Evan: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. Today is Halloween,

Evan: so I am your host, Scary Evan, back again with another film discussion from the left.

Evan: You can support the show and listen on all platforms at leftoftheprojector.com.

Evan: And it being Halloween, it only seemed fitting to discuss a movie from the franchise

Evan: Halloween, the only one without the title character, Michael Myers.

Evan: And I'm referring to the third installment of the franchise,

Evan: Halloween 3, Season of the Witch, released in 1982, directed by Tommy Lee Wallace,

Evan: produced by Debra Hill and John Carpenter.

Evan: It stars Tom Madkins, Stacey Nelkin, Don O'Hellery. I said his name wrong. Don O'Hurley.

Evan: The film did not include Michael Myers.

Evan: It was a commercial flop, according to the studios, getting just $14 million

Evan: on a $4.6 million budget.

Evan: But don't let those numbers fool you. This is a great movie.

Evan: and back on the show i have hosts of podcasty for me i have jake and ian thank

Evan: you both for joining me this all hallows day eve no day well.

jake: Thank you so much for having us and by the way today it's podcast.

ian: Oh that's exactly right and i unfortunately do have to be every year halloween

ian: or in this case maybe i'll be sawian for this but i like that thank you.

Evan: Wait did i say did i say your podcast no.

ian: No no we're just making it spooky.

Evan: Oh podcast oh got it okay yeah.

jake: I mean there were a lot of different variations there was like odd ghastly gore shriek that's too much.

Evan: Though i just.

jake: I scaled it back so honestly you got aphysium.

Evan: Not too bad but yeah so uh yeah before we get into uh this uh you know i think

Evan: people may remember you from our episode on x-men the original X-Men.

Evan: But did you want to tell everyone about your podcast before we talk about Halloween and Halloween movies?

jake: Oh, I'd love to. Yeah, we do a show called Podcasty for Me.

jake: I feel a sort of kinship with you, Evan, and with this show.

jake: We talk about films from a left perspective, although we drill down into the

jake: individual filmography of a particular actor, director, or writer.

jake: We started with Clint Eastwood, hence the name of the show, and currently we

jake: talk about the films of writer-director Paul Schrader, explore kind of their

jake: context politically and historically, and also,

jake: you know, goof around and make fun of each other and stuff.

jake: So that's our show. We're over there at podcasty4me.com.

jake: Got all your links, everything you could ever need or want. And we have a Patreon

jake: where I'm about to upload a bunch of photos of Ian smiling in the beautiful

jake: city of Shanghai, China.

jake: So lots to enjoy.

Evan: Did you just come back?

ian: I did. I came back last Monday.

jake: Ian is working as what's known as a wet boy. for the intelligence services.

ian: What it was.

jake: Yeah.

Evan: The wettest boy. Got it. Well, that's great to, to have you back both on the show.

Evan: And I guess before we talk about the movie at hand, I'm curious if there's,

Evan: you know, it is horror season.

Evan: I'm wondering if there is a film that's on your list.

Evan: I mean, I guess you could have already seen it too. That was something that

Evan: you hadn't seen before this year that you might, you know, would tell someone

Evan: that they should also watch and enjoy or maybe not enjoy if you didn't enjoy

Evan: it i don't know if you had any recommendations for the for the listeners.

ian: Yeah i want to give two although i would imagine your listeners

ian: intelligent people obviously they're fans of the podcast so

ian: i'm not going to surprise them but i am going to

ian: recommend the film for

ian: children based on a ray bradbury story the halloween

ian: tree this is a television oh yeah yeah i loved this growing up still love it

ian: comes in at a cool hour I think you know as these TV Halloween specials do and

ian: then I will also recommend the real actual cinematic movie of Brain Dead which

ian: is the Peter Jackson film and it's.

jake: Sometimes known as Dead.

ian: Alive I think that's the US exactly and,

ian: there's a screening this week I live in Oaxaca Mexico but there's a screening

ian: this week and this is probably going to be my third watch the film I love it

ian: it's a if you ever wanted to get somebody onto gore

ian: without it being too scary or upsetting, I feel like it's the perfect movie

ian: to see the sort of the pleasures of just like a nasty glorpy.

Evan: Yeah. You might not want to eat soup anymore though.

ian: It's true.

jake: Let me turn your soup for a while. I think it set some kind of a record for

jake: the most fake blood used in a film production, at least for a while. It held that.

Evan: Yeah. I think that's right.

jake: Yeah. That's a great one. I currently, so I'm, I haven't gotten to it yet.

jake: But I have seen this year. I'm feeling like I've seen all of the good horror movies already.

ian: Wow. That's great.

jake: I'm really like at, I'm, I'm running out of like, at least, um,

jake: canonical classics to to check out for the

jake: first time although there's one that i it's managed to

jake: escape uh my voracious eyeballs and

jake: that is killer clowns from outer space i've never seen

jake: me either it's it's on the list this year uh i

jake: have it ready to go i have it queued up i haven't pulled the trigger yet uh

jake: but i'm excited to check that out no idea if it's good or bad no idea if i'll

jake: even like it so i won't make a recommendation however uh it's a good title and

jake: it seems like it's written and directed by like three or four brothers or something so i.

Evan: Didn't know that i.

jake: Don't even know i.

Evan: Know that it exists i've never seen it and i just people who like it i think

Evan: love it but then i don't know.

jake: Yeah i mean it's got a it's got a cult uh i think it's like a riff tracks classic

jake: or uh well i think they did a killer clowns maze at one of the haunted,

jake: the big theme park horror night things within the last couple of years.

jake: So clearly it's still working for people.

jake: It's still doing something for the people who like it.

Evan: Yeah, I'll throw a couple recommendations. These are movies that I just saw

Evan: for the first time, and I can't believe that it took me this long to see it.

Evan: The first one is the Italian film Torso, directed by Sergio Martino.

Evan: It came out in the early 70s, And it's kind of like the precursor to the monkeys film head.

jake: So I understand it. Oh, come on. We're having fun.

Evan: Well, it's like a, it's very much like a flat proto. Like, uh,

Evan: I feel like the movie, one of my favorite movies, black Christmas is kind of

Evan: loosely kind of, I don't want to say it's based on this, but without this one,

Evan: I don't think that movie exists the year later.

Evan: Maybe not. Maybe they already had written it and I'm just making things up,

Evan: but I feel like they're very perfect for each other.

Evan: And then also the other one that I saw, just the other day that i'm still kind

Evan: of uh feeling creepy from is the movie raw ah.

jake: Oh yeah yeah.

Evan: It was yeah i've been getting into these a lot of these uh french um you know

Evan: um extremity films yeah yeah raw ladies movie about about.

ian: Uh flesh that's always a good start.

Evan: Yeah it's really me out just uh yeah it's uh it's uh just it left me very much

Evan: moments of just i was yeah it was uh

Evan: Not as the same way that I felt after seeing the substance where I just was

Evan: kind of like laughing with like a giddy person at all the gore.

Evan: But yeah, it was a different, different one.

Evan: But yeah, those are the two that I've watched most recently,

Evan: both were on my lists and yeah, I guess I have a, the other question I sometimes

Evan: ask being that it's not when it's not horror season is if you could choose an actor,

Evan: I guess it could be a director living or dead to, you know, have a,

Evan: a beer a smoke a drink a dinner with who might you uh who might you choose.

jake: Uh i mean obviously there's a lot of

jake: a lot come to mind dw griffith polanski

jake: woody allen i could ask woody allen about how he dated stacy nelkin when that's

jake: true uh he claims she was of age no um i mean i would love to i would love to

jake: talk to charles lawton i think it would be uh a lot of fun and honestly if he could bring his wife,

jake: Elsa Lanchester, with him, the Bride of Frankenstein herself.

jake: But first of all, I think I could talk to, you know, just listen to him talk about anything.

jake: Obviously, I have questions about Night of the Hunter. I want to hear about

jake: hijinks on the set of Witness for the Prosecution.

jake: Was Dietrich doing pranks? Was she like the Clooney of her time?

jake: And also, I feel like saying Orson Welles would be kind of hacky,

jake: so I feel like he's I'm going to go with Charles Lawton.

jake: I would love to have a i assume a large beer with charles lap.

Evan: Sounds about right.

ian: I'm gonna i'll say a charles as well just to stick with my buddy here charles

ian: burnett i think uh still alive but probably would have no interest having a

ian: beer with me which is one of the things i respect so much about him i think

ian: he seems like a guy who's got his own stuff going on uh verner kind of a boring pick but,

ian: jake and i saw him speak live once and i mean the man can just talk about anything

ian: and make it interesting and he's from.

jake: Bavaria so he probably knows his way around beer I would love to know what he

jake: thinks about beer like what are his opinions.

ian: I mean he's got an opinion about everything and he's one of these guys who's

ian: lived a life so I'm definitely gonna pick a director I'm not gonna go with a

ian: film brat guy that type of person sorry to these guys but I want to hear about

ian: somebody who also ran guns in Mexico or something you know that lived something

ian: apart and then decided to go make films.

jake: Guy who walked across Germany.

Evan: He's not just going to like just drop references for 30 minutes.

ian: Yeah. Yeah. No.

jake: No. What about you, Evan?

Evan: I'm going to go with, I say, I answer this question a lot. I feel like I've

Evan: gotten over my good. I'm going to go with Joel Schumacher.

ian: Okay.

jake: Yeah.

Evan: And totally because I watched a few of his movies recently, I just did an episode on the lost boys.

Evan: I just think he would have some interesting, I don't, he has interesting politics

Evan: perhaps. I mean, he's also currently slept with like 10,000.

jake: Men or something in his life. Yeah.

Evan: Yeah. Like Will Chamberlain level type. So I don't want to talk to him about

Evan: that necessarily, although I would be curious how he had time.

jake: I mean, Schumacher is one of those guys with, you know, with Guillermo del Toro,

jake: with I think Scorsese has one.

jake: There's there are certain directors who have an entire separate Wikipedia page

jake: for their unrealized projects.

ian: Yeah.

jake: And that's just that's a whole conversation right there.

jake: what happened with this one how did you you know how far along did you get with

jake: back batman dar night do you guys know about this no it was going to make a batman movie,

jake: called uh dark night but the k the shared together and the k was capitalized in the in what year,

jake: uh well 2002 i mean i think i think it was after it was going to be after uh batman and robin so,

jake: I don't know. I'll look this up. Well,

jake: you guys talk yeah.

