Weirdhouse Cinema: Spookies

Yep, 1986 was a great year for genre movies — and also “Spookies” came out. In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe consider this overstuffed and underdone turkey of a horror movie.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of
My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and uh
to set us up for the movie that we're gonna
be talking about today, I wanted to discuss a problem

(00:25):
that often arises when you're making a monster movie, and
that is the problem of picking which kind of monster
to commit to. You know, it's like, uh uh, maybe
the family is going out to dinner and everybody's trying
to decide, oh, where should we go? You know, somebody
with you know brother brother Daryl wants to go to
the steakhouse, and and Grandpa wants to go to the

(00:47):
Mexican restaurant, and so forth. Everybody wants something different. They
can all have it at the same place, unless you
go to the king size buffet where you can get
a little bit of everything on your plate. And that's
what's going on at the movie today. They decided why
commit to just one kind of monster? You know, why
make a movie just about a like monster baboon hagbride

(01:10):
or a little diminutive rubber merman, goblin or fart zombies
or a cast member from Cats that has a hook hand.
What if you could just put them all in the
same movie and let them all run wild. Yeah, and
that is very much the case with the movie we're
talking about here today. This is gonna be Spookies from

(01:33):
six a great year for genre films, though I can't
lay I we can't credit Spookies for really being a
part of that. This is this is not a great movie.
This this may be one of the worst movies we've
we've discussed for for Weird House, But you know, we're
still gonna We're still gonna focus on the positives. It

(01:54):
does have some positives, and I think the monster Buffet
is the big one, because, Yeah, when you mentioned this,
I was trying to think of other films that really
hit the same caliber, uh, you know, of of just
having multiple different types of monsters. And I mean I
thought of Gremlins too, but then again, even though those
are diverse types of Gremlins, they're still gremlins. I thought
of Monster Squad, but that is still a case where

(02:17):
those are all like universal monsters that are that have
been historically paired together, so it's not that weird, it's
established um or. I thought of say, thirteen ghosts. Both
versions of it, but especially the later version of it
was a lot of fun. Had thirteen very different types
of ghosts, but they were all still essentially ghosts. I
keep meaning to watch that one, Rachel, and I love

(02:37):
those like late nineties terrible monster movie remakes, you know,
the nineties, Uh, what's it called? House on Haunted Hill
and all that, and thinking we're gonna watch thirteen ghosts.
Maybe this is the year it is? It is. I've
heard it's loud and the scriptor I've heard a plaed
to it. It's loud, it's got a good cast, and
it's some neat ghosts in it. But but but okay, yeah,

(03:00):
I see the point you're making. So, yeah, monster Squad,
and and that combines all of the classic universal monsters
into one thing. So you've got like a uh an
Off brand creature from the Black Lagoon, you got a Wolfman,
you've got a Mummy, you gotta Dracula and so forth.
But this one, yeah, I like that. This is like
a Monster Squad, but for obscure or previously unknown monsters

(03:21):
or monsters that you would not think of is going
in a monster movie. So it does have sort of
uh sort of like dirt caked fart zombies that the
just uh, the just exude flatulence as they chase people
around in a room. And it does have this like
baboon bride creature. It does have a like a lady
who turns into a giant spider. I think maybe she's

(03:42):
supposed to be a certain kind of yokai um. But
it's also got like a if you bought a one
of those grim reapers that goes on your lawn for
Halloween and raises the scythe up and down and goes
whoa when people walk by, but it came to life
and started attacking people. It has that, And it's also
just got a Jawa, yeah, sort of a yeah, kind

(04:05):
of a child vampire jawa running around. Yeah. There, there's
there's a lot of a lot of stuff here, and
there's not really a good reason why it's all there.
This is not a movie that's really concerned why people
or monsters have any reason to be in the same
place at the same time, and yet there they are. Well,
this movie did get me thinking about one thing. I
think maybe maybe maybe the weird structure of this film

(04:28):
gave me a sort of insight into a curiosity, a
type of curiosity that powers the construction of certain horror movies,
and it is I think the same type of curiosity
that leads people to make those Um this might be
overly nerdy and obscure, but have you ever seen those
videos people make on the internet where they just take

(04:49):
like some like real time strategy video game and they
just keep pairing different kind of units from the game
against each other and seeing which one wins. What I'm
talking about, Okay, so here's my you know, power Mac
marine versus the the alien screamer queen, and uh, you
know which one will be victorious. You just do that

(05:10):
a hundred times, the different types of units. I think
sometimes eighties horror movies especially kind of work that way.
But they work with a certain kind of monster or slasher,
and then with certain types of human stereotypes or or
personality archetypes. So it's like, what does a nerd versus
hockey mask slasher look like? Or what does preppy rich

(05:33):
kid versus merman grimlin look like? You know, it's like
the bug fights, but with with human stereotypes on one
side and different types of monsters on the other. Does
that make any sense. Yeah, yeah, I can see that
that definitely being a part of the alchemy going into
some of some of those pictures, But in this case
it's not. This does not feel like the product of

(05:54):
an alchemy lab. This seems like the lab has been
ransacked and all the liquids are are mixing together on
the table and making random explosions. Oh, this movie does
have some really good random explosions. You don't see him coming? No, um, so, spookies,
I guess we should talk about what the basic Elevator

(06:14):
Vader pitch here is. Um. Basically, the plot, such as
it exists, is that people, random people are drawn to
a weird house in a graveyard where Warlock is trying
to bring his brideback to life, and equally random monsters
rampage through the shambles of what is essentially a kind
of resurrected film. I also was thinking of it in

(06:38):
terms of what if Troll Too had lacked vision and
just featured more monsters, what a Control Too was more
of a hodgepodge instead of like one one director's clear
artistic vision realized to its fullest extent. Right, So yeah,
I think for me this film was worse control to this.
I think this is the worst film we've we we've

(07:00):
looked at on Weird House and uh and I think
ultimately I would like not to return to its level.
But there's still some fun stuff to talk about here.
Well wait, then, how did you end up on this one?
What what led you to Spookies? Um? I was familiar
with the title, and I had signed up for Shutter
to watch a previous film that we had covered. I

(07:20):
forget which one, and I was slipping around and there
was Spooky, So I thought, well, I'm gonna start watching it.
Let's see what this is like. Okay, So that's that's
how it came to be. And oh, in the other
part this is important too. This was right before the
Labor Day weekend, and I knew we had a shortened
week coming up, and we were talking about doing, um

(07:42):
another movie that I think we're gonna be doing for
next week that is a much better film and has
some more uh I don't know discuss It has some
some plot points in that they're gonna be worth discussing more.
And I thought, well, let's save that for next week
when we have a little more time. Spookies is perhaps
the that the right amount of movie for what we

(08:02):
have time to put together. Okay, I got another question.
The title Spookies. Does it refer to the buffet of
different kinds of monsters? Are they? Are they the titular spookies?
I guess, I guess so. I mean I've never heard
of spooky as a now and that's an adjective, right,

(08:22):
I think the title sometimes it makes me think of
things like the jeepers creepers, or phrases like that, or
the hebe gebes or something where I'm like, oh, well,
maybe the ideas this film is supposed to give me
the creepies, Like I have the creepies now because I
watched this film. Do you mean the spookies the spookies?
What I say, the creepies, Okay, creep Okay, yeah, I
have the spookies because I watched the film. I don't know.

