Speaker 1: Welcome to the Nightmare USA Podcast. Using Stephen Thrower's tome
Speaker 1: as our roadmap, join us as we explore the underbelly
Speaker 1: of America, one regional horror film at a time.
Speaker 2: I'm Adam, I'm Sam.
Speaker 1: In our first official episode, Sam and I are going
Speaker 1: to discuss the film that is prominently featured on the
Speaker 1: cover of Nightmare USA, Don't Go in the House, directed
Speaker 1: by Joseph Ellison.
Speaker 2: In this House, twenty five years ago, a child was
Speaker 2: given life. Donald come here. He was raised in isolation.
Speaker 2: You're a bad boy, instructed in fear. You're able, and
Speaker 2: you must be punished, imprisoned by a tormented mind. You'll
Speaker 2: bother that you do things like that.
Speaker 1: But he's gone now and baptized in flames.
Speaker 2: Now he has come of age. His suffering has ended,
Speaker 2: and ours is about to begin. You're heard that a lady,
Speaker 2: I'll punish you again if you would be spared from
Speaker 2: the fury of his vengeance whatever you do, Don't Go
Speaker 2: in the House.
Speaker 1: Filmed in nineteen seventy nine, Don't Go in the House
Speaker 1: was released on March twenty eighth, nineteen eighty six, weeks
Speaker 1: before Friday the thirteenth. Thanks to John Carpenter's Halloween, audience's
Speaker 1: tastes and horror were beginning to shift, becoming more terrified
Speaker 1: by the Boogeyman than the guy next door. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: onslaught of serial killers in the seventies, from Ted Bundy
Speaker 1: to John Wayne Gacy The Son of Sam to the
Speaker 1: Hillside Strangler soured tastes to real life horror. Watching the
Speaker 1: machinations of Damage Donnie Kohler might have felt too real
Speaker 1: compared to Michael Myers skulking about the streets of Haddenfield
Speaker 1: or Missus Vorhees co boarding about Camp Crystal Lake. While
Speaker 1: audiences stayed away, critics complained of gratuitous violence in the
Speaker 1: film thanks to the infamous flamethrower scene, which we'll get
Speaker 1: to in a minute. British censors placed the films on
Speaker 1: their Video Nasties list, which has now probably given the
Speaker 1: film more life than ever, with Don't Go in the
Speaker 1: House be as well known today had it not ended
Speaker 1: up on that notorious listing that Don't Go in the
Speaker 1: House was Ellison's first feature film. Watching again this time,
Speaker 1: I was struck by the craftsmanship and confidence Ellison shows
Speaker 1: in his direction. It's a shame he didn't receive more opportunities.
Speaker 1: He directed only one film after Don't Go in the House, Joey,
Speaker 1: about a duop group in the nineteen fifties, before returning
Speaker 1: to his first love of music, Sam, When did you
Speaker 1: first see go Don't Go in the House? And how
Speaker 1: does it compare this time to previous watches?
Speaker 2: I know, I watched it the first time in the
Speaker 2: VHS era, and that was the time when I, you know,
Speaker 2: I was like slasher crazy as a kid in you know,
Speaker 2: in middle school, in high school, and I want him
Speaker 2: to see every Slasher and Don't Go in the House. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's it predates slightly Friday thirteenth, and it's you know,
Speaker 2: right around Halloween, before the rules had been set of
Speaker 2: the slasher. But it always felt like when I watched
Speaker 2: it that there's something wrong with this movie, that if
Speaker 2: this is a movie that it almost feels like a
Speaker 2: more abbarent version of Maniac, because like, at least in Maniac,
Speaker 2: you've just been out playing the killer and you can
Speaker 2: identify with him. There's nothing that makes you identify with
Speaker 2: Donnie in this movie. He's just like a horrifying person
Speaker 2: and horrible things happen to beautiful people. But also the
Speaker 2: more you think about I think, as I've gotten older,
Speaker 2: I start to feel bad for him because like, obviously
Speaker 2: wife has brought him here and he's been on this
Speaker 2: track to nowhere. And I love that because this isn't
Speaker 2: like a teen pleasing slasher like you were saying, like
Speaker 2: Michael Myers, like you know, you get introduced these characters,
Speaker 2: and often in slashers, you know, there's always somebody like, boy,
Speaker 2: hope this character dies, like I hate they introduce a character,
Speaker 2: you know in the hopes that you know they get killed,
Speaker 2: And here it's just like this insane man driven to
Speaker 2: do these things. I often think about when his mom dies,
Speaker 2: you think, oh, well, he's finally gonna be free of
Speaker 2: her influence. And if anything, it's gotten worse now because
Speaker 2: it's not physical anymore. There's nothing in here that gives
Speaker 2: him like an origin like a Jason or Michael Myers
Speaker 2: or a Freddy like these aren't you know, it's not supernatural?
Speaker 2: This is like is real to me. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of realism in this movie. Now. Could someone put this
Speaker 2: Charnel house inside their home, I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: That seems like it would take a while of work.
Speaker 2: But you know, my wife's a big true crime fan,
Speaker 2: and it feels like in the early seventies, late seventies,
Speaker 2: early eighties, you could get away with this. Today his
Speaker 2: Amazon list would get triggered, like.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you need to flame through cameras everywhere, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're not going to just walk into that story
Speaker 1: and buy and that's best to see.
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, Yeah, And I also like that and I'm
Speaker 2: sure we'll definitely get into it that there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people in his life that kind of want to
Speaker 2: reach out to him, like his co workers.
Speaker 1: And stuff, and I love that. So we can go
Speaker 1: and get sorried about that because my comp on Donnie
Speaker 1: is really Travis Bickle in taxi drivers, so we can
Speaker 1: kind of get into that. So the film starts out
Speaker 1: with Donnie is at work and I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: they do with this place exactly. There's definitely an incinerator involved.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if the operation of this place is,
Speaker 1: but there's a guy who's loading stuff in the incinerator
Speaker 1: and there is some sort of flammable can that has
Speaker 1: been placed in the incinerator. Our poor guy he that
Speaker 1: cannisterer explodes and fire, he gets engulfed in flames, and
Speaker 1: do you did they teach do you think he knew stop,
Speaker 1: drop and roll? Because he just stands there and Donnie
Speaker 1: stands there too, because as we learn later, he's very
Speaker 1: triggered by fire.
Speaker 2: But this has to be like the best, like his
Speaker 2: Fourth of July, like to be that close to someone
Speaker 2: getting immolated, do you know what I mean? And like
Speaker 2: everybody else is like, please help this guy and throw
Speaker 2: something over him.
Speaker 1: And yeah, no, he's frozen because, as we learn later,
Speaker 1: he is traumatized by being burned by his mother as punishment.
Speaker 1: If he was who knows what he did that nothing
Speaker 1: would warrant this response from anyone, of course, but he
Speaker 1: his mother would hold his arms over an open flame
Speaker 1: and burn them as a punishment. Although and I have
Speaker 1: a have another question about that. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you noticed, but they black out Diamond, the brand named
Speaker 1: Diamond on the matches, like they black that out. I
Speaker 1: don't do you think they're for a Diamond match after them?
Speaker 2: For well, the whole lobby, the match lobby, who's very powerful.
Speaker 2: Big match, Yeah, big match, because like they're like you
Speaker 2: can imagine they're like, no, we're not going to flick
Speaker 2: our bicks and you should just use kitchen matches. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think about that a lot. Like you know, there's
Speaker 2: also for arlely character. There's always one kid in your
Speaker 2: class that is fascinated by fire. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you had any of those in your class that will
Speaker 2: just lay.
Speaker 1: One of my sons is very really fascinated by fire.
Speaker 2: Oh man. They just want to light and hold, like
Speaker 2: just will light a whole box of matches, like that's
Speaker 2: their video game. And you're like cool, Like I don't
Speaker 2: want to hang out with this kid. I'm be that person. Though.
Speaker 2: My brother and I get way too into the Fourth
Speaker 2: of July. My wife is did not realize she grew
Speaker 2: up with a brother, younger brother, so, like you know,
Speaker 2: she'd not enjoyed the two boys abuse that happens when
Speaker 2: you have a brother. And we were just shooting bottle
Speaker 2: rockets at each other's faces and I melted my new glasses.
Speaker 2: She was like, you're fifty years old, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know. Like Fourth of July is awesome.
Speaker 1: So Donnie, after being traumatized by this workplace experience and
Speaker 1: berated by his boss for not doing anything, it goes
Speaker 1: back home. Well, first let's go back to his to
Speaker 1: this his coworker Bobby, because we're kind of touching on that.
Speaker 1: Bobby is his coworker who reaches out to him and says,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, you know that was tough. We come
Speaker 1: come out and have a drink and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I got to go home. And but that's what one
Speaker 1: thing I love about this movie is that you do
Speaker 1: have this character of Bobby who is really trying to
Speaker 1: be Donnie's friend throughout this movie. And I wrote an
Speaker 1: article for the Physical Media Advocate. I'm kind of plugging here,
Speaker 1: part of the Someone's Favorite Productions Media Empire, which we
Speaker 1: are part of the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network. So
Speaker 1: I wrote an article about taxi driver and it was
Speaker 1: about loneliness, kind of comparing through the lens of today.
Speaker 1: They had come out with article the Surgeon General about
Speaker 1: the epidemic of loneliness in today's society, and I was,
Speaker 1: you know, they Ryan Beryl had asked me to write
Speaker 1: an article about taxi driver, and I'm like, well, how
Speaker 1: can I write about taxi You know what was left
Speaker 1: to say? Yeah, about taxi driver? So rewatching it and
Speaker 1: that's kind of what left out to me it was
Speaker 1: how Travis never had he didn't have that person reach
Speaker 1: out to him. He tried, you know, and people try
Speaker 1: to say look now and paint him as an in cell.
Speaker 1: I guess and you could kind of maybe people would
Speaker 1: do that with Donnie to and I don't think that's
Speaker 1: necessarily the case. First of all, I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: can in a insul these days, because somebody. Everyone can
Speaker 1: find somebody. Yeah, they're some sort of app or it
Speaker 1: may not be the person you want, but you can.
Speaker 1: It's not involuntary celibus that you can find somebody.
Speaker 2: It's two people that found each other to talk about
Speaker 2: movies that hundreds of people saw in the seventies and
Speaker 2: are doing a podcast together. Yes, you can find people.
Speaker 1: So you know Travis, you know, he didn't know how
Speaker 1: to relate to Sybil Shepherd's character, and he tried to
Speaker 1: talk to the Peter Boyle other taxi driver character, and
Speaker 1: he just didn't really have anyone. I'm like, if Travis
Speaker 1: Bickle just had a friend, all of this could have
Speaker 1: been avoided maybe. And so here it was interesting to
Speaker 1: see this Bobby character, you know, where most people would
Speaker 1: look at Donnie and say, you know, like, no, I
Speaker 1: don't really want to reach out to him. You know,
Speaker 1: Bobby did want to reach out. Yeah, And so kudos
Speaker 1: to Bobby, even though he's a terrible husband, but.
