Evilspeak (1981)

Episode 89, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today’s film is a film called Evilspeak from 1981. That’s one Todd, evil speak. It’s an intriguing guy on a top down view of a guy on a computer and he’s looking up and this guy looks like he’s kind of going Craig, his hair’s flying up in the air. And then there’s, what upon closer examination is some kind of goat headed demon and the tagline says Remember the little kid you used to pick on? Well, he’s a big boy now And, another thing that I noticed about the cover, which I noticed as the title sequence was coming up, And that is that even though evil speak is one word, they do make a distinction. The evil is written in this medieval looking font. And speak is written into what passed in the 19 eighties as a very futuristic kind of computery font. 

Craig:  So Right. 

Todd:  What we’re getting here is a mixture of, the past, the evil of satanism with the modern day computers, at least modern day for 1981. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But you Right. But you chose this movie, and I think you chose it entirely for one reason. Is that right, Craig? 

Craig:  It’s it’s yeah. I I had never heard of it, and I don’t remember seeing the cover art anywhere before, but it it popped up on I I frankly, I really don’t remember. I was perusing one of the horror websites that I look at on a daily basis, and I don’t remember if it was one of those here’s some horror movies you’d never heard of you should you should watch or if if it was a a feature on this movie. I don’t remember. But I was intrigued by it because, it stars a very young Clint Howard. And I’m not a diehard Clint Howard fan or anything like that, but the guy just brings a smile to my face. He’s this goofy looking guy, you know, of course, brother to the insanely famous and rich Ron Howard, actor, director. And and poor, I I don’t wanna say poor Clint Howard.   He’s made a good career for himself. But, you know, he’s he’s not the best looking guy. He he’s he’s probably not the most talented actor you’ve ever met, but, whether it be due to his brother’s fame or or not, he’s kind of established this career as an actor, and he pops up in lots and lots and lots of horror movies, especially kind of low budget horror movies. And, for whatever reason, you know, he’s, he’s kind of a weird looking guy. But he has this charm about him that I don’t even know how to describe. You know, he he’s kind of an every guy, you know, like, you kinda can relate to this guy on some level. You know, he’s not the best looking. He’s kind of a dork, you know, whatever.   He stars in lots of these low budget movies. Like, I think he did, like, ice cream man, and I think that had a couple of sequels. And he’s done you know, he he pops up all over the place. But I had never seen him in something where he was so young, you know, like, he’s playing a teenager in this movie. And so I was just intrigued by that, and that’s why I texted you and said we should we should watch this. I’ve never heard of it, but it’s got a young Clint Howard in it, and, I wanna see Todd, 

Todd:  did you ever watch the Andy Griffith Show growing up? Because he was even younger than that. 

Craig:  Well, I did a little bit, but I don’t remember him from that at all. You know? I remember little Ronnie Howard. He was so cute, but, I don’t I don’t remember Clint, from that. My mom was a fan, so we we watched it sometimes, but I don’t remember him. 

Todd:  Clint would show up. He was just this little kid. He was even smaller than Ronnie, and he would just show up, and he never spoke. He was just always, like, chewing on a peanut butter sandwich. I think he’d always, like like, just sit there and offer it to somebody. Like, it’s just this, like, cute thing that he just kind of did all the time. Yeah. I was kind of a mute character on that one because apparently, at least his character was, he’s too young to speak, but boy is he generous with his peanut butter sandwiches.   Little Mayberry. You’re right. He’s not the nicest looking guy in the world. But it’s weird because actually in this movie, I thought, wow, he wasn’t that bad looking at this age. Like, he is a couple notches. Now tell me if you see the resemblance. Just a couple notches lower than Matt Damon, but kind of in the same spectrum of an of a younger Matt Damon. Like, when Matt Damon was, pimply and was in, like, a start in Goodwill Hunting, He’s got that look to him. 

Craig:  I can see it a little bit. I don’t know. You know, I think the reason that I like him and especially I like him in this movie and he’s not necessarily a likable character, but certainly a sympathetic character because, you know, I wasn’t a great looking kid either. You know? I was kinda the chubby, you know, not not great looking kid. You know? And so you and so so I relate to this guy. You know, it’s not like he’s some hideous beast, you know, that should be set in the corner. You’d be he just looks he he looks like your your average kinda guy. What’s funny is I have no idea how old he was in this movie, but he’s playing a teenager.   But he’s very clearly already balding, which a a a lot of people might think, oh, man. How how dare they cast this guy who’s already balding as a teenager? I teach high school. This happens. 

Todd:  You’re right, though. 

