Speaker 1: Weird way.
Speaker 2: Welcome back Midnight viewers to what ordinarily would be a
Speaker 2: Father Malone's weekly round up. Instead, well, I'm still Father Malone,
Speaker 2: but this week on the show, we're switching it up
Speaker 2: a little and crossing over. That's right. I was lucky
Speaker 2: enough to be a guest on Paul Waller's incredible horror podcast,
Speaker 2: A Year in Horror. There's going to be a link
Speaker 2: in the notes. Go over there and experience the pure
Speaker 2: joy of horror fandom that is personified in Paul Waller.
Speaker 2: He has been on Midnight Viewing a few times in
Speaker 2: the past. I'll put links to that as well. He
Speaker 2: guested on our creep Show episode and again on our
Speaker 2: Trick or Treat episode. That's the heavy metal eighties horror
Speaker 2: movie trick or Treat, not the misguided anthology trick er Treat.
Speaker 2: As his podcast name suggests, Paul covers a particular year
Speaker 2: in horror. He is currently covering the year nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: and I dropped in to discuss Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the
Speaker 2: tale of an unhinged madman and his revolting creation. But
Speaker 2: enough about Kenneth Branna anyway. What follows is our conversation
Speaker 2: about Victor Frankenstein and his creation, which is timely given
Speaker 2: that we're getting a full bells and Whistles reimagining next
Speaker 2: month with Giermel del Toro's version of Frankenstein. By the way,
Speaker 2: knowing what a fan of Bernie writes in that del
Speaker 2: Toro is, I am positive that our creature is going
Speaker 2: to be That writes an interpretation from his illustrated Frankenstein,
Speaker 2: you know, the one back from nineteen eighty three. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I cannot link that below, but you should look it up.
Speaker 2: It's all etching and it's all gorgeous. Before I hand
Speaker 2: you off to Paul, I wanted to mention a couple
Speaker 2: of things during our conversation. I bring up the show
Speaker 2: Penny Dreadful and its portrayal of Frankenstein's monster. The name
Speaker 2: that I fumble around for is Rory Kanear. He's the
Speaker 2: talented actor playing the monster. Most might know mister Kanear
Speaker 2: from the recent Double seven films. He's m I six
Speaker 2: agent Bill Tanner, and fans of Black Mirror will remember
Speaker 2: him from the National Anthem episode you know, the Prime
Speaker 2: Minister and the Pig. He was the Prime Minister. Also,
Speaker 2: I mentioned while fumbling around for his name, that he's
Speaker 2: the son of another actor. That's his dad, Roy Kannar,
Speaker 2: who was a very funny and those sal Kinds produced
Speaker 2: three Musketeer movies from the nineteen seventies, but just about
Speaker 2: everyone on earth him as Henry Salt, father to Varuk
Speaker 2: assault in Willy Wonka and the Chompet Factory. Another self correction.
Speaker 2: We talk about the movie May and I mistakenly refer
Speaker 2: to its lead actress as Angela Mattis. It's Angela Bettis
Speaker 2: that popped into my head five minutes after we finished recording.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad I can bring it up here. Lastly,
Speaker 2: October fourth and fifth, those dates are fast approaching, and
Speaker 2: with it the Nightmare in Vegas Horror Convention, in car Show,
Speaker 2: midnight viewing will have a presence there. I'll be on
Speaker 2: display in my priest collar. What the fuck? Why not? Right?
Speaker 2: The real question now is mustache or not? We'll see.
Speaker 2: Joining me will be HP, host of Noise Junkies and
Speaker 2: Night Mister Walter's podcast, as well as the Culture Cast
Speaker 2: Chris Stashue and other guests and surprises and giveaways and
Speaker 2: handouts and free hot dogs. That part is not true
Speaker 2: get your own food. There will be sass on tap though.
Speaker 2: That's sassy attitude. That'll be flowing free freedom public. That's
Speaker 2: a service we provide. Tune in Friday Asbichfest continues. We've
Speaker 2: got Aliens Versus Predator w Requiem, the first direct sequel
Speaker 2: to any of the Predator adjacent films. HP joins me
Speaker 2: as usual for all of our fests. Morana's Fest is
Speaker 2: on the horizon. Everybody looking at all the filmed entertainment
Speaker 2: released theatrically, I'm not watching nine hundred hours of SCTV
Speaker 2: of mister Rick moranis that is in anticipation of his
Speaker 2: return in space Balls two also this October. Wait, I
Speaker 2: guess HP isn't on every fest. We are starting up
Speaker 2: the Books of Blood Fest here at Midnight Viewing, examining
Speaker 2: all the filmed adaptations based on Clive Barker's seminal horror anthologies,
Speaker 2: The Books of Blood. We've got a rotating group of
Speaker 2: horror heavy hitters joining me for that series, including mister
Speaker 2: Paul Waller, Tell the people what you do?
Speaker 3: Paul.
Speaker 4: My nine is Paul Waller, not Weller. I'm a horror
Speaker 4: movie addict. Due twenty twenty, the workload for my music
Speaker 4: industry job explode right down, and the sign to I
Speaker 4: discovered the movie social networking platform called Letterbox, so I
Speaker 4: decided to fill in the gaps of my horror film knowledge.
Speaker 4: I'm still averaging two a day, and this podcast is
Speaker 4: a result of that horror compulsion. This is a year
Speaker 4: in horror.
Speaker 2: But you know what the most facts in your world is,
Speaker 2: It's fair every year.
Speaker 3: Fine, okay, nineteen ninety four, On the very release date
Speaker 3: of this episode, I can take you back.
Speaker 4: Twenty nine years to that very year, ninety ninety four.
Speaker 4: So yeah, welcome back, horror list lovers. We've returned. Last
Speaker 4: month we covered the complete Wes Craven filmography pawn an
Speaker 4: All and the top three horror films according to me
Speaker 4: that he's directed were in reverse order. At number three,
Speaker 4: Scream that is, of course, the one with the most
Speaker 4: iconic opening scene of it ever film ever, I reckon
Speaker 4: in my time that I've been alive. Number two was
Speaker 4: an oldie, but a filthy goldie called The Last House
Speaker 4: on the Left, and a number one hot shot was,
Speaker 4: of course, Vampire in Brook, A Nightmare on Elm Street,
Speaker 4: an incredible work of terror the birth of an eighties
Speaker 4: icon and a staple of my screens.
Speaker 2: For many, many a year.
Speaker 4: So that was last month, done, dusted, devoured. And now
Speaker 4: this month, well it's different because we are back at
Speaker 4: looking at individual years and the horror movies that were
Speaker 4: released therein And last month I pulled out the hat
Speaker 4: nine teen ninety four, the year that Kurt Cobain died.
Speaker 4: Now I think it's not really even in the general
Speaker 4: conversation anymore, but the nineties has always had this bad
Speaker 4: rap for being a stinker of a decade for horror,
Speaker 4: but a really interesting one for music. And these days
Speaker 4: it's pretty much deemed to be as good as any other.
Speaker 4: But there was that long stretch where just people would
Speaker 4: always give the nineties crap. No need because look, I'm
Speaker 4: going to be the judge of this. It's my shows
Speaker 4: what I'm here for. And when we get to the
Speaker 4: end of all these years, I'll tally up these podcast
Speaker 4: stats and I'll tell you. I'll tell you what was
Speaker 4: the worst decade, And if it's the nineties, well then
Speaker 4: I'll eate my foot. Now for this one, I watched
Speaker 4: twenty four horror films altogether. Now that's hardly anything compared
Speaker 4: to a normal yearly run.
Speaker 2: But it is what it is.
Speaker 4: As for the world wide box office bums on seats,
Speaker 4: well just check out this top three. At number three
Speaker 4: was True Lies with Jamie Lee, Kurtis.
Speaker 2: And mister Swatsneggar.
Speaker 4: And then following that we have number two Tom Hanks
Speaker 4: in Forrest Gump. Now that film is a marmite for everyone.
Speaker 4: Some people think it's one of the best films ever made.
Speaker 4: A lot of people think it's total trash. All I'll
Speaker 4: tell you is whenever I see it, I cry my
Speaker 4: eyes out from beginning to end.
Speaker 2: But the number one movie.
