Cujo (1983)

Episode 136, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We’re kicking off our request month this month. We’re going to do at least a month of request because we’re getting a little backed up, and last month, we indulged ourselves with summer films. So this month, we’re starting off with a request from Adam and he requested Cujo, the 1983 film based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Yeah. I was really excited to see this request. Actually, this movie, I’ve never seen it before and it’s been on my want to see list forever. I have read the book but, actually fairly recently. So the book was fairly fresh in my mind, going into this movie. Now, Craig, I think you’d seen this before. Right?

Craig: Yeah. I’ve seen it a bunch of times actually. This is one of the very few King books that I haven’t read. So, I’ll be interested to kinda hear your perspective and how it compares.

Todd: Yeah. I think around this time, if if I’m not mistaken, we had a bit of a, a, a string of King films. This wasn’t too long after Carrie came out. And, everybody seemed keen on making, taking Stephen King’s books and making movies out of them. Of course, he was cranking them out like 1 a year and and they were Yeah. All becoming bestsellers. This is sort of the, the golden age of Well, I don’t know. Stephen King still going pretty strong. And it has been for a while, but this was kind of the beginning of, of his career as a superstar bestseller. I have to say it’s not my favorite King book. It’s it’s interesting. It he, I think, pretty openly admits that he doesn’t remember writing much of it because this was during a period when he was drinking pretty heavily. I don’t know if he was doing coke by this time or not, but he’s he’s pretty open about all that. Right. And, he said it’s a shame, actually, because there there are parts of this book he really, really likes and would like to have the memory of having written having written them. I’m gonna compare this to the book a little bit, because I feel like I have to. The book opens up with the very first chapter. The very first sentences are about a serial killer in this town. This, like a lot of his novels, and stories and subsequently movies take place in this fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. And he’s created kind of a little little universe of his own Yeah. Where if you look at all of his books, as a whole, they they kind of reference each other. There are characters that appear in other ones And there’s even a sort of mythology that, surrounds them of kind of where these dark forces might be coming from that cause these things to happen. And so, in Cujo, he references the serial serial killer, which you never see in the book. It’s it’s it’s like, this guy, you know, decades ago was arrested and captured and executed or something. But the strong implication is that the spirit of this guy is still around and that it has possessed this dog as the dog gets rabies. If it’s about dog that gets rabies, that’s Right. That’s in essence what it is.

Craig: Well, and what you’re talking about, the serial killer that you’re talking about was the antagonist in one of his earlier books, and this book is I mean you you can’t really call it a sequel because it’s only semi implied that this serial killer maybe has possessed this dog, but the serial killer was the killer from The Dead Zone.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: Which which I have read and, did enjoy. And The Dead Zone, the the movie version of The Dead Zone came out almost at the exact same time as this movie. I think the same year or maybe just a year before or a year after, And, but they were produced by different studios, so, they removed any references to the dead zone. Well, not all references. I mean, there are still some things like their characters that recur in both, like the sheriff in Cujo is the same sheriff, from The Dead Zone, but, those direct references and the suggestion that it might be a possession is removed, which I’m actually okay with. Yeah. Well Not not because it’s out of the realm of, you know, Stephen King’s reality. You know, that’s that’s fine. But, as a stand alone movie, I think that it would make it a little bit muddy, and I I actually just kinda like the idea that, you know, this is just a dog that got rabies. And and this is one of those I I Todd you last night and said I was looking forward to talking about it because I have feelings about it. I I I like this movie. I think it’s really good. I think there are some amazing performances in the movie. It’s scary. It’s it’s certainly scary, but, like, I find it to be really Todd. Didn’t just got sick and, you know, it’s not the puppy’s fault.

Todd: I think this is definitely something that King writes a lot in his novels. You know, we I talk a lot about sort of the morality of the horror genre and and, you know, going back to, like, the Tales from the Crypt and these kinds of comic books and and even, you know, radio plays that were, you know, popular in the thirties and forties, or we talk a lot about how there’s kind of an underlying morality to these that even though there are these terrible forces and they they surface in these unexpected ways and and people die and things get killed. In a general sense, it seems like there’s, an idea that only the people who in some way, shape, or form break some rules or, you know, quote unquote deserve it are the ones who get killed. And it’s the pure people who don’t break those rules, whatever they might be, that stay alive. One thing that I think Stephen King puts pretty strongly in a lot of his books is there are no rules.

Craig: Right.

Todd: There are terrible evil things out there, and they will get you no matter how good you are, no matter how bad you are. And I think the thing about Kuja that makes it such a bleak book, and, this is one reason why it’s not really my favorite, but I think it’s a really interesting book, is that I feel like, it sets up these characters. And it’s certainly also not outside of the realm of Stephen King where every family has, you know, problems. Every there’s there’s always a bad parent or husband and wife are having an affair or something like that. It’s sort of this acknowledgment, you know, that everybody’s got issues. And then this force, this evil, this something comes in and, those issues are nothing suddenly, you know, compared to what they find what they have to contend with. And I think that contrast is really striking. And that adds to sort of the tragedy of the book. I I I see this story as as kind of like a I mean, it’s like almost like a Shakespearean tragedy in a way where these terrible events go into into place and everybody’s gotta contend with it and the ending, especially in the book, is not happy. And that’s it. Bad things happen to people who are already struggling with their own problems. Now they have this to deal with and not a lot of good ends up coming out of it in the end. You know?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And one one of the things that I was surprised when we had talked about doing this, because it had been requested, I said it’s gonna be weird to talk about because it’s, you know, just these people trapped in a car, a dog menacing them or whatever. I it had been I guess it had been so long that I so long ago that I had seen it that I forgot that really as much as there is of that there’s at least as much if not more really of just a family drama. Like Yeah. The the whole first half of the movie is just family drama.

Todd: It really is.

Craig: And and it’s it’s good and you know it’s it’s well played, and it’s believable and I think that the actors do a really good job, but it’s a little surprising that so much of it is devoted to that and you really only get to the nightmarish stuff in the last 40, 45 minutes.

