September 19, 2025 • 37 mins
Tthe next two episodes from the final season of 'Tales from the Darkside'. They analyze 'Sorry, Right Number' (Season 4, Episode 9) and 'Payment Overdue' (Season 4, Episode 10). The discussion includes reflections on Stephen King’s writing, storytelling techniques, and some comparisons to other works like 'Word Processor of the Gods'.
00:00 Introduction
1:34 Sorry, Right Number
05:10 Stephen King's Writing Style and Themes
14:22 Stephen King's Adaptations and Legacy
21:35 Payment Overdue
24:58 Comparisons to Other Anthology Shows
34:19 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Episodes
Father Malone
fathermalone71@gmail.com
patreon.com/fathermalone
@Midnight_Viewing
Mike White
http://www.projectionboothpodcast.com/
Chris Stachiw
WeirdingWayMedia.com
00:00 Introduction
1:34 Sorry, Right Number
05:10 Stephen King's Writing Style and Themes
14:22 Stephen King's Adaptations and Legacy
21:35 Payment Overdue
24:58 Comparisons to Other Anthology Shows
34:19 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Episodes
Father Malone
fathermalone71@gmail.com
patreon.com/fathermalone
@Midnight_Viewing
Mike White
http://www.projectionboothpodcast.com/
Chris Stachiw
WeirdingWayMedia.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Wait, wait, say.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Welcome back to midnight Viewing, where this season we're taking
a look at George Romero's nineteen eighties series Tales from
the Dark Side. Sharing the midnight view with me are
the culture cast Chris Statue.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I don't know how y'all know about this, but Stephen
King's mighty popular.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Also with us is the projection booth Mike White.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
He's so good to see you, man O Jesus Mother. Yikes,
just got canceled. Everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We are taking a look at the next two episodes
of season four, the final season of Tales from the
Dark Side. Those are Sorry right Number and payment Overdue,
Sorry right Number. Season four, Episode nine, originally aired on
November twenty second, nineteen eighty seven, Written by Stephen King,
directed by John Harrison, starring Deborah Harmon and Arthur Taxia.
(01:55):
This is an original teleplay by Stephen King, not based
on any original material, but it would collected in his
book Nightmare and Dreamscapes as a teleplay Yours Later, really funny.
Before we get to everyone's opinion on the episode, I
read several reviews of this story by users on various
platforms complaining that this episode was not as good as
(02:17):
the short story. The short story that's just the teleplay
that was published years after this came out. Anyway, what'd
you think of this one? Mike?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Oh, I remember word Process for the Gods was a
really good episode, wasn't it? Can we talk about that instead?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No pastoral times? Than weren't they?
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Mike? Good lord? Did do you just watch just have
it going across the bottom of the screen. If not
that I need to be told what the twist of
this is, because as soon as it happens, I'm just like, oh, yeah,
that's her calling from the future. All right, great, yeah,
and nothing else really matters. Yeah, God, Chris, what'd you think?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Did you have a notion of a way to talk
about the episode?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Jesus Christ, No, not o this it's tough, man.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yeah, it's not good. It's not that it's it's not
that it's not good, it's just what was the point? Like,
just you can't change the past? Correct? Thank you? Steven?
Play us out now, bomp a bomp, bump bump, Like
I just I guess I don't understand what I'm missing
because it feels like I'm missing something. It feels like
(03:31):
those Rod Serling episodes. Of Twilight's on where he's like
clucking his tongue, like what what if there? I got
it here. I'm just like, what am I missing? Spend
time with your loved ones, Yes, don't take them for granted. Yes,
people when a certain thing happens, they're remembered of another
thing happening. Yes, Like I get that inherently now, as
(03:55):
someone who's dealt with some pretty serious things in the
last like year and a half, I get it, But
that that payoff is unearned. There's that moment in this
episode where she picks up the VHS and plays it,
and she all of a sudden is having these like
black and white flashbacks, which, by the way, that's not
how it happens in my mind anyways. It's just it's
in color. If I'm having a flashback to something that's
(04:17):
happened in the past, it's not in black and white.
So it's very weird that that's always a convention that's used. Like,
I get it though, because we have to distinguish it
somehow from the fact that we've already seen it. But
I get what they were going for and mining at
and driving at. I just the end of the episode
doesn't capitalize on it. There's a nugget of something. I
think we can feel it. The three of us can
feel that there's there is something here to this episode.
(04:40):
It's just I don't think Stephen King gets to it,
which is weird because he's the one that wrote it.
So it's like, why aren't you getting to the point
of your own story. It's almost like a story without
a point. It needed like one or two more passes
of Stephen King actually like putting in the time and
effort to finish the story. It feels almost unfinished. It's fine,
but it's no word processor of the gods.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Sometimes your grief is so strong that it can bridge
a gap. Third time, I think that's all he was
trying to say with him. I just think he took
twenty two minutes to do it. As there been a
survey conducted about how many protagonists and Stephen King's short
stories are writers. Because this is thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yes, he loves to write about himself father alone.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Let me tell you something like at least with say,
the lead character in Salem's Law, it's a single guy
on his there's some remove from Steve. This is Deborah
Harmon as Tabitha King and Arthur Taxier is Stephen King,
and they have two kids, and he's a novelist with
a popular novel. I'll like to point out that although
(05:43):
the character is supposed to be multi novel a multi novelist,
they only keep referring to Spider's that's probably Stephen King
tipping his hat to Harlan Ellison, who had a novel
called Spider's Kiss, which I believe was a takedown of
Elvis Presley.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
He stole my story, the writer. Yeah, that was not
a nod to Secret Win.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Oh no, no, no, that's mister Allison himself.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
You stole my story.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So not only that. Okay, So we've got Stephen King
basically just like it feels like he just looked around
one night and go, wouldn't it be weird if I
was going to have a heart attack and Tabitha call
ill just write that. There it is. It's done. So
it's so meta and self reflexive, but ultimately just padding
to get us to the Twilight Zone twist. And John Harrison,
(06:31):
I got to say, and more than one thing that
he's directed has included that clip from Down of the Dead,
which is here standing in for the film adaptation of
Spider's Kiss that the Stephen King character is watching, and
he not only in he includes that particular clip of
Don of the Dead because that's him. John Harrison is
(06:52):
the zombie who gets the screwdriver into the brain.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
And second, I thought this was directed by John Sutherland.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Another thing that's weird is that, like, I need to
talk to John Harrison because I do not understand why he,
on occasion on this series will use a pseudonym. Did
he feel like he was doing too much or too
little or I don't know, maybe he just wanted to
take his name off.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
It wouldn't that be shocking Given the quality of this episode.
I love that this is essentially also proto frequency over
that movie with Jim Cavizl and Dennis Quaid where he's
able to talk to his father in the past.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Both of those guys have lost their minds over the
last little bit too.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Wow, nothing wrong with that? Yeah, well, a little mad
sometimes that's Steven King would say.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Do you guys know the actress Arden murri Not offhand?
It's a comedic actress I once saw. I went to
a on Halloween night, I went to a night of
ghost stories at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los
Angeles and it was hosted by Thomas Lennon and Robert
Ben Garret and Artemrin told this sort of spooky story.
(08:02):
Everyone told sort of paranormal stories that it happened to me.
And Arte Marin told a story where it involved an
answering machine mess of this harried voice like warning her
like not to use her bicycle, there's something wrong with them.
And as it turns out, there was something wrong bicycle,
but she could not explain the message or who it
came from, and found out later from her boyfriend, like
(08:25):
he said, you got up in the night and called
a number and was warning somebody to about their bicycle.
She had called herself.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
WHOA, that's fucked.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
That's all you can say to that shit, right, Yeah,
the aristocrats you landed the story. That's horrifying.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I got chills when she told it. I got chills retailing.