Speaker 2: Later he's a seven guy. This is what I always
Speaker 2: think of, Like what most met at the mill were
Speaker 2: like my grandfather. If you lived in Pittsburgh, your grandfather,
Speaker 2: your dad worked in a steel mill, and like Mike,
Speaker 2: they parked a mile away and there were bars on
Speaker 2: the way back. So my grandfather every night would stop,
Speaker 2: he'd drink at the bar, and then he'd get home
Speaker 2: and he'd go to another bar, and then he would
Speaker 2: finally come home at some point. Right because you're working
Speaker 2: in a blast furnace all day and like it's I
Speaker 2: can't even imagine the terror of like when I complain
Speaker 2: about my job. Like he would come home and one
Speaker 2: side of him would be, you know, because part of
Speaker 2: it was outside, so like in the Pittsburgh winters, Like
Speaker 2: one side of him would be frostbitting, the other side
Speaker 2: would be you know, sunburned because of how hot it was.
Speaker 2: And you know, he had numerous friends that fell into
Speaker 2: the blast furnace and died and like these like you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of thing that happens to Dannie in this
Speaker 2: So it's like, you know, there's a lot of going out,
Speaker 2: drinking and going out, like you don't see your wife
Speaker 2: that often. My grandfather was more more devoted to the
Speaker 2: civilist than Bobby here. But like, you know, it reminds
Speaker 2: me of a lot of his friends, like where they
Speaker 2: also like they're kind of like, it's interesting that he
Speaker 2: reaches out the people, because you could very easily having
Speaker 2: a job like this, become like our lead, do you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, and just stay in your way
Speaker 2: in and not talk to anybody, and your life becomes work.
Speaker 2: And but at least he has Alisi has obbies.
Speaker 1: So he come Donnie comes home after that incident, and
Speaker 1: he finds his mother dead. We know nothing about this woman.
Speaker 1: She's dead, and he he starts jumping up and down
Speaker 1: on a furniture and I love this reaction, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's like you again, you have no background of what's
Speaker 1: happened in his life at this point, but he is
Speaker 1: so glad to finally be free of this woman. He
Speaker 1: starts jumping up and down on furniture. He lights, he
Speaker 1: smokes in the house and lights he puts out the
Speaker 1: cigarette on the statue's eye, and unfortunately that doesn't last
Speaker 1: very long as the voices start coming in.
Speaker 2: This is what I felt like when I got divorced
Speaker 2: the first time.
Speaker 1: The only un did.
Speaker 2: I smoked a joint in the house, and I was like,
Speaker 2: this is I'm finally fourteen year old Sam is free.
Speaker 2: I was like in my mid thirties. And then I
Speaker 2: remember I bought a steak because I could because my
Speaker 2: ex wife was vegan. So I bought a steak to eat,
Speaker 2: and I was all excited about I bought a steak
Speaker 2: and a bottled red wine. She had taken all the silverware,
Speaker 2: all the pots and pans like everything, so like, I, uh, I.
Speaker 1: Was gonna thought you were gonna say you couldn't find
Speaker 1: a corkscrew.
Speaker 2: Maybe I wound no corkscrew either. There was nothing, so
Speaker 2: I had to like do the trick where you like
Speaker 2: hammer the hammer the cork down. And I was like
Speaker 2: eating this like half raw steak that I could barely cook,
Speaker 2: and I was like, uh, there's a more mature way
Speaker 2: of dealing with this. But that's the saddest part of
Speaker 2: this to me. It's like if if he were free
Speaker 2: from this mother's influence in his head. Could he I
Speaker 2: don't know. I think he's so scarred by his life
Speaker 2: and by the things he's endured that he's on a
Speaker 2: one way train to what.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it had been this extreme, for sure,
Speaker 1: but he Yeah, that's a good question. What would his
Speaker 1: life be like if his voices hadn't started and it
Speaker 1: would still be he's still damaged. But could he have
Speaker 1: some sort of relationship with someone?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Probably not. It wouldn't last.
Speaker 2: Probably. I always think about that. That's a problem. I
Speaker 2: think for some insults, because they weremanticize and put on
Speaker 2: a pedestal, I maybe I'm speaking to myself, sixteen year
Speaker 2: old me where I was always. I often think like
Speaker 2: when I was sixteen, I was like, why why don't
Speaker 2: any girls want to go out with me? In my
Speaker 2: small town? And now that I think about it, like
Speaker 2: I was a weird metal kid that was obsessed with
Speaker 2: leather face and sat in his room and drank and
Speaker 2: played guitar all day, which is not a lot different
Speaker 2: than than fifty year old Sam. Just I walked out
Speaker 2: and know how to communicate with women a little bit,
Speaker 2: hopefully a little better.
Speaker 1: By now you know, there probably weren't a lot of
Speaker 1: girls of the eighties looking for that guys, especially if
Speaker 1: you know they're looking forward whatever they're looking for in
Speaker 1: movies of the eighties, you know those, yeah, exactly, shock time.
Speaker 2: Well also though, if you watch these eighties like teen comedies,
Speaker 2: you think that that's the way is a guy that
Speaker 2: you should be, which is very in cel where I'm
Speaker 2: going to buy her the best gifts and I'm going
Speaker 2: to show her I'm gonna white night this. I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: that's it doesn't work out. Uh So I walked out.
Speaker 2: I am very lucky to be married to Becca because
Speaker 2: when we were first dating, like our second or third date,
Speaker 2: went to her house to pick her up, She's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm not ready yet, just sit downstairs and watch TV.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, okay. She's like, I was finishing The
Speaker 2: blob and it was the remake of The Blob and
Speaker 2: she's like, I really like grub a teen's effects in it.
Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, well, I'm going to marry
Speaker 2: this girl. Like at this point, like I don't know,
Speaker 2: like that feels like a jackpot, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that Blobber remake. It was filmed in
Speaker 1: Louisiana and oh yes, I will say real fast in
Speaker 1: case we didn't cover this. I'm from Louisiana currently live
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, so that's that's my region. When we get
Speaker 1: in the regional horror, I'm really interested in Louisiana and Arkansas. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a few in the book, not a whole lot,
Speaker 1: but enough so then from Arkansas. It's an encounter of
Speaker 1: the unknown. Have you seen No One? Directed by Harry
Speaker 1: Thomason who went on to do Designing Women and Searhead
Speaker 1: the Kids an f ob.
Speaker 2: O g f B.
Speaker 1: Anyway back to Don't Go in the House. After Donnie
Speaker 1: comes home and the voice is kick in, he goes
Speaker 1: out and goes into this floorist shop which was closed,
Speaker 1: but he convinces the lady in the shop to reopen
Speaker 1: the store for him to buy flowers for mother because
Speaker 1: his mother's really sick. And he also, I guess before
Speaker 1: that he finds at that sporting goods store. He finds
Speaker 1: that asbestosy right, and the flamethrower.
Speaker 2: How does that? Where'd you buy these things like pre Amazon?
Speaker 1: The at the local sporting goods store? And that was
Speaker 1: one thing they hit because he looked they should a
Speaker 1: shot of like they had these knives laid out and
Speaker 1: I can't have guns laid out or not. But that
Speaker 1: was another. It reminded me a taxi driver whenever the
Speaker 1: guy comes and lays out all the guns for Travis
Speaker 1: to pick one, but he sees all those and he's like,
Speaker 1: no flamethrower.
Speaker 2: I've often thought about buying a flame thrower for when
Speaker 2: the winter comes here. I'm from Pittsburgh and you know,
Speaker 2: like when the walk is bad, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: that's not why they make them. They make them. They're
Speaker 2: not made for anything other than setting human beings on fire,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? Like that's what this
Speaker 2: has been made for.
Speaker 1: That's all I've seen them in movies for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like there's not people like out there like doing
Speaker 2: roadwork with a flamethrower. Like, so I realized I probably
Speaker 2: should have known one. Also, like how do you tell
Speaker 2: your neighbors you have one? It's just funny though, Like
Speaker 2: that store reminds me of the stores in Chopping Mall
Speaker 2: where it's like every machine of part that we need
Speaker 2: is available in this store. Like there's that sporting good
Speaker 2: store in Chopping Bonnets, Like there's gas hands, there's flaming arrows,
Speaker 2: there's everything available for the characters, and for him, it's like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, let's go to Dick's and get in this
Speaker 2: best of suit. Yeah. I don't know if if sporting
Speaker 2: good stories carry them in, why would they carry them anyway?
Speaker 2: But you know what, it's because we're in a movie.
Speaker 2: That's the what I always say, like we're in a movie.
Speaker 1: I would say that, but I think the store really
Speaker 1: had you know, did they walk by this window and
Speaker 1: say that maybe that window was already displayed that.
Speaker 2: Way, like what kids met that we've found? This is
Speaker 2: best a suit? Shoot it, no, permit, make it happen.
Speaker 1: Right, So he gets this floors named Kathy, Bless her heart.
Speaker 1: She she misses her bus because she was dealing with
Speaker 1: Donnie and these flowers. And Donnie says, hey, let me
Speaker 1: let me give you a right home. I'm going that way,
Speaker 1: which I mean, come on girl, Yeah, but anyway, she does,
Speaker 1: and then she he says, well, let me just I
Speaker 1: got to get these flowers in water, of course, so
Speaker 1: let me just in real fast and check out mom
Speaker 1: and get these flowers on the water. And she you know,
Speaker 1: the name of the movie is don't go in the house,
Speaker 1: which is not the original title, but uh, it's good
Speaker 1: advice and they really should not have gone in this house.
Speaker 2: And Kathy especially, no, this is this movie has I've
Speaker 2: learned so many lessons from my life. I was actually
Speaker 2: I have flirted with writing a book about how watching
Speaker 2: slasher movies can save your life, and I think horror
Speaker 2: movies that in a whole way can save your life,
Speaker 2: like I will never go to a tropical island after
Speaker 2: seeing Zombie, to my wife's chagrin. I'm like, she's tried
Speaker 2: a couple of times to get us to go on cruises,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, have you seen what gets down on
Speaker 2: the tool? Like it's bad there and in the same
Speaker 2: way here, Like if I was a floorist, I would
Speaker 2: never go home with a customer. I wouldn't get in
Speaker 2: the car, like I'm afraid of people, and uh right,
Speaker 2: and with good reason, because I've seen these movies. These
Speaker 2: movies have trained me to distrust people with the flame fetishes.
Speaker 1: So Kathy gets incineratous. Can you explain how Donnie has
Speaker 1: fashioned this room in this house? What has he done?
Speaker 2: It's just like a giant sheet metal like it's amazing
Speaker 2: that he's That's the thing that's crazy is like he
Speaker 2: built this himself. Like the engineering to make this room
Speaker 2: and to like fire proof it and to put it
Speaker 2: within this house is like even though he's a horrible person,
Speaker 2: you know, and a criminal, he does have like a
Speaker 2: high level of intelligence, but it's very specialized. I guess
Speaker 2: in cel intelligence right that it's like this is my fascination,
Speaker 2: and I will make this room. But like he has
Speaker 2: like hooks that are there for people, and he can
Speaker 2: properly put the women up. The rest of the house
Speaker 2: isn't going to catch on fire. The smell of it's
Speaker 2: not going to get out the wort other people in
Speaker 2: his neighborhood. He's really he put it all together.
Speaker 1: We don't really get a lot. I mean we see
Speaker 1: him kind of doing it, but we don't think in
Speaker 1: any kind of background of how.
Speaker 2: This isn't like a money pit kind of thing where
Speaker 2: we have an extended montage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we needed a needed a montage.
