Night of the Comet (1984)

Episode 151, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: And Todd was gracious enough to let me pick the movie this weekend. I chose Night of the Comet from 1984. This movie just kinda popped into my head. I have only had only seen it once, but I remembered it fondly. I I kinda remembered it being kinda cute and quirky and fun, and, I thought it would be something that we would have fun talking about. So, that’s why I picked it. Todd, do you have any, history with this movie at all?

Todd: This is just a movie that I saw on the shelves and always was interested in, kind of, but when I looked at the cover and read about it, I I think just back then, I thought, nah, it maybe it looks kind of I don’t know. It just there was nothing about it that really appealed to me enough to to make me pull it down and watch it, but I’ve always been curious about it. So I’m really glad you suggested it.

Craig: Well, good.

Todd: That’s Roaring, you know, level of enthusiasm there. Right? Yeah. Right? Well, I

Craig: you know Well, I mean, it’s it’s not. I wouldn’t say by any stretch of the imagination it’s a good movie. Well, no. I would say it’s a good movie. I wouldn’t say by any stretch of the imagination it’s a great movie, but it’s just it’s kinda different, you know. It’s, when it all boils down to it, it’s it’s kind of a zombie movie, but it’s got a little bit of a different take I guess on your typical zombie movie and I guess kind of what I liked about it is that the protagonists are, a little bit non conventional. The movie is about these 2 girls, Regina and Sam who are sisters. They’re just kind of these typical valley girl sisters who live in LA, and you know are going about their business, you know, Regina, they call her Reg or Reggie a lot. She’s played by Catherine Mary Stewart who had who’s really pretty and has a really recognizable face. When I was looking at her IMDB page, I think the thing that I remembered her most from was Weekend at Bernie’s. I think she was, like, one of the romantic interests in that movie. For

Todd: Yeah. But For me, it was the last starfighter.

Craig: Oh, okay. Yeah. She Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She’s totally in that too. And Sam is played by Kelly Maroney who was, one of the girls from shopping mall Oh, yeah. Which is a favorite of ours.

Todd: Everything leads back to that, baby.

Craig: Everything leads back to Chopping Mall. You know, it’s it’s kind of a simple premise, but an interesting one in that, you know, they’re both just kinda going about their things. The movie opens up with these news reports about how this comet is going to be going by earth, I guess, and, it’s the first time that a comet is gonna be passing this close since the dinosaurs were around, which maybe should have given these people some warning that maybe this isn’t an entirely good thing. But, you know, there’s there’s all this excitement about this big comet, and everybody’s throwing these parties and and celebrating and waiting for this comet to go by. And eventually, when it does go by, it wipes everybody out. That’s pretty much it.

Todd: That’s how the movie opens. Like, I would say this movie is I don’t know. I guess it’s a horror movie in the same sense that I am Legend is a horror movie. I thought of I am Legend, Omega Man. It’s one of these post apocalyptic kind of films where some big event happens and humanity is partially wiped out, and but a few people survive, and this is the story of those people who survive. But this is an interesting event in that the comet just, I guess, being outside and looking at it caused everybody to turn to to red dust. Yeah. Like like, it’s not like it crashed into Earth. I don’t think I don’t think it would. But it was like, as long as you weren’t outside looking at it, like, supposedly, most of the world was, because it was the must see event of the of the of the summer, then you would survive. But but you don’t necessarily you’re not gonna last long because you get infected somehow. It’s really vague, quite honestly, but like Omega Manor, I am legend. Like the survivors get infected somehow with the virus of some kind that turns them slowly into zombies.

Craig: Well, that’s what it’s it’s a little bit confusing to me frankly because that’s the premise, is that supposedly if you were one of the people who survived, you’re infected with this thing and you’re gonna start to deteriorate, except that doesn’t hold true for everybody.

