Speaker 1: Ripley, Come on, try to start this show. Welcome back
Speaker 1: midnight viewers. Do Father Belove Weekly Roundup. I'm Father Malone
Speaker 1: and here with me getting to the bottom of all
Speaker 1: these hauntings and possessions is miss Ripley. Gen how we're
Speaker 1: gonna get rid of all these wraiths Ripley ghostbusters? Only
Speaker 1: if we can salad Barrett. We'll take Winston. What's the
Speaker 1: name of that kid, Phoebe Chris Hemsworth. No, he's the secretary,
Speaker 1: He's not a ghostbuster. If we're just choosing any random
Speaker 1: character that shows up in the films, We're rounding out
Speaker 1: our team with Race Dance as blowjob ghost. I can
Speaker 1: already tell she'll be a valuable asset. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: who we can actually turn to as paranormal investigators. That's
Speaker 1: our theme this week. Because there was fuck all in
Speaker 1: new releases I was gonna go see in the theater.
Speaker 1: We're enjoying paranormal investigators that are courtesy of two of
Speaker 1: the finest UK fantasists of all time. Those are Alan
Speaker 1: Moore and Clive Barker. Fuck you, Neil Gamon. All right,
Speaker 1: we got TCB baby. That's TCB Mama. Hello, listeners follow
Speaker 1: them alone. Here this show This Toice a week that
Speaker 1: is slowly killing me is a one man band situation,
Speaker 1: one man and one dog band. But Ripley can't make
Speaker 1: cover art or type in episode synopsis with time codes,
Speaker 1: so any help is wildly appreciated. I do not expect
Speaker 1: a dime from anyone, but if you could do the
Speaker 1: free things, just hitting follow or subscribe or on whatever
Speaker 1: device you're listening on, or give it all the stars,
Speaker 1: give it thumbs up, give it a smiley face, whatever,
Speaker 1: fucking share the show. All these help the show reach
Speaker 1: more people. And if you're doing it, thank you. But
Speaker 1: if you do want to send a few bucks my way,
Speaker 1: that too would be appreciated. Not only am I devoting
Speaker 1: half my waking life to the show, but sometimes I
Speaker 1: even commit my own damned money. I had to go
Speaker 1: pick up a Blue Raider refresh my memory this week.
Speaker 1: There that's the end of that business. Here's some follow up, though.
Speaker 1: I've continued on with Yellow Jackets season three, and you know,
Speaker 1: I might dip out and return next season and watch
Speaker 1: everything in a recap, or maybe I'll just check out
Speaker 1: the season finale with the recap. That's starts it. I
Speaker 1: knew the present day storyline was spinning its wheels, but
Speaker 1: now our wilderness flashback is hand in hand, just skipping
Speaker 1: around without any fucking purpose. Moreover, whatever actions the younger
Speaker 1: characters do engage in makes me hate them and therefore
Speaker 1: hate their older selves, I'm now looking forward to their
Speaker 1: punishment as adults. If that's the creator's intent, bravo, And
Speaker 1: when it pays off, I'm going to applaud. But if
Speaker 1: you aren't trying to make me hate them, then maybe
Speaker 1: having this season basically be light comedy with their characters
Speaker 1: is a mistake. If you're uninitiated, let me try to
Speaker 1: describe the wild variance in tone. In a previous season,
Speaker 1: we discovered that one of our leads had made an
Speaker 1: altar in their basement to whatever dark God had held
Speaker 1: sway in them while they were stranded in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: On this altar was a dog's head. Their dog said
Speaker 1: that they had sacrificed to the darkness. This season, that
Speaker 1: character engages in some playful died and dash with her
Speaker 1: girlfriend while the Sunday's Dreams lilts over the soundtrack. I
Speaker 1: know we're living in a world now where seemingly a
Speaker 1: third of the population can willfully forget shit. That's right.
Speaker 1: You can solace yourself with that little nugget of encouragement.
Speaker 1: All the super assholes in America, they are only one
Speaker 1: third of the population and can be easily overwhelmed. They
Speaker 1: might be expecting viewers to forget, but I don't forget shit,
Speaker 1: particularly when this was only nine episodes ago. You know what,
Speaker 1: while I'm ranting about killing animals in popular entertainment, at
Speaker 1: least in yellow Jackets, that dog was sacrificed with a purpose.
Speaker 1: There's a flick from two thousand and five called Winter
Speaker 1: Passing with Ed Harris and Will Ferrell and Amy Madigan.
