Speaker 1: Way wait.
Speaker 2: Ala, Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the Horror Anthology podcast,
Speaker 2: where this season we're taking a look at George A.
Speaker 1: Romero's nineteen eighty series Tales from the Dark Side. I'm
Speaker 1: Father Malone and sharing the Midnight view with me is
Speaker 1: the projection booths Mike White.
Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition. You stole my joke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, today, if you're taking a look at two episodes
Speaker 1: from season three, those are Heretic and a Serpent's Tooth Heretic.
Speaker 1: Season three, episode seven originally aired on November ninth, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six. This one was written by Edith Swinson We're
Speaker 1: gonna keep tangling with you, Edith, and directed by Gerald Kottz.
Speaker 1: This one stars Roberts Blossom. He's an anthology hero now.
Speaker 1: We had him over on Twilight Zone eighty five and
Speaker 1: a fucking really good one, also starring Bruce McVitie, Michael O'Hare,
Speaker 1: and Alan Scarf. When a shady art dealer starts trafficking
Speaker 1: and stolen church relics, he discovers that truly no one
Speaker 1: expects the Spanish Inquisition. There it is twice now for
Speaker 1: you folks. Mike what you think of heretic.
Speaker 3: I really liked this episode. It could have been so
Speaker 3: cheesy and so bad, but I really think that the
Speaker 3: performances kept this on track. And especially so who's our
Speaker 3: main character is that Jimmy, right, yep, Michael O'Hare. Jimmy
Speaker 3: has one speech that he's giving to I believe it's Heart,
Speaker 3: the Bruce mcfedie character, and he's talking about, Hey, I
Speaker 3: used to be just like you. I was the runner,
Speaker 3: I would do this, and I wanted to be bigger
Speaker 3: than I am, and now here I am, and I'm
Speaker 3: teaching you the lesson that I had been taught when
Speaker 3: I was in your position. And it's I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe like two minutes long if that. But I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: that's a really good speech, and Michael O'Hare delivers it
Speaker 3: very well. And there are there moments where we need historyonics,
Speaker 3: we need screaming and pleading and stuff, and he seems
Speaker 3: to do that pretty darn well as well. So I
Speaker 3: was really happy with the way that this episode went,
Speaker 3: and it followed what I thought was going to happen
Speaker 3: pretty well. But yeah, I also obviously going all the
Speaker 3: way back to Night Gallery talking about the changing paintings
Speaker 3: with Roddy McDowell. This kind of has some of that
Speaker 3: going and I loved it. And then yeah, fucking Roberts
Speaker 3: Blossom shows up and I'm like, Okay, yeah, whatever you
Speaker 3: want to do, show, I'm here for Roberts Blossom. Just
Speaker 3: please let this man have the floor.
Speaker 1: For the first time in as far as I can
Speaker 1: remember watching anthology shows, here, Mike, this is an episode
Speaker 1: that made me gasp. At one point, I was actually
Speaker 1: shocked at something they did, and near the end agree,
Speaker 1: I think, by the way, I think Bruce McVitie is
Speaker 1: heart I think he's the main guy. I think Michael
Speaker 1: O'Hare is the up and comer who seems older than
Speaker 1: Bruce McVitie just weirdly. Bruce mcvittie, by the way, was
Speaker 1: on ended up on The Sopranos like five or six
Speaker 1: episodes of The Spiders.
Speaker 4: I love that guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I The economy that we loved about this show all
Speaker 1: fully on display here. I got really nervous in the
Speaker 1: opening scene only because of the art direction. Yeah, very
Speaker 1: set bound, not at all stoked once they because you
Speaker 1: knew as soon as the scene opened that this was
Speaker 1: going to be our location, and I thought, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I can take watch in that. But when
Speaker 1: he ends up falling into that painting, and then I
Speaker 1: really appreciated the set because not only was the dungeon
Speaker 1: set obviously that's where they spent all the money, but
Speaker 1: they reused even the wall from his apartment. If you
Speaker 1: notice that those blocks were huge and now they've repainted
Speaker 1: them to look like the dungeon. I thought that was
Speaker 1: so economical. It made me love how chinsey it looked
Speaker 1: at the beginning. Yeah, the acting in this one carries
Speaker 1: it that Bruce mcfeeden, that guy man, like I totally
Speaker 1: believed it. That so easily could have been a clumsy scene.
Speaker 1: And for some reason, that guy just commands the fucking
Speaker 1: I've seen him in a bunch of stuff, but he's
Speaker 1: another actor.
Speaker 4: I'm just like, why is it?