Evan: Keep talking uh yeah i think he would be interesting guy to talk to i think

Evan: he'd have uh you know there are lots of films that he's in that i would like

Evan: to just ask him about you know i mean he's he is such a like a the most i don't

Evan: know he has very wide ranging,

Evan: films like he has things like falling down and flat miners he did the client

Evan: i mean they're just such such a eight millimeter i mean that movie absolutely fucked me up when i saw it.

jake: Yeah yeah Yeah, I mean, yeah, he saw Paul Schrader's Hardcore and decided it

jake: wasn't upsetting enough.

Evan: I think I've told this story on this podcast before, but when 8mm came out,

Evan: it was in 99. I was just under the age where you could see an R-rated movie, and we tried to sneak in.

Evan: But because it was so upsetting, they had a person checking tickets outside of the thing.

Evan: Because they're like, no, you guys can't see this. So we had to see whatever

Evan: PG movie we had bought tickets for.

Evan: And then I think we tried again like a month later and saw it.

Evan: And I kind of wish that I hadn't seen it.

ian: I was going to say, I hate to be on the side of the movie cops,

ian: but in this case, he might have been on the side.

Evan: He might have been on the side.

jake: I mean, this is a film about no one looking after the children.

ian: That's true.

jake: Yeah. So it's nice to know that there was someone, yeah, trying to protect your

jake: impressionable young mind from a sad movie.

Evan: Yeah, it had some crazy performance. I mean, yeah. Wasn't James Gandolfini was

Evan: in it, I think, if I remember?

jake: That sounds right. he pops up in a lot of stuff like that where.

Evan: He's creepy like.

jake: You know joel schumacher started his career as a uh the guy who painted windows

jake: like display windows for uh furniture stores and stuff.

ian: The one like wow.

jake: Saying like christmas sale yeah exactly christmas sale that's pretty cool um

jake: yeah new year's sale epiphany sale stuff like that.

Evan: Oh so the two so i guess you're looked up When did those Batmans come out? Like 95, 96?

jake: Yeah. It says Batman Dark Knight was, the script was written in mid-1998,

jake: so it probably would have come out around 2000 if you'd been able to stay on.

jake: But yeah, then there were a couple different ideas before they ended up with

jake: old Chris with Batman Begin.

Evan: But instead he made 8mm that year.

ian: Yeah.

jake: Yeah.

Evan: Like, well, I'm going to go the opposite way, guys. I'm going to make a movie

Evan: that just scares the shit out of children who decided to see this movie stupidly.

Evan: I don't think I've seen it since. I'm like, I'm not going to ever watch this movie ever.

jake: Yeah, it's not their revisit.

ian: I agree.

jake: No, not on the Patreon patron.com slash podcasting for me. Come on,

jake: just kidding. But do go there.

Evan: Yeah, that would be an interesting one. But yeah, so to talk about Halloween

Evan: three, we're you and I were just kind of briefly chatting while we were getting started.

Evan: I'm wondering just in general, you know, if you had seen this movie recently,

Evan: you know, this is one of those films, again, that bombed in the box office,

Evan: it was kind of meant to be this anthology series, because John Carpenter was

Evan: really he hated Halloween, too.

Evan: He like wished that they hadn't made it and, you know, in retrospect,

Evan: and he was very angry about it.

Evan: And he's like, okay, well, if you're going to do Halloween 3,

Evan: but there's no Michael Myers, I'm in to, you know, produce it.

Evan: So, what are your, you know, kind of history of the film and,

Evan: you know, your thoughts on it, overall impressions?

ian: Well, Jake, tell me if I'm getting this wrong. I saw this for the first time

ian: with you. Was that your first time also? Or you had already seen it?

jake: That is something I cannot say confidently.

ian: Evasive.

jake: It would have been like the second time.

ian: All right.

jake: Well, this is, yeah, I mean, I, I had like, uh,

jake: an, a really ideal video store experience in, in coming to this film,

jake: uh, at a video store that I later, uh, where I later worked,

jake: um, I was, you know, returning something or browsing the aisles or, or whatever.

jake: And, uh, there was a movie on the TV, um, you know, up above the shelves and

jake: it, there was something weird going on.

jake: A lady was like picking at a little, uh, something or other with a Bobby and

jake: all of a sudden a laser came out of it.

jake: Like her face turned into the most upsetting, like, uh, ripped open,

jake: cooked face prosthetic and a bug came out.

jake: And I said, what is this? And I believe I watched this movie before,

jake: I think I watched it before I ever saw Halloween all the way through.

ian: Whoa.

Evan: Oh, wow.

jake: Because I knew it was, you know, unrelated. So, yeah, I was...

jake: i i've i've loved it ever since it's also you know it's fun to root for an underdog

jake: it's fun to kind of champion a movie that people think is bad and you get to

jake: say no it's good actually give it a shot.

ian: Yeah i don't even feel like i'm being brave on

ian: this movie i did just check the archives jake we did

ian: watch it together for the first time and you hadn't seen halloween the

ian: first one yet that's beautiful so we watched it

ian: on jake's couch and what's my social security

ian: number i can't remember i'll bleep it out great uh

ian: i was stunned by it at the time i i

ian: think if you're not bought in by like minute 10 of this movie

ian: then it's not for you but if it's for you you're gonna

ian: be i mean you're just in for a treat it's so

ian: it's so good it takes elements

ian: of halloween this is the thing people complained about its lack of michael myers

ian: but i don't think that it's like totally unrelated to the original film it has

ian: spiritual connections i think it's just not the characters i mean it's not the

ian: the sort of like boring comic book sequel that maybe people wanted from a halloween

ian: three but i would say well.

jake: The thing is also like if you've seen any of the halloween this is the second

jake: or maybe best maybe first best.

ian: Halloween there's.

jake: There's they're they're junk like there's some positive aspects to some of the

jake: sequels but overwhelmingly like i don't think people are really riding for Halloween

jake: five, you know, the way that they are for like the nightmare sequels, or I think people.

Evan: You know, people stand up for the later sequels even.

jake: Yeah. The later Jason ones.

Evan: Yeah. I agree with that. I think, I mean, I have a spot for the first one in

Evan: the series, but I used to like go hard and be like, Halloween is better than

Evan: any other horror franchise.

Evan: And then I've since come around to thinking like, no, that's just not the case,

Evan: especially after the last two from the most recent trilogy or whatever you want

Evan: to call it. And yeah, but I, um,

Evan: I did not see this until about, I think, three or four years ago,

Evan: I did a watch of all the Halloween movies, one Halloween, and just went through

Evan: all of them until the ones that had come out.

Evan: I think it was before the most recent two had come out. And I thought,

Evan: man, I can't believe I hadn't seen this before.

Evan: And then I think I watched it a couple of years later. I have it on Blu-ray.

Evan: And just like the director, Tommy Wallace, said, he said, if this movie had

Evan: been named just Season of the Witch, they thought they would have had a banger.

Evan: It would have made a bunch of money. But instead, everyone wanted it to be Michael Myers.

Evan: Everyone went thinking, oh, it's going to have Michael Myers in it.

Evan: And then it's in it, not in it.

Evan: And then they probably told their friend, Michael Myers is in it.

Evan: Don't even go see that shit. And then no one did.

jake: I think it also, if it had been Halloween 2, I think that might have worked better.

ian: But there's already a precedent set for sequels, you're saying.

jake: Right, right, right, right. But it's, you know, I think Halloween 2 was something

jake: of a, was it a disappointment box office wise?

Evan: It didn't do great. Let's see. I had it open before. I think it made like 20 million.

ian: Mm-hmm.

Evan: 25 million okay.

jake: So you know not setting the world on fire.

Evan: Setting him.

jake: Setting michael on fire spoilers but uh yeah i mean i i they they got the guy

jake: who made who painted the michael myers mask to direct a movie about evil halloween

jake: masks what you know what's your problem.

Evan: It sounds great and seriously and yeah i was gonna say you.

ian: Brought up lost boys earlier this is this is a great of northern california

ian: cinema this is true northern california which i appreciate is the way i grew

ian: up so i love to see this representation it is a spooky place it's a it's a yeah

ian: exactly exactly inherently.

Evan: Cinematic it's foggy it's green.

ian: It's sort of weirdly between suburban and rural but it's california so it's

ian: developed i don't know it's prime it's prime for this stuff.

jake: And and my folks live very close to where this was filmed in petaluma california

jake: and there are some real connell cochran types up there we'll get to it when we get to it.

Evan: But like there's.

jake: Some there's some freaky rich guys up there doing weird stuff in old dairy factories for.

Evan: Real and the and the thing um so

Evan: i mean there are a bunch of like little funny little notes and if you watch some

Evan: of the like the special features some of i mean i'll just i'll mention

Evan: them maybe as they come in there but one that i saw was

Evan: that tommy lee wallace said he wasn't asked to be involved in halloween too

Evan: but then when he saw or like heard the script or whatever he said no i this

Evan: is terrible i'm not going to be involved and then when they contacted him for

Evan: the third one being no michael myers he's like yeah i'm totally in for this

Evan: and you know it's uh it seemed like the script was rewritten a bunch of times and,

Evan: you know, the only real original piece of it was the, you know,

Evan: the weird little chip on all the masks and, you know, the,

Evan: things like that and the kind of the controlling of people's minds a little

Evan: bit but it seemed like they uh they're going hard for invasion of the body snatchers

Evan: and uh they named it the town the same thing santa mirror is the same town.

jake: Right that's another great exactly yeah so i mean it's kind.

Evan: Of like that movie reimagined with kind of like the halloween california vibe

Evan: i guess it's still california in both movies so.

jake: Yeah i mean it it's uh the the

jake: idea came from nigel neal right the court of mass guy and

jake: he also uh he wrote a a tv movie

jake: this like i think bbc does something called the christmas ghost

jake: story or they used to it was like a christmas tradition

jake: to have a ghost movie um england is

jake: so weird and interesting and looks

jake: a lot like this part of california honestly it's like foggy and

jake: and windswept up there um but he

jake: his his idea it's similar to he He did this Christmas ghost story called The

jake: Stone Tape or The Stone Tapes that's about some paranormal investigators going

jake: to a supposedly haunted old house.

jake: And it's a big influence on things like Poltergeist, obviously.

jake: And Prince of Darkness, the John Carpenter film, to the point that he is credited

jake: as a screenwriter on that film.

jake: carpenter credited him credited himself as martin quatermass

jake: and nigel neal said i haven't seen this

jake: but it sounds horrible so he really appreciated the the

jake: shout out but that guy i think combines the

jake: uh the the kind of

jake: old and gothic spooky with

jake: uh sci-fi horror in a

jake: in a compelling way and um my yeah i think that's that's one of my favorite

jake: parts of this film it's like the the sort of the twin horrors the joining of

jake: the old uh witchy stuff with the new kind of body horror um evil computer of.

ian: The advanced and ancient technology as he says yeah i i totally.

jake: Agree to see.

ian: The through lines of horror in the history of humanity but also to see the uniquely

ian: new aspects of horror from a political perspective from a political perspective

ian: I think, you know, it's exactly right.

jake: Yeah.

ian: The right approach.

jake: Oh, he's a, he would be a Greek statue in, in Twitter avatar.

ian: Easy guy. Yep.

jake: To, that, to give away my, my big brain read on Conal Cochran.

jake: Like he's this, he's one of these return tech freaks, but just for like the

jake: Druids instead of the Greeks. Yeah.