Speaker 2: Would imagine if it had like like one of those
Speaker 2: songs it's like in an eighties teen comedy, like a
Speaker 2: starship song. As he's like hammering together this little little
Speaker 2: thing and he's looking at Oh I did it.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, nothing's gonna stop us now.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, exactly. We built this city and he's just
Speaker 2: like they're making making his little uh death room. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess this feels like me, like I've done home
Speaker 2: repair and stuff and I hate it. So kudos to
Speaker 2: him for knowing how to do it. But it looks
Speaker 2: it looks really professional, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like it doesn't look like some that Donnie did it, Like,
Speaker 2: do you think he maybe how would he bring in
Speaker 2: Like it's so hard to hire, uh, you know people
Speaker 2: that I just hire people to do my shed and
Speaker 2: I had to call him back and have him fixed
Speaker 2: stuff like it's you know, it's.
Speaker 1: Hard to hire the seventies. It was easier in the seventies.
Speaker 2: Do you think there were just people that you could
Speaker 2: trust and they'd be like please still telling anyone that
Speaker 2: they like, No, we get it. You're gonna kill people
Speaker 2: in this room and you'll probably kill us too, So
Speaker 2: we're cool. You keep your secret, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Kathy. Yeah, so Kathy is hung up from
Speaker 1: that book and incinerated in a very brutally scary scene.
Speaker 1: Still to this day, I watched this film and had
Speaker 1: the commentary from Joseph Ellison and his wife who is
Speaker 1: Her name is Ellen. She was the producer on this film.
Speaker 1: And I love this commentary because she just kind of
Speaker 1: gushes over the film. She's like, like, this film's so good.
Speaker 1: And he's like, Oh, I'm glad you, I'm glad you're
Speaker 1: really finally saying this fifty years later, how good this is.
Speaker 1: But she was almost screaming at this scene.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she's also Bobby's wife in the movie. She's uncradated,
Speaker 2: but that's her. Yeah, it's like, are those digital flames?
Speaker 1: I didn't understand how they did it, and they go
Speaker 1: into it in the book of They had some camera
Speaker 1: angle and a prism and they had a dummy that
Speaker 1: they set on fire, and the way they it kind
Speaker 1: of superimposed on one another. And it was so disturbing
Speaker 1: that Joseph Ellison said he had to look up from
Speaker 1: the camera and risk light coming into the lens. He
Speaker 1: was afraid that this woman was really on fire from
Speaker 1: what he was looking in the camera and seeing.
Speaker 2: It's that's kind of like the effects thing of like
Speaker 2: is this could this get out of hand? Could this
Speaker 2: become real? Because it feels like a how do you
Speaker 2: even test this? Or like I can't even imagine like
Speaker 2: explaining it to an actress. Okay, first off, we're gonna
Speaker 2: hang you up and then we're gonna make it look
Speaker 2: like you're on fire, but you won't be. Don't worry,
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, I'm inside this house in New
Speaker 2: Jersey with like eight weird dudes. But the one guy
Speaker 2: brought his wife, who's the producer, and she told me
Speaker 2: it'll be okay, Like it's it seems it seems terrifying
Speaker 2: to be in this movie. This movie, doesn't I always
Speaker 2: say when I was a kid, I'm like, man, I
Speaker 2: wish I was an actress. These movies look like fun.
Speaker 2: This movie does not look like it was fun to
Speaker 2: be in. Like this movie looks harrowing at times, and
Speaker 2: like people survived the scenes that they were in versus
Speaker 2: like acting in them, especially this scene, because like if
Speaker 2: it upsets you now, like I can't imagine what people
Speaker 2: thought in the seventies when they saw it. And it's
Speaker 2: funny because like how many movies like U got protested
Speaker 2: right that played. I believe that a lot of those
Speaker 2: protests that happened on forty Second Street were engineered by
Speaker 2: the producers, right so that people would find out about
Speaker 2: the movies. But like this one is like that's why
Speaker 2: I really love this movie. But this is not a
Speaker 2: movie that it feels like you can triumph to people.
Speaker 2: You're like, you know, my favorite movie is doing that.
Speaker 2: It's like I think you can say maniac because people
Speaker 2: are like, oh, there's t shirts Maniac and like it's
Speaker 2: been merchandised a bit and stuff. But they're both really
Speaker 2: scuzzy movies.
Speaker 1: They are really dark, I mean just dark, yeah, sad movies.
Speaker 2: I was shocked when they showed the trail of this
Speaker 2: at the drive in. My wife's like, I really want
Speaker 2: to see that. I'm like, I don't think you want
Speaker 2: to see it, Like and I know that she loves
Speaker 2: true crime, and but it's like this is rough, Like
Speaker 2: this like I'll go to do a triple feature night
Speaker 2: of like this New York Ripper and Maniac and whoever comes,
Speaker 2: we're just going to put him on a watch list.
Speaker 1: This starts a series of murders for Donnie. So the
Speaker 1: second one is I wonder how many childhood fears we're
Speaker 1: gonna discover as we go through this book, because one
Speaker 1: childhood fear of mine is that I just knew it
Speaker 1: was gonna happen to me, is having the stranded car
Speaker 1: on the side of the road, on a deserted strip
Speaker 1: of a highway or whatever. And that's what happened. I
Speaker 1: opened up the hood of my car and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but she was. She was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what's going on. Donnie shows up and he
Speaker 1: takes her and you know, gonna help her, and of
Speaker 1: course takes her to that we don't really see anymore incinerating,
Speaker 1: thank goodness, but you know, she is victim number two.
Speaker 1: And then victim number three is this woman in a
Speaker 1: store in a convenience store, which I had a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about, mainly when did two liter coca cola
Speaker 1: become a thing? And I didn't find this out, So
Speaker 1: film filmed in nineteen seventy nine. Two lid Coca Cola
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, so it was fairly new products.
Speaker 2: Are you old enough to remember when two leaders also
Speaker 2: had the extra plastic thing on the bottom. They had
Speaker 2: that little cup to hold the bottom of the two leader.
Speaker 2: Today they don't have that. They just have like the
Speaker 2: little bumps on the bottom.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't remember that. We didn't have
Speaker 1: a I think we were more just canned canned coke
Speaker 1: more than a two because a two leader would go
Speaker 1: flat so fast, so we never really bought those. And
Speaker 1: then they came out with three Leader, which is even worse.
Speaker 2: But I tell my wife all the time, like she's like,
Speaker 2: why do you put so much ice in your drinks?
Speaker 2: And I said, as a kid, we did not have.
Speaker 2: This is goes into my bad childhood, not as bad
Speaker 2: as Donny's. I had a great childhood, but I would
Speaker 2: my parents only bought three leaders because we didn't have
Speaker 2: a lot of money and you could get like a
Speaker 2: three leader of like yeah, And my parents didn't use
Speaker 2: or put the pop in the fridge, which today like
Speaker 2: I have a fringe just for sodas and beer done
Speaker 2: here in my office. And I remember just hearing that
Speaker 2: three Leader in the middle of the night popping from heat,
Speaker 2: knowing you I knowing that there was no gas in
Speaker 2: it and no you know he bubbles in it, and
Speaker 2: knowing that, and my dad would always say, like, we
Speaker 2: kids aren't getting another soda until you drink that three lead,
Speaker 2: And my brother would always be like you got to
Speaker 2: finish it, you got it, and it would just be
Speaker 2: like brown water at that point, just the worst flattest
Speaker 2: that's I should have just drank tab, like you mean,
Speaker 2: it tasted like tab, a lot like tab and maybe
Speaker 2: that's how I got a taste for the weird drinks
Speaker 2: that I make from this. But yeah, she does buy
Speaker 2: two later and to she doesn't even get to drink
Speaker 2: it because we see Donnie's truck pull up.
Speaker 1: Outside and it's just like, this is this an unintentional
Speaker 1: comedian moment because it made me laugh out loud whenever
Speaker 1: because she's just He's like, let me help you, let
Speaker 1: me carry this bag, and she's like, no, get away
Speaker 1: from me. And then it just cuts to his truck
Speaker 1: in front of the house and you see the three corpses,
Speaker 1: and I just love, like is this supposed to be funny,
Speaker 1: because I think it's hilarious.
Speaker 2: We've already established like comedy works in threes, so like
Speaker 2: at this point, we don't need to see the first
Speaker 2: one we see like this very extended death, the second
Speaker 2: one we see a little in the third one where like,
Speaker 2: you guys know what happens. You know that he Burner's right.
Speaker 1: So then we see he sets them up in chairs.
Speaker 1: His mother is, I guess in another room, I guess.
Speaker 1: And so we spend a lot of that second act
Speaker 1: in the house with Donnie and these these corpses and
Speaker 1: he's interacting with them. I think the first thirty minutes
Speaker 1: of this movie are just so tight and you're just
Speaker 1: so engaged with it, and then was like the second act.
Speaker 1: A lot of times in horror movies, the second acts
Speaker 1: are always a letdown because you know you have the
Speaker 1: first act in that last act. Usually that ramps back
Speaker 1: up in the second act. Is can be a little
Speaker 1: bit of adultrum. But I was still here for it
Speaker 1: because he is just kind of hanging ound the house
Speaker 1: talking to these corpses, slap on them around.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it demands a lot of the actor because he's
Speaker 2: carrying that whole section of the movie. And Don Cohler,
Speaker 2: who played him, it's crazy. He has a bachelor's degree
Speaker 2: in math, a master's and operations research, and a PhD
Speaker 2: in data processing, so he in addition to doing this,
Speaker 2: he was teaching college and he also he was on
Speaker 2: the Sopranos. That's probably the other role he was the Twins,
Speaker 2: The Presea Twins. But he said that like these, a
Speaker 2: lot of scends in this movie were so grueling that
Speaker 2: he just had to go home and cry after them
Speaker 2: that they were upset. There was no like a grief
Speaker 2: counselor on the side of the film or NMC coordinator.
Speaker 2: It's just like, yeah, just yeah, you're going to be
Speaker 2: a lunatic, and hopefully you could deal with the emotions
Speaker 2: that this unlocks within you as you make the film.
Speaker 1: I guess I never even thought about that. We don't
Speaker 1: think about actors too much on their mental stability. Just
Speaker 1: give us what we want and give us that entertainment, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can what is my motivation for the scene where
Speaker 2: I slap around corpses and crank up some music, dance
Speaker 2: around the room in between my kills and he's going
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: I love that his slap and they're in the rocking chair.
Speaker 1: He slaps him in Yeah you get the POV from
Speaker 1: the Corpse of the Rocky and looking back at Donnie,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's this is Joseph Ellison's first film, and
Speaker 1: that's crazy to me to think like he just he
Speaker 1: gets it, and it's a shame he didn't do more.
Speaker 2: It's edited really well too, Like it comes together, like,
Speaker 2: especially with all the different shots, like it could very
Speaker 2: easily fall apart, do you know what I mean? With
Speaker 2: all the things that are happening, and to me, it
Speaker 2: just works really well. Jane Carson, who edited it, also
Speaker 2: did she did Pumping Iron before this, and we're going
Speaker 2: to do another serial killer movie, Monster, which is That's
Speaker 2: something that I'm sure we'll get into. But like almost
Speaker 2: all of the crew on this went on to much
Speaker 2: bigger things than this movie. It's it's wild, like it's
Speaker 2: like an all star behind the.