Speaker 4: At the box office, would you believe it, narrowly beating
Speaker 4: Forest Forest Gump, It was Disney's The Lion King. Was
Speaker 4: there any horror in that top twenty though, Well there
Speaker 4: were two things. Jack Nicholson was in The Wolf, of course,
Speaker 4: of course he was. And then we have Tom Cruise
Speaker 4: and Brad Pitt and Christian Slater making all the way
Speaker 4: to the number ten position with Interview with the Vampire. Regardless,
Speaker 4: I've been juggling my list around and let me tell
Speaker 4: you my top eight is a very tight believe that,
Speaker 4: But I mean, come on, it's pretty awful. Only eight
Speaker 4: films that I could say hand on are essential. It
Speaker 4: is a pretty slight year ninety four. But what else
Speaker 4: was going on in ninety four? Well, musically, nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 4: as I've already said, was awesome. The very first couple
Speaker 4: of pages of rat Your Music for what It's Worth
Speaker 4: give you a very, very awesome overview of what is
Speaker 4: out there. The ones I recommend and picked from it
Speaker 4: were Portershaad, Dummy, weez Are, the Blue Album, Pavement, Crooked Rain,
Speaker 4: Crooked Rain An albums so good they named it twice,
Speaker 4: Sunny Day, Real Estate's Diary, The Beastly Boys, Ill Communication,
Speaker 4: Built to Spill, There's nothing wrong with love Holes, live
Speaker 4: through This, and of course shell Ac Action Park. But
Speaker 4: what was the actual news. Well, here's three things that
Speaker 4: AI told me happened in South Africa. Nelson Mandela became
Speaker 4: the nation's very first black president after the end of apartheid.
Speaker 4: Close to the home, the Channel Tunnel was finished and launched.
Speaker 4: And I'm going to dump both of these final things together.
Speaker 4: Is that both pretty tragic? The very first episode of
Speaker 4: Friends aired and the Rwandan genocide began, so pretty bad.
Speaker 4: Christ that was the times important and often shocking current events, sure,
Speaker 4: but not nineteen seventy horror movie podcasting times, right, So
Speaker 4: how do things work on the show. Well, for those
Speaker 4: new to the show, here is a sick quick guide
Speaker 4: to what a Year in Horror is all about. This
Speaker 4: is a podcast where I choose a year at random
Speaker 4: every month, and then I run down my very personal
Speaker 4: favorite films of that year. It's that easy. That is
Speaker 4: the podcast in a nutshell. Also, with each episode, I
Speaker 4: am joined by some outrageously handsome human guests. They help
Speaker 4: me sift my way through the most interesting films of
Speaker 4: the bunch. And for this the nineteen ninety four Big
Speaker 4: Hitter episode, where we've got a new special guest in
Speaker 4: the guise of filmmaker Rick Rawlins. Plus, we've got three
Speaker 4: regular friends that are podcasts who've come back into the fold.
Speaker 4: We've got Stephen Hill of the Stupendous True Cult Pop podcast,
Speaker 4: a staff writer at Metal Hammer magazine as well. We've
Speaker 4: got fatherm Alone from the Midnight Viewing podcast. Also, we've
Speaker 4: got author Paul Terry. He's returned after we chatted a
Speaker 4: load about Cold Check a few months back. And you
Speaker 4: know what that is going to be a welcome return
Speaker 4: for all three of those people. So yeah, there we go.
Speaker 4: I've also just noticed no women. I need to sort
Speaker 4: that out. But you know that is a pretty cool
Speaker 4: collection of well adjusted guys, right, So here we go.
Speaker 2: We're almost there.
Speaker 4: My definition of horror is sometimes considered wrong, just plain
Speaker 4: wrong by those self appointed gatekeepers with a more defined
Speaker 4: opinion of what makes a horror and actual horror. And
Speaker 4: sometimes my rather witty and astute and precise takes of
Speaker 4: what is a horror, well, they make it to the
Speaker 4: very high reaches of the chart. So if you are
Speaker 4: one of those easily triggered folks, then just be prepared
Speaker 4: to get rammed up the wrong side by a Ramakin,
Speaker 4: probably gripped by the mighty Lono from We Belong Dead. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that might happen. I've just thought, as I'm saying that
Speaker 4: Lono also isn't on this show. I need to sort
Speaker 4: this out more, Lono, I say, I'm going to sort
Speaker 4: that out asap. Where was I in my little script?
Speaker 4: I've lost the point nineteen ninety four. There we go,
Speaker 4: that's where we are. It was a difficult number one
Speaker 4: to choose for me. The top four were being shuffled
Speaker 4: around quite a lot, so be aware when we get
Speaker 4: there that my number one could be your number four, etc.
Speaker 2: Etc.
Speaker 4: And when we make it to the very end of
Speaker 4: this episode, going to be picking out of a bag
Speaker 4: at random the very next year that am going to
Speaker 4: tackle the next month's edition of the show. And you
Speaker 4: might well be thinking, hang on, Paul, scroll back a
Speaker 4: bit twenty four films. You can't call that enough to
Speaker 4: judge a whole year in horror. You might be right,
Speaker 4: But here's the reason. I've got to have some rules
Speaker 4: to follow to create this show, and the movie needs
Speaker 4: to score at least three out of five on Letterbox
Speaker 4: for me to watch it. And sometimes there's gonna be
Speaker 4: exceptions to the rule. And nineteen ninety four it saw
Speaker 4: the release of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Kenneth Branner Atrocity.
Speaker 2: Right, Well maybe not, but maybe it's always.
Speaker 4: Been seemingly looked down upon by the horror community and
Speaker 4: I'd never seen it. So with Arrow just putting out
Speaker 4: a four K, me being a newbie to it, well,
Speaker 4: how can I say no? Even though it only scored
Speaker 4: two point nine on letterbox. Finally, I'm only a fan.
Speaker 4: I'm an enthusiast. I am not a scholar of horror.
Speaker 4: I am a dabbler in this darkness. So for the
Speaker 4: most part, I don't watch these things academically. It's an obsession,
Speaker 4: much like I imagine you have that same obsession. I get
Speaker 4: excited about this stuff still all the time, month after month.
Speaker 4: I can't wait to dig into the next batch. So
Speaker 4: remember it's all my opinions. It's a list show. If
Speaker 4: I miss something out that you love, let me know.
Speaker 4: I really do want to discover the new stuff. Also,
Speaker 4: if you pick up a great tip from me, why
Speaker 4: not email us here at the podcast. I'm at A
Speaker 4: Year in Horror at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: That easy.
Speaker 4: You can also instagram me I'm at Wallernut Weller letterbox
Speaker 4: be I'm at Wallernot Weller on there as well. And
Speaker 4: you know, if you enjoy it, give it a five
Speaker 4: star review?
Speaker 2: Why not? I don't know what that does anymore? Does
Speaker 2: it do anything? I don't know?
Speaker 4: Are you ready? It's nineteen ninety four, A Year in Horror,
Speaker 4: Robert de Niro as the Creation. I mean, it's the Monster, right,
Speaker 4: A reanimated corpse who is rejected by humanity and swears revenge.
Speaker 2: On the world as a result. Yes, fucking please.
Speaker 4: Thing is I've been put off watching this film for
Speaker 4: so many years for a multitude of reasons. But it
Speaker 4: only took one suggestion from Father Malone to say, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm going to come onto the show and I'm going
Speaker 4: to chat with you about it for me to go right.
Speaker 4: I'm going to put aside my negativity by the arrow
Speaker 4: four K and holy poopy poop pants, it was proper
Speaker 4: worth at Sunshines. Yes, indeed it was. Here is the
Speaker 4: letterbox synopsis for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein is a
Speaker 4: promising young doctor who, devastated by the death of his
Speaker 4: mother during childbirth, becomes obsessed with bringing back the dead
Speaker 4: from death to life. His experiments lead to the creation
Speaker 4: of a monster, which Frankenstein has put together with the
Speaker 4: remains of corpses. It's not long before Frankenstein regrets his actions.
Speaker 1: They're a passion. You're no limits, but he's obsession.
Speaker 2: No one need ever die.
Speaker 1: You're not boundaries. Francis Ford Corpola presents a classic story
Speaker 1: of true love. Let Me help You, Terror, Robert de Niro,
Speaker 1: kerev Brna, Calina Bottom, Carter, Mary Shelley's Franklin Stone read.
Speaker 2: And starts Friday, November four, then.
Speaker 1: A theater near you.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's time for the chat ah. Oh yeah, it's myself.