Craig:  Like, I I I have high school seniors who clearly are going to be bald within the next 10 years. I have no idea how old he was when he made this movie, but I bought him as a high school kid, and I, as I was watching the movie, I just kept thinking, This is not a great movie. It’s really not, it’s not a good movie, but it has a certain charm to it and and I I really think that when it comes down to it, that charm is Clint Howard. I I I don’t I don’t know. I I just feel like he makes, again, not a great movie, but there there’s something relatable about his character. And you feel for this kid. After I watched the movie, I read some reviews. One of them said, this is basically just a gender flipped version of Carrie.   And and I had thought about that as I was watching it. It is reminiscent. You know, it’s about this outcast who really is basically just kind of pushed to the limit and because of that kind of seeks their revenge. And and I see that. I also saw Shades of The Omen, I think primarily because of the score. I kind of feel like that’s the vibe that they were going for. And and it Todd doesn’t succeed as either of those movies succeeded. But, I don’t know.   I I have a feeling I don’t know. I I what did you think? 

Todd:  The movie tries very hard, and I almost feel about it a little bit like I feel about the monster squad in the sense that the monster squad was kind of like The Goonies, but just a little more low rent and trying hard to be The Goonies. I kind of felt like this movie too had a place there where it was trying really hard to be up there in a certain part of the mainstream at the time, again, like another Carrie. In fact, maybe even a more slightly more lighthearted carry in some ways, but, it just fell flat. It was just a little too low rent in certain ways, but I couldn’t tell you exactly where, and I think you’re right. It just has to do with the ensemble cast. And maybe the thing that saves it, again, as you said, is Clint Howard. He’s the one, honestly, he seems to be one of the more, believable characters in the film. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he’s he’s relatable. I mean, Clint Howard plays this guy, Stanley Cooper Smith, and he is in a military academy and we find out later that he’s been orphaned As   far as plot goes, that’s about it.   You know? Yeah. The the As far as plot goes, that’s about it. You know? The the movies the movie starts out with this weird it’s not a flashback, you know, because we’re coming right into it, but, it’s a scene clearly from the past. I couldn’t figure out when or where it was supposed to be. I I guess sometime in same 1500, 15 20 something like that and we see this guy Lorenzo Esteban who is played by Richard Mole who I love, Bull from Night Court. Yeah. We we we talked about him in house. He’s being vanquished from Spain.   Apparently he’s a priest, but he’s being excommunicated from the church, and then we see him, holding this black mass ceremony where he does, I don’t know, he burns some stuff and then it ends up with him decapitating this this topless woman. And and that’s the setup. And then we jump to Clint Howard getting bullied, blah blah blah, etcetera. 

Todd:  It’s so like Kerry at this point because Clint Howard just getting totally bullied on the soccer field. And then, like, the next scene is him in the showers, and he’s kinda being bullied in the showers Todd. Not to the extent that Carrie is, but, you know, they’re pretty relentless on it. And, actually, I thought this movie was really clunky, and it starts clunky this way too because it’s just so bald on its face trying to cram information down your throat. Yeah. They’re bullying him. Okay. Scene 2, they’re bullying him some more.   Scene 3, they’re bullying him, and then it’s time the coach is getting in on it. You know, it’s like Right. Oh, okay. Come on. We get the idea. He’s being bullied. And then they keep calling him welfare boy or something like that, and then the next scene is the head of the school who is a colonel, colonel Kinkade, who’s walking with this mother that he’s giving a tour of the school, which we later find out is the mother of one of these bullies named Bubba. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  But he just happens to be talking to her about how 

Craig:  There was a time when only the sons of the right families had divot our academy here. But now due to our financial condition, we’re obliged to take in welfare cases like Coopersmith. 

Todd:  Okay. So, like, this kid, Cooper Smith, as you go through the first basically, as you go through the whole movie, you would think that nobody at this military academy talks about or thinks about or makes any decision that doesn’t revolve around this kid. 

Craig:  Exactly. Like, they have an active interest in hating him and persecuting him. Like, why? Like, just leave this kid alone. I know. 

Todd:  And the thing is he’s not, like he’s he’s kinda okay. You know, it’s like he’s he deals with it. He he clearly doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t have that same charm that Carrie had. You know, Carrie, not only is she being bullied, but she’s got a really pathetic kind of personality, you know, because she’s been getting it home from her mom, and so she’s just a very weak character to begin with. And so when she gets bullied, you your heart just completely turns in her favor. She’s just so sympathetic because she’s so pathetic. Whereas this Right. You know, the other thing that keep going over and over again until, you know, we get it is that he’s an orphan.   And every time they say it, it’s almost like they’re giving you new information, like it’s that important. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Later on, we find out that, we hear that he’s an orphan. Then we find out, oh, no. His both of his parents died. And then a few scenes, you know, later, an hour later, we hear, yeah, both of his parents died in in a car accident. And every time they keep talking about it and giving you like a little new tidbit of information, I keep thinking, Okay, there’s gonna be something significant about his parents coming about. No. The movie is just that clunky that it feels like it’s gotta keep reminding you of the same stuff. And that was my problem with this movie is that almost up until 15 minutes before the end of the film, it’s the same stuff over and over and over again.   And nothing really moves. He doesn’t really progress 

Craig:  at all. 