Todd: Yeah. In in in such a way that it’s almost not even a horror movie, you know. I mean, it is, but it because a terrible thing happens. But it’s sort of like an afterschools, not I shouldn’t say afterschool special, but kind of like a lifetime drama in

Craig: the first

Todd: half. And then the second half, this new element comes in of more drama, but it’s not supernatural. It’s a dog with rabies, you know, that that ends up trapping this woman, and son in the car. And they have to deal with that now. And so you’re right. It’s very much And that I think is what it’s why I brought up the whole possession serial killer thing because believe me, it’s not it’s implied in the book. Right. And it’s not dwelled upon and it’s not hit upon a lot. It’s just this underlying supernatural element that he has kind of added that can easily be taken away because, well, shoot, you can see in the movie they completely took it away. Right. But I think that makes all the difference really in making the book, more foreboding because that makes it seem like this dog, even though just like in the movie, it’s just this poor dog, and it got rabies and, it’s really tragic for the dog and even the dog himself it gets you in his head and he’s, you know, just talking about how sick he’s starting to feel and why he’s getting these different feelings that he never had before about his master. The dog itself kinda gets conflicted as the rabies gets over him, you know. Mhmm.

Craig: At the end of the day, when there’s this

Todd: implication that there’s that there’s a dark force possessing the dog, that makes the dog even more sinister. Like, when this dog relentlessly attacks this car and relentlessly does things, you just feel like it’s not just a dog with rabies. It’s like an unstoppable evil dog with rabies, you know. True. True. And that’s a sense that you really don’t get from the film, honestly. At least I didn’t feel it that strongly from the film. And so Todd that my mind, it wasn’t as terrifying. Does that make sense? It wasn’t Yeah. I wasn’t as on the edge of my seat about it because I didn’t I felt like at some point, this dog’s gonna wear out or it’s gonna hurt himself or, you know, 2 people are gonna show up and the dog can’t handle 2 Right. And he’s gonna end up dead. You know, that kind of thing.

Craig: Yeah. I I I get what you’re saying and I I haven’t read the book so I really hesitate to pass any kind of judgment because I’m really a huge Stephen King fan. I’ve read almost all of his stuff based on just what we’re talking about. I kind of almost think that I prefer that it’s just, you know, a dog that gets rabies because that’s in watching it not because it’s really similar in any way, but it reminded me of the movie that we did last week, The Reef, where it’s just it’s just this natural force, you know, like it’s not

Todd: Right.

Craig: It’s not inherently evil. It’s just, you know, one of the ugly parts of the real world and one might argue that there are some implausible things that are going on here and and that’s fine and and fair, but when it comes right down to it, this could happen. You know, animals get animals get rabies. People can get rabies if they’re exposed to it or whatever And and that I I think is the the the the realism of it, the idea that this could potentially really happen, makes it even a little bit more frightening to me.

Todd: Yeah. Oh, I I understand where you’re going. And I think, I mean, I think we should we should examine the movie on its own merits and I’ll stop talking about the novel, you know. No.

Craig: I’m interested. I’m really interested in the similarities and differences. Well, the funny thing is it is

Todd: it is almost an exactly faithful adaptation. I mean, there’s very little that’s in the novel that’s not in the movie. And every almost everything in the movie happens the way it happens in the novel. It’s really quite a simple story, really, with just a few characters. Right. You know, it starts out with, actually, really impressive scene. I mean I love it. Let’s talk let’s talk for a second about the cinematography in this movie. Yeah. Anytime you’ve got this, like, dog that you have to and it’s a Saint Bernard. And I don’t know. I never think of Saint Bernard’s as as scary. You know, they’re always the floppy happy. They’re big And they could be scary, but they’re the ones, you know, that wear the barrels of whiskey around the Right. Rescue you in the hills. Right? I learned that from all the Looney Tunes. You know? So, like, when you’re tasked with making this, you’re gonna use real animals because there’s no CGI at this time. Right. And and they used very little puppet work in here. I think they had one fake animal head. Was that right? That they use one kind of robotic and, like, 6 different dogs. Uh-huh. And you’re tasked with with shooting us in a realistic way that doesn’t look cheesy. They really pull it off, I feel like. Yeah. And that’s an accomplishment.

Craig: Yeah. With a few exceptions. But, yeah. Yeah. And that’s the thing too. There’s that old adage that you never wanna work with dogs or kids, or animals or kids or whatever. And that’s, you know, it’s it’s pretty ambitious to have this movie where really one of the central characters is this dog. And, you know, it has to be so well, at first, you know, it’s very sweet. You know, you talked about or you started to talk about the opening scene. It’s a it’s a really cute pretty scene, you know, like it could be, you know, out of Lassie or something, you know, like, we we watch this rabbit come out of its little hidey hole and, you know, it’s kind of like frolicking in the field and then Cujo, the big friendly Saint Bernard shows up and like chases it around. And it’s even funny because you can tell. I mean, these are clearly trained animals. Like, the dog is chasing the bunny, but you can tell that, you know, it’s not gonna grab it and kill it. Yeah. They’re they’re almost like playing together really. It just chases this bunny around and eventually, the rabbit, dives into another hole which I guess is kind of part of, I don’t know, like some underground cave or something. Mhmm. And the dog’s barking at the rabbit as dogs will do. It can only fit its head in the hole, and it wakes up these bats, and one of these bats comes down on its face and and bites it. And from that point on, of course, it has rabies because, you know, all bats have rabies.

Todd: Boy, woe to anyone who gets bitten by a bat. You’ve got all kinds of problems, it seems

Clip: like.

Craig: Yeah. Right. But, you know, as is really the case, I looked this up because I wanted to know about rabies. You know, it doesn’t manifest itself immediately. You know, it takes some time and it’s a slow progression and in animals it can take anywhere from like 8 days up to a number of months even sometimes before the symptoms begin to appear. Now it’s usually more like 8 to 10 days. But then once the symptoms do start to appear, they progress rapidly. And whether it be an animal or a human, once those neurological symptoms start to manifest, you’re done. Like there’s there’s nothing they can do for you, even if even if you’re a human being. Once once those symptoms start to come around, it’s over. Now in humans, if you can if you’re bitten by something that you suspect has rabies, you can be inoculated, and it’s it’s terrible. You know, it’s a a big huge series of shots that you have to get, but it’s almost 100% effective in in preventing the disease from from coming to fruition. So we we see this dog get bit, and then as the next 45 minutes goes on, it kind of progressively gets a little bit you know, it starts out with it just being it seems kind of uncomfortable and things start to agitate it more than usually, especially loud noises starts to agitate it. And, you know, whereas in the beginning, it’s very friendly. It starts to become a little bit more surly and and growly and and that kind of stuff until of course eventually, finally, it becomes violent and and horrible. Yeah. But in the beginning, it’s real cute and real sweet, like, which is which which makes it even and it’s a family dog. You know? Like, this family has this dog and they all love it. Like, it it’s their, like, their favorite dog and, gosh.