Speaker 1: Zooey Deschanel is the star. The movie opens with her
Speaker 1: drowning her kitten. I guess it was a challenge the
Speaker 1: filmmakers threw down. Can she come back from that? No? Nope,
Speaker 1: fuck you. I watched the rest of the movie. I
Speaker 1: noted all the performances and the filmmaking technique, and it
Speaker 1: was worth fuck all. On the most recent anthologies, Attack
Speaker 1: Antonio and I briefly touched on the incentivizing the lionizing
Speaker 1: of villainy over the past twenty five years or so,
Speaker 1: shows like Breaking Bad and every fucking thing Dennis Leary
Speaker 1: ever put out there. He's a cop who takes pills
Speaker 1: and cheats on his wife. Now he's a firefighter who
Speaker 1: takes pills and cheats on his wife. Now he's a
Speaker 1: sabertoothed tiger who takes pills and cheats on his wife. Gee.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say Dennis Leary's trying to tell
Speaker 1: us something, but has anyone done a wellness check on
Speaker 1: him or his wife? Shows like That or The Sopranos.
Speaker 1: What we thought was a dissection of and an attempt
Speaker 1: to understand how evil can operate ended up being a
Speaker 1: fucking recruitment film. So maybe Zooey da Chanelle's character had
Speaker 1: a terrible upbringing with a distant father. Well, we can
Speaker 1: all relate, But in my darkest moments, it would never
Speaker 1: occur to me to hurt the thing that loves me
Speaker 1: the most. And listen, I'm a guy who believes in
Speaker 1: third and fourth chances, But when a character gleefully stomps
Speaker 1: on innocence, they're no longer something I care for beyond clinically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fuck all these humans, and that's my yellow Jacket's update.
Speaker 1: I said they only had three seasons in them. What
Speaker 1: are the bits of business have I been up to?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Alien Isolation, I'm fully back into it. I am saving
Speaker 1: my pennies for that Star Wars Outlaw game, though that's
Speaker 1: my next thing. I just want a big, open world
Speaker 1: and the ability to destabilize as much of the Empire
Speaker 1: as possible till then. I'm hiding in lockers and I'm
Speaker 1: scurrying down hallways and I'm holding my breath and watching
Speaker 1: shadows and praying the goddamn alien will go away. If
Speaker 1: they do a VR version of Alien Isolation, i am
Speaker 1: not going to play it. That fucking game feels like
Speaker 1: the first movie way more than just Look and Interactivity?
Speaker 1: Did anyone ever play that adaptation of the thing? That's
Speaker 1: a really good one too. I must sound demented. My
Speaker 1: favorite video games are driven alternatively by paranoia and dread. Luckily,
Speaker 1: those areas are the domains of our lead characters in
Speaker 1: both of our picks this week. Paranormal investigators. Everywhere you
Speaker 1: look these days, you'll find them. Throw a rock and
Speaker 1: you'll hit one and do me a theyve a fink,
Speaker 1: throw it hard. Everyone is searching for them, spooks looking
Speaker 1: high and low, for the phantoms and the ghoules. Some
Speaker 1: people have turned it into a big business. There are
Speaker 1: entire television series predicated on exposing the supernatural, and yet
Speaker 1: somehow never doing that and staying on the air for
Speaker 1: fuck decades. Speaking of Charlatan's, I used to be a
Speaker 1: tour guide at the Haunted Museum here in Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: where they had us all signed NDAs and then lost
Speaker 1: those NDAs. I'm serious, man, I'm shocked they've never proven
Speaker 1: the existence of the other world. Not that I doubt
Speaker 1: their sincerity, I will say that it's just their methods
Speaker 1: that are questionable. You guys know what a spirit box is.
Speaker 1: It's basically a radio receiver which cycles through radio stations,
Speaker 1: focusing on the white noise in between the stations. Supposedly
Speaker 1: unfocused white noise acts as conduit for a particularly focused,
Speaker 1: in chatty spirit Okay, I've been around a spirit box
Speaker 1: hundreds of times. I've been around spa at boxes you've
Speaker 1: seen on television hundreds of times, and I have been
Speaker 1: weirded out by some of the words I've heard pomp
Speaker 1: out of the thing. And I'm also sure that there
Speaker 1: is nothing preloaded on it. But as someone who's had
Speaker 1: to power that thing on in the mornings and irregular maintenance.
Speaker 1: I can tell you those sounds and words and exclamations
Speaker 1: are just snatches that it's picking up from actual signals.
Speaker 1: So here in Vegas, that was a lot of Mariachi
Speaker 1: stations and a lot of car commercials stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying there wasn't weird shit going on in
Speaker 1: that building, but it wasn't where any customers were seeing it,
Speaker 1: and that isn't some veiled message about anything any human
Speaker 1: was doing. I'm saying there were some unusual, unexplained phenomenon
Speaker 1: that occurred there, but it was usually after hours or
Speaker 1: at least when there were very few people in the building.
Speaker 1: What that place needed was someone like Harry de Moore.