It's the horror chills.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
From you fucking telling it right now. And here's the
thing to your point, father Malone, like that's what this
is driving at it just it should have given you
that moment. But it's so fucking odds. I question, would
it have worked better if you didn't hear the voice
on the phone when she answers it at the beginning.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Maybe, but when she's I know that voice and it
had to be somebody that I'm related to or something,
I'm just like.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
That's the thing she kept hammering, I'm related to it.
So it's oh, so it's you.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
And it doesn't help that Debora Harmon has a very
distinct voice.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So that's the other question. And this is again, I
didn't want to ask this part of it because I
think where the three of us are a little biased.
It would be hard for me to answer the phone
and hear my own voice and not immediately go what
the fuck am I doing hearing myself talk? Because, like
you just said, Mike, Debra Harmon has a very distinct voice,
(09:45):
and she's I can't place this voice. This is nineteen
This is supposed to be nineteen eighty seven, not nineteen forties.
The phone technology at this time is meant to be
like acceptable enough that they've never really called it into
question in this kind of way before. So so now
we're led to believe that this woman doesn't recognize her
own voice, but she recognizes it enough to know that
(10:06):
it's someone related to her, like it needed to be.
I don't know what it needed to be, but.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You what it needed was at the end, we needed
to know the exact span of time because when we
meet that when he has the heart attack that night
and she receives the she has a little girl. When
we jump forward, that little girl is getting married. So
we got to assume there's like a twenty year difference.
So it's a twenty so there's twenty years of aging
(10:32):
and she's completely grief stricken and choked up as she's
making the call. So that actually makes sense to me. Unfortunately,
as you said, Mike, Debra Harmon has a very distinctive voice,
and I remember, even as a kid, recognizing that it
was her talking to her, and the whole joke, the
whole twist was blown.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Does it say how long at any point it's been
in between those times?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
No, it needed a title card.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Twenty years later, she says something like, your dad passed away,
because it was the exact same day that he had asked.
They did say ten years. Maybe I don't remember.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
It doesn't make and that's the other thing it's not.
It's it's only been like a couple of years, because
it's not the girl that we're seeing. It's the older
daughter that has gone away, olver isn't it, because there's
another daughter in all of this that we don't see,
and that's the one that's getting married at the end
because it hasn't been that long.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Oh there is a daughter a com That's what the part.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
That makes no sense at all, That's what I'm getting at,
Like none of this makes any sense. It's almost like
Stephen King overcomplicated this for no reason when it's so
obvious what this should have been, which is exactly what
we're talking about, where it's like fifteen years, twenty years.
And then she recognized her voice because it's an older woman.
And that's why she does a recognized her voice. It's
(11:53):
because it's an old lady. And there you go, like
with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, no matter
how much you dge Harrison Ford, and yet you still
gave him the voice of an eighty year old man,
which we could tell the moment he all their dead
voice or opened his mouth and the voice came out
like it should have just been an old lady. And
she's I don't recognize her but she must be someone
(12:15):
related to me. But all of the grand all my
grandparents are dead, My mom and dad are dead. That's
how you shore this up. And then it makes then
makes perfect sense why she doesn't recognize it. But also
it can't be an older family member. There you go,
not this. It could be my sister. Let's go check in.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
On her, because she immediately calls her mom and her
mom's well, what are you talking about? And it's okay, yeah,
had her mom been dead already, that would even if
the mom had been dead, maybe recently dead, and was
calling with a warning or something. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Here's what it should have been, the daughter calling from
years later, because the mother has committed suicide because she's
so fucking grief stricken over the month over the dad
being dead. So it was the daughter calling. It's just
the daughter from the few. So when she calls her
daughter and says, what are you doing? Why did you
call it, she's I call you what you're talking about?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
There you go, yeah, that's equally that's even more dark Jesus.
But at the same time, to be fair, I think
father Malone probably to the point that you're trying to
make like this episode doesn't go far enough either for
it being a Stephen King thing. It does seem kind
of toothless in a way that like Stephen King's stuff.
I'm not saying Stephen King is always pushing the envelope,
Like in the last episode we talked about Clive Barker,
(13:27):
who does push the envelope. Stephen King's not always pushing
the envelope. But this is a little tame, even for
Stephen King. This is tame for this show, like for
this specific show, Like this show has gone darker than this.
We had this in this show. I believe a phone
strangled a woman to death.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Sure did?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Sure did? Why are like, I appreciate what the end
of this episode is meant to signify with the phone
swinging and oh my god, the monster moment. I can't
change anything, But it's not earned. It's not earned in
the way it thinks it earns it.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah, it just thinks it's a lot smarter than it is.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Peak nineteen eighty seven Stephen King.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah, he ebbs and flows. It just got done listening
to Lear's and I was like, that was very effective.
I was very happy with the way that it went.
But He's just he's all over the maps, especially post accident,
but then there were times where he was just drugging
and drinking like crazy, and you could really tell it
in misfiction.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
This is the same year as it. This comes out
the same year as it. It came out in nineteen
eighty seven, so this is him, Like, I don't know
if this is Father Milone, you assume this is post it,
Like he like wrote this around the same time as it,
So it doesn't feel.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Like we wrote this in between chapters, right.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Like it's like, this feels all over the place as
some of those worst moments in IT, where it's like,
what the fuck are we going eight different directions at once?
This feels that same thing where it's like just not
a focused idea. And Stephen King works best when his
stuff is like hyper focus.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
His stuff works best when it's short fiction. Except this
one is not great. No, it's as up and down
as his literary career has been, with the with the
Tommy Knockers not being he doesn't remember writing because of
the fucking cocaine, Hayes or I think the Dark Tower
series was always consistent. I think some of his novels
(15:19):
are wildly the quality sort of swings wildly, but no
matter what, anytime he puts out a book of short fiction,
they're always bangers every single time.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Agreed.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Yeah, I can't disagree with that.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I will echo that. I tend to say that Stephen
King is the short story master because he has a
hard time ending, and I don't know if it's ending
his long form stuff or if it's just finding us
a moment to stop. He just can't find a way
to stop saying things. Finds like eight conclusions and he's
I'm not going to pick one, so they give me
cart blatch at this point because I'm Stephen King to
(15:55):
give all eight. But it's been like that for a
really long time. So at this point, not ever look
as bad as Sell the movie is Sell the books
ending was like there was it. There was one ending,
like there are some books out there where it's just
one ending, but then you have something like it where
it's like there's eight different It's.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Funny that for me, I've never read it, and I
don't know which one is longer, but for me, one
of his longest books the stand of his best books,
and it's just he's given so much time to develop
those characters that you really feel like you know every
single one of those people, the Stu Redmond and all
of those people. It's just, yeah, I feel for these people.
(16:34):
I can see these people in my mind. Also one
of the worst I can't say worst adaptations because there's
been two, and both of them I've not been a
fan of.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I'm actually through the second one.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Oh yeah, I can't blame you there, that was rough.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I'm excited for that Stephen King TV show that's based
on essentially the e from it, the in between parts
of it, the like history chapters, because while the story
of it's, yeah, the story of it is great, there's
a lot of other stuff that could be mined. And
that's again, like a world that Stephen King has created,
(17:09):
like you said, Mike, with a level of intricacy and
direction that give other people the opportunity to play in it,
who can yield to those rules within reason but also
do their own thing, has the opportunity to be interesting
and it's going to be get this. That show is
going to be every season is a different, like year,
so it'll be anthology adjacent. So yeah, so good. Again,
(17:34):
Like Stephen King's stuff works best when it's when it's
short form and it's being adapted seemingly like by people
that get it. If you don't get Stephen King's stuff,
don't adapt it. Mike Flanagan gets it in a way
that like nobody else ever has I think anyways.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Well, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
I think Frank der Bond is up there.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
I think David Cronenberg did a pretty good job with
The Dead Zone Buck.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Yeah, it's so weird how great those seventies adaptations were
like seventies even into some of the early eighties, they
were just was it the material itself or was it
just they gave the directors free reign and so many
different types of directors, like freaking de Palma versus Cronenberg,
(18:20):
but both of those are just so freaking solid, And
man oh man, I just so many of those early
King adaptations I thought were just dead on. And of
course then right in the middle between those who I
believe with the fucking Shining Jesus Christ talk about.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
A classic that begins the decade and it ends with misery,
which is also a yeah, and speaking like the breadth
of the filmmakers, Rob Reiner, Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I say Mike Flanagan only because and this father alone
again like again like I agree with you that there
are other people that would lay claim to it. But
my I guess my reasoning for saying Mike Flanagan is
Mike Flanagan has turned it in consistently several times. And
that's the most impressive thing, because he went from something
like Gerald's Game to which Gerald's Game as a that
(19:13):
is a great story, and then a great adaptation of
the story. But for me, and this is the thing
that I was most surprised by. Doctor Sleep is a
really good movie, and the extended version of that movie
is really really good. I didn't give it any credit
the first time I saw it, but it's really good.
