Dead and Buried (1981)

Episode 142, 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: Today’s film, the 1981 horror suspense movie, Dead and Buried. At least, they call it suspenseful horror on, IMDB. So we’re gonna go with that. I guess that’s a whole genre. Maybe we should just do a month of suspenseful horror movies instead of, you know, the normal not suspenseful horror movies.

Craig: Whatever.

Todd: You know, I picked this movie. It’s been in my queue for a while. I was really excited that we could do it this week. And after I started watching it from the very first scene, I said, oh my gosh. I’ve seen this before. And I had. But I did not remember how it went down. So did I watch this with you by chance, Craig?

Craig: I don’t think so, but I had seen it before too. I know that I had seen it at some point, and I didn’t when you brought it up, I remembered the title and I I remembered that Jack Albertson, the guy who plays Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka, the original was in it, and that’s that’s all I remembered. And I think maybe there’s a reason why it wasn’t terribly memorable. No. But that’s okay. You know,

Todd: the movie the movie, I would say, plays out like an extremely long episode of Twilight Zone. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that’s kind of how it feels. It feels like the whole movie could have been, like, 30 minutes long. Yeah. Actually, I also got shades of The Wicker Man from this movie. Although, I think The Wicker Man is way better. I’ve never seen it. There was something about it. Yeah. I think it was the pacing. I think it was the deliberate pacing of it. I think it was the, impending dread that kind of covered the whole movie. I think almost from the very beginning, the whole movie just felt icky, you know. I know what you mean. It’s just kind of, like, dread and dreary and I maybe a lot of that has to do the setting is in Maine and there’s a lot of fog. Yeah. It has a psychological effect as well, I think. Just so much so many, actually, scenes were so foggy, you could hardly see what was going on sometimes. True. But, this movie starts out, with a a guy who’s a photographer who goes on to the beach of a small Maine town called Potters Bluff. And he’s met by a beautiful woman who starts basically coming on to him And, as he starts taking pictures of her, bunch of people from the town basically converge on him and pretty brutally murder him. That’s what’s Mhmm. That’s what starts out the movie. And this is going to be repeated throughout the film. Basically, the gist is that the townspeople in this movie are murdering strangers who come into Todd. And we kind of don’t know why, and we’re not sure why they’re not being caught yet. At least the sheriff in town who I guess is a new sheriff. Right?

Craig: I guess. I didn’t really get that.

Todd: Yeah. It’s

Craig: kinda weird. Like, it it seemed like he and his wife were pretty established there, but, yeah, I don’t know. Like, it it just kinda as much as they tried to make this guy seem like some big time, you know, really cool law enforcement agent, it didn’t really seem like he had his thumb on the pulse of the town. No. You know? Like like, they like, they talk about, like, oh, yeah. He’s the, you know, this big fancy college graduate, and all these big cities are trying to get him because he’s the best detective ever. Well

Todd: It takes them a while to piece this one together, doesn’t it?

Craig: Yeah. And it’s and especially since, you know, really a lot of what’s going on is going on in his own house. Yeah. Like like, by the end of the movie, you’re like, really? Like, you didn’t even have any idea of what was going Todd. I don’t know. The the movie the opening scene is is cool because, you know, like it it establishes the feel of the movie, you know. It is it’s this coastal Todd. It’s supposed to be in Maine. They shot it in California and they did a really good job of making it not look like California. Yeah. Like, it it seems very drab and dreary. And I I read that they really, in some places, had to go out of their way to make that work. Like, they had to build tents and set up these big screens to shade out the the blaring sun and make it look a little bit more dreary and more like Maine. And and they really did a good job of it. I would have thought that they had filmed this in New England had I not read that they filmed it in California, but the and and then the opening scene is Todd, you know, this this guy, we have no idea who he is except, you know, he’s taking pictures with this big fancy camera, and we see a lot through the lens. And then he meets this really hot girl who just, like, pops up. You know, it almost it could have gone in a 1000000 different ways, like, she could have been a mermaid or a siren or, like, you you have no idea who who she is. The way that she deals with this guy who she’s just met, like, she’s incredibly flirtatious from the get go. And then it’s not more than a minute and a half since they’ve met that her tits come out.

Clip: Do you want me, Freddie?

Craig: Thank you. And so then he starts approaching her, and then all of a sudden there are all of these people around. Suddenly. Yeah. Suddenly. And not only are there all these people around suddenly, but they’ve all got cameras and they’re all, like, taking pictures of him and, then they tie him up to this stake, like, with this fish netting, and they pour gasoline on his face and set him on fire. Like, what? It’s brutal. What’s happening?

Todd: Yeah. It’s brutal. And I’d have to say that about all the kills in this movie is they’re all pretty brutal, almost unnecessarily brutal. Let’s put it that way. It it feels like, to be honest, it feels like the I don’t know. I feel like maybe the intent was to produce a movie that’s going to be shocking and satisfy the gorehounds a little bit Because the camera really lingers on these deaths a lot. And the special effects, were done by Stan Winston. Stan Winston, who normally does creature effects or aesthetics and stuff, ended up, doing most of the gore and makeup in this movie, which was, interesting. Sometimes it was convincing.