Speaker 4: It's Father Malone and he is of the most wonderful
Speaker 4: Patreon channel. That is right, it's patreon dot com forward
Speaker 4: slash Father Malone. But if that's not good enough for you,
Speaker 4: then why don't you type into your local podcast emporium,
Speaker 4: podcast searching device, podcast midnight viewing. That's where you're gonna
Speaker 4: find him. You must prepare to be flawed with the
Speaker 4: good old fashioned movie tainment, because that's what that man delivers.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 4: We are just about I don't know wenes is coming
Speaker 4: out two and a half months ago talking all about
Speaker 4: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: Father alone. Hello, good afternoon, evening whatever. I don't know someone, Yeah,
Speaker 2: not that early though.
Speaker 4: Well, this oddly will come. I think this comes out
Speaker 4: before the one we've already recorded for Wes Craven. So
Speaker 4: that's interesting. But this film I had dedicated previously in
Speaker 4: my life zero time too, never seen it before, never
Speaker 4: cared and there are a few reasons behind it.
Speaker 2: So you've gone for Mary Shelley's.
Speaker 4: Frankenstein from ninety four. I'm going to before we get
Speaker 4: to this film in particular, I would love to know
Speaker 4: like your history with Frankenstein, Frankenstein's self, like with regards
Speaker 4: to maybe the books, maybe other films, like are you
Speaker 4: a fan of Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a fan of Bradley what we consider the
Speaker 2: universal Monsters, and naturally frank is front and center there.
Speaker 2: Earliest memories of Frankenstein. My family had an eight millimeter
Speaker 2: projectory silent projector, and you could buy eight millimeter Little
Speaker 2: Leader's Digest sort of condensed versions of films, so you
Speaker 2: would have a fifteen minute version of a three Stooges film,
Speaker 2: although those were only fifteen minutes anyway, but you get
Speaker 2: my point. So we had a copy of Frankenstein Versus
Speaker 2: the Wolfman, which I got to use to watch like
Speaker 2: on a wall or a sheet all the time. So
Speaker 2: that's my earliest memory of him, and that is that's
Speaker 2: more of a wrestling movie than it is a horror movie,
Speaker 2: so he wasn't really scary to me. And then at
Speaker 2: the same time, because I grew up in the seventies,
Speaker 2: so I was watching reruns of The Monsters, which is
Speaker 2: primarily my main image of Frankenstein is probably Fred Gwynn.
Speaker 2: But at the same time it was the groovy Gholies.
Speaker 2: There is mad Monster Party. It was not a good
Speaker 2: time to be frightened of frankenstat. I get that. Franken
Speaker 2: Berry cereal was on every tay, every kitchen table, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. He was pretty widered down as
Speaker 2: a boogieyman by then. I'll goly give you my top
Speaker 2: five Frankenstein movies. So at number five from nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: I've put Franken Hooker Patty Mullen. I love that film, love.
Speaker 4: That film, but it's a weird choice because it's not
Speaker 4: Frankenstein's Franken Hooker. But I still had to put it
Speaker 4: there at number five. Number four, Frankenstein Meets the wolf Man.
Speaker 4: I can't believe that was your first foray into that.
Speaker 4: I watched that a few months ago. I loved it.
Speaker 4: I absolutely loved it. I couldn't believe that I'd never
Speaker 4: seen it before and was like, oh, this is my
Speaker 4: first one.
Speaker 2: Was amazing. The fucking ice cave stuff, man, that's good stuff.
Speaker 2: He disappeared to a k oh, look there's a cave.
Speaker 2: He disappeared to this ton. Okay, sure for those of
Speaker 2: you who need continuity.
Speaker 4: It's so rubbish, but it's so amazing and I love
Speaker 4: it for it. So next one Hammer now sixty seven
Speaker 4: Frankenstein Created Women.
Speaker 2: Yes, good, excellent flick. Excellent flick.
Speaker 4: Number two Mary Shelley's Frankenstein unbelievable. We'll get into it
Speaker 4: in a minute. My number one from thirty one Frankenstein
Speaker 4: Universal Monsters.
Speaker 2: I would add a few to that list.
Speaker 4: I'm interested in that, so I don't know. I mean
Speaker 4: at the end, I'm going to ask you to put
Speaker 4: a flick with it for a double bill, but without
Speaker 4: spoiling that, Like where would you send people for like
Speaker 4: some cool Frankenstein stuff.
Speaker 2: I would tell them to check out for performances as Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: For the character of Frankenstein. I would tell them to
Speaker 2: check out The Bride. That was the film What's Starring
Speaker 2: unfortunately sting, but it features a performance by Tom Noonan.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm sorry, Clancy Brown, My god, what am
Speaker 2: I talking about? Tom Nonan plays the monster in the
Speaker 2: Monster Squad, but Clancy Brown, the Kurgan from Highlander, plays Victor,
Speaker 2: the Monster and the Bride. He's fucking fantastic in it,
Speaker 2: rocky horror picture show. That's a pretty that's a pretty
Speaker 2: good Frankenstein movie. I would encourage everyone to go there
Speaker 2: and along those lines. My favorite fan of the Paradise
Speaker 2: there is a there is a Frankenstein sequence in there.
Speaker 2: It's brief, it doesn't really qualify, but my god, it's
Speaker 2: a phantasma oracle version of the Frankenstein myth and with
Speaker 2: a great song going absolutely counts.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, if we're including like Frankenstein makes the Wolfman,
Speaker 4: hey see counts?
Speaker 2: Okay? Cool? All right?
Speaker 4: So which brings us to this film? I've already said that,
Speaker 4: like where I rank this one? Like it's so high
Speaker 4: for me, And I thought a lot of this film
Speaker 4: was pretty bad as well, but when it shines, it
Speaker 4: really shines for me. What about you, like in general
Speaker 4: with Mary Shirley s Frankenstein, is it something that you.
Speaker 2: Are into? Like were you ever into this film? I
Speaker 2: saw this movie opening day in Century City, California, of course,
Speaker 2: and that's this is on the heels. We should say
Speaker 2: that this is about a year after Bram Stoker's Dracula
Speaker 2: comes out. Francis Ford Coppola's version, which is the superior
Speaker 2: version of that book as far as I'm concerned, as
Speaker 2: far as adaptations. So expectations were high because Francis Ford
Speaker 2: Coppola and This and James Heart, the screenwriter of Bromstarkers
Speaker 2: Regular are the executive producers and effectively producers of this film.
Speaker 2: So what it seemed like was what we're getting is
Speaker 2: a whole new era of the universal monsters, you know,
Speaker 2: and but a literary bent on it. Very excited, very excited.
Speaker 2: And on top of that, they've gotten Kenneth browna who,
Speaker 2: to a young Boston Irish kid, was a fucking hero
Speaker 2: to me after Henry the Fifth. My god, yes, I'll
Speaker 2: stand with him. And he's basically following the orson Wells path,
Speaker 2: so he's starring and writing and directing and just running catering.
Speaker 2: I was in love with that fool. So the prospect
Speaker 2: of this movie was very My expectations were very high.
Speaker 2: And then I saw it, and then my expectations were very,
Speaker 2: very low. I do not like this movie. I there
Speaker 2: are moments in this film that I think are great,
Speaker 2: there are performances that are great, there's some production stuff,
Speaker 2: but I remember thinking at the time and then this
Speaker 2: was wholly confirmed on the rewatch. Maybe he's just an egomaniac.
Speaker 2: When I think of Orson Wells and I think of
Speaker 2: the movies he was making and starring it, I never
Speaker 2: think he's not talented enough to pull this off. And
Speaker 2: I think that several times while watching Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's miscasting. Maybe he casts the wrong guy in it,
Speaker 2: maybe he hired the wrong director. One or the other
Speaker 2: is out of balance here.
Speaker 4: He is the reason why I never went to it
Speaker 4: like I. You can't imagine how much I hated much
Speaker 4: ado about nothing. You can't imagine this was totally not me.
Speaker 4: I don't want costume, dramay stuff, ruffles, mohusive, tight bodices
Speaker 4: that sort of height it.
