Def by Temptation (1990)

Episode 137, 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: Well, we continue our request month. We did Cujo last week. And this week, we got a request for a movie that I’ve actually been wanting us to do for quite a while. It is a film that I actually purchased on DVD years years ago with the intent to see it, never did. And then, before our last move, I got rid of about half of our DVD collection. I’m pretty sure this went with it. So, I was really happy when, our loyal listener, Gilly, recommended to us Death by Temptation, which, you know, if it’s it’s it’s actually a trauma produced movie, although it’s not really. The film is distributed by trauma, and it actually was released in 1990. But in in actuality, it’s it wasn’t you know, most of the trauma movies are not just produced, but, also, oftentimes, the scripts are made by or they’re sponsored by or they had some influence of Lloyd Coughlin and Michael Hertz, who are the, the Troma heads. And in this case, all they really did was provide money to finish the movie. They provided money for post production, some post production services for editing and whatnot and then released and distributed the movie. And, Lloyd Kaufman, in the intro to the DVD, says that this may be Troma’s best film that they’ve ever released. Now, I don’t think so, but, it’s definitely not one of their typical films. Meaning, it takes itself a lot more seriously than most of their other movies, and its quality is, well, it’s not a high quality film, it’s definitely much better than most of what trauma puts out Todd be quite frank. I’ll just put that out there right now. But, anyway, it’s definitely a product of its time. Craig, had you even heard of this movie before?

Craig: Nope. Never even heard of it.

Todd: Because you know I’m a big trauma nut. So this is Yeah.

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know. Like, I know that you talk about, trauma a lot. And I, I I guess I’ve never really seen a Trauma film. I I can’t believe we’ve been doing this for, I don’t know what, 2 years or 3? Yeah. Mhmm. Oh, gosh. And and we’ve never watched 1, and now I can’t say that I’m particularly enthused to watch more.

Clip: Yeah. Especially especially if this is

Craig: a high quality one. Well,

Todd: absolutely. Like I said, this isn’t even though it’s distributed Todd quote, unquote produced by Trauma, it is not at all in any way, shape, or form really indicative of a Trauma movie. It’s really not. It doesn’t have their hallmark craziness to it. Right. It came out in 1990, and it’s really an attempt, I think, to, update the Blacula or, you know, if you will Right.

Craig: For the

Todd: modern day at the time. I think it was a couple years after this actually that Bram Stoker’s Dracula came out, which was, you know, another one of these update Dracula attempts. Sure. That was quite popular and very successful and well, I think pretty well regarded even today. Oh, yeah. This movie pretty much, fell the radar. I was reading online that its budget was about 5,000,000 and it probably made in its whole run a little bit over half of that back. So it wasn’t unsuccessful. It had a limited release in the theaters. I think it was originally called Temptation. And then in effort to, I think, highlight the quote unquote blackness of the movie, they added deaf buy to it. That’s d e f, you know. This is a real Right. Late eighties nineties term. And, it doesn’t even make sense really death by temptation, but

Craig: No.

Todd: In any sense, though, unlike most trauma films also, this movie has a complete cast of Screen Actors Guild members. I mean, there’s there aren’t really many amateurs in this bunch. All of them have some professional credit or work in the industry. You actually see quite a few familiar faces. One of them, who is touted on the cover of the DVD, is Samuel Jackson. And, this is one of his, I don’t know, you know, he had a lot of movies before this and a lot of movies after this, but he ended up in this movie as well along with a lot of even some singers of the time. Some soul singers and some musicians make brief cameos in this movie. And most of them not as singers or musicians, but you know, legitimate roles are just Right. Blink and you miss some kind of people in the background, and contributed songs to the soundtrack. For example, Melba Moore, a singer really popular in the seventies, had quite a few hits. She plays a medium in this movie and that might I I I definitely was her first film role. She was on TV, on a number of episodes of different things before this, but I believe this was her first feature film role. The singer Freddie Jackson, he’s in it, but just again, just kind of a background guy. Both of them contributed songs to the soundtrack. And then, our saxophone player who’s all in shadow here is a guy named Natje and, he’s a pretty famous jazz saxist amongst those who are interested in slow jazz kind of stuff. Right. So, yeah. And then, guys in here like Kadeem Hardison from A Different World.

Craig: Yeah. He’s Dwayne Wayne. Yeah.

Todd: Totally in this movie, you know, he’s one of the stars. The other star of the film, I guess, the his co star would be the guy who wrote and directed this movie. James Bond the third. And, although this guy, had done some TV work before this and a little bit of producing after this, this is the only movie he’s ever done. And that’s probably for good reason.

Craig: Yeah. You know, it’s funny because I kept, like, as we were watching it, I didn’t do any research before watching this at all. Like, I, you know, I had just gotten home from vacation. I was tired. I frankly, I wasn’t even all that stoked to watch this movie. And so I just, you know, I sat down and I put it on. I didn’t look into it at all. And as I was watching it, I kept thinking, how did this guy get in this movie? And how did he score the lead? And then after, you know, we watch or I watched it or whatever, I looked it up, and I was like, oh, well, he wrote, directed, and produced it.

Clip: So I guess I guess that’s how you

Craig: He’s that’s how you land the lead if you really want one.

Todd: I guess, and he’s arguably the lousiest, you know, actor in the film, I would say. Yeah. So, you know, that there’s something. I mean, there’s no excuse when you’re the director. You can’t blame it on the directing, can you? Right. Or the writing when you’re putting your own words in your mouth. Yeah. And and Bill Nunn, is in this too. He’s a very familiar face. He was in, Radio Raheem in in Do the Right Thing, just all over television and movies, just all over it. And I think he, he died a couple years ago, actually.

Craig: Oh, I didn’t know that. It’s too bad. Yeah. I recognized him right away and it took me a while, like, I couldn’t figure out who he was and I finally went on. I mean, he was so familiar. I knew I had seen him in things And I, finally, you know, looked him up and I don’t know what this says about me, but, what I recognized him from was Sister Act 2. Oh, yeah.

Clip: For sure.