Todd:  He doesn’t even get more and more angry until the very end. I don’t know. It’s just 

Craig:  yeah.   I I agree with you entirely. You know, if we’re gonna compare it to Carrie, which I think you kind of have Todd, it’s it’s so similar, but, you know, she’s very introverted and, and separates herself because of her upbringing. And, and this kid doesn’t, you know, it just seems like this kid is just trying as hard as he can to go about his everyday life and trying to fit in and, and, and and he’s just ostracized for really no good reason. Like, oh, okay. Like, he’s not the best soccer player, so let’s brutally bully him.   Everybody play sports here, Bubba. I guess that’s another game we’re gonna lose, coach? Come here, papa. You know the colonel’s policy as well as I do. Everybody plays 2 out of every 4 quarters. Now what the hell you expect me to do about that, Oliver, something happened to Cooper Smith, so he couldn’t play.   It’s not even fair. Like, it and and so you do feel bad for the kid. Eventually what ends up happening and and it is clunky. Oh gosh. Alright. I’m gonna go off on a tangent because I wanted to ask you about this. You are the technical movie making guy. I felt like whoever and maybe it was the director, maybe it was the screenwriting, I don’t know.   But I just felt like the editing was really bad. Like it just, it seemed like just a series of scenes that did not connect well. It just didn’t seem like a logical progression of plot. It was just like, here’s the scene that we filmed. Okay. Now let’s go to another scene that we filmed. Like, I don’t know. There wasn’t a very good through line.   I know that this was classified in Britain when it was, first released as one of the video nasties. And so they made a lot of cuts to it. And eventually, a, director’s cut came out, but the filmmakers have said that even that director’s cut really doesn’t have all of the footage that they shot. So I don’t know if some of it was lost in the editing or what, but it just seems disjointed. Like Todd doesn’t follow a good through line. Did you feel that 

Todd:  way? Yeah. I did. In in a way, like, even while I was watching it, for some reason, Grease kept coming to mind. And now Grease does have a through line. You know, it’s got the story of Sandy and Danny, right, as they’re, you know, going through and kind of their love thing. But it it just sort of like Grease, it feels like a series of vignettes. It’s like a lot, just self contained scenes that could be jumbled in any order up until the last 19 minutes and get the same effect. So there’s no real build.   You know, there it’s really not building towards anything. It seems to be. You know, as it goes on, you know, he he gets punishment detail. Right? There’s that chaplain. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd:  I hated all these characters, not not because they were they were just dumb dumb characters. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And this chaplain was one of them. You just couldn’t get a beat on this guy. This is supposed to be his military academy, and so everybody, you know, is dressed in the military uniforms, but they don’t actually make sense if you know anything about the military, the the ranks and insignias, and, things were just slapped on these things. And what the one of the things that bother me Todd 2 of the things that bother me. First of all, everybody’s hair was way too long for this to be. Yeah. Academy. But second of all, the decorum completely gone.   And I grew up in a military family. Alright? And and and, you know, my dad was an officer and stuff. We grew up on bases. I’m pretty familiar with this stuff. I never went to a military academy, but it’s a meritocracy. The military is nothing if not a meritocracy, And that’s a fundamental flaw this of the way that they’re portraying this academy in this film is that people are just too petty. The top brass or the the instructors in this in this school make all these weird threats. It’s it’s like Greece.   You know, they all have all these weird different characters. The all of the instructors and whatever have all these different personality quirks. At one time, he gets called in, to the colonel Kinkade’s office who chews him out for no really good discernible reason except that he still thinks he’s a Todd, and then says, alright, assume the position, and he whacks him like corporal punishment. Corporal punishment for what? Right. And, again, being a meritocracy, the way that the military works, they don’t give a crap about your background. They don’t care where you came from. This is just not something that’s discussed or talked about much. It’s just, will you do the work? Can you do the work? And it’s they’re constantly grilling in you to get better and get better and get better.   And so the reasons that they’re harping on this kid seems to be more of the fact they’ve just decided that they resent having him in the school more so than he can’t accomplish anything. You really accept for soccer you don’t see any evidence that he can’t accomplish anything. Right? In fact, he seems to be a pretty good student. He goes to class, and he’s in this ridiculous class with the this guy, the teacher has a, a German accent. Yeah. You are 

Craig:  late, Cooper Smith. I hope you have an unimpeachable excuse. Your silence pleases me, Cooper Smith. I would consider any excuse unacceptable short of your being detained by visitors from outer space. I take it we can rule out extraterrestrial interference.   He’s like Steve Carell with the German accent. Uh-huh. 