I would watch anything Mike Flanagan does with Stephen King,
and that's I think because again for me, he's shown
(19:34):
that he can do the consistency. And again maybe if
others were given an opportunity to do more, they would
have been able to do it. I'm not saying they weren't.
But all we can do is speak to where we
are now, which is Mike Flanagan can turn in a
Stephen King adaptation better than I think he's up there
with the best of them, if not the best.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Humbly disagree. I think yeah, I think he's the best
fan of Stephen King who's making stuff. I think he's
the best filmmaker who was raised on making Stephen King stuff.
I don't think he should be laying claim to quite
so many of the properties he seems to be fucking
announcing every fucking day, because I guarantee you there are
(20:13):
other young filmmakers out there who could probably fucking kill
some of those.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
I got it.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I got an even more controversial like who's doing Christine?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Because that's the one I'm excited.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I was gonna say, why don't we just adapt any
other motherfucking horror writer out there? As if there's anybody
else who starts with a K, Dean Koons or Clive Barker, anybody.
There's so many good horror novels out there that get
no love outside of them being novels, which is fine,
go read, reading's great, but there are other horror writers,
(20:43):
and I guess, to be fair, Bram Stoker is in
that conversation because how many adaptations are we gonna get
of Dracula from here until.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
That's the thing. How many band Stephen King at that
are there for every fucking shining you know, there's a
graveyard shift.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
The Thinner, the Mangler, yeahs, and well the Dark the Dark.
Speaking of the Dark Tower, I think the most like
the egregious one of egregious ones.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Isn't weird that we live in a time where two
of the bigger releases this fall are going to be
Stephen King short story adaptations between The Long Walk and
then the new version of The Running Man.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah, which are true basically the same story.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Well, one's walking, the other one's running.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Glenn Powell's going to show up in both those fingers
crossed Eddy Fling Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
The future is forced entertainment.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
The future is Stephen King.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
The future is overdue, Payment Overdue. Season four, episode ten,
This area.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
That was an amazing trick.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
The last episode aired in November. This one aired on
Valentine's Day in nineteen eighty eight. Oh Romantic written by
Dick Benner, directed by John Drury, starring Morris Swanson. Lewis Arlt.
Lewis Arlt wrote for the TV show Loving soap Op
featuring Randolph Mantooth The show had a total of six
(22:03):
hundred and forty two episodes. Arelt is credited on four
hundred and ninety Wow, also as a voice on the
phone Awanda DeJesus.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
One thing I want to point out about this episode,
because I noticed it right away. The score is a
pretty groovy electronics score throughout the several beds that are
I found to be very interesting, So I wanted to
find out who wrote the music in this one. Pat
Irwin who This was his first sort of score. He
was a musician playing in bands. In nineteen eighty nine,
(22:34):
he joined the B fifty two's for their Cosmic Tour
and then was their keyboard player for the next twenty
nice and now is the composer on all of the
various iterations of Dexter, including the actual popular one, Dexter Resurrect.
He's still out there fucking killing it. So good for you,
Pat Irwin. Probably the best thing in this episode this
(22:55):
is this is Look, it's a bier Get bit man.
It's the same fucking star we've seen a thousand times.
This one's about a collection agent who pushes a woman
to death and then gets the same treatment. Felt a
lot like the Twilight Zone Twilight Zone movie. The John
Landis story felt shades of that, shades of other episodes
of Counseling the Dark Side from earlier in the season.
(23:17):
Chris Take It Away.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Reminded me of that one day, one day, we'll get there.
One day I'll wear you down enough, Father Malone, that
we'll do that two thousand Twilight Zone show. It reminds
me of the first episode of the two thousand Twilight
Zone show where the guy from the Invisible Man TV
show becomes black because he didn't let a black man
into his car who was in the rain. That's what
this feels like. It's like that just so heavy handed, forced,
(23:44):
high horse moral bullshit. I get it. But we have
a friend who used to work for a collection agency,
that friend being jess Byered. I don't wish death upon
them because they had to call someone and there was
a misunderstanding. This is a bogus episode. I don't like
these kinds of stories because it's always a contrived misunderstanding,
(24:10):
and this is no different. This is very contrived. I
like the Oh, it was our changel Michael all along,
and now you're the woman. I just the and then
it's that's punishment, So what are what is like the
actual message of the episode if it's punishment to be
these people, but we're supposed to care about these people,
(24:31):
per the episode making us care about somebody any less
than someone else by making the woman like El Salvadorian
for some reason, it's just it's it's an other hythm episode.
It's a very moral, we morally weird episode. And I
was not a fan. I was not a fan, and
(24:51):
by the end of it, I was like, I'm glad
that this shit's over. But like you said, Father Malone,
we've seen things like this and.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
They're no Last season with a yuppie with a Hindu man,
it was mysteriously living in this apartment.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Much better episode, and we didn't like that episode either.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Right, stop sucking your tongue at this fucking show. I
just want to enjoy this show. When I watch it
and I feel like it's screaming at me, like you
need to do better as a person. Yeah, I get it,
but I'm gonna take this show's do you think, Mike, how.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Weird is it that we just talked about an episode
with the phone and here we have another breach out
and fuck someone kind of episode, and it's just, yeah,
very frustrating and also very obvious. As soon as she
pulled that car or he pulled that card out and
it was the it was the Archangel on the front
(25:40):
of it. I was like, oh, okay, so he's the
Archangel Michael. All right, got it, Mike, Mike.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I was going to ask you, how fast did you
figure out that this was the Archangel? Oh?
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Like within seconds? Yeah, it was just as soon as I.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Saw Do you think being named Michael gives you a
hands up anytime there's some Michael the Archangel ephemera going
on in entertainment?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Off you're John Travolta. Okay's too specific of an answer.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
No, because that's exactly what I wanted to address, because
look behind the scenes here, folks, father Malone, my name
is actually Michael as well, and so I and I
was named specifically for the Archangel. So that fucking piece
of shit movie Michael with John Travolta, where Michael the
Archangel is a dufist who loves sugar and line dancing.
He is the leader of God's Army, You motherfuckers. He's
(26:29):
basically Heavenly Captain America. Don't treat him like that, and
don't treat him like this. He's not mister Revenge, He's
not mister Rourke, like showing you your fantasy was incorrect.
He this is the wrong angel. This is so wrong
headed on every fucking level.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's really bad. It's really bad. It's by the art
of its speak like this, oh my, oh my god
episode we went there, well that is it's I know,
it's just in bad taste, like offensive whatever. It's just
again like I don't understand the logic of the episode.
It's like someone who is hispanic is lesser. What the
(27:07):
hell episode? Like you missed the fucking you're you know
that phrase like Michaud for the moon, your land among
the stars, Like you's missing yours in the sun burning up,
You're just burning up.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
At least vikmor Row didn't have a Yiddish accent.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Wow, But I enjoy the Daylight.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I like the Daylight. Let me tell you, I do
think that.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I do think the episode looked great. Robert Draper, friend
of the show DP here like a lot of the
shots are really good. It felt like a short film,
which is one thing I do like about Tams in
the dark Side meeting they shot this in New York.