Evan: Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I, as you mentioned, kind of the beginning of the,

Evan: the, the movie, you really have, it's almost like they took,

Evan: I think you both said the fog, like, I mean, it's almost like they took the,

Evan: you know, the elements of sort of the environment and the vibe.

Evan: And then they added sort of a very similar song, like kind of the title track

Evan: from Halloween and kind of Carpenter Road. And apparently, he's like, it can't be the same.

Evan: So, we're just going to take out half the parts and make it,

Evan: you know, kind of like the lower version.

Evan: I don't – I'm not musically inclined. So, you can tell my – not understanding exactly what he did.

Evan: But they explained it more succinctly in the – on the DVD.

Evan: But the music is perfect. I feel like it's – Right. Yeah. I don't know.

jake: There's a track called Road to Santa Mira that I put on in the car while driving

jake: near my folks' house up there, and it was really foggy.

jake: And I got freaked out and changed the music to, like, you know,

jake: the Spice Girls or something less frightening.

jake: It's really effective.

ian: Yeah, I mean, it's got that beautiful synth, and the opening credits have this

ian: kind of, like, digital readout type of a thing going on. And then they lead

ian: directly into a chase, which I appreciate.

jake: The opening shot of this movie is so good. This movie is, it's shot by Dean

jake: Cundey, who worked a lot with Carpenter, but also worked a lot with,

jake: he was like the guy for combining,

jake: for compositing CG effects into,

jake: and really adding kind of special effects into live action for a while.

jake: So he shot Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Jurassic Park and all your favorite John

jake: Carpenter movies. And I think this is one of his, his best films as a cinematographer because the, the,

jake: dark is so dark. It's like opaque black, but then he, he has this way of making

jake: like, uh, computer readouts look so bright and so like neon threatening.

jake: Um, uh, yeah, it looks terrific. The, the, like spooky, uh, overpass and then

jake: a guy just comes sprinting out of it.

Evan: Yeah. Like the, like the cold, I know it's not really a cold open in a movie,

Evan: But it sort of almost just goes straight to action and you're not treated with any background.

Evan: You just see this guy running into the car yard and then you have these bizarre

Evan: looking sort of fed type men. I guess you could kind of call them that.

Evan: They're dressed in their nice suits.

Evan: Is that playing into this town? Is that how?

jake: I mean, I think so. Yeah, there's a Reagan, an early Reagan critique going on.

ian: Well, I think there's an interesting sort of two handedness to it because there's

ian: also the immigrant laborers coming in and replacing local people and like a foreign culture.

ian: And, you know, obviously, this is not exactly the type of politics we love.

ian: But I think it's first of all, it's funny that they go back to old school U.S.

ian: nativism, racism of being anti Irish and dogs are Irish.

ian: But also, I think, yeah, to have this gorgeous underpass opening,

ian: the underpass being maybe the dark heart of the suburbs or of modern America,

ian: you know, more so than the – we don't have the, like, great British manor to be scared of.

ian: We have maybe the urban blight environment or we have the underpass.

jake: Right. Well, yeah, because he runs into this car yard, which is sort of both

jake: – it's like a graveyard of useless manufactured junk.

jake: But it also is – this is a blue-collar workplace, and these suits come in,

jake: and they're just like completely unfeeling.

jake: We don't know yet why, but they're like – they seem to have no reaction to anything. They're just –,

jake: michael myers style like uh uh unfeeling killing machines.

Evan: It would have been cool if in that little court like the the

Evan: the car yard they had like christine kind of

Evan: like parked in the corner or something like he had he had a chance at

Evan: that but i don't know because there's little nods to

Evan: some of his other things i mean they show later on

Evan: one of the television like the hearth on is like they're showing the

Evan: original halloween i think on the tv right and this which i

Evan: think is just too funny i also found out just before this that apparently jamie

Evan: lee curtis his voice is the one on the operator when he's calling that's her

Evan: only role in this is that she's yeah they call because then she doesn't come

Evan: back i think till age 20 whatever the oh.

jake: Yeah helene h2o is.

Evan: That the one.

jake: Though she's in she's come back several times and i think.

Evan: Well she's in everyone since then it's just like yeah.

jake: They're non those are non-canon return josh hartnett is her son at some point.

Evan: Yeah rhymes.

jake: Is in one of these.

Evan: Some of those later halloweens get a little they get a little get wacky there's the cult.

jake: Of thorn i believe there's some kind of like they

jake: i feel like they borrow from some

jake: of the celtic druidic uh spooky british origins of of british irish origins

jake: of halloween in the later sequels that feels almost like an admission that this

jake: film had some cool stuff going on you know.

Evan: Well one of the notes i wrote when i saw the

Evan: you know these men dressed in their kind of suits and

Evan: you don't really get this feeling until later

Evan: when you see the uh like the compound where they're making

Evan: the like the mask factory but it feels very like um

Evan: i had a hard time describing it or thinking of

Evan: how to describe it but it was almost like surveillance statey you know

Evan: very um everything is very being

Evan: watched over i mean you know i guess you don't get that sense in like the hospital but

Evan: throughout the rest of the movie it's very much like uh

Evan: you know people are being watched you have tv is the obviously the main kind

Evan: of side note in this is that that's what's going to cause all the problems later

Evan: on and i guess the tv also is what causes you know what people are afraid of

Evan: at this time you know parents like all you kids do is watch tv and it's um,

Evan: at least four different scenes where like kids are like told not to sit as close,

Evan: turn this volume down. It's all very much.

jake: Yeah. The TV seems to have like a real tractor beam effect on every child in this movie.

jake: They are almost immediately drawn to it, stupefied by the televisions.

ian: Yeah. And I think, I mean, it unites for me. I think you're right.

ian: I mean, the surveillance States, but not in a red scare, paranoia about communism,

ian: but rather like native, you know, the, the capitalists are looking over us.

ian: the capitalists are the ones who are monitoring our behavior and trying to

ian: figure out how to engage with that or take advantage of

ian: it and of course the fact that they show the first

ian: halloween and if you know anything about john carpenter you

ian: know he's one of these guys who talks very openly about

ian: how much he hates the studios how much he hates

ian: the way his his uh like intellectual property

ian: is treated or how how hollywood operates so you know maybe it's a little obvious

ian: but to have him say like this my own film is now part of a machine that basically

ian: sells masks and turns kids into to bugs i guess turns kids into uh stupid little

ian: fools or something i don't.

jake: Know and it belts melts.

ian: Your brain yeah.

jake: The the film i wonder it's hard to get a read on how much it is taking a kind

jake: of perverse prankish pleasure in the fact that the kids are going to get their

jake: brains melted and how much it is trying to warn us about.

ian: Like.

jake: Unregulated corporate greed um and and cheap manufactured goods and uh you know

jake: stupefying children's televisions and commercials and all these things and it's

jake: honestly it's like it's crazy that this is it this is 82 82 i.

ian: Think yeah yeah.

jake: 82 yeah this is like you know they had barely started doing a lot of this stuff

jake: and they're already freaked out i mean this is this movie also functions as

jake: a as a satanic panic movie almost at the beginning of that i think because That

jake: starts in earnest in 1980,

jake: so they barely had any time to get into gear talking about the Satanic Panic,

jake: but shifting it from goth kids in the woods listening to heavy metal,

jake: being afraid of them, to being afraid of who I think are the actual summoners of ancient evil.

ian: Henry Kissinger.

jake: Yes and the the uh the capitalists who are yeah they're they're awakening these

jake: these ancient forces in order to further extract bugs from our heads.

Evan: Well it's it's interesting in all of like the like the

Evan: material the commentary tracks and everything like they don't they they mention

Evan: very gently like how they're kind of looking at you know companies and corporations

Evan: and all that but i don't know if it's one of those things where they weren't

Evan: thinking about those things but i I find that hard to believe that that wasn't

Evan: like top of mind when they're writing the script and filming it at all.

Evan: I mean, it's just like, they're just kind of not saying it or they're like,

Evan: this is like, it's kind of like a wink, wink, nod, nod. Like,

Evan: of course it's about all these things.

jake: I mean, they talk about the mall coming in and we don't see them all,

jake: but they talk about a mall coming in and, and threatening the,

jake: the local, uh, toy and gag shop,

jake: the Grimbridges, uh, just a wonderful Halloween movie name, Grimbridge, Ellie Grimbridge.

jake: And, uh, We also see the Kupfer character, the buddy Kupfer character,

jake: is such a disgusting, wannabe capitalist,

jake: so slick, so obviously ambitious. Yeah, their outfits.

jake: I do like that the kid flips his mom off. That's pretty cool.

jake: But yeah, I think it's in there.

jake: And I think especially with Carpenter involved, his generalized anger at everyone

jake: and especially people in power, I think it comes through.

ian: Right. I mean, this is the guy who's going to make – he didn't direct the film

ian: but produced this film and then makes They Live in, what, five or six years or something.

Evan: I was literally – that's exactly what I was thinking.

jake: Yes, exactly. And he's the guy who also makes Escape from L.A.,

jake: which is worth a revisit.

jake: It's not quite as worth reappraising as this film, but the ending of that movie,

jake: I don't want to give away, although the movie is like 30 years old, but that is a...

jake: deeply angry movie in a way that is, is pretty refreshing.

Evan: Yeah. You can, uh, you can go listen to episode 62. If you want to listen to

Evan: us talk about escape from LA, but we don't have an escape from New York.

Evan: So we just kind of went right to the new stuff.

ian: Yeah. I like it.

Evan: Well, interesting.

jake: Yeah. Well, yeah. The better one.

Evan: I did. Well, I did actually record the first one, but the audio, you know.

jake: Who's in that sucks. Uh, that, um, that's a, that's perhaps evil spirits got

jake: into, the recording uh you know who's in escape from new york and also in this

jake: movie the beautiful tom atkins oh.

ian: That's right yeah and the fog.

jake: He's and the fog and the fog he this

jake: is a guy who i i misremembered him

jake: at being like i thought maybe he was a cop or

jake: something he plays a doctor in this but the man is

jake: just so visually like working

jake: he's like a working man looks like a beer the man

jake: looks like a human beer uh and

jake: so even though he's a doctor you can't help but think like

jake: this guy is not this is not like the a

jake: bourgeois he's a drunk yeah yeah he's a drunk philandering doctor he's also

jake: one of these guys i don't think they make guys like this anymore where like

jake: you look at him and you think he's gonna have a gut and somehow he doesn't he's

jake: like pretty snatched in this film but he's got the head of like assault like a linebacker yeah.

ian: I also remembered him being.

jake: A cop.

ian: Because of the power of his copyness and it feels like i mean he's like a martin

ian: brody you know he's like a failing dad.

jake: He's got the big mustache he's pockmarked well he was in uh.

ian: Maniac he was and it's true that's maybe part of it part of the problem.

jake: But.