Todd:  Which which I guess is just their way of trying to make him seem more sinister or something. But, again, it’s a little off from him being at a military academy. And this class, apparently, they’re going to study the strategies of Julius Caesar, but they’re also in the just as kind of a side thing, going to learn Latin as well. And and also don’t forget your model projects that are due. And I’m like, model projects? Like like, are they mapping out Todd, like, a battlefield? Like, no. It’s like they’ve gotta make, like, giant boats or, like, catapults and stuff. What is this stupid class? But, you know, that’s really handy, obviously, that he learns the Latin, and, of course, it comes in at just the right moment. That’s the other thing, is this is one of those cases where, as unfortunately, in poorly written movies like this, things that the characters need just happen to be available to them right when they need them, you know, and that’s one of those situations.   Right. 

Craig:  And and, like, he’s he’s so he’s on this punishment duty. We have no idea what he’s being punished for. You know, you can’t imagine that this kid would have done anything malicious to be punished for. And you’re right, you know, it makes, of course, you never necessarily expect a movie like this to represent people fairly, but not only are the military officers just jerks, but they’re also stupid. Like, they’re they’re mean they’re mean to this kid for no reason, but then they’re also really nice to the bully kids who are very clearly making fun of them behind their backs. Yeah. And and like I don’t come from any kind of military background, but I can never imagine that anything like that would happen. It just doesn’t make any kind of logical sense.   No. But anyway, so he’s on this punishment duty and his duty apparently is to clean out the basement of this church on the campus. And he he goes down there and he hasn’t been cleaning for more than 30 seconds before he finds a secret room, like, behind this wall. And he he tears down this wall brick by brick, and he goes in there, and it’s like this   Massive. I don’t even   know how to describe it. Yeah. It’s this huge, like, kind of, like, dark chapel or whatever. And my my favorite my favorite, I say that a lot. 

Todd:  I have a lot of 

Craig:  favorites, I guess. One of my favorite things about this movie is that he goes down there and he finds all this obviously, like, ancient stuff. And he’s just, like, perusing through it. Like, oh, this is so neat. 

Todd:  Like, and 

Craig:  this keeps the candles. Doctor. That’s that’s it. That’s it. Like these black wax candles. Not only does he light a candle, like, okay. Alright. It’s dark.   And there you light a candle so maybe you can see this, you know, pagan book that you’re looking at or whatever. But he lights, like, 100 of candles. And not only that, but like at some, like he lights the 100 of candles the first time he’s in there to look at all these weird things. And there’s weird things. There’s like pagan books and there’s like weird like demon iconography and there’s like a fetus in a jar and I don’t even know what that was all about. And, but then later, like he, he continues going down there. And not only is there, are there like these hundreds of candles lit, but there’s like fire pits. Like, 

Todd:  it just gets 

Craig:  like like, it’s a whole deal. Like, it’s a whole dungeon scene. It’s like the end of, one of the last Nightmare on Elm Street that we talked about when they go down into Freddy’s hell. It’s like this dungeon.   New Nightmare.   You know, that’s what it’s like. It yeah. And he just hangs out in there. 

Todd:  Well and it’s like it’s it’s like it’s a different set every time. Like, it’s like as they filmed the movie, they kept adding to it, and they filmed it in sequence, so it’s, like, more and more elaborate. I didn’t even realize how big the room was until as the movie goes on. You’re like, jeez. The ceilings in here are huge. It just seems to get bigger and bigger, more elaborate. And, of course, maybe it’s just because the candles all stay lit the whole time. But, you know, and then how does he how does he close it off, but he just, like, pushes a whiteboard in front of it? 

Craig:  Yeah.   Nobody will find this, especially not apparently there’s there’s a guy named Sarge who, like, lives down there. Like, I don’t even, like, I I don’t even know. I don’t even know. Woah. But when it comes down to it, he continues to get bullied. The the bullies, like, break his catapult thing that he’s been working on so hard, and that’s really mean. And he takes this one book out of there that’s got, like, a pentagram on it. And he’s working on his catapult design on a computer.   And this is hilarious because apparently the the the title, Evil Speak, is a play on the term computer speak, which I don’t even remember that being a term. Mhmm. But I I guess that was back in the early days of computers. That was, like, the name for computer language, I guess. But, he he’s working on this computer, and he starts typing in things, in Latin into this computer. It’s like a Commodore 64 or something. Yeah. He types stuff from the book in, and it translates it for him.   And that’s another thing. There there’s a lot of reading. You do have to read it.   Not a fan.   If you’re not a fan of reading. That’s right. Or if you can’t read, you you might not wanna watch this movie because you won’t know what’s going on. But he he types this stuff in, and the first thing that translates is, I, Esteban, have come to know that the entire world is domain of evil ruled over by an evil spirit. And since the power that dominates the world is evil, then it follows that Satan must be Todd, and then it’s dated 15/20, and then it’s like, I, Esteban, have signed the book of death, and I have conducted a black mass, and and now I will return. Return. And I guess what we’re supposed to understand is that this kid feels so powerless that he’s willing to grasp on to anything that could potentially give him power because just immediately, he’s like, yes, Satan. 