Speaker 1: He huge?
Speaker 4: Like he's got real.
Speaker 1: Presence to him. And then like you said, oh, and
Speaker 1: then Roberts Blossom shows up as in this Inquisitor's out.
Speaker 1: He looks great. He's just so freaky.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: His performance here is unlike any performance I've seen of his.
Speaker 1: It's leering and creepy and taunting and having a good
Speaker 1: time I don't know if I've seen Roberts Blossom having
Speaker 1: a good time being so fucking evil, Yeah, I think, well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably just his roll in Christine. He seems to
Speaker 3: be having a pretty good time at one point, just
Speaker 3: ripping his brother to shreds. But yeah, I was also
Speaker 3: very surprised to when the first time there's something supernatural
Speaker 3: that it's Alan Scarf who shows up and he's very
Speaker 3: gentle and he's just talking about Saint Bartholomew and the
Speaker 3: way he had this cup and everything. And when he
Speaker 3: shows the cup, I'm just like, oh, Jesus, so we're
Speaker 3: going to talk about the cup of a carpenter. Is
Speaker 3: this is going to be the holy g real kind
Speaker 3: of thing, you know? And then I love that that
Speaker 3: he eventually takes it and he's drinking from the cup
Speaker 3: once he goes into the fantasy sequence, and I so
Speaker 3: wanted it to be the dog's bowl when yes, yes,
Speaker 3: I'm drinking of a dog bowl.
Speaker 4: What the hell's going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what we're talking about the surrealism going on
Speaker 1: here in this season. If folks, if you listened to
Speaker 1: the last episode. When we reviewed the last two episodes
Speaker 1: of the season, we were appreciating how surreal that they've
Speaker 1: gotten this year and this has continued it and this
Speaker 1: is Edith Swinson who has given us a lot of
Speaker 1: clunkers are and but here just the ingenuity of it,
Speaker 1: like you said, the fact that we don't immediately just
Speaker 1: drop him into the Spanish inquisition, the fact that there's
Speaker 1: this sort of harbinger who shows up at almost like
Speaker 1: a warning and then he falls into it and then
Speaker 1: we meet an even greater kind of threat.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: This one's a big old winner for me. And yeah,
Speaker 1: like all I could think watching Bruce mcfeidiey like the
Speaker 1: this is just stupid behind the scenes kind of thoughts,
Speaker 1: but like how many push ups was he doing that morning?
Speaker 1: I hear that they were going to strain him up shirtless, Like.
Speaker 3: When the torture scene actually was effective, because normally when
Speaker 3: I see torture, I'm just like, Okay, yeah, that actually
Speaker 3: looks like it might be kind of a nice effect,
Speaker 3: you know, like I do use some traction myself, a
Speaker 3: good old stretch, but it really looks like it hurts
Speaker 3: this guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all of the sort of violence against him looks good,
Speaker 1: and all of the sort of regret on the guy,
Speaker 1: like when he comes back, like when he gets caught
Speaker 1: the second time. That's the shocking part. Let me just
Speaker 1: mention that when fucking Roberts Blossom shows up in our
Speaker 1: world in the doorway, oh my god, like a genuine, shocked,
Speaker 1: genuine fright would work tails from.
Speaker 4: The dark side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was really good. Just can you imagine Roberts
Speaker 3: Blossom just showing up at your door anytime, even if
Speaker 3: he was just like delivering a nice package for you,
Speaker 3: something had a beautiful shercutery board or something. But if
Speaker 3: it's Robert's Blossom delivering it, I don't know if I'm
Speaker 3: going to take that chercuity board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know I'm taking anything. I don't know
Speaker 1: I'm opening the door. I would probably yell from my
Speaker 1: window or something like can I help you, sir, We're good,
Speaker 1: thank you? Something the door.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna hurt you.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and my granddaughter doesn't want to pay attention
Speaker 3: to me or whatever it is. I finally saw a
Speaker 3: home alone for the first time, so I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: this is what most people know him from. I'm more
Speaker 3: like Christine or any of these shows. Hell, I'm just
Speaker 3: thinking about him with that Trick or Treat episode that
Speaker 3: we had. Was that just last season, Yeah, which was
Speaker 3: very good as well. And then yeah, you mentioned that
Speaker 3: Twilight Zone. Was that the one that was the one
Speaker 3: with Piper Lauri right where the car breaks down?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the burning Man. I believe that Ray
Speaker 1: Bradbury short story.