The other the other little bit of anthology it reminded
me of was something to Tide You Over from Creep
Show in that In that Richard Vickers is recording the
(27:51):
deaths of Becky and Harry. He's doing that because he
had a personal reason of vendetta to do it. This
woman is recording her calls her bullying that she's so
proud of. But like I said, Richard Vickers had a
personal reason. This one is just a fucking looney tune
for it shouldn't it.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Should have made her more. I look, I guess this
is me just like me being me? Who else would
I She should be worse in this kind of show,
she should be worse. Make me like similarly to the
episode we just talked about with the yattering and Jack like, well,
I appreciate in that episode that's the twist, and this
one like, just make her a real fuck, Like, just
(28:31):
make her a real fuck so that when she gets
her come up and at the end, it needs to
be a it needs to come up and needs to
be different. I think just on like I get it on,
I get it on paper mate. I don't know even
on paper it's a little fun when.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Everything she's doing is fucking reprehensible. But the fact is
the actress Morris Swanson, who's still out there working today.
Everybody she she seems decent at the end of the day.
I don't the idea that she is this bloodthirsty human.
And that's where the writing is maybe a failure, because
somebody should have said she's too nice. She needs to
be meaner, like we need to ramp up how horrible
(29:11):
she is because she's because she goes on the defensive
almost immediately, like she starts getting ghostly phone calls. I
do think the ghostly phone calls worth. I was watching
it very late at night by myself, in a kind
of frequently, so I'm going to give that to the episode.
But that's just because the dead calling you was a
freaky idea.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
And then they do it, and then they do it six.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Right, I was gonna say, and then they do it
six more times?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Though, oh, I know I didn't say it sustained, but you.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Know that I know I didn't say you did. I'm
just saying then they was so effective they did it
six more times. It was effective until they let it
play for a long time. And then it's just like
a woman doing a really again, the woman is clearly Latino,
so it's fine that she's doing the voice, but it's
like a very like Mickey Rooney and Breakfast activity is
(29:58):
like just the most like Hispanic thing where you're just
trying to convey a specific thing and it's just not
I just I don't like the optics of it. But
it's fine. It's just fucking this. This episode's fucking weird.
And when you trivialize another ethnicity for whatever reason, like
why why does it have to have anything to do
(30:20):
with the way the woman talks? Why does have anything?
Just make this a white woman talking to another white woman,
and then there's no weird optics of it. It doesn't
really matter as an episode. It's still kind of a
waste of time either way, but at least it's not
a like muddle headed waste of time. This just feels
like everybody making it. We're probably like looking at one
another during this, like we know what we're making is
(30:43):
not great. Somebody's got to get paid to make it.
Why not us?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yeah? That was We've seen good telemarketing type movies with
the Sorry to Bother You, We can say a lot
about that, having flipped the ethnicity and having it having
the black eye calling and to sell that stuff so
much better than this white woman just calling and badgering people.
And yeah, we've seen yuppie scum on this show before,
(31:07):
and she should be in that model. It should just
be like her with her perfect nails. Maybe she's doing
it through the emery board thing and all that, and
I'm just like, yeah, no, I don't hate her as
much as I really want to hate her.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
We had no episode with a couple they had, like
a neighbor dancers, the kindly old gentleman who they wanted
to raise his rents, so they kept being fucking horrible
to him, and we hated them by the end of
that episode. Yeah, so, yeah, they where are the teeth? Here?
Tails from the dark Side, the meanest of all of
the anthology. Ordinarily he's a jolly good fellow. From that episode,
(31:42):
that yuppie is what I think of when I think
of yuppies. And that guy in that episode is our
hero and like he he learns his lesson, but he
doesn't get a come up. And because that show was
even more defanged than this show can be, and this
show tends to not be. But with something like this,
it's not that it's defanged, it's just misguided in what
it's biting because it doesn't seem to be having any
(32:05):
like bite to it at all, Like its bite is
nothing here, Like what are we what's the takeaway here?
This woman was terrible and she deserved it, not really,
and she should have deserved it if she're gonna if
the punishment is gonna.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Be this, because that's the other question. That's the thing
I wanted to ask you guys at the end of
this episode. Are we led to believe she's gonna kill her?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Has he touched her head and was like here, have
her brain tumor too? By the way, right? Yeah, fucking
hey man, Okay, jesus, So that's the expectation at the
end then yeah, I think so yeah, Okay, So question,
did she switch places with the lady or is the
woman still dead or what's the logic here or is
(32:45):
she just what's happening?
Speaker 4 (32:46):
A woman's still dead?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah? Okay, dead?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And now she has to it's what she put that woman?
What happens to live her life and be badgered by
somebody like so this is just.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
A play for the archangel Michael to get this woman
to kill herself.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Yeah, sure, like you do.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Yeah, okay, I'm just saying okay, because that is pretty metal,
is my point. That's pretty fucked up. But the episode
needed the episode. Honestly. Would we have enjoyed it a
little bit more if the end of the episode had
been her like walking to the window and then opening it. Yeah,
and then it's that's some sick shit episode overall.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It needed to be the level of mean that we're
expecting from that side.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, get her to walk up to that window and
have her open it, and then it cuts to black
or fades to black, probably more not just okay, let
us fill in the blanks. So no, this is tails
from the dark side. Come on, you're not you. There
is subtlety, but not right now, Like you don't need
it right now, not if you're gonna go as broad
as this story is going by having the archangel Michael
(33:45):
give a woman a brain TOHI, or by touching her forehead.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, the archangel exposition, because he basically just shows up
to tell her the things that are happening to her,
whereas maybe it could have just happened to her and
that could have been something interesting. Why well, and that's
where'd my nest go.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
That's what happens in that twilight zone the two thousand
and one is he just starts like this, skin starts
changing color, his hair starts changing like it just starts happening,
like it gets there in a more organic way. To
your point that I think would work better in this
visual medium that we're watching.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
It right, anything else? On the next episode of Midnight Viewing,
We'll be taking a look at the next two episodes
of season four. Those are Love Hungry and The Deal.
Midnight Viewing is a proud member of a weirding Way
Media group. Our theme song was composed by HP with
an assist by Donald Rubinstein. Until next time? What are
you working on? Where can people find it?
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Chrish Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is where you can go to
find all the things that I work on. My main show,
The Culture Cast, is still on a little bit of
a hiatus, but that's not permanent. It's temporary. That show
will be back, but everything else that I work on
monthly or bi weekly is still up there, including this show.
And there's a big backlog of things as if it's
six hundred and nine. If you listen to all the
(34:59):
episod the Culturecast and you're still expecting more to listen to,
it's coming, but there's a lot of episodes to listen
to six hundred and ninety one. Last, that's where you
can go to listen to everything that I work on,
and then everything that I don't like Eighties TV Ladies
or Mike Show, the Projection Booth or Father Malone's show
this one or the one that he has on Patreon,
which is more important because that's where you can go
to help him out, which is Patreon dot com. SU's
(35:20):
Father Malone. What about you, Mike White? Where can people
find you? And the things that you.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Pretty much the same darn thing Waitingwaymedia dot com. And yeah,
we also have patreons Chris and I Patreon dot com
slash Culturecast than patreon dot com slash Projection Booth and
over there once a month we talk about James Bond
and we're blazing through those. We're running to the Pierce
broslan Age and pretty soon we'll be over at the
(35:44):
Craig side of things, and I'm hoping for a little
Johnny inglad would be good. That's a little bit of that.
How about you Father Malone.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
For me, Hey, midnight viewers, if you happen to be
in the Las Vegas area October fourth and fifth, not
by the Silverton Casino, at the Nightmare Into Vegas Horror
convey and Car Show, Now you're gonna find a booth
featuring midnight viewing. That booth will be featuring not only me,
but HP and mister Chris Statue. Mike White won't be
there because he hates that's.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Right, he hates the heat in the fault time of
Vegas versus everybody.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Indeed. Yeah, as for me, they said the Patreon check
us out on Mondays. That's Father Malone's weekly round up
and every Friday. If you're not listening to this show
talking about Temison dark Side, you could probably hear a fest.