Todd: Exactly. It and and, yeah, it’s all really weird. And zombie is maybe the wrong word because it’s not like they die and come back to life. It’s like they slowly transform into, I guess, a a monster physically, and then I guess the problem is we don’t see a lot of examples of this in this movie. I mean, it’s, it’s kind of to call it a horror movie, I don’t know. Is it is it accurate? Can you really call this a it’s billed as a horror movie, but there isn’t, for my sense, a lot of what we would consider horror in it. There aren’t many of these creatures out there. The ones that we see clearly, half of them are in dreams. And then mostly, it’s a comedy in a way and, I guess, adventure or thriller type story, like, survival story. Mhmm. I think part of my reaction to this movie, and I actually watched it twice because the first time through it, I have to admit I wasn’t really taken by it. And I thought, alright. What? This this is a cult classic film. There’s a lot of people like this. I must be watching this wrong. So I went back in the morning, and I watched it again. And I I I enjoyed it a lot better the second time through. And I think part of my reason for that is my expectations for the movie changed. I realized it wasn’t going to be a horror movie in in the sense that I was looking for. And once I realized that, I would think I was able to enjoy it better and look look at the other ways that, that the movie spoke to me if that makes any sense because it wasn’t scary.

Craig: No. No. No. It’s not scary at all. And, you know, talking about the zombies or whatever, I mean, they’re not traditional zombies. It’s because, like, they can talk and, like, you know, it it just seems like they just kind of turn into bad people, like like mean violent people, and then and then they die.

Todd: Yes. I guess. Like, in an indeterminate amount of time for indeterminate reasons. But it’s kind of like, Charlton Heston, Omega Man. You know that one. These you know, where they were vampires. They were like humans, except they were also vampires. So that made them bad and that made them scary looking, and they wanted to kill people.

Craig: Well, I I think that what I think what makes the movie appealing to me and I, you like I said, you know, I saw it and it’s it’s been 15 years since I saw it, and I just saw it that one time, and I just happened to pick it up off the shelves. I’ve mentioned this a 1000000 times when I was doing my internship, for my career. I I lived in a little tiny apartment away from my hometown, and I I, you know, was just living off the very basics, and I didn’t have cable or anything. And my mom bought me, like, a $300 gift card to the local video store, the rental place. And, so I was renting movies every night, and I I went through their whole horror section. This is just one of the ones that I happened to, pick up. And I think that maybe the reason that it’s so appealing to me is that it is so eighties. Oh, yes. Like it Up one side and down the other. Yes. I mean, it is quintessentially eighties. And, you know, with with the music and there’s great music

Todd: There is.

Craig: Great music throughout, Fantastic eighties music. And the the characters are so eighties and and the fashion

Todd: is so eighties. The fashion. And even the the I mean, it opens up with the main character. What was her name? It’s, Red. Reggie? Reggie playing Tempest in she’s like the worst employee ever. She’s like an employee of a of a theater, and the owner is behind the bar of the theater, ultimately trying to sell people on comet merchandise so they can run outside and view the comet, and trying to get her to do her freaking job of going up and down the theater and, like, shining a flashlight around, I guess. She’s got a you gotta call her, like, 20 times away from this arcade game.

Craig: We are not. Hey, Regina. Regina, give that thing a rest, will you?

Clip: In a minute, ma’am.

Todd: Look. I don’t pay you

Craig: to do that kind of stuff around here. Regina, I want you to clean everything up

Todd: so we can get out of here

Craig: in time to watch the comic.

Clip: Everything’s cleaned up. Damn.

Craig: I want you to take this flashlight and walk the house.

Clip: Aw, Mel. They throw things at me.

Craig: Who cares? Walk the house.

Clip: Have you ever been hit with dots, Mel? Milk duds? Those things hurt.

Craig: I I I oh, how are you, sir? The refreshments are right over there. And all she’s interested in is boning her boyfriend in the projection room. That’s right. I mean, it’s really silly, but it’s really funny and it is billed as a horror movie, but it’s also billed as a comedy and I I and I’m one of those people. I know that there are other people out there who it’s like people who don’t like their food to touch, You know? Like like, they they don’t want their they don’t want their comedy bleeding over into their horror and vice versa, and I am not one of those people. I think that comedy and horror go hand in hand, and and I love a good horror comedy. And I I think that this is a pretty good horror comedy. It was written and directed by a guy named Tom Eberhardt, who hasn’t done a whole lot. I mean, he’s got a a list of credits on IMDB. He’s done some things, not a lot of things that I really recognized. I don’t remember exactly how it was that he got interested in this concept, but when he got interested in this concept, he started just talking to teenage girls, which sounds really creepy, but let’s pretend it’s not. Like, he was he was working, I guess, in TV or something, and and he happens to be around all of these young women, in the 19 eighties, and he just started asking them, you know, what would you do if there were some kind of apocalyptic events and you were the last person on earth? And, the responses that he got were less about shock and horror and, you know, fears about being alone and it was more about, you know, that it would be exciting, you know, it would be an exciting time and you could do whatever you wanted and, you could go to the mall and get whatever you wanted and not have to pay for it. Whatever show goes