Speaker 1: Y'all know, Harry, you will. I've got a weird history
Speaker 1: with our first movie, but we'll get there. It's hard
Speaker 1: to remember a time before there was a hell Raiser
Speaker 1: or a Candy Man or the Night Breed, but there
Speaker 1: was a time when all of us horror fans heads
Speaker 1: spun around so hard that they might have popped off
Speaker 1: of our bodies. Thanks to a quote by mister Stephen King,
Speaker 1: I have seen the future of horror, and his name
Speaker 1: is Clive Barker. That's all any of us needed. And
Speaker 1: now we were gobbling up the books of Blood as
Speaker 1: fast as they could publish them. By the time those
Speaker 1: books were coming out, Barker had already been a successful
Speaker 1: underground playwright in London, forming his own theater group, The
Speaker 1: Dog Company with Doug Bradley, That's Pinhead, y'all and Peter Atkins.
Speaker 1: He wrote hell Raiser two, three and four, That's the
Speaker 1: one in space that needed a few xenomrps. Am I right.
Speaker 1: Unhappy with the director of his screenplays for Rawhead, Ranks
Speaker 1: and Underworld, Barker was prompted to make hell Raiser himself.
Speaker 1: That was followed by an adaptation of his novel Cabal,
Speaker 1: which became Night Breed, a criminally underrated feature we will
Speaker 1: be definitely talking about in the future. That film was
Speaker 1: a failure and didn't produce. The sequel that Clive Barker
Speaker 1: personally promised me was on the way. I literally ran
Speaker 1: into him in nineteen ninety two, and after all the
Speaker 1: I love you, I love your work business, I asked
Speaker 1: him if we were getting a sequel, and the man
Speaker 1: shook my hand and said it's on the way. I
Speaker 1: promise you're a dirty liar, Clive Barker, and my impression
Speaker 1: of you is terrible. His follow up ended up being
Speaker 1: another adaptation, but this was a short story from one
Speaker 1: of them there Books of Blood, in this case from
Speaker 1: volume six. The story was The Last Illusion, about a
Speaker 1: no nonsense private investigator named Harry de Moore hired to
Speaker 1: watch over the corpse of a recently deceased illusionist to
Speaker 1: protect it from the demons that he's assured will be
Speaker 1: coming for him. Damore would end up appearing in a
Speaker 1: clutch of other short stories, and then began to make
Speaker 1: appearances in some of Barker's novels like Weave World and
Speaker 1: The Great and Secret Show. In fact, twenty fifteen's The
Speaker 1: Scarlet Gospels is a full on Harry de Moore novel
Speaker 1: where the antagonist is the hell priest that's the actual
Speaker 1: name of Pinhead. He hates being called Pinhead Harrydmore in
Speaker 1: that first story, The Last Illusion is basically Philip Marlowe.
Speaker 1: Marlowe always seemed to stumble into things. As such, Dmor
Speaker 1: has no supernatural abilities. When the story begins, he's just
Speaker 1: come off his first case, which has only just made
Speaker 1: him a believer, But as the character evolved over the decades,
Speaker 1: he grew closer and closer to the platonic ideal of
Speaker 1: the paranormal investigator. Who could that be? We're talking about
Speaker 1: him next Right now, We're talking about the only on
Speaker 1: screen appearance of Harry de Moore nineteen ninety five's Lord
Speaker 1: of Illusions.
Speaker 2: Something is watching, something is listening, something is coming.
Speaker 3: How man you like.
Speaker 4: See the world?
Speaker 3: No way?
Speaker 2: Really is what's going on here? Detective Harry dmour is
Speaker 2: walking up path.
Speaker 5: I want you to help me.
Speaker 3: Will you take the job?
Speaker 4: Mister Damar?
Speaker 2: Where do I sign up? Between what can be seen?
Speaker 3: People are dying here?
Speaker 4: I want to know why.
Speaker 3: I've heard a name, somebody to talk about, a whispers?
Speaker 2: Who next? And what must be feared?
Speaker 4: This is that?
Speaker 3: And buried?
Speaker 2: Hell is wrong with your people? I think you've seen
Speaker 2: enough to know that doesn't matter. No, I don't.
Speaker 4: Want him getting in a way. I've all was waiting
Speaker 4: too long in ter the Homecoming.
Speaker 2: Oiled every step he takes. The drown the dark side
Speaker 2: don't buy that, not much, I'm sure Destiny, except that
Speaker 2: when he was hidden closer to the truths. You could
Speaker 2: get into people's heads, make them see things terrible friends see.
Speaker 4: That's his best trick. No illusions, just the truth.
Speaker 2: He makes his back from the dead.
Speaker 4: Then he is some kind of a.
Speaker 2: God in the world where magic is real, death is
Speaker 2: the ultimate illusion. I was born to murder the world.
Speaker 2: Are you ready for my wisdom?
Speaker 4: It's not real? You want to come with me?
Speaker 3: The more I've got so much power to give you.
Speaker 2: All you have to do spag Clive Bucker's Lord of Illusions.