Todd:  Let’s explore this a little further. Yeah. 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. So he decides he’s gonna get his power from Satan and he takes the computer down. Oh, gosh. And it’s just so funny to watch. You know, we grew up in the eighties. I remember seeing all these weird cords and the, you know, these huge clunky computers and, like, he he takes it and he sets it up down in his satanist den and and it just it just moves on from there. 

Todd:  It becomes a part of the altar, and this is a part that I’d never quite understood about the movie, like the role of the computer. At first, it’s like it’s translating the Latin for him. But then, at one point, before he takes it downstairs, he has to leave because somebody else has gotta use the computer after him. You know, this is back when you had to, like, schedule time with the one computer that the whole school had. And so he turns off the monitor, and then after about 3 seconds, it comes back on. And then later on, when he’s downstairs and he’s typing, stuff into it, it’s not like it’s translating. It’s like he’s able to ask it questions. So has he loaded like the Satan satanic bible onto it? Has he run the the the ritual program? It’s hard to say, but anyway, the computer spits out what’s basically the recipe for summoning summoning Satan.   And it Right. List all these herbs and all these things that he needs, which are all very conveniently available in that room, which he goes 

Craig:  He just shops. He just shops in the dungeon. Yeah. 

Todd:  It’s it’s so weird because, like, the whole fact that they were learning Latin in the class, I thought then would be significant. Oh, it’s gonna help them translate this book. No. No. The computer does it. And anyway, none of this needs to said in Latin. I guess as long as you translate it into English, the spell still works. And then he starts this spell without, like, 2 of the ingredients, I guess, and still thinks it’s going to work.   And at the end, it’s like the computer can detect. So, like, again, these movies from the eighties, they may they made it look like these home computers could do almost anything. But it’s like the computer can detect the spell that’s being cast in front of its monitor because as he goes through it, it says data entry failed. You’re missing 2 things. You’re missing blood and, consecrated host. And so he kinda looks at the screens, like, oh, damn, and just leaves, and it hangs there for a good hour. I mean, this is probably, what, 30, 45, 30 minutes into the movie. And every time he comes down there, he’s facing that same screen, or somebody else comes down and discovers that they look and they see the screen Todd of this unfinished ritual.   And we just get a lot more scenes of him being bullied. And it’s like he was so keen on doing this ritual. He just gives up when he’s gotta get the 2 of the easiest things, which is go upstairs and get some consecrated Todd from the chapel and, like Right. Cut his own finger and throw a drop of blood in there. Like 

Craig:  Cut your finger. 

Todd:  Yeah. Like, why? And so it just pisses out. So it’s like the movie. 

Craig:  You’re you’re you’re absolutely right. 

Todd:  It’s building to this moment. Right? You okay. This is gonna be the beginning of act 2. This is where the spell gets cast, like, he summons Satan. Satan possesses him or somebody and, like, kind of let loose this this this craziness and then they’ve got all deal with an act 2. And then by act 3 is like the the the climax where they’ve got a they’ve got Todd put the genie back in the bottle and something’s gonna happen. But no, it’s just a lot more of watching them being bullied for a while. 

Craig:  I totally agree with you. It’s like it sets that up that the computer becomes kind of this computer Ouija board for him that he can kinda communicate with. And then it there it’s like the whole second act is just totally random. Like, there’s that whole thing that you talked about with him getting spanked by the colonel or whoever it is. And then there’s there’s a whole deal with a sexy secretary who, like, gets a Todd of his book and, like, wants to, like, pry the 

Todd:  Pentagram off? 

Craig:  Pentagram off the book, like, for jewelry or something. Jewel in it. 

Todd:  Oh, that was a joke. 

Craig:  Yeah. I guess. But but she can’t, I guess. And then there’s a whole thing with pigs, and like I thought this was where it was like getting into Omen territory. Like Yeah. I I really didn’t even understand what what the deal was. There’s this whole thing with pigs. Like I guess, Clint Howard, I don’t know what his name was.   Cooper   Smith. Stanley Cooper Smith. Like, I I I guess he has to, like, slop the hogs or something. Right.   This is military can’t be. Yeah. I didn’t get that.   And, like, we we get this whole scene where the sexy secretary is trying to pry off this jewel and she can’t, but, like, that irritates the hogs and, like, so the hogs attack Cooper Smith and it leads to nothing until the hogs come back later in the movie for no reason. Oh, God. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and and you’re right. And then lots more bullying, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We can’t forget the part where later the sexy secretary gets naked and showers and then gets eaten by the hogs. 

Todd:  Because, of course, you can’t have a movie like this without somebody stepping into a shower. 

Craig:  Well and I’m in why wouldn’t hogs eat the sexy secretary? I mean, it’s that makes perfect sense. So, you know, whatever. And then there’s a beauty contest. 

Todd:  Where are these women coming from on the on the this military academy? I do not understand. What Todd they do? 

Craig:  I don’t know, but it’s the miss the miss heavy artillery contest. 

Todd:  Oh, gosh. 