Todd: I don’t know.

Craig: It gets I’m such a dog guy like I swear I’m gonna have to put up on on our Facebook page a picture of me and my dog so you guys can get why I’m such a dog guy because my dog is the cutest dogs. But anyway, I’ll get I’ll get over the dog stuff and then, you know, once all that happens, then we get the 40 to 45 minutes of the family drama, and and it’s it’s intriguing. It’s, you know, it’s it’s interesting to watch. It’s even though, you know, nothing scary is happening for the next 40 or 45 minutes really, it’s certainly not boring, you know. I I was very invested. I was very invested in what was going on in these people’s lives.

Todd: Well, it’s clever. I think it’s it’s smart of them because in in the book, we meet Cujo before he gets bitten. And so even, family goes and and meets this other family that has the dog and gets to meet the dog. And, because it’s a big dog, the mother of 1 of the kids is a little leery about, you know, him, but the kid kinda latches on to him. And so his name is, Tad.

Craig: Yeah. Danny Pintaro. Yeah. From Who’s the Boss in his first movie and oh, my gosh, is he stinking cute.

Todd: He is so cute and he’s so good. And when he cries in here, it just breaks my heart. Yeah. That whole Oh, we’re gonna get to that. Well, anyway, what I was saying was, he actually gets to meet the dog before it contracts rabies and and, you know, kind of love at first sight, loves the dog. Mom’s thinking about getting him a dog, but she’s a little leery just because the dog’s big and the kid’s young and blah blah blah blah. Right. But anyway, in the movie here, obviously, where where the dog’s getting rabies right away. And even though Danny meets the dog before it, you know, starts showing the symptoms, I think it’s really effective that at least we get right off the bat, before we get into the family drama, we know immediately that there’s something sinister is gonna be happening. You know, I think it’s so important to be able to get through this next 45 minutes, I think. Sure. To know, hey, there’s an animal with rabies coming down the pipe, at some point. Right. Right. Yeah. And it’s interesting Todd because the the way that we meet, Tad and his family is his, father Vic and, mother Donna are he is afraid of this monster in his closet. And it’s really an interesting scene right after we have the creation of the monster, so to speak. We have the father coming in and no, there’s no monster in your closet and and, you know, the closet door seems to swing open by itself but you can tell it doesn’t quite latch all the way. Right.

Clip: He’s in there. I saw him. Really? Todd, you saw him in your dreams, in your head, nowhere else. See, Ted, there aren’t any real Ted, listen to me. There’s no such thing as real monsters, only in stories. There’s no real monsters, though. Really? Really. Really.

Todd: And you know, that’s a lie.

Craig: I know. You know? And then it’s a lie that we tell kids all the time.

Todd: Yeah. So you just it’s just it I think it instills the sense of foreboding from the beginning. Like, oh, boy. That is about to be proven wrong. You know, we all know it. Something’s gonna happen. It’s a great element of foreshadowing, I think, right at the beginning of the movie. There’s this guy named Steve in their life who seems to be a friend of Vic’s. I don’t think he’s so friendly with Vic, actually, in the book. But in the movie, it looks like at least they’re tennis buddies. And he’s a local Yeah. He’s a local furniture refinisher. Yeah. It’s so weird. Yeah.

Craig: He and Vic are tennis buddies, but he and Donna are a different kind of buddy.

Todd: Yeah. They’re a little more buddy buddy. You get what I’m saying?

Craig: Yeah. I mean, that’s the thing. Like, seriously, like, it’s very family drama. Like, you know, you got this nice family. They’re they’re the dad works in advertising, apparently, Vic. He’s played by Daniel Hugh Kelly, who has been in a bazillion things. Like, you’ll recognize him. I can’t really pinpoint him from any one particular thing, but he was in tons of things in the eighties. He’s still working. You would totally recognize him. But you know, they’re this nice family. He seems like a nice guy, good looking family, and, they got this little kid. And the mom is Donna who’s played by Dee Wallace, who You love I’ve said on the podcast before, I think. If not, I know what for a fact that I’ve said it to you several times. I love Dee Wallace. I I think she’s fantastic. She’s really a horror movie icon, and and continues to be so. I mean, she’s she’s still working. She works almost entirely in in the genre of horror. The thing that I remember her most for and the re she’s she’s done so many great horror movies. I think she was in The Howling. She’s, she’s just been in a bazillion things.

Todd: She’s good. She’s kinda like, the same way that Jamie Lee Curtis is, you know. She’s a woman, but she’s a strong woman.

Craig: Yeah. But soft too, you know, like she’s got this she’s got this very soft kind of maternal voice and, but yeah. I mean, you could tell that she if and you’ll find out that if need be, she can be a badass, and and she is. You know, it might be more appropriate to save this little nugget for later, but I’m gonna go ahead and throw it out there that Stephen King, has has gone on record as saying that Dee Wallace’s performance in this movie is his favorite performance out of any performant of the performances in any of the adaptations of his films, including he even thinks that she’s better in this movie than Kathy Bates was in Misery. Yeah. Like, he can’t say enough about how great she is in this movie. And, you know, Kathy Bates was amazing in Misery. It it’s difficult to compare, but I love, Dee Wallace in this movie, and she does do a great job. You know, like you said, you know, it’s these these people aren’t perfect. It’s kind of a a real life thing, you know, despite the fact that they have a beautiful home, you know, on the beach, you know, and, like, the dad drives a Jag. I don’t get the dad drives a Jag and she drives a broke down Pinto. I don’t play I don’t really get that. But they’ve got this great life and yet for whatever reason, you know, she’s stepping out. She’s banging Steve on the side. Yeah. And you can kind of tell even from the very even from when that’s revealed. Like, the way that it’s revealed is they they do a shot where you see Steve laying in bed or on his mattress on the floor because he’s, like, this bachelor or whatever. Mhmm. He picks up a trombone and and and plays the trombone, and it wakes up the person who’s sleeping next to him and it and it’s her. And and it’s kind of surprising, like, you don’t expect it, you don’t see it coming, but at the same time I felt like she did a really good job because even from the very beginning you can tell that she feels guilty about what she’s doing. You know, she knows that it’s bad and and she knows that she’s really got a good thing going on. It’s kinda like, you know, what am I doing? And and that plays, from the beginning.