Speaker 1: Ever been to a test screening? You line up hours beforehand,
Speaker 1: They jam you into whatever auditorium is the smallest, and
Speaker 1: whatever multiplex they figure is somehow far enough away from
Speaker 1: Hollywood to get an honest outside opinion, far flung regions
Speaker 1: like Marina del Rey or Cinta Monica. And after you
Speaker 1: have to fill out these ridiculous cards with ridiculously leading questions,
Speaker 1: and if you're especially unlucky, you'll get pulled out for
Speaker 1: a focus group after the majority of the audience has
Speaker 1: gone away. There you'll be treated to such revelations as
Speaker 1: I didn't like that character who the villain? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to one of the many test screenings I
Speaker 1: went to was Lord of Illusions. In researching this episode,
Speaker 1: I discovered there were two test screenings, the director's cut,
Speaker 1: and then the MGM mandated twelve minutes shorter version. That's
Speaker 1: the version that was released in theaters. I was there
Speaker 1: for the first screening, where my fellow attendees helped to
Speaker 1: make a much more confused film for your viewing pleasure. Ordinarily,
Speaker 1: when you hear a horror movie had a dozen minutes
Speaker 1: cut out, you figure all of it is loving close
Speaker 1: ups of viscera or impaling. Nope, ten minutes of dialogue
Speaker 1: in a sex scene starring I don't need to know
Speaker 1: any of these characters' motivations or how the plot is functioning.
Speaker 1: Don't show me people relating to one another and finding
Speaker 1: solace and mutual trauma. Get to the action, which I
Speaker 1: will not understand. I was in the focus group. Some
Speaker 1: people did say there was too much talking and that
Speaker 1: it was boring. They don't think they were wrong, not necessarily,
Speaker 1: They just didn't know how to express what was actually
Speaker 1: wrong with the film, and neither did I at that moment.
Speaker 1: My solution was to add more of the peripheral characters.
Speaker 1: But I find that true in all of Clive Barker's films,
Speaker 1: the heroes are kind of duds, ciphers for the audience
Speaker 1: to bear witness to all the fucking bizarre shit going
Speaker 1: on in Clive Barker's mind. Speaking of it's interesting looking
Speaker 1: back at his body of work and now realizing that,
Speaker 1: just as prevalent as the demons and creatures was a
Speaker 1: fuck ton of body horror. God damn, his work is
Speaker 1: a wash in it. I think I never really chucked
Speaker 1: him up as a body horror guy because he deviates
Speaker 1: so wildly from all the other practitioners in intent. Barker
Speaker 1: loves it. He revels in the thin line between pleasure
Speaker 1: and pain, and he wants you to revel along with him.
Speaker 1: Leather workers of the world rejoiced when the Cenobites hit
Speaker 1: the scene, and we've all been quietly tying up our
Speaker 1: significant others ever since. Lord of Illusions has one of
Speaker 1: my favorite opening scenes of all time. I have, at
Speaker 1: various times over the years, thrown it on and just
Speaker 1: watched till the story catches up to the present day
Speaker 1: and turned it off. It's a flashback to nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: two and a cult compound in the middle of the
Speaker 1: high California desert, the Mohave Desert. It says on screen, Nix,
Speaker 1: a magician, a real magician who can tap into the
Speaker 1: other side, is holding court with his followers and performing miracles.
Speaker 1: It's so incredibly grubby and off putting. It fucking beautiful.
Speaker 1: The entire set and then racing to the scene through
Speaker 1: fucking gales of blowing sand, are a Ford Thunderbird and
Speaker 1: a VW microbus filled with former cult members who are
Speaker 1: coming to rescue a little girl who Nix has kidnapped
Speaker 1: and will sacrifice. And there's a fucking mandrel running around
Speaker 1: the compound. Those are those blue faced bab boons. They're
Speaker 1: fucking horrifying. It's so manson family and yet worse than
Speaker 1: anything that ever happened on that actual compound. Those returning
Speaker 1: cultists are led by Swan. If you name a character Swan,
Speaker 1: I'm showing up The Warriors, Phantom of the Paradise, Pirates
Speaker 1: of the Caribbean. This Swan is played by Kevin J O'Connor.
Speaker 1: Most of you know him from The Mummy and Van
Speaker 1: Helsing and a bunch of other movies I actively hate.
Speaker 1: I know him from this and Peggy who got married.
Speaker 1: He's the beatnick in that No more jello for me, Ma.
Speaker 1: He's great there, he's great here, the perfect amount of
Speaker 1: twitchy and helpless and bold and detached. It's a really
Speaker 1: good performance throughout Watch Your Feet. I'm about to drop
Speaker 1: a name in this film during the present day, the
Speaker 1: president being nineteen ninety five. The little girl they end
Speaker 1: up rescuing her adult self is played by pre x
Speaker 1: men Fanka Jansen, who around this time I ended up
Speaker 1: being crammed right up against at an after party after
Speaker 1: a cast and creuse screening of a movie you've never
Speaker 1: heard of. And yes, she is that beautiful, and my god,
Speaker 1: she's really fucking funny. Now let me just pick that
Speaker 1: name back up and put it back in my pocket.
Speaker 1: So it's nineteen ninety five and all of Swan's cohorts
Speaker 1: are getting murdered, and Demor is hired to figure out
Speaker 1: who and what and where. And it was on the
Speaker 1: rewatch that I finally became my own Harry Demour and
Speaker 1: deciphered the mystery as to why Lord of Illusions doesn't work. Hilariously,
Speaker 1: it's because of my favorite scene, the opening flashback. It
Speaker 1: doesn't answer all of the questions that'll take to more
Speaker 1: and more than an hour to answer, but it does
Speaker 1: cover who and what and why, leaving our hero to
Speaker 1: stumble around trying to figure out a mystery we've already solved.
Speaker 1: That's why people were saying it was boring, it was
Speaker 1: a redundant. It would be like starting Citizen Kane with
Speaker 1: a young Charles Foster Caine announcing I'm off to play
Speaker 1: in the snow with my sled that I have named Rosebud.
Speaker 1: The rest of the movie, wo'd still be as masterful,
Speaker 1: but every time Jerry Thompson comes on screen, you'd just
Speaker 1: be annoyed that he doesn't know it's a sled. The
Speaker 1: other problem is Harry Demore. I know Scott Bacula has
Speaker 1: his fans, clearly, He's fronted how many successful television series now,
Speaker 1: and Marker is on record as saying, this is Harry
Speaker 1: Demore in looks and in attitude. I've always found him
Speaker 1: to be bland Kevin Costner. I'm gonna say that again,
Speaker 1: bland Kevin Costner, and hearing that Barker was so gung
Speaker 1: ho over him would ordinarily make me question his sanity
Speaker 1: until I read that they first offered the role to
Speaker 1: Christopher Reeve, who I would have totally bought in the
Speaker 1: part sincerely. Who else was on the Acceptable Bankable star
Speaker 1: list along with Scott Bacula in nineteen ninety five for
Speaker 1: this movie. He is a TV actor. I know that
Speaker 1: line is blurred these days TV and movies. Who cares
Speaker 1: not me unless you put a TV guy at the
Speaker 1: center of a movie, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: really like David Duchovny and would see a movie he
Speaker 1: was in, but I'm not seeking out a movie he's
Speaker 1: headlining TV guy. I'm curious how this film would play
Speaker 1: without the flashback at the start. If you put it
Speaker 1: around the one hour mark, you know, when Harry figures
Speaker 1: it all out, that might have served the story a
Speaker 1: little bit better. So the lead is a dead fish,
Speaker 1: the mystery is given away in the opening scene. Anything
Speaker 1: else wrong with it?
Speaker 4: Oh my?
Speaker 1: Yes, the makeup effects are across the border rock solid,
Speaker 1: and ditto the majority of the optical effects. But the CGI.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 1: The next time someone giggles about the PlayStation quality of
Speaker 1: the Scorpion King, point them in the direction of Lord
Speaker 1: of Illusions. That means Kevin J. O'Connor was in Van
Speaker 1: Helsing and gi Jo Rise of Cobra. The damage is
Speaker 1: minor here, but those other two flicks are poster children
Speaker 1: for overreach. There's nothing we can't do now. That's the
Speaker 1: same thinking behind who needs a full orchestra when the
Speaker 1: synthesizer can do it all? Or we'll do everything in
Speaker 1: the volume that won't start looking peculiar at all. Oh
Speaker 1: and Swan's Valet. Oh and other problems with the movie
Speaker 1: Swan's Valet Valentine or Valentine. He has this awful perm
Speaker 1: and goatee combo that I find deeply disturbing on a
Speaker 1: sub atomic level. As if a major domo as a
Speaker 1: character isn't off putting enough, let's slap that follicle farce
Speaker 1: onto him. Am I even recommending this movie.
Speaker 4: To that?
Speaker 1: I have one word Butterfield? Fuck? Yeah, I'm recommending this
Speaker 1: movie thanks to the character of Butterfield. In the film,
Speaker 1: all of the villains are human who have tapped into
Speaker 1: the world of magic. In the short story, demons disguised
Speaker 1: as humans have come to claim Swan. Swan's lawyer, Butterfield
Speaker 1: turns out to be the actual villain of the piece,
Speaker 1: and at the story's end, warn Swan, He's now marked
Speaker 1: by the Gulfs. That's a common phrase in Barker fiction,
Speaker 1: the Gulfs. It's a hillacious version of the afterlife. In
Speaker 1: Lord of Illusions, Butterfield is Nix's right hand, a more
Speaker 1: stylish right hand you'll not likely find this side of
Speaker 1: Vulnavia doctor Phibes's Galfry. Butterfield, played by Barry del Sherman,
Speaker 1: has one milky eye and a closet full of the
Speaker 1: tightest gold lemet pants you've ever seen. By the end,
Speaker 1: he's got a crushed velvet gold top, which somehow doesn't
Speaker 1: come off as matchy matchy with those pats. I am
Speaker 1: not sure why Marvel hasn't snapped mister del Sherman up
Speaker 1: for a major villain role. I love his performance here, ed,
Speaker 1: he's so stabby. He makes stabbing look actually painful. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes in movies it's the equivalent of saying bang and
Speaker 1: the person falling over. Butterfield and Barker are here to
Speaker 1: remind us that sharp things hurt, and Butterfield has his
Speaker 1: own right hand, an undead skinhead who looks like he
Speaker 1: stepped off the pages of John Constantine Hellblazer in fact,
Speaker 1: there's quite a bit of odd crossover between these franchises.
Speaker 1: None pleasant, but we'll get there with ripspick. All the
Speaker 1: villain stuff here is great, particularly if you have the
Speaker 1: director's cut, where Nix's cult gets the word of his
Speaker 1: imminent return and set out slaughtering everyone associated with the
Speaker 1: normal life they've assimilated it into during the past thirteen years.
Speaker 1: It also has the mighty Daniel von Bargen as Nicks.
Speaker 1: The previous two decades had him mostly in detective roles
Speaker 1: on TV and in film, but here as the Puritan,
Speaker 1: the dark savior meant to bring the apocalypse, he fucking shines.
Speaker 1: He's only got two scenes, but they are nothing less
Speaker 1: than memorable. In fact, that's most of Barker's work for me,
Speaker 1: if I'm being honest, A collection of some of the
Speaker 1: best scenes with some of the most interesting characters. Ever,
Speaker 1: it's just that the frame there hung on as faulty
Speaker 1: as fuck, and end up stumbling hard somewhere down the
Speaker 1: line with greater and lesser degrees of success. Obviously, Hell
Speaker 1: Raiser is his most fully realized film as a director,
Speaker 1: though as a producer he helped gods and monsters get
Speaker 1: through the studio system. So there's that he's suffered a
Speaker 1: spate of ill health over the past decade and sworn
Speaker 1: off book signings and convention appearances in order to focus
Speaker 1: on the work. Did I mention I love Clive Barker
Speaker 1: and I will cherish the lies he told me over
Speaker 1: three decades ago. I don't think he quite gets the love,
Speaker 1: or frankly, the credit he does, not just for turning
Speaker 1: horror on its head, but for maybe loosening the ability
Speaker 1: for most people to accept other sexual quirks, or more realistically,
Speaker 1: realize that we've all got them. It's just that some
Speaker 1: of us are willing to risk hell to achieve them. No,
Speaker 1: not you, I hope not you. I'm using the Royal
Speaker 1: Wei meeting me hit at hp.
Speaker 4: K because.
Speaker 1: Thank you, hp Would you look at all the stupid
Speaker 1: human tricks? It's all I can see these days. Rip
Speaker 1: has the paranormal Investigator for her choice of the week.
Speaker 1: That's right. He's better than Carl Colechek, better than Fox Molder,
Speaker 1: better than the Winchesters. Is he better than Jules de Granden?
Speaker 1: That's a fucking deep cut. And if you get that
Speaker 1: without googling, hit me up and I'll shout you out
Speaker 1: in the next episode. Fatherom Ma alone seven to one
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Now I'm talking about the smooth
Speaker 1: talking supernatural con man from Liverpool. He looks like Sting
Speaker 1: and he dresses like a rumpled extra from the front
Speaker 1: page lead singer for a Mucus membrane. I've got venus
Speaker 1: on the heart cell on Vinyl yo. He's wanted by
Speaker 1: every king of Hell, mister John Constantine. That's the actual
Speaker 1: pronunciation according to creator Alan Moore, by the way, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to be saying Constantine strictly out of habit.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in the world today, there's a one hundred year
Speaker 1: old comic book Nerd sneering at all of us because
Speaker 1: his formative character was Batman when he was introduced. I
Speaker 1: have no intention of getting to that lofty vintage, but
Speaker 1: if I did, I would behave exactly the same way.
Speaker 1: When it came to John Constantine. By eighty five, I
Speaker 1: was fully DC and my guy was swamp Thing. He
Speaker 1: was created by Lenuen and Bernie Wrightson and basically just
Speaker 1: acted as a minor horror hero. When Alan Moore took
Speaker 1: over the writing for Alan Hollin, he became an elemental
Speaker 1: one with the green and the Parliament of trees, and
Speaker 1: helping him along the way on these new spiritual paths
Speaker 1: was a wise old mystic. And here was Alan Moore's innovation.
Speaker 1: The majority of humans that as movers and shakers in
Speaker 1: the realm of the occult and comic books are wizened
Speaker 1: old crones or frail, white bearded men. Swampton's connection to
Speaker 1: the other side was a thirty five year old, street wise,
Speaker 1: hard scrabble, endlessly charming rogue. In nineteen eighty five, both
Speaker 1: Harry de Moore and John Constantine hit the scene, but
Speaker 1: Constantine is an immediate hit and begins appearing in other
Speaker 1: DC titles, and de Moore remains in only the two
Speaker 1: published stories. When DC Vertigo decides in nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 1: that they're going to give Constantine his own title, that
Speaker 1: title is obvious to all involved. John Constantine hell Raiser
Speaker 1: or just hell Raiser, except Clive Barker has just announced
Speaker 1: that he's adapting his novella The hell Bound Heart into
Speaker 1: a feature film called hell Raiser, So now it's John
Speaker 1: Constantine hell Blazer. Alan Moore is already at war with
Speaker 1: d C and Jamie Delano has given the writing duties,
Speaker 1: with John Ridgeway on artwork and the mighty Dave McKean
Speaker 1: supplying collage covers, which are amazing. It's run as writer
Speaker 1: and the follow up run by garth Ennis that would
Speaker 1: give us all the incredibly rich history of Constantine in
Speaker 1: the past, present in future. Delano gave us the botched
Speaker 1: demon summoning in his twenties that resulted in a young
Speaker 1: girl being dragged to hell, and gave us the rogues
Speaker 1: gallery of friends and enemies that John will eventually treat
Speaker 1: as enemies and friends. But garth Ennis's run on the
Speaker 1: title would give us the most delicious of plot lines,
Speaker 1: what happens when a man who's damned for all of
Speaker 1: his supernatural misdeeds is laid low by a disease he's
Speaker 1: given himself. That run was called Dark Habits in the
Speaker 1: comics and is the basis for the film's actual plot
Speaker 1: from two thousand and five, This is Constantine.
Speaker 2: What cool show?
Speaker 5: No, mister Constantine, I'd like to ask you a few questions.
Speaker 5: I know the circles you travel in the you call
Speaker 5: it extracisms.
Speaker 4: Easy there here it's dragon's breath.
Speaker 3: I thought you couldn't get it anymore.
Speaker 4: Oh oh no, a guy knows a going.
Speaker 5: I thought that you could at least quint me in
Speaker 5: the right direction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, sure.
Speaker 1: Please What if I told you that God and the
Speaker 1: Devil made a way for the souls of all men come?
Speaker 2: No direct contact with humans, that would.
Speaker 4: Be the rule, just influence. See who would win?
Speaker 3: Demons stay in hell andels in heaven.
Speaker 4: They call it the balance.
Speaker 5: I need to see what you see.
Speaker 4: You do this.
Speaker 3: There's no turning back. You see that they see you understand.
Speaker 2: The nights.
Speaker 3: I come at me, the boys, I'll come back Goodell.
Speaker 1: Originally announced as a film to be directed by Tarsum Singh,
Speaker 1: that could have been interesting with Nicholas Cage as John Constantine.
Speaker 1: I am so glad this did not happen. That at
Speaker 1: least prepared the hardcore fans that we weren't going to
Speaker 1: be getting an English Constantine, and the drafts of the script,
Speaker 1: first by Kevin Broadbin and then a pass by Frank Cappello,
Speaker 1: confirmed that this was a Los Angeles based story, with
Speaker 1: Constantine an American. No word if he was going to
Speaker 1: look like sting in a tope trench coat. Producer Akiva
Speaker 1: Goldsman did an uncredited rewrite for the final draft and managed,
Speaker 1: for the first time ever, not to plunge the entire
Speaker 1: project into mediocrity. I've read the earlier drafts. They are
Speaker 1: very close to the final film. Goldsman's draft seems based
Speaker 1: on budgetary constraints, switching locations and combining characters or eliminating others. Chaz,
Speaker 1: one of Constantine's oldest friends, was scaled away back in
Speaker 1: age to accommodate then hot property Shia La Buff's participation
Speaker 1: and the stupidest opening explanation title cards this side of
Speaker 1: the completely idiotic narration that was added to the television
Speaker 1: broadcast of John Carpenter's The Thing are added this is
Speaker 1: Gnol's a product of Watts. Oh, now I know who
Speaker 1: everyone is and what's going on. Here's Academy Award winner
Speaker 1: Ifkiva Goldsman's preferred method of introducing us to Constantine. Quote,
Speaker 1: he who possesses the spear of Destiny holds the fate
Speaker 1: of the world in his hands. Unquote. It's a quote
Speaker 1: credited to no one. Okay, then it lets us note