Craig: I Well, see, now I thought it was pretty good. I mean, there was there Stan Winston is, you know, just you don’t get much more highly regarded than he is in terms of effects. And so when I saw his name popped up, I wrote it down because I I had I had no idea or I had forgotten that he was involved with it. And anytime I see his name, I’m excited, like, oh, it’s gonna be really good because Stan Winston did it. Mhmm. But it is very different from his typical fare. It is more just kind of slasher gore as opposed to creature effects. But the stuff that he did, I mean, it does. It looks really Todd. And and there’s one kill scene that they shot in post that he they were unable to get him back for, and, it looks crappier.

Todd: Is that the one I’m thinking of?

Craig: Is that the It’s the doctor. Oh. Yeah. The doctor. Yeah.

Todd: Poor guy.

Clip: He had

Todd: his name attached to that horrible, horrible thing. That was the one I was thinking about when I said things didn’t look Todd. Because you’re right. Everything else

Craig: is alright.

Todd: Everything else was

Craig: He didn’t he didn’t do that one. Everything else he did and it it looks pretty good and it is pretty brutal. It but it’s funny because it almost seems like this movie, it it I don’t wanna say it wasn’t sure what it wanted to be. I think that it knew what it wanted to be, but it’s just kind of a kind of a weird mix because it’s really more it reminded me a lot of an pardon me, Todd, if I pronounce this incorrectly, but a giallo film, like, the ones that we’ve watched, like

Todd: Yeah. Deep

Craig: Red or it it felt like that. It was more about, like, mystery and suspense and trying to figure out what was going on. And a suspense and trying to figure out what was going on and a lot of, you know, red herrings and, you know, it was more about the suspense and and the I don’t know, it just it it was a little bit it was a little bit, it was a little bit, it was a little bit, it was a little bit, it was a little bit, it was a little bit, it was a little bit, it was a little bit, it was a little bit, it was a little bit, I don’t know, it just it was a little bit it was kind of an odd combination.

Todd: I agree with you. And and I guess it was an interesting juxtaposition and position, maybe purposely that way that you’ve got this really suspenseful movie with this detective story essentially is what it is for quite a while. But then has all this what you don’t normally get in, you know, this kind of movie, which is this brutal gore and these brutal killings just kind of up close and personal. So you’re right. I think that adds to it. And it’s funny that, you know, you mentioned giallo film. And like I had said earlier, this reminded me a lot of The Wicker Man for many of the same reasons. The Wicker Man pretty much follows a constable or detective from out of town who comes in and tries to figure out what’s going on in this town. He is very much an outsider and it also kind of is is very dreary and slow paced and has this just creeping sense of of doom over the whole proceedings as it goes along. And I felt like even though this guy, like we said, is supposed to be from this town and he’s the sheriff, he very much feels like an outsider to everything that’s going on. It’s like he knows all these people.

Craig: Which was weird.

Todd: Yeah. It was weird.

Craig: Yeah. And ultimately, I think that that’s the problem that I had with the movie because, I I don’t wanna spoil things right from the beginning, but it just seemed like the antagonist of the movie could have dealt with this police officer much earlier and just taken care of him. Like like, why was this one guy allowed to have all these suspicious? I mean, when it comes okay. So we follow this sheriff. His name is Dan. And, that one guy gets killed, and then we see that we know that it’s a setup, but the it’s a it’s set up so that it looks like he was in a car accident and and got burned up in the car accident. But even sheriff Dan is suspicious about that from the get go and doesn’t feel like it makes any sense, and he wonders if it’s a murder and that it has just been staged. And then there are subsequently more murders that are clearly not staged and that clearly are murders. Ultimately, what’s going on it’s not as though it’s entirely obvious even though by halfway through the movie, I felt like it was entirely obvious what was going on. But it just seemed like he should’ve been able to figure it out or that the person or persons perpetrating these things should have been very it should have been very easy for them to just get him out of the equation. Yeah. You know, like, like, why was he allowed to keep poking around? It just

Todd: They have no trouble getting everybody else out of the equation, you know? Right. Unless it’s this sense of because it is the peep all the people who are getting murdered are strangers to the town. So if that is the goal, if that is kind of the modus operandi, then over time it’s it’s gotta be just the strangers who are being killed. And maybe they just let their own be for a while. It doesn’t make sense.

Craig: But well, it doesn’t make right. And the thing is we know from the get go that virtually everybody in town is in on this.

Todd: Yeah, we do.

Craig: We know that from the very very beginning and, you know, there’s there’s there’s cool stuff in this movie, like, there’s a young Robert England in it. That’s awesome. I love Robert England. The coroner is played, as I mentioned before, by Jack Albertson who is this just this cool guy. Like, I absolutely love the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I I grew up on it. I love it. And Grandpa Joe in that movie is just such a cool character, and and Jack Albertson was just this veteran. You know? Like, he started out in vaudeville and did burlesque, and then, you know, in his older age continued making films. And, like, he’s just such a cool guy, and he plays Dobbs, this kinda creepy coroner. I say creepy, but it’s not even really all that creepy. He’s just kind of,

Todd: like Eccentric.

Craig: Right. Eccentric and just kind of, like, no bullshit. Like

Todd: he has a nice little monologue when Danny, goes to visit him.

Craig: Yeah. Look at this. Look at the work I’ve done. This is an art, and I am the artist. What can you remember about a sealed box, a sealed casket? That is obscene. That is the death of memory. The cosmetologist gives birth. I make souvenirs.