Speaker 1: Camera kind of who's the cinema photographer? Because he he
Speaker 1: did The Honeymoon Killers. I can't remember his name.
Speaker 2: Is Oliver Wood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he had like Martin Scorsese had hired him
Speaker 1: for The Honeymoon Killers before he was unceremoniously fired from
Speaker 1: that project.
Speaker 2: He shot Die Hard Too and Face Off in the
Speaker 2: Born Identity films. But my favorite credit for him is,
Speaker 2: uh he shot mc hammer's Too Legit to Quit and
Speaker 2: the Cue the Wing Serpent, which is a much better
Speaker 2: credit to have on your CV uh than that, and morebius.
Speaker 2: We won't say anything that he did morebius.
Speaker 1: Wow, I do remember the too Legit to Quit video?
Speaker 2: So oh you got to do the too the thing
Speaker 2: right legit to quit?
Speaker 1: So, uh, let me ask you your you you have
Speaker 1: a Catholic background, So there there is some Catholicism, yeah,
Speaker 1: embedded in this movie. He goes to the church to
Speaker 1: to steal some holy water, have any inside And I.
Speaker 2: Know when we moved into when my mom moved into
Speaker 2: they moved into the house, the first thing they did
Speaker 2: was go around holy water to the house. Like that's
Speaker 2: a big deal to Catholics, Like it's you know, you're
Speaker 2: sealing the house from spirits. Also, like a lot of
Speaker 2: Catholicism is based on lighting candles and you know, like
Speaker 2: you light a candle for someone, especially if someone's recently died,
Speaker 2: like he should be doing that for his mom. It
Speaker 2: reminds me.
Speaker 1: A while he lit something, all right, Yeah, but oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Some human candles, human lanterns. Also, like this reminds there
Speaker 2: Another movie that this plays well with is Alice, Sweet Alice,
Speaker 2: which is wild period piece. It's in the same area,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean, Like between New Jersey
Speaker 2: and New York and playing with like the how Catholicism
Speaker 2: can be damaging it's it makes sense that he's Catholic
Speaker 2: because even today, I haven't gone to church in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five years outside of funerals and stuff. The guilt
Speaker 2: that you have, like I've seen movies and stuff, like
Speaker 2: I remember Louis did an episode about it where they
Speaker 2: went to Good Friday Mass and the priest told them
Speaker 2: in excruciating detail all the things Jesus went through when
Speaker 2: he was crucified. One hundred percent. They did that to us,
Speaker 2: and like in like they put up medical charts and stuff,
Speaker 2: and they're like, and now you're upset that you have
Speaker 2: to be in church for an hour and you can't
Speaker 2: get back to the things that you want to do.
Speaker 2: Jesus on across for like fourteen hours, and this is
Speaker 2: the stuff he went through. And as a case, I'm
Speaker 2: like six right. I also had a priest that was
Speaker 2: obsessed with the movie Alive, and he would tell sermons
Speaker 2: about the movie Alive and they never connected, like there
Speaker 2: was like I was always like fucking Joe, like how
Speaker 2: does this come together? And he would always tell the
Speaker 2: story is told of it. Argentinean soccer team they crashed
Speaker 2: in the Andes and were forced to eat each other
Speaker 2: and he's like, and God was there. God was there
Speaker 2: for them, Like, no, I don't know if God was
Speaker 2: there for them. This is they went through it, and
Speaker 2: like it left me with more questions and answers. I
Speaker 2: think it's a kind of religion that can become either
Speaker 2: crutch for people or can and there's good things to
Speaker 2: it too, spoiler, but like it feels like for him
Speaker 2: it's like something that added to his mother's beating down
Speaker 2: on him. Maybe if we saw some more of the
Speaker 2: stuff with the mom, you know, did that tie into stuff? Also,
Speaker 2: like the idea that as a kid, it was terrifying,
Speaker 2: like I didn't want to do anything bad because I
Speaker 2: knew it would have to go to confession at some point.
Speaker 2: And it's the worst thing to tell a priest. Like
Speaker 2: I waited around a corner for my brother to come
Speaker 2: out and I hit him with a rock and a
Speaker 2: priest is like, why would you do that? Mike? He
Speaker 2: did it to me a week ago, and I thought
Speaker 2: I should get him back, and they're like, okay, well
Speaker 2: say this prayer and it'll solve you with your sin.
Speaker 2: I'm like, maybe I'm a lunatic and my brother and
Speaker 2: I should be kept away from each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he does. He does a friend a priest,
Speaker 1: and I'm from Protestant background, so you get more of
Speaker 1: a personal experience with the Protestant preaching or a preacher.
Speaker 1: Uh you know the Baptist preaching hut that you're always
Speaker 1: taking out to lunch romania at the door, so there
Speaker 1: is I feel like there's more of a connection. Do
Speaker 1: you get a lot of personal connection with the priest.
Speaker 2: We lucked out that my church growing up had a
Speaker 2: lot of young priests and that were really connected to
Speaker 2: our community and would hang out a lot, so that
Speaker 2: was positive. The other church in my town had one
Speaker 2: of the biggest abusers in the diocese and they would
Speaker 2: continually shuffle in from place to place. So like, I
Speaker 2: wanted to be a older boy so badly, and my
Speaker 2: Mom's like, you can't because they'll make you serve there.
Speaker 2: And then you know, I almost said his name. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to say his name, but he would uh
Speaker 2: my worry would be he'd be like, you know, Sam's
Speaker 2: just a little too chubby for me. That's horrible. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's horrible. But anyway, I think the Catholic Mass, unlike
Speaker 2: when I finally started going to other churches when I
Speaker 2: got older. The Catholic Mass is all based around this
Speaker 2: mystery that if you are to take it literally, the
Speaker 2: priest is like turning the communion, the water and wind
Speaker 2: into Jesus's body blood. So there's this transmorrification happening. And
Speaker 2: they even call it like the mystery of faith, and
Speaker 2: like there's a lot of moments within the Mass where
Speaker 2: they talk up that the priest is God's voice on earth.
Speaker 2: So it's like you've almost created this like mystery person,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? And this like magical
Speaker 2: energy around this person, and now you're like asked to
Speaker 2: relate to this person and tell them things about your life.
Speaker 2: I remember when I got divorced, someone said we should
Speaker 2: talk to your priest about that. Like he's never been married,
Speaker 2: Like he's never been an abusive relationship, do you I mean
Speaker 2: all these things that he doesn't what was he versus?
Speaker 2: Like you know a lay minister or like you know
Speaker 2: a minister, and they're living the real world and living
Speaker 2: the real life. So how we say Catholic priests are kind
Speaker 2: of like it's still a strange thing to me, like
Speaker 2: in this time that we're in, now that they live
Speaker 2: this almost separate existence from the rest of us.
Speaker 1: So we have the priest, and we also we have Bobby.
Speaker 1: Bobby kind of comes back in to the scene about
Speaker 1: this time. Donnie reaches out out to Bobby and says, hey,
Speaker 1: let's go to the movie, and Bobby says, forget that,
Speaker 1: let's go to the disco. You see the director, Joseph
Speaker 1: Ellison's wife, Ellen as Bobby's wife in this scene, and
Speaker 1: she's corraling the kids and doing this and that while
Speaker 1: he's planning a night on the town when he has
Speaker 1: these two women to invite to this disco, and you
Speaker 1: know that's so Donnie has to go. If you're going
Speaker 1: to the disco. He didn't have any outfits for this disco.
Speaker 1: In a kind of a Carrie Carry moment, maybe prom shopping,
Speaker 1: but not quite not that slapstick or anything. But he
Speaker 1: goes to a store to buy clothes to go to
Speaker 1: the disco. And I've seen a lot of people say
Speaker 1: that the salesperson here really sees the sucker coming and
Speaker 1: really upsells a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 1: First of all, Van Houston, but they did not black
Speaker 1: out Van Houston like they did Dying and so I
Speaker 1: love a Van Houston dress shirt. It's my it's my
Speaker 1: go to choice for dress shirts.
Speaker 2: I think I don't think he sees him as a mark.
Speaker 2: I just think that this is just another example that
Speaker 2: when Donnie has to deal with normal reality, it's always
Speaker 2: just a little strange. And it's like he's never when
Speaker 2: has he ever worn a dress shirt? Do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Like he's mostly where does he go home?
Speaker 2: And his job? So like this is such an alien place.
Speaker 2: I'm glad they didn't do a pretty woman montage here
Speaker 2: where you know he's like coming.
Speaker 1: Out and you're like, what about this other he didn't.
Speaker 1: He was not travel on the Matador, which is now
Speaker 1: this red color of a bullfighter's cape.
Speaker 2: I love that, like, and I lived through this right
Speaker 2: because like I remember when I was like five, I've
Speaker 2: been five and seventy seven when Disco finally reached the
Speaker 2: suburbs right with Saturad Night Fever, and I remember like
Speaker 2: every wedding we went to people were wearing like kind
Speaker 2: of Travalda ish kind of things. And it's amazing that
Speaker 2: like that happened in America for a while, that guys
Speaker 2: were encouraged to dress up in today. It's just like
Speaker 2: I always thought that, like in the future, we would
Speaker 2: have like Jetson's fashions and it's gonna be cargo shorts
Speaker 2: and T shirts for the rest of my one dresses
Speaker 2: up for anything, And this is like the last gasp,
Speaker 2: but people dressing up like we're going to go to
Speaker 2: the club and I'm going to dress like a man.
Speaker 1: At Yeah, I think if he had bought that matat
Speaker 1: or shirt, that'd have been ridiculous. I think what he
Speaker 1: wears his fine. That suit is very contrivult ish. I
Speaker 1: think it looks fine.
Speaker 2: I think it's funny that like music based movies led
Speaker 2: to fashion stuff because when I was in middle school,
Speaker 2: that's when breakdancing was big, right, And but again, my
Speaker 2: hometown is like three thousand people in western Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 2: the j C Pennies in our town got breakdance stuff
Speaker 2: like two years too late. And my grandmother bought me
Speaker 2: like a cut off shirt that said breakdance across it
Speaker 2: and like it didn't have sleeves, and like you know,
Speaker 2: I had to wear it to school, and my dad
Speaker 2: taught it to school, so of course he'd be there
Speaker 2: and see if I wore it or not, and I
Speaker 2: was just like, I'm going to get my ass kicked
Speaker 2: if i wear this outfit. So in the same way
Speaker 2: like I probably was wearing Miami vice stuff and disco
Speaker 2: stuff a year after everybody else and getting beat up
Speaker 2: for my sartorial choices. So today it's just black T
Speaker 2: shirts and shorts.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to mean were you wearing Jams too,
Speaker 1: You can tell us.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yeah, Jams specific Yeah, Mike, Well, when
Speaker 2: when they went out of style, I had the Jams
Speaker 2: dress shirts. I don't know if you remember they did
Speaker 2: dress shirts, and my dad loved them, and he took
Speaker 2: them and he was an art teacher and he would
Speaker 2: wear them. He at least wore them into the early
Speaker 2: two thousands, like he loved Jams. I'm waiting for that
Speaker 2: trend to come back. Also, you had to tuck your
Speaker 2: remember you had to tuck your t shirt into the
Speaker 2: pockets that people would see. Oh, I'm definitely wearing Jams
Speaker 2: like I'm not. These aren't knockouts that I got.