Craig: He was the big he was the big friendly cop in, Sister Act too.

Todd: I think he was in all the Spider Man movies too. Like, the the

Craig: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Todd: The Tobey Maguire ones. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So oh, he’s all over all over film and and television. So, he’s in this movie. He has a pretty big role as well. So, I think this is already extremely atypical for a trauma production, which are usually non union pictures. A lot of people have come through the trauma shop sort of like Roger Corman. I wouldn’t equate trauma with with Roger Corman, but, in many ways, like, people like James Gunn. Right? The director who’s been in the news lately, especially, but who did Guardians of the Galaxy and then quite a few good movies. He came up through trauma writing and directing for them. His brother got his first acting roles in the in those movies as well. So quite a few people, got their start. Oh, and and Trey Parker and, Matt Stone from South Park.

Craig: Oh, I had no idea. That’s hilarious.

Todd: Yeah. But, again, like I said, not a typical trauma production in that the quote unquote level of quality is is considerably higher. The tone is much more serious, and, well, as much as we can say that this movie tries to be serious and tries to be of high quality. Right. But, oh, one more thing that has to be said about it is the cinematography. Now, it’s pretty well shot, I think, for the most part. At least, it carries that late eighties, early nineties vibe to a tee. I mean, it’s I think it’s trying extremely hard to be really stylish. And maybe for the time would have come across as pretty stylish for a B movie. And it, Spike Lee’s cinematographer is Ernest Dickerson. He did the cinematography for this. And Ernest Dickerson has gone on to be a huge director as well. He did Juice not long after this. Tales from the Crypt Demon Knight, he directed. And then, he went almost straight into television and pretty much every major television show you can think of he’s directed at least an episode if not half a dozen episodes of it. I mean, he’s he’s directed like 12 episodes of The Walking Dead, The Wire. So, he’s very well, sought after director. There’s a lot of talent that did go into this movie even though you might not see it all on screen in the finished product.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Oh, man. But I think there’s some things to be said about it. I really do. So we should probably just get started and start rehashing the plot a little bit. What do you think, Craig? You’re not really looking forward to this, are you? I can tell, Lord.

Craig: Yeah. No. Yeah. Oh, gosh. No. I’m not. So go to town.

Todd: Get started. Well, the movie looks cheap, and you can kinda see that from its very first shot. But you can tell it’s trying not to look cheap because this opening shot of the film is this, guy in a bar talking. He’s the bartender, and he’s talking on the telephone with some woman. And it’s poorly delivered. It’s absolutely hilariously stupid dialogue.

Clip: Look, look, baby. Hey. Hey. You had a good time. Right? So, I assume that you’re a big girl and that you’re taking something. So just

Todd: get an abortion. What’s the big deal? Hun honey. Honey, honey, you’re you’re groveling. That’s very unattractive.

Clip: But just dump the kid and we could kick it together. Right? Hey. I’ll even pay for it. Listen. Send me the bill and my check will be in the mail. It’s

Craig: terrible. Right. Oh, Todd. It’s terrible.

Todd: But it’s also the world’s quietest bar, and all you see is him. It looks like they shot Todd in an empty bar and just against the back of the bar. But the move the camera’s sliding sideways the whole time and trying to make this shot look a little more interesting. And it’s lit as is almost all of the movie in these blue and red tones. Right? And most of the movie seems to take place in this bar. All of the characters Yeah. Seems seems like they just pretty much hang out at this bar all day long. And he’s chatting up this woman at the end of the bar. And, she’s the woman that we’re gonna see a lot and she doesn’t have a name, but she’s our vampire. And she’s played by Cynthia Bond who I can only assume is the wife or sister of the director.

Craig: I didn’t even put that together. That’s hilarious. You know, I I looked her up and she had done some stuff, but nothing that I had seen and regardless, for some reason, she looked very familiar to me and I don’t I have no idea why that is, but you know, she’s this very beautiful woman, but it, like, just even from the get go, it doesn’t make any sense. Like, she’s obviously the most attractive woman in this bar, but she’s always just sitting by herself at the end of the bar and just like, I I guess, you know, like, the idea is that, you know, she’s kind of a trap for men or whatever. You know, men are drawn to her and as soon as anybody approaches or speaks to her, it’s just like, oh, yeah, let’s go back to my place. Like Yeah. Like, to be fair, you know, I I think that she maybe looks a little bit more mature than some of the other actresses. And when I say mature, I’m trying to be nice and not say older. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t take away from the fact that she is gorgeous and all of these guys are drawn to her immediately. She says to this bartender, I loved this line because I thought it was so clever. You say that she’s a vampire, which is exactly what I thought she was throughout the whole course of the movie. And then I was reading about it and everything that I read about referred to her as a succubus. Oh, that makes sense. And not and, like, she goes out during the day, so I guess, technically, she’s not a vampire. As it turns out, she is some kind of demon or something. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.

Todd: It’s kind of like near dark in a way, I guess, which I think was a couple years before this. You know, where they’re really trying hard not to not to call her directly a vampire and and there aren’t any fangs or anything Yet. Toward the end.

Craig: Till the end. Yeah. Yeah. But, she she says to this skeezy bartender, she says

Clip: Can I buy you a drink? Well, now that’s something I’ve definitely considered, except that it’s sort of against the house rules. Well, then why don’t you let me make you a drink at my house under my rules?

Craig: Like, that was, in my opinion, the only clever line in the whole movie. Let let me make you a drink. I thought that was so clever. Oh, and then it just all went down over there.

Todd: That was the highlight of the film for you, wasn’t it? Wow. Yeah. Well, it’s It was. It’s labored and that’s one of the big things about this movie is, like, I feel like this is an hour and a half that could have easily been compressed into 45 minutes. Oh, yeah. Because in it’s trying to be stylish, it lingers way too long on these shots. Mhmm. And it shows us way too much of stuff that’s really not that interesting dialogue that’s dumb or not that interesting or almost too normal to that’s not clever, you know. And it’s just, okay. We don’t need to see these guys shooting the breeze. Right. This guy goes over to her house and, I don’t know her townhouse. Yeah.