Craig:  And it comes out of nowhere. It doesn’t make any sense. And like, you know, Cooper Smith is just taking time out of his diabolical Satan plan Todd, like, attend the Miss Heavy Rillary contest. Yeah. And and and then, like, he he goes up to one of the girls who lost afterwards.   Miss Kelly? Yeah. You want something? I just wanted to to Todd say, well, to Todd tell you, I’m sorry. I I thought you were the best. Out there, I I thought you should’ve won. Yeah. No. No. Really.   I thought you should’ve won. You really mean that, don’t you? I do. I do.   And then the the the bullies bully him again.   Getting high Cooper Dick? Hey. Leave him alone, Bubba. Sure. I’ll leave him alone. But I’m benching you for smoking dope.   You you can’t do that. The the coaches, everybody gets to play.   That’s what sports are for   to make us well rounded. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. 

Craig:  Oh, man. Oh. So funny. And they they oh, god. And, like, it’s just, you know, whatever, movies or whatever. There’s only so much you can do, but, like, these bullies, this whole group of bullies who just clearly just, you know, sulk around together all the time, you know, they they pull his pants off to humiliate him but leave him in like his giant green military boxers, I guess. Like, I don’t care. I don’t wanna see Clint Howard’s Wang, but, like, seriously, if these bullies were really gonna be humiliating this kid, they wouldn’t just be pulling off his pants and leaving him in these giant boxers.   Yeah. But it Todd doesn’t matter. I mean and then I I guess leading into the 3rd act, somewhere along the line, Cooper Smith got a dog. 

Todd:  He’s got this whole really weird scene with the chef. Right? He misses dinner, and so he goes to the mess hall by himself and has to scrape just the last bits of scrambled egg or whatever from the tray. And the chef takes pity on him and says, hey, come back here and I’ll I’ll make you a steak. And so he makes a mistake and he sits down and they just have again, another little conversation that’s supposed to be, oh, I’m an orphan. 

Craig:  You sure your mother and father didn’t send you here just to get you out of the way? My mom and dad were killed in an automobile accident. If she had told me soon, I would’ve give you an extra lump of mashed potatoes. That’s better. Finish? You wanna see something?   I I guess I just I guess I just have kind of a twisted mind because I saw that going somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Todd, the chef gives him a puppy so he’s got this puppy which he keeps under, like, a cock in this dungeon. And and and I love that about movies Todd, like, where you can just, like, oh, I have a puppy. I’m just gonna put it in this box for the next 3 days. Like, that’s not how that works. 

Todd:  Well, it’s the thing that he he gives this nice little soliloquy about dogs and puppies. He’s like, 

Craig:  doesn’t look like this little one’s getting too much to eat. Can I have him? What are you gonna do with him? Keep him. Try to give him a chance. Why don’t you let nature take its course? Yeah. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this puppy’s better off not making it. It’s a tough world out there. You gotta be able to kick and scratch if you wanna survive.   I found that out right after my parents died. 

Todd:  No. You don’t know that. You haven’t been scrapping and getting by. You’ve been bullied this whole time. You haven’t come out on top. You haven’t learned anything. But, yeah, take the dog. Take the dog so so that you can show it a better life by sticking it in a box in this secret room in the dungeon in the dark, and then tell it if you need anything, just yell. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yell for who? 

Todd:  The man who lives in the dungeon? 

Craig:  Eventually, they have this confrontation with the bullies. The bully after the beauty pageant, the, bullies are like, well, we’re gonna hurt your dog. And he’s like, don’t you dare hurt my dog. I’ll do something bad. But instead of going and, like, getting his dog or protecting his dog, he just goes to bed. And and the bullies somehow magically find his evil dungeon, and they go down there, and they’re messing around and looking around and stuff. And, the main bully, Bubba, gets a Todd of the puppy and, and and kills it. And meanwhile, while all this has been happening, the computer screen has been flashing blood and consecrated host.   I don’t even know if the bullies were supposed to have seen that. I I have no idea. But, they they kill the puppy and then they leave and then eventually, Cooper Smith comes down and finds his dead puppy. And that’s what leads into what I felt like could have been a really good payoff with this last scene. And then I just felt like they totally squandered it. Like   Yeah.   So so the computer says, oh, no. We need human blood. So when Cooper Smith finds the puppy, he’s he’s enraged, and then the reverend, like, comes down there and finds Cooper Smith, and Cooper Smith kills him. So he’s got the human blood, and he’s also got con he’s also gotten the consecrated host. 

Todd:  He picks him up from the stairway, lifts him into the air, and, like, impales him on what must be like a hanging spiky chandelier or something. 

Craig:  I guess I had no idea 

Todd:  what that was. Human strength or something. 