Todd: It almost seems like an affair out of boredom or something. Yeah. Just like she’s just got this life and her husband’s always busy, but he’s not he’s not portrayed as too busy.

Craig: It’s it’s

Todd: not that simple. It’s not that cut and dried. And I think that’s part of what’s so beautiful about it. And like you said, it’s pretty believable. Right. Yeah.

Craig: Again, you know, that’s that’s that’s kind of it. She’s having this affair. Tad’s got Tad’s afraid of the monsters. There’s some really cute stuff where the dad, like, you know, carries Tad around his room before he puts him to bed, and he Tad calls it the monster words, like you have to say the monster words.

Clip: Monsters, stay out of Tad’s room. You have no business here. No monsters in Tad’s closet. It’s too small for you in there. No monsters under Tad’s bed. You cannot fit under there. Oh, there’s outside Tad’s window. You can’t hold on out there. Nothing will touch Tad. Nothing will hurt Tad all through this night.

Craig: And it’s just very sweet. And you get moments when you see them together as a family. There’s one moment where they’re having dinner. It’s not it’s like you said, it’s not so much that there’s tension. It’s almost just kinda like there’s like, it’s they’re bored. Like, he even says the dad even says, I think this marriage is running out of conversation. You know, because they’re they’re just sitting there not talking. Tad does something cute, and they all laugh. And so it’s it’s not like they don’t like each other, and there’s even a moment where they’re laying in bed and or or or she’s laying in bed, and the husband comes out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth or whatever, and he lays down and she’s just looking at him and, he’s like, what? And she’s like, well, you’re just so handsome or or something like that. And you can see in her eyes that she loves her husband, she cares about her husband, whatever has motivated whether whether it be boredom or whatever it is that has motivated her to have this affair, there’s definitely still love in this family. Mhmm.

Todd: But there are problems. Yeah. And that’s that’s the book. Alright. I guess I’ll go back to the book a little bit. We have this family. We have this family with these problems, and it’s very well spelled out. And and as much as we go back and forth with the dog who’s, you know, starting to show his symptoms of the rabies and we get inside the dog’s head a little bit, we’re seeing these troubles unfold here And that’s juxtaposed with this other family, this family that’s way out, outside of Todd, and that is, Joe. Yeah. The Cambers. Cambers. And, his wife Charity, doesn’t get said much actually, and, and their and their son, Brett. And they’re the kind of, like, a working class family, you know, of the groups. But, again, a very similar problems, except in this case, it’s Joe is a little more of an overbearing father as far as trying to kinda keep his family in line, maybe more expecting a traditional man’s role around the house. And you get the sense that Charity feels a little trapped by that and is uncomfortable, maybe even a little scared of him. There’s an implication maybe. He’s the kind of guy to hit them a little bit. In the book Yeah. It’s for sure, you know, that that’s the case. In fact, he’s played up, I think, a little more villainous in the, if you can call it that, in the movie, than he is in the book, quite honestly. And Charity ends up winning the lottery. And Yeah. Her whole goal really is she’s thinking of leaving Joe, because she’s worried about her son’s development. And you Again, you get much more of this in the book than you do in the movie. But the real reason is is like she kind of sees her son becoming him. And she’s not happy about that. She wants her son to be a little bit more like her side of the family. Because she comes, you know, she has a sister in New York or whatever who’s who’s who’s, you know, married to rich guy and they’re high society or whatnot. And she wants him to at least see what that’s like and and get out. And Joe never lets them leave, you know. He keeps them on a short leash. And so she buys him a new tool for his tool shed, and that’s how we get introduced to them. Joe goes in, he he repairs cars, basically. He’s a mechanic. And he goes into his barn where he has his, his shop and sees a new, it’s an engine puller, basically. And it comes in. It’s like, what is this? We can’t afford this. And Charity’s like, well, I won the lottery. I won $10,000. And her idea is she’s gonna trade this. This is her way of, getting this short escape, which she’s considering will be a long escape. But she’s still not quite sure of getting her and Brett to visit her sister, in exchange for, you know, giving Jill this tool. And Right.

Clip: In the

Todd: meantime, we get a I thought this scene was so crazy. The scene where Joe then, after he agrees to this, visits his buddy down the street. Gary. Right?

Craig: Yeah. I yeah. Yeah. It’s Gary.

Todd: Gary. And and and you talk about making this seem to be like it’s almost like Gary lives at a haunted house, dark, and it’s it’s got filled with smoke from his cigarettes. And it’s got beer cans all over the floor, and it’s a mess. And and Joe’s sitting there. This is his buddy, you know. And Joe’s like, well, while they’re gone, I’m gonna go down to Boston and I’m just gonna basically wine women and song it up Right. Without them knowing. So Joe doesn’t come across as a real great guy, in this movie.

Craig: No. And that it it’s it’s funny because I I’ll say it for the, like, 500th time because I haven’t read the book. But in the in the movie, I very much got the impression that, yeah, she wins the lottery, and she does. She makes that Craig, like, oh, I bought you a big expensive tool. Can I please go visit my sister? But I I got the strong impression that she was leaving and that they were not coming back. Oh, yeah. And and and the reason that I thought that was because she while she’s packing, she surreptitiously packs, the family photo album. And, you know, there there’s no reason to do that, you know, unless you’re not planning on coming back.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: And and, you know, I was kind of glad because the way we don’t get a whole lot of their dynamic, not nearly as much as the other family, but just in a little bit that we get, you can tell that she seems to be kind of put upon, She’s very mousy, you know. She always kinda looks like she’s on the lookout, like Mhmm. Anybody might strike out at her at any moment.

Todd: Yeah. Weak. She seems weak. Yeah. And and and and helpless.

Craig: Or broken. Yeah.

Todd: Broken. Yeah. Broken is better.