Todd: And that’s one thing that’s quite nice about this film is even though I felt like it could have been shortened, the plot does move. It does. Every scene, something happens that that moves things along. In fact, it’s it’s pretty economical in that way. It’s just that we have so many of these scenes that move it along far beyond our need to to be to have this thing revealed to us. You know, when he goes to see him for the first time, it’s actually quite cool that he has put on his, music, his old timey music. And this guy is obviously an older guy. Grew up in a different era. And even though this movie takes place in the well, I guess, early eighties, late seventies, it’s supposed to be contemporary film. I just got this sense that everything was much older than that. You know? Even in their homes, the decorations, the almost almost down to the cars they were driving. I don’t know if the idea was that this town is just supposed to be a really old town that nothing has changed for years.

Craig: Well, it reminded me of, like, HP Lovecraft. Mhmm. Like, the this this coastal town that’s just so quaint and quaint even beyond quaint. Like, it it just seems a little bit rundown. And I feel like the movie intended us to feel that way because the very first like, when the credits come up, it comes up over a still photograph of the town that’s in black and white that makes it look like it was made in the 19 thirties or forties or something like that. And that’s Yeah. It it it has that you know it’s contemporary because they’re driving around in cars and they’re you know, they’ve got scientific equipment to test tissue samples and stuff. So you know it’s contemporary, but the town itself feels out of time. Yeah. And that I mean, that’s kinda cool. I I liked it. You’re right. That that monologue that that Dobbs gives, he is so passionate about he actually likes it when people come in mangled because then he’s able to do his art and and make them look the way that they had looked in life or better. I don’t think about that really, but I I suppose it’s true, you know. Yeah. Corners and and funeral directors, they they are artists to a certain extent, I suppose. They have to make a dead body look somewhat lifelike and, you know, please, the mourners and those of us who are left behind. It was it is an interesting concept.

Todd: I thought so. I I thought it was actually quite nice. I mean, like you said, I never really thought of it that way and everybody should be at least passionate about what they do and their job. And so, of course, you know, this coroner, especially as old as he is, who’s been at it for such a long time, is so passionate about it. And later on, we understand there’s some significance to this. But early on, it’s not really hinted at that he’s in on this. Although, you think, well, he’s the mortician in Todd. He’s gotta be in on it. And I feel like that is how the movie kind of progresses. It’s really unsettling and it’s really off putting because, like you said, we know. We’ve seen from the very beginning that pretty much everyone on the in the town is doing these killings. I mean, we see their faces. Yeah. We see mobs of them doing this. The second guy who dies is a guy on the dock. And he’s drunk and he’s stumbling around and, you know, he gets pinned up against the wall and strangled and stabbed a bunch of times with different things. And all this is we see it, you know, in gruesome detail, but here’s, Dobbs’ own assistant standing there taking pictures, of it again and everybody else is in on it. And so you wonder, as you’re watching the movie, you’re always second guessing. Like, well, there are people throughout this film that are helping the sheriff along in his investigation. I mean, they’re giving him valuable information that lets him know that something is amiss. Right. And you got it. You’re kind of retracing your steps and going, but did that per wasn’t that person involved in the murder? Was he? Was he not? I’m not sure. Even I found myself, and I think actually this is kind of a a knock in the movie’s favor maybe, is is sowing those seeds of confusion. Maybe it’s a cheap way of doing it, but I was kind of constantly questioning and wondering why are these people helping them along so much?

Craig: Yeah. Well, and that that leads really to what my favorite part of the movie was. I mean, because we we see these people and like you said, we see their faces like one of the the lady that lit the first guy on fire is the waitress at the diner and, you know, we see her and people interact with her, and she just seems totally normal. Like, nothing is going on. And and same thing. At at one point, you know, we see that Robert England, who is just another one of the townspeople, like, we see him. We see their faces clear as day. So we know that they are part of it, but then in everyday life, they are just acting like nothing you you they’re not acting suspiciously really at all in everyday life. Until then, they’re attacking more people later on down the line. But my favorite part of the movie is that, Dan’s wife is implicated really really early on And, like, people keep saying things to him, like, if something weird is going on, well, you should ask your wife. You should ask your wife. And all these really suspicious things keep happening with his wife. Like, at one point, he finds a book about witchcraft in her drawer and it, like, this And a ceremonial bed. A ceremonial dagger. And anytime anything like that happens, she’s just like, oh, like, she just has some casual excuse for it. What the hell are you doing with these?

Clip: It’s for my class. I’m gonna give a lecture in witchcraft.

Craig: Witchcraft. And why in god’s name would you wanna teach him that?

Clip: Kids love creepy things. Keeps them from being bored in my class.

Craig: So you pick witchcraft?

Clip: I just thought of it. I don’t know why I’m defending myself to you. You’re grilling me like a prime suspect.

Craig: And when Dan reads in the book, it talks about reanimating dead corpses. And, like, he’s always immediately suspicious of her, and, like, she had some connection to that first guy who was murdered. Dan, at one point, goes to the hotel where this guy, because he wasn’t a townsperson, was staying, and the hotel guy was, like, oh, yeah. He was here, but I haven’t seen him in a couple days. But your wife came and visited him. Maybe you should talk to her, and so, of course, he’s suspicious, like, why is my wife meeting some guy in a hotel? But she’s, like, oh, no. He sells photography equipment to the school. I was just talking to him about that stuff. Like, she always has and and the way that she delivers it is always, you know, believable. Like, it sounds pretty innocent,

Todd: but And it’s quick.