Todd: to clothes you want and, you know, but what about the boys? Like

Craig: Yeah. It was Yeah. That that was their only concern. It was like Yeah. And and and he had to bring it up, like, dating. And they’re like, oh, yeah. That might be a challenge.

Todd: I think it was viewing the movie through this lens, especially the second time around that warmed me up to it. Because the first time around, I’m like, give me a break. I I thought these girls seem very nonplussed about the fact that all of their friends and family and everything have just been wiped out because their primary concerns seem to be about cheering each other up, complimenting each other’s hair, jealousy over this one of the few guys left

Craig: on Right.

Todd: The planet. I’m I’m just thinking, are is this serious? And then when I realized after a while and especially the second time through, okay, this is kind of the point of the movie. It’s it’s a kind of satire in a sense that, I really enjoyed it for being relatively pretty clever in that regard.

Craig: So Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s a little silly but it’s kinda fun and, you know, you’ve got these I’ll I’ll continue to call them valley girls because that’s kinda how they’re described in the movie’s description, but they’re not entirely flat characters. In fact, I found both of the main characters to be very likable, you know, like, they’re they’re they’re kind of charming and endearing and and Reggie is kind of the tougher one, you know. She’s the brunette, and and she’s kinda the more street smart savvy one. Sam is her little sister, and though they don’t look like sisters at all, they have completely no, not at all. They they have completely different looks, but, she’s kind of the younger, a little bit more naive one, but they have good chemistry together.

Todd: They do.

Craig: You know, if if you don’t believe them as sisters, you can at least believe them as as friends and and they’re, you know, they’re they’re cute. And I I read that the director, he was inspired by these actual teenagers that he met, and then I also read that, Joss Whedon was inspired by this movie, to create the character of Buffy Summers, who is one of my absolute favorite characters in fiction, horror, whatever you wanna call it, you know. This girl who is on the surface seemingly very superficial and and silly and, you know, you wouldn’t give her, you know, much attention probably, but ultimately very capable of taking care of herself and, fighting monsters and all that good stuff. And so, if nothing else, I at least appreciate this movie for inspiring that character because love that movie, love even more the series that came after it. It’s got a little bit of that feel, not entirely, like, if you’re a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan like I am, it’s not like you’re gonna watch this movie and feel like it’s a long lost episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or anything, but you at least get a similar feel and I appreciated that. I don’t even know where to begin with the plot because seriously, it’s just these these 2 girls going about their business and Reggie works at the local movie theater. She’s an usher and Sam is a cheerleader and they’ve got this mom, stepmom, evil stepmom, I guess, whose name is Doris. They they they only refer to her as Doris, and I just think Doris is a funny name. And the the the mom is played by, Sharon Farrell, who I always remember most from Can’t Buy Me Love, but she was also the mom in It Lives, which we’ve talked about. Mhmm. The setup is that everybody’s waiting for this comet and and Reggie’s at work and, Sam is at home and Doris is, you know, being a bitch and Sam, like, trying to boss Sam around and

Clip: I want you home in 5 minutes after you finish work. If you wanna watch The Comet, you can do it here. Look, Doris, Like, I’m 18, okay, and I can watch the comet wherever I wanna watch the comet.

Craig: And it’s that type of dialogue. Yeah.

Clip: Which is

Craig: It just kills me.

Todd: And and, honestly, this dialogue is even funnier because of the the discord of the actresses. They’re supposed to be 18. It took about half of the movie for me to get in my mind that they were 18 because they do not look 18 at all.