Speaker 2: Can I tell you that I was a projectionist when
Speaker 2: that movie came out, and I had a trailer for it,
Speaker 2: and when we would have parties at the theater after hours,
Speaker 2: and I made a loop. There's a moment in the film,
Speaker 2: and it's in the trailer where it's a close up
Speaker 2: of a masked figure and the mask pulls off and
Speaker 2: it's Keanu Reeves looking trying to look really defiant, and
Speaker 2: it was really funny but I had a couple of
Speaker 2: different trailers, so I was able to splice that moment
Speaker 2: and turn it into a loop, so we would have
Speaker 2: a party in the theater while Keanu Reeves took his
Speaker 2: mask off over and over again for hours on end.
Speaker 2: I imagine that was much better than the film. Oh
Speaker 2: much better. Certainly.
Speaker 4: I hate that stuff, and like Helena Bond and Carto
Speaker 4: is in it all at that time, and like, knowing
Speaker 4: she was in there, I do you know what this
Speaker 4: is going to be? So and then I saw the
Speaker 4: running time and stuff, you know, like when you're pulling out,
Speaker 4: like do I want to rent this?
Speaker 2: And it's like, yeah, oh, certainly scan down to the runtime. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if it's ninety minutes, I'll fucking go for it. But
Speaker 2: like ninety seven, one hour fifty four not having it?
Speaker 4: So yeah, So it comes with that all that baggage,
Speaker 4: which is fair enough, my personal baggage that I put
Speaker 4: to this film. And I've always been reluctant until you
Speaker 4: picked it, and I was like, right, I'm going to
Speaker 4: And then I was like, do you know what, let's
Speaker 4: get that nice four karrow thing. It's just come out
Speaker 4: so I can watch it as good as I possibly can.
Speaker 4: And as I mentioned there that I loved a lot
Speaker 4: of it, but I really hated a lot of it.
Speaker 4: And I'm still so unsure of what I feel about
Speaker 4: this film and what got me all the time. All
Speaker 4: the time I was thinking, is this just because it's
Speaker 4: a different time night before? But was incest like a
Speaker 4: cool thing in the nineties?
Speaker 2: Was it a common thing? Was it not looked down upon?
Speaker 2: I certainly felt by then we had begun looking down
Speaker 2: on incestin in no small fashion. Okay, because I'm confused.
Speaker 2: Well now, now, to be fair, a part that's his
Speaker 2: adopted sister. It doesn't alleviate anything. It doesn't. We're in
Speaker 2: the land of Edgar Allen Poe marrying a fourteen year
Speaker 2: old cousin. This is the time frame we're talking about.
Speaker 2: I'm not condoning any of it, but no, it adds
Speaker 2: a weird layer to it. And what's startling to me
Speaker 2: is Bromstoker's Dracula. They called it Bromstker's Dracula in an
Speaker 2: announcement that this is the first time you're actually going
Speaker 2: to see that novel put on screen. So the promise
Speaker 2: was that's what they're doing here as well. Which is
Speaker 2: in no way what they've done. They've made up whole
Speaker 2: sections of plot in character, they've borrowed from other films
Speaker 2: in some cases just it. You guys can do what
Speaker 2: you are.
Speaker 4: That I remember reading a book like when I was
Speaker 4: very young, in fact, I think I was not nine
Speaker 4: or ten, but I do remember that it like those bookends,
Speaker 4: and they're in here, So I do remember that. And
Speaker 4: like something that never ever appeared was when they they
Speaker 4: he helps like another family or something in secret, and
Speaker 4: that was in here, but it was so vague from me.
Speaker 2: I couldn't remember.
Speaker 4: Was that another book that I'd read because I was
Speaker 4: bigin to Ivanhoe and things like that as well at
Speaker 4: the time, Like it could have been something in that
Speaker 4: I don't know, but no, it turns out it was here,
Speaker 4: and I'm glad for that. But like, I haven't gone
Speaker 4: through my extras yet. So there's a documentary on that thing,
Speaker 4: which is like the differences between the book and and
Speaker 4: I think that'll be interesting to go in.
Speaker 2: So like where did they stray like terribly?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 2: The thing is they're not necessarily straying all the time
Speaker 2: so much as extrapolating, which is what you do when
Speaker 2: you adapt a book into a screenplay, right, you take
Speaker 2: what you think is the most important section. So what
Speaker 2: they've chosen to do here is to focus on the
Speaker 2: romance portion of the Frankenstein book, which is the love
Speaker 2: between him and Elizabeth, which is mentioned in the book,
Speaker 2: and she's more of a prop than anything in the book,
Speaker 2: and then consequently in the film, although they've tried to
Speaker 2: pump up her character and their romance, the problem is
Speaker 2: it is the flattest romance. I do not care. The
Speaker 2: characters don't care for each other. It's so melodramatically produced.
Speaker 2: It's all stirring music and unearned. There's not even any passion.
Speaker 2: These two were fucking at the time, and there's just
Speaker 2: nothing on screen that turns yeah, man, yeah man. Helena
Speaker 2: Bonham Carter professional home wrecker. So yeah. At the time,
Speaker 2: Brian is married to Emma Thompson cast Helena bonm Carter
Speaker 2: in this and they hook up while they're making this movie.
Speaker 2: Helen Bonham Carter moves on. Remember Lisa Marie, Remember the
Speaker 2: Martian and the Martian woman in Mars Attacks. Okay, so
Speaker 2: they do. Tim Burton does Planet of the Apes. Lisa
Speaker 2: Marie is in Planet of the apes as one of
Speaker 2: the chimpanzee ladies, but the main chimpanzee is Helena Bonham
Speaker 2: Carter who breaks them up and takes and now, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's called zero chemistry on the screen. That is insane.
Speaker 2: Zero chemistry, man like negative, Like they've chosen to focus
Speaker 2: on an aspect of the book that is barely there
Speaker 2: and unnecessary to the plot of this fucking movie. And
Speaker 2: these two people who are actually in an affair are
Speaker 2: just like, Oh, you can tell why it didn't last.
Speaker 2: You have blown my mind with that. I can't believe that.
Speaker 4: It's like they hate each other, like in real life,
Speaker 4: that's what it feels like. And it's like we've contracted
Speaker 4: in to do this now and that's the total opposite.
Speaker 2: I'm stunned. Wow. They Yeah, you know what's funny is
Speaker 2: the way they interact and just went the way they kiss,
Speaker 2: it makes it reinforces the brother and sister of it.
Speaker 4: Oh, there is a holy shit moment in this film
Speaker 4: for me, and it is when the romance hopefully is
Speaker 4: finished at some point.
Speaker 2: And then we it never finishes, God damn it.
Speaker 4: We get a sort of fade a black and then
Speaker 4: we open up and we're in a sort of grotty
Speaker 4: alley way, and there is a de Niro as the
Speaker 4: monster just you know, cowder like you know, and I
Speaker 4: was just like, oh, hang on, that's good.
Speaker 2: I like that, and.
Speaker 4: Every single step of the way for a good chunk
Speaker 4: of this film. At this point, I was like, this
Speaker 4: is the best Frankenstein stuff I've ever seen. I was
Speaker 4: so I was loving everything within that moment. But I
Speaker 4: don't know how a film can fire so flatly, like
Speaker 4: almost flatlining, Like I didn't know how we were going
Speaker 4: to talk about this film at all.
Speaker 2: How are we going to do it?
Speaker 4: And then that kicks in, and then we get to
Speaker 4: that family, as I mentioned, and I'm like, what's going
Speaker 4: to happen here? I'm really invested. Is it impressive to you? Like,
Speaker 4: as I say, I loved it, It's fine if you think,
Speaker 4: oh man, that was pretty rubbish as well, but like,
Speaker 4: where would you go with like that moment, my holy
Speaker 4: shit moment?
Speaker 2: Where would you rate that? That's when the movie comes alive. Actually,
Speaker 2: what I remember that I liked about the film initially
Speaker 2: was the stuff with the monster, And then watching it
Speaker 2: again last night, I really love the stuff with the monster.
Speaker 2: And now I'm convinced we were robbed of a much
Speaker 2: better film that focused on the monster and his dealing
Speaker 2: with the world, because he's always been a pitiful figure
Speaker 2: as a character. He did not ask to be this
Speaker 2: thing and does not understand his place or anything and
Speaker 2: has to find his way. And this is now what
Speaker 2: I did like about what we were saying, Like, this
Speaker 2: sort of sequence of the monster learning is very rarely,
Speaker 2: if ever shown, where we get to see how he
Speaker 2: came to speak and how he got up vocabulary. In fact,
Speaker 2: it should have been longer that he should have spent
Speaker 2: more time with this family. They added the blind Man.