We've got a Yaucha fest. We're looking at the Predator movies.
We've got a Rick Moranus fest going on by now,
so check that one out. Oh and in early October,
(36:38):
we're gonna be looking at the books of Blood the
Clive Barker. We're gonna be looking at the films based
on the books of books of Blood by Clive Barker. Anyway,
oh my god, I'm tired. Until next time. I'm trying
to enjoy the daylight.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Last SA
Wait, wait, say.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Welcome back to midnight Viewing, where this season we're taking
a look at George Romero's nineteen eighties series Tales from
the Dark Side. Sharing the midnight view with me are
the culture cast Chris Statue.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I don't know how y'all know about this, but Stephen
King's mighty popular.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Also with us is the projection booth Mike White.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
He's so good to see you, man O Jesus Mother. Yikes,
just got canceled. Everybody.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We are taking a look at the next two episodes
of season four, the final season of Tales from the
Dark Side. Those are Sorry right Number and payment Overdue,
Sorry right Number. Season four, Episode nine, originally aired on
November twenty second, nineteen eighty seven, Written by Stephen King,
directed by John Harrison, starring Deborah Harmon and Arthur Taxia.
(01:55):
This is an original teleplay by Stephen King, not based
on any original material, but it would collected in his
book Nightmare and Dreamscapes as a teleplay Yours Later, really funny.
Before we get to everyone's opinion on the episode, I
read several reviews of this story by users on various
platforms complaining that this episode was not as good as
(02:17):
the short story. The short story that's just the teleplay
that was published years after this came out. Anyway, what'd
you think of this one? Mike?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Oh, I remember word Process for the Gods was a
really good episode, wasn't it? Can we talk about that instead?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No pastoral times? Than weren't they?
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Mike? Good lord? Did do you just watch just have
it going across the bottom of the screen. If not
that I need to be told what the twist of
this is, because as soon as it happens, I'm just like, oh, yeah,
that's her calling from the future. All right, great, yeah,
and nothing else really matters. Yeah, God, Chris, what'd you think?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Did you have a notion of a way to talk
about the episode?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Jesus Christ, No, not o this it's tough, man.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yeah, it's not good. It's not that it's it's not
that it's not good, it's just what was the point? Like,
just you can't change the past? Correct? Thank you? Steven?
Play us out now, bomp a bomp, bump bump, Like
I just I guess I don't understand what I'm missing
because it feels like I'm missing something. It feels like
(03:31):
those Rod Serling episodes. Of Twilight's on where he's like
clucking his tongue, like what what if there? I got
it here. I'm just like, what am I missing? Spend
time with your loved ones, Yes, don't take them for granted. Yes,
people when a certain thing happens, they're remembered of another
thing happening. Yes, Like I get that inherently now, as
(03:55):
someone who's dealt with some pretty serious things in the
last like year and a half, I get it, But
that that payoff is unearned. There's that moment in this
episode where she picks up the VHS and plays it,
and she all of a sudden is having these like
black and white flashbacks, which, by the way, that's not
how it happens in my mind anyways. It's just it's
in color. If I'm having a flashback to something that's
(04:17):
happened in the past, it's not in black and white.
So it's very weird that that's always a convention that's used. Like,
I get it though, because we have to distinguish it
somehow from the fact that we've already seen it. But
I get what they were going for and mining at
and driving at. I just the end of the episode
doesn't capitalize on it. There's a nugget of something. I
think we can feel it. The three of us can
feel that there's there is something here to this episode.
(04:40):
It's just I don't think Stephen King gets to it,
which is weird because he's the one that wrote it.
So it's like, why aren't you getting to the point
of your own story. It's almost like a story without
a point. It needed like one or two more passes
of Stephen King actually like putting in the time and
effort to finish the story. It feels almost unfinished. It's fine,
but it's no word processor of the gods.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Sometimes your grief is so strong that it can bridge
a gap. Third time, I think that's all he was
trying to say with him. I just think he took
twenty two minutes to do it. As there been a
survey conducted about how many protagonists and Stephen King's short
stories are writers. Because this is thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yes, he loves to write about himself father alone.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Let me tell you something like at least with say,
the lead character in Salem's Law, it's a single guy
on his there's some remove from Steve. This is Deborah
Harmon as Tabitha King and Arthur Taxier is Stephen King,
and they have two kids, and he's a novelist with
a popular novel. I'll like to point out that although
(05:43):
the character is supposed to be multi novel a multi novelist,
they only keep referring to Spider's that's probably Stephen King
tipping his hat to Harlan Ellison, who had a novel
called Spider's Kiss, which I believe was a takedown of
Elvis Presley.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
He stole my story, the writer. Yeah, that was not
a nod to Secret Win.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Oh no, no, no, that's mister Allison himself.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
You stole my story.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
So not only that. Okay, So we've got Stephen King
basically just like it feels like he just looked around
one night and go, wouldn't it be weird if I
was going to have a heart attack and Tabitha call
ill just write that. There it is. It's done. So
it's so meta and self reflexive, but ultimately just padding
to get us to the Twilight Zone twist. And John Harrison,
(06:31):
I got to say, and more than one thing that
he's directed has included that clip from Down of the Dead,
which is here standing in for the film adaptation of
Spider's Kiss that the Stephen King character is watching, and
he not only in he includes that particular clip of
Don of the Dead because that's him. John Harrison is
(06:52):
the zombie who gets the screwdriver into the brain.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
And second, I thought this was directed by John Sutherland.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Another thing that's weird is that, like, I need to
talk to John Harrison because I do not understand why he,
on occasion on this series will use a pseudonym. Did
he feel like he was doing too much or too
little or I don't know, maybe he just wanted to
take his name off.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
It wouldn't that be shocking Given the quality of this episode.
I love that this is essentially also proto frequency over
that movie with Jim Cavizl and Dennis Quaid where he's
able to talk to his father in the past.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Both of those guys have lost their minds over the
last little bit too.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Wow, nothing wrong with that? Yeah, well, a little mad
sometimes that's Steven King would say.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Do you guys know the actress Arden murri Not offhand?
It's a comedic actress I once saw. I went to
a on Halloween night, I went to a night of
ghost stories at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los
Angeles and it was hosted by Thomas Lennon and Robert
Ben Garret and Artemrin told this sort of spooky story.
(08:02):
Everyone told sort of paranormal stories that it happened to me.
And Arte Marin told a story where it involved an
answering machine mess of this harried voice like warning her
like not to use her bicycle, there's something wrong with them.
And as it turns out, there was something wrong bicycle,
but she could not explain the message or who it
came from, and found out later from her boyfriend, like
(08:25):
he said, you got up in the night and called
a number and was warning somebody to about their bicycle.
She had called herself.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
WHOA, that's fucked.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
That's all you can say to that shit, right, Yeah,
the aristocrats you landed the story. That's horrifying.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I got chills when she told it. I got chills retailing.
It's the horror chills.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
From you fucking telling it right now. And here's the
thing to your point, father Malone, like that's what this
is driving at it just it should have given you
that moment. But it's so fucking odds. I question, would
it have worked better if you didn't hear the voice
on the phone when she answers it at the beginning.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Maybe, but when she's I know that voice and it
had to be somebody that I'm related to or something,
I'm just like.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
That's the thing she kept hammering, I'm related to it.
So it's oh, so it's you.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
And it doesn't help that Debora Harmon has a very
distinct voice.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So that's the other question. And this is again, I
didn't want to ask this part of it because I
think where the three of us are a little biased.
It would be hard for me to answer the phone
and hear my own voice and not immediately go what
the fuck am I doing hearing myself talk? Because, like
you just said, Mike, Debra Harmon has a very distinct voice,
(09:45):
and she's I can't place this voice. This is nineteen
This is supposed to be nineteen eighty seven, not nineteen forties.