Craig: And,

Todd: there’s a long shot of him climbing up the stairs and stopping and looking around and climbing up a little more and stopping and looking around and then going up. And then, he ends up in her bedroom, which is this hilarious little place, with a giant bed with 4 posts on it and draped with white gauze and whatnot. And he lays down on it, and my favorite line in this was when she asked, what do you think of my bed?

Clip: Now this freaky bed says to me that you are one hot natured freakazoid that can’t wait to jump jump my bones because you know I’ve got the key to your pleasures.

Craig: Oh, gosh. It’s really silly. Yeah. And it’s funny, you know, she’s got this big, like I feel like we’re supposed to feel like it’s kind of this big, like, gaudy kind of gothic townhouse. But really, it seems like they just kind of had a room with a 4 post bed in it. Like, because that’s where everything happens. And, like, it’s so eighties like, like the the blankets or whatever are so eighties. Yeah. I mean, it’s just so silly. And he notices, of course, that she’s got mirrors, but they’re covered. And he’s like, why would some fine honey wanna cover up these mirrors? Like, it’s just so so stupid. And and then they have, shower sex and like there’s But leading up

Todd: to okay. Go on. Sorry.

Craig: Oh, no. I it’s obviously really important. Go ahead.

Todd: No. I just thought that this sex scene was so hilarious because it was trying so hard. It’s after he, you know, covers the mirror back up that she meets him, and she comes behind him. And she starts Todd he starts taking off his shirt, and this they’re just slowly she’s just slowly backing up across the room Uh-huh. Way across the room. And it’s like, I think they are in front of the bed for a little while, and then she takes off his his belt, and they’re backing up some more. And then, she puts the belt around his neck and starts pulling him around. And it’s like, it it was made so that any one of these moments, you could like freeze the frame and you have this sort of beautiful eighties looking picture, you know, of these like curtains in the front and them in the background embracing with that a shirt on. Or a little bit further on, they come in front of the door to the room where the light is streaming in from behind. So, now, it’s like a silhouette, you know, and they’re embraced there. And then, it’s like they go out the door.

Clip: I was like,

Todd: jeez. They just leave their they back themselves out of the room over the course of 5 minutes, not really doing much of anything except staring at each other. And then, yeah. Boom. We’re in a shower.

Craig: I will say, okay. So she’s supposed to be, you know, whatever she’s supposed to be, whether it’s a vampire, a succubus, whatever it is, you know, like, she’s a seductress. It turns out, I guess I’m jumping the gun here.

Todd: No. Don’t spoil the ending.

Craig: It turns out that she’s some demon who, you know, seduces men and whatever. Because that is her nature, we get at least 2 or 3 of these sex scenes and they’re pretty steamy. Like, now by today’s standards, you know, it’s pretty it’s kinda hokey. But this came out in 1990, so, I would have been, I don’t know, like maybe a freshman in high school, maybe a little bit younger than that. And had I seen this at that point, this would have felt pretty steamy to me. Yeah. Like like, it it was kinda hot. Like, they were trying to make it hot and she’s a hot lady And and the guys that she’s with aren’t, you know, hard on the eyes or anything. And, you know, like and so you see, you know, their business. I I I I shouldn’t say I shouldn’t say that because there’s really no nudity

Todd: at all. There’s backs, and that’s about it. Yeah.

Craig: You see her back. You see the guy’s chest and stuff. But, you know, if I was a 13 year old boy and had never learned how to search on the Internet, I would have, probably thought this was pretty hot.

Todd: It’s straight Showtime, Cinemax, with Zalman King’s Red Shoe Diaries kind of

Craig: You’re right. Right.

Todd: Steamy stuff, you know. It’s the Shannon Tweed kinda kinda movie without the nudity in it. No. You’re right. So and it’s and, again, it’s trying to be that kind of movie. It’s trying to be the sexy vampire movie. And I think, again, if you get back and you look at this in context, it probably was a little groundbreaking in a sense. You know what I mean? Like, it was probably a little different from what we had seen before. The vampires have always had a sex element to them. Right? They’ve always had a certain sexiness, but I would say up until this point and especially, you know, a couple years later with Dracula, with Francis Ford Coppola, I don’t think it had really been updated be in a long Todd. Sure. Not since like the sixties seventies when we had the, like, a lot of the European vampire movies like in, you know, lesbian vampires and things like that. Right. Primarily ground grind house fair, but this is kind of a mainstream ish movie, with mainstream actors that is taking vampirism and making it really sexy and really seductive with that 80 sacks in the background and the smoke in the foreground and the gauzy curtains and things, you know. And and Mhmm. I mean, I hadn’t seen this before I saw Dracula, but that was one thing that struck me about, you know, Coppola’s Dracula is how it seemed to be a very modern, sexy vampire. So I gotta give him a little bit of credit for maybe maybe jumping the gun on it a little bit and having a little bit of foresight to add these elements into the movie.

Craig: Yeah. And that might be the only kind of positive thing that I have to say about this movie because, you know, even that, you know, it’s not like I was sitting here behind my computer turned on. You know, like, it wasn’t that hot, but I got what they were going for.

Todd: Right.

Craig: This lady, she does her best seductress thing and she’s very beautiful. So, like, okay, I’ll I’ll give them that. Well, they they have shower sex and then like the water turns into blood. There’s all kinds of just inexplicable things that happen, but you just roll with it. And then, like, you just see from behind the door or you hear from behind the door, like, her making these, you know, wild animal noises and he’s, like, screaming and blood comes out from under the door. So, you know, she eats him, I guess. I don’t know. Okay. So then we cut to North Carolina. And this is the thing that absolutely drove me crazy about this movie were these, what do you call this? When they give you, like, time cards or whatever?

Todd: It was like interstitial titles. Yeah.

Craig: Oh, god. It drove me and then it will cut to black and then it will say later that night and then it will just be the same people in the same room but in different clothes. Like, did we really like, did you have to tell us that this was later? Like and if you had to tell us that this was later, your continuity is not just a strong point of this movie.