Speaker 1: Well, my mom used to make them for me, you know,
Speaker 1: because by the brand name James. Why buy them when
Speaker 1: you can make them so. Yeah, this lady at the disco,
Speaker 1: she seems really into Donnie and she's trying to get
Speaker 1: him out there on the dance floor. Yeah, unfortunately there
Speaker 1: is a poorly placed candle.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this scene is the most upsetting scene
Speaker 2: in the entire movie to me, right, uh it is.
Speaker 1: It is very memorable. Something to do to this is
Speaker 1: that initial flamethrower scene and this one she is pulling him.
Speaker 2: It's on the back of the severn box like it is.
Speaker 2: I know this is a visual podcast, but like it says,
Speaker 2: you've been worn on the back of he and there's
Speaker 2: just a woman's head on fire. Those candles have always
Speaker 2: upset me, those like jelly kind of candles, and I'm
Speaker 2: like that, why did they wet those out? And this
Speaker 2: movie totally tells me, Like in the same way you
Speaker 2: were upset about breaking down on a road as a kid,
Speaker 2: I was like, somebody's had is gonna get explode, and
Speaker 2: this movie like shows you what happens.
Speaker 1: I still feel that way. At Christmas at a candlelight
Speaker 1: service where the women their hair so hair sprayed, these
Speaker 1: little children, they give these little children a candle and
Speaker 1: they're just not aware of where they're placing this candle.
Speaker 1: And I just always fear every year that someone's hair
Speaker 1: is gonna go up and flams, just like in this movie.
Speaker 2: I think we've reached the point where and I don't
Speaker 2: know if your wife buys as many candles as mind.
Speaker 2: My wife is like bad beath beyond in body Works,
Speaker 2: gold Member of candles. There's more candles in this house
Speaker 2: in the Catholic church, and it's insane and I will
Speaker 2: not touch them, like I am afraid of fire, because
Speaker 2: I've watched this movie enough that I you know, my
Speaker 2: head could I have long air, My head could explode
Speaker 2: at any moment.
Speaker 1: So luckily, my wife is very sensitive to sense, so
Speaker 1: we have so that is one fear I do not have.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, but why was she trying to pull
Speaker 1: him over this railing in the first place to get him?
Speaker 1: Why didn't she walk around? I'm not trying to victim
Speaker 1: blame here, but no.
Speaker 2: No, anyway, just imagine like in the hospital she's like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I was like if she survives, and she's like,
Speaker 2: I was just trying to dance with this weird with
Speaker 2: drawn in so guy, I tried to pull him over
Speaker 2: the legend and my whole head caught on fire.
Speaker 1: And he he really has a mental break here because
Speaker 1: he grabs that candle and shoves it in her head
Speaker 1: and it immediately catches on fire. And this is this
Speaker 1: is another scary moment in real life. I'm sure for
Speaker 1: that actress because it was an actress in a wig
Speaker 1: and they there were again no special effects. This was
Speaker 1: real flame on her head on this wig, and she
Speaker 1: was not harmed. No actresses were harmed. This amazing physically
Speaker 1: maybe mentally, but yeah.
Speaker 2: Could you imagine like if you go in for a
Speaker 2: for your next role and you're like, what what kind
Speaker 2: of stuff you've been in? Michael? I was in a
Speaker 2: movie called The Burning man Ache, Don't go in the
Speaker 2: House and they set my head on fire with a
Speaker 2: candle and a disco like, are you ready to read
Speaker 2: for your part?
Speaker 1: Reading for some Shakespearean role.
Speaker 2: I think the difference with this in Maniac is like
Speaker 2: he even if he got one of these girls, like
Speaker 2: there's no sexual interest whatsoever for him. Ye, Like he's
Speaker 2: just like I've just said her on fire, it's cool.
Speaker 2: I'm I don't need to have sex with her, and
Speaker 2: and it's versus like I think Joe Spinell was kind
Speaker 2: of like, yeah, all of it, and he's sweaty and
Speaker 2: ready to go, and and he's just like, I don't
Speaker 2: my mother would not like that.
Speaker 1: So after that he Donnie very swiftly leaves the disco
Speaker 1: very fast. He doesn't run, it's a very fast walk
Speaker 1: to leave. And the girl's brother finds out he They
Speaker 1: have an altercation in the parking lot, but Donnie gets
Speaker 1: out of that, gets in his truck and goes back
Speaker 1: to the house. And well, on the way to the house,
Speaker 1: he picks up a couple more women and I can't
Speaker 1: exactly remember what their trouble was. They needed a ride
Speaker 1: and end up back in the house. Again they should
Speaker 1: not go into the house, but it kind of leads
Speaker 1: to me, really the final one, maybe the scariest moment
Speaker 1: of all, and it's the way that Ellison shoots this.
Speaker 1: Is that the one. I guess there's a blonde and brunette.
Speaker 1: I'm terrible with character names, by the way, We'll just
Speaker 1: say that up front. And it's like, I know, Donnie
Speaker 1: and movie, there was a movie, and by because I
Speaker 1: wrote it down, I don't write it down. I'm not
Speaker 1: remember there was a movie I watched. It was called
Speaker 1: gosh see, I don't even remember what the movie is now,
Speaker 1: Once It's Not Enough. It's based on the Sidney Sheldon book.
Speaker 1: I was watching it because Brenda Vcaru was in it.
Speaker 1: I just watched The House by the Lake. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and she's in that. And that was another thing when
Speaker 1: I was like, it's like, man, this actor, she's really
Speaker 1: good in House by the Lake. It was like, what
Speaker 1: else was she in? I was like, she was nominated
Speaker 1: for an Oscar before this for this movie Once is
Speaker 1: Not Enough? Which is this like Sidney Sheldon soap opera,
Speaker 1: Kurt Douglass. It's crazy anyway. Kurt Douglas's daughter's name that
Speaker 1: movie is January, and I will if I have dementia,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget because they say her name seven hundred
Speaker 1: times in that movie. They just keep saying January Genuy.
Speaker 2: I really worry, uh because my dad had to mension
Speaker 2: and would like sometimes thought he was sixteen and would
Speaker 2: I couldn't can figure out how I was his son
Speaker 2: looking as old as I do. And I worry that
Speaker 2: when I have dementia, I'm gonna think that people are
Speaker 2: characters from Italian movies where I would just be like,
Speaker 2: where is black Emmanuel and my wife would be like,
Speaker 2: please stop it, like just stop it, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I can't help it. My dad did tell me the
Speaker 2: best part of having it was that every show was
Speaker 2: new all the time. He said to me. Once watching Murder,
Speaker 2: she wrote, He's like, I know I've seen this one.
Speaker 2: He's like, but I don't know what happens, and he goes.
Speaker 2: And if there's anything positive about where I'm at right now,
Speaker 2: it's this. I Every show's new to me. Everything's new,
Speaker 2: everything's new. I could find a whole bunch of new shallow.
Speaker 2: I could do this epistroke.
Speaker 1: I already felt that way now when I watch Jalla
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, I don't remember if I rewatched one.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't remember who.
Speaker 2: Watched Lizard a Woman's Skin at the drive in and
Speaker 2: Bill asked me, He's like, is she the killer? And
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't really think that's important. I really
Speaker 2: just think it's the journey that we take. And also
Speaker 2: there's a bat attack in that movie that's awesome, and uh,
Speaker 2: that's what I'm here for. Like the vibes, it's like
Speaker 2: when you go to a bar and you're like, I
Speaker 2: want the ambience of sin, like when you're in a
Speaker 2: bar or strip club. That's kind of what a jalloh
Speaker 2: is to me. It's just like, ah, it's kind of
Speaker 2: scuzzy here, like that's anger.
Speaker 1: Who cares?
Speaker 2: Who cares?
Speaker 1: Who did it? That's not really what that's not here.
Speaker 2: It's the same way as David Lynch was like that
Speaker 2: with Twin Peaks, where I love at the end of
Speaker 2: the season, people are like regular America and the Yeah,
Speaker 2: A TV guide was like, who killed Wara Palmer And
Speaker 2: he's like, oh, is that what about? It's really not about.
Speaker 1: That to me, and I love watching it in through
Speaker 1: that lens of it. It's not that's not about who
Speaker 1: did It's about these characters. You know. It's like it's
Speaker 1: basically like Northern Exposure. But yeah, with the murder subplot.
Speaker 2: I just remember people in school talking about it and
Speaker 2: being so angry about it, like upset people so much.
Speaker 2: They're just like, is he to get to the point?
Speaker 2: And I was like, I hope not. I love it
Speaker 2: like I you know, I was totally in for whatever happened,
Speaker 2: Like I had the diary and I had like all
Speaker 2: the audiobook and all this stuff. I was like, I
Speaker 2: love that this world exists. And they probably hated the
Speaker 2: last season, which goes into places that you're not ready for. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, like I said, we're here for a hang. We
Speaker 1: just want a good hang. We don't we don't care
Speaker 1: about a whole lot of.
Speaker 2: Them, even if the person we're hanging with is setting
Speaker 2: random women on fire and discos and uh talking to
Speaker 2: his dead mom, like, or who are we to judge? Yeah,
Speaker 2: who are we to judge?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't remember these girls, these characters' names.
Speaker 1: There's there's the brunette is already put into the room,
Speaker 1: the still room, and the blonde friend is going up
Speaker 1: the stairs looking for and this is this show really
Speaker 1: took me back because he has the camera place at
Speaker 1: the foot of the stairs. I guess there's a landing,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's a foot of the stairs, and
Speaker 1: she's climbing up the stairs and she turns to the left,
Speaker 1: and then you the cameras stationary, and then from the
Speaker 1: right you see Donnie Cross across come across there. If
Speaker 1: you're watching this in nineteen teventy nine, that has to
Speaker 1: be super scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I always try to put myself in
Speaker 2: characters shoes too. So the fact that she's looking for
Speaker 2: her friend, she's in a house. That's a horrifying thing
Speaker 2: to me is being in a house, especially as a kid,
Speaker 2: Like when you'd stay at someone's house and you're like,
Speaker 2: I don't know what's in this house? Do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Like, I don't. I haven't like memorized
Speaker 2: the layout of it.
Speaker 1: I'm not say, And that was a big house, Like what, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was the Strauss Mansion where you have some
Speaker 1: information about that the setting of that house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, and uh
Speaker 2: it was built in eighteen ninety three, and it was
Speaker 2: obviously fogging into decay as you can tell from the movie.
Speaker 2: But uh, it was going to be condemned in Allen Hamill,
Speaker 2: who you know is the director's wife, secured it and
Speaker 2: then after the movie the local historical society restored it.
Speaker 2: What I love is most historical societies are obviously very stuffy.
Speaker 2: They showed this movie every year and invite people to
Speaker 2: watch it at Halloween, and it's like they're fundraiser. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine that people come to the fundraiser. It'd be like,
Speaker 2: what a fun movie, What an enjoyable time at the
Speaker 2: But there's another movie, What Lives Here, that was made
Speaker 2: last year. A junk removal company is hired to clean
Speaker 2: out a mansion. But The Sinister Pass was also filmed
Speaker 2: at the Strauss Mansion. But this is the thing that
Speaker 2: I love about these regional films is they're really succeeded
Speaker 2: a lot of times based on the location that they find.