Evan: Yeah also also a movie worth anyone revisiting for uh.

jake: Yeah that movie for.

Evan: That but yeah they.

jake: Was you're.

Evan: Gonna you're mentioning the um but yeah tom adkins in this is is great i mean

Evan: he uh his performance he like when they interviewed him about it he couldn't

Evan: have loved being in this movie more he thought it was kind of like like a little

Evan: bit stupid but he's like you know what i love this movie and it makes him so

Evan: happy that it's popular now again.

jake: He's you know.

Evan: It gives him uh you know makes him feel like it was worth worth it but he also

Evan: is like the shittiest dad maybe in any of these.

jake: Carpenters dude.

Evan: Just dude shows up with those like shitty plastic masks for his kids and they're like.

jake: No dad he's late he's been drinking and.

ian: They already have masks oh man.

jake: There's a,

jake: There's a brand of old Halloween costumes. I forget what the name of the brand

jake: is. Do you guys know about these?

jake: They were very popular and successful. And basically any type of costume or

jake: property from the 70s, you could get a costume from these things.

jake: But the costume, in scare quotes, is a plastic mask and then a printed square

jake: trash bag that you put on your body that says the thing.

jake: so it's not even like so if you were like the wolfman or whatever it would have

jake: a wolfman mask but then the plastic trash bag wouldn't look like a ripped shirt

jake: with like wolfman fur coming out of it it would like say wolfman wow.

Evan: No i don't know isn't that like there's a joke about that on like one of the simpsons halloween.

jake: It sounds like a very simpsons thing to make fun of like millhouse.

Evan: Is wearing some mask for someone they're like i don't think he would wear a

Evan: mask that looks like that if he was the.

jake: Exactly yeah this is like a the kind

jake: of thing dana gould would write like 10 perfect jokes

jake: about uh but yeah there's like a there's a i'm excited to talk about the halloween

jake: industrial complex as well because i think it's only gotten it's only gotten

jake: crazy did you guys see the that spirit halloween got into like a little tiff with uh snl recently No.

jake: So SNL in the opening of its... I'll look this up. It was on Twitter.

jake: SNL in the opening of the 50th season, the thing we all care about.

jake: They did one of those fake commercials, and it was...

jake: parody of spirit halloween who's doing you know dig digging at spirit halloween um this is not,

jake: a nick let's go uh no and

jake: then uh spirit halloween clapped back with

jake: a meme it says we are great at raising things

jake: back from the dead at nbc snl and then

jake: it's uh this is a meme format it's been going around it's a spirit halloween

jake: costume uh container with like

jake: the it says on the front what the what the costume

jake: is and so it says it's got a picture of snl 50

jake: the anniversary season and the name of the costume is irrelevant 50 year old

jake: tv show includes dated references unknown cast members shrinking ratings wow

jake: i mean this is from the official spirit halloween account so they're like yeah i mean you.

Evan: Know think of how much public publicity the fake commercial not that everyone

Evan: doesn't know what Spirit.

jake: Halloween is.

Evan: But that's and this is actually a fun fact, did you know that they made a Spirit

Evan: Halloween movie that has Christopher Lloyd I did not know that.

jake: Like direct to Chicken.

Evan: Soup with the Soul Plus or something I don't remember who else is in it I'm

Evan: sure that Christopher Lloyd wasn't in it much but the fact that that exists

Evan: in the world is kind of sad and.

jake: He probably says Great Scott at some point.

Evan: Oh god It made $81,000 in the two theaters.

ian: Wow.

jake: That's actually a lot of money for two theaters.

Evan: It's all two cities. It was in Georgia. Wait, no, I don't know. It doesn't say, look.

jake: If I, if I had $81,000 to my name, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be shaking a stick.

Evan: Well, the question doesn't say how much they know.

ian: No, I'm sure.

jake: Yeah. I read that it was free. The movie was free. So they have, they got all 81,000.

Evan: Well, they, they just shot it in the old, uh, spirit Halloween.

jake: Exactly.

Evan: Right.

jake: The former circuit city or whatever.

Evan: Toys R Us, something like that.

jake: But, uh, Spirit Halloween, like Silver Shamrock, has sort of taken over the

jake: guts of a de-industrialized husk, you know? The guts of a husk.

Evan: Oh, no way. The film was actually shot at a Spirit Halloween.

ian: Wow.

Evan: In Rome, Georgia.

jake: Okay.

Evan: Wow.

jake: Rome, Georgia.

Evan: That was a joke that I made that turned out to be like too on the list.

ian: Yeah, you're too tapped in.

Evan: Yeah. I mean, we can certainly talk about that. I mean, it's sort of,

Evan: uh, there are other parts to the movie, but I think it's worth talking about.

Evan: So part of, I didn't even really describe the plot, but you can,

Evan: you can go on to the internet and watch it or go on Wikipedia.

Evan: But essentially we have this doctor who's played by Tom Atkins,

Evan: who, you know, kind of uncover someone at his hospital who is kind of just destroyed,

Evan: uh, murdered by just like their, what are they, does it, does this where he

Evan: crushes his face or is that his eyes pushed in?

ian: Yeah.

Evan: Yeah.

jake: It feels like he pulls on the bridge of his.

ian: Note he's like pulls it straight up and out somehow.

jake: It's really nasty one of the first bits of uh.

ian: Gore it's the second because we get a great kill again at like minute three when or.

jake: When they pull the guy's head.

ian: No no no when he uh pulls the car like the chain that's holding the car and

ian: then the car rolls in and squishes the fed guy oh yeah Yeah.

jake: Yeah, yeah, yes.

ian: But, yeah.

Evan: Yeah, I mean, all the, all the, like, gory effects and all in this are all,

Evan: you know, all practical effects, which is a, you know, mostly Carpenter specialty.

Evan: But, yeah, so you have the, so you basically have that. And then you're introduced

Evan: to sort of the second, the female lead in this, Stacey Nelkin,

Evan: or Stacey Nelkin, character Ellie Grimbridge.

Evan: And she's, you know, her father was the one who had been running around at the

Evan: beginning of the film, we find out. And he's been murdered.

Evan: And they team up to essentially get to the bottom of this. And Tom Adkins,

Evan: of course, comes on to Ellie and, you know, she's what, 24 and he's got to be what?

jake: She's older than she looks. That's all that she says. Stacey Nelkin...

jake: claims that uh manhattan the woody allen film was based on her relationship

jake: with woody allen when she was seven or sorry when she was 16 i'm.

ian: Not inclined to doubt it you say claimed i'm gonna say yeah i guess this is alleged but.

jake: Right extremely likely.

ian: Is that it legally i.

jake: Don't think what he has much uh.

Evan: Much uh much you can't buy much stock in the right he says.

jake: Yeah he says he agrees that they dated but that she was not underage when they

jake: did so by his estimate that's.

Evan: Not how time works.

jake: He was merely a 42 year old dating an 18 year

jake: old so that's fine that's perfectly fine um and then she's she's one of those

jake: people who uh kind of stopped acting and became a like a substance abuse therapist

jake: like a licensed substance abuse therapist but also she goes on fox and friends

jake: and talks about like relationship advice so i don't know what's going on with stacy nildred.

Evan: Yeah she did have i learned in the uh in the behind the scenes or the little

Evan: documentary was that in the movie because she had her she had one uh love scene

Evan: with tom atkins apparently.

jake: She had a.

Evan: No nipple clause in her contract so.

jake: That it was.

Evan: They apparently had to practice like the positioning so that it would all match

Evan: up and she also was like tom atkins was really sweet about the whole thing and

Evan: you know it was a little bit.

jake: Weird to.

Evan: Hear her talk about it but you know.

jake: Santa's cousin nipple clause hey it's the wrong holiday you.

Evan: Gotta save that joke for uh.

jake: I will yeah i will save.

ian: That but yes.

jake: Hey no i mean she does something in this film that it absolutely disgusted me

jake: which is getting out of the shower and drying herself off with a blanket,

jake: she pulls the blanket from the the motel bed this was this is what you do.

ian: In like an.

jake: Emergency like.

ian: If the building is on fire.

jake: You could do that she like puts down the towel to wrap herself in the blanket

jake: i assume to kind of titillate the audience because you're like oh she's going

jake: to change out of the towel or something but you know whatever uh the rose of

jake: shannon motel of course yes well.

Evan: Yeah and so they they kind of follow the uh the trail and as we learned throughout

Evan: the heavily used commercial for silver shamrock is this you know mask company

Evan: they made three different masks they're kind of advertising constantly on tv

Evan: and if you're listening later you might hear that jingle right now, perhaps.

Evan: Yeah, and it's based on the London Bridge is Falling Down.

Evan: It really gets in your head. Apparently, the cast was saying,

Evan: to this day, they can't shake it out of their heads.

Evan: And apparently, Tommy Lee Wallace, the director, was the voice on the commercial.

jake: Oh, that's fun.

Evan: He also is the voice of the radio announcer in The Fog.

jake: Oh, great.

Evan: They got a lot of voiceovers. But yeah, so that's kind of how we kind of get

Evan: to learning about this company.

Evan: so a shamrock which is owned by this you know very irish name it's uh conal cochran connell,

Evan: yeah connell not connell connell cochran uh and you know that's where we kind

Evan: of are introduced to this police very heavily police statey kind of company

Evan: town with just surveillance cameras everywhere like super high tech but we also

Evan: learned that they don't hire anyone from the town, which is also very weird.

Evan: And I mean, this is a good point where we could talk about some of that Halloween,

Evan: you know, where I think one of the main themes of, you know,

Evan: you could probably say like, oh, this movie is about capitalism.

Evan: But like, literally, I think this whole, you know, piece of the movie of this

Evan: company that is essentially seemingly taking over the industry of masks,

Evan: like their other crappier masks, but no one wants to buy them.

Evan: They've kind of cornered the market.

Evan: And they've taken over this town. They, I don't even know how this town survives.