Speaker 4: That was good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, one of these just one offs where it's
Speaker 1: we're not going to explain anything to you, this is
Speaker 1: just how sometimes it happens in the world. Like that
Speaker 1: to me is just the fucking most terrifying thing, Like
Speaker 1: when a show can do that and do it well
Speaker 1: like Bravo and Dark Side's doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're really hitting at this time.
Speaker 4: Oh man.
Speaker 1: Once again, I was so scared and they're just fucking
Speaker 1: pulling it off. God bless And just because this is
Speaker 1: called Heretic, it reminded me of the movie Heretic that
Speaker 1: I watched recently, and that's a really good movie. So
Speaker 1: all the heretics are good as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: You want to watch a heretic, watch that movie, watch
Speaker 1: this episode.
Speaker 3: Well, hell yeah, extorsist too, baby whoo.
Speaker 1: The Heretic? Yes, what a trip bill?
Speaker 3: Oh god?
Speaker 1: Yeah, would be which ones we watched first? Do you
Speaker 1: want to you gotta watch Exorcists two first? No, this first,
Speaker 1: this episode, then Exorsus two, and then the actual movie.
Speaker 1: Heretic So all right, no, you know what, Actually, I
Speaker 1: think you should do it in reverse. Okay, h I
Speaker 1: think the actual good movie watch that first and just
Speaker 1: get that out of your system, so then you have
Speaker 1: no and then use talison of Dark Sign as a
Speaker 1: nice sorbet, and then you can enjoy the ridiculousness, you know,
Speaker 1: because it'll be late by then.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, then you get to be brushed by
Speaker 3: the wings of the locust.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, you're gonna be punchy by then. Our next episode
Speaker 1: is called A Serpent's Tooth. This is season three, episode eight,
Speaker 1: aired originally on November sixteenth, nineteen eighty six. Written again
Speaker 1: by Edith Swinson, this one is directed by Frank DePalma,
Speaker 1: starring a Renee Taylor, Lewis Quinn, Joanne Willette, Brett Marx,
Speaker 1: grandson of Harpo Marx, Bad News Bears Brett Marx, and
Speaker 1: Jared rush Jen. Yeah, Billy from Big Tom Hanks's little
Speaker 1: friend from Big Is Oh right, Okay, I knew that
Speaker 1: kid looked familiar, looks so familiar, right, Yep, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: story is a fucking nightmare. It's about a controlling mother
Speaker 1: who gains control of her children through supernatural means. I
Speaker 1: can't think of anything more terrifying, Mike.
Speaker 3: This could have been so bad, but I ended up
Speaker 3: loving it. I really loved it because this felt so
Speaker 3: Monkey's pa, you know, be careful what you wish for
Speaker 3: kind of thing, and I just I loved the way
Speaker 3: that it twisted and the way that we get to
Speaker 3: see the story progress. It kind of reminded me. I
Speaker 3: made a reference recently to that Goodbye Goodbye Show, and
Speaker 3: it's kind of reminded me a little bit of that,
Speaker 3: where it was like, and this little girl control who's
Speaker 3: gonna die or not. But you get no doubt in
Speaker 3: your mind that Renee Taylor's character. You see the little
Speaker 3: serpent tooth glowing and everything, and you're just like, oh shit,
Speaker 3: you better be careful with what you're saying. And she
Speaker 3: just uses those phrases like crazy, those just harping on
Speaker 3: everything and everybody, and that she was perfect, and I
Speaker 3: thought that her kids were perfect, and I especially liked
Speaker 3: the way that they tortured little Ritchie, especially when she says,
Speaker 3: you don't have to have a conniption fish.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, that was.
Speaker 3: Great. This is so good.
Speaker 1: This whole episode is like a psychotic Henny Youngman bit man.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, what I really loved about it was what
Speaker 1: you're saying. The she's so cavalier with it. You would
Speaker 1: think if you said a phrase and it caused someone's
Speaker 1: face to freeze, the next time you said a phrase,
Speaker 1: said anything while you were wearing that serpent's tooth, you
Speaker 1: would probably choose your words.
Speaker 4: She didn't care.