(08:44):
That's That's as much as I could figure out. Well.
I wondered also though, if it was um if it's
a little like shortened kind of short cute word with
an S at the end, because it's in the era
of the Gromlins type movies, so you know, Gremlin's critters
and all that if it was trying to cash in
on that, uh Google, is that sort of thing? Did

(09:10):
they think, Okay, we need something like that to get
the people picking up the box in the video store?
How about spookies? Yeah yeah, it was probably something like that.
All right, Well, let's let's give everyone a taste of
the trailer audio here so you'll you'll know what you're
getting into a little bit more. What's this supposed to be?

(09:31):
Sort of like a part cheesy game or something. I
know what this is. I mean, I've never seen one
like this before. It's wegi board. Well, how do you play?
Don't you need? Dice? Is something you don't play? Board
is a tool for communication, communication with the dead? All right? Well,

(09:58):
one way you know this is going to be a
really good movie is that it has three directors. Yeah. Yeah,
and and from the get go it apparently had two directors. Um. Now,
when you get into the production history of this film,
we're not going to really get into it a lot.
There's there's a whole documentary that is a special feature
on the Vinegar Syndrome Blu ray for this and that

(10:22):
feature is that that that making a feature is longer
than the film itself has a lot of interviews and
if you're if you're super into all the nitty gritty
of of the production of this sort of film, then
I would say go check that out. But ultimately I
feel like a lot of it was maybe maybe too
much for me. Like I ultimately I love a movie
of this caliber, but I don't necessarily need all the

(10:44):
ins and outs of how it has made. But you know,
you're my lege will vary, but essentially the key factors
to keep in mind here is you had you had
these two directors who had Thomas Dorian and you had
Brendan Faulkner, and they were the initial directors. And the
producer was this guy Michael Lee, who was has been

(11:06):
described as as like a video nasty millionaire who made
a lot of money importing films into Britain during the
period where a lot of these were banned. His company,
I think was was v I Pico Vera VIPKO, and
he wanted to produce a film. These guys already had
sort of a pre existing vision and then as a
producer he had a certain amount of insight into what

(11:27):
he wanted. Um they shot this film that was going
to be titled Twisted Souls, and then that a relationship
fell apart and another director was brought in to finish it,
and that's this director, Genie Joseph. She ended up directing
additional footage and completing the picture. And so what we

(11:48):
have on screen here is is one picture, but there
you can tell where stuff was added. There's this whole
additional plot where where there are characters who you never
see on screen together, so you you can tell. I
think what the framing narrative is. So if I understand correctly,
the plot about the party kids who drive around in

(12:10):
the woods and then end up at a house, a
random house in the woods, go into the house and
then are attacked by a buffet of different kinds of monsters.
That was the original film. And then the framing narrative
where there is an evil old warlock who is who
is sacrificing people who wander into his house to the

(12:31):
monsters in order to revive his dead bride. That is
the framing narrative that was that was later added to
sort of boost this up to feature length, right, And yeah, ultimately,
like I said, don't want, I don't want to get
into all the ins and outs of the production. Um.
I did watch the feature att but uh or the

(12:52):
feature rather, it's it's pretty too long to be a
feature atte. But I would say that the features simo
featurissimo here. Uh. You know, I don't think the film
was ever going to be good. This is not like
this was on track to be something and and it
was changing into something else. I don't think there's a
case to be made for like release the Twisted Souls

(13:12):
cut or anything of that nature. Um I, I don't.
I think the film is as fun and memorable as
it is because you have so much weird stuff going on,
and you have these two different energies involved in it. Um.
So yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be Spooky's if it
wasn't this ridiculous. I gotta say it does make for
some extremely funny moments, uh, the inner cutting between the

(13:36):
different plots, because first of all, it gives it an
energy similar to Pod People, where it has at the beginning,
like the A, B and C plot, and it's frantically
cutting back and forth between them at such a pace
that that you're constantly trying to figure out which movie
you're in. Um. But then also to to stay on
the mystery science theater theme for a second. It sometimes

(13:58):
seems almost as if the Warlock in the framing narrative
is sort of riffing the movie in in the middle,
So like the the kids will be walking through the
house and one of them will make a comment to say, like, uh, wow,
the so the lights in this place still work? Maybe
somebody lives here, and then it'll cut to the Warlock
a different room, different place. You're not even sure where

(14:19):
he is, but he'll go someone does still live here. Yeah,
I that was a moment that I definitely laughed out.
Lad Uh. Yeah. The resulting energy is is is weird
and wonderful. It also feels a bit like the stuff
with the Warlock that was at it. It's it's it's

(14:39):
like you decided to make a horror anthology, but you
only had the one picture to draw upon. Because there's
certainly been cases where you have like different productions that
were unfinished or or were recut, and then you have
them rereleased as part of a horror anthology. Was some
sort of a framing framing narrative in place, but in
this case, it's just one the one picture. Yeah, Yeah,

(15:00):
it's a framing narrative around one movie that was not
going to make it to feature length. I'd say that
core movie is what maybe sixty minutes? Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I'm not sure how much stuff got got cut. I
know some stuff got cut, but um, is it stuff
that would have really that I really wanted to see
instead of this wizard and his strange cat creature? I'm

(15:20):
not sure. All right, well, let me let me go
ahead and mention some of the other projects that some
of the other folks were involved in here. So Thomas
Duran again co director co writer on Twist the Twisted

(15:40):
Souls portion of this UM. Interestingly enough, he was the
voice of the monster in Devil's Express, starring Warhawk Tanzania. Yeah,
so I gotta give him credit for that. He also
worked on a spattering of other genre pictures. Brendan Faulkner Uh,
also the co director co writer on Twisted Souls, wrote
in direct Killer Dead. Genie Joseph, who finished the film UM.