Evan: like where are the people working.

ian: Yeah i mean they take over like they take over

ian: an old factory it used to be a dairy town and then

ian: they turned it into this this mask factory town and look

ian: i think it's perfect in some ways because as somebody

ian: who now lives abroad and sort of

ian: has a i have a different sense now of how the story of

ian: the american dream registers to people outside the u.s which

ian: is not to say that it's totally distinct unfortunately you know part of

ian: the reason that people leave their countries which

ian: the u.s has extracted resources and labor from and

ian: want to go to the u.s is because you are told that there you could

ian: become the factory owner and you could be running your

ian: own town so i think the fact that we have connell what a

ian: pleasure i mean that's exactly the film is sort of saying like the

ian: culmination of this dream is a an awful nightmare to be the owner of what is

ian: the equivalent of like a mining town company where everybody in the town is

ian: an automaton that works for you and has lost their humanity and probably are

ian: paid in script or not paid at all or whatever the equivalent is for Halloween.

jake: The masks are edible. They watch your masks.

ian: Mostly cellulose.

Evan: When I was watching it, I couldn't help but think, I guess I kind of forgot

Evan: to mention that, that all the people who work there are these,

Evan: they're not really, would you call them robots?

jake: They're like drones. I think it feels like a kind of Reagan-era,

jake: critique of of the the corporate

jake: self you know the uh the suit who

jake: goes to get the office job there's one really uh

jake: wonderful shot where this is

jake: when when um dr chalice is

jake: first kind of catching on that these guys are not human and

jake: he sees a bunch of them sort of stationed all over the place staring

jake: at him but there's one guy who's standing in a doorway and the

jake: the light the sunlight is hitting the doorway

jake: such that like his head and shoulders are in

jake: shadow and the bottom of him is is in the sun and he's just standing there looking

jake: and it's like the kind of illumination that would that would land on a inanimate

jake: object and it's just like a really smart bit of filmmaking uh you know these

jake: these guys are really freaky they're like little american psychos cochran.

Evan: Says uh at some point uh you know they're easy to control unlike like, you know, real people.

Evan: And I mean, it's kind of not lost that, you know, that's what they want,

Evan: right? That's what these corporations want. They want people who will just do as they're told.

Evan: They'll be fine when you destroy their union and they'll take their shitty pay

Evan: and they'll live in their company town and they'll just follow whatever shit you want.

jake: Or even better robots who don't need pay or food or house.

ian: Well, yeah, that's what I was going to say, except to bring it back to your earlier point, Jake,

ian: I think the film is doing the much better historical, we could sort of say like

ian: Marxist reading of this labor exploitation process because they're not just like modern robots.

ian: There's this connection to sort of like clockwork.

jake: Automata sort of this like humans.

ian: Have long been interested in automating and making

ian: their their work easier which is understandable but also

ian: and then we go even farther back to the irish sowan

ian: like sacrificing children to make society work

ian: to to keep things going to to do what we have to to i think he says like have

ian: control over our environment or something so you know this is this is a new

ian: version this is a new iteration so when we critique modernity we can look out

ian: for new stuff but we should also be paying attention to how it fits into this rich and awful.

jake: Past but what i really like about the way this movie does it

jake: that i feel like it it would be easy for a

jake: movie like this to reveal also that conal cochran is like 2 000 years old and

jake: has been doing this the whole time but i think crucially he's not he is like

jake: a a contemporary vc guy who gets really into some esoteric uh philosophy and

jake: decides that he is like the contemporary,

jake: uh uh what's the guy of samoth

jake: race he decides he's a contemporary guy of samoth race or whatever and and i

jake: think it's it's crucial that he's not a magic being he is a dude who is taking

jake: the parts of like a historical cosmology that fit his own ends or that seem right to him.

jake: Although to his credit, to Cochran's credit,

jake: it doesn't seem like he's doing this to get rich. He wants power,

jake: but it's like beyond monetary power.

jake: There is a, you got to respect the man with genuine blood lust sometimes.

jake: Um, and, uh, of course that wonderful brogue.

jake: Oh, he's got such a, he's got such a, a Walt Disney, like Orville Redenbacher

jake: kind of kindly old industrialist.

ian: Yeah. Dan O'Hurley, he, for those who, uh, watch twin peaks is Andrew Packard

ian: in that show. and then also is in Imitation of Life and RoboCop.

ian: I mean, he's got a real career, this guy.

jake: But I think he often is playing the big boss of this guy.

jake: His introduction, we don't see him, but we see his limo or town car go by,

jake: and there's no noise coming from it at all.

jake: So it's just sort of gliding through like a ghost car.

Evan: Did he invent electric cars too? Is he like Elon Musk?

ian: Oh, yeah.

Evan: Level genius?

jake: The driving dutchman oh yeah we we should shout

jake: out uh i don't know if it's nancy kaiser kiez uh

jake: or credited as nancy loomis professionally um from she's annie in halloween

jake: and halloween 2 and she plays chalice's uh ex-wife in in this film and was also

jake: the she's the real life ex-wife of tommy lee wallace they were married oh they are no longer know.

ian: This okay well it doesn't paint her in the best lights.

Evan: No, like every time she's on the phone too, she's really just nag.

jake: Nag, nag. Yeah. Not, not a great, uh, not the most feminist portrayal.

Evan: No. Yeah. And was there something else about the, like, I actually,

Evan: the, this, the other thing about it, I mean, you said he's not really interested

Evan: in like really becoming wealthy.

Evan: It seems like all the money he's using is to develop, you know,

Evan: these robot, you know, creature, uh, you know, automaton people.

Evan: And then also the rest of the resources to bring in part of Stonehenge,

Evan: which is kind of like the thing, the plot this all hinges on.

Evan: You see it like a little TV report early in the movie where a part of Stonehenge

Evan: is missing. And then like, he just somehow got it.

jake: Yeah. I really love that where he's like, you know, I could tell you how we got it here.

jake: You won't believe me. And that's, that's all we get, which like, you know what?

ian: Fair play.

jake: That's who cares? Yeah. He's he's, they're like chipping pieces of Stonehenge

jake: off to turn them into, to put them into little logos.

jake: I do like also that the, the evil, the, the violence comes from the logo itself.

ian: Uh huh. Well, the logo with the microchip embedded in there.

jake: Right. So it's like an evil microchip and a piece of ancient, uh,

jake: what does he call it a like a not a stone.

ian: Circle ancient sacrificial circle sacrificial circle yes.

Evan: Well he also it's like the particles he's describing it is like on it yeah rubs

Evan: one on there and he's like up see it's ready to go.

ian: This is the this is the perfect amount of explanation for

ian: me of like bring me all the way and we also get a nice

ian: scene just the film is so good at so many things there's a

ian: mask production scene where you know i just

ian: love to see yeah see this kind of kind of stuff and evan

ian: you mentioned the fact that the film does not hold your hand

ian: with the opening and i think similarly it's sort of like it

ian: just orients you further because we see this chase we don't

ian: really know what happens and then we cut to this

ian: guy sitting in like a gas station watching the commercial and the power goes

ian: out so it's sort of like confusing it further but it's so it's such an appealing

ian: bit of filmmaking i don't know the film is sort of like more interesting at

ian: every turn that it has any right to be even if it has some you know slightly like low budget uh,

ian: unconcerned moments but but there's other moments where you just think like

ian: wow this is i just would not have bet that this was in here yeah.

Evan: And they have they have the like there's a scene where one of the guys you know lights himself.

ian: On fire.

Evan: In a car like there's just things that you're just very confused about what's

Evan: going on at that point you probably realize there's something also the music

Evan: that comes on anytime you see those workers is i don't know how to describe it but it's like a,

Evan: i don't know uh i maybe i'll be able to find it.

ian: But i.

jake: Mean it fits with it fits with with carpenters.

ian: Yeah synth.

Evan: Yeah it's like a little synth vibe it kind of gives you that body snatchers again.

ian: Element too.

Evan: We're like oh these guys are.

jake: Absolutely doing.

Evan: Something suspicious and yeah i also love the one note that i saw too was that

Evan: apparently only one of the masks was actually made for the movie so these were

Evan: already existing masks so i.

jake: Don't i.

Evan: Wonder then if the production thing was the actual production for.

jake: Possible i mean it's like the you know the the

jake: michael myers mask was famously a william shatner mask painted

jake: white so yeah you know there

jake: there's something inherently upsetting about the halloween mask in real life

jake: and people love to talk about like the uh to joke about the legally dissimilar

jake: uh names for costumes like you know you'll get like a it's obviously an austin

jake: powers costume but it's unlicensed so it's like.

ian: Groovy agent or.

jake: Whatever or like mystery dog and it's scooby-doo but it can't it can't say exactly

jake: what it is um and i think yeah there's some some of that,

jake: There's like an inherent shadiness and kind of grifter vibe to Halloween because

jake: it's the Halloween industry because it sort of comes and strikes quickly in

jake: like a month and a half and then disappears for the rest of the year.

jake: And, you know, I think this film gets at that in an effective way,

jake: especially because Cochran is revealed to be like a former gag man.

jake: Like he used to make pranks.

ian: He invented the sticky toilet paper or something. I forget what they said.

jake: Yes, he invented the sticky toilet paper. And buzzer. Yeah. There's another.

Evan: Does he say another one?

jake: Yeah, he says another one. I have it here somewhere. The dead dwarf gag.

jake: What could the dead dwarf gag be? That's a big step up from fake dog.

ian: What's funny is that they are saying these things, but they are showing not

ian: like spencer's gift stuff they're showing if anybody has been to san francisco

ian: there's a museum near fisherman's wharf called the musee mechanique it's like

ian: a weird museum of yes any arcade and and sort of like uh it's.

jake: Not in that's in uh don siegel.

ian: Oh is it is it in uh i think that's in

ian: you know what i'll look it up one with eli wallach is that the one you're talking

ian: about it is the one with eli wallach i'll figure out what it is all right uh

ian: but i think it's a funny contrast because they're making him sound like i don't

ian: know like mr goofball but they're showing these sort of elaborate clockwork

ian: creations i don't know i enjoyed it.

Evan: Well they actually forgot one other he also has the soft.

ian: Oh yeah the soft i looked.

Evan: It up and apparently i was trying to figure out like what the dead dwarf is

Evan: and it's like this is the only.

ian: Reference like in the history of yeah of cinema the.

jake: Film is uh is the.

ian: Lineup by the way Don Siegel's The Lineup.

jake: Written by Sterling Siliphant, who's, in addition to being a funny name to say,

jake: is also a renowned screenwriter.

jake: And wrote something, I believe he wrote something that we talked about on podcasting

jake: for him. Oh, yeah, he wrote, he's credited on The Enforcer, the third Dirty

jake: Harry movie. There you go.

jake: And Village of the Damned, which is a big John Carpenter film.

jake: So, you know, big influence on him, and he remade it.

jake: And that's another, he puts that up in the same part of Northern California.

jake: There's something spooky about this place to him. It is a big dairy production place, too.

jake: In Petaluma, where my folks live, every year there's like, it's like the egg and dairy festival.

jake: And some 17-year-old girl is crowned egg and dairy queen.

ian: Queen.

jake: Well, she's queen of both. I don't think there's an individual.