Todd: It’s so true. Stupid. Have you heard of a cross fade or just Yeah. You know, jump to the other scene were smart enough to figure that it at Right. That the scene after it happened later?

Craig: Next day, later at the bar. Like, oh my god. It’s so stupid. Alright. But then it yeah. It cuts to okay. What’s going to be our main story, which is there’s it cuts to North Carolina and there’s this kid. Now, at at first, it’s a flashback scene with Samuel l Jackson giving his best Samuel l Jackson.

Clip: You know? Like There have no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But Todd is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that year I am.

Craig: Plays this, I guess Baptist minister. The other thing about the movie that was a little bit confusing to me is there are all these kind of, like, dream I guess they’re supposed to be dream sequences. Yep.

Todd: Mhmm.

Craig: You know, like they’re they’re not happening in real time and they’re kind of fantasy, but I I couldn’t really tell what was going on. Anyway, he’s a preacher, he’s preaching, there’s a little boy and he’s the only one there, and I’m like, what’s going on? Why is he preaching? He’s just this one little boy. And then this female figure draped in all black rises up behind the little boy and approaches him and, like, puts her arms around him or whatever. Samuel L Jackson, I don’t even know what his real name is, is gonna send his son to his grandmother’s, I guess, for protection or something. And then, it just cuts so quickly between these scenes that you kind of don’t even know what’s what’s going on. Yeah. Then Samuel L Jackson’s driving in a car and the lady in black appears in front of the car and he’s trying to run him over or run her over and the wife, you know, his wife I guess, tries to stop him and they crash and they’re dead and then it’s his funeral and the little kid is there. As it turns out, this little kid is going to be our main character.

Todd: Joe. Yep.

Craig: Yeah. His dad was a minister. He’s now been raised by his grandmother. He just graduated from divinity school,

Todd: and his grandmother has a moment with him where he tells him that this moment this moment when you’re about to move on to the next phase in your life is usually the time when the devil tries to throw something in your path. You’re at a crossroads basically, and you need to look both ways before you cross it, and you make your decision. So she’s trying to tell him that, you know, this is the moment for him. And, I guess, he is also feeling a little cold feet or he’s, you know, not quite ready to make that leap. And so, he decides before he goes into the ministry, he’s going to go to New York where his brother is. And it turns out that, well, his brother’s name is Kaye, and He’s Kadeem Hardison’s character. And, his brother is conned completely the opposite way. Apparently, they both were in divinity school together. But, he left to go pursue acting and became somewhat successful. And so, now, he’s in New York doing that. And so, he’s like, sure. You know, he calls him up on the phone, and he’s like, sure. Come on out. You know, he says, I just wanna think some things over before I get going, and and I wanna come out and see you even though we haven’t seen each other in a while. We haven’t talked in a while. It alternates between trying to make it sound like there might be a little bit of awkwardness between the 2 of them, like, they had some minor falling out or that they just have lost touch with each other or that maybe there was even some judgment on the account of the younger brother, for the older brother not finishing school and going off and kinda doing his thing or whatever.

Craig: Well, you were right. It’s like Kaye is kinda like the prodigal son who’s gone out and done the thing that he’s not supposed to do. And it’s funny, you know, Kadeem Hardison Todd the best that he can. You know, I’m not gonna, he was on A Different World. He was funny on that show. I you know, I don’t know if he’s any kind of great actor, but it seems like he tries to do the best that he can with what he’s given here. But sometimes what he’s given is just so bad. And I also got the sense that either there really was no dialogue in the script or and they were kinda making it up as they went along, or it was written so hastily that they were just not really all that familiar with their lines.

Clip: Yeah.

Craig: It’s like it just kinda seemed like You’re right. Like peep like, people were kinda trying to Fill in the gaps. Keep the conversation going. Yes. Like, you know, try trying to make it trying to make it so there weren’t any big pregnant pauses, but, like, I know I’m supposed to say something now, so I was just gonna talk.

Clip: It was so bad.

Todd: I read some review that somebody wrote of this, and they said that, oh, they felt the dialogue between them was so natural and that their characters were were so pure, real, and and interesting and and flexible.

Craig: I read that same review, and I thought that that person must have been high on PCP when they watch this movie. Agreed.

Todd: I didn’t think I thought their dialogue was so boring. It’s because it was it was sounded like 2 people just trying to make up some dialogue like you said.

Craig: And supposedly, Kei has, you know, like, he’s been in a bunch of movies, like, he lists off all these movies that he’s been in. Now, I don’t know how Hollywood works or how filmmaking works in New York City or whatever, you know, maybe this is true to life, but, you know, supposedly, Kaye has been in this series of films like Bad Brothers or I don’t know, something stupid like that, but he lives like this junky one room apartment like and it’s just such random things like when Joel goes to visit him, he comes in and and Joel notices a machine gun on the mantelpiece. And he’s and k’s like, oh, yeah. I keep the knives sharp and the guns loaded. It’s just and then that never comes up again. The fact that he just keeps a loaded machine gun on the mantle. Like, what?

Todd: I’m sure that that was gonna come into play and it absolutely never did. And then he’s got this, and I don’t know if we’re trying to make some political point here or something like that. Uh-huh. But the the bay window in front is done up like a little bit reminiscent of the Oval Office. And he has one of these old televisions that looks like a piece of furniture sitting on the floor that’s kind of like the desk, and he has a dummy of Ronald Reagan behind it. And Right. He even mentioned something about, you know, oh, yeah. Reaganomics. Reaganomics. This is what’s our big problem right now, blah blah blah. It’s really odd and random. But, again, if he’s trying to make some point with that, it I don’t know. It kinda went right by me.