(16:05):
She wrote and directed the horror like Mind Benders. I
have not seen this, but I looked it up. Apparently
it's also known as Invasion of the Mind Benders, and
the VHS cover definitely made me laugh out loud, so
it says invasion of the mind Benders. And then it
has like a lady on fire and she's shooting rays

(16:25):
of light out of her eyeballs over a guy who
who's looking up in enraptured at a bunch of clouds.
And then next to it, it's got a tagline says
controlling a mind is a dangerous thing. I like how
this does look like a a horror paperback from the eighties,
So oh yeah, it's got looks more like book art

(16:46):
than the movie art um and a plot description from
IMDb on Mind Benders says two teenagers noticed a sudden
change and their fellow students. No one is able to
explain this zombie like behavior, which, at the command of
an unseen alien, makes them punish transgressors with merciless violence. Alright,

(17:08):
so most of the there are a lot of people
involved in this. There's a lot of there's a lot
of of loving attention pay to the monsters, and we're
ultimately not gonna be able to mention all of them
by name, but I want to mention a few of
them as well as the writers involved here. So Jennifer
aspin All was in the makeup department, went on to
work on a on a lot of projects including Westworld,

(17:30):
Captain Marvel, and Saturday Night Live. There's a Frankie m
Ferrell who who was one of the writers on the screenplay.
He also produced N seven Street Trash. That's a melt
movie that we've discussed before, and Burgund was a writer
additional material plus costume design. She was also associate producer

(17:51):
on the Mask. Yes, the one with Jim Carey in
a green cartoon face. So did Anne Bergend do the
costumes and the because we're gonna have some commentary on
the costumes, she at least did some of them. But
also you have this guy Tom Malinelli, who is credited
with art direction, art department and costume design. This is

(18:12):
another individual who worked on Street Trash. Okay, there's a
guy by the name of al Maglioschetti who plays Lewis
Wilson in this. I don't remember which one Lewis Wilson was,
but he also did special effects photography. He went on
to do visual effects and a lot of big pictures
including Star Trek, The Undiscovered Country, Water World, uh T two,

(18:33):
Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. The Adams Family, Jason goes
to Hell and many others. Oh. In fact, so I
see the connection to uh T two there. But the
camera operator, the steadicam operator in this movie j Michael Murrow,
I think, also did steady caam for a lot of
James Cameron movies, including Terminator Too. Yeah, this is an

(18:53):
individual that I believe Michael Weldon pointed out as being
involved in this picture in his right up in one
of the psychotronic uh in the Psycotronic Video Guide or
the Psychotronic Video Guide or the Guide to Film, I
can't remember which one. Now, getting into the actors a
little bit, there are a number of actors in this
who didn't really have any other credits. But my favorite
actor in in this whole picture is Peter Assillo Jr.

(19:16):
He plays rich is uh Oh, I would say the
richest character in this film. Um, how would we describe him?
He's the he's the cut up, He's the He's a Ham,
He's a Ham, He's constant Ham, glorious Ham, He's a ham.
Who's You get the sense that he's improvising a lot
of his lines. There are scenes of just um where

(19:38):
where it feels like what happened is they just turned
the camera on him and they're like, Rich, come on,
you know, just riff a little bit. And so he'll
like wander around kind of bumping into the other characters
and be like, hey, hey, how's your sinuses and stuff
like that. He also, uh is it plays a character
who loves beer. Uh, And it's clear he loves beer

(19:59):
because even after the monsters started attacking and all everything
goes crazy, he's still always got his beer in his hand. Yeah,
he's he's a lot of fun in this. He's like
them tall mustachioed guy that was apparently in real life
was just always on just was always the goofy cut
up and was much beloved. Um and and so he
brings that exact same energy to this role. His character

(20:22):
Rich has a puppet named Muck, and so he's off.
He's constantly interacting and harassing the other characters with this puppet.
And he wears a T shirt that pit ficture features
an image of himself and the puppet mouke on it. Right.
So uh, he lived ene through two thousand and seventeen.

(20:43):
He uh, he played an uncredited zombie and Don of
the Dead and then went on to do a lot
of bit parts, um and things, often freaks and crazy,
sometimes background work. I noticed he pops up even in
an episode of thirty Rock playing paparazzi character, so you know,
just somebody click the camera in the background. But then
we also have this character, Duke, This Duke so interesting.

(21:07):
How would you how would you describe Duke to everyone?
Duke is a is a fabulous bully. He's sort of
the like tough guy, bad guy, bad boy of the group. Um,
it's hard to convey by describing, but a lot of
the scenes with Duke in them have this bizarre rhythm
and logic that you sort of get, you get a

(21:27):
feel for as the movie goes on, but it can't
really be compared to anything else I can think about.
Gonna try to describe one scene just to give you
an idea of like of duke rhythm, and it goes
like this, So like they're in the house and Duke
just pulls a box off the shelf and he opens
it and an amulet flies out of the box onto
the floor. And then this other character named Carol picks

(21:50):
up the amulet and she says, isn't it wonderful? And
he goes, pretty damn weird. If you ask me, what
is it art or something? I think it's worth any money.
And then he immediately from saying this line, turns his
head to the side and sees a door that has
just been behind him the whole time, and then he goes,
what the hell is in here? And he starts jostling

(22:12):
the lock frantically, and then he breaks a chair across
the door and starts shoving a board into the door jam,
trying to pry it open. This is duke energy, would
you agree? Yes, yes, very much so, he um. I.
In my notes, I've noted that he was essentially a
discount Fonzie in a trash bag because he's wearing this

(22:35):
weird cost him. He's wearing plastic clothes like a shirt
and pants that are they look like they're made from
the same material material as like black heavy duty garbage bags. Yeah.
I don't know if it's like the workout thing or what.
I don't know that that that is literally what it
looks like it's made out of. And I, oh, yeah,

(22:56):
I have no explanation. Um my. One of my early
theories watching this film was that he was perhaps like
the frontman of a band or something, and that are
the characters. The human characters in this film. It's essentially
like a band and some hangers on and like maybe
they're older, producer. But this is a complete misread on

(23:16):
my part because there's nothing to support that in the film.
There's nothing to support any actual connections between any of
these human characters. Well, this gets you to something about
the movie, which is that it has one of my
absolute favorite horror movie tropes, which is the utterly implosible
friend group. Uh, you know many eighties movies especially have

(23:36):
this is the eighties were the decade of the implausible
friend group movie. Though you know, it still happens every
now and then. But I think you probably know what
I'm talking about. But if not, just picture this. Okay,
So it's a horror movie. You've got a group of
friends hanging out. Maybe they're going to somebody's uncle's cabin
in the woods, or they're driving around looking for a
party as in this movie, or something like that, and
the group consists of people who would never in reality

(24:00):
to be hanging out together. What you usually get is
either one or two of each teen subculture archetype that
the movie wants to show, So you get like a jock,
a nerd, a punk, a stoner, preppy, rich kid, et cetera,
instead of what you would imagine would happen in reality,

(24:21):
which is you'd have like a group of jocks or
like a group of nerds, a group of stoners, and
and that would be the friend group. Yeah, yeah, I
mean it's sometimes and I guess in your better films,
you see a diverse group of people brought together by
by circumstances that then have to survive the monster. Oftentimes
maybe yeah, like maybe it's uh, you know, it's stoner's

(24:44):
and greaser's because they're both fleeing a storm or something
and we're holding up in the same place and now
where have we Now we have to fight goblins or something. Right,
That's more like you'd get in a Night of the
Living Dead. You know, different people are sort of driven
into a into a house by the zombies attacking. It's
not like they were all hanging out to begin with.
But in this film, everyone was hanging out to begin with,

(25:07):
and we're given no explanation why that would be, you know,
and I think there are a number of reasons this happens.
Number one is what I was talking about earlier. It's
kind of the bug fights mentality, Like you you want
to see different human cultural archetypes being faced with violent
struggle or extreme circumstances with that kind of like bug
fights or or video game unit versus unit mentality. Is