Craig: I was glad. I, you know, I was happy, that she was getting her son away from that. The the son, who’s played by Billy Jane, another actor that you’ll recognize from the eighties. He was the annoying little brother in, Just One of the Guys. Todd, you know, he’s concerned because at some point just prior to them leaving, he has gone out and looked for Cujo, because Cujo hasn’t been hanging around the house as much as he usually does, and he goes out and it’s this scene that it’s it’s this, like, dense dense fog. And, he he goes out and he’s calling for Cujo, and he he kind of hears Cujo crying, which again, you know, breaks my heart. Can only imagine it’s how a parent would feel, you know, hearing a baby whimpering and crying and clearly in distress. But he he goes out and eventually Cujo comes out of the fog. And again, it reminded me of the reef because it was like that shark Oh, yeah. Coming out of coming out of, you know, the the the fog of the the ocean.

Todd: That’s an interesting parallel. It’s true, though.

Craig: He comes out and, like, you know, at this point, he’s looking pretty bad. You know, he’s dirty. He’s he’s kinda foaming at the mouth. He’s got kinda pus coming out of his eyes, and the kid is, worried about him.

Clip: He was tripping foam at the mouth. I think I better tell them. No. You do no such thing. Your father would just jump on something like that. You just leave him be, and you can mooch around your dad, and your dad will take care

Craig: of him.

Clip: Love school, Joe. Yeah. I guess you would. Tell you what. We’ll call you further tonight. When you talk to him, you say sort of casually, you feed my dog daddy, then you know.

Craig: That gets them out of there and then they’re gone in a way and and safe. So good for them. And really,

Todd: I I don’t think we ever really revisit them much again, do we?

Craig: No. No. We don’t see them again.

Todd: And this is the biggest change I think, from the book is that really it’s the story about these two families. It’s these two parallel stories and it’s not so cut and dried with Cho’s family. As a matter of fact, what’s interesting about it is that, Brett really idolizes his father. He idolizes his father’s hard work ethic and actually all of the a lot of the really good things about his dad. It takes us to where they’re visiting her sister and, there’s quite a bit of this sort of, inter family, you know, there’s there’s quite a bit of it’s just the same really, in a different way as what Dee Wallace’s character is going through. This sort of doubt, this, oh, am I doing the right thing? Maybe this is stupid. And she ends up, actually, kind of coming to the conclusion that that Joe’s got some good qualities and that her sister and her lifestyle is maybe just a little fake. You know, they’re a little too high society, a little too full of themselves. And, the things she kind of sees her husband through her son’s eyes, and it helps her to notice again that everybody’s a little complicated. He’s got his bad qualities, but would she rather he be like more like his father or more like, you know, her sister’s family? And he, she kind of comes to the conclusion that, yeah, I’m gonna go back and we’re not gonna leave after all. And I think that’s kind of important thematically, you know, in the book. Because again, it adds to that tragedy. Most of the tension in the book, I think comes from the fact that once Cujo starts going crazy and killing people, it’s like, who is finally gonna stop it? Who’s gonna be able to come back and do it? And it’s it toys with you considerably. Oh, the mailman’s gonna come by. Oh, he’s not coming by. Oh, you know, the kid’s calling back home to his dad and he’s not getting an answer because he’s worried about the dog. So he, you know, mom does let him call back and he doesn’t answer and then they call a neighbor to maybe go check. And so there’s all of these moments where there are opportunities for people to figure out something weird’s going on and go over. But for one reason or another, that that doesn’t happen. And so that is, I think, like the secondary tension of the book that’s completely lost in the movie. I think there’s very little of

Craig: that

Todd: in the in the movie. And so it becomes a very different kind of story as a result. And I think that’s why I said, you know, I think the book is a little more on the edge of your seat than the movie ended up being for me. But again, on its own merits.

Craig: Yeah, sure. Yeah. I’m I’m gonna have to read it now. I’m I’m I’m very interested. But the way that these stories converge in the movie is that Vic has some sort of issue with his Jag. I don’t know, like one of the wheels is wonky or something and he takes it to, the local mechanic and the local mechanic is like, you know, I’m not gonna be able to look at this for a while and, but the mailman is there and the mailman says you should take it out to Joe Camper’s house. He, you know, he works on cars. He’s honest.

Todd: Fair price.

Craig: And and he won’t rip fair price. He won’t rip you off, and he kind of insinuates that, you know, this mechanic is is no. Mhmm. So Vic’s like, okay. So, he takes he loads up the whole family for some reason and takes them all out there. And that’s when, Tad and Donna first meet Cujo. And and like you said, which I’m sure it’s similar in the book, Donna’s concerned as a mother should be. You know, like I have a big dog. I’ve said before I have a rottweiler and I, you know, I think that parents should train their children to have a respect for large animals, you know. You don’t know that you know they could be friendly they might not be and if they’re not they could potentially be very dangerous. So she’s a little skeptical at first, but the, you know, the camper son, Brett says, oh, no. Cujo’s a great dog. He loves kids. And so, you know, Cujo meets Todd, and he’s super sweet, and Tad likes him, but Donna notices, you know, that he’s got this wound on his nose. But, you know, big deal. It’s a dog. You know, it’s it’s it’s not a big thing. And and so that’s that’s how they establish that connection. I guess Camper, you know, fixes Vic’s car and all is good. Meanwhile, back in town, Donna has decided that she is gonna break it off with Steve. He’s not happy about the fact that she’s breaking it off and and she says, look, you know, I’ve got this great husband and I’ve got this great kid and it just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know what I’m doing, and and he kind of tries to convince her to stay, but apparently she’s she’s done. Unfortunately, when she goes back out to her car, he chases her out there and Vic just happens to be driving by. And he sees them and so he pulls a quick Huey in the street, but by the time he gets back she’s already gone. And but now there’s this seed of suspicion planted in his mind. Well, I guess at some point, Steve comes over to their house when he thinks that Donna is alone and she is, and and he gets really handsy with her and like this was, it kind of took me by surprise because like Vic and Steve were, you know, like they’re playing tennis, they’re pals, you know, he like he hangs out in their house, he’s nice to their kid, you know. I thought, well, you know, the fact that she’s having an affair with them, there must be something appealing about him, but then as soon as she breaks it off he turns into a total jerk.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And like he gets pretty rapey with her really. Yeah. She pushes him away and but in the in the scuffle something gets broken and Tad and Vic come in and she gets Steve out of there, but Vic says just tell me yes or no and and and she confesses. So now he knows and there’s this tension between them plus he’s got this tension going on at work because he works in advertising, but he their big campaign was the cereal campaign and now because the cereal had a certain kind of red dye in it all the kids that were eating it are like peeing and pooping red and thinking they’re hemorrhaging even though they’re really not. Like, so so his job is in danger. So there’s all this tension going on. And so he has to go away, and I think that he kind of wants to get away to think things over, but he has to go away for 10 days for his job. And and before he leaves, she stops him and says

Clip: I I just wanted you to know it was over. I just wanted to be sure that you knew that. I can’t make that it never happened, Vic. I can’t make like it never happened either, Donna. I know I know that.