Craig: Yeah. I I I I guess it was supposed to be some sort of political commentary. I don’t know. But, like, it’s just so poorly written. There’s another, you know, the the vampire succubus lady kills another guy, but no, she doesn’t even kill him. She has sex with him, but then she tells him that she’s infected him with something that will never go away and you know, he’s like, oh, no. I don’t wanna lose my family because he’s, you know, like a philanderer or whatever. He’s like, this is the first time I’ve ever done this and I didn’t understand if that you know, this was early nineties. I didn’t know if that was supposed to be some sort of, like, AIDS reference or something. When I thought that she was a vampire, I thought, oh, well, she’s turned him to a vampire, but then it’s never explained. That guy never shows up again, except in kind of like a weird dream sequence. It’s just it’s just all over the place.

Todd: I thought this guy was hilarious because of their sex scene. You know, he is laying there on the bed, his shirt’s off, and he’s moaning it. She pulls a feather. It’s like a, but looks like a peacock feather and his eyes are closed and she just starts running this feather lightly tapping him on the face and lightly tapping him on the chest and he’s going like,

Clip: oh Todd, this is too good to be true.

Todd: What? You better be doing something with that other hand because I

Craig: I was gonna I was afraid there for a second that you were gonna start making the noises and that was really uncomfortable. But, yeah, he’s really into it. And then she, like, brings out a knife and at first he’s kinda scared, but then it’s the same kind of and, like, there’s this really intense close-up shot of her dragging the tip of the knife over his nipple. It’s it’s so Cinemax. It’s it’s, oh, it’s awful. It’s stylish. Stylish. Okay. The movie doesn’t Todd doesn’t explain itself at all. Like apparently this succubus or whatever it is has some sort of connection to Joel’s family and because of that she’s very interested in Joel. She says at some point like you’re the last in your line and and she wants to kill him because she’s the last in his family line. Why? We don’t know. I think I

Todd: I know. I I wondered about that Todd. But then by the end of the movie, I was kinda thinking back on it and I thought about the end the beginning scene, like you were saying with it where we get these kind of fast clips and Samuel Jackson’s running this woman over. Samuel Jackson sees this woman behind him, in the theater. And at first, I thought that might be from Joel’s perspective, but there was another part of me that thought that maybe this was from him and his perspective. Maybe, you know, he’s in there railing about temptation. Right? That’s like all he’s talking about is temptation, temptation. The movie was originally called temptation. Later on, we find out that this guy calls this, oh my gosh, I’m gonna blow it right now, but some undercover government agent has a name for for this woman and his name for her is Temptation. I was thinking with the religious context and everything of this movie that maybe she was literally, like, supposed to be temptation. And so as the preacher, he was trying to eradicate her and maybe she was a special demon or something that he had a vendetta against so that that him driving the car to try to to hit her was like a real thing that happened. And then later on, you know, of course, she didn’t Todd, And later on, she’s interested in him because now he’s come up. He’s become a pastor. So, he’s not just the next in the line, but he’s the next in the line of pastors in this family. And maybe the last one because the brother’s definitely not gonna become a pastor, and so she’s gotta take him out.

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t feel like there’s really any sense in going, you know, in a linear path as far as the plot is concerned. It Todd didn’t make any sense to me, like, so he’s the last in the line. Okay. So what? So you get him and then what? Like, I I I don’t it just didn’t make any sense.

Todd: He’s not actively going after her. Let’s put it that way.

Craig: No. Yeah. He doesn’t even have any idea who she is or what she is or anything, you know. And and, like, Kaye goes to the bar where she hangs out all the time, you know. She’s just this barfly who sits in the same seat every night and waits for guys to come around.

Todd: Well, she has all the hallmarks of a prostitute. I mean Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. You would think she was a hooker.

Todd: Why she doesn’t have the reputation just being the bar hooker? I don’t understand why people are still trying to pick her up.

Craig: Great. Because you don’t all you have to do is say hello to her, and she’s like, okay. Let’s go back to my place. Like, yeah. This she’s a hooker. Like, what is happening? And then so, like, Kaye is entranced by her or whatever and they flirt and like she puts on kind of this air like she recognizes him and he’s a big movie star Todd she kind of puts on this, oh, I can’t believe I’m meeting you, like totally out of character for her, and she asks for his autograph and like she’s totally sucking up to her him, excuse me. And then, it cuts to a scene which I thought was real. It ends up being a dream sequence where she’s seducing him in her bed, which we’ve already seen and she’s like feeding him fruit with it. And and the sexy saxophone player is in the background.

Todd: Sexy saxophone player.

Craig: And and, like, she, like, she peels this banana. I’m, like, are you serious? Like and, like, she so dumb.

Clip: She she breaks off the tip of

Craig: the banana, and she’s got these huge long, like, Lee press on nails. And she, like, feeds him, the bit of the banana and he eats it. It’s like, this is the best banana I’ve ever had. And and then and then she sticks one of those big long fingernails in his mouth and and he, like, like, sucks on it. And I about threw up. Like Gone.

Todd: That is disgusting. There’s a moment later when she dips her fingernail into, like, some wine and stirs it up and offers it to somebody. And I was like, man, I wouldn’t take that wine no matter what.

Craig: It’s so gross. Nasty. I know what is under you’re right. This dirt and poop under people’s finger.

Todd: That’s disgusting. Todd that scene, it’s so hilarious. You know, him laying shirtless like some Roman painting. Yeah. Being fed grapes and things. I was just thinking, this is no man’s fantasy ever. Nobody is fantasizing about laying there being fed grapes and bananas by a woman very slowly.

Craig: Well and and certainly, no man is fantasizing about a woman peeling a banana and then slicing the tip of it off with her fingernail and feeding it to you. That’s that’s horrible. That’s a nightmare. But it but it turns out it’s a dream. And, she she wants him to go back to her house, but he’s like, I can’t because my cousin’s coming or whatever. I I don’t know how they’re related. But then Joel shows up and Todd, I don’t know. They chitchat and it’s boring and then there’s like a pretty woman getting dressed montage.

Todd: Oh, my god. It’s supposed to, I guess, be funny or fun, but it’s it’s all shot in, like like, a medium to it’s it’s shot in, like, a wide shot. You you can hardly even see what’s going on. And, and it’s just so boring. Yeah. That went on for 5 minutes. And at this point, I’m looking at the clock.