(25:30):
just kind of a basic curiosity about like how does
this one work? But there's another version of it, I
think that is sort of there at the core too,
which is the dead teenager. Movies of the eighties are often,
in essence clumsy and vulgar morality plays, and as such,
in a way, you get them trying to sort of
recreate the dynamics of the Canterbury Tales. So whereas in

(25:53):
the Canterbury Tales you would might get the Knight's Tale
and the Partner's Tale and the Wife of Bath, here
you get the Jock's tail and the punk's tale and
the nerds tale and uh, and those are the little
vignettes you see them them go through before they finally
meet their their end at the ultimate confrontation with the
monster or mad slasher or whatever it is. I would

(26:13):
have liked to have seen Rich's Tale. I guess we
do see Rich's Tale to a certain extent here, Yeah,
kind of rich rich see Partner's Tale sort of right,
but also Miller's Tale one of one of the good
humorous ones. But I totally agree with you. It works
better when there is some kind of external circumstance that
can assemble people who are are not naturally friends. But

(26:34):
in this movie, yeah, it's just like, well, they're all
hanging out together for no for no reason, they appear
to hate each other. Yeah, yeah, there there's there's tension
from the very beginning. Yeah, but we don't really know
why there's it's not explained, but it's the kind of
tension that eventually erupts into a full fledged fist fight
between two of the characters. In fact, between Duke and

(26:56):
the older guy who I thought was maybe a a
manager of some sort. They have like an epic quiet
man asked, fist fight. Yes, and I'm not really sure
why it occurs. Oh, man, that seems good. Oh and
and like their girlfriends are they're just like watching them fight,
and one of them is like, should we stop them?
And the other one is basically like, no, just let

(27:17):
them go. And if they've been to set by multiple
monsters at this point so yeah, it's just not a
good time for a fist fight. Okay, well, are you
ready to talk a little more about the plot? Yes,
such as it is, let's let's get into the plot.
Uh what So. One of the first things that had
me laughing in this movie was, I know, this was
the title of the original film before it was recut

(27:38):
and supplemented by the additional footage, but this credit was
given to Twisted Souls inc. Twisted Souls Incorporated. Um, I
don't know. That sounds like a like a tattoo company
or something. I'm not sure what exactly, but so you
get an opening on a graveyard is very Edwards style
graveyard with some kind of flimsy looking tombstone owns, and

(28:01):
then there is a stone crypt cover on one of
the graves that starts throbbing like it's stretching and deforming.
And immediately I thought, oh, that that's a nice special effect.
I think that could be similar that there's a similar
effect actually in the original Nightmare on Elm Street, where
you remember the scene where a character is lying on
a bed dreaming and then on the wall behind them,

(28:23):
like Freddie's head sort of stretches out through the wall,
and I think I'm not sure, but I think that
was accomplished just by using like a sheet, a flexible
sheet as the wall. And then so you know, the
actor sticks their head in there, and it looks like
the wall is actually bending around some surface, some object
coming out of it. I think the same thing is

(28:43):
probably going on to the grave here. Yeah, that was
a great scene in in Nightmare. That was a great scene. Yea.
It reminds me a lot of the short story The
Yellow Wallpaper. Okay, what was Spooky's actually based on an
early script treatment by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I think I
recall reading that somewhere. Um, now we so we keep

(29:05):
seeing this graveyard right out in front of the big
White Mansion. There's the big White mansion. It's the house
for the movie. Looks kind of like the White House
because it has these pillars out there. Well, it does
have an interesting history because it turns out this is
the John Ja homestead. That's right, What a bizarre connection.
So this Spooky's, the movie with fart zombies, was filmed

(29:26):
at the the the ancestral home of John j. One
of the US founding fathers, the first Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, one of the authors of the Federalist Papers.
I didn't know this when I watched the movie, but
it made me think back on it, and I'm like,
could this be interpreted as containing any federalist propaganda? I
couldn't really, I couldn't really make that work. But but anyway,

(29:50):
so we'll keep seeing. This is the setting. They show
you a lot of the setting, and then it cuts
to this dude in white glove sitting doctor claws style,
so it's a high back chair. He has got his
back to the camera, he's got his hand on a
cane and white gloves. He's got a big old ring on,
and he is talking to a winter green coffin and
he says, I convade no longer. The Vinyl Foolish victims

(30:14):
will be here very soon. So just doing a really
excellent accent that kind of comes and goes. He doesn't
always have the accent. Yeah, it's not very consistent. There
are times where it feels like it's fifty Low Pan
and fifty Major Todd from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
You know, it's he kind of he's going for some

(30:34):
sort of a German accent, like that's what he's aiming for,
but there's a bit of drift to it. The vinyl
foolish victims. Yeah, yeah, well actually that maybe maybe that
connects more thematically than I realized, because of course Duke
does turn out to be wearing vinyl clothes, so at
least one of the victims is vinyl in nature. That's true,
that's true. But okay, so we get a read on

(30:57):
the Warlocks plan. This guy is going to sacrifice victims
in his house in order to resurrect his his wife,
I think, and and we're led to believe at the
time that like you know, they loved each other dearly,
but she has long departed and and she will soon
be raised and they will be happy together forever. Yes, yeah,

(31:18):
it's uh and alright, so it seems that at this
point in the film, like like all right, let's see
how this occurs. Let's see how this this this happens. Uh,
then we cut two is that this might be movie
B or movie C. At this point we cut to
a guy running around in the woods who looks like
a cast member from Cats. He looks like a jellical

(31:38):
cat going to the jelical ball, and he has a
hook for a hand Yeah, some sort of a wear
cat with a hook for a hand in this kind
of strange costume, running around looking, you know, very creepy.
You know, I'm not saying that these are you know,
it's not thriller level of of creature creation here, but
it's pretty good and I am legitimately creeped out by

(31:59):
this guy. Oh and we also get the cast member
of Cats observing a kid with a backpack who's just
wandering around by himself in the woods. Is this billy
or is he just a billy? I think it's billy. Yeah.
And then you get to movie See I think um.
And then in movie Cee, we meet our implausible friend
group which are driving around the woods in two different cars.