Speaker 2: Now the blind Man is a character from Brian or Frankenstein,
Speaker 2: and now he keeps showing up in all these verses
Speaker 2: of Frankenstein. But let's not kid ourselves. He's not in
Speaker 2: the novel. But if we're going to include him, why
Speaker 2: aren't they friends for a good portion of this film
Speaker 2: before the other family find out that the dad's new
Speaker 2: friend is a fucking monster and beat him up. No,
Speaker 2: I don't beat him off, but you know what I mean, I'll.
Speaker 4: Take it like that is key and I in all
Speaker 4: it was getting chills at various moments where like because
Speaker 4: I hadn't seen it before on film, like where he's
Speaker 4: peeking through and he's learning about love because of the
Speaker 4: relationship between the mum and the dad in the family,
Speaker 4: and like about how they treat their children, and like
Speaker 4: this is an alien concept to him, and it felt
Speaker 4: so good.
Speaker 2: And when he's trying to mouth.
Speaker 4: Words together, and I was just like, I was so
Speaker 4: impressed with what I was watching, and I did a
Speaker 4: foolish thing halfway through is I read a few reviews
Speaker 4: and it said that a common quite a common trait
Speaker 4: within them was that de Niro was miscast. Now, you
Speaker 4: mentioned something about being missed. A couple of people miscast earlier.
Speaker 2: Only one, only one, No, only Kenneth Brown has miscast
Speaker 2: in this movie. I think de Niro was. Everyone was
Speaker 2: all a buzz when he was cast in the movie, like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, what's he going to do with it? Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's not miscast in the movie. He's unfortunately got a
Speaker 2: bad movie framed around him. And we're not given enough
Speaker 2: of this guy that we're not given enough of this
Speaker 2: the creature who finds joy in doing good for this family,
Speaker 2: for helping them. We don't get enough of this monster
Speaker 2: who for the I think for the first time cinematically,
Speaker 2: whenever they've gone to include the character of a bride
Speaker 2: character he does demand it in the novel, but this
Speaker 2: is the only time it isn't completely creepy from the
Speaker 2: get go. It always comes off as I want to mate,
Speaker 2: give me a girl, whereas this is the monster recognizing
Speaker 2: that in a family there is satisfaction in peace and acceptance,
Speaker 2: and that's what he needs. So that's what he's asking for.
Speaker 2: Not give me a mate, but give me a companion please,
Speaker 2: And that sings in this movie. And Danira pulls all
Speaker 2: that off. Man when they finally run him off, and
Speaker 2: he's just bawling like a child, Like, who can't feel
Speaker 2: bad for him? Man, tell me that's a bad performance.
Speaker 2: What are you out of your minds?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think it's Stella, Like I couldn't believe.
Speaker 4: There was a moment where he pulled like from the
Speaker 4: frozen ground, like it was pulling turnips out for the family,
Speaker 4: And as I said, I was getting tills and like,
Speaker 4: it's so rare that you are in love with a
Speaker 4: film at that moment, And that was one of them
Speaker 4: that the music swelling and stuff and like I think
Speaker 4: it's because he didn't expect anything back. He just wanted
Speaker 4: to help them because they're helping him and they don't
Speaker 4: even realize they're helping him.
Speaker 2: It's just such a.
Speaker 4: Great moment, and it's like it makes me like love
Speaker 4: discovering things that I've poo pooed in the past.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just felt so good watching that, and then I
Speaker 4: just thought to myself, right, what is this.
Speaker 2: Film got to offer now?
Speaker 4: So we've got the I would say that the ship
Speaker 4: met out the way, but we've got all the romance
Speaker 4: stuff that that's not going to come back.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do that because we heaven for a fen
Speaker 2: that they bring that back over and over it and
Speaker 2: refocus the entire movie for a portion. But I was
Speaker 2: sad John Claese is gone. Don't you wish that that
Speaker 2: had been like his Igor character, like that has been
Speaker 2: his assistant. Instead, what they've done is, see here's a
Speaker 2: book changed from the book. The Henry Clairval character, the
Speaker 2: Tom Holt's character. He's a good performance in it too.
Speaker 2: Is he's trying to provide the comic relief, straining mightily
Speaker 2: against this script to provide the comic relief. But he's
Speaker 2: Victor's childhood friend. He never leaves Geneva and then eventually
Speaker 2: the monster kills him when in the book, So I
Speaker 2: know they added it added him to the the ingelestatt
Speaker 2: section of the movie, but just so Branna has somebody
Speaker 2: to talk to, but they had the perfect guy to
Speaker 2: talk to. Let's continue talk about junklies, but I want
Speaker 2: to talk about the main problem with the Victor Frankenstein
Speaker 2: character and as he's characterized here.
Speaker 4: After all I wanted to say about the John Clee
Speaker 4: thing is that he was the ray of light in
Speaker 4: the whole romance bit where we kept going to him
Speaker 4: and he it was like, oh, okay, so he's going
Speaker 4: to be the guy that takes him under his wing
Speaker 4: and we're going to get to learn from him. There's
Speaker 4: going to be some monologues going on. It just feels
Speaker 4: cut off before. And I've just come from watching the
Speaker 4: Life of Brian as well, so instantly, you know, it's
Speaker 4: fresh in my mind. I know it is capable of
Speaker 4: got all those great memories from him, and here he's
Speaker 4: not playing to type at all. And I was just
Speaker 4: really enjoying it and like to get as I say,
Speaker 4: like an anti VAXXA just doing away with him fair enough,
Speaker 4: like with today's knowledge, Like that's an interesting way to go.
Speaker 2: But I could have done with him and the rest
Speaker 2: of the film for sure. Yeah. I First of all,
Speaker 2: he looks remarkably like Billy Connolly in this film for
Speaker 2: some reason, with that wig. I'll try. I kept thinking
Speaker 2: it was Billy Connolly on occasion. But Coleice Alalys seemed
Speaker 2: like the darkest member of the Pythons, if that's possible.
Speaker 2: Some others might have shown it more. But there's just
Speaker 2: something deeply disturbed about him, and so having to having
Speaker 2: that come out a bit is really enjoyable. In fact,
Speaker 2: like when he gets to the end, like there's a
Speaker 2: moment right before a transition where he lowers his voice
Speaker 2: and they were abomin nations and it's like, oh boy,
Speaker 2: I can't wait for more of this guy. Oh no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we're just gonna shuffle him out here. We're gonna shuffle
Speaker 2: him out of here because of the main problem with
Speaker 2: the movie is Kenneth Brana is a fucking megalomaniac. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about it then.
Speaker 4: So the other thing in the reviews, okay, was Kenneth
Speaker 4: Branna shouting like instead of like acting his way through it.
Speaker 4: He decided to shout his way through several scenes. Now
Speaker 4: that was the worst I could pick. I could think
Speaker 4: of a few other things to say about him. The
Speaker 4: issue with he.
Speaker 2: Made you think, I think, Okay, I think in each
Speaker 2: of his movies he cultivated and then bristled against the
Speaker 2: sort of Orson Wells comparison, like the sort of boy
Speaker 2: genius does it all kind of thing. So when it
Speaker 2: came to this movie, he has to look back at
Speaker 2: all the different performances of Victor Frankenstein up until then,
Speaker 2: and he has to find a lane that hasn't been
Speaker 2: done and he has to commit to it. And meanwhile,
Speaker 2: newly fit Kenneth Branna because he's Hollywood eyes. Now he's
Speaker 2: done dead again by now? And did he do much
Speaker 2: to do about nothing but it probably yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 2: he decided to make this an ode to his physique
Speaker 2: and make this a muscular Victor Frankenstein instead of the shivering,
Speaker 2: barely sunlit lab dweller or the jibbering maniac. He was
Speaker 2: going to make him a football start. I mean, the
Speaker 2: let me okay, we'll get more of this, but I
Speaker 2: do want to say that my main problem with the
Speaker 2: characterization of Victor Frankensteinire is he wants him to be
Speaker 2: the completely obsessed maniac, the character who needs to conquer
Speaker 2: death or create life more to the point, but he
Speaker 2: also wants it to be happy and romantic. So we
Speaker 2: get the death of his mother, which is the kickoff
Speaker 2: point in the novel and points to why he's doing
Speaker 2: this to begin with. I think he doesn't want anyone
Speaker 2: to die. But that shift in character means that he
Speaker 2: is now deeply wounded and flawed and obsessed with one
Speaker 2: thing and one thing only, and he becomes dissociated from
Speaker 2: his town. Like in the book that he leaves and
Speaker 2: they don't hear from him anymore, and he's just fucking
Speaker 2: focused on his business. But here they want to cultivate
Speaker 2: the romance, so he's still I mean, we find out
Speaker 2: he's not writing letters, but we're made to think he is,
Speaker 2: and it distracts from everything, and it makes his character like,
Speaker 2: you can't be fucking bouncy and tortured. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 4: It's such a shame. There is too much naked Kenneth,
Speaker 4: you know. I feel like it's a you know, when
Speaker 4: dads discover Instagram and then then get all buff.