Speaker 1: that the spear has been missing since World War Two,
Speaker 1: so that we'll automatically understand why it's wrapped in a
Speaker 1: swastika and also how it ended up in Mexico. Great job, man,
Speaker 1: here's hoping yours is the first name on any potential
Speaker 1: sequel script now, having bagged on that, I love everything
Speaker 1: else going on in this film. Yeah, it's got a
Speaker 1: slight music video tinge to it, but that's not surprising,
Speaker 1: as this was Francis Lawrence's first feature film after a
Speaker 1: career making music videos. Ironically, on Keanu Reeves's list of
Speaker 1: director's requirements, he had specifically ruled out working with a
Speaker 1: video music director. But other than that, there isn't much
Speaker 1: I don't like about this adaptation. I didn't mind the
Speaker 1: new backstory for John, or the fact that he doesn't
Speaker 1: use his newly found heeled self to immediately start smoking again,
Speaker 1: or the fact that director Lawrence pulled out a scene
Speaker 1: with Michelle Monaghan because it was a postcodal scene with
Speaker 1: Constantine and a half breed demon and he felt as
Speaker 1: though that would dilute the notion of his loneliness. Mister Lawrence,
Speaker 1: if you think you can't have sex and be lonely,
Speaker 1: you are out of your mind, and it makes the
Speaker 1: film weird because she's still in other scenes it's obviously
Speaker 1: Michelle Monahan, but now she's got one line and it's
Speaker 1: expositional and sad. But all in all, I cannot recommend
Speaker 1: the movie enough. And since DC is in full operation
Speaker 1: with James Gun running the show, how about we get
Speaker 1: a follow up? They keep threatening and taking it away,
Speaker 1: then Keanu goes to the mat. We're back on the
Speaker 1: road now. I don't know, but I am encouraging everyone
Speaker 1: to go back and rewatch or watch the movie for
Speaker 1: the first time. Maybe an algorithm will shake loose and
Speaker 1: will get lucky. This flick taught me more than anything
Speaker 1: that as long as the character remains the same at
Speaker 1: his core, it does not matter his origin or loyalty
Speaker 1: to the original.
Speaker 4: Look.
Speaker 1: If you want total devotion to that, check out the
Speaker 1: one season of the TV series. They made everything looks
Speaker 1: and sounds comic accurate, and it is a lifeless mess
Speaker 1: with a smug asshole in the form of Matt Ryan
Speaker 1: and the lead no charisma at all. Stop using him
Speaker 1: at the very least. If you're not gonna go with Keanu,
Speaker 1: how about a period piece in Thatcher era England. Just
Speaker 1: make it cool, Just give us more Constantine or Constantine whatever.
Speaker 1: We need him more than ever and that's gonna do it.
Speaker 1: Anything more, young lady, bring back pop culture Jeopardy. You
Speaker 1: know we can see Colin jo just every Saturday night.
Speaker 1: I know you're asleep, but that's the only time we're
Speaker 1: watching live, which we can do now on the West
Speaker 1: Coast thanks to streaming Fuck Your Running Dress at eleven
Speaker 1: thirty NBZ. Thank you all for joining us once again.
Speaker 1: This Friday is the midnight viewing I promised for last Friday.
Speaker 1: It's tell Us in the Dark Side against Season three.
Speaker 1: We will see you there. Until then, I'm leaving you
Speaker 1: with some of my main man nicks. Daniel von Bargin.
Speaker 1: As you listen, remember on Seinfeld he played mister Krueger,
Speaker 1: George Costanz's boss who couldn't be bothered with working. Oh me, George,
Speaker 1: oh me.
Speaker 2: You see, I escape from the grave, so I have
Speaker 2: to give something to the grave and return.
Speaker 4: Yes, show us, I have to give to them. Be
Speaker 4: I'm giving you what's happening.
Speaker 3: Not worthy?
Speaker 2: Yea is worthy?
Speaker 3: You just waited like lauds.
Speaker 1: One more, one more from the load of evolutions. I
Speaker 1: love it so much. Vincent Skivelli holding court at the
Speaker 1: Magic Castle and being grilled by Harry DeMar And that
Speaker 1: will be the end. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 3: I think you'd have some theory.
Speaker 2: Theories. I have many theories.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd like to hear one of them.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not saying another bird, you damn fool Wilder.
Speaker 4: This man is a journalist. No, no, I'm not a journalist.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to know about Swan.
Speaker 4: He was a freak. Everything he did was tanked with
Speaker 4: what evil. He was evil.
Speaker 1: Do not speak another word to this man if you
Speaker 1: wish to keep my company.
Speaker 4: It's a great accent. By the way, what is it, Brooklyn? Hey?
Speaker 4: Fuck it right, shut
Speaker 2: Show, show, show,