The phone technology at this time is meant to be
like acceptable enough that they've never really called it into
question in this kind of way before. So so now
we're led to believe that this woman doesn't recognize her
own voice, but she recognizes it enough to know that
(10:06):
it's someone related to her, like it needed to be.
I don't know what it needed to be, but.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You what it needed was at the end, we needed
to know the exact span of time because when we
meet that when he has the heart attack that night
and she receives the she has a little girl. When
we jump forward, that little girl is getting married. So
we got to assume there's like a twenty year difference.
So it's a twenty so there's twenty years of aging
(10:32):
and she's completely grief stricken and choked up as she's
making the call. So that actually makes sense to me. Unfortunately,
as you said, Mike, Debra Harmon has a very distinctive voice,
and I remember, even as a kid, recognizing that it
was her talking to her, and the whole joke, the
whole twist was blown.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Does it say how long at any point it's been
in between those times?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
No, it needed a title card.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Twenty years later, she says something like, your dad passed away,
because it was the exact same day that he had asked.
They did say ten years. Maybe I don't remember.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
It doesn't make and that's the other thing it's not.
It's it's only been like a couple of years, because
it's not the girl that we're seeing. It's the older
daughter that has gone away, olver isn't it, because there's
another daughter in all of this that we don't see,
and that's the one that's getting married at the end
because it hasn't been that long.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Oh there is a daughter a com That's what the part.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
That makes no sense at all, That's what I'm getting at,
Like none of this makes any sense. It's almost like
Stephen King overcomplicated this for no reason when it's so
obvious what this should have been, which is exactly what
we're talking about, where it's like fifteen years, twenty years.
And then she recognized her voice because it's an older woman.
And that's why she does a recognized her voice. It's
(11:53):
because it's an old lady. And there you go, like
with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, no matter
how much you dge Harrison Ford, and yet you still
gave him the voice of an eighty year old man,
which we could tell the moment he all their dead
voice or opened his mouth and the voice came out
like it should have just been an old lady. And
she's I don't recognize her but she must be someone
(12:15):
related to me. But all of the grand all my
grandparents are dead, My mom and dad are dead. That's
how you shore this up. And then it makes then
makes perfect sense why she doesn't recognize it. But also
it can't be an older family member. There you go,
not this. It could be my sister. Let's go check in.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
On her, because she immediately calls her mom and her
mom's well, what are you talking about? And it's okay, yeah,
had her mom been dead already, that would even if
the mom had been dead, maybe recently dead, and was
calling with a warning or something. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Here's what it should have been, the daughter calling from
years later, because the mother has committed suicide because she's
so fucking grief stricken over the month over the dad
being dead. So it was the daughter calling. It's just
the daughter from the few. So when she calls her
daughter and says, what are you doing? Why did you
call it, she's I call you what you're talking about?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
There you go, yeah, that's equally that's even more dark Jesus.
But at the same time, to be fair, I think
father Malone probably to the point that you're trying to
make like this episode doesn't go far enough either for
it being a Stephen King thing. It does seem kind
of toothless in a way that like Stephen King's stuff.
I'm not saying Stephen King is always pushing the envelope,
Like in the last episode we talked about Clive Barker,
(13:27):
who does push the envelope. Stephen King's not always pushing
the envelope. But this is a little tame, even for
Stephen King. This is tame for this show, like for
this specific show, Like this show has gone darker than this.
We had this in this show. I believe a phone
strangled a woman to death.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Sure did?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Sure did? Why are like, I appreciate what the end
of this episode is meant to signify with the phone
swinging and oh my god, the monster moment. I can't
change anything, But it's not earned. It's not earned in
the way it thinks it earns it.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah, it just thinks it's a lot smarter than it is.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Peak nineteen eighty seven Stephen King.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Yeah, he ebbs and flows. It just got done listening
to Lear's and I was like, that was very effective.
I was very happy with the way that it went.
But He's just he's all over the maps, especially post accident,
but then there were times where he was just drugging
and drinking like crazy, and you could really tell it
in misfiction.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
This is the same year as it. This comes out
the same year as it. It came out in nineteen
eighty seven, so this is him, Like, I don't know
if this is Father Milone, you assume this is post it,
Like he like wrote this around the same time as it,
So it doesn't feel.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Like we wrote this in between chapters, right.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Like it's like, this feels all over the place as
some of those worst moments in IT, where it's like,
what the fuck are we going eight different directions at once?
This feels that same thing where it's like just not
a focused idea. And Stephen King works best when his
stuff is like hyper focus.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
His stuff works best when it's short fiction. Except this
one is not great. No, it's as up and down
as his literary career has been, with the with the
Tommy Knockers not being he doesn't remember writing because of
the fucking cocaine, Hayes or I think the Dark Tower
series was always consistent. I think some of his novels
(15:19):
are wildly the quality sort of swings wildly, but no
matter what, anytime he puts out a book of short fiction,
they're always bangers every single time.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Agreed.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Yeah, I can't disagree with that.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I will echo that. I tend to say that Stephen
King is the short story master because he has a
hard time ending, and I don't know if it's ending
his long form stuff or if it's just finding us
a moment to stop. He just can't find a way
to stop saying things. Finds like eight conclusions and he's
I'm not going to pick one, so they give me
cart blatch at this point because I'm Stephen King to
(15:55):
give all eight. But it's been like that for a
really long time. So at this point, not ever look
as bad as Sell the movie is Sell the books
ending was like there was it. There was one ending,
like there are some books out there where it's just
one ending, but then you have something like it where
it's like there's eight different It's.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Funny that for me, I've never read it, and I
don't know which one is longer, but for me, one
of his longest books the stand of his best books,
and it's just he's given so much time to develop
those characters that you really feel like you know every
single one of those people, the Stu Redmond and all
of those people. It's just, yeah, I feel for these people.
(16:34):
I can see these people in my mind. Also one
of the worst I can't say worst adaptations because there's
been two, and both of them I've not been a
fan of.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I'm actually through the second one.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Oh yeah, I can't blame you there, that was rough.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I'm excited for that Stephen King TV show that's based
on essentially the e from it, the in between parts
of it, the like history chapters, because while the story
of it's, yeah, the story of it is great, there's
a lot of other stuff that could be mined. And
that's again, like a world that Stephen King has created,
(17:09):
like you said, Mike, with a level of intricacy and
direction that give other people the opportunity to play in it,
who can yield to those rules within reason but also
do their own thing, has the opportunity to be interesting
and it's going to be get this. That show is
going to be every season is a different, like year,
so it'll be anthology adjacent. So yeah, so good. Again,
(17:34):
Like Stephen King's stuff works best when it's when it's
short form and it's being adapted seemingly like by people
that get it. If you don't get Stephen King's stuff,
don't adapt it. Mike Flanagan gets it in a way
that like nobody else ever has I think anyways.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Well, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
I think Frank der Bond is up there.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
I think David Cronenberg did a pretty good job with
The Dead Zone Buck.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Yeah, it's so weird how great those seventies adaptations were
like seventies even into some of the early eighties, they
were just was it the material itself or was it
just they gave the directors free reign and so many
different types of directors, like freaking de Palma versus Cronenberg,
(18:20):
but both of those are just so freaking solid, And
man oh man, I just so many of those early
King adaptations I thought were just dead on. And of
course then right in the middle between those who I
believe with the fucking Shining Jesus Christ talk about.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
A classic that begins the decade and it ends with misery,
which is also a yeah, and speaking like the breadth
of the filmmakers, Rob Reiner, Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I say Mike Flanagan only because and this father alone
again like again like I agree with you that there
are other people that would lay claim to it. But
my I guess my reasoning for saying Mike Flanagan is
Mike Flanagan has turned it in consistently several times. And
that's the most impressive thing, because he went from something
like Gerald's Game to which Gerald's Game as a that
(19:13):
is a great story, and then a great adaptation of
the story. But for me, and this is the thing
that I was most surprised by. Doctor Sleep is a
really good movie, and the extended version of that movie
is really really good. I didn't give it any credit
the first time I saw it, but it's really good.