Craig: Yeah. And but things, like, things just keep piling up on her to the point where I’m, like, she’s she’s in yeah. Like, what is wrong with you? Like, she has to be in on it. Mhmm. But that actress, whoever she is, I don’t know. I didn’t write her down. I I looked her up. She didn’t do a lot. She did some movies, and she did some soap operas in her later years. Flash Gordon.

Todd: Yeah. One of my favorites from childhood. That’s what I remember.

Craig: But she does a good job of just, you know, it feels very natural and it feels like a very natural thing between a husband and a wife just, like, oh, no, silly. You know, like, I’ve got an explanation for that. And so on the one hand, while as a viewer, it seems like, oh my god. You’re an idiot. Like, how could she not be connected to this with all of this evidence? At the same time, I’m thinking, you know, if she were my wife and she had these explanations for things, I would just be inclined to believe her, you know, like Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. It’s true.

Craig: But so I don’t know.

Todd: I mean, I think there’s a denial aspect. That’s that’s very real. That’s the last thing you want to suspect. So you’re gonna hang on to any thread that you can, that that proves it wrong, however tenuous that thread may be. And I I thought that was pretty believable in that respect even though, like you say, it it he’s not a very good detective Todd be able to not kind of piece all this together when it’s happening right under his nose, at least so quickly. Now he is piecing it together but it’s happening awfully slowly and it’s like every tiny little piece of the puzzle has to fall into place before he finally figures out what’s going on. Whereas we, the viewer, got it like you said like halfway through the movie. We didn’t know all the details. We didn’t know why. We didn’t know motivation. But at least, you know, we kind of knew, okay, what’s basically happening is all of these corpses are being reanimated.

Craig: Right.

Todd: And they’re be populating the town. And one of the shocking moments of this movie is when a family comes into town and, their car breaks down and they go into the diner and they’re looking for for help. The woman at the diner says, oh, so and so will go pump some gas for you. George or something

Craig: like that.

Todd: Freddie. And Freddie turns around, and we see that Freddie is the photographer

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: From the beginning of the movie. But he’s acting, you know, just like the guy who bumps gas at the gas station, and he’s not disfigured at all. And it’s like, woah. What in the world is going on here? Again, we we figure out for some reason people who are being killed in these horribly disfigured maiming ways are being reanimated, then they look fine and they’re just populating the town here. Which then if you have watched enough of these movies, I guess, you know, you make that other leap thinking, okay, well maybe most of the people in town here are reanimated corpses. Right? And that’s kind of I don’t know. That’s kind of where I was about 45 minutes into the movie.

Craig: Yes. I I I think that the movie shows its hand too early. I think that we figure out what’s going on a little bit too early. And then, like, they do some things to try to throw you off. Like, okay, folks. Fine. When it comes down to it, it it’s the coroner. It’s Dobbs. Yeah. He he he’s the one behind it. And I and I feel like about 45 minutes into it, you figure that out, but then they try to throw in scenes that make you begin to question. Like like, the coroner will go to the sheriff and be like, a body’s been stolen from the morgue.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: So you gotta help me. And, like, I know that you’re behind it. So, like, what? I understand. Right.

Todd: Yeah. If you’re trying to cover his tracks or something, you know, but but he’s clearly not. By the end of the movie, he doesn’t give a shit.

Craig: You know? And and and and the thing is, like, when I say the movie shows that hand, it’s hand, like, they literally lay out exactly what is going on. Dan found the witchcraft book and it said something about reanimating corpses or something. And then then we see a scene with his wife who is very pretty and very nice. Like, she she doesn’t seem like she would be villainous. And, ultimately, I guess, really, she’s not, to be fair. Yeah. But we see her in her class and she’s talking to these kids and she’s telling them she’s teaching them about voodoo, which is just weird anyway to be teaching, like, 3rd graders about voodoo, but she talks to them about voodoo zombies, And she tells them that they’re not like typical zombies or they’re not like the zombies that you think of, like, lumbering around looking for brains or whatever, but rather they are just corpses that have been reanimated and are being controlled by somebody else, which if I’m not mistaken is pretty accurate to voodoo lore. Yeah. She says that the only difference is their master has to cut out their heart and conceal it somewhere, and then the master is in complete control of them and can make them do whatever he wants them to do. And so she has just laid out exactly what is happening.

Todd: Oh, like, she goes further than that. She even says

Clip: There are even reports

Craig: of a tribe

Clip: in central Peru whose residents included a great number of these walking dead who were completely at the will of their master. And they roamed around the mountains killing strangers and bringing them back to their master.

Todd: She implicates her own town in this thing.

Craig: And and they have to die a violent death in order to be reanimated in this way. And you mentioned that family. There’s a scene where the the, you know, the family comes through town and, of course, everybody acts all nice, but then their car breaks down and they end up in, like, this abandoned house and they’re besieged by all these townspeople. And you think that they get away, but then when the the the wife, Dan’s wife, is teaching, you see that the son from the family is now one of the students in the classroom. So, and and I didn’t catch that. Yeah. He was. And also Robert England, at some point, pulls their car out of the ocean. So, they they didn’t get away.