Speaker 2: It's like that.
Speaker 4: It's like it's like, yeah, I might be divorced, but
Speaker 4: look what I can do. It's got that sort of
Speaker 4: vibe to it. But it's so melodramatic. It's so every
Speaker 4: single thing that he does isn't just done as it
Speaker 4: would be. Everything has to be important, and yeah, if
Speaker 4: you were focused on this one thing, like that's what
Speaker 4: you would be focused on, you'd become a nerd within yourself,
Speaker 4: you know you would.
Speaker 2: You would be like, right, I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2: I'm going to do this properly. And I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't ever feel that. I just don't. It's so wild wild. Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's face it that he's decided that the birth sequence
Speaker 2: is going to be him fucking the monster into life.
Speaker 2: It's him disrobed and running and grunting and pulling chains
Speaker 2: that make logs slam into other things and bodies swinging
Speaker 2: around and then dumped into a vat of amnionic fluid.
Speaker 2: Now they make a point to show us in some
Speaker 2: sort of workhouse medico situation, a woman giving birth and
Speaker 2: a spittoon of some sort catching all the amniotic fluid
Speaker 2: so later when we see that tank and it's filled
Speaker 2: to the brim, and you know that Paul, you, me
Speaker 2: and everyone could get into that fucking tank. How long
Speaker 2: was he collecting that? Did he have people on staff?
Speaker 2: Where's his money coming from? What's going on here? It's
Speaker 2: really weird anyway, Yeah, it's so weird. So he makes
Speaker 2: it like this thing where Frankenstein golden locked Frankenstein. Let's
Speaker 2: not forget that. We're talking a lot about the physique,
Speaker 2: but he really frames it all with this giant mane
Speaker 2: of a lion hair. You know, he learned from his
Speaker 2: actual hero, Laurence Olivier. If you're gonna make the black
Speaker 2: and white movie, make sure you're blonde. You want to
Speaker 2: you want all the focus on you. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It just ends up being ridiculous him to your point,
Speaker 2: shouting instead of it's alive and the joy of it,
Speaker 2: he's screaming it into life. He's making it live because
Speaker 2: he's so virile.
Speaker 4: I think that scene is uh, super gay. I super
Speaker 4: enjoyed it. I didn't expect anything like that, you know,
Speaker 4: I was expecting like a you know, when there's a homage.
Speaker 4: A homage is very good word for it. I was
Speaker 4: expecting that and that's not what we got. It's not
Speaker 4: at all. It was so gay, and I was like,
Speaker 4: I don't know where this is gonna go.
Speaker 2: This is electric eels. Let me talk, let's speak to
Speaker 2: the phallicness of it all. There's no lightning here. There's
Speaker 2: a vat of electric eels that is in a bladder
Speaker 2: that is pulsating, and then he hooks up a tube
Speaker 2: and sends in the eels.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a fantastic birthing scene of the monster, but
Speaker 4: also absolutely ridiculous. And here's the thing, right that was
Speaker 4: still in a bit where I'm still uming and a
Speaker 4: ring about this whole film, as I say, And it
Speaker 4: wasn't enough to get me on board, but it was bizarre.
Speaker 2: It was just bizarre.
Speaker 4: It took like that de Niro sequence to sort of
Speaker 4: get me into this thing, and it really did get
Speaker 4: me into it, but it didn't last well.
Speaker 2: Can I just say that the end of that scene,
Speaker 2: when we finally get the monster with the vat of
Speaker 2: viscous fluid that dumps out onto the floor and Frankenstein
Speaker 2: comes and just tries to help him stand that scene,
Speaker 2: I'm making fun of Branna a lot for his performance here,
Speaker 2: but his instinct as a filmmaker there to let that
Speaker 2: play because it goes on forever. I think back. I
Speaker 2: only saw that Movi be in the theater thirty years ago,
Speaker 2: thirty three years ago something, and that's the image that
Speaker 2: comes to mind him those two sort of slickly trying
Speaker 2: to get up this do this amnionic slide, this naked
Speaker 2: oil wrestling moment, the diddy dip, if you will. It's
Speaker 2: shocking and disturbing and horrifying and sweet at the same
Speaker 2: time because he really is trying to help his creation
Speaker 2: here and he hasn't yet rebuked him. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Something about that whole image is what makes the whole movie.
Speaker 2: If the movie works at all, it's working right here.
Speaker 4: In an interview that I watched somewhere on YouTube after
Speaker 4: I watch this, he called this film a gothic romance.
Speaker 4: He didn't mention horror, no shit, Jesus, But in that
Speaker 4: moment it's so gross, like if you were going to
Speaker 4: say a pinpoint of horror moment, it's so like cinema,
Speaker 4: you know, you'd be like, oh, watching this thing, it
Speaker 4: fit that at that moment, it really does feel like
Speaker 4: a horror, and it's not your traditional scares or anything
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: It's just something that's so sick, and it's revulsion, which
Speaker 2: you rarely get in a movie without it just being
Speaker 2: gross out. There's something, there's a creeping factor to it
Speaker 2: that that gets under your skin, and it's almost by accident.
Speaker 2: So maybe that's why it's featured so well, because there's
Speaker 2: nothing in the rest of the movie that does a
Speaker 2: horror movie. It's all action from there on out. You
Speaker 2: can't even have the character sneak up on another character.
Speaker 2: There are so many moments where you could have easily
Speaker 2: crafted a scare in this film, and he's just like, no,
Speaker 2: I'll have him jump off a cliff like a fucking
Speaker 2: wrestler for some reason. Here, what are you doing? What about?
Speaker 4: Like when the monster stitches up the maid, I think
Speaker 4: it is for killing the girl, and then a group
Speaker 4: a mob finder and then they hang.
Speaker 2: Her so they throw off.
Speaker 4: Its a really tall building and like the neck crack
Speaker 4: and everything. The way that's filmed is so mattterrift rather
Speaker 4: than like dumb for a horror scare. So I still
Speaker 4: of get where he's going, Like his nose, it's a
Speaker 4: gothic romance rather than that, well.
Speaker 2: You don't want to live in Geneva, man, that the
Speaker 2: townsfolk there are just ready to rite at every fucking moment.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know what's funny is I appreciated that
Speaker 2: they accelerated the sequence from the book here where the
Speaker 2: maid gets framed for Williams murder. But the thing is
Speaker 2: in the book they try her, there's a trial, and
Speaker 2: she's sentenced, and then she's hung publicly and Victor does nothing.
Speaker 2: He just stands because he doesn't want people to know
Speaker 2: that it was his creation that actually did this. And
Speaker 2: then that guilt is part of the part of the
Speaker 2: escalating guilt that he feels, and it just gets getting
Speaker 2: worse because it just keeps coming and coming and coming
Speaker 2: for him. But he's not interested in that. He's interested
Speaker 2: in the romance part of it. And this annoyance of
Speaker 2: a character.
Speaker 4: You mentioned this the sort of like the way they
Speaker 4: fastly go through the book, and it feels like to
Speaker 4: me and I can't remember the book very well, but
Speaker 4: there's certain things that we know when you close your eyes,
Speaker 4: like oh, I think there was like a snowy mountains
Speaker 4: and stuff, and there they are, but like it goes
Speaker 4: so fast through all these things, like it becomes an
Speaker 4: epic adventure where he then goes off to find the
Speaker 4: monster and you know, we're in like snow snowcap mountains
Speaker 4: and things, and then the next scene that they're talking
Speaker 4: in a cave and then the next scene is it
Speaker 4: all happens so fast it's crazy for me that like,
Speaker 4: what's happened.