Evan: Well, the...

Evan: This is unrelated to that, but going back to the mask thing and also the little

Evan: token, what would you call the thing that's on there?

jake: It's like a badge or a tag. It is like a pog.

Evan: A pog with computer magic, something inside, microchip that's tracking people,

Evan: which is also another thing too, the idea that they can track the people who own their masks.

Evan: This is at the beginning of, I don't know,

Evan: we guess we don't really know as much about what the cia was doing at this point

Evan: but like the whole uh mask production and then the company there and then the

Evan: fact that they then did sell masks after also like just adds to the you know

Evan: maybe john carpenter dig at the idea that his stuff is being i think you mentioned earlier.

jake: The fact that the fact.

Evan: That yeah that halloween is in the

Evan: movie also shows that you know this he doesn't own any of this stuff and.

jake: Right they're they're using his film to like lure children to their deaths right the ultimate prank.

ian: The ultimate prank.

jake: Yeah you're right killing children the ultimate prank that film is also like

jake: involves both a murderous child and children who are threatened right right

jake: carpenter in in assault on precinct 13 an early instance of on-screen violence

jake: toward a child something that.

ian: Upset me to see in cinema yeah seeing a child shot.

jake: Yeah like.

ian: Sort of an unadulterative i.

jake: Mean i think this this movie really threads

jake: the needle because basically the kid puts

jake: the mask on by the way at just a

jake: lifelong anxiety of mine it's like

jake: putting stuff on my head and not being able to get it off so this is a yeah

jake: this film is really speaking to me on so many levels uh but you know he sort

jake: of tips forward And then we see an obviously fake like dead boy with with bugs

jake: and snakes coming out of holes in the mask.

jake: So they really, I think they make it as on upsetting as possible.

jake: And there's a I've seen a few films recently that have like pretty,

jake: pretty grotesque violence towards children in the context of a horror movie.

jake: and in a way that i just think is like not

jake: it's unearned it's not fun it's not

jake: spooky there's a there's a line you have to you have

jake: to ride this line with a horror movie where i mean this is why slasher movie

jake: victims are often underwritten right because like you don't feel bad when they

jake: die um and i think having you know they're very fairly recent films so i won't

jake: name them in case people care about spoilers,

jake: but like just having a kid get brutally murdered for the sake of shock is especially

jake: right now seeing genuine images of horrific violence against Palestinian children. Yeah.

jake: and lebanese children uh i i'm not interested in that for my horror movie um

jake: just go ahead and have bugs crawl out of a mask like that i can handle you know.

Evan: Yeah i don't know apparently that

Evan: scene like from a like the production of it they only had one

Evan: like the mask that he starts so he's wearing the regular mask and then you can

Evan: clearly see it's like a different mask they only had one so you only had one

Evan: take to take it oh they were afraid he was gonna like rip it apart too soon

Evan: before he like falls and they switch body or whatever and I don't know like

Evan: it doesn't look great but it's you know it's enough the snakes there's.

ian: Enough snakes and bugs that it sort of makes up for any of the silliness of

ian: the mask and you can sort of see his hair coming out the back I found that that

ian: was the right level of creepy for me.

jake: Yeah I just imagine the poor PA who has to like try to get.

ian: All the crickets out of that.

Evan: So there's a funny note about that is apparently for like three or four days

Evan: after all they could hear was crickets around wow of.

jake: Course yeah that'll happen to you.

Evan: Yeah Yeah.

jake: There's a famous family story. Like my aunt or something had a pet,

jake: I don't know, iguana, something that ate crickets.

jake: And they ordered crickets through the mail to feed to the pet because this was the 70s.

jake: And they thought it was like a dime, a cricket, and it was a dime for 20 crickets.

jake: So they ended up getting like 800 crickets to work at their house.

jake: And of course, they realized there were too many crickets. It's once they had

jake: opened the cricket housing.

jake: So, you know, think twice before you.

jake: Go getting a bunch of crickets for fun. It'll really bite you in the ass.

jake: And my aunt actually was killed by this commercial in real life.

Evan: Well, that's the whole – So I guess we kind of already talked about it a little bit.

Evan: But the fact that his – I mean, I was joking that it's like the ultimate prank.

Evan: But I mean, really, it's not really a prank to him. It's like this 3,000-year-old

Evan: thing that they have to accomplish.

Evan: And it also gave me vibes where he's saying it's like a – What did he say?

Evan: It's like the earth needs it.

ian: Hmm. Yeah.

jake: Yeah. Like it appeals to some kind of balance.

Evan: Yeah. It's almost like over, he didn't say this line, but I was almost expecting

Evan: him to be like, Oh, it's like over the world.

Evan: The earth is overpopulated. We have to, you know, get rid of people,

Evan: but they're only getting rid of children.

Evan: So presumably they're getting rid of a lot more because.

jake: So you think he should have gone further. Is that what you're saying?

Evan: Well, I'm saying he should have made like, if he was going to do an ultimate

Evan: prank, it would be almost be like that. It turns the kids against their parents.

Evan: And then they really murder them.

ian: Which I think I maybe thought was going to happen the first time I saw the movie.

Evan: I thought so too when I first saw it.

jake: That's basically Village of the Dam.

ian: Yeah, it's true. It's true. But I think the line that you guys are talking about

ian: is, we don't decide these things, you know, the planets do.

Evan: That's it. Yes, right. So, I mean, it felt very like a weird cult kind of vibe

Evan: and also, you know, bringing back the Irish, you know, like, oh, this is us Irish.

Evan: Also, this is not a very kind movie to Irish people as well.

Evan: Kind of paints them in a bed.

jake: Well, Ian and I both have some Irish heritage.

ian: Yeah, I'm a Hurley, not a Hurley he, but I believe we're from the same lineage.

jake: Okay.

Evan: Does this offend you?

ian: No. I love it.

Evan: Okay.

jake: My people are the Dooners, and they're from Killarney or something.

jake: I don't know. But, you know, the guy came over here, he made little extremely

jake: racist, coin-operated little tin toys, and...

jake: managed to build an empire with

jake: which to essentially perform like feats of planetary engineering so i yeah.

ian: I don't feel like they're they're totally talking down to us you know he's achieving things.

jake: Yeah yeah they are at least saying that the

jake: irish are capable of great power whether whether

jake: they're using that power for good or evil different question uh i

jake: was i was reading this uh this book called masks in

jake: horror cinema eyes without faces by alexandra

jake: heller nicholas and to to back

jake: you up and she talks a lot about conal cochran as

jake: like a trickster figure a you know he's in line with loki um loki's or various

jake: coyote various uh tricksters throughout mythology and one of the things that

jake: uh uh one of the the commonalities among these trickster figures is that they pretend to be gods.

jake: I think that's perhaps the ultimate prank.

ian: Sure.

jake: That you're God.

Evan: I mean, that's kind of the vibe you are getting from him, like really is playing

Evan: God that he can decide who lives and dies, right?

Evan: I mean, I guess also a lot of the adults will die, right? Because if they're

Evan: in their house with their kids and the snakes come out and they bite them.

jake: That's a good point.

Evan: So they are going to kill a bunch of people, yeah.

jake: It doesn't necessarily, like it's not like adults couldn't put the mask on.

Evan: That's true.

jake: Do you guys dress up for Halloween? Evan, you have kids, right?

Evan: I would say probably half the time now.

Evan: okay 50 50 and.

jake: Are you doing a what's a go-to for you are you are you doing like a pop culture

jake: character are you doing a classic halloween.

Evan: I think like two years ago and maybe even like four years ago i was just cameron

Evan: from ferris bueller's day off because i have a red wings jersey yeah require

Evan: i mean probably anyone like of like our anyone under 30 probably has no idea

Evan: what you know what it is but like people who are like who get it like oh nice you know and that's.

jake: Tell them that's the succession guy.

Evan: Oh, yeah, right. Exactly.

jake: Kids love succession.

Evan: They do. There's another one that I was recently. I can't remember what it was now.

Evan: My kids want me to go as like, you know, something from Lord of the Rings.

jake: Okay. I was Frodo once when I was like.

ian: Yeah, I did a Legolas. Yeah, when that came out. That's fun.

jake: That makes sense. Our relative heights as younger people. Did you have fake ears?

ian: I did have fake ears. I had to go to a Halloween store to get them.

ian: Not a spirit, though. I think it was some kind of a local house of parties, party house.

jake: And then I got a cloak from the Renaissance Fair months prior in anticipation.

jake: Because I was reading the books.

ian: Although I love to dress up. I love to participate in Halloween.

ian: I think it's, I don't know. There's still something there for me.

ian: There's something pure that you can find.

ian: Maybe I'm a fool. Maybe I'm naive to say that, but I think there is something real about it.

jake: I believe this because one time Ian came over to watch movies like on the couch

jake: and it was, I believe there were three of us. It was me, my girlfriend and Ian.

jake: And he disappears for a moment and comes back out having...

jake: put himself in basically dress himself up as a full scarecrow,

jake: like mounted to a cross made of wood.

jake: And then he had taped to his, his front like a piece of paper and he had a bunch

jake: of straw coming out of his, his sleeves and he was a straw man argument.

ian: No, that's not correct. I was a red scarecrow. So you're misremembering.

jake: Oh, okay. I'm misremembering. Well,

jake: regardless, he, he basically crucified himself for us to go ha ha ha.

jake: And then he took most of it off to sit down on the couch, probably to watch Halloween actually.

ian: Yeah.

jake: Yeah.

ian: Yeah.

Evan: There was a period where I was more into the, maybe it was even before kids

Evan: where I would just do always do kind of like those pop, you know,

Evan: current pop culture references and things like that.

Evan: And I think I was, I was Marty McFly one year.

Evan: Yeah. I guess it's like always ends up being like my favorite movies,

Evan: you know, from sure. 80s, 90s.

jake: I had a weird stick up my ass about like

jake: i said yeah yep yep uh

jake: i had a weird a weird like uh rigidity about

jake: not doing pop culture costumes and trying to stay true to the the spooky tradition

jake: and dressing as as like public domain ghosts and ghoulies so i was like i was

jake: a a vampire one year and making sure everyone knew I wasn't necessarily Dracula. I was just a vampire.

jake: I was a skeleton with like a body suit.

jake: I was a chicken.

jake: Just like any no particular chicken. But I've softened.