Craig: Oh my Todd. I don’t even know how far we are yet, but at one point, it was after he showed him the machine gun. I I put in my notes, like, with the Todd bite. I’m like, we are 40 minutes in and nothing is happening. Like,

Todd: it was It’s happening. I guess, but

Craig: it was all boring stuff.

Todd: Boring. Yeah. And and and the other thing too is, you know, every one of these scenes with her taking out guys, we don’t know who these guys are.

Craig: No. We don’t care.

Todd: Most of them are dumb, skeezy with nonsensical pickup lines that would never work on anybody ever. They’re also very awkwardly filmed. Like, it’s not like you don’t care. None of these characters, they’re coming and going and never to be seen again. You don’t care about any of them. They’re not very well developed. Whoever we do see regularly is either these 2 boring guys who you can hardly tell apart except, you know, the fact that one’s supposedly an actor and one is not.

Craig: Well, and one’s reasonably attractive and the other one’s this little dopey dude. Dopey. Yeah.

Todd: Who’s not interesting at all.

Craig: No. And he’s a terrible actor. He’s awful.

Todd: Yeah. And and is is Bill Nunn’s character. And his character is the guy at the he’s supposed to be kind of the comic relief, I think, for a while.

Craig: I guess.

Todd: He’s the guy with all of the bad pickup lines. He’s extremely hard to pick women up, and they’re all ridiculous. Oh, I’m not even gonna have to get to the airport. I have a flight for,

Clip: Quebec. Tonight. And I’m going to work on this a new film project with Bruce Lee. Uh-huh. Between me and you. Mhmm. Bruce is not dead. Okay? While he was trying to pick me up, he told me he was a surgeon.

Craig: A surgeon?

Clip: I swear. I you know what? I am a surgeon, you know, but I just like well, like, I’m like a Kung Fu surgeon, you know, like, I I, you know, operate on people who, like, you know, get hurt doing con cumming and food and all that, you know. And but have you never met you somewhere before?

Craig: Bill Nunn is a charismatic guy, you know. Like, he delivers his lines to the best of his ability and I appreciated what he was doing because at least he was semi interesting to listen to, but I mean it’s just dumb and like then there are these random things that happen like there’s a whole scene where some over the top flamboyant gay guy goes and hits on some other guy in this bar, which is not a gay bar. The guy that he hits on is, like, oh, all these guys in the bar, am I that obvious? They just have this little weird awkward scene that amounts to nothing like, who are these people? We never see them ever again. Why did we just spend 5 minutes? I’m sorry. I just thought it was just absolutely terrible in every way and I can’t get over it.

Todd: Oh, there’s a scene with grandma, who’s throughout this film of getting just having restless dreams, and she’s just have getting really bad vibes about how her grandson is doing. And she’s sitting there holding a picture of him kinda rocking back and forth. Oh, my baby. Oh, my baby. And somehow, there’s some connection Todd with the succubus woman. Maybe she’s with him at the time or something.

Craig: I think so.

Todd: And, she sits up or whatever and and kind of lashes out and at the same time blood comes out of this picture for this grandmother. At least, she thinks it does and she freaks out and then she looks down and the picture is fine again. And then, the woman is like caressing a snake and saying, oh, it’s almost done. It’s almost time. And we’re, like, what? What’s almost done?

Craig: Right. You know? Like, what is the end game here? Like, if you just wanna kill this guy, just kill him. Like, I don’t understand what’s happening. And, like, the there’s a whole thing, the temptress or whoever she is, has already flirted with Kaye, but then Kaye and Joel come to the bar and she’s like hitting on Joel and pretending that she doesn’t know Kaye, which Kaye thinks is weird, but he doesn’t really say anything about it. After that, like this woman is obviously, you know, after Joel and like she comes over to their apartment at one point and to to take Joel out and Kay sees that she has no reflection in the mirror. And she’s just, like, do you have a problem? He’s, like, oh, no. No problem. And they leave. He lets him go. Yeah. And and then we find k goes to Doug who is the Bill Nunn character and he, you know, says, I think there’s something up with this woman. And at first, Doug is like, oh, no, you know, you’re just jealous or whatever, But then, Doug, after Kate, continues to pursue it. He’s, like, okay. I guess I’ll tell you that I’m a secret agent for the government who works on supernatural things. And, like, they get on their 19 eighties computer and Pulls up a database. Yeah. There’s some whole backstory about how some guy that this woman had seduced, you know, he went to the hospital and said that he had had sex with the devil and ever since then he sees snakes everywhere or something and then I guess Doug was interrogating him and as soon as he asked for the identity of the woman like snakes came out of this guy’s mouth and the guy died. So Doug knows this lady is no good and he’s telling Kay all of this and then in the very next scene, K goes back to his apartment where Joel is and he’s like, you need to stay away from this woman. I’m telling you, you need to go home. But he doesn’t give him any details. It’s just like it’s just like, oh, she’s bad news. Like, not she’s a demon or she has no reflection or she makes guys barf up snakes or whatever. Just like, no, she’s bad news. Stay away from her.

Todd: No meet my friend Doug and come look check out his computer file. None of that stuff. No. It’s so stupid. Well, the notion that Doug is a secret agent after we’ve seen, him sitting in a bar trying to hit on people left and right. And anytime anybody kind of starts to come closer, he just makes comments to people. He makes the comment to Kaye, that woman over there. I think she’s dangerous. I think that she’s, you know, whatever. What is he doing? He’s watching her take these guys home Right. Then just noticing that these guys never show up again. I mean, when is he gonna make his move? Right. Where’s the evidence gathering here? You know? It doesn’t make any sense. And then this whole deal now I will say this. Actually, I have to give the actress credit. I thought that her dual personality thing, how she could kind of turn on the charm and turn it off really quick was quite good.

Craig: Yes. I agree. The bit

Todd: when she goes over to his apartment and she’s so sweet and she’s really nice with her brother, and then when Joel leaves the room, she turns and she’s just suddenly and it’s not like a really dramatic change. It’s a very subtle change, that then, you know, is is very clear. And it’s it’s pretty skillful. I actually thought that that part of the movie was quite good. And then they also augment it a little bit by little lighting effects where they’ll they’ll slightly change the color on her face.