Craig: No. I don’t know. Maybe Sam. Sam looks like she could be young, but Maybe. They’re they’re they’re probably 20 somethings.

Todd: It’s just sillier coming out of the these mouths of these women who seem so much older Todd me anyway than 18.

Craig: Well, and there’s I mean, the whole the whole beginning, like, really, I’m looking at my notes and it’s so silly. Like, Doris is throwing a party, you know, a comet party or whatever, and I guess that she’s flirting with one of the neighbors, Chuck. And, Sam says to her

Clip: You were born with an asshole, Doris. You don’t need Chuck.

Craig: And then and then Doris punches her. Like like, it’s so it’s so silly and and so funny.

Todd: The whole movie’s kinda like that too. The lines that are funny, but they’re kind of corny too.

Craig: Oh, they’re totally corny and, like, they’re totally scripted.

Todd: I I

Craig: have to give I have to give these actresses credit because they deliver the lines so naturally. Like, the lines themselves are are so silly, but these girls just go for it. Like Yeah. Like, yeah. This is how we talk. What? And, so, Reg Reggie and her boyfriend, the projectionist, Larry, get it on in the projection room. And then there’s the comet. The comet comes and there’s all these flashing lights and weird stuff going on, and then all of a sudden it’s morning and there’s sunrise and we see these shots of Los Angeles and it’s just like complete desolation. There’s no cars on the Todd, there’s nobody out around, and then when we see closer shots on, like, the streets, like on the streets where Doris was throwing her party, there’s just these clothes strewn about everywhere. Apparently, everybody just if what’s the word? I don’t know. Like, incinerated. Disintegrated. Disintegrated. Yeah. It’s Yeah. Everybody turned into dust.

Todd: Yeah. It’s vague, and I was looking for is there some symbolism here? Am I how does this work? And then it just gets more confusing when you realize that the people who are living and are left, there’s still some threat of some of them turning into these zombies. I don’t know. You can’t really unpack it. I think it’s just you gotta take it for what it is.

Craig: Well, they give a stupid explanation that if you happened to be in a steel enclosure when all of this happened Yeah. Then you were okay. Reggie and her boyfriend were in the projection room, which has steel walls. Sam, because of her fight with Doris, went and slept in the tool shed, which apparently has steel walls. So and so Reg and Larry wake up in the morning and I just have I couldn’t help but write these lines down because they were so funny. Reggie says to Larry

Clip: Oh, jeez. Don’t I get an egg with muffin or anything?

Craig: Oh, god. It’s so great. But Larry, I guess, had, like, lent out a projection reel to somebody overnight, and they were supposed to bring it back. And they haven’t brought it back yet, And so he’s all freaked out. And so he goes out to check and see if this guy is out there, and this homeless zombie attacks him with a wrench.

Todd: Right as he opens the door, the whole sequence reminded me of the first kill in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Craig: Okay.

Todd: Where he where he opens the I don’t know, man. Where he opens the door, you know, he’s going through this, like, really quiet house, and he opens the door and suddenly without any warning there’s a zombie on the other side who whacks him with a wrench and he’s, like, completely dead. Then the next shot is a wider shot and the zombie pulls him through the door and closes it. It just seemed completely evocative of Chex’s chainsaw massacre. Okay. But alright. Just just an observation.

Craig: Take it or leave it. No. No. That’s good. That’s a good connection. You’ve seen lots of horror movies. Right.

Todd: Thanks, Craig, for not patronizing me.

Craig: Oh, wait. That was the teacher in me coming out. Good. That’s good. I would have never thought of that, but good.

Todd: The movie is stylishly shot, and that’s kind of one of the big things it has going for it. It’s rather silly, and it’s fun and funny but in a corny way. But the fact that it’s shot so stylishly, gives a little edge over its budget. The the movie had only like a $700,000 budget and by Todd it shows some of the scenery and the lighting and all this stuff. They’re they’re really trying to make the most of very little. But the fact that it is really well There’s some really interesting camera angles. There’s some really interesting nods to other films in there. I thought it showed that the director really really put a lot of craft and art in it. It made it more interesting to watch.