Todd: And that’s so stupid like that little bit, where they, crash in front of this house and there’s a light that flickers in the house and the mom says, I saw a light over there. We should go there to get some help. And he’s like, oh, it’s all it’s obviously abandoned. So, like, no. We need to go. Okay. Well, they go to the door. And then, they go inside. And they’re like, hello? And it’s one of those deals where the door swings wide open and they walk in and everything’s covered with, like, a thick 1 inch layer of dust, and there are cobwebs everywhere. It’s clearly abandoned. He even says that, yet still, they’re, like, walking through the house. Like, I don’t know. I saw a light upstairs. Yeah. Right.

Craig: Maybe you could find somebody.

Todd: And they go in and they’re like blowing dust off of everything and everything’s creaking and all. Well, let me check the basement. So then he goes, like, lights a match to go down into the basement to look then he comes up. Well, nobody down in the basement. Well, duh. You had to light a match to go down Right.

Craig: In this creepy basement

Todd: of this obviously abandoned house.

Craig: It was it was kinda spooky. I mean, we knew what was gonna happen because we’ve seen it happened over and over again, but, when they’re walking around in the house, it’s dark in the house and and at least there’s moonlight or whatever outside, and we see people stalking around outside. So we know that, like, through the windows, like, we just see their silhouettes or whatever. The shadows. So we know they’re yeah. So we know they’re in trouble and they are. And I mean, then that’s what it comes down to.

Todd: Even though it’s rolling my eyes, the fact that they were still wandering around in this house looking for help, that’s so classic. You know? It’s so classic. Mhmm. It was so classic haunted house because then they run upstairs, and then they start trying to get out because the townspeople are coming up the stairs after them very slowly, and then they start opening the doors, and every single door that they open upstairs has somebody who was just sitting on a Craig, holding a knife, waiting for them to open a door so they can look at it in a creepy way.

Craig: That was pretty funny. Like, they had been totally alone, and then all of a sudden, the house is

Todd: just full of people. People. Prepped and ready for them. Yeah. Oh, then there’s a woman hitchhiker who makes the worst judgment call ever when when she flags down a truck and, starts to get in and the the door swings open the truck and the guy inside goes, are you sure you want me to pick you up? I could be some creepy weirdo.

Craig: Yeah. An old pervert. And and the back window of his truck is busted out, like like, really? You you might wanna wait for the next guy. She’s like, no. It’s cool. And then she gets in the car. And this was a weird scene to me, and I I don’t remember if I read that this was a scene that they added in later. I don’t remember. But it was a weird scene to me because it felt kind of like Friday 13th where it well, in Friday 13th in the very beginning, a girl, one of the counselors, gets picked up. She’s hitchhiking to get to the camp, and she gets picked up. And they’re making a concentrated effort not to show who it is that’s picking her up. It’s super obvious. Who it is that’s picking her up. It’s super obvious. But then ultimately, it’s it’s totally inconsequential. It’s just one of the town’s people.

Todd: No. It’s the it’s the guy who was murdered.

Craig: Which one?

Todd: The dock guy.

Craig: The sailor. Oh, okay. Well, then I was wrong. But it’s funny. He picks her up, and he drives her, like, a 100 yards down the Todd. And then and then he pulls a camera out of his glove box and takes a picture of her, and then they are besieged by the rest of the town’s per people and somebody smashes her face with a rock. But we we

Todd: get a really cool scene after this and that is when Dobbs has her on the table, and, he is reconstructing her face. It is so cool.

Craig: It it is really neat. I I I can’t I can’t begin to imagine that it’s at all realistic.

Todd: It can’t be. There’s no way.

Craig: But it looks but it looks really good.

Todd: Yeah. He just basically strips her down to the, you know, her face down to the bone because actual well, because his, she is smashed I think with a, she’s the one who smashed with a rock. Right?

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. Over half of her face. And so it shows there she is. And yeah, sure enough, half of her face smashed in with a rock. But then he’s like, I will make you beautiful again. And he it’s it’s almost like time lapse, essentially. Yeah. Where, he strips her down to bone and then slowly builds her face back up to where it was before. And, as he pops an eye like a false eye in her last socket, we get a single shot like a really long shot of it panning back up to him And he goes out and he, you know, turns off the lights and leaves. And at the same time, somebody steps out of the shadows who was, like, waiting behind the door. And it pans back down to her and she sits right up.

Craig: Yeah. I didn’t understand this scene and I felt like it was a red herring. Mhmm. Because because it made it seem like, okay. So Dobbs fixed her up, and then he left. And then somebody else came to her body and then that’s when she was reanimated. And I thought that the the movie was trying to mislead us, but I I still don’t understand what was happening there. Do you know who was that?

Todd: I don’t know. Was it his assistant? I have no idea. I I don’t think it even matters.

Craig: No. I mean, ultimately, it doesn’t.

Todd: It is. It’s setting us up for that red herring when Dobbs runs back, to the, cop not long after that and says that the body was missing, stolen or whatever. And of course, this alarms him because he’s starting to get these feelings. And so then he checks up on Dobbs. And this is, you know, early 19 eighties and so he’s sending a telex.