Speaker 3: No, well, I love too that. It's the whole thing. Mom,
Speaker 3: you have to stop doing that. Our lives are a
Speaker 3: fucking danger from you wearing that serpent's tooth. She puts
Speaker 3: it away, and then the family starts to go back
Speaker 3: to normal. Joe and will It starts wearing her hair
Speaker 3: the way she was and wearing too much makeup and
Speaker 3: all these things almost looking like my kid went punk
Speaker 3: rock type of thing, and Mom can't take it, put
Speaker 3: the serpent's tooth back on, and oh, that's really nice
Speaker 3: because we usually have the whole Okay, I won't ever
Speaker 3: use this again. They put it away, and then the
Speaker 3: episode is relatively over. But here it's just like, no,
Speaker 3: my family really needs this. They need me to badger
Speaker 3: them so good.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, they keep defying expectations here this season. They where
Speaker 1: I think the episode has ended, like you're saying, it
Speaker 1: isn't there. They've always got something in reserve. And I
Speaker 1: love that moment when she can't help herself, when the
Speaker 1: daughter realizes. She's like, Mom, you could kill us very.
Speaker 4: Easily with this thing.
Speaker 1: And it is a fanto situation, right, Mom kind of
Speaker 1: has a point, like you know, the kid, She's right
Speaker 1: in the end. That's the other fucked up thing because
Speaker 1: once the kids have sort of their lives out, even
Speaker 1: now they're doing what they want to be doing, they
Speaker 1: have adhered to Mom's regimen, and that's what's getting them
Speaker 1: over the hump. So it's, oh, it's like the end
Speaker 1: of the mist.
Speaker 4: She was right all along.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know, gosh, yeah. I just love how
Speaker 3: everything just goes berserk so quickly. I think it's the
Speaker 3: we have one commercial break before she actually gets the
Speaker 3: serpent's tooth, and then once she does, the world just
Speaker 3: goes wild so quick quickly as soon as she's If
Speaker 3: you get to keep reading that you're gonna go blind.
Speaker 3: And the next thing, you know, well, there's the sun
Speaker 3: going blind. I'm like wow, okay, and then yeah, the
Speaker 3: face is going to stick that way. And then what
Speaker 3: was the last one that she does to the daughter. Oh,
Speaker 3: I can't even remember what she does to the daughter.
Speaker 3: But then I love how she's got the talks about
Speaker 3: how chicken soup cures everything, and then just she knows
Speaker 3: that now she has a cure for all of their ales,
Speaker 3: and the way she's like jam at that turkey baster
Speaker 3: into the kid's mouth and sporting the chicken soup inside.
Speaker 1: Poor Jared rushed and that's an appliance they put on him,
Speaker 1: the fake tongue like over his mouth, that poor kid.
Speaker 4: Oh I got to go on and being big.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was so nice. And then you get to
Speaker 3: see again where she's just oh, you're glowing. Oh wait, no, no,
Speaker 3: you're not glowing. You're not closing.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was the last thing with the daughter. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not sweating, you're glowing. Okay, you're not glowing Jesus correct.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, from your mouth to God's ears. And then
Speaker 1: you hear the heavenly noise and I'm like, oh, shit,
Speaker 1: what did she just do? Like I thought for sure,
Speaker 1: like God was going to rain down thunder and lightning
Speaker 1: onto her. But then I guess it's appropriate that she
Speaker 1: ends up as a pillar of salt. Do I have
Speaker 1: to go back and reassess all of Edith Swinson's contributions here, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 3: So, because I was going back through her stuff and
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, these weren't very good. I don't know
Speaker 3: what she's doing this season, but she's hit her stride
Speaker 3: with these two.
Speaker 4: I gotta wonder.
Speaker 1: I am at least going to go back and look
Speaker 1: to see which ones were adaptations, because it seems when
Speaker 1: they're originals, I really like them. I like the way
Speaker 1: she thinks. But the adaptations maybe are bet I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I just want her to be better.
Speaker 3: Maybe I don't know. She's still alive. She might be
Speaker 3: because she's Yeah, she was only born in fifty three,
Speaker 3: so she's younger than my mom. And she wrote and
Speaker 3: she was still writing in twenty twenty two, wrote a
Speaker 3: movie called Brazen, So yeah, she's written a ton operation.
Speaker 1: Get Edith Swinson. That's yeah, for season four, that's that's
Speaker 1: our new mission. We're going to get her.
Speaker 4: Joanne will Lett.
Speaker 1: I had a big old crush on she was on
Speaker 1: a TV series called Just the Ten of Us, which
Speaker 1: I started watching because I had a big old crush
Speaker 1: on Heather langen Camp. But then I saw Joanne Wilett,
Speaker 1: and then Heather langan Camp fell by the wayside.
Speaker 3: I could totally see that. Yeah, she was very adorable.
Speaker 1: And I love that she came down and was dressed
Speaker 1: like Madonna. Yes at the beginning. As a child of
Speaker 1: the seventies and nineteen eighties, I was thirteen when this
Speaker 1: fucking episode came out. There were so many girls in
Speaker 1: so many malls rocking that Madonna look. That took me back.