I would watch anything Mike Flanagan does with Stephen King,
and that's I think because again for me, he's shown
(19:34):
that he can do the consistency. And again maybe if
others were given an opportunity to do more, they would
have been able to do it. I'm not saying they weren't.
But all we can do is speak to where we
are now, which is Mike Flanagan can turn in a
Stephen King adaptation better than I think he's up there
with the best of them, if not the best.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Humbly disagree. I think yeah, I think he's the best
fan of Stephen King who's making stuff. I think he's
the best filmmaker who was raised on making Stephen King stuff.
I don't think he should be laying claim to quite
so many of the properties he seems to be fucking
announcing every fucking day, because I guarantee you there are
(20:13):
other young filmmakers out there who could probably fucking kill
some of those.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
I got it.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
I got an even more controversial like who's doing Christine?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Because that's the one I'm excited.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I was gonna say, why don't we just adapt any
other motherfucking horror writer out there? As if there's anybody
else who starts with a K, Dean Koons or Clive Barker, anybody.
There's so many good horror novels out there that get
no love outside of them being novels, which is fine,
go read, reading's great, but there are other horror writers,
(20:43):
and I guess, to be fair, Bram Stoker is in
that conversation because how many adaptations are we gonna get
of Dracula from here until.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
That's the thing. How many band Stephen King at that
are there for every fucking shining you know, there's a
graveyard shift.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
The Thinner, the Mangler, yeahs, and well the Dark the Dark.
Speaking of the Dark Tower, I think the most like
the egregious one of egregious ones.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Isn't weird that we live in a time where two
of the bigger releases this fall are going to be
Stephen King short story adaptations between The Long Walk and
then the new version of The Running Man.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah, which are true basically the same story.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Well, one's walking, the other one's running.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Glenn Powell's going to show up in both those fingers
crossed Eddy Fling Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
The future is forced entertainment.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
The future is Stephen King.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
The future is overdue, Payment Overdue. Season four, episode ten,
This area.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
That was an amazing trick.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
The last episode aired in November. This one aired on
Valentine's Day in nineteen eighty eight. Oh Romantic written by
Dick Benner, directed by John Drury, starring Morris Swanson. Lewis Arlt.
Lewis Arlt wrote for the TV show Loving soap Op
featuring Randolph Mantooth The show had a total of six
(22:03):
hundred and forty two episodes. Arelt is credited on four
hundred and ninety Wow, also as a voice on the
phone Awanda DeJesus.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
One thing I want to point out about this episode,
because I noticed it right away. The score is a
pretty groovy electronics score throughout the several beds that are
I found to be very interesting, So I wanted to
find out who wrote the music in this one. Pat
Irwin who This was his first sort of score. He
was a musician playing in bands. In nineteen eighty nine,
(22:34):
he joined the B fifty two's for their Cosmic Tour
and then was their keyboard player for the next twenty
nice and now is the composer on all of the
various iterations of Dexter, including the actual popular one, Dexter Resurrect.
He's still out there fucking killing it. So good for you,
Pat Irwin. Probably the best thing in this episode this
(22:55):
is this is Look, it's a bier Get bit man.
It's the same fucking star we've seen a thousand times.
This one's about a collection agent who pushes a woman
to death and then gets the same treatment. Felt a
lot like the Twilight Zone Twilight Zone movie. The John
Landis story felt shades of that, shades of other episodes
of Counseling the Dark Side from earlier in the season.
(23:17):
Chris Take It Away.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Reminded me of that one day, one day, we'll get there.
One day I'll wear you down enough, Father Malone, that
we'll do that two thousand Twilight Zone show. It reminds
me of the first episode of the two thousand Twilight
Zone show where the guy from the Invisible Man TV
show becomes black because he didn't let a black man
into his car who was in the rain. That's what
this feels like. It's like that just so heavy handed, forced,
(23:44):
high horse moral bullshit. I get it. But we have
a friend who used to work for a collection agency,
that friend being jess Byered. I don't wish death upon
them because they had to call someone and there was
a misunderstanding. This is a bogus episode. I don't like
these kinds of stories because it's always a contrived misunderstanding,
(24:10):
and this is no different. This is very contrived. I
like the Oh, it was our changel Michael all along,
and now you're the woman. I just the and then
it's that's punishment, So what are what is like the
actual message of the episode if it's punishment to be
these people, but we're supposed to care about these people,
(24:31):
per the episode making us care about somebody any less
than someone else by making the woman like El Salvadorian
for some reason, it's just it's it's an other hythm episode.
It's a very moral, we morally weird episode. And I
was not a fan. I was not a fan, and
(24:51):
by the end of it, I was like, I'm glad
that this shit's over. But like you said, Father Malone,
we've seen things like this and.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
They're no Last season with a yuppie with a Hindu man,
it was mysteriously living in this apartment.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Much better episode, and we didn't like that episode either.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Right, stop sucking your tongue at this fucking show. I
just want to enjoy this show. When I watch it
and I feel like it's screaming at me, like you
need to do better as a person. Yeah, I get it,
but I'm gonna take this show's do you think, Mike, how.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Weird is it that we just talked about an episode
with the phone and here we have another breach out
and fuck someone kind of episode, and it's just, yeah,
very frustrating and also very obvious. As soon as she
pulled that car or he pulled that card out and
it was the it was the Archangel on the front
(25:40):
of it. I was like, oh, okay, so he's the
Archangel Michael. All right, got it, Mike, Mike.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I was going to ask you, how fast did you
figure out that this was the Archangel? Oh?
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Like within seconds? Yeah, it was just as soon as I.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Saw Do you think being named Michael gives you a
hands up anytime there's some Michael the Archangel ephemera going
on in entertainment?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Off you're John Travolta. Okay's too specific of an answer.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
No, because that's exactly what I wanted to address, because
look behind the scenes here, folks, father Malone, my name
is actually Michael as well, and so I and I
was named specifically for the Archangel. So that fucking piece
of shit movie Michael with John Travolta, where Michael the
Archangel is a dufist who loves sugar and line dancing.
He is the leader of God's Army, You motherfuckers. He's
(26:29):
basically Heavenly Captain America. Don't treat him like that, and
don't treat him like this. He's not mister Revenge, He's
not mister Rourke, like showing you your fantasy was incorrect.
He this is the wrong angel. This is so wrong
headed on every fucking level.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's really bad. It's really bad. It's by the art
of its speak like this, oh my, oh my god
episode we went there, well that is it's I know,
it's just in bad taste, like offensive whatever. It's just
again like I don't understand the logic of the episode.
It's like someone who is hispanic is lesser. What the
(27:07):
hell episode? Like you missed the fucking you're you know
that phrase like Michaud for the moon, your land among
the stars, Like you's missing yours in the sun burning up,
You're just burning up.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
At least vikmor Row didn't have a Yiddish accent.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Wow, But I enjoy the Daylight.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I like the Daylight. Let me tell you, I do
think that.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I do think the episode looked great. Robert Draper, friend
of the show DP here like a lot of the
shots are really good. It felt like a short film,
which is one thing I do like about Tams in
the dark Side meeting they shot this in New York.
The other the other little bit of anthology it reminded
me of was something to Tide You Over from Creep
Show in that In that Richard Vickers is recording the
(27:51):
deaths of Becky and Harry. He's doing that because he
had a personal reason of vendetta to do it. This
woman is recording her calls her bullying that she's so
proud of. But like I said, Richard Vickers had a
personal reason. This one is just a fucking looney tune
for it shouldn't it.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Should have made her more. I look, I guess this
is me just like me being me? Who else would
I She should be worse in this kind of show,
she should be worse. Make me like similarly to the
episode we just talked about with the yattering and Jack like, well,
I appreciate in that episode that's the twist, and this
one like, just make her a real fuck, Like, just
(28:31):
make her a real fuck so that when she gets
her come up and at the end, it needs to
be a it needs to come up and needs to
be different. I think just on like I get it on,
I get it on paper mate. I don't know even
on paper it's a little fun when.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Everything she's doing is fucking reprehensible. But the fact is
the actress Morris Swanson, who's still out there working today.