Craig: Right. Like, Highlight her eyes. Yeah.

Todd: Sometimes it’s really obvious, but sometimes it’s it’s really subtle and and it’s it’s in a better movie. These would have been really really nice bits. But then the whole thing of why is she even doing this with Kaye. Right? Why? Why why can’t she just say, I’m just more interested in your brother than I am in you. Right. Why does she have to pretend like she doesn’t know him after all and raise his suspicions and make him think she’s weird? Yeah. I know. It just causes needless drama for a person who’s trying to be smart and and sly about all this.

Craig: I know. It’s it’s dumb. K k and Dougie go to this medium, you said, who was played by a singer. I didn’t recognize For sure. And and they the this medium explains that she’s this demon and the only thing that, you know, the way that she wins is if she can corrupt a truly pure soul, and the only way to defeat her is if that truly pure soul can reject her or something.

Todd: Yep. I don’t know.

Craig: It’s dumb.

Todd: Once again, I’m asking myself, why has Doug taken this long to go to the medium if this is a really important thing of figuring out what he’s dealing with? Like, shouldn’t he have this been a part of his investigation a long time ago? Yeah. You know? Right. And there’s a weird thing here where then, she’s in the sweet shop with Joel at the same time. And I guess she has I guess she knows that they’re talking about her somehow. And she just gets this sudden mental connection with the psychic, and the psychic gets momentarily possessed by her and it warms them.

Craig: You’ve got you’ve gotta play that clip because it’s so funny. You think I do Oh, god. It’s so funny. But then what it boils down to is she’s trying to seduce Joel. And Joel, you know, because he’s gonna be a minister, you know, like, he doesn’t drink and you said that whole thing with the wine and her fingernail or whatever and she tries, you know, she comes on to him and he pushes her away, but eventually, you know, she he won’t drink the wine, but she dips her finger in it and then puts her finger in his mouth and then I guess he’s like drugged or something. And this whole last sequence made no sense to me. Kay and Dougie go to the bar and convince the bartender to roofie her with, holy water.

Todd: This is the worst. They yank the bartender outside, into an alley, the 2 of them. And he’s like, what are you doing? What are you doing? And, basically, Dougie says, I don’t have time to explain. Just put this in her drink. And Right. He takes and is like, okay. Okay. And he goes inside.

Clip: And it was my it

Craig: was my my favorite line of the movie was when Dougie says,

Clip: look, now when she drinks that holy water, she’s gonna start slobbering and farting and gagging.

Craig: And then she does. She starts convulsing and oh Todd, I don’t know, but she’s okay and they like she starts chasing after them, I guess, and that they inexplicably split up for no reason.

Todd: Oh, they it’s so dumb. They stand they run outside and they stand there like, where’s our car? We don’t know. And then they argue about what what where where they should go, this way or that way. There’s no difference. And follow that card. We’ll just agree to split up then. Alright. Sounds good. See you around. And then immediately take off running down the street in 2 different directions.

Craig: And Kei goes back to his apartment where he is like doing like karate moves. I I don’t know. And then this might I have to say that this really, even though it makes absolutely no sense, was probably my favorite scene of the movie was when K is in his apartment. He sees himself on the TV and then, like, his face on the TV eats him, like like, literally, like, he gets too close to the TV and the TV, like, opens up and grabs him and eats him and chews him up. And the big inflatable Ronald Reagan is, like, laughing, like, it was so surreal, but it it made me laugh.

Todd: It’s surreal and it’s also totally way out of place for this movie. It would work in, like, a Freddy Cougar type picture or

Craig: something

Todd: like that, but we’ve really seen no indication aside from possessing the psychic that this woman has these distant powers of manipulating the environment to this extent. Mhmm. And if she could, then why is she wasting her time doing anything else? Right. So, the fact that he goes in and he touches the screen, the screen eats him and then it spits out the bones and blood. It’s actually a

Craig: pretty cool scene and It is.

Todd: For a pretty low rent movie, the effect is actually quite good. At the end of the day, it just didn’t feel right in this movie.

Craig: No. It was out of place. At least it was fun to watch. Dougie gets killed too. He gets, like, he flags down some car and he gets in and the bartender’s like a demon and there’s a demon in the back seat and he gets killed too. And then it cuts to the final scene where the temptress is, I don’t know, messing with Joel or whatever and makes herself look like his dad. So Samuel L Jackson is back and Samuel L Jackson is, like, you know, telling him that he’s bad and he hasn’t done his duty or whatever. And then grandma shows up and she’s like, stay away from my baby. And the temptress like with her psychic abilities throws grandma against the wall and then she starts turning, you know, like we see her true demon face like she’s finally got like big fangs and these, you know, the all this makeup effects on her face and it looks okay, I guess. But it just comes down to the most boring conclusion ever. Like

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Samuel L Jackson like the Joel in his mind hears Samuel L Jackson saying, The Todd is your weapon. The word is your weapon. So he picks up a Craig, well, okay. So the demon is holding the grandma up by her neck against the wall for a good 3 or 4 minutes like this old lady would have been dead minutes ago. Meanwhile, Joel is like slowly crawling his way towards the bible and this cross.

Todd: Which where did they come from? Were they in

Craig: this woman’s room? Who knows? He finally gets there and he picks up the cross and says, I rebuke you demon back to the hell from whence you came. And she freaks out and there are terrible effects, like, and then she’s dead and then that’s it, like

Todd: Yeah. It’s pretty easy.

Craig: Oh, Todd. It was so anticlimactic. It was so stupid. The effects looked terrible. Like, I feel like they tried to do practical effects and then they realized that they looked so bad that they had to do weird, like, I don’t even know what that was.

Todd: How do

Craig: you think? Like, negative

Todd: like Yeah.