(32:21):
Car number one consists of a bad boy driver. This
is Duke. He's wearing his black plastic clothes. He's being
an aggressive jerk from moment one, just screaming at his
passengers about spilling beer on the upholstery while he's sort
of zipping around in the dark. And then you see
car number two. The driver is this much older guy
who reads as like, uh, the ultimate narc, hanging out

(32:45):
with these teens around him. He's wearing a suit and tie.
He has at least fifteen years older than everyone else.
I thought he was supposed to be somebody's dad, but
I think he's just a member of this friend group
who looks like he could be their ad. Yeah, and
I it's never explained, And based on some of the
behind the scenes interviews that I saw, I don't think

(33:07):
they knew either. This was not something where like they
cut out some scenes that explains something. No, it's just
it's just this is what they was put together, and
they had no idea what their connections were supposed to be.
And there's immediately a a rivalry between this guy. We
find out his name is Peter and Duke. The drivers
of the two cards don't like each other. Peters talking

(33:28):
about Duke, he says, I told you we shouldn't have
followed him first. He starts a fight at that party,
gets us all thrown out, embarrasses the hell out of us.
Then he gets us lost out here in the middle
of nowhere. So I guess Duke's calling the shots. They're
all just they're riding for Duke and Duke. Duke is
not is not proving his worth. Duke is leading them astray. Yeah,

(33:49):
it's just it's so ridiculous. I can't even begin to
follow it. I guess part of it is the problem
of having this many monsters in a film. You need
not one, but two car loads of people to serve
as victims, and and then you get this kind of
a situation. Yeah, I guess that's true. Some some movies
get around that with a van or just hey yeah,
I just have two groups. You know, there's the one van,

(34:09):
there's the the other I mean troll to sort of
managed this right, or the family. And then you had
the like the boyfriend and his his crew that were
coming in another vehicle. Uh, they don't have to know
each other before they get to the house. If you
just serve them up to a buffet of monsters, they
could just both arrive at the house. I mean, I
guess they just wanted to have lots of dynamic dialogue
between all these these people. Uh. And then so we

(34:42):
then we got back to Billy. I guess this is
a movie to or b B plot. Um, he's in
the woods eating a snack cake by himself, and then
he gets startled by a guy wearing the Denham tuxedo
who's like, hey, give an old man a light and
it's very creepy, uh though the guy is not old. Um.
And then the kid gives him a light. Why does

(35:03):
this kid kid have a lighter? I don't know. And
then the guys like go home, and the kids like, no,
I have plans, big plans. And it turns out his
parents forgot his thirteenth birthday and that's why he ran
away from home. So he's just running around in the woods.
And then the kid walks away from the guy. And
then the guy in the woods as the kid walks away,

(35:24):
is just immediately killed by the jelical cat. He gets
like slashes on his face, like while the kid is
still in frame walking away. It's yeah, it's such a
weird series of events because this yet this kid runaway
kid in in you know, running into a drifter in
a way that feels like sort of a slice of American,
a kind of tail, right, But then the drifter is

(35:44):
just just torn to pieces by the by the wear cat. Yeah.
And then so we get a bunch more stuff with
the witch plot a plot I guess or b plot
with the one with the warlock trying to resurrect his wife. Um,
we start seeing his face and I got man, this
is a I dry warlock. His face is just caked
with some kind of powder. He needs moisturizer. It is.

(36:07):
It's bad. Yeah. But we also get to see his
his wife in the coffin and she kind of looks
like a blond win owner rider. Yeah. But eventually we
cut back to the party, party boys, the party kids
in the cars. They're they're driving around. Eventually they get
blocked by an obstruction in the road. I think I
think bust for Jones throws a tree branch on the

(36:28):
road in front of Duke's car and then they have
to stop and move it. And uh and Peter Mr
Nark gets out of his car and he's like, listen, Duke,
we've been driving around for two hours in circles, getting
nowhere fast. And then Duke says, right, let's get out
of this place. And then uh, I wrote this exchange
down because this was good. Peter says, what are we

(36:49):
doing now? Duke says, we're partying, man, something you're too
old to appreciate. Huh. If any of you people want
to come have some fun, come with us. And then
Peter says, this is ridiculous. Do you even know where
you're going, And Duke says, yeah, I'm going nuts. I'm
going nuts because I gotta stand here and listen to
you so snappy, so snappy. That's that's some some nmit

(37:11):
material right there. That's like as sit back from the
typewriter and kind of like go ah, yeah, alright, But
we come back to the kid. We come back to
Billy wandering around. He's going to find the White House
as well. Yeah, he wanders around, he finds the White House.
He goes inside, of course, because you know horror movie logic,
you just come across what appears to be an abandoned

(37:32):
house that is not your house, and you just go in. Yeah,
I mean, I guess it's you know, we've talked about tales.
So many old tales involved leaving the trail or you know,
entering into the wild place where you're not supposed to go,
and in stories that involve a haunted house. And essentially
this is a haunted house picture. Um, it's just haunted
with random monsters instead of ghosts. Um. It's like people

(37:56):
are drawn to it. People will find a reason to
go into that haunted house, be it for shelter or
for treasure, or in this case, um with with with
the main characters for the potential reality of partying right. Uh.
And and actually the kid also goes into the house
with the for with partying in mind, because apparently so
his parents forgot it was his birthday, that's why he

(38:17):
ran away from home. He wanders into the house. Uh there.
Oh at this point there's also this is when we
start seeing a jawa running around just like a like
a child in a in a in a brown hooded cloak.
But anyway, Billy the kid, he is in the house
and he walks into a room full of birthday party
streamers and sad half inflated balloons, and he goes cool.

(38:44):
He says, hey, a surprise party, so he didn't forget
after all, This is really great. So the again, the
logic of this is that this boy thinks his parents
through him a surprise birthday party in a random house
that he walked into in the woods. Uh. And then
he opens a box that he thinks contains a bowling ball,

(39:05):
but in fact it's a head and it is the
Warlock's head, and he goes, happy birthday, Billy, mohaha ha
And uh yeah, of course there you go but between
the the old Warlock who we we find out his
name is Creon. Creon, Yeah, Creon and Billy. Yeah, they
have this kind of uh discount Mike and the Tall

(39:27):
Man vibe from Phantasm, you know, creepy old man who's
mysterious and seems to command supernatural powers. And oh and
there's of course there are jawa s creatures in both films.
Though of course Phantasm is on certainly on several levels
ahead of this, uh, you know, an order of magnitude

(39:48):
or two above Spookies in terms of quality. But the
thing you can always say on behalf of Spookies is
Spookies has more variety. Uh you know. Uh, the Phantasm
may have like three year so interesting kinds of monsters.
Spookies has at least nine. Right. So of course, eventually
the party kids arrive at the house and they're like, hey,

(40:09):
here's a house. Let's go inside and see if there's
a party. Uh. Again, this is not the only I
gotta say, this is not the only movie where this happens.
This is sort of standard eighties horror movie logic. You
just arrive at a place and you think there might
be a party there, and so you go inside and
try to party, right, And I think Rich has brought
like snacks and beer, right, that's another part of it.