Craig: I don’t know why

Todd: I don’t know why he couldn’t just make a phone call. I’m not really sure. But anyway, he’s sending a telex down, to the state office or whatever to try to get more information on Dobbs. And what comes back and this is what’s confusing to me too. What comes back on Dobbs eventually is that Dobbs was like disbarred. He was caught doing inappropriate things with corpses. It’s not really said what and was, stripped of his New Jersey license or whatever and sent away. And that Dobbs came and that was like in 1970 something. Right. And so Dobbs has only been in this town for, like, maybe 5 or 6 years. He’s only been the corner to this town. He’s a new guy. He moved in there. And to me, that just throws off sort of everything about the movie. It throws I don’t know. It just kind of makes a huge plot hole for me. And we’ll talk about as we get to the end here, which I guess we’re coming to right now, aren’t we?

Craig: Pretty much. There’s this business where, the sheriff Dan’s wife had given him some film. And, again, this is it’s just so weird. It it’s almost like throughout the movie, he’s being intentionally given these leads and

Todd: Yes.

Craig: He’s just not picking up on them. His wife is doing all of this suspicious stuff, but every time she has an explanation, he’s, like, okay. At one point, she gives him some film and he’s, like, and she says, go have this developed for me. And he’s like, well, what is it? And she says, well, my students shot some film. I thought that it would be a good way for them to learn about narrative, which sure. Fine. I teach English. Yeah. I I that that’s cool. It’s a good strategy. Whatever. But he forgets to take it at first, and she reminds him, and then, he finally takes it. And all of these things are adding up all at once. I’m gonna jump back really quick and get back to this film, but there is also a point where when the family was escaping, the sheriff Dan just happened to see them racing out of town as he was coming down the street. And as he was coming down the street, he hit one of the guys who was chasing him. And he checked on the guy and it seemed like the guy was dead, But then he looks over, and on the grill of his car is a severed arm that is moving on its own. And then the dead guy gets up and grabs the arm and runs away. So he has so he scrapes some skin cells off of his grill and sends it to a doctor, then more goes on, and then later in he checks in and the guy’s like, no. These skin cells have been dead for 3 or 4 months. So there’s that. So another weird clue. And then finally, he gets this film developed and when he looks at when he plays it, it’s this weird black and white film that, like, pans up on this rundown old house and then goes up to the window of the house and then it sees that the townspeople are kind of gathered around, like, looking in the windows. And it’s a couple of people doing it on a bed. I didn’t say fucking because I know you’d bleep me. I like the long

Todd: pause where you tried to think of an alternate way of saying that.

Craig: Like, that’s so hard for you. It is hard for me. But, so and so and then, like, all the townspeople are standing around while these these people are, you know, making the beast or whatever. And

Todd: Bumping uglies.

Craig: Yeah. And then it’s revealed that the woman on the bottom is his wife and he freaks out and not only is his wife making love to somebody else, but then she pulls out that big ceremonial dagger and starts stabbing this person and he’s like, no no. I mean, I feel like there’s even a little bit more that goes on, but at this point, he’s suspicious of Dobbs and he’s gotten this, you know, intel from the state or whatever about Dobbs. And so he goes to confront him at the coroner’s office, which I guess basically leads to the climax, I guess.

Todd: Yeah. The climax of the movie. So Dobbs is waiting for him, and he’s got a whole setup. He’s got, like, 8 different projectors going, shooting behind him. All I could think about was, you know, in at the end, I was thinking, like, wow, this guy I I was just trying to imagine the process that he went through setting up all of these different projectors and timing them to get, like, the right bits of film to go up behind him in such a creepy way, you know, like The Wizard of Oz. Really quick on a show, you know. You see these scenes in movies where there’s this big dramatic thing, and nobody ever really stops to think about all the time and hookup that was required to do that, you know. Right.

Craig: But it it also bought this scene also bothered me. It looks really cool. And, the guy, Dobbs, you know, standing behind his desk with all these projectors, like, projecting through the dust in the room. So, you know, it’s like these, like, rays of light projecting through the room and then these videos projecting all around. And it’s all these videos of the people getting killed. But it bothered me because throughout the whole movie, we’ve seen these things happening. And weren’t the townspeople always taking photographs? Yes. Like like, I never saw anybody with a video camera.

Todd: No. Me neither. Well or or a film camera in this case. Yeah.

Craig: No. I didn’t see it either. Yeah. But okay. Whatever. It looks cool. So Dobbs’ big reveal is that and I think

Todd: it’s if he’s revealing it at the same time that the detective is accusing him, he’s like, yes, this is my, he’s able to reanimate reanimate dead bodies. And, he says, how do you do it? And he says, oh, I’ll never tell.

Craig: I love that. I know. Love that. Wow. What a cop out. How’d you do it? All that black magic. Call it a medical breakthrough. I’ll take my secret to the grave. Right. And so, like, it is a cop out. Like, well, I’ll never tell. So and he doesn’t. So we don’t know. He I just can do it. That’s good enough. Moving right along.

Todd: And so he goes Todd this big long monologue and it kinda amounts to nothing. And I guess this is where, and, I’m just I’m just so confused as to his motive. Yeah. Why? What is the end game here? Like, he just likes to be able to do it?

Craig: I guess. I mean, I I think that we’re supposed to think that he’s one of these people who is so impassioned about his art that he will do anything for his art, And he calls all of these people my children. These are my children.

Todd: Mhmm.

Craig: So I, you know, I I think it’s just kind of a masturbatory kind of, you know, Todd complex kind of thing.