Everybody she she seems decent at the end of the day.
I don't the idea that she is this bloodthirsty human.
And that's where the writing is maybe a failure, because
somebody should have said she's too nice. She needs to
be meaner, like we need to ramp up how horrible
(29:11):
she is because she's because she goes on the defensive
almost immediately, like she starts getting ghostly phone calls. I
do think the ghostly phone calls worth. I was watching
it very late at night by myself, in a kind
of frequently, so I'm going to give that to the episode.
But that's just because the dead calling you was a
freaky idea.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
And then they do it, and then they do it six.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Right, I was gonna say, and then they do it
six more times?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Though, oh, I know I didn't say it sustained, but you.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Know that I know I didn't say you did. I'm
just saying then they was so effective they did it
six more times. It was effective until they let it
play for a long time. And then it's just like
a woman doing a really again, the woman is clearly Latino,
so it's fine that she's doing the voice, but it's
like a very like Mickey Rooney and Breakfast activity is
(29:58):
like just the most like Hispanic thing where you're just
trying to convey a specific thing and it's just not
I just I don't like the optics of it. But
it's fine. It's just fucking this. This episode's fucking weird.
And when you trivialize another ethnicity for whatever reason, like
why why does it have to have anything to do
(30:20):
with the way the woman talks? Why does have anything?
Just make this a white woman talking to another white woman,
and then there's no weird optics of it. It doesn't
really matter as an episode. It's still kind of a
waste of time either way, but at least it's not
a like muddle headed waste of time. This just feels
like everybody making it. We're probably like looking at one
another during this, like we know what we're making is
(30:43):
not great. Somebody's got to get paid to make it.
Why not us?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yeah? That was We've seen good telemarketing type movies with
the Sorry to Bother You, We can say a lot
about that, having flipped the ethnicity and having it having
the black eye calling and to sell that stuff so
much better than this white woman just calling and badgering people.
And yeah, we've seen yuppie scum on this show before,
(31:07):
and she should be in that model. It should just
be like her with her perfect nails. Maybe she's doing
it through the emery board thing and all that, and
I'm just like, yeah, no, I don't hate her as
much as I really want to hate her.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
We had no episode with a couple they had, like
a neighbor dancers, the kindly old gentleman who they wanted
to raise his rents, so they kept being fucking horrible
to him, and we hated them by the end of
that episode. Yeah, so, yeah, they where are the teeth? Here?
Tails from the dark Side, the meanest of all of
the anthology. Ordinarily he's a jolly good fellow. From that episode,
(31:42):
that yuppie is what I think of when I think
of yuppies. And that guy in that episode is our
hero and like he he learns his lesson, but he
doesn't get a come up. And because that show was
even more defanged than this show can be, and this
show tends to not be. But with something like this,
it's not that it's defanged, it's just misguided in what
it's biting because it doesn't seem to be having any
(32:05):
like bite to it at all, Like its bite is
nothing here, Like what are we what's the takeaway here?
This woman was terrible and she deserved it, not really,
and she should have deserved it if she're gonna if
the punishment is gonna.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Be this, because that's the other question. That's the thing
I wanted to ask you guys at the end of
this episode. Are we led to believe she's gonna kill her?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Has he touched her head and was like here, have
her brain tumor too? By the way, right? Yeah, fucking
hey man, Okay, jesus, So that's the expectation at the
end then yeah, I think so yeah, Okay, So question,
did she switch places with the lady or is the
woman still dead or what's the logic here or is
(32:45):
she just what's happening?
Speaker 4 (32:46):
A woman's still dead?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah? Okay, dead?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And now she has to it's what she put that woman?
What happens to live her life and be badgered by
somebody like so this is just.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
A play for the archangel Michael to get this woman
to kill herself.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Yeah, sure, like you do.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Yeah, okay, I'm just saying okay, because that is pretty metal,
is my point. That's pretty fucked up. But the episode
needed the episode. Honestly. Would we have enjoyed it a
little bit more if the end of the episode had
been her like walking to the window and then opening it. Yeah,
and then it's that's some sick shit episode overall.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It needed to be the level of mean that we're
expecting from that side.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, get her to walk up to that window and
have her open it, and then it cuts to black
or fades to black, probably more not just okay, let
us fill in the blanks. So no, this is tails
from the dark side. Come on, you're not you. There
is subtlety, but not right now, Like you don't need
it right now, not if you're gonna go as broad
as this story is going by having the archangel Michael
(33:45):
give a woman a brain TOHI, or by touching her forehead.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, the archangel exposition, because he basically just shows up
to tell her the things that are happening to her,
whereas maybe it could have just happened to her and
that could have been something interesting. Why well, and that's
where'd my nest go.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
That's what happens in that twilight zone the two thousand
and one is he just starts like this, skin starts
changing color, his hair starts changing like it just starts happening,
like it gets there in a more organic way. To
your point that I think would work better in this
visual medium that we're watching.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
It right, anything else? On the next episode of Midnight Viewing,
We'll be taking a look at the next two episodes
of season four. Those are Love Hungry and The Deal.
Midnight Viewing is a proud member of a weirding Way
Media group. Our theme song was composed by HP with
an assist by Donald Rubinstein. Until next time? What are
you working on? Where can people find it?
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Chrish Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is where you can go to
find all the things that I work on. My main show,
The Culture Cast, is still on a little bit of
a hiatus, but that's not permanent. It's temporary. That show
will be back, but everything else that I work on
monthly or bi weekly is still up there, including this show.
And there's a big backlog of things as if it's
six hundred and nine. If you listen to all the
(34:59):
episod the Culturecast and you're still expecting more to listen to,
it's coming, but there's a lot of episodes to listen
to six hundred and ninety one. Last, that's where you
can go to listen to everything that I work on,
and then everything that I don't like Eighties TV Ladies
or Mike Show, the Projection Booth or Father Malone's show
this one or the one that he has on Patreon,
which is more important because that's where you can go
to help him out, which is Patreon dot com. SU's
(35:20):
Father Malone. What about you, Mike White? Where can people
find you? And the things that you.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Pretty much the same darn thing Waitingwaymedia dot com. And yeah,
we also have patreons Chris and I Patreon dot com
slash Culturecast than patreon dot com slash Projection Booth and
over there once a month we talk about James Bond
and we're blazing through those. We're running to the Pierce
broslan Age and pretty soon we'll be over at the
(35:44):
Craig side of things, and I'm hoping for a little
Johnny inglad would be good. That's a little bit of that.
How about you Father Malone.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
For me, Hey, midnight viewers, if you happen to be
in the Las Vegas area October fourth and fifth, not
by the Silverton Casino, at the Nightmare Into Vegas Horror
convey and Car Show, Now you're gonna find a booth
featuring midnight viewing. That booth will be featuring not only me,
but HP and mister Chris Statue. Mike White won't be
there because he hates that's.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Right, he hates the heat in the fault time of
Vegas versus everybody.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Indeed. Yeah, as for me, they said the Patreon check
us out on Mondays. That's Father Malone's weekly round up
and every Friday. If you're not listening to this show
talking about Temison dark Side, you could probably hear a fest.
We've got a Yaucha fest. We're looking at the Predator movies.
We've got a Rick Moranus fest going on by now,
so check that one out. Oh and in early October,
(36:38):
we're gonna be looking at the books of Blood the
Clive Barker. We're gonna be looking at the films based
on the books of books of Blood by Clive Barker. Anyway,
oh my god, I'm tired. Until next time. I'm trying
to enjoy the daylight.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Last SA
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