Speaker 2: And this is like a location that isn't built, do
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like a Hollywood location, they
Speaker 2: would just build these rooms and they do like a
Speaker 2: b roll shot of a house, you know, or they'd
Speaker 2: find the same house. You've seen a bunch of movies
Speaker 2: seeing this house and like how big it is. It's
Speaker 2: on the poster, do you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 2: it's a major plot point, Like this this house is
Speaker 2: like terrifying to come to and he's the only person
Speaker 2: living in it, along with you know, a rapidly growing
Speaker 2: collection of burned up bodies and a dead mom somewhere.
Speaker 1: How cold do you think it was in that house?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you can see their breath. Oh it
Speaker 1: had to be the worst.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially too like when it comes to filming, there's
Speaker 2: so much of like hurry up and wait stuff, So
Speaker 2: I can't imagine. And you know, there was I don't
Speaker 2: think there was craft services if anything, people at the
Speaker 2: thermos of coffee. Maybe it just looks yeah, like I said,
Speaker 2: this does not look like a fun movie to film.
Speaker 1: No, no, So I guess. We get to the finale, Bobby,
Speaker 1: after dispatching with the woman who's at the disco's hair
Speaker 1: had caught on fire, runs to the church, grabs the priest.
Speaker 1: They go back to try to help them again. They
Speaker 1: are doing the most to help Donnie. If the friend
Speaker 1: I came with said someone there on fire, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'd be going. Yeah, I can't say I'm
Speaker 1: that kind of a friend, I guess. But the priest
Speaker 1: in Psycho, there is a There are a lot of
Speaker 1: Psycho references here, one of them being here at the
Speaker 1: end where the priests going up the stairs and Donnie
Speaker 1: meets him. He's in his asbesta suit with the flame
Speaker 1: there were like Norman Bates in his mother's dress, and
Speaker 1: you know the priests. The priest gets flamed. Yeah, everyone
Speaker 1: kind of leaves and Donnie's left with those corpses and
Speaker 1: the two women get rescued. Everyone's gone, and it's just
Speaker 1: Donnie with the corpses who spring to life. And according
Speaker 1: to the book, these people are not the same actresses.
Speaker 1: Who were they. They got skinnier actresses, right, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: got ballet dancers because Joseph Ellison was big and he
Speaker 1: had worked with a ballet company and he wanted as
Speaker 1: the bodies as days went on, the bodies would dehydrate
Speaker 1: lose water, so they would be smaller. But you know,
Speaker 1: the intent being that audiences would think these were Mannquins
Speaker 1: the whole time, but they're not their actual actresses, and
Speaker 1: they spring to life and they attack Donnie, similar to
Speaker 1: the Endomaniac. Of course, it's it's.
Speaker 2: So close, isn't it. Yeah, it's versus Like Frank Zita
Speaker 2: seems to have a deeper relationship with the the court,
Speaker 2: like he talks to them about I love the one speech,
Speaker 2: whereas like I told you what happens when you go out,
Speaker 2: like this happens every time. This has happened before. But yeah,
Speaker 2: like I think the other thing interesting about both movies
Speaker 2: is there's really not a final girl. Like the the
Speaker 2: dead corpses and the I guess symbolize the guilt, and
Speaker 2: in both movies they finally get to him. Though there
Speaker 2: was supposed to be a maniac too, which is an
Speaker 2: even crazier story. But uh, I don't know who was
Speaker 2: like begging for him to come back like you loved
Speaker 2: them in the first one. And then you know, if
Speaker 2: we followed the traditional slash recycle by the fourth movie,
Speaker 2: he'd be funny and cracking jokes.
Speaker 1: Well that's a fire pun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, have some fire scarecrow and like, you know,
Speaker 2: the woman's out on fire, and like, oh, I love him.
Speaker 2: He's such a such a misunderstood boy. No, he's not,
Speaker 2: like he's a horrible person, Like at least this movie
Speaker 2: does not allow you to empathize or be excited. Like
Speaker 2: even as a slasher gorehound kid, I would always be like,
Speaker 2: why are why do people love Freddy so much? Like
Speaker 2: he is at best a child abuser, at worst a
Speaker 2: child pedroist, and we're like, oh, he's funny. I guess
Speaker 2: sense of humor goes a long way, you know.
Speaker 1: Well, once he puts those shades on at the beach
Speaker 1: in part yeah, that that doesn't I think.
Speaker 2: Also when he calls this is the horrible part of
Speaker 2: our society. Once he starts calling women bitch, they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's funny. He's talking down to these women. So I
Speaker 2: think that's the difference between this and Maniac is that
Speaker 2: there's a ton of women in this movie that were
Speaker 2: in vital production roles like Ellen hamilcover At the screenplay,
Speaker 2: produced it, Janekerson edited it. Sarah Wood was the art director.
Speaker 2: Dianson said it was production manager. Monica Lang was the
Speaker 2: second unit. So this wasn't like an all guy cast,
Speaker 2: So it feels like maybe that helped. Even though this
Speaker 2: is a movie about women getting killed, like it's never
Speaker 2: like presented as like these women had a coming or
Speaker 2: they were you know that.
Speaker 1: This is like it was just wrong place at the
Speaker 1: wrong time, which is very similar to what was going
Speaker 1: on in the landscape in the seventies of women being
Speaker 1: in the wrong place at the wrong time. With these
Speaker 1: with the Ted Bundy's and.
Speaker 2: The versus Maniac, a lot of it is and I
Speaker 2: love Maniac, so don't get me wrong, but a lot
Speaker 2: of it's like, oh, these are fallen women and he's
Speaker 2: killing prostitutes, and it's like, you know, versus like these
Speaker 2: women aren't these are just women trying to buy a
Speaker 2: two letter forest, you know, yeah, right, the florest and
Speaker 2: what what had the victims together? They all love Coca Cola,
Speaker 2: only in two laters, though they liked a hot two
Speaker 2: later of Coca Cola, and just upset in because his
Speaker 2: mother used to burn his hand.
Speaker 1: And made him drink hot flat coke that had been
Speaker 1: sitting in the car for.
Speaker 2: Two days coming from advertising. The craziest story is doctor
Speaker 2: Pepper was upset that people weren't buying Doctor Pepper over
Speaker 2: Christmas at one point. And if you know this, and
Speaker 2: they came up with the recipe for like a hot
Speaker 2: Doctor Pepper that head clothes and lemons in it. It's
Speaker 2: I've made it. It's horrible. But they literally had TV
Speaker 2: commercials like it's almost Christmas and that means it's time
Speaker 2: for a hot Doctor Pepper. Doctor Pepper has stuff in
Speaker 2: it that is not made to be hot, like you
Speaker 2: got to make it super cold to make it drinkable.
Speaker 1: And I like it. I can't think of any soft
Speaker 1: drink hot that.
Speaker 2: Would be it, right, But they were like, you know,
Speaker 2: how do we make something better in the winter. Let's
Speaker 2: let's throw some pop on the stove. I couldn't piping
Speaker 2: hot burners or.
Speaker 1: Then serve it next to your jello mold and camento
Speaker 1: cheese sandwich.
Speaker 2: We need to bring back this Gell and Woltz. I
Speaker 2: imagine that our killer's mom made like the kind of
Speaker 2: jello that had like fish and stuff at it, and
Speaker 2: he was like, I can't wait till she's gone.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I wonder he's jumping up and down
Speaker 1: on furniture, and so at the very end we get
Speaker 1: a codea kind of a public service announcement square.
Speaker 2: I'm real.
Speaker 1: Of this child. I guess he just wasn't listening to
Speaker 1: his mother. I don't know his mother was. She's on
Speaker 1: a she's out of ten, she is fed up, she's
Speaker 1: had enough, and she just comes in and just slaps
Speaker 1: this poor kid around. And then the freeze frame on
Speaker 1: the kid of kind of uh, this is he's gonna
Speaker 1: be the next Donnie. He's gonna take up. And that
Speaker 1: could be the don't don't go back in the house.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe follow that kid and see what's he up
Speaker 1: to now after getting slapped around by his mom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then Q struck by boogie lightning.
Speaker 2: So what is it?
Speaker 1: What is a better discuss song was a better discus song.
Speaker 1: Struck by Boogie Lightning from Don't Go in the House
Speaker 1: or Belly Boogie form Alty Girl Massacre.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's a rough one. Oh they're the
Speaker 2: same song, this one. I like the phrase that there's
Speaker 2: boogie lightning, that that surmises that there is a form
Speaker 2: of lightning that has achieved sentience and is really good
Speaker 2: at dancing, and then that leads to the song.
Speaker 1: Uh. We had a guy had work one time, so
Speaker 1: I'm a pharmacist. We had a guy who came in
Speaker 1: to do like the destructions. Whenever medicines expire, they have
Speaker 1: a guy come in or a person come in who
Speaker 1: goes through all the destructions and you can get some
Speaker 1: credit back for expired medicines. Anyway, that's all boring. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we have the radio going and it's it's raining men
Speaker 1: on the radio station, and so the guy's leaving and
Speaker 1: he's like, does anybody know what the weather is gonna
Speaker 1: be out there? And I said, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: the radio scene is raining men out there. So he
Speaker 1: did not think that was funny.
Speaker 2: So I used to wrestle with these guys. Sexual harassment
Speaker 2: was their gimmick, and when they would come out, the
Speaker 2: announcer would say, I've just been handed a note from
Speaker 2: the National Weather Service and like, uh urgent storm warning,
Speaker 2: and you know, people are like, oh, do we have
Speaker 2: to leave the wrestling show and go home? And then
Speaker 2: it's raining. Men would start and people would lose their
Speaker 2: minds screaming at them. They would just be so upset
Speaker 2: that the song was playing.
Speaker 1: I don't know they property were supposed to be screaming
Speaker 1: because you're so excited about I know, right if they
Speaker 1: should have used Boogie Lightning.
Speaker 2: Also, I'm sure they were like, can we use this
Speaker 2: one furno for this movie? But is that two on
Speaker 2: the nose?
Speaker 1: Do you know what it would be? Two on the notes?
Speaker 1: I think yeah, too much.
Speaker 2: If you see in some of the movies we're gonna
Speaker 2: watch like they just didn't worry. They're like, yeah, just
Speaker 2: use that song. No one will ever know. The Astrologer
Speaker 2: is my favorite, where he used like six Moody Blues
Speaker 2: songs and then sent them Moody Blues a bill and said, hey,
Speaker 2: this is for being in my movie. That's why you
Speaker 2: can't find it. That's why you're gonna go to the
Speaker 2: Internet archive. Uh, to get it.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the end of Don't Go in the House. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing about this podcast that I really want to
Speaker 1: do is to be able to go through the book
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna say and actually read it instead of
Speaker 1: just having it on my shelf. So you know, I
Speaker 1: tried to read it. I was like when I first
Speaker 1: got us, like, I'm going to read this cover to cover.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, You're not going to read this book
Speaker 1: cover to cover. But if you do it film by film,
Speaker 1: you can you can really digest it that way. So
Speaker 1: I really had a good time reading this. There's a
Speaker 1: whole chapter devoted to this movie, and so some things
Speaker 1: I learned was that the director Joseph Ellison studied acting
Speaker 1: under Lee Strasburg. As did the actor play Donnie Dan Grimaldi? Uh,
Speaker 1: you have any thoughts on the Strasburg acting method.