Craig:  And and then you’ve got basically what boils down to carry at the prom scene. I mean, that’s that’s pretty much exactly what it is except it’s in a church. It’s in a church and, Cooper Smith, you know, poor, sweet Clint Howard, who was obviously balding at the time, like, they spike his comb over up so that it’s standing so it’s standing about 10 inches above his head, and he floats around. And, like, there’s all kinds of contrived things where, like, his face turns into the face of the evil priest for a while. And, you know, it it’s all insignificant and kinda stupid, but, he he chases these guys around the chapel and he kills he beheads a bunch of them with the same sword that Esteban used in the beginning and and the pigs come back and, like, the the the pigs are chasing people through the church and eating them. And I’m like, why why did they have these enormous, like, jungle doors at the military academy? These are not like these are not like hogs that you would have, you know, to make bacon. You know? Pigs are scary and dangerous, period. Domestic pigs are dangerous.   But these are like jungle boars. Like, why do they have them there? 

Todd:  Hakuna matata. 

Craig:  Yeah. One of the So the   pigs eat a bunch of people and he decapitates a bunch of people and there’s this whole big, like, slaughter. And then this this has to be my biggest complaint with the movie. It’s like they just quit or like they filmed an ending that we didn’t get to see because you see this big slaughter and you see poor Stanley Cooper Smith who you’ve, you know, sympathized with because he’s been bullied for this whole time and you feel bad for this kid and then he kills a bunch of people and then like it just kind of fades away and this script comes up on the screen that says, Suffering from shock and catatonic withdrawal attributed to having witnessed the fiery death of his dear friends and teachers, Stanley Cooper Smith, sole survivor of the tragic accident at West Andover Academy Chapel, was admitted to Sunnydale Asylum. He remains there still. 

Todd:  Oh, it was all based on a true story. 

Craig:  And then you you okay. So then you see the computer again and it flashes up. I, Stanley Cooper Smith will return. Oh, man. I just felt totally cheated.   Yeah.   I wanted to know what happened, you know, like   Yeah.   Frankly, somehow, as in Carrie, Stanley probably should have building up, building up, building up, building up, building up, building up, building up, climax, climax, the end. Like you don’t get any resolution, you don’t get that really, that’s my biggest complaint about the movie. Among many complaints, that is my biggest complaint was that I felt cheated at the end. That felt like a cop out ending. 

Todd:  It was a terrible ending. I felt the same way about that ending as I did at the end of Unbreakable. And also, while we’re kinda ragging on it because it’s easy to do, another thing I didn’t quite get was the role of the computer in all this. Because at times, it’s a translator. At times, it’s helping along with the with the ritual. But then at other times, the computer itself seems possessed and able to project some energy. We get all these graphics on there. Maybe the the scene I’m thinking about the most is right smack dab in the middle of the movie, where Sarge is drunk in the basement.   He’s been bitching about his crowbar being missing this whole time. And, and he he stumbles in to Stanley, finds the the secret hideout, finds his crowbar there, says he’s been lying, finds his dog, and then picks up the dog. It’s like, I’m gonna teach you a lesson. He’s gonna snap the dog’s neck, you know, over this crowbar. Yeah. And at this point, the computer kinda fires up, and this pentagram goes on there and all these crazy graphics, and then like the pentagram duplicates itself vertically, so it I guess it’s supposed to kind of look like a vertebrae, and starts turning and twisting, and it keeps cutting between this graphic on the screen, and suddenly this guy, Sarge, in life, his head starts turning around and basically until it’s complete, you know, 180 and snaps his neck and he falls forward. And there’s another time too, I don’t remember where, but where the computer does the same thing. So it’s almost like by now the computer is already possessed by this Esteban character, and it’s able to manifest these things.   But I guess it’s not enough because the ritual is not complete and nothing big happens till the end. But then again, at the end, like you said, the computer’s still there. I guess it survived the the the burning or fire. It’s another one. And it now apparently is possessed by you know, it’s supposed to be, like, implying that there’s there’s a cyclical nature to this that now he’s the new world. Right. But it’s so clunky, and it doesn’t make any sense. 

Craig:  Yeah. I just I I really it made me think a lot of, another movie that we just talked about, Trick or Treat, where the the rock star could kind of possess all of the stereos. But you’re right, you know, like, it seemed that sometimes that the computer, had power and could manipulate things on its own. I mean, it’s really clunky. You know, I I I feel bad because a lot of times we do these movies and we can tell you kind of interesting trivia. And and there’s not a whole lot of interesting trivia that that that I could find about this. There is a making of documentary of this movie on YouTube. This movie is on YouTube, by the way, if you wanna watch it for free.   But, there is a making of and I wish that I would’ve had the opportunity to watch it before we saw this because I I do find it, interesting. And the thing is, when all is said and done, I didn’t hate the movie. I I I thought that it had potential. It just seemed like it was poorly executed. I think that the idea is not a bad idea, and I think that it’s something that could be easily modified, not necessarily a remake, but, you know, the, a similar idea. And and again, I I’m sure it’s been done. There’s been all kind of technology horror. But, as I said in the beginning, there’s some sort of charm about it, and I really think that that charm is Clint Howard.   And it’s not that he is an Oscar worthy actor. He’s not. But there’s just something relatable about him, and he’s just kinda got these big puppy dog eyes, that, for whatever reason, you know, I I I like this guy. I feel for this guy. And even in this movie, that’s not a great movie. I enjoyed watching him in it. I wouldn’t watch it again, but I might even recommend it to a fellow horror lover. It’s weird.   It’s a movie that I had never heard of, that I’ve never seen referenced anywhere except for that one article that I read about it. But, I don’t know. I’m I’m kinda glad we stumbled across it. 