Todd: And, he calls his wife in, and his wife comes walking in. She’s, you know, stepford wife, like a robot on repeat or something. And, he turns around, the detective does, and Todd shooting at her. And of course, it doesn’t stop her which just, you know, proves the point.

Craig: Well, I have to say that this scene was actually a little bit heartbreaking to me, because he tells Dobbs, Dan says, what did you do to my wife? And Dobbs says, oh, Janet, she’s my masterpiece. She was my first. I found her. She had, crashed her car into the river and she was dead and bloated and I brought her back, and and she’s my best work. Whereas, everybody else that I’ve reanimated needs touching up every couple weeks. She can go for a month without needing to be touched up and meanwhile, Dan is hearing this and you know, he’s heartbroken, you know, he’s hearing that his wife is dead and has been dead.

Todd: And think of the implications of that.

Craig: Well, well, and see and that’s the you think of the implications of that, and then you think how happy must their marriage have been if he didn’t realize over the past 6 months that she’s been dead.

Todd: Okay. Yeah. Well, he said I gave her to you.

Craig: Yeah. And he also says things like, you know, I he says they only they don’t even know they’re dead. They only remember what I allowed them to remember, which what? How exactly does that work? Right? I I don’t know.

Todd: But Is there a computer? Is there programming involved?

Craig: Right. Right. He’s like, I gave her love and I gave her sex and I, you know, gave her passion and life and and then she comes in and Dan has to face her and she’s talking to him and it’s just very Stepford Wife. And and you realize that that’s what it’s really been all along. Yeah. It’s not like I watch these movies and I think, oh, how would I feel if my husband were dead reanimated? But in the moment, I I was thinking, you know, that that would not only be so sad to find out that your spouse was dead, but then that you had been living with them and it hadn’t really been them, that it just been a facsimile of them for Yeah. However long. I mean, it it it got me a little bit.

Todd: It touched me Todd. I’m not gonna lie. Yeah. No. It touched me as well. I was I was also feeling a bit of emotion there. Like I said, it just reminds me of The Wicker Man so much. But once again, you haven’t seen The Wicker Man. We need to do that sometime so we can talk about it more. But, but yeah. Yeah. So so, you know, he’s shooting at her and it doesn’t work. And so he had been threatening to shoot Dobbs. And, Dobbs was like, do it. Do it because then I can join them. You know, what are you waiting for?

Craig: Which also doesn’t make any sense to me because if he’s a black magic guy, like, how does physician heal thyself, you know? Like, I don’t I don’t get it. You know, but then also it was also sad to me when, Dan finally shoots his wife. He shoots her several times and it’s like she’s surprised. But then eventually, after she’s been shot several times, she says

Clip: Dad. Dad.

Craig: Please bury me. Please. There.

Clip: Bear with me.

Craig: She actually crawls her way into one of the exhumed graves from here

Todd: in the movie. After she crosses the name out and writes her own above it. Yeah.

Craig: That was hilarious.

Todd: How bad could you get?

Craig: I mean, really, guys? Really? Well, the funny thing is this movie was written as a horror comedy and then due to studio intervention, they changed it to straight up horror. So I wonder if that was just one of the few relics of the comedy because it’s laugh out loud funny. Like Yeah. Seriously, the the tombstone where she is just crossed out, just xed out the name and then scrawled her name, just her first name in all caps above it, Janet. Oh, I don’t and then he does bury her. I don’t remember if you said it already. He he does. He shoots Dobbs, several times in the abdomen. And then we see Dobbs, like like, embalming himself, I guess. Like, he sticks like the big embalming needles into himself or something. I don’t know. And then and then Dan is outside and he he buries Janet. And then everybody else everybody else from the whole movie in the town shows up, and they’re starting to show their wear. Like, everything’s been touched up in a while.

Todd: The the warranty on every single one of them has just come close to expiring all at the same time. Suddenly, every single person he’s interacted with has little bits of flesh falling off of their face. And they’re all laying flowers at her Craig, and he’s sit laying there screaming and and, you know, overwhelmed by it all. Yeah. And they converge on him and you think that maybe they’re now they’re gonna get him Todd, but he manages to break free and he runs back into the mortuary. And there, almost like magic, is is the doctor back behind the with his suit back on and everything back behind the desk as though nothing had happened. I guess his self embalming was a success. I guess. And he says to him, oh, there’s one more detail you need to watch. He says, look up. And he looks up at that film, that he had seen earlier, the black and white film of his wife, the bumping uglies with this guy and stabbing him. And I guess he had just turned away too soon every other time he’d seen this video, which is another silly part. It turns out that, the the person she was having sex with flops best flops over onto his back, and it’s him. Yeah. And then his warranty runs out. He raises his hands to his face, no, and tries to, like, claw out his eyes or something. And when he brings his hands in front of him, his hands are kind of broken and twisted and and bent. Freeze Craig, bring Todd credits.

Craig: Yeah. Well, and Dobbs says, come over here, I’ll fix that for you. Yeah. And, like, I don’t know. I mean, it’s it’s kind of a cool ending, but at the same time, it just doesn’t make any sense. Like, was this all just like an amusement for Dobbs? Like, if if he controls what his reanimated corpses do and think and remember, why wouldn’t he have just programmed the sheriff to not be suspicious? Yeah. You know, like like, what was this whole mystery like, what was the purpose of this mystery from the get go? Like Right. Did he just need something to entertain him for a while?