Speaker 2: It's interesting though, It's like I wonder if they did
Speaker 2: use the method for this, and then also did he
Speaker 2: stay in character? Did Grimaldi stay characters of all the time?
Speaker 2: This was not a character I'd want to stay and
Speaker 2: it'd be that the it had to be a short shoot.
Speaker 1: The shoot could have lasted too long, so at least
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be too long. Another thing was that all
Speaker 1: of the dialogue was was sinked or dubbed back in,
Speaker 1: like they didn't have actual, you know, on set recording,
Speaker 1: but Ellison had like that was his dream job, I think,
Speaker 1: was to dub Italian movies, which I mean there was
Speaker 1: plenty of jobs to be had doing that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and and those movies were made to be
Speaker 2: shot like this without you know, the Tower Babbel kind
Speaker 2: of thing where people were all speaking their own languages
Speaker 2: or some people would just literally say numbers instead of
Speaker 2: saying dialogue, and they would because they knew it didn't
Speaker 2: matter what was going to get said.
Speaker 1: The director was he might have been cast in The Crazies.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about The Crazies in a second,
Speaker 1: But do you know what role is?
Speaker 2: No, I don't know. That's amazing to like be like
Speaker 2: almost in it. It's kind of like how Savini was
Speaker 2: gonna be involved with Neither Living Dead but had to
Speaker 2: go to Vietnam. It's always like kind of like WHOA,
Speaker 2: what would have happened? You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was down to three actors and he was
Speaker 1: one of them, and he was working for a ballet
Speaker 1: company at the time, and he said he couldn't leave
Speaker 1: this for sure job for a potential job, so he did.
Speaker 2: It's amazing to like late sixties, early seventies to be
Speaker 2: it seemed like a time when people are like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: that sounds cool and they just go and do it,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean, versus like actually having
Speaker 2: a job and working through it. So it worked. I
Speaker 2: think it worked out for him.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Ellison met his wife Ellen, who we've talked
Speaker 1: about while he was scouting a location scout for Toga Party.
Speaker 1: Any Milligan did inserts for it must have been Pelvis
Speaker 1: first and then Milligan put in inserts for Toga Party.
Speaker 1: Because Ellison says he never met He doesn't never remember
Speaker 1: meeting Milligan. And I have to think if you met Milligan,
Speaker 1: you would remember, right, you would.
Speaker 2: You would remember. Uh. He probably yelled at you if
Speaker 2: you met you know what I mean. I imagined he
Speaker 2: was ill tempered. Uh.
Speaker 1: We talked about the original treatment was it was called
Speaker 1: The Burning Man, and they were going to shorten it
Speaker 1: to the Burning but of course there was already a
Speaker 1: movie in production that was using advertising for The Burning
Speaker 1: which was Meer Maxis the Burning Yeah.
Speaker 2: Which they the movie that my video stort did not have,
Speaker 2: So it became this mythical I need to see this movie,
Speaker 2: and it didn't live up to at first. It's a
Speaker 2: movie that the first time I saw it, I was like,
Speaker 2: this is it? The effects are great though against the
Speaker 2: being the effectsor that's why you watched.
Speaker 1: It, it sounds like really the only changes I made
Speaker 1: was it was a lot more ethnic of that New Jersey,
Speaker 1: New York area where they kind of took some of that.
Speaker 2: It was more like my hometown where the Italians were, hey,
Speaker 2: it's by this is a joke my own time you
Speaker 2: say hey Tony and like fifty dudes turn around want
Speaker 2: to fight you.
Speaker 1: That's a that's my hometown city. Do you have any
Speaker 1: other notes on this movie.
Speaker 2: I have a bunch of some of the people involved.
Speaker 2: The screenplay and original story comes from Joe Maysfield, who,
Speaker 2: interesting enough, after this movie did the sound editing for
Speaker 2: Evil Dead, and he was involved in a ton of
Speaker 2: sound editing of films like Alone in the Dark, not
Speaker 2: to Owey Bowl movie, the nineteen eighty two slasher Savage JN,
Speaker 2: an early Viner Syndrome release, and he did special effects
Speaker 2: on the opening of Misty Beethoven, which I love.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, waitit what what special you said special effects
Speaker 1: in the opening? What special effects on there Beethoven.
Speaker 2: He may have done the I don't know what he did.
Speaker 2: There's a lot cut out of that movie. If you
Speaker 2: buy the DVD version today, there's stuff that still is
Speaker 2: not maybe legal, that is in the original and uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a good movie. Though it's a Radley Metzker It's yeah,
Speaker 2: that's like the it's the fans. That's like the mel
Speaker 2: was how do you say the other Centro monda melosine. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's like, oh, that's I like we had we as
Speaker 2: film geeks have to be like, that's not porn, that's art.
Speaker 1: It's like me trying to my wife to get the
Speaker 1: golden age of erotic cinema exactly.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, she's like, is this movie porn? No,
Speaker 2: it's erotic, it's it's Misty Beethoven and a cinema. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's cinema.
Speaker 1: Also Behind the Green Door they talk about this on Maud.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: He did production work on Sin You Centers, another early
Speaker 2: adult film, and also Teenage Mother, which is one of
Speaker 2: my favorite trailers of all time. Uh, she's nine months
Speaker 2: of trouble, teenage mother h this. FBI got involved and
Speaker 2: picked this up, so Edward Montorro was also involved. The
Speaker 2: insane man who distributed Grizzly Beyond the Door in Great
Speaker 2: White and then disappeared in nineteen eighty four taking all
Speaker 2: the money from FBI. Never found. Some people think he's
Speaker 2: in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: There's also Matthew Mallinson who was the associate producer. He
Speaker 2: directed Fist of Fear, Touch of Death and also went
Speaker 2: on to edit. Speaking of the kind of movies we love,
Speaker 2: a lot of Worth Keeters movies like Tales from the
Speaker 2: Third Dimension in three D Unmasking the Idol. But it's
Speaker 2: wild to me. I don't know if you noticed this.
Speaker 2: How many people in here did amazing things like Skip Levitski,
Speaker 2: who's the sound editor, won the Academy Award for Gravity,
Speaker 2: and as of twenty twenty six, he worked on fourteen
Speaker 2: Best Picture nominated films. He's worked on all the Cohen
Speaker 2: Brothers stuff, Goodfellows, Casino, Do the Right Thing, No Country
Speaker 2: for Old Men, Silence of the Lamps. But this is
Speaker 2: where he started. He just did Marty Supreme was the
Speaker 2: last movie he was nominated for, so there's like a
Speaker 2: lot of really great people. The camera operator Ken Kelch
Speaker 2: who he worked on all able for ours movies. Also
Speaker 2: he shot Last House in the Left and Spooky, so
Speaker 2: there's a little like here there, you know.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, and that's part of what makes this
Speaker 1: movie so good is that all these people have come
Speaker 1: together and it's a good you know this. The craftsmanship
Speaker 1: behind this movie is just outstanding.
Speaker 2: And this is the weirdest role that I found for somebody.
Speaker 2: Tom Brumberger, who's one of the effects guys. He did
Speaker 2: effects for tons of stuff, Christmas, Evil Girls, Night Out, Santa,
Speaker 2: and The Ice Cream Bunny, which is an obsession movie
Speaker 2: for me. He did the Thumbollina short within that he
Speaker 2: did the effects. But after this movie he also did
Speaker 2: Don't Sleep, which is Alfred Soul who did a comedian
Speaker 2: It's the adult movie that Alfred sold made before Alic Sweet, Alice, Communion,
Speaker 2: whatever we want to call it. But his job after
Speaker 2: this movie was he became Olympia Ducaucus's official makeup person.
Speaker 2: So every Olympia Ducaucus movie after like nineteen eighty five
Speaker 2: eighty six, he's he did her makeup. He was the
Speaker 2: only person that she would allow to do her makeup.
Speaker 1: So let me tell my Still Magnolia's story.
Speaker 2: Of please I love this.
Speaker 1: Because Still Magnolia's filmed a naked Ish Louisiana, which is
Speaker 1: about an hour from where I live, which is also
Speaker 1: where Screams of a Winter Night was filmed. We'll get
Speaker 1: to that at some point. And so, just talking about
Speaker 1: screenings within a house, they turned the house I guess
Speaker 1: two houses were used in Still Magnolia's, but one of
Speaker 1: the houses that they use they turned into a bed
Speaker 1: and breakfast and my wife and I stayed there and
Speaker 1: you can go and they would screen I say screen
Speaker 1: the film. They put it in a VCR or DVD
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you could watch Still Magnolia's in the
Speaker 1: house where they filmed Still Magnolia and there's really nothing
Speaker 1: like nothing else like that. That's just a great experience
Speaker 1: because you see Julia Roberts coming down the staircase and
Speaker 1: you look in there. It's the staircase right there, and
Speaker 1: it's if you ever get a chance to experience, no
Speaker 1: matter what the movie is, a screening of a film
Speaker 1: at the location where they filmed. I'd say jump on
Speaker 1: it if you can.
Speaker 2: We did Children of the corn in the Cornfield, which, uh,
Speaker 2: just a little advice post doing that. Don't get high.
Speaker 2: It'll get real disconcerted really quick. You're like, oh, fuck,
Speaker 2: that is where the cornfield is. Also, Courtney Gains was
Speaker 2: supposed to be there but couldn't make it. And if
Speaker 2: Malchi had been there during it, I probably wouldn't be
Speaker 2: here today. I'd probably be too freaked out.
Speaker 1: But the coolest'll be looking for he who walks behind
Speaker 1: the room wondering this cornfield I watched.
Speaker 2: We got to see Silver Bullet in the house where
Speaker 2: it was made, and the lady who owns the house
Speaker 2: today had never seen it, so she sat with my
Speaker 2: wife while we watched it. She's like, this is pretty fun.
Speaker 2: And we spent like two days looking for Silver Bullet locations.
Speaker 2: It was pretty fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's always great. And that's one thing about these
Speaker 1: regional films is that you can find these places. It's
Speaker 1: not I mean a lot of them are in California
Speaker 1: or whatever, but they're sprinkled all across the nation of
Speaker 1: these films.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's a if you come to Pittsburgh, I
Speaker 2: can take you to a ton of them, obviously, there's
Speaker 2: so many. The last fact that I found is Simon Knuckturn,
Speaker 2: who's thanked in this. He was the president of August Films.
Speaker 2: He's the guy that did the marketing for Snuff the
Speaker 2: took an Argentina film and had the finlies makes up.
Speaker 2: He also going to direct a lot of adult but
Speaker 2: Savage Dawn, an early Vinegar Syndrum release, and Silent Madness,
Speaker 2: the three D slasher. But I guess he gave them
Speaker 2: a lot of production resources for this. But his the
Speaker 2: movies he worked on are crazy. He worked on King
Speaker 2: Frat and Emma Daughter's Dug Band Christmas and Bloodsucking Freaks.
Speaker 2: I get it, Like my resume looks kind of wild too,
Speaker 2: like the places I worked, But I didn't work on
Speaker 2: a Jim Henson puppet film for HBO and also Super
Speaker 2: Infoman and Ganja and Hess Like that's a that's a crazy.