Craig: Well, and that was one of the things that I was struck by. I mean, they this is filmed in Los Angeles and they had to, in the days before CGI, find ways to make Los Angeles look completely uninhabited. And there are all of these shots, and they’re actually kind of really striking because when you think of Los Angeles, you think of it as being just, you know, a madhouse. 1 giant traffic tram. Yeah. Right. And and there are all these shots of the streets of Los Angeles just completely barren, and they pulled all of that off practically, you know, they they shot in the very early morning hours when traffic was lower and they just did really quick shoots like when the traffic lights would have traffic held off of certain blocks of, Los Angeles, so it would look like it was completely desolate. I guess that, you know, it was really a challenge, and they ended up I know that they did some shooting, like, in the very early Todd of these days, you know, if there’s a window washer in the background of your desolate shot, you just erase them with CGI. Well, they they couldn’t do that, and so I guess maybe there’s 1 or 2 shots I certainly didn’t notice, but there are 1 or 2 shots when I guess if you look closely there are, like, window washers in the background or something.

Todd: Oh, interesting. Because I was looking.

Craig: Well, yeah. For the most part, it looks very real and it’s kind of surprising, that they were able to do that. And in another case of where these limitations really force you to get creative,

Todd: I think what he does with all of these outdoor shots and desolate shots is they all have this really reddish orange as you cast to them. It’s it’s like a filter. It’s a gradiated filter that you’d put over the camera so that the top, you know, looks really really red and it kinda fades down to orange. But I’m positive that the reason he did that was also just to keep colour consistency across it. So no matter whether he shot in the morning or the afternoon or in the evening on whatever days in the whatever weather, he could make all of those shots kind of appear that they were done on a single day. But it also happens to lend this real cool stylized effect to it where every time we’re outside we get this reddish cast and then whenever we’re inside it tends to be blues and greens, excessively, quite honestly, like almost like a dream really. It’s stylish, but also almost to the point of ridiculousness when it gets inside because there’s smoke where there shouldn’t be smoke. And Sure. Like the radio station they end up going to after they retreat to a radio station, right, after this whole thing happens.

Craig: Yeah. Because it because the radio is still going, so they think there must be somebody there.

Todd: So they go to this radio station. It turns out that it’s just on, you know, auto play.

Craig: But this radio station I was in radio for

Todd: a brief while and I’d love how they portray radio stations on TV. They make them look like a music lover’s paradise. They’re these huge open studios with all this great decoration. This one, it makes it look like a dance club. It’s like dim lighting. There’s, like, neon flashing everywhere in there. I I had to, like, rewind to remind myself, where the hell are they? Because I thought they were in a radio station. This is so ridiculously not a radio station. At times, it looks like it’s a health club because it has, like, a room that’s like a gym in there. Like, what? How could this possibly be a radio station? But it it lends a very, eighties Mhmm. Stylized feel to it.

Craig: It is funny. They, you know, they go to that radio station and, like, there’s nobody there. But Sam eventually gets on the radio and, well and while they’re there, another guy shows up, Hector, hot Latin guy. Thank you. Like, that’s his role. It’s like Yeah. Good good looking Latino guy Last man on Earth. Right. That they can kinda squabble over. And, he’s he’s clearly more interested in Regina, which makes Sam Supremely jealous. Right. But, they they meet up there and and Sam goes on the radio for a second and she gets she’s, like, call the hit line if you are around or whatever, like, she sees the the phone for the call in line or whatever. So she gives out the number, and then she gets this weird call, but it gets cut off and, she says, I I couldn’t really understand what they were saying but it sounds like they were like part of a think tank or some sort of experiment in the desert or something. And then that introduces a component of the movie which frankly, I could have just done without. I mean, when it boils down to it, it’s kind of necessary, I suppose. It is because without it, there is no story. Right. It’s true. This is true.

Todd: It’s not. This think tank provides the only antagonist, the only conflict that just happens to them, yeah, while they’re out hanging out. That’s the only thing to resolve in this plot.