Craig: So I

Clip: don’t know what I’m gonna do either. I don’t know.

Craig: So he goes away, but not before reminding her, you know, your car is having problems. You should take it out to the campers, and they’ll they’ll fix you up. Mhmm. Gosh.

Todd: There you

Craig: go. That’s basically it. There you go. There’s there’s 30 minutes of the movie.

Todd: It’s a good 45 minutes, actually. You’re right, because we’re about halfway through it after all this kinda happens. And then we get our first kill. Cujo’s, now pretty rabid, and he goes over and, Gary, this friend of Joe’s, who is, you know, the 2 of them are gonna go together, out to Boston. They’ve decided putting his trash out, and Cujo comes out and and, chases Gary down, jumps on him, and breaks through a screen door, to get inside the house. And poor Gary’s trying to load his shotgun, but he’s not fast enough, and Cujo basically rips his throat out. And so Gary is the first to go.

Craig: Yeah. And this is one of those moments that maybe the only moment, I don’t know, but it’s so early in the movie. Well, not early really, but early in the scary part of the movie that, it just was kinda humorous to me. Like, this dog this dog is, like, you know, supposed to be menacing this guy, and you’ve got a shot looking at the guy from behind the dog. And the dog’s tail is just wagging. Yeah. Like, this is just the happiest dog. I I read that normally they would tie the dog’s tail to one of its back legs to keep it from doing that because these dogs, you know, they’re just trained animals and, obviously, they’re not gonna put them in any sort of real peril. You know, they’re not gonna really work them up into any kind of frenzy or anything.

Todd: They were having a good time.

Craig: It was the only time I noticed it, but, it was pretty funny. You know, he’s wagging his tail wagging his tail, and then he attacks him and kills him.

Todd: Yeah. They have to be pretty creative with how they shoot this and real careful in order to make these this dog seem menacing. And, I’m sorry. When he was leaping up on him and stuff, I just I I didn’t find that terribly convincing either. Maybe because of the tail wagging, but maybe because that’s just what dogs always do to me, you know. Oh, I’m so happy Todd see you, and they’re up with their hind legs trying to get it, you know, pawing at your chest and stuff, and it’s Well, and that’s

Craig: Todd be of that. That’s fair enough that, you know, that it’s not a 100% convincing, but when you’re working with live animals, you

Todd: know you’re gonna do.

Craig: You know? Right. They do a pretty they’re pretty darn good job. Yeah. You know, there were, like, I think, 5 real Saint Bernards. They couldn’t even get the St. Bernards to be menacing enough sometimes, so sometimes they substituted in a rottweiler. I I couldn’t tell the difference, but that’s what I read. But, and I also read that the dog that gets the most screen time, the one that they used the most died of bloat on during the production, which is sad. Oh. But, anyway, you know, like, they’ve got the they’ve got these dogs, like, they’re all filthied up and they’ve got just gunk and blood and gross nasty stuff all over their faces. And the foam that they used for the dog’s mouth was made out of whipped egg whites and sugar and they had the hardest time getting good close-up shots because the dogs would just spend all their time licking this stuff off their face because it tasted good. And you can tell there is some close-up shots where you can tell that the dogs are just licking, licking like.

Todd: And you could tell that they’ve just smeared stuff on them too. That bothered me a little bit.

Craig: I’m like Oh, I don’t know. I thought Cujo looked pretty scary.

Todd: He did. I could see where you’d have the weepy eyes and things like that, but I thought you’re supposed to foam from the mouth, not over the mouth. Where was that foam coming from? Like, the pores above his nose? I don’t know.

Craig: The next kill is Joe comes over to pick his friend Gary up because they’re gonna go out of town and, Cujo makes quick work of him Todd. Like, there’s not much to it, You know, Joe gets in the house, he looks around, he finds Gary. Cujo shows up. Joe says, you’re rabid. And then the dog attacks him. We don’t even really see much of anything, but he never shows up again. So presumably, he’s dead. Yeah. And then the, you know, the really dramatic part of the movie is when, Donna takes Tad in their Pinto out to the Camber’s house, and they this car is on its last legs, and she’s just you know kind of hoping and praying that it will even make it there. And it does, but it just makes it there, and it dies. So they look around and it doesn’t seem like anybody’s there, and she gets out of the car and she starts calling, you know, out to see if anybody’s there. At this point, we start getting a lot more perspective shots from the dog’s point of view, which is kinda spooky, but Tad is having problems with his seat belt. He can’t get his seat belt off, and so she gets back in the car, but she still got her door open and she’s trying to help, and Cujo attacks. Again, Stephen King has said that he thinks this is one of the most effective scares in any of the adaptations of his movies. The dog jumps up, you know, Tad’s window is down just a little bit, and the dog jumps up, and just is growling and snarling and pawing at the window, and it’s filthy and it’s smearing up the windows with mud and blood and gross nastiness, and little Danny Pintaro, just starts freaking out as a child would and the kid and the mom is scared Todd. And eventually, you know, the dog comes around and she has to get her door closed, but they do, and but this little kid is freaking out, but not at all in an unrealistic way and totally in a completely sympathetic way, like, I felt so bad for this kid. I even felt bad for him as an actor. I’m like, gosh, either this kid was really because he was like 6 when they filmed this. Either this kid is just a really really talented little kid or he had to have been traumatized for life.