(40:30):
So they have brought a certain amount of party with them.
He has red stripe, and he has chips, and he's
consuming them. In almost every scene from here on out.
He's ultimately an optimist here, like like, this is not
the party we intended to go to, but we're going
to have a party here. We are going to enjoy
ourselves in this just obviously haunted house. There's a weird

(40:51):
sequence after this where the catman chases Billy birthday boy
Billy around, chases him outside, and then like buries him alive.
I think, yes, like yeah, Like watching this for the
first time and not really knowing anything about the production,
you're thinking, well, Billy's going to be around for a while,

(41:12):
but no, the wear a cat ambushes him like like
massacures his face like squat, you know, just I don't
know if he uses the hook or just his cat clause,
but swipes him across the face. There's blood. Billy falls
into a Doug grave and then the cat starts burying
him alive and buries him alive, and you never see

(41:32):
Billy again. What. Uh, yeah, this plotline does not return.
It's just like a like thirteen year old child does
get killed like at the beginning of this movie, and
then it doesn't connect to anything. It didn't connect anything.
Like really speaking, you don't have your you don't have
a child be your sort of throwaway victim unless there

(41:52):
are other child characters involved and they have a relationship
with that child, or you know, the adults have a
relationship with that child. It generally needs to mean something
for that to take place, and in this movie it
means absolutely nothing. It just seems like an idea somebody
started having and then they just got there like Okay,
I don't know where I'm going with that, I'm done

(42:13):
with that, onto other things. Yeah, And of course this
was part of the bit that was filmed afterwards to
complete the film, so we can ultimately excuse it that way.
But within the context of the film itself as a
as a solid, you know, sort of cohesive viewing experience, Uh,
it's it's very alarming. Okay. So now you've got the
party kids in the house, and I guess maybe we

(42:35):
should mention who all of them are because again, like
clearly you're supposed to be getting I think a list
of types, you know, your archetypes. So you've got Duke.
He's the bad boy, he's the he's the tough guy, bully,
wearing plastic bad boy clothes. And then Duke's girlfriend's name
is Linda. She's his his long suffering girlfriend, and she's

(42:55):
dressed in these bright eighties colors and spins a lot
of the movie rolling her eyes at duke behavior. You know,
it's just kind of like, oh, brother, that's our Duke.
Then you've got Peter, the you know, the seventy five
year old, uh accountant, who I guess maybe you might
think was one of the protagonists. Uh. At first, I

(43:16):
thought the protagonist of the film was going to be
Peter's girlfriend, Megan, because she at least initially has that
sensible protagonist energy in a in a horror movie with
the group like this. But I noticed more and more
as the movie goes on that that evaporates, and then
she mainly becomes characterized by like just making statements of

(43:38):
fatalistic despair. She just says things like there's no escape,
every one of us is going to die. Wow. So
she starts out as the Sigourney Weaver potential Sigourney Weaver
the picture and becomes the Bill Paxton at the picture. Yes,
Megan Yeah. The descent of Megan Um, on the other hand,
a supremely positive and optimistic force with them. The film

(44:00):
is Rich the jokester who's got a puppet who loves
beer and chips. Uh, and he just sort of like
he bumbles through every scene. There are moments where he
shows flashes of fear, but there are other times where
he's being like attacked by a monster and he's just like, yeah, okay,
come on, you know, if you're gonna kill me, bring
it on. And then we got a couple of characters

(44:21):
named Adrian and Dave. Adrian is I think supposed to
be a British fancy fashion lady wearing this like cool
cream colored jacket, and her boyfriend Dave is like also
I think supposed to be a kind of like fancy
rich guy. He's an allergic man with sinus problems. He's
wearing a khaki jacket. I think these two are supposed

(44:44):
to be fussy and fancy. They're like rich city people
who are just over it and they want to get
a cab back to soho or whatever. Yeah, yeah, they're
kind of what the what are the characters in um
Christmas Vacation? Todd and Margot? They're sort of the Todd
and Margot of this, Okay, Yeah, they're kind of like
American psycho people. Yeah. Now she's played by Charlotte Alexandria,

(45:05):
who is a French actor who apparently did a lot
of fairly diverse smattering of film in Europe before coming
over and playing this. And in the documentary they mentioned
I haven't seen this actually verified anywhere, but they said
that she played the Virgin Mary in the Life of Brian. Okay,
but I don't know about that. Uh. And then the

(45:25):
last two people there is Carol, who's got curly blonde
hair and seems like maybe she is of like a
spiritual persuasion. You get the vibe like she could do
your horoscope, I think. And then you've got Carol's boyfriend, Lewis,
who has no characteristics that I could identify except that
he wears denim and I think he's played by somebody
who did some effects for the movie. Yes, yeah, definitely,

(45:48):
And there's a lot of that and this, especially when
you get into the monsters people in the monster suits
are not are not necessarily designated actors. They are also
involved in other other parts of the production. Yeah, and
here's where you get into like that scene I talked
about earlier where they're just like finding things and Duke
is just continually turning his attention from one destructive project

(46:09):
to another. Uh. He's like prying open doors and smashing
stuff and uh. And at one point somebody's like Duke,
stop doing that, and he goes like, I don't care
about this old creep joint. Uh. But he gets the
door open and and he gets attacked by a desiccated corpse.
It's just like a corpse falls out of the closet
and he's like, nah, it's fake. The thing about that corpse,

(46:32):
this is just so this Yeah, this is just a
scene where the corpse falls out of the closet on him.
But later on in the film we see that this
corpse is completely articulated and and can be brought to life.
There's there's so much love and uh and detail that
went into the creation of the various monsters in this
So I I will say that that is That's the

(46:52):
best thing I can say about this film is that, Yeah,
a lot of love went into the creation of these
various zombies and corpses and uh, monsters and grim reapers,
whatever the case may be. You know it has. So
after this they get into a wegi aboard scene, and
this is sort of when all hell breaks loose, right
Like they start they find a wegi board. Of course,

(47:14):
Carol is the one who's like, oh, I know how
this thing works, that it's a tool. She says, it's
not a game, it's a tool the dead can reach
out to us. And so they play with the wig
aboard and the Warlock ends up telling them answers to
questions through it, like they ask, will we ever leave
this house? And he says no and then um and

(47:36):
then the warlock transforms Carol into a demon by making
a vein on his forehead throb and the camera zooms
in on the vein on his forehead, and then Carol
turns into like one of the demons from Evil Dad. Right, yeah, yeah,
it's it's overtly evil dead ask and uh and oh,
and I should point out the wigi board has pictures

(47:56):
of the various monsters on it, so I think the
wegi board is supposed to be involved in the summoning
or unleashing of this various monster, but we don't know
exactly how or why that is the case. One thing
I found funny is that the warlock in this movie
keeps making chess metaphors for what he's doing, and they're
often inappropriate or I don't see how they apply to

(48:16):
what he's talking about. Like hes like it's just like
a game of chess. But he's referring to trapping everybody
in a house. Yeah, do you have to trap your opponent?
I mean, I guess you you form traps for people
in ChIL I don't know. It didn't seem super applicable. Yeah, Like,
I don't think there's even enough there not aren't quite
enough monsters to be an entire chess set anyway, right,

(48:40):
But it's close, it's actually pretty close. But here's where
you get to the standard. You know, you you probably
if you've seen horror movies before, you know the format.
After this, the the you know, all hell breaks loose.
Various monsters are unleashed and the party crew barricade themselves
inside the house, and they're gonna of course split up
and get attacked one by one by by different types

(49:00):
of monsters. I like how after they first barricade themselves inside, Peter,
the older guy, he it seems he recognizes they have
reached this point in the plot and then explains as much.
He pretty much says, for the rest of the movie,
we will now be picked off one by one. Yes.
And so they split up, like Duke and Linda go
one way, and they end up encountering some zombies that

(49:22):
keep farting. Uh, we can talk about that if you want.
I'm not sure what to make of that scene. Peter
and Meghan and Rich go another way, Dave and Adrian
stay put. They encounter some gremlins. I think. Yeah, so
let's talk about those fart undies. Um, they're they're credited
as being the Muckman. Even though they don't look particularly mucky.