Speaker 2: Like you did a lot of stuff, sir, like.
Speaker 1: Couding, there's nothing you can't at that.
Speaker 2: Point exactly, It's like I did the American dialogue for
Speaker 2: Super Infoman. Let me just throw money at you for
Speaker 2: an autograph at that point. But how did you feel
Speaker 2: about it? Did you appreciate more this time watching it
Speaker 2: after doing a deep dive into the book and the
Speaker 2: commentary stuff like did I did?
Speaker 1: And I really liked it the first time. I didn't
Speaker 1: see this until probably the Severn discs came out, so
Speaker 1: that was there or four years ago. I've given it
Speaker 1: four and a half stars in and I really liked it,
Speaker 1: and I probably liked it even more this time, I
Speaker 1: would say, just because I could really appreciate again looking
Speaker 1: at it from this was Ellison's first feature film, and
Speaker 1: it's just amazing that you know, how well made of
Speaker 1: a film it is.
Speaker 2: I think the only negative you can say to it
Speaker 2: is it kind of Some people, like you said, might
Speaker 2: think it slows down in the second act, but there's
Speaker 2: certainly stuff coming that is going to blow your mind again.
Speaker 2: And I think that this if this movie only had
Speaker 2: the two big shocks in it, it would still be
Speaker 2: a big success. But I think that it's like it
Speaker 2: comes together really well for being a first movie. Did
Speaker 2: you have you seen Joey the other movie?
Speaker 1: Well, I was gonna ask, no, I've not seen.
Speaker 2: I want to check it because I want to see
Speaker 2: like how he is, what he learned from it, and
Speaker 2: if it's a better film.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it's in rights. There's no way you
Speaker 1: can get the rights for all the music that's used.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I'll probably have to go to the cave
Speaker 2: of forgotten films. You go to the cave of forgotten
Speaker 2: films and you get an ad for something that's insane,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I have never fought more scene in
Speaker 2: my film watching us. I always tell people are like,
Speaker 2: how did you find this movie? And then because a
Speaker 2: lot of people demand, like you know, they need like
Speaker 2: a seven release or they need like a four K release,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh, I watched it on a Russian
Speaker 2: hack site with someone screaming the dialogue in Russian over
Speaker 2: top of it with hard coded subs with three languages,
Speaker 2: and the quality was horrible. It was a great movie,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? But it's like, if
Speaker 2: you want to find a movie like Joey like sometimes
Speaker 2: that's what you're gonna do. Like, You're not gonna find
Speaker 2: a pristine copy of these things.
Speaker 1: What would you say? It was a good double feature?
Speaker 1: I know you talked about Maniac and the New York Cripper.
Speaker 1: What would you pair this one with?
Speaker 2: I would I'm thinking Alice Sweet Alice is a good
Speaker 2: one for this because there's a fire death. It is
Speaker 2: very upsetting early in the film, and also like the
Speaker 2: Catholicism ties and also the New York New Jersey kind
Speaker 2: of just grunginess of it. That's also like a very
Speaker 2: dark movie. We showed Bill showed it. Uh he did
Speaker 2: a triple feature of the Day After Halloween, Pieces and
Speaker 2: Alice Sweet House once at a theater and uh, as
Speaker 2: you can imagine, Pieces brought the house down there. You know,
Speaker 2: people are like that movie does not stop, Like that's
Speaker 2: not one where the second actle is that it is
Speaker 2: quote the tagline, exactly what you think it is. But
Speaker 2: like Alice Sweet Alse upset people so bad and uh
Speaker 2: the end, like the people that are essentially good in
Speaker 2: it all either get killed or get destroyed by it.
Speaker 2: And it's like wow, Like what a rough movie. And
Speaker 2: it feels like it fits into this What would.
Speaker 1: Your pick be for for a double So I was
Speaker 1: gonna watch The Dark because they mentioned that in night Mare,
Speaker 1: U say that that was a double feature that don't
Speaker 1: go to the house played with was the Dark and
Speaker 1: it's all Amazon. Par I started watching it and it
Speaker 1: is dark because in I can't see what is happening
Speaker 1: other than there's some lasers.
Speaker 2: It feels like a coal Jack episode without coal Jack.
Speaker 2: That's how I described the Dark. And also like Toby
Speaker 2: Hooper was supposed to direct it, and this is like
Speaker 2: that phase of his career. Was like, no, he's not
Speaker 2: gonna direct, he's gotten fired already. Also, it's like they
Speaker 2: weren't sure that is it going to be aware? What
Speaker 2: is it going to be? An alien? Like what's the creature? Like?
Speaker 2: The Dark is messy, but I kind of like that.
Speaker 2: It's like the Manitude too, like those kind of movies
Speaker 2: were were like, what is this thing?
Speaker 1: Well, we'll see because it's it's in the book. It's
Speaker 1: in that. It's its own capsule review entry. So I
Speaker 1: was like, well, we'll get to that. We'll get to it.
Speaker 1: We'll get to it eventually. So I said, well, this
Speaker 1: movie reminds me so much a Psycho. Let me rewatch Psycho.
Speaker 1: But I watched the gust Fan's end Psycho.
Speaker 2: I have it and I've never watched it.
Speaker 1: You've never seen it?
Speaker 2: No, No, I have. I got it for a dollar
Speaker 2: and I haven't watched it. And I'm like, but my
Speaker 2: wife loves it. She thinks it's great because she doesn't
Speaker 2: have any experience with your original.
Speaker 1: What I was thinking was that don't go in the house.
Speaker 1: It flopped at the time, and it's kind of had
Speaker 1: a revisionous history about it, where now it's kind of
Speaker 1: more of a cult classic, and I think it's time
Speaker 1: for the gust Fan and Psycho to have that sort
Speaker 1: of renaissance revisionist history potentially, And it's not it's not.
Speaker 2: You might get thrown off letter box for saying that
Speaker 2: that's a brave statement.
Speaker 1: I think. I think people are coming around and I'm
Speaker 1: not good. Uh, this is not a hill I want
Speaker 1: to die on, for sure, the gust Fans ant Psycho.
Speaker 1: But watching it now, most people will say why why
Speaker 1: why did he do this? You know, there's this is
Speaker 1: no point in doing this, And I think the point
Speaker 1: is just he takes everything the same and just like,
Speaker 1: let's see what it would be if we did it
Speaker 1: with this set of actors in this way, and that
Speaker 1: is it's an interesting experiment that doesn't necessarily work, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the actors sound like they're just reading
Speaker 1: lines and not didn't have any characters. But some of
Speaker 1: it does work. Like I think when Vince Vaughn comes
Speaker 1: in to clean up after mother, and it's probably because
Speaker 1: there's no dialog again that scene, Yeah, and no shades
Speaker 1: of Vince Vaughn. It's just a physical performance. And that
Speaker 1: was the problem I had with him, was that you know,
Speaker 1: whenever they're in the parlor, he's reading lines and it
Speaker 1: doesn't make much sense. But it's not a great movie.
Speaker 1: It's not as bad as maybe people would lead you
Speaker 1: to believe, as long as you look at it as
Speaker 1: an experiment. And I remember watching it, well, we went
Speaker 1: to the movies and saw it whenever it came out.
Speaker 1: And there's a scene where he like puts van Zant
Speaker 1: puts in these inserts of like when Arba Gass gets
Speaker 1: killed on the staircase as he saw them. There's almost
Speaker 1: subliminal shot of this woman in a mask and a
Speaker 1: cow in the road. And well, my friends like, what's
Speaker 1: why is there a like? And I have no, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I have no answers for you, But I don't.
Speaker 2: Think I had the White Horse and Halloween too, the
Speaker 2: rob Zombie Halloween too, where it's like and then it
Speaker 2: comes up on the screen where he tells you exactly
Speaker 2: what it means.
Speaker 1: So there's no you have no contact. But it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so that's I would say Psycho nineteen ninety whatever eight
Speaker 1: and then don't go in the house.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's a bold double feature. I like one.
Speaker 1: So what I picked this one. We're gonna rotate picks.
Speaker 1: So what's going to be our next pick?
Speaker 2: The Crazies? Right, it's the next one. And The Crazies
Speaker 2: is very near and near to my heart. I'm from
Speaker 2: Elwood City, PA. Evans CITYPA, which is thirteen or fourteen
Speaker 2: miles away is where The Crazies was as a kid
Speaker 2: when they would play it on chill or theater. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I have seen all these places and I've driven past them,
Speaker 2: and oh my god, this is what's going to happen. Also,
Speaker 2: like if you grew up in we're very close to
Speaker 2: the same age. I think if you grew up in
Speaker 2: the eighties, you were constantly sure that a nuke or
Speaker 2: some kind of is going to wipe the world out
Speaker 2: post the day after, and The Crazies has that kind
Speaker 2: of vibe. It's a good test run for Donna the Dead,
Speaker 2: but it has its own beautiful parts to it. I
Speaker 2: will only refer to it as code named Trixie, not
Speaker 2: the Crazies of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's I have seen this one, but it's
Speaker 1: been a while, I guess, and I first saw it
Speaker 1: post pandemic, so that's an an interesting viewpoint if you've
Speaker 1: seen it before the pandemic, I'm sure. So we'll get
Speaker 1: into all of that in the next time.
Speaker 2: There's a remake too, if you want to do homework
Speaker 2: and watch the remake.
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, I've I'm working ahead, so I have already
Speaker 1: watched both of these movies, so we have some things
Speaker 1: to say about.
Speaker 2: I always end up buying the remakes because I find them.
Speaker 2: There's nothing like swimming in a Walmart five dollars bin
Speaker 2: to find movies and I'm like, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't need the Craziest, but I have the original.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'll get Yeah, I about Billy Jack at
Speaker 1: the five dollars.
Speaker 2: I got the box set there for five bucks at Walmart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, it is. June's Ploitation is right around
Speaker 1: the corner. I don't know when this episode is going
Speaker 1: to drop, so it's probably already passed, but I'll be
Speaker 1: watching that. It's part of June's ploitation. At least it's
Speaker 1: on my list right now. If we're going from Don't
Speaker 1: Go in the House to The Craziest and Joseph Ellison again,
Speaker 1: it was almost casting it Crazies. Crazies also has a
Speaker 1: guy and in a suit with a flame thrower.
Speaker 2: The Crazies is a movie that I want more people
Speaker 2: to see, actually, all the old Ramera stuff like I love.
Speaker 2: I just did a podcast about Season of the Witch.
Speaker 2: I love that movie. I don't like There's always Vanilla. Okay,
Speaker 2: that one I won't defend, But like Night Riders, everything
Speaker 2: up until probably the Dark Half, I'm very into when
Speaker 2: it comes to Ramera stuff, And you know what I
Speaker 2: feel like, at some point I'm going to have to
Speaker 2: reevaluate movies like Bruiser and stuff like that, and I'll
Speaker 2: get there, you know. But a lot to say about
Speaker 2: Pittsburgh and Evans City and knitting needles and very upsetting
Speaker 2: things that happen in the Crazies.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, I can't wait to talk about it. So
Speaker 1: join us next time and we'll be talking about the Crazies.
Speaker 1: By y'all, I've got another.
Speaker 2: If you like, let us, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to get out right here,