Speaker 2: To this film? Yeah, you know what's funny? Okay, So
Speaker 2: I don't know the work of Steph Lady all that much,
Speaker 2: but I do know Frank Darebyn's work, and he should
Speaker 2: have motherfucking known better because structurally this movie is so
Speaker 2: concerned with and I think this is owing to the
Speaker 2: bram Stokers Dracula of but all, it's so concerned with
Speaker 2: telling the aspects of the book that hadn't been told
Speaker 2: before as a novelty that it ends up overstuffed, so
Speaker 2: we end up skimping on things that we need, which
Speaker 2: it's so busy jumping scene to scene to plot point
Speaker 2: to plot point that you know, Yeah, in the book,
Speaker 2: Victor is searching in the mountains for the monster and
Speaker 2: then they end up in his cave and then they
Speaker 2: have a conversation. But like we we don't look when
Speaker 2: the monster showed up at the manor and said, I'll
Speaker 2: meet you on the frozen sea, and then okay, so
Speaker 2: then we've got a scene of him fucking mountain climbing,
Speaker 2: and then we've bet in the tax scene, and then
Speaker 2: he's got to wake up and slowly come to and
Speaker 2: now we're in the cave. He's standing there. Right then, Victor,
Speaker 2: I need a mate. I'm going to keep killing people
Speaker 2: until you give me a mate to have the conversation
Speaker 2: right that. Why did we need that sequence other than
Speaker 2: here's what happened to the book, y'all, and nobody's done this,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to do.
Speaker 4: It, and I did mention I'm at the beginning of it,
Speaker 4: and I don't want a really long film. I just
Speaker 4: don't like it until I'm in a film that I'm
Speaker 4: really enjoying. Then I just wanted to go on forever.
Speaker 4: But it felt like a cheat to just like skip
Speaker 4: so quickly, like that whole sequence, which should have been
Speaker 4: like twenty minutes or something like maybe five. Maybe, you know,
Speaker 4: It's just I thought it was crazy the way we
Speaker 4: just did that.
Speaker 2: The entire lead up to them in the cave, and
Speaker 2: conversation should have been spent in conversation, because when de
Speaker 2: Niro is telling him his woes, I'm very locked in.
Speaker 2: People who said he's miscast, by the way, I want
Speaker 2: to reiterate, are idiots. He's great here.
Speaker 4: I only ever hear de Niro's voice one time, one time,
Speaker 4: and it's weird when it slipped through, and it is
Speaker 4: in that is in that monologue. It just slips once.
Speaker 4: But how I mean, with that voice, how can you
Speaker 4: help it right? But I just say, it's so convincing.
Speaker 4: I'm so convinced he is the monster. Although and I
Speaker 4: want to get to something about it. The makeup design
Speaker 4: doesn't make sense. Nope, it's not very good.
Speaker 2: It's once again, just as Broano was, I'm going to
Speaker 2: do muscular, athletic Victor Frankenstein. We have to not in
Speaker 2: any way do what they've done before with this monster,
Speaker 2: which is very limiting. It's been done. The character has
Speaker 2: been drawn and sculpted and makeuped over sixty years by now,
Speaker 2: seventy eighty years by now. So yeah, you got to
Speaker 2: do something different, but maybe just make it scary because
Speaker 2: he needs to be scary. As it is, it looks
Speaker 2: like a man who was involved in an accident. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the townspeople's reactions to him are Yeah, little children would
Speaker 2: point and cry, certainly, and people would have some yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, and people would have some rude things to say.
Speaker 2: But it wouldn't be like, oh my god, it's a monster.
Speaker 2: If you saw born Karlov coming down the street, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're gonna run, Christopher leaven and I wouldn't also, you know,
Speaker 2: we'd be like, come on, dude, let's go.
Speaker 4: I'm just going out on the time with you. But
Speaker 4: at the same time, and they do it again with
Speaker 4: Boncar spoilers at the end.
Speaker 2: They do it with.
Speaker 4: Her at the end where there was no reason for
Speaker 4: the cuts on the face to be stitched up. Because
Speaker 4: there's no reason for the cuts to be on the face.
Speaker 2: It's no. They tried to do this thing where they
Speaker 2: light her head on fire and then we want those burns,
Speaker 2: but we don't because we want her to be monstrous,
Speaker 2: and the only way to be monstrous is stitching. But
Speaker 2: they light they lit her head on fire, they've melted
Speaker 2: her face. She's not looking great. I think that'll do
Speaker 2: it right, Yeah, but oh no, let's stitch up an eye.
Speaker 2: We haven't seen that before, Like, how about make her sexier?
Speaker 2: How about that go on all the way? It makes
Speaker 2: it seem like something we haven't seen dead after fucking Bardess.
Speaker 4: Very very annoying because I mean, you said it. There
Speaker 4: are so many things in this film that could be
Speaker 4: the best ever Frankenstein film for me, and it just
Speaker 4: fails at certain moments that are like, Wow, why did
Speaker 4: you do that? I don't understand why you did. It
Speaker 4: was unnecessary to do it, but they did.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: I want to look at this bit of my note
Speaker 4: because I don't know why I've said it. Oh I do.
Speaker 4: It's the mountains. I got extremely angry in my notes
Speaker 4: when he was in the mountains. It's like, why are
Speaker 4: we here? Two minutes ago he was at home, Like this.
Speaker 2: Is too quick. Now we'll go to the Alps for
Speaker 2: some reason? What walk we can? I tell you the
Speaker 2: scariest part of this movie, please, The fucking staircase in
Speaker 2: Frankenstein manor that railingless giant staircase in the house, terrifying.
Speaker 2: Imagine walking in night and go I gotta go down
Speaker 2: and get a sandwich and waa another one. When are
Speaker 2: we getting a railing Papa?
Speaker 4: That I've made a note of it because I was
Speaker 4: it was the best thing about the first forty minutes
Speaker 4: I thought was that staircase agreed. There was a moment
Speaker 4: where they have a row and Bonco runs up it
Speaker 4: and like she's like, wow, this could be a long
Speaker 4: scene and it fights out.
Speaker 2: It fights out on her. They had to. I think overall,
Speaker 2: the production design in this movie is beautiful. I thought
Speaker 2: they did a great job. The costumes are fucking fantastic.
Speaker 2: They're a little too cost to me, a little two
Speaker 2: sometimes it looks like they were just made. But I
Speaker 2: will say, of if there's a problem with Frankenstein's makeup,
Speaker 2: there's no problem with that great cloak that they put
Speaker 2: him in. That's fantastic looking and menacing as hell. Costumes
Speaker 2: overall really great. My problem with it is that Branna
Speaker 2: is going for He wants it to be grubby and
Speaker 2: gross because the times were grubby and gross. But he's
Speaker 2: so hung up on melodramatic epic that he can't get
Speaker 2: out of his own way. He shoots this movie like
Speaker 2: he would eventually shoot his version of Hamlet. It's very
Speaker 2: softly focused in lit in places, so even when they're
Speaker 2: like rolling around in the dirt in the alleyways. It
Speaker 2: doesn't look all that, it doesn't look unsanitary. It looks
Speaker 2: like they're gonna wash that off because they're actors in
Speaker 2: a movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, even when he is in the shed next to
Speaker 4: the pig sty, like he's literally living in a pig sty,
Speaker 4: it seems all right. It seems like, well, that's the
Speaker 4: best time that you know, he's ever going to have
Speaker 4: in fact, in his sorry life. So yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 4: And we've got it. Before we finish this, we need
Speaker 4: to mention the ending. This film's bookended, much like the
Speaker 4: book is book nded. Yes, so with regards to it,
Speaker 4: we've got different set of characters. We're on an expedition
Speaker 4: to find I think it was a north Pole. I
Speaker 4: think that's where we're going, and they come across Frankenstein
Speaker 4: and the monster. Now I know how cynical it was
Speaker 4: to put it all in there, like because he wanted
Speaker 4: to do things that hadn't been seen before.
Speaker 2: But I really liked it.
Speaker 4: I liked the whole idea of that, and I've got
Speaker 4: nothing against it, no problem with it at all. In fact,
Speaker 4: rather enjoyed the way that was done. So I'm okay
Speaker 4: with it again. With the reviews, a few people were
Speaker 4: saying it's unnecessary and I wouldn't mention it unless it
Speaker 4: was if it was one, But there was a few
Speaker 4: people saying it was a bit like just added on
Speaker 4: to pad out the running time.