Todd: Or did he go off the rails a little bit? Maybe maybe Danny something snapped in his Craig, in his reprogrammed Craig, and he he he got a little deprogrammed or something. I mean, I I guess that’s possible. But then again, why go through all of this rigmarole to bring him back in? Why not just take him out like the townspeople are taking out everybody else?

Craig: That’s what I was thinking through the whole movie. Like, if he’s suspicious, what the whole town’s in on it, just kill him. Like Yeah. That’s I was thinking that through the whole movie, like, I don’t get why they’re not just killing him. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Yeah. But and then you find out, well, he’s already dead and he’s already a part of it. Okay. I mean, I don’t know. I it’s interesting and it’s different, you know, I guess in in terms of you know that I’m not a huge fan of zombie movies, period. But I It doesn’t really play

Todd: like a zombie movie though.

Craig: No, not really. Exactly. It’s it’s different and I know I we’ve talked about it before that, the voodoo lore of zombies is very different than our American take on them. They’re not just rambling, you know, brain eating monsters. They are literally somebody who’s just being controlled by somebody else. And I actually think that that is far more interesting than just you get bit and then you’re like a rabid dog. So, you know, that’s that’s cool. Whatever. And it was original and, you know, I really liked seeing Jack Albertson in it. You know, this was his last feature film that was released in the theaters, that he actually acted in. He voiced a character in The Fox and the Hound after this, and he did a couple of made for TV things. But, apparently, he was riddled with cancer during the whole filming of this movie, and he was not well at all. And, he made it to the premiere, but he was on an oxygen tank and in a wheelchair, and he died just a couple of months after. And, you know, I I have such admiration for him just because he is such an iconic part of my childhood. It was cool to see him in a very different role and and he does a good job. And I would say, overall, the movie’s well acted. It’s not as though I I thought it was terrible. I I just ultimately, I just thought it was just okay.

Todd: Yeah. I I think I gotta I’m gonna give the movie a lot of credit. I mean, I thought the cinematography was fantastic. There were so many great shots in here, so many clever, creative shots, interesting things with points of view. More than once, these long going on shots that almost called attention to themselves. They were so clever. The atmosphere and the mood that the movie created was really imposing from the get go. And I’ll say that until the end, you know, until it’s all finished, there’s a nice even dispersion of red herrings and things that keep you guessing as to what’s going on. It’s not until the end of the movie that it all kind of falls apart for you. You go, oh, so it was exactly what I thought it was. Right. And and that and what it what what it is is pretty darn ridiculous and has all these holes in it. It’s like a fan It’s like a really well made film in service to a terrible script. Yeah. And if the script would have been better, you know, anything in the hands of this cast and crew that made this movie would have been outstanding. So it it as a as a piece of art, you know, it works. But as a plot, you know, that that final piece of it, that plot just isn’t there. It doesn’t work. And it’s just ends up seeming silly by the end of it. And, it’s such a shame.

Craig: Yeah. The fact that it was conceived as a horror comedy, if it were if it were played as a horror comedy, you would excuse those discrepancies and and those things that didn’t make it. You would just excuse it because, you know, it’s it’s a comedy. It’s meant to be silly. It’s not meant to be taken that seriously. But by removing that comedic element, then I feel like, oh, well, I am taking it seriously and so, therefore, these plot holes bother me. Yeah. But, you know, whatever it is what it is.

Todd: The brutality of it keeps it from being too much of a comedy. You know? I mean, the the the the death scenes are not I don’t see how they could be reshaped or recut or anything else was filmed to make them any funnier than they ended up being, and I can imagine how dark that would be.

Craig: There wasn’t as much gore included when it was intended to be a comedy. The studio insisted that they shoot additional scenes Todd to make it gorier. Like, the sailor the drunk sailor getting killed on the dock, not in the original script. It was an afterthought that they put in later. And and they restructured things like the hitchhiker scene was supposed to take place before the family scene, which it didn’t in the end. And I read that if you have an eagle eye and you’re watching, that hitchhiker is in the murderous mob who stalks the family Oh. Before she’s even introduced and killed. So I I think that this may also some of our complaints about it, I think, are due to studio interference, which is unfortunate, but it happens all the time. I mean, you know, that’s just the industry and you just Yeah. Kinda yet to kinda just deal with

Todd: it. That’s true.

Craig: Well, we we’ve gotta judge it on

Todd: its, you know, merits as as the final product.

Craig: So Right. Right.

Todd: Yeah. What are you gonna do? Yeah. I’m I’m kinda with you on the same. I just I I feel like it’s okay. I’m probably not gonna see it again. Twice is is way too many times. Twice is one time too many. Yeah. -Well, thanks again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us on Facebook, where you can like us, our page, share that with a friend, have a conversation with us about what you thought of this episode, what you thought about the movies. Were we fair, or is this just like your favorite movie ever? Please let us know, and we’d love to Craig you over the cold sport. No. I’m just kidding. No. We we have great relationships with all of our listeners. If you have any requests too, you can feel free to post them there as well or write to us directly. You can find our website, 2 guys dot redfortynet.com, where we have all of our back catalog posted. You can stream us live from there as well directly through your browser, and, you can catch a few written movie reviews as well. Until next time. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.