Speaker 1: The kids today, they can't get it right. That was perfect.
Speaker 1: So rabot Joanne.
Speaker 3: She really hit it very well. Yeah, I'm looking through
Speaker 3: some of these photos of her on IMDb and the
Speaker 3: c that she was in a very well and I
Speaker 3: don't know how many years before after this Hill Street
Speaker 3: Blues episode was but like, oh, that more excuse for
Speaker 3: me to go back and do a rewatch of Hill
Speaker 3: Street Blues.
Speaker 1: I've never seen Hill Street. Plus, i think I've seen
Speaker 1: two episodes of Hill Streepers. Another things being Roberts Blossom.
Speaker 1: Never seen Home Alone.
Speaker 3: Oh, Like I said, I just finally saw it last
Speaker 3: year's for the first time, all the way through. I
Speaker 3: think we did leave before Home Alone two was over
Speaker 3: those so I still haven't seen that one.
Speaker 4: What was your assessment of Home Alone?
Speaker 3: Those people are so strange. I don't know how you
Speaker 3: leave a child behind, and I don't understand why Catherine
Speaker 3: O'Hara her trip across the country took seconds shorter than
Speaker 3: all of the rest of the family coming back to
Speaker 3: their house, so I don't know why she even left them.
Speaker 3: And I'm just yeah, the logic left a lot to
Speaker 3: be desired.
Speaker 4: Wow, I'm going to skip it.
Speaker 3: Okay, good theme from John Williams, but that's like saying, oh,
Speaker 3: Era is very nice to breathe.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Hey that Richard Pryor is real funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Hey anything more on Serpent's Tooth?
Speaker 3: No, just Edith, please keep it up. Yeah, more episodes coming.
Speaker 3: I hope they're like this.
Speaker 1: I can't believe we're in this far into a season
Speaker 1: three and we're not pulling our fucking hair out.
Speaker 4: First time everything.
Speaker 3: I was shocked, shocked when I was just like, wait
Speaker 3: a second, this is another good episode. I'm just waiting
Speaker 3: for the other shoe to drop and no.
Speaker 1: And it's on the way. But come on, let's just
Speaker 1: what we'll enjoy the glow. You hear that, mom, We're
Speaker 1: won a glow all right? On the next episode of
Speaker 1: Midnight Viewing, we're gonna be taking the like we're gonna
Speaker 1: be taking a look at the next two episodes from
Speaker 1: season three. Those are Baker's Dozen and deliver Us from Goodness.
Speaker 1: Midnight Viewing. The Horror Anthology Podcast is a proud member
Speaker 1: of weirding Way Media Group and our theme song was
Speaker 1: composed by HP with an assist by Donald Rubinstein. Until
Speaker 1: next time? What are you working on? Where can people
Speaker 1: find it?
Speaker 4: Mike White?
Speaker 3: I work on a little show called Ranking on Bond
Speaker 3: where every month Christashue Richard had him and I and
Speaker 3: occasionally guest co hosts such as yourself father Alone, Yeah
Speaker 3: coming back pretty soonish or No, I think you might
Speaker 3: be on the Chevy Chase podcast. That's what I was
Speaker 3: looking at the other day. But you can find Ranking
Speaker 3: on Bass over at Chris and i'z Patreon. My patreon
Speaker 3: is patreon dot com, slash Projection Booth. His is Patreon
Speaker 3: dot com slash Culture cast. That's Culture with Kenny, and
Speaker 3: every month in the first of the month we drop
Speaker 3: a new episode for a ten dollars and up donor,
Speaker 3: so check it out. It's good stuff. How about you
Speaker 3: fall them alone?
Speaker 4: Yeehah, do all that stuff, everybody.
Speaker 1: If you want to support us here at midnight viewing,
Speaker 1: go to patreon dot com slash follom alone. Subscribers get
Speaker 1: episodes early and commercial free, and you get a whole
Speaker 1: series that aren't available to anybody anywhere.
Speaker 4: But if money is tight, you could.
Speaker 1: Do us a favor by simply giving us a like
Speaker 1: or a five star review, or a review or a
Speaker 1: share or I don't know, put it on social media.
Speaker 1: Put it on the blue sky. Everyone's on the blue
Speaker 1: sky these days. Thank you all for joining us here
Speaker 1: at midnight viewing. Until next time, try to enjoy the
Speaker 1: fucking daylight, everybody. Arrange a s.