Todd:  Yeah. I’ll go one better on you. I think that even you could almost take this movie scene for scene and rework the writing and the characterization, and probably make a much better movie out of the same exactly the same material. If you just had the build in there and you made it again so that that ritual was something that kept getting added to and adding to and building and maybe made made it come a little sooner, you could have more of a, again, like a male version of Carrie in here because I felt like like I said at the very beginning, I felt like this movie was so close to that or at least there was there were elements about it that made it want to be that it just didn’t succeed because the writing was so terrible. Yeah. Just a bunch of scenes that didn’t have any build to them and as great as Clint’s character was as much as you felt for him, you didn’t really see a breaking down of this guy, you know. The dog I think was supposed to be it, but and as tragic as that is, it too felt tacked on. Like we hadn’t seen that much of the dog, you know, by then.   That by the point he’s cradling it, we get, like, a slow dolly shot, on him, hands covered in blood, cradling this dead dog. That was supposed to be really emotional. But, again, as tragic as it is to see a dog killed for no good reason, you still didn’t even have any build before that of his relationship him. You know, that one little change Yeah. Would have made that way more powerful and him. You know, that one little change 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  Would have made that way more powerful and would have made it, yep, that’s definitely the point where he’s snapping. You know, his one friend of the world is gone. And then you could just kinda take it out of the chapel a little more. Like, it seems like the chapel is the only place on this campus. It’s like where everybody goes all the time. He’s in the chapel. People are looking for him. They find him in the chapel.   He’s in the in the cellar, and everybody knows to go down to the cellar and find him. His friend, his friend Kowalski, who again you thought was gonna be again the guy that kinda comes to his aid throughout it, shows up like 3 times, and he’s gone. You’re right. Maybe what you said earlier about a lot of scenes being cut, maybe there was a lot cut here that we haven’t seen that would that would have fixed some of this now that I think about it because it’s so disjointed. It’s so disjointed. 

Craig:  The only interesting bit of trivia that I was able to find was that and and I don’t know. It’s not like the set pieces were that cool. It could have been filmed on any studio set, but, it was actually filmed in a condemned church. While they were filming it, of course, they were doing some renovations for the filming, and a priest at that church came in and believed that they were renovating the church, and I guess he fell to his knees and, like, like Craig out a thank you to Todd and they just didn’t even have the heart to tell him that it was just like set pieces and and they eventually ended up burning the church to the ground. So that’s the only interesting piece of trivia that I have about the movie. 

Todd:  There was an interesting scene we didn’t mention. And, again, this this is, another point where I felt like everybody was always going back to the chapel. Another thing that it felt like they were building up to that again went nowhere was this big game that he was supposed to be able to play in that they keep referencing and keep threatening to cut him from, which doesn’t seem to matter in the end. But it comes to that point where he’s supposed to show up for the game. It’s it’s it’s after, you know, the rally the night before where the dog died. He’s not there. And so they’re all like, They’re all in the shower room. They’re getting all ready to go, and the coach comes in and says, where is he? And they said, well, I guess he hasn’t shown up.   Wink, wink, wink. Coach is like, well, okay. I guess we’ll have to punish him for that. Alright, boys. I wanna see you over at the chapel. So they all go to the chapel, and the priest, the the chaplain, gives the what I think is the finest piece of writing in this film. In case you’re listening to this on a Sunday and you want a nice, pep talk slash sermon, I just wanna leave you with this gem. 

Craig:  Before you go out to play the game of your lives, little soldiers, I wanna talk to you about another game. The game of life.   I know a lot of   you soccer jocks think it’s okay to go out there and try to pull one over on the referee when he’s not watching, But I’m here to tell you that nobody, I mean Todd, pulls anything over on the head referee in the big game, and that’s what really is important. Each time you go to the trough of sin with gluttony and lust like pigs, you’re being coached by Satan. And if you care to check the standings, he’s got a losing record. When he adds up the ledger between good and evil, You, you better be on the winning side of this, we’ll just hell. It’s okay.   Oh, man. Oh, 

Todd:  man. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Google Play, iTunes, and Stitcher, anywhere you can find your favorite podcast. You’ll also find us on Facebook, where you can like us there, share us with a friend, and let us know what you think of this movie as well as leave a request for another movie in the future. Until that time, I’m Todd, and I’m Greg with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.