Craig: It’s like

Todd: he turned it to a negative for the, like, the real close-up of the demon’s faces. It’s on the floor writhing around to suddenly and like a negative. It’s just like kind of a black and white reverse print and for the most what should be the most interesting thing, you know, most interesting part that they clearly have spent a lot of money on, and then once it’s kind of blows up

Craig: You see that remains. Yeah.

Todd: It reminded me a little bit of the end of Evil Dead actually where it was supposed to like be bubbling and kind of sinking in. I just, I thought the miracle of the whole film was how how grandma managed to drive up from North Carolina to New York over, you know, by that evening.

Craig: Well, then grandma and Joel hug and then you think that’s the end, but then we get this end shot with like this limo driving up to the bar the same bar that we’ve been in forever and we’ve left some things out. Thank Todd. If you really need to see everything from this movie, go ahead and watch it. I don’t necessarily recommend it, but, at the very end, this limo pulls up to the bar and like the driver’s window rolls down and it’s like, okay, but he’s like a demon now. He’s driving the limo and inside, we see this woman lighting a cigarette for somebody who ends up being Dougie and like the I guess the implication is that now Dougie is the new temptress

Clip: or whatever.

Craig: Like, I don’t know if they were try you know, if they were trying to set it up for a sequel. My Todd. Thank God no sequel came from it.

Todd: After the bartender lights her cigarette, he she says, you should use she uses a bat. She she says you should use a light or the flame lasts longer.

Craig: Right.

Todd: And of course, this very same thing happens to Dougie and, as he takes a puff on a cigarette, he turns to face the camera and says, you should use a lighter because the flame lasts longer. Right. Like, it’s some profound line that somehow calls into focus the thematic thrust of the entire movie or something like that.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: I didn’t quite catch that and I I felt like maybe the thematic thrust of the movie, I I feel like down beneath it with all this weird stuff going on, somebody was trying really hard to make a point or was at least trying to, you know, put some themes in here that we were supposed to unpack or we’re supposed to subconsciously take on. And I felt like it was overtly religious, you know. I felt like it was this whole thing about temptation and fighting temptation and, you know, maybe through the generations and things like that. That was the only thing I could think of, which might also be why it was so shallow. I I feel like maybe at times, it was the movie was trying so hard to be symbolic that it just lost its grounding in real life whatsoever. And it became kind of a nonsensical bit of things happening.

Craig: Yeah. Well, and then the movie made me feel guilty because the the last, you know, right after the last shot then it cuts you, you know, what’s going to be the credits, but it says, you know, this movie is dedicated to James Bond and James Bond Junior, and then it says something like, I’m the last one, I’ll carry it on, James Bond the third or whatever. And I’m thinking, you know, this guy, I don’t know this guy, you know, he he’s a not a good actor, he made a terrible movie, but if he was really trying to do something, you know, to pay tribute to his family, you know, like, I don’t wanna crap on it too much, like, you know, that’s that’s nice, you know. I I’m sure they really appreciated the effort.

Todd: Oh, so I see. So I’m the succubus, and your grandma is the demon in the vehicle.

Craig: This is so sweet. I don’t know. Yeah. You know, it’s I I these people are artists and, you know, they’re they’re trying to do something and I’ve never I’ve never put out a movie that made 2 and a half $1,000,000 on a $5,000,000 budget. So I’m just some guy sitting on my couch behind the computer screen criticizing people. I have no expertise. I you know, it is what it is. I you know good good on you for for making this movie for your dad and your grandpa, and I’m sure they somewhere appreciated and and whatever.

Todd: I feel like the same team with a different story or a better writing could have made a really interesting movie. I feel like all the elements were really there. And and I’m I’m sorry, but I I do feel like it’s stylistically shot. It’s trying to be stylistic, and I think the absurdity of the subject material is the only thing that makes that all look quite silly. Generally speaking, especially if you put it in its time Craig. This would have had the appearance of a pretty hip looking movie.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: In the late eighties, early nineties with the smoke and the fog and the blues and the reds and all these things that really date it now and that we roll our eyes at now and even laugh at now. But for its time, that was hot.

Craig: Well and, you know, this was around the same time that, you know, Spike Lee was really, making a name for himself and putting out some really quality films, and it was a time when, people of color were really getting some recognition for filmmaking and acting and maybe this kind of Todd that wave. Does it compare in terms of quality? Not really, but at the same time it’s a good thing that these people who had really been marginalized in you know, in every industry, but in the film industry especially that they were getting an opportunity to do some things and getting an opportunity to reach audiences that hadn’t really been targeted at the time, and so I can appreciate that, for what it is, but I I can’t just because it was, a movie directed and and written by and starring a black man. I I can’t just give it credit on that merit alone. Right.

Todd: You know what I mean? Yeah. The best you could do is put it in context and say it was a nice experiment for the time. Right. Maybe as an art maybe as an art house movie, if you looked at it as a kind of surreal thing, it would play better than as a movie you’re supposed to take seriously with a plot that you’re supposed to follow, and things that are supposed to make sense. Maybe that it’s in the wrong place at the wrong time as far as that’s concerned. But it took me back anyway a little bit. I thought even the soundtrack itself, which is apparently is available on Orpheus Records, was pretty good for its time.

Craig: Sure.

Todd: You got a lot of that new jack swing, the late eighties late eighties, early nineties hip hop. I’m not sure we were calling it hip hop at the time. We were still calling it rap. But, you know, a lot of those same flavors and things come through very competently in the movie, and the contributions of these well established musicians, you know, reflect that. So, you know, it’s it’s it’s a mixed bag, I think. I don’t think it’s a 100% horrible, but I don’t think it’s the most watchable of films

Craig: for sure. No. It’s not.

Clip: Let’s just leave it at that.

Todd: Well, thank you again for listening and especially thanks to Gilly for making this recommendation. I I really appreciate. I really have been wanting to see this and I love, torturing Craig with these obscure things that, only I’m really interested in. We’ve got a couple more requests coming to you later this month as well. Don’t hesitate to give in your own at our website or online at, Facebook of 2 guys and a chainsaw. We will have more coming to you in the following week. If you enjoy this podcast, please share it with a friend. Until next time. I’m Todd And I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.