Clip: For a

Todd: ride to

Craig: hell out. Yeah. For a poor and the poor guy, I mean, it’s just he’s through the rest of the movie he’s crying and and, you know, there are times there are calm moments where he he has an opportunity to calm down sometimes where there’s kinda waiting, because from this point on, Cujo just stalks the car. Like, the car won’t Todd, they can’t get out, there’s nobody else around. I I was just impressed with him, and I was so impressed with her performance too because she does her best to keep her stuff together for the kid and she tries to comfort him and you know he’s saying it’s the monster from my closet and and you know she’s holding him and caressing him and trying to be you know, loving. But there even comes one point where they’ve been in there for, I don’t know, a day or a day and a half or something and he’s flipping out and there comes one moment where she just gets so frustrated that she kind of, screams at him. Nothing nasty. She just raises her voice because she’s so frustrated and I read that she has said in interviews that she’s been approached by parents who have commended her for that moment in that scene where she, you know, she’s she loves her kid and she wants so desperately to comfort him, but there just comes a moment where you just lose your shit, you know. And and, she has said, you know, I think that’s something that only a real parent can appreciate, is that that kind of frustration where you just can’t handle it anymore. You just can’t keep it together anymore, you know. And I don’t want to gloss over it because it’s such an intense half hour where they’re stuck in this car and, you know, they have a tiny little bit of something to drink in a thermos, but they’re trying to ration it and, you know, we all know how hot it gets in cars in the summertime and and they’re sweating and they’re the little tad, you know, just starts to look like he’s just wasting away and she looks awful Todd. And the dog just is relentless and just won’t leave them alone and at one point she thinks that the dog she hasn’t seen it for a while so she thinks she’s gonna try to get in the house because there’s a phone in the house that keeps ringing and every time the phone rings it agitates the dog. But she she tries to get in there and she doesn’t know that the dog is just right on the other side of the car, and it comes in it attacks her, and not only does it attack her, but she falls back into the car and it jumps right in on top of her and it’s savage. It’s just absolutely savage and she’s fighting and screaming and crying and her kid is just right there screaming. You know, she finally is able to get the dog out of the car, but not before she’s just mauled horribly and she has this terrible bite on her leg and, and, of course, you know now she’s got rabies. Oh, gosh. And it’s just awful. And it just goes on like that for, like, a half an hour. And it’s it’s it’s harrowing. It’s difficult to watch.

Todd: It is. And and, you know, I think for me, now that I’m a parent and, you know, I’m sorry. I I don’t when I say this, before I was a parent, I still had an imagination. You know? I could still empathize and sympathize with kids, you know, being hurt and things like that just fine. I could still get the full weight of it. But the mentality that I’m in now is just that when I watch these things or see these things or read these things and involve kids, like, just my brain naturally just inserts my own son. Of course in the place of it. So when I’m watching these movies, it’s like I’m watching, you know, this happened to my son. It’s like what’s happening in the back of my brain. And so it just has a slightly different emotional effect on me than it than it would have before. And, that is the thing that I think is is probably the most heartbreaking, especially about the book. And I feel like the movie even well, it does actually glosses over it a lot more. The movie would have had, I think, even more impact, if it had really focused more on the plight of the kid because he’s the the truly helpless one in this situation. There’s nothing he can do, and so his terror I mean, hats off to Danny Pintaro for pulling off what he did because without that effectiveness, the movie would have been even less effective, I think. But he just he just seems completely out of his mind. And then you see just the breakdown. I mean and and I think, again, this is where, you know, when you’re reading it, it just kinda comes through a little bit more because you get in the characters’ heads. But here’s the mom. She’s got this kid she’s gotta deal with. And she might be able to tough out some dehydration and some stuff like that. But this poor kid is starting to go into shock. He’s having Yeah. Seizures. He’s just kind of laying there unresponsive a lot of the time, and she’s checking to see if he’s still breathing. And it’s one of these moments, finally, both in the movie and in the book, when she’s like, I’ve gotta take care of this,

Craig: you know.

Todd: And she, you know, bolts out of the of the car, And, Cujo comes out and they have this kind of high noon stare down moment. Then he runs full force after her, and she goes after a bat that’s that’s been lying in the yard that she saw earlier on.

Clip: Mhmm.

Todd: Actually, I thought it was a really great scene too, you know, where she’s just fighting for a life against this dog who leaps up at him. And she’s wicks whips the bat around and just smacking him and and, the dog keeps coming, you know, against all odds, you know, straight after her s’more. And the bat breaks and so she has a sharp thing and when she falls back, on the ground, the dog leaps at her. It’s that classic, you know, she has a spike in her hand and the dog kinda leaps onto the spike, and then suddenly he falls over and Todd moving. And so, you know, she gets up and she takes Danny out of the car and he’s unresponsive and she takes him into the kitchen and she is, giving him CPR, like, Danny, Danny, come back, come back, come back. And he starts coughing and says, okay, he’s gonna be okay. And just at that moment, who comes bursting through the window of a Cujo, for that one last, just like in every horror movie, I’m gonna come back one last time. The at that moment, she’s there’s a gun, that was on the table that she whips around and shoots him. And also with that moment, I guess we kind of, you know, neglected it, but there’s there’s just every now and then there’s a scene of Vic who’s getting increasingly worried about his family because he’s calling and they’re not calling out there, and he’s wondering, well, did she run off with Steve and what’s going on? And finally, he’s just like, I’ve gotta go, and he leaves without settling the account or anything like that. And he shows up at that house just in the nick of well, not in the nick of time, right after she takes care of Cooper, basically. So that they can be together and they can have their big embrace, and that’s basically it. Now Yeah. That’s it. I the book again, I I I don’t know. Craig, you wanna read it. I don’t really wanna spoil it too much for you.

Craig: No. I already know what you’re gonna say. It’s okay.

Todd: The the kid doesn’t live in the book. This I know. Whole thing, I mean the book just makes you wanna freaking cry. She’s been unresponsive for a while actually, and she’s just laying there and doesn’t really know what to do. And, you know, she’s kind of in her head and hours go by and finally she decides jump out of the car, and the scene kinda goes down the way it goes down. But instead of having that last scare, her pulling him out of the car, that point at which she just finishes dealing with Cujo is when Vic shows up. So he comes running out of the car at her after she just laid the dog down, and she’s screaming, she’s Craig, and he immediately runs into the car, and he pulls out Danny, and he says to her, how long has he been dead? Wow. And you you don’t you don’t know. Like, she he has probably was already dead for who knows how long. She didn’t even know it. And that’s that’s how that ends. You know, it’s just horrible. It’s horrible.