Evan: Those are good. You can recycle them. You can wear that five years from now

Evan: and no one's going to be like oh that doesn't make anything anymore. yeah oh.

jake: You're ken bone okay.

Evan: Well that actually i mean

Evan: that's a good thing so in my like the notes for this i was trying

Evan: to see like what do you think that it's around this

Evan: time that like halloween became more of

Evan: a phenomenon for kids like i mean i couldn't

Evan: find any data going earlier than about 2000 ish

Evan: as far as like what was spent in the united states on halloween but from like

Evan: 2005 to 2018 it went from 3 billion to 9 billion and then the spirit halloween

Evan: um bookopedia that i was looking at before said that it's even higher now something

Evan: like they make up 10 billion which i don't i don't maybe that's true i don't know but i.

jake: Think i think the combination of this

jake: incredible ramp up of commercial toy

jake: and like general kids junk manufacturing that you get in the 80s combined with

jake: the slasher boom and the kind of slasher boom and also the video horror boom

jake: that you get in the 1980s suggests that there's like a perfect storm of,

jake: uh money to be spent on halloween starting

jake: around this time you know how the halloween the movie is is 78 right and then

jake: um the big slasher sequel craze is all throughout that decade so it would make

jake: sense to me i don't i'm not i'm no halloween economist but it would make sense

jake: to me that it it's really pops off around.

ian: That i mean i think don posts the guy who created the

ian: mask for this he also just popularized masks to

ian: sell in general for halloween right so this is this

ian: is also i mean we can link this to the rise of like single use materials i mean

ian: i will say that i think probably a hundred years ago the idea that you would

ian: buy a costume to wear one day and give that to a child who basically weren't

ian: even considered people a hundred years ago i think it's like yeah not really

ian: something that people were probably interested in they can barely haul,

ian: at all so i.

Evan: Mean they can put their hands into the machinery at the uh.

ian: Right yeah that's that's one of the only things they have going for them but.

Evan: You're right they could you could buy a 20 costume now to be you know snow white

Evan: in the seven one of those seven dwarves and then you just toss that in the trash

Evan: i mean you don't have to throw it away it like falls.

ian: Apart by.

jake: The end of yeah like it's they're so nasty i i saw something at the target recently

jake: uh sorry i Maybe we shouldn't plug that.

jake: I saw something at a concentric circle-themed big box store. They were...

jake: I don't know if this is deliberate or if this is just the reality of long-lead manufacturing.

jake: They have costumes for the as-yet-unreleased Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie.

jake: They're basically selling advertisements. They do this with the Marvel movies, too.

jake: They're just expecting that everyone is going to enjoy Keanu Reeves' performance

jake: as Shadow the Hedgehog enough that they won't regret dressing in Shadow of the

jake: Hedgehog months before the film comes out.

Evan: They're also doing this for the Wicked movie.

ian: Wow.

Evan: They're selling Wicked costumes. I think my daughter said that someone at school

Evan: wants to be the character from Wicked, and you can buy that costume.

Evan: It says NBC Universal's Wicked as the costume title.

jake: It's right on the box.

Evan: It just destroys the Halloween spirit. It does.

jake: I mean, cosplay is like extreme dork shit to me, but I do respect the enormous

jake: amount of work and craftspersonship and ingenuity that goes into people.

jake: People like have incredible skill when they create these costumes,

jake: even if the end result is it's confusing to me that you would want to do to do that.

jake: I respect a hell of a lot of people who do it as opposed to just buying like

jake: a really thin piece of like some polyester derivative that like explodes as

jake: soon as you put it on yourself.

ian: Plus, I have a friend. She's a seamstress. I think cosplay represents like a

ian: significant portion of her income is like custom things that she is commissioned

ian: to do, which I think is cool. I don't know.

ian: I mean, in some ways it makes me feel like maybe the people who are this into

ian: cosplay, their energy, their excitement is, is maybe being wasted somehow,

ian: but I'm happy that they have something at least to.

jake: Right, I feel that same way when I see an extremely impressive fan art.

ian: Right, right, yeah.

jake: Like, what if you weren't drawing pregnant Shrek?

jake: You know, what if you were, but I guess, you know, you think about the great

jake: masters, maybe they didn't want to be drawing Jesus and other biblical scenes.

ian: That's just what the Pope paid them to draw, yeah.

jake: And now, nowadays, the Pope is paying them to draw Anna and Elsa kissing, yeah.

jake: so uh you know who knows

jake: but yeah you go you go into like a joanne fabric uh

jake: around this time of year or honestly probably like the

jake: whole year around they have a whole section of cosplay fabrics where like they

jake: are materials that exist exclusively like there's no reason you would buy this

jake: unless you were making like some kind of anime cat boy superhero costume uh

jake: so a lot of there's comic cons.

Evan: Like every city you know they have cosplay conventions and.

jake: I was gonna make a joke about how somebody should maybe devise a silver shamrock

jake: style scheme for the furries but you know what i'm not now i'm.

ian: Diverging from you i think these are good people these are again maybe.

jake: I think that.

ian: Well just people into.

jake: Cosplay some of them are cops that's that's true yeah sure i.

ian: Think they're i mean by and large

ian: they're 16 i think and then there's something who are older but i think.

jake: Oh the thing i would i would hope they were all 16 i think troublingly many

jake: of them are like 30 some evan you're conspicuously silent on the furry question i stepped into i know.

Evan: Very little other than just i i actually have heard there are a lot of cops

Evan: that go to these things for whatever.

jake: Reason that as well i mean it's masking it's in it's in the the ancient tradition

jake: of of uh hiding your face so that you can you know stray from societal norms

jake: which on the one hand that's why it's so popular with like the trans community.

ian: And stuff right this is a connection.

jake: To feel.

ian: Like they're played there are spaces where people are already comfortable with

ian: the non-normative behavior.

jake: I saw a picture of a guy who made a fursuit of a plane like he wanted he sexually

jake: he wanted to embody an airplane but i think that the the space for that only

jake: exists within the furry community so for some reason it was a plane that has fur this.

Evan: Could be like the anti 9-11 you know ah.

jake: Yeah yeah exactly they might hate him well but.

Evan: Speaking of like the costume this is like this is a very not a very good segue

Evan: but one thing I am curious about is so you at some point when they're at the

Evan: factory Ellie is sort of kidnapped or captured or.

jake: Whatever and then.

Evan: We later see that she becomes a.

jake: Fembot type thing like.

Evan: Was she killed and they just used her mold to create a new one?

Evan: Is that what you're supposed to think? And why send?

Evan: What's the point of sending? Is it just cool because at the end they can cut off her arm and head?

jake: Well, some of that. And then I think also some of the – it's a good way for them to stop Dr.

jake: Chalice before he can interrupt the plan. I always love when there's a person

jake: clearly made up to be their own severed head.

jake: There's a great effect shot of just some other woman's body laying face down

jake: with like a trick severed neck.

jake: And then Stacey Nelkin's head, clearly she's like buried under the set with

jake: her head sticking out and blinking.

jake: And that's always fun. Who doesn't like that?

Evan: It's like the alien with, was it an alien?

jake: Yeah, yeah, with Ian Holm.

Evan: Yeah, I think a few times. And then again, with Prometheus, I think they do it too.

jake: Oh, yeah, they do that as well. Yeah, it's fun. It's a great time.

jake: And I think the practical effects in this are they're literally doing a lot

jake: of the same kind of prankish physical tricks that like Connell Cochran is doing.

jake: So I would suspect that, you know, the former art director,

jake: Tommy Lee Wallace, does feel a certain affinity with the people making these

jake: masks while also maybe repulsed by his own complicitness and complicity in making the Michael Myers mask.

ian: Yeah, I mean, it is ultimately something that requires ingenuity,

ian: but then is frequently used to dark commercial ends.

ian: So it makes sense to feel both ways about it. And this is also just a classic

ian: body snatchers surprise.

ian: Somebody you feel is close to you may have also been taken in,

ian: may have also been lost to the world of this stuff.

Evan: That's a good point. Like it's very much of the, and I think that's what the

Evan: end to apparently the studio did not like the ending. The ending is so good to get Carpenter.

jake: I think it's the best part.

Evan: Carpenter wanted them to like, they told Carpenter to convince him to change

Evan: it. And he's like, no, fuck you. I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that.

Evan: I don't think that would have changed whether audiences liked it,

Evan: but it's very perfect in the line of, you know, the end of both invasion of

Evan: the body snatchers where you just kind of are left hanging, especially I think the first one.

jake: One also i recently watched the the abel ferrara body snatchers that one's creepy,

jake: yeah and that that has a real uh

jake: that one is also especially like anxious about

jake: yuppies and sort of post yuppies

jake: but a suspicious of like suburbanism and like

jake: the the robbing of character from

jake: american life obviously at abel ferrara like

jake: the the man who was like born in a downtown new york

jake: government uh is gonna find cookie

jake: cutter neighborhoods in the midwest upsetting but uh

jake: i think that film is is in line with it's shares some of the same ideas and

jake: frustrations as as this movie um and i from what i recall has a similar kind

jake: of downer ending uh to the the first two adaptations i haven't seen the invasion

jake: is that the one with nicole kidman yeah,

jake: 2000s version.

Evan: Something like that I have not seen that I feel like it's been about 20 years

Evan: it's time for someone to do a remake I guess.

jake: Yeah, unfortunately, I feel like it would be like an irritating,

jake: like, Lib Trump thing, right?

jake: Don't you think it would be like, or like a Q thing, but it wouldn't actually

jake: be touching on, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't go far enough. I would just say

jake: like, these people are crazy without examining why.

ian: Without the type of historical analysis we get from this film, the continuity.

jake: Yeah did you guys notice that the technician who is starting up the commercial

jake: in the warehouse in the the cochran in the silver shamrock factory he punches in 666 on the panel oh.

Evan: I didn't notice.

jake: That's fun yeah just having a good time but.

Evan: Clearly uh tom atkins saw him push the code in right because he knew what to press later on.

jake: Right oh and that i mean this has become something of a even among people who

jake: like this movie the mask toss onto the onto the security camera just like the tiger would yeah it.

Evan: Would have been cooler if he you know if he had missed the first time and then

Evan: had to like reach his leg out to pull the.

jake: Mask exactly second shot yeah exactly but you know that's the kind of high school

jake: football star athleticism you can expect from a man who looks like tom well i.

Evan: Think he did it on the first try because he was like still a little drunk have he been oh yeah.

jake: Right yeah like like when ian's driving yeah actually he's.

Evan: Calling his wife lying and he or his ex-wife lying he's like grabs a six-pack

Evan: off the top of the phone booth and he's like.

jake: Copping in the car yeah oh we didn't even talk about the oh sorry that's.