Speaker 2: And I don't see that. I'm sort of I don't
Speaker 2: feel one way or another about it. Like I did
Speaker 2: appreciate seeing it portrayed. I just think it fumbles the
Speaker 2: ball in the scared department because being trapped on this
Speaker 2: ship in the ice and this madman climbs aboard and
Speaker 2: now there's a monster out there that wants him. What
Speaker 2: a potent setup for the rest of this movie while
Speaker 2: he's telling the tale, Yes, as the monster is getting
Speaker 2: more and more crew members just because it wants this guy.
Speaker 2: Like it could have been fucking great. But what we
Speaker 2: get is him just it is a book end. It's
Speaker 2: here's my story and then at the end, don't do
Speaker 2: what I did.
Speaker 4: Okay, we do get an iconic sort of it's almost
Speaker 4: like a painting of the monster's death, and like, I
Speaker 4: really did enjoy that, and I wrote, Okay, that looks iconic.
Speaker 4: I like that we're talking about the bonfire yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we're talking about like what they call it, like a
Speaker 4: pire a funeral. Yeah, so I like that, and like
Speaker 4: the whole way like that that's his like father and burning,
Speaker 4: and then he's burning within it as well, and just like,
Speaker 4: oh man, that looks good, okay, and then it's sort
Speaker 4: of as it finished. It just left me so conflicted
Speaker 4: about what i'd seen because those moments that I enjoyed,
Speaker 4: I didn't just enjoy. I enjoyed it like it's my
Speaker 4: favorite ever film enjoyment. I loved certain moments, But I've
Speaker 4: never had that experience with a film that just pissed
Speaker 4: me off so many times.
Speaker 2: It's the weirdest experience. It's a complicated film in that
Speaker 2: regard because it is so clumsy for so long, but
Speaker 2: then when it shines, it really shines. The moments that
Speaker 2: I've mentioned that I really enjoyed I were magnified a
Speaker 2: thousand times on the rewatch. So I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 2: It's a bad movie, though, Paul, don't kid yourself. It's
Speaker 2: number two next to the original the OG. No, Well,
Speaker 2: you are so wrong. I hear you popping off about
Speaker 2: stuff all the time. We're not even going to bring
Speaker 2: up Young Frankenstein right now. But now you've just gone
Speaker 2: too far by even putting this in your top five.
Speaker 2: Frank and Stein should be on your list before this movie.
Speaker 4: Ow day, Okay, I will try Young Frankenstein again, though,
Speaker 4: because I think it's my most common email that I
Speaker 4: get is people just tell me I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: So because you are. This is just two ways about it.
Speaker 4: I mean, but Father Malone, where are you gonna take
Speaker 4: us for a double bill?
Speaker 2: Where's it going for? You stole Franken Hooker from me,
Speaker 2: so I'm not gonna go there. Although that's a natural
Speaker 2: that movie has a problem just because it has that
Speaker 2: goomba character, that fucking guy who showed up in a
Speaker 2: bunch of trauma movies for two seconds, that which which
Speaker 2: admittedly is a character you've never seen in a horror
Speaker 2: movie before the what is this ship? What's doing over there? Monster?
Speaker 2: Or what? We haven't really seen that guy. I guess
Speaker 2: we did back in the Dead End Kids days of
Speaker 2: the anyway, So not Franken Hooker. But I based on
Speaker 2: the characterization of the monster how he's presented dramatically here,
Speaker 2: which I think is the best part of the movie,
Speaker 2: I would recommend not a movie, but a television series
Speaker 2: that would be Penny Dreadful, where it's basically a monster
Speaker 2: mash team up thing where that we've were mixing and
Speaker 2: matching all of the Victorian horror characters. There is a
Speaker 2: Mina Harker character, and a there's a Wolfman and a
Speaker 2: Dracula and Frankenstein. There's a Victor Frankenstein who is the
Speaker 2: more sort of drug addicted ready portrayal of what he
Speaker 2: would probably actually be like. And the monster, on the
Speaker 2: other hand, is fucking fantastic and just as soulful and
Speaker 2: as vicious and unpredictable as he would actually be. I think,
Speaker 2: if you want the true Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, take a
Speaker 2: step outside that book entirely and check out what they
Speaker 2: were doing on Penny Dreadful for two seasons. It's fucking phenomenal.
Speaker 2: So I found that.
Speaker 4: In a in this country it's called pound Land for
Speaker 4: both seasons. I got it for a pound So yeah,
Speaker 4: I love that. And it was because I watched episode
Speaker 4: three I think it was, and I found it like,
Speaker 4: oh hello, like what's this and then I've never watched it.
Speaker 4: It's just sitting there gathering dust.
Speaker 2: Oh my no continue continue. In fact, when what they'll
Speaker 2: eventually get to it spoilers everybody. But this is only
Speaker 2: sort of sauce for the Goose. I think we get
Speaker 2: to meet the monster before we go flashbacks to his
Speaker 2: life prior to dying and becoming the monster, and interactions
Speaker 2: with other characters on the show that we did not
Speaker 2: know they had any interaction at all. It's really fascinating.
Speaker 2: It's really good. And I cannot remember the actor's name
Speaker 2: right now, but I know he's the son of a
Speaker 2: famous other actor and ah, it's killing me.
Speaker 4: Nevertheless, he's really good. The final thing with it, how
Speaker 4: long is this two seasons? Is it like like a
Speaker 4: twenty two like an X Files thing or is it? No?
Speaker 2: Thank god they were following the British model by then,
Speaker 2: this was a showtime series, so I think there are ten,
Speaker 2: maybe twelve episodes per season. Okay, but you know what,
Speaker 2: you know what, every hour you devote to the show
Speaker 2: is going to be worth your time. Okay, I'll come mind,
Speaker 2: young Frankenstein, give it a chance. Well, for my double bill,
Speaker 2: I went for may Oh, just excellent flick. I love
Speaker 2: that movie. She's She's creepy as hell. Angela madness. I
Speaker 2: believe you know it. Yeah, I don't know why she
Speaker 2: wasn't more popular. If she had made the scene right now,
Speaker 2: she'd be a huge fucking star. She'd be a goth superstar.
Speaker 2: She was right on the cusp there before goth culture
Speaker 2: really exploded. Yeah, she scares me. Actually, she's more just her.
Speaker 4: The way about her in May is more scary than
Speaker 4: the whole of this film that we've been talking about.
Speaker 2: Just her in any given scene. I agree.
Speaker 4: Hey, father mellow, thank you very much for chatting with
Speaker 4: me about missus Mary Shelley and her Frankenstein.
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure.
Speaker 4: Okay, I've only just discovered this thing. I found it
Speaker 4: on YouTube, so I can't really say if I like.
Speaker 2: It or not yet.
Speaker 4: Whilst I was watching a film, it was way too much.
Speaker 4: It was way overbearing. But I've listened to it once
Speaker 4: already and I think it's okay separated from the film
Speaker 4: so far, but it needs a few more spins now.
Speaker 4: This is only one of four horror movie scores that
Speaker 4: Patrick Doyle has actually bothered scoring. Not a very huge
Speaker 4: horror fan this one. But the other one that he's
Speaker 4: done is a two thousand and six take on Jekyll
Speaker 4: and Hyde, a scary kids film called Igor and Stephen
Speaker 4: King also ran adaptation called Needful Things, so there's his reports.
Speaker 4: Whilst I already know Needful Things, I don't really rate
Speaker 4: that score. This one's already a lot better and I've
Speaker 4: only listened to it once. But as I say, I
Speaker 4: can't be a judge. It's not fair. Perhaps you can, though,
Speaker 4: As I say, I found it on YouTube. So where
Speaker 4: can you find this film to watch?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 4: Well, a few months ago you're able to watch this
Speaker 4: for free on Pluto, but it's now left that streaming service,
Speaker 4: so I don't know. I don't know how you're going
Speaker 4: to watch yours for free right now. I guess we've
Speaker 4: just got to suck it up and spend some cash.
Speaker 4: As for podcasts, well, in twenty eighteen August Rewind podcast
Speaker 4: they focused almost two hours on this beauty and it's
Speaker 4: a really good podcast. I would recommend that as well
Speaker 4: as well as maybe if you're in the mood, just
Speaker 4: listen to this one again, because myself and father alone
Speaker 4: we smashed it, if I say so myself. That is
Speaker 4: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein