couple of scenes where they're like walking by the lake, each wearhockey masks.
I mean, that's, that's an amazing image right there.
Yeah, it reminded me of the mask romance in the filmed version of Breakfast at Tiffany'swith Audrey Hepburn and George Pappard, where they have their whole little shopping spree

(01:26:14):
montage, although it's more of a, guess, shoplifting spree montage at times too.
Right.
But yeah, just like the wonderful mask play, although here it is, you said it's a sorespot for him, but he kind of goes along with it.
He, cause he is trying to reconcile his dark side.
with, with what he wants to do going forward and having trouble and he's like super, it'sa, it's a, it's a sore spot for him.

(01:26:40):
But, what I like is that they don't play her as some necessarily, super saint.
And although there are some laughs to be mined, but we will learn more about her characterwhere she's not exactly who you think she is either.
Yeah, no, no, no, no, she's terrific.
So at one point Jackson follows a friend of Shelley's to a pub.

(01:27:05):
He observes her, Shelley, talking to her friend and then she follows the friend to a pubwhere he's mistaken for the actor playing the killer in the Hand of Death movies.
This is amazing.
Don't tell me, you're that guy in that movie, aren't you?
This is amazing meeting you in here.
Come on, mate, sit down and have a drink with us, Nick, Look, we are in the presence of areal live celebrity here.

(01:27:32):
We saw the cameras and lights and shit up the street.
Barry is an actor.
We're, er, we're both actors, actually.
Gonna make it big one day, all the way.
I must have a pen here somewhere.
You ex-mate got some money, you filth.

(01:28:01):
It culminates in this altercation where Jackson stabs but does not kill one of the guys inthe group.
Again, they have no idea that this masked guy is dating Shelley, but this is going tobecome sort of the fuel.
for the last act of the movie, this whole altercation that they have.

(01:28:21):
this is where I got confused, where I'm not sure if the movie is saying that he's mistakenfor the actor.
I'm not sure that these movies are just based on the real life exploits of Jackson versusJake Speed's style.
somehow his life transforms magically into movies.

(01:28:43):
Or because he is, they're making these movies, he has to do these things?
It's very unclear, because there, does seem like there's an element of magic with all ofthis, especially with the end of the film.
Yes, yes.
It feels, and that's where the Jake Speed stuff really came in.
I, part of me is like, I think Jackson

(01:29:05):
is the guy in the movies, but not as an actor.
Right.
No, I think so too.
I think when he first walks into the bar and these guys are so excited to see him, theysay, we've been watching you.
We saw all the lights and cameras with you outside.
Yeah.
So it's like, are we living within the realm of this movie that we're watching or are weoutside of it and within the universe of a movie being shot?

(01:29:28):
really twists your perspective on what may be happening here.
Yeah.
I do like that they chase him like to the, the, the girl and one of the guys, you know,cause after he stabs the dude, they chase him out of the pub.
He runs off down an alley and they're like, we should go get them and yeah.
And then they kind of just trail off and like, did you see East Enders last night?

(01:29:49):
And they kind of wander all they're like, maybe we're not going to chase this guy down analley.
at this point, Jackson has other business to tend to now that he's run away from theseguys.
Yes.
Yes.
Cause he goes back to his father's house.
And he talks about how he feels trapped in his life as a murderer.
And then in order to, guess, as a way of making a clean break from his past, he crusheshis father's head and it's kind of like the head crushing from Friday the 13th, part

(01:30:20):
three.
I think you get a little eyeball gore in there as well.
Yeah, just minus the 3D.
Minus the 3D.
That's the, there it is.
He continues to see Shelley.
She makes him dinner.
There's a funny bit where we kind of get the limits of his social skills.
Like he can't, he doesn't know how to use the bottle opener for the wine.
And he accidentally stabs himself with the corkscrew, you know, and, you know, she helpshim out and, doesn't seem like she's the best cook, but Hey, again, the bold color choices

(01:30:51):
in, these, in these rooms in her apartment, like when, I'm setting for Chris, it'supsetting, but
Fascinating.
Like, can't not look.
It's like, you know, there's the dining room.
There's later a scene where she's sort of sitting, lying on a couch and I'm just like,it's incredible.

(01:31:11):
And they both open up about their respective loneliness.
They hard cut to them being in bed.
Well, yeah, that's the next thing.
The next thing where they make an attempt at some S and role play.
It's the, and again, the, bedroom, it's like this, this sort of bright pink.

(01:31:32):
It's almost like fluorescent pink and he is wearing this like leather cap.
What's the cap about?
The cap What would that even have to do with us?
I don't know.
And he's got a pair of like red satin shorts that say bad boy on the butt.
It's just, it's amazing.
then she tells him that there's some toys under the bed and he pulls out an app.

(01:31:57):
Absolutely gigantic dildo.
It is, I mean, it is large.
It's during this scene where he confesses that he hasn't had a long history sexually.
Right.
And he says, and he confesses that his first sexual experience was with a camp counselor,but she was dead.
Yes.
And Shelley's reply, well, I suppose we're all a dead lay now and again.

(01:32:22):
Which is a reference to dead fuck.
Dead fuck.
Perfect.
he's telling, like he clearly had sex with someone he killed and you know, she was dead,but Shelley takes it as, you know, sometimes we're all not great in bed.
What I think is interesting here, she's begging, she wants to dominate him at first.
And she says, call me mommy, come on little boy and stuff like that.

(01:32:45):
And he, and she's coaching him through this.
And then she's like, well, let's try reversing roles.
And this is where I think this scene actually veers into brilliance where
He's got his book.
She makes him the Dom and he doesn't know what to do.
mean, this guy is a serial killing monster.
Right.
He dominates people for a living and he can't handle this because this is a relationshipthat's unlike anything he's known before.

(01:33:08):
So she's like, well, grab the manual and look at page 42.
That's a great place to start.
Which is gigantic.
for all the fish, right?
Yeah.
The book is gigantic.
And so then he starts reciting lines from this about like,
You'll pay with your pain and whatever it is, which is something that killers absolutelysay in slasher films.

(01:33:28):
then he, and then he goes, he finally just goes, you know, I can't, it's just not me.
It's so great because it a hundred percent is him.
It's just not within the framework of a relationship.
Totally, totally.
100%.
He just wants to snuggle.
And that's how that scene ends is with him just snuggling up with her and he's contentedin that moment.

(01:33:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
And then he goes through a long walk through London at night and he's hearing his father'slike negative judgments about him in his head.
I want to point out he walks by Leigh Ho Fox.
Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein.
Aroooo werewolves of London.

(01:34:13):
Thank you Warren Zevon.
Good catch man.
And then he calls Shelley.
And he goes to a pay phone first, like the first pay phones out of order.
Then he has to like go to the next pay phone and the girl has to get out.
There's a whole thing.
but then he calls her and tells her not to get together with her friends at the countryhouse that Saturday.
And these are the friends who Jackson had the altercation with.

(01:34:36):
And it's interesting because here the movie switches gears and we start to focus on thisgroup of friends at the country house.
The guy who got stabbed is now out of the hospital.
He's an actor.
like a couple of them I think might be actors, and they're all hanging out the countryhouse for a weekend party.
They're hanging out.

(01:34:56):
And I was at first confused.
like, what are we doing?
Why this change?
What it is is where, someone mentions the date, it's Friday the 13th, and I realized thatwe're basically entering the third act and this mini slasher film that encompasses most of
the third act.
So we kind of flip.
perspectives for a bit to the victims who are this group at the house.

(01:35:22):
and I should also mention they have an in-ground pool in England, which must, I feel likethat's gotta be a rarity.
And it's gotta be cold as hell.
my God, yes.
Like that's why you wouldn't put them in because you wouldn't get that much use out of me.
Like, but you know, I just thought, was like, that's, that really, that feels like ararity there.
So we enter this mini slasher film.

(01:35:44):
where Jackson goes to the house and you know, we're going to get some, we're going to getsome kills guys.
And we're going to get some Shakespeare.
Yes, we are.
because one of the, one of the, the, actors, he, he actually, you know, he's talking abouthow he does Macbeth and you know, he kind of drunkenly recites the Dagger of the Mind

(01:36:06):
monologue from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
is that a dagger I see before me?
And of course, you know, in the,
the trees behind him is Jackson with the dagger getting ready to kill him.
So it's, you know, it's, it's, it's working on a couple levels here.
if you look at the credits on IMDB, it credits Mark Cutforth as writer and also it creditsWilliam Shakespeare for poetry.

(01:36:29):
So William Shakespeare's IMDB includes Unmasked Part 25.
I love it.
I love it.
And with all of this stuff, you get some pretty direct commentary on high brow versus lowbrow art.
Yes.
and what matters.
And you know, in a film where you have the slasher serial killer trying to turn over a newleaf, but for other reasons, it's all it's interesting.

(01:36:54):
And I think like we've seen similar things in God, what was the giallo that had the artstudents?
Was that torso that had that I think
where you had the comments commenting on what's worthy of being art, et cetera.
So it's just, you know, you're, you're piling layers on here.

(01:37:15):
and in addition to the surface level reason for Jackson to be attacking them on theirlittle countryside home, because they were, you know, there was the direct affront in that
pub scene, but also I think one of the, girlfriends here, of girlfriends of Shelley,

(01:37:35):
Isn't that the one who was really trying to get Shelley to bring out her new man andintroduce him to her new friends?
so, Jackson knows about this.
So it's a little unclear cause you know, he does have the one reason they, you know, weremean to him to get rid of them.
But also if he gets rid of these people, then he doesn't have to meld worlds or worryabout him and Shelley.

(01:38:02):
that's
They never speak to that necessarily directly, but it does seem to play in.
Yeah, absolutely.
Also, like there's, there's, there's a scene where the movie gets even more meta.
I mean, it's already a fairly meta movie, but like it comes across one of the girls in thewoods and he tells her, you're the guy from the pub, aren't you the one that attacked

(01:38:22):
Nick?
Ridiculous, isn't it?
I mean, fine.
So I have to kill.
have no choice in the matter, but you think that let me try something else as well.
I do have other talents.
No sense bothering to run for it, really.
You'll get 10 feet, maybe, and run into a branch or stumble over a root.

(01:38:46):
You'll get 10 feet and run into a branch or stumble over a root, which is exactly whathappened.
And then he goes, see?
We have another couple in one of the bedrooms, a scene that actually mirrors the openingof student bodies where he kills the, in this case, he kills the guy in bed and then the

(01:39:07):
girl is in the shower and she doesn't hear anything.
And then she comes back, she finds him in bed and then realizes that he's dead and shegets a hatch to the face.
every, everyone who dies throughout this whole sequence is with a different weapon.
So like literally a minute after he kills one person with one thing, he has a differentimplement.
kills the next one with the next one.

(01:39:28):
It's like he has this arsenal of weapons somewhere.
Yeah.
He's chasing him with an axe.
You see it out.
Absolutely.
And then, you know, we, we, the, the friend, I think her name was Christie is the, is theone who's the friend of Shelley and she kind of ends up our, final girl for this little,
this little sequence.
And he's chasing her down.
She ends up hiding in the shower with the one of the bodies and she has to pull the, the,the cleaver out of her friend's face, which reminded me of.

(01:39:56):
Friday the 13th, part three with Chris in the closet where she pulls the, the, think it'sthe knife out of, out of her friend, but Jackson gets the better of her and kills her too.
And then, so he's sitting there like he's got two dead girls on either side of him in thebathtub and he's sitting on the edge of the tub lamenting how it all seems so pointless.

(01:40:17):
Kenny breaks the fourth wall talking to the camera directly and saying, if only there wassomething more, this all seems so
Pointless and and that the real monsters are out there is he referring to the people he'skilled or is he referring to the audience watching murder as entertainment mm-hmm so he

(01:40:38):
returns to Shelley and he talks about how he's trapped in this life as a killer andShelley tells Jackson she's pregnant and He is fearful that the curse being passed down
another generation.
He decides to kill her too
And he sums up the theme of the film by saying, it's a hell of a life being a monster.

(01:41:01):
It's a hell of a life.
It made me so sad because I really wanted them to win out.
I really liked this couple.
and, and I never quite, I wasn't quite fully sure why he couldn't escape.
Like once she says that she's pregnant, that's like the motivation for his action at theend, cause he's afraid of passing this apparently genetic.

(01:41:22):
Preet is positioned to murder on to his children, but he's ready to leave her even beforethat.
He's like, this is going to be the last night we can be together.
Because I guess he's just accepted his role as a monster, as a murderer.
But I was so rooting for him.
I was so rooting for him to, you know, ride off into the sunset.
I know I'm naive, but, you know, I like these characters a lot.

(01:41:45):
And then we get to the final scene where Jackson's walking through the streets of London.
His mask is on once more.
And he looks up at a movie marquee, which reads the hand of death, part 26 Jacksonreturns.
So he is, his life is a killer doomed to continue.
Again, this is where we get into Jake Speed territory.

(01:42:06):
And he drops to his knees screaming, screaming his head.
Yeah.
I at first thought, they're making movies based on his exploits.
But now I wonder if he is somehow that his experience are transmuting into movies.
If that makes any sense.
with the other title, unmasked part 25 that in, the version where it's hand of death,right?

(01:42:28):
Right.
Then that marquee hand of death part 26, I feel that what we just watched was the hand ofdeath part 26.
Right.
Like the, he realizes that he's, he's done it again and create, know, cause that movie isin the theater plot, you know, to be seen.
Exactly.
In the part.
in the version where this is unmasked part 25, I get a little, mean, obviously forgettingthat the title words are different.

(01:42:57):
I'm like, well, how is, if, if what we watched right now is part 25, then what, how, whatis part 26?
How did it get in theaters?
It then becomes very odd.
Like was the part 25 that was in theaters before what he just acted out.
Or anyway, it gets, I think, messier with the part 25.

(01:43:18):
think you're right.
don't know why they didn't call it Unmasked Part 26 to match the marquee.
I don't know.
And apparently, the two, Mark Cutforth and Anders Palm, one of them claims that the titlewas always going to be the Hand of Death.
That was what they originally wanted to call it.
the other, and I can't remember which is which, the other one claims that it was alwaysgoing to be Unmasked Part 25.

(01:43:42):
So there's even some
some dispute between the creators of what was this movie supposed to be called?
It's interesting, yeah, because it does change that ending a little bit.
Yes.
I honestly, I really liked both of the movies today.
think they, again, they both really, I think, understood the slasher genre and the tropes.

(01:44:02):
And it's really interesting to see how those tropes evolved over the course of the 80s,because we get like a little snapshot at the beginning and a little snapshot at the end.
It's like, that evolution in miniature where it becomes much more based on thepersonalities.
You know, by the end of the eighties, it was, you know, the personas of Jason and Freddieand Michael more so than, you know, the killer lurking in the dark, you know, you're,

(01:44:28):
you're, and the body, you know, the, the, level of gore had become so much more importantover the course of that decade.
Yeah.
And I, I find that it's a interesting pairing too, because student bodies,
is just a parody of the genre, right?
And that is what its assignment is.
I think, you know, a hand of death or unmasked part 25, it's using the genre and, and,it's tropes to explore something that is not the genre necessarily, you know, and that's

(01:45:04):
where that comes in.
it, which is rare.
I don't think
I don't know that we've seen that yet in other series that we've covered where you havesomething that is, you know, you know, in part using established tropes to make fun of a
genre, but doing it to a different end.
It's not just about making fun of the genre.

(01:45:24):
It's doing something else with it.
And, you know, which is pretty damn interesting, to see it is very interesting.
there's a real sincerity there.
Yeah.
It's not just pointing and laughing.
It's.
It's trying to do something different and it takes the monsters that had kind of becomecelebrities by this time.
yeah.
And think about that because Freddy Krueger was a pedophile child murderer who ended uphaving a soundtrack album and a TV series.

(01:45:50):
He hosted an anthology series.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and so we, we, over the time of this sort of march toward Gore and all this stuff, we,were rooting for.
the killer by this point.
But we had lost all connection with what they originally were.
And that's why it's interesting to consider Unmasked as a bookend to some of that to acertain extent, because it reverses all of that.

(01:46:16):
It takes us into the head and the heart of a killer and presents them in a way that wereally hadn't ever seen them before, let alone, especially by this point in 88, where
everything was body count and stuff like that.
So it's a really.
interesting take on something that is also reversing the cultural perception andunderstanding and celebration of what these films have become.

(01:46:41):
Yeah, and it's interesting that both of these movies put us in the head of the killer in aways that the movies that they're often parodying don't.
Like even Student Bonnie's, which obviously doesn't go to the same depth of character thatUnmasked 25 does.
But Student Body still gives you that internal killer monologue, which is more than youwould necessarily get in a standard slasher movie.

(01:47:09):
You don't usually hear what the thoughts in the killer's head.
it's one, in a sense, leads to the other.
The second one is a more full exploration of that.
But it starts with, I want to kill the guy who put all this gum here.
And the Jizz Phone.
The Jizz phone.
my God.
I was genuinely, I mean, my God, I was so shocked.

(01:47:33):
So, as we reach the end of this series, I will ask the question that I always ask, guys,what have we learned from this 10 episode series with I think almost 20 movies, I think
it's 19 movies we covered over the course of it?
Is there anything we've learned in exploring this particular branch off the slasher movietree?

(01:47:56):
This one I find interesting in that, looking at this trend evolve over time, I think morethan other ones really was attempting now how successful it was.
And obviously it winds down.
They really tried to identify things that surprisingly the audience latched onto and thenpump those elements up to the nth degree.

(01:48:21):
By the time you get to the end of this trend, in a way that like,
Star Wars trend doesn't do Conan trend doesn't quite do Batman and you know, any of theones that we've covered, it's, it's not like the giallo trend didn't get more giallo as
you went on, right?
They didn't go, know, they're not like, well, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna haveeight straight razors now or something crazy, but in the American one, it really was like,

(01:48:51):
you like this, let's supersize the shit out of this.
it's very interesting to see and it, you know, to some degree it worked until it justburned out.
It's just a different, a much different way to go about exploiting a trend than I thinkI'd seen or thought about.
I think also that what it exemplifies when you look at all the films that we've talkedabout in this series, there's a real diversity to them despite their humble.

(01:49:21):
point of origin, if you want to point back as we are in the series to Friday the 13th andits sequels that these movies really did try to differentiate themselves in a lot of
somewhat, sometimes subtle ways.
So they didn't just stick to a summer camp format.
didn't just evolved fairly quickly.
Yeah.
Amassed killer.

(01:49:41):
were trying to develop different mythology around them.
Like we have the magic knife.
in one of them.
mean, each one of them has some kind of local lore to a certain extent, while some of themdo.
And so it isn't as vanilla as I think history has painted this cycle that where slasherfilms are very easily dismissed as sort of the bottom of the barrel on the unimaginative

(01:50:06):
realm of horror or whatever.
But when you look at it like we have, and yes, we've had a lot of fun with these movies,but at the same time, the majority of this stuff is being made by independent filmmakers.
Yeah.
And they're working within budget constraints that, that would have made it a challenge toachieve anything.
Absolutely.
And within that framework, it would have been very easy, like is commonplace now,especially in directive direct to streaming, guess we have now, I was about to say direct

(01:50:34):
to video, but direct to streaming where it's okay.
We're going to have to shoot this in the woods because we don't have money for sets.
We don't have time for lights.
We're going to make something quick and cheap.
Not much of anything we've watched in this series has been that.
It hasn't been quick and cheap, although the budgets are often modest.
And so guess my point is, if it illustrated anything to me, it's that just because a filmfell in the wake of something that's culturally considered more substantial, it doesn't

(01:51:04):
mean that it's not a genuine, informed and inspired effort.
Absolutely.
These aren't, these aren't, are not quickie riffs.
None of them have been.
They're all giving you something unique and they're all from people who are genuinelytrying to put their fingerprint in film and on the horror genre in a way that offers
something different and not just a rinse and repeat with at least what we've watched here.

(01:51:28):
Yeah, no, I agree.
I also want to point out that, you know, the Friday the 13th series itself, which wecovered the first four installments, remarkably consistent.
over like maybe one of the most consistent horror series of any era.
At some point in the future, we will cover the remaining Friday films as bonus episodes.

(01:51:50):
But it remains remarkably consistent through the 80s.
mean, there's a little, you know, but but those first four films are all terrific and andreally high quality in terms of the filmmaking craft.
Yeah.
One other thing that I want to mention that I thought was interesting, and you touched onthis mentioning Satan's Blade, is the creeping influence of the supernatural over the

(01:52:12):
course of this series.
The early films, those first two Fridays, are pretty grounded in reality.
The first Friday film is a pretty grounded movie.
There's not this fantastic element, but as time goes on, we see more and more films withsignificant supernatural aspects

(01:52:33):
to them, you know, as if it was like, that's a way to sort of continue, as you say,pushing those boundaries and not just doing the same thing over and over again.
there's there's another good reason for that, which you both know, which is that thattends to come in post A Nightmare on Elm Street, just like there were elements toward the

(01:52:54):
end of our or in the middle to the end of the Get Me Another Halloween series, where someof those films are taking also from Friday.
but they felt more Halloween-esque.
they took more from Halloween, so they belonged there.
Some of these Friday-inspired movies do start taking from, like, there's no way that youget berserker and twisted nightmare before a nightmare in Elm Street happens.

(01:53:20):
It's funny you should mention that because I was gonna mention that this is our secondseries.
We've now done two series covering...
the golden age of the slasher film that began in the late 70s.
The first was our Get Me Another Halloween series.
Now we've had Get Me Another Friday the 13th.
There will be a third.
Somewhere in the future we will do a Get Me Another, A Nightmare on Elm Street in which welook at the wave of supernatural slasher films that came to dominate the subgenre in the

(01:53:50):
late 80s and early 90s.
So that is something to look for down the road.
We don't know necessarily when we'll do it, but that is...
as I referred to it a couple episodes ago, that's the third heat of 80s slasher movies.
Heck yeah, let's do it.
We will, for sure.
But before that, guys, there's another film that we wanted to take a look at that kind offit with our Friday the 13th series, but it was a little more recent than some of the

(01:54:17):
films that we've been talking about.
So we're gonna announce here, join us on Friday, December 13th for a special
get me another Friday the 13th bonus episode in which we'll be exploring the 2006 slashermovie satire behind the mask, the rise of Leslie Vernon.

(01:54:41):
And I think that's going to be, it's going to be a terrific episode.
I'm very excited to explore that movie.
And that one, you know, also has in it Robert Englund.
he's not the lead.
And it is definitely more behind a hockey mask or a William Shatner mask than it would bebehind the latex mask of a Freddy Krueger.

(01:55:07):
But it's, I do like the movie.
I haven't watched it for a while.
I'm excited to rewatch.
I'm excited too.
And we're also excited to have joining us for that bonus episode, a very special guestwriter, Adam Malinger.
known on various social media outlets as the Bitter Script Reader.

(01:55:27):
I know that Adam is a huge fan of Behind the Mask, and we are very excited to have himhere to talk about that film.
Again, that's our Behind the Mask, The Rise of Leslie Vernon bonus episode, coming yourway Friday, December 13th.
So thank you all so much for listening.
Again, we are your host, Chris Iannacone, Rob Lemorgis, and Justin Beam.

(01:55:51):
If you've enjoyed the show, please consider subscribing, following us on Twitter,Instagram, Threads, and Blue Sky at Get Me Another Pod.
In addition, check out the Justin Beam Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.
And if you've liked the show, tell your friends about it, tell your enemies about it, tellthat guy you can hear breathing outside the window about it, and then probably call the

(01:56:14):
cops.
And join us next time as we continue to explore what happens.
when Hollywood says, get me another.

(01:56:46):
from me it's the galoshes they're a dead giveaway why do I wear them it isn't even rainingmy luck I picked a jogger