Evan: It i was just that's it yeah.

jake: I was gonna say we didn't even talk about the the woman

jake: in the like morgue or whatever who he's he's

jake: sweet on oh yeah uh we just get

jake: this this kind of running investigation that he checks into every once in a

jake: while she's like you must have switched the samples there's nothing in this

jake: this but car parts this isn't this isn't a man yeah it's really it's just a

jake: fun kind of there's an archness to this that is not winking like it doesn't feel like

jake: Like it thinks it's smarter than horror movies. It's just sort of,

jake: we're all caught up in the, the kind of classic spooky tale tropes that we all enjoy.

Evan: They send someone to kill her.

ian: Yeah, well, that's true. Exactly. We need someone to kill. And she's to me like

ian: a classic quarter mass figure.

ian: There's like a lot of the only film of those that I've seen.

ian: There's a bunch of doctors discovering things all the time. Like you're not

ian: going to believe what this means.

ian: So I think it's fun that she's in there, but it's also kind of a red herring that is this you know.

Evan: Well yeah and that doesn't doesn't he she's like oh you owe me a dinner and

Evan: you're like i owe you a dinner and he's like ah she's like i don't think you're

Evan: actually gonna do it or whatever right clearly he just gets favors yeah he doesn't

Evan: put out and return i guess yeah she tries to kiss him.

ian: At another point he's he's irresistible uh tom atkins and.

jake: Yeah clearly he was he's one of those those men who hides his age professionally

jake: Like if you go to his Wikipedia page, it's his age is not listed.

jake: And I admire that he's still around. No idea.

Evan: You got Jamie Lee Curtis in the fog. So he's got, he's, you know, he's getting.

jake: Exactly.

Evan: He's getting the star.

jake: I mean, he's, there's, he's got his father worth in a steel mill.

ian: You know, like he's.

Evan: Didn't he find the military?

jake: This is a solid man. Yeah. He, well, he enlisted in the Navy and then this is

jake: from Wikipedia. It says he, quote, noticed that the officers lived great,

jake: but that was only because they had gone to college.

jake: So he he has some some good class analysis. But then he leaves the Navy and goes to college.

jake: But, you know, then he met a girl who was in a theater troupe.

jake: And that's how he got into acting. It's so funny. It's so funny.

jake: for me to think about the guys who

jake: play like tough guys in movies at some

jake: point taking acting classes like no matter

jake: how tough and like robert loja would only play characters who would call actors

jake: probably like homophobic slurs and yet robert loja is an actor yeah he's like

jake: preparing his lines you know it's always always fun same with same with uh tom atkins did he um was.

Evan: He in any of the um a romero movie.

jake: Yeah he's in creep show creep.

Evan: Show okay i thought.

jake: So because he's like a pittsburgh he's.

Evan: From pittsburgh so it makes sense right.

jake: Yes yeah yeah yeah he's a creep he's in creep show evil

jake: eyes night of the also night of the creeps is

jake: a fun one the fred decker film enjoy that apparently

jake: he's in drive angry i don't remember him in drive angry with uh

jake: i don't think i've seen nick cage kind of a crazy crazy movie

jake: a little bit a little bit knowingly crazy this is before this

jake: kind of movie was made knowingly uh tropey or knowingly or something yeah sharknado

jake: i'd like to put the silver shamrock mask on like the movie i think it's fine

jake: to say that yeah that you want a movie to die well.

Evan: It's crazy that this is the lowest grossing halloween movie and there are people

Evan: who still i'm like oh you should see halloween theater like ah i'm sure that's

Evan: crap And it's like, no, you should really, really go see that.

Evan: And I don't know. A lot of fun. The last thought I had, I mean,

Evan: this is the last thing, is I put down that it's probably, it's kind of like

Evan: the ending is very ambiguous, which is like in a good way, like a very good

Evan: cliffhanger ending. Yeah.

jake: Yeah.

Evan: Assuming that what happens, what, like, you know, you expect to happen,

Evan: it's a pretty brutally downer type of kind of horror ending.

Evan: But I think it's leaving it unknown makes it so it's not as brutal in some way.

jake: Yeah, it feels like the end question mark kind of it feels like a Treehouse

jake: of Horror episode or something like we know this has been a spooky what if tale.

ian: Yeah yeah something like that and i do think horror films

ian: make that mistake sometimes maybe this is i guess this is kind

ian: of a spoiler non-specific spoiler but like the mist if

ian: you guys have seen that movie there are choices where you're sort of like oh

ian: leaning i hate the ending leaning into like don't you see how grim and miserable

ian: it is in a way that feels like i'm being punished as the viewer somehow instead

ian: of this sort of tension this unresolved like the threat is still out there which

ian: i think this this type of film does well.

Evan: Yes yeah sometimes movies uh go like beyond i mean that movie was changed i

Evan: actually just did an episode on that with uh the fog as like a double feature

Evan: and i was saying i think the miss is probably up there as far as there's some

Evan: movie you know maybe newer ones that are pretty brutal but maybe one of the most brutal.

ian: Endings for.

Evan: A film that like you can ever see truly but absolutely.

jake: Same with uh alita.

ian: Battle Angel.

jake: Just seeing the end of that movie and knowing we're almost never getting a sequel.

jake: One of the most painful experiences in my movie-building life.

jake: I love Elite Battle Angel.

Evan: Anyone who hasn't seen Halloween 3, you should. It's Halloween today.

Evan: You could watch it right now.

Evan: That's not too late for you to watch this on.

ian: Exactly. To me, the perfect Halloween movie has spookiness, has fun, and it has...

ian: Sort of strangely stuck in the middle sexuality. And I think this film achieves

ian: all of those parts beautifully.

ian: And I don't know what else you want from a Halloween movie. It's not this.

Evan: I can't imagine having gone to see this when you were in 1982 and walking out

Evan: being like, that sucked.

ian: Yeah, I don't get it.

Evan: Or even today and thinking that it sucked.

jake: I mean, I think it's the persistent tyranny of the nerd. yeah.

ian: I saw some complaints about like plot logic which really felt like wow you just

ian: missed the whole boat on this thing if that's your concern.

jake: Yeah the first halloween is about a a psychiatrist trying to kill his patient

jake: with a handgun and then they like completely.

Evan: Blew it up when they making laurie his like this the the sister it's like.

jake: The sister he also like you know michael myers seems uh to be invincible something

jake: of a plot logic hole that's not a type of thing that can happen what you mean.

Evan: You can't burn someone and they could just like not die shoot.

ian: Them out a window.

jake: Yeah i did like the part in the the reboot uh the 2018 one where michael myers

jake: uh brutally murders two podcasters two true crime podcasters that part that

jake: i can get on board with There is a film,

jake: there's a Dominic Senna film called Season of the Witch with Nicolas Cage and

jake: Ron Perlman that was shot in like Croatia.

jake: I don't really recommend it. I did watch it out of curiosity because,

jake: and also because I, you know, I'd watched this film too many times.

jake: So I threw that on. It's not great, but it is kind of fun to see Nick Cage and

jake: Ron Perlman pretending to be Teutonic Knights. If that's of interest to you.

jake: Also an early, an early career, Claire Foy.

ian: Yes.

jake: The queen herself, man.

Evan: Looking at a bunch of like the one star reviews on letterbox.

Evan: Like I don't, I don't, I don't, I just don't get it. I don't know.

Evan: Are people just like writing edgelord reviews? Like they just have to hate it because people hate it.

ian: I don't know.

jake: I mean, yeah, probably. The piling on, especially of a famously,

jake: quote-unquote, bad movie from a while ago, like Ishtar or Showgirls.

jake: I mean, people are coming around with Showgirls, I think, much more readily.

jake: But yeah, it's fun to you to be like this? I don't understand.

Evan: Go watch Halloween 3, Season of the Witch.

Evan: Just call it Season of the Witch. Tell people to go watch Season of the Witch,

Evan: and they will enjoy the hell out of it. but uh thank you both uh for being here

Evan: ian jake it's been a pleasure talking uh on this hallow halloween oh.

ian: Thanks so much.

jake: For having us it's a true honor yeah not.

ian: To be on a podcast that's not a great honor to me although your podcast is a wonderful podcast.

jake: But to be.

ian: On somebody's halloween special that is like.

jake: Oh my god real event of my life thank you so much movie i hope we did justice to the film yeah.

Evan: There was i've done the original one by myself on an episode ones but i think

Evan: this was like the perfect i think it's the perfect halloween film.

ian: I think so too.

jake: It's one of them it's it's the there's a

jake: very strong argument to be made uh people

jake: should also check out the film the sentinel from 1977 that's

jake: not a great halloween film in my i have not seen that it's uh it's like a an

jake: exorcist exploitation movie they some other studio scooped up another horror

jake: bestseller and tried to make it into the exorcist but it's really spooking and

jake: bridges Meredith throws a birthday party for his cat okay.

Evan: Hmm it looks like it takes place in New York it looks like.

jake: It almost gave me the vibe of like uh.

Evan: Rosemary's baby a little.

jake: Yeah yeah yeah Rosemary's baby and the exorcist there was like a big rush to adapt all the big uh,

jake: best-selling horror novels mostly to middling results but the sentinel is something something.

Evan: Especially made me watch both the exorcist and rosemary baby when i was like

Evan: 11 years old i would say made me they're like oh you should watch these movies

Evan: they're really good thanks,

Evan: especially the exorcist when you're 11 was a little oh yeah yeah that's probably the way parents.

jake: If you don't want your your child to turn out to be a podcaster don't show them

jake: right exorcist and rosemary's baby when they're 11.

Evan: Or eight millimeter when you're 17 yeah yeah exactly all those are all those

Evan: are bad ideas but yeah you guys uh should all all listeners out there should

Evan: check out podcasty for me or what was that pod you said podcastly podcastly

Evan: for me shriek for shriek uh yeah.

jake: Please check us out podcast for me.com and uh we we haven't announced where

jake: we're going after schrader but i can tell you a certain left of the projector

jake: host may be joining us for our well.

Evan: How many uh do you have left of the straight to record we only have like.

ian: Three left uh to come out four or five.

jake: Yeah yeah but then you know we're also we covered clinty's with first so we'll

jake: be coming back for a juror number two episode when that comes out and that Paul

jake: Schrader's got a new film, O Canada, coming out in, I think, December.

jake: So we've got plenty of work cut out for us before we cover our next subject,

jake: Roman Plansky. Oh, sorry, I let it slip.

ian: No, not even as a joke.

jake: What's the Jeepers Creepers guy who was like a straight up actual child predator monster?

jake: Anyway, we're not covering any of those guys. but uh happy halloween.

Evan: Well uh you can also follow this podcast on left of the detector.com and uh

Evan: we'll catch you all next time.