Craig: And and Stephen King has said that if he could go back and change anything in any of his novels, that would be the one thing that he would change that he would let Tad live. And that’s why he lives in the movie, you know, that was his directive.

Todd: It it would never have played oh, my gosh. You’d I just they couldn’t have played that in the movie, You know? Not in the eighties.

Craig: It’s too bleak.

Todd: It’s too bleak for a for a mainstream audience at least. You know? It wouldn’t have gone over. Absolutely not. Now they made the right choice in doing it the way they did it. It did dull a little bit of the impact, but, I mean, you

Craig: Todd, maybe

Todd: we don’t want that kind of impact.

Craig: Oh, I would’ve I would’ve been absolutely devastated if cute little Danny Pintaro had been dead at the end. Like, it just would have made it feel, like, point you know, like, what was the point, you know. Like, she went through all of this, only just to be devastated at the end, you know. And that was something that I was curious about because you talked about, as you often do, you know, the morality of horror movies, and I kind of wondered in the book if there was any implication that this was kind of her punishment for her infidelity.

Todd: Not overtly. No. Quite honestly, there’s there isn’t because, again, just like in the movie, she says it’s over, and so many other people get caught up in this. The policeman we’ve neglected to say, a policeman ends up coming over Yeah.

Clip: And he

Todd: gets killed. Not overtly. I think you could probably read it a little bit that way, but it’s certainly not, not called out. No. It’s just like I said, I felt like looks like a tragedy. You know, bad things happen to people, and, they have to deal with it, and it doesn’t always turn out great. And that was just an example. And I feel like, you you know, when you when you hear that King was drinking and he was just kind of, like, you know, out of his mind when he was writing this, you have to think that he was probably going through a lot of emotional trauma himself, and he was just taking the out on this poor family in his book. But, yeah, I like I said, it’s not my favorite book, and it’s not my favorite movie. I think the the book was pretty powerful, but at the end of the day, I still felt like compared to a lot of his other books anyway, they just have so much more going on and so many more layers. You know, there’s still an additional layer or 2, but at the end of the day, this book was much more straightforward, and, not as satisfying for me. And then the movie had to simplify it even more

Clip: Mhmm.

Todd: To to make it that way. So it’s also like we said, it’s a very straightforward simple movie. There’s a bunch of family drama, which ends up kinda separating everybody. Unfortunately, you know, 2 of them end up getting as a result, getting stalked by a rabid dog for a while, until somebody can come and and, and find out what’s going on.

Craig: Yeah. You know, I I think that, you know, my assessment of it is that it’s a really good movie, you know. I think that it’s it’s really well made. I think that the the performances are super strong, especially from Dee Wallace and Danny Pintaro, but there’s nobody in it who’s bad. Everybody does a good job, but those 2 especially, they just it just kinda breaks your heart. But it’s it’s it’s hard for me to watch, you know. It’s it’s difficult to watch that cute little kid in distress. It’s it’s difficult it’s difficult for me to watch that poor mother having to see her child in that kind of distress and it gets really bad, you know, like, you mentioned briefly, like, he starts seizing and even the dog, the poor dog, you know, you were talking about when she’s fighting the dog at the end, like, she keeps hitting in the head with the bat, and it keeps falling down and getting back up. And I know it’s a movie. I know it’s fake. I know they’re not really hitting this dog with the bat, but even just the suggestion of it, it just kinda turns my stomach, a little bit and

Todd: It’s not the dog’s flesh. Yeah.

Craig: No. And, that makes me wanna cry I just talked about.

Todd: You’re such a sapper dog.

Craig: I know I am, but it’s it’s, it’s a really good movie. And if you are a fan of horror movies or if you’re a Stephen King fan, I you gotta watch it. I mean, you’ve gotta see it. Yeah. But, it’s it’s not something that I’m gonna be popping in all the time to watch because it’s it’s tough. It’s a tough watch.

Todd: Yeah. And again, I’m a little more mixed on it, but and one of the things we mentioned too that I really have to jump out and and and praise is not flawless because, again, like we said, what are how much can you really do with the animals? But I feel like the the cinematography in this movie does the best job it can do to try to make this seem like a very sinister situation and hopeless situation.

Craig: We never even talked about. There’s that one scene in the car where right after she gets attacked Oh, yes. Where the camera where the camera does this 360 thing, and it just keeps getting faster and faster. Oh my gosh. That was so cool.

Todd: It’s very inventive, and it it it’s it puts you right like, literally puts you in the middle of the action. You’re kinda freaking out along with them. You know? You have to see the kids scream, then you have to see her scream, then you see him scream again, her scream again. You realize they’re in this confined space. They’re just going back and forth and back and forth, and this is gonna be their life for a while. It’s it’s really effective at communicating that. John de Bont is the director of photography for this, a Swedish cinematographer, and he did a whole bunch of stuff, before he did this movie. But after this movie, he started doing a lot more stuff, and he’s responsible for some of my favorite. Die Hard, He was it Hunt for Red October, Basic Instinct, Flatliners. And one of my all time favorite movies with some of the best cinematography you’re ever gonna see is Black Rain, which is a fantastic Michael Douglas movie. It’s like a thriller mystery that takes place in Osaka, Japan. It’s just it’s just wonderful. And yeah. And he he directed Speed as well. And Twister, you know, kinda went into directing there for a little bit too. Not all of his movies were big hits, but, very big name in Hollywood, very successful, and you can tell. I mean, he’s very talented. Well, there’s Cujo for you. We have, other requests that we’re planning on doing, for the rest of the month. You can keep sending them to us as a matter of fact because, we might continue. If we got enough and enough interesting ones in there that we’d like to do and cross off our list, we’ll continue doing requests, for a while before we take a break and get selfish again. Yeah. But, anyway, that is our episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. Check us out on Facebook, where you could like us and send those requests in. You can see our website at 2 guys dot redfortynet.com where all our back episodes are as well as some written reviews, sprinkled in there from time to time. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.