(49:42):
They look very dry to me, like sort of dry
dog biscuit mummies. Yeah, crumbling and short, short, short crust. Yeah.
And it's in a basement and they are wine casts.
And ultimately they're defeated by melting them with wine, which
is when the effect looks pretty good, I have to say.
And the Muckman don't look bad add but clearly at
some point in post production and I think the making

(50:05):
of gets into this a little bit. They decided, well,
let's add fart noises, and I think the rationale was
they look kind of swamp thingy, so maybe swamp equals
uh niquals fart noises. Yeah. But but it also reminds
me of some behind the scenes stuff I heard about
the cartoon Invader Zim where they were talking about putting

(50:27):
together a scene and if they didn't feel like the
scene was funny enough, they would just keep adding sound
effects to it until they were satisfied. And so that's
what this felt like to me. They were like they
were thinking, this needs something, this needs something else. Maybe
the answer is fart noises. It also reminds me of
something I think I recall Stephen King writing years ago

(50:48):
about how when he's writing a scene and he and
he's trying to make it really scary and he can
tell it's just not scary, and he doesn't he can't
figure out how to make it work. Then he just
dials up the grossness factor. It's sort of like to
to salvage something that he can't otherwise figure out how
to make work, just make it disgusting, right, And so

(51:09):
that's what they go for here. I don't think it works.
It just comes off as kind of awkward and dumb. Um.
But I have to say the muckman themselves, I don't
think they look bad. I think they look pretty good,
which is, you know the same thing I'd say for
most of the creatures in this Well, yeah, I'd say
that's the best thing about the movie is at least
a solid two thirds of the monsters look great. And

(51:30):
you never know what you're gonna get. It's just it's
it will be totally unexpected. Uh So, another kind of
encounter we get is that the rich, fussy people, Dave
and Adrian, they're they're they're sort of being catty at

(51:51):
each other. They're at each other's throats, and then they
get groblin. They wait, sorry, is the term gromlin or groblin? Um?
I say grom Land, but it's a made up word,
so you can certainly say groblin instead. No, No, I
want to respect your your your your terminology here gromlin. Yes,
So they get Gromlin. They get attacked by a little
green rubber gremlin merman with a like fish gator tail.

(52:16):
Uh And there is a long scene of Adrian fighting
the Gromlins while synth Funeral Music plays music choice very weird.
It's like a shopping mall version of Mozart's Requiem while
she's struggling with this little rubber critter. Yeah, it's a
it's it's it's actually not a bad scene. Like she's
she's good in this fighting making it. It's one of

(52:36):
these where a person is often fighting, um, a puppet
or fighting just a prop, you know, and acting like
it's attacking them. But she she does a good job
with the scene. And then also ultimately the Gromlin looks
pretty good. It Uh, it's well designed. It. Um, it's
not like it's not Hobgoblin's level. Um, it's maybe a
little above that. Yeah, i'd say above Hobgoblins. Definitely below Rimlin's.

(53:01):
Maybe on the level of ghoulies. Yeah, yeah, I think
that's fair. Oh No. At some point in here we
get an update on the Warlock framing narrative, which which
is this probably won't be all that surprising, But it
turns out the lady in the coffin, who is being
revived by the evil magic of the Warlock, does not
want to come back from the dead. She does not
like the Warlock guy, and she was just fine with

(53:22):
her eternal slumber, not interested in his his satanic, you know,
magical deal, and she's just like, get me out of here.
Sometimes dead is better, you know. Yeah. Oh, but but
to mention some of the other monster scenes, which which
are mostly pretty great. H So Adrian gets attacked by
so she beats the Gromlin she like hits it with

(53:45):
the fire poker I think, and crushes it with a
bookshelf or something, and then she runs off. Then she
gets attacked by a different creature. This time it is
the creature from the Electric Contestines Lagoon. Very nice looking monster,
very mutac very creative. I don't I can't think of
an other film where a monster uses like belly tentacles
to not only grab but also electrocute of victim and

(54:07):
in doing so melt her face off with like a
stop motion effect, which is really nice. There's another monster
we get to see I mentioned earlier, like the the
zombie Baboon bride Hag, which is where the Warlock lady
escapes or you know, the warlocks bride escapes and she
she gets away from him, wanders into some catacombs and

(54:29):
then she gets attacked by this baboon creature. Yeah, puppeteer
is clearly in shot in the lower left hand corner
of the screen at one point. Um but yeah, still
still a fun sequence, but probably one of the ultimately
one of the weaker looking puppet creatures that we encounter,
and also one that doesn't I really don't know what

(54:49):
exactly are we going for here now. Somehow, as you
mentioned earlier, Duke and Peter end up in a fist fight.
The characters reunite. Megan's like, um, well we're all going
to die and that's just how it is, and uh,
and Duke is like I want I want to fight,
and Peters like okay buck oh and so they just
starts slugging it out and uh and does this fight

(55:12):
end with Duke dead? I don't recall. I do not
remember either. Yeah, I don't remember what actually kills Duke.
I think the Grim Reaper does. Oh yeah, because the yeah,
like a statue of the Grim Reaper comes to life
and then it attacks them. I think it kills Duke
and Peter. The old guy literally dives right through a

(55:35):
closed door like bust st Yeah. Yeah, it's always insane
enough when someone like throws himself through glass in one
of these films, which yeah, I mean people cann and
do throw themselves through glass sometimes if the circumstances right,
but in movies it takes on an entirely different air.
People often pop up completely unscathed. They do it with

(55:58):
just on the fly, without a lot of thought. But
in this case, it's not even a window. It's a
wooden door. Yeah, that was a nice detail, fortunately made
completely out of balsa wood. Uh. The jokester rich at
some point he thought he was going to get killed
earlier by one of the evil dead zombies, but then
he just keeps wandering around with his beer and his chips,

(56:18):
and he eventually wanders into it like a lady leads
him into a cave, and then she transforms into a
giant spider so I think she's supposed to be like
a like a spider woman creature of some type, and
she she sucks all his fluids out, which is a
nice effect. It is. It's a nice effect. It's a
it's a fun sequence, but also one that raises questions

(56:38):
about sort of the the energy economy of this film,
because a lot of work went into this they have
like a custom Spider Woman layer. There there's a different
actor playing this sort of Japanese Jora Gumo spider woman,
and she doesn't just she doesn't just like you know,
suddenly reveal, oh she has half a spider face or
suddenly she's a spider No. There there's like five stages

(57:01):
to this transformation, uh, each one involving some some either
impressive or ambitious uh practical effects so uh and that's
not even counting the rich head that has then deflated
like a balloon when he sucked dry. Yeah, it likes
so much like the content is severely like eyebrow raising

(57:21):
but really great effects. But likewise, with the very next scene,
which is the Grim Reaper fight on the balcony, like
the old guy Peter ends up fighting this, it's just
death personified with the scythe This is this is one
that definitely reminded me of the key m Peel Grimlin's
to Um pitch meeting skit. Uh. There's the one where

(57:44):
the guy recommends that Hulk Hogan be in the picture
and they're like, whoa hold the phone, You're you're talking
Hulk Hogan, you're pro wrestler. It's it's similar to that.
It's like, Okay, we're gonna put the Grim Reaper in this.
The personification of death a highly symbolic character that is
very rarely actually incorporated into some sort of a film.

(58:05):
I mean there are examples of this, obviously, including stuff
like Bill and Tad or or I guess what. The
Final Destination films to a certain extent without that character
like really appearing on the screen. But for the most part,
like the Grim Reaper is, is not a physical entity
that you talk about people encountering, unless you're dealing with
a property that is being fairly satirical or extremely symbolic.

(58:29):
Well wait, sorry, thinking back to the Final Destination movies,
does Tony Todd actually play the Grim Reaper or just
a guy who knows about the Grim Reaper? Oh? I'm
not sure on this. I have a very vague memory
of these films, and I don't think I saw all
of them. Tony Todd, of course, as the actor played
Candy Man uh and is is a great actor. Yeah,

(58:50):
I don't remember if he's just kind of the wise
man who knows the ways of death or his death embodied.
I recall, like several of those movies have a scene
where the characters go they meet him and they're like, hey,
what's up. And he's like and he tells them like
facts about death. He's like, I don't know, He's just like,
did you know? Um? I recall in the first one

(59:13):
he refers to the Grim Reaper as a mac daddy. Now,
is Tony Todd? I can't remember. Is Tony Todd wearing
like a black robe? Does he have like a scythe
pin on his shirt or anything? I don't recall the
capacity in which he has encountered in the later films
and the first film, I think he plays a guy
who is interpreted as a mortuary worker. Like they break

(59:34):
into a morgue where one of the people is being
kept and he's just there and uh, and he tells
them facts about death and then tells them that like
they can't escape death because death is a mac daddy. Well,
this thing, I mean, it's a great cameo. Yeah. This
Grim Reaper, however, can be defeated. And the way they
defeat him is pretty hilarious. Yeah. They like knocking. So

(59:55):
Peter I think punches him or somehow knocks him off
the balcony and then he explodes just like explodes in
a giant fireball. He's made of gasoline. Yeah, like a
truck that has gone off a cliff in an action
film or a Mad Max movie or something, and it
just burst into a just a big fireball at the bottom.

(01:00:16):
That's what death does when you knock him off a roof. So, uh,
there's some more, just sort of like wrapping up the
plot kind of stuff. There is a scene at the
end that I gotta say, as as much as I
enjoyed some of the monster scenes early on, the ending
scene was excruciating. It just goes on and on and on.
It's basically a chase where uh, the woman who has

(01:00:39):
been awoken from her eternal slumber by the sacrifices within
the house and just trying to escape her like evil
warlock husband. She runs out of the house and then
zombies keep attacking her and she just keeps running from them,
and it's playing this driving synth music that's kind of
like good and getting you pumped up at first, but
then it just goes on and on and on and on,

(01:01:03):
and I thought I was gonna start screaming. Yeah, this
I had a similar experience like I've been I was
kind of really more enthusiastic about these monsters and some
of the acting, but then this whole sequence hits and
I begin to feel like a little weird, like a
little nauseous, you know, like like it was it was
getting psychedelic in the bad sense, like this scene is

(01:01:24):
the brown acid, you know, Yes, And it did seem
to go. I don't think it's actually that long. I
think it's maybe it's less than ten minutes, but it
just feels it's just dragging. It really drags. And then
basically at the end we get our nice like sort
of crazy dark ending where Creon finally comes bursting up
through that grave, the pulsating grave from the beginning of

(01:01:44):
the film. He's laughing maniacally. We cut to the Jawa
child laughing maniacally, and then freeze frame on Creon laughing,
and that's the real credits. Yes, and that's spookies. Spookies,
you know. I can't stop thinking about your comparison of
the Grim Reaper with with the Hulkster from from the

(01:02:05):
Key and Peel skit Um. Something about that is connecting
very strongly for me. Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna
have the Grim Reaper in your picture. Like I mean,
I hate to criticize the one thing that really works
about the film, the monster buffet. Like the Grim Reaper
doesn't need to be on the buffet. He like he
he needs to be an entree that you order special,

(01:02:28):
like maybe you have a side item with that. But
for the most part, like this is the Grim Reaper.
He's a big deal. He needs to be your your
big bad uh. And instead of just one of the
random things summoned by the Luigi board. Yeah, yeah, it
could be part of the buffet, but at least needs
to be a special part of the buffet. So it's
not just like one more thing you scoop out of
a steam tray. It is. It's the roast beef carving station,

(01:02:51):
you know. It's like the special the the endpoint this
like this is where the real stuff is. However, I
will say the Grim Reaper looks pretty cool. Like all
these you can you can question why these monsters are
in it, but ultimately all the monsters are pretty fun
to look at on screen when they show up. Uh,
some of them look great, some of them look ambitious
but but interesting. Uh. They are ultimately the stars of

(01:03:13):
this picture. I want to be a reap of maniac
have fun with my family and friends. All right, Well,
is there anything you know? Sometimes we do a deeper
read of some of the things that some of the
aspects of a particular film. But this this film is
kind of like a It's like a meta material that
that resists any stain or um or or water, affi

(01:03:36):
beads of fixing to it. Everything just runs off of it.
There's not a aren't a lot of deep thoughts we
can really have about Spookies, but that's all right. It
wicks away cognition, it does. Yeah, don't watch this film
if you want to want to have deep thoughts about
virtually anything. But if you want to see some some
kind of groovy monsters, it's it's worth taking a look at,

(01:03:57):
which leads to our next point, where can you watch Spookies?
Well again, Vinegar Syndrome put out an awesome blue ray
of the movie, especially if you're a hardcore spooky fan.
That's what you need to pick up. Uh. It's a
four K restoration from the thirty five millimeter original camera
negative pack full of special bonuses. But you can also
stream this film via shutter or a MC yes, American

(01:04:21):
movie Classics, because this is Spookies after all. Is there
a Criterion Collection edition? And I'm sorry I keep making
that joke. Vinegar syndrome is your Criterion addition for for
films like this. I promise I'll stop now, Okay, alright, Well,
we're gonna go ahead and close the tomb on this
one and and try and see let's shut But certainly

(01:04:44):
we'll be back with another Weird House Cinema episode next Friday.
I believe we're gonna be talking about a film of
of superior quality, both objectively and subjectively speaking. But in
the meantime, you can check out all these episodes of
Weird Hout Cinema that published on Friday's and the Stuff
to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We are primarily a
science podcast, but we set aside most of the science

(01:05:06):
on Fridays to discuss a weird film. Core episodes of
Stuff to Blow Your Mind on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Artifact
on Wednesday, and on Monday. We do listener mail rerun
on the weekend. Huge thanks as always to our excellent
audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
get in touch with us, with feedback on this episode
or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
just to say hello. You can email us at contact

(01:05:27):
at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
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