Craig: And it’s not necessarily that it’s it’s a bad plot element. I just feel like it’s executed poorly, like Terribly. There’s there’s this this this group of scientists who apparently knew the comet was coming so they, I guess, hold themselves up somewhere and they were gonna be the last people and, like, they didn’t expect there to be survivors and so now they’re trying to figure out what to do with the survivors. And it’s also contrived, like, you learn all of this over the course of the last, I don’t know, 45 minutes of the movie or whatever, but they didn’t expect there to be survivors. But now that there are, they don’t know what to do with them and, like, this site there’s a lady scientist. There’s one main lady scientist who seems really mean and, like, she’s the mean lady scientist who doesn’t care about the survivors or whatever. But she says at one point, we forgot to close the vents, and so we’re all infected. Like like like, they they knew this comet was coming, and they knew what it was gonna do, and they knew it was gonna happen, but they forgot to close the vents. So now, like, they’re all infected or something. Meanwhile, Sam, who slept in a garden shed, is fine.

Todd: That’s right. And these scientists keep in mind are, like, deep down inside a mountain fortress in the rock or I mean, it’s it’s this crazy ridiculous isolated underground compound which you have no idea what it’s for during non comet hours. Right? Like, what were they doing before the comet came? What was their purpose? It’s thinking,

Craig: I guess. Yeah. It’s really hard to say.

Todd: They’re just let’s just say nondescript super secret scientists who were working on something, but then this comet thing came and they somehow knew that this comet would be bad, unlike the rest of the world. And instead of trying to do anything about or warning anybody about it, they hold themselves up inside. Now when you said that they forgot to close the vents, I misinterpreted this or reinterpreted it because she says that they left the vents open a little bit, I think is what she said, because they hope they could develop a serum. And so my take on this was that the scientists purposely infected themselves a little bit so that they could develop a serum. Like like, they could make themselves, like like, kind of, like, vaccinated, like, expose themselves just a little bit but not enough so it would it would, inoculate them a little bit. I’m at am I misinterpreting this entirely? Because that’s how I heard it. But but but, of course, it did wasn’t working out great for them. It just meant that they were going to zombification just a little slower than everybody else.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. But if that was their plan, that was really stupid. All of it’s stupid. Either way you

Todd: go, it’s stupid. But they’re, like, super serious, these guys, like, to the point of ridiculousness. It’s total b movie schlock.

Craig: It well, it is. It’s very b movie, you know, like, the evil scientists, you know. And, like, seriously, they are just there to provide some sort of

Todd: Conflict.

Craig: Conflict. Right. And and they’re totally unimportant and I’m bored with them and I would totally just watch these girls Yeah. See what they do. That’s true.

Todd: And did they listen in? Like, there’s this odd thing where she hangs up the phone or they hang up the phone, and so she’s not on the phone anymore. But then the camera zooms in on one of the mics in the radio room, and it’s like back at the super scientist secret laboratory, they can hear their conversation carry on.

Craig: Like I don’t know. There was some like, did they tap into the mic that was off in this radio station to get this information?

Todd: It was it was so it was so bizarre.

Clip: There’s no reason for us to bring those people or any other survivors back here.

Todd: What about the disintegration factor? You just wanna let that happen?

Clip: And you don’t know that the condition is progressive. I think we’ve established that, Audrey. Partial protection seems to result in a slowing of the overall effect, but progression is steady in any case. Drying of the body fluids

Craig: Oh, get to the point. Transition. We’ve heard this

Clip: a thousand times.

Todd: Ultimately What about the dust? Ultimately,

Clip: there is nothing left but calcium dust. Right. So there isn’t even enough hope to warrant bringing anybody back here.

Todd: But, anyway, these guys are gonna go out and get these girls. Because, you know, if there are survivors, you find out that they’re going to collect them and try to determine if they’ve been infected or not. And I guess if they haven’t been infected then their blood can be used to Todd Craig some kind of serum to keep everybody else inoculated or alive?

Craig: Yeah. I guess. And and that comes later. There are things that come before this that I wanna talk about because they’re my favorite parts of the movie, but, yeah, like, they’re collecting these people and, like, it’s it’s so when when we Todd these people that, I guess, they think are not infected so they can use their blood as, like, an antidote or something. And so they’re just, like, they kill them, I guess, because they say that they’re brain dead. Like, one of the ladies is, like, oh, I feel bad taking his blood and she’s, like, oh, well, we already disabled his brain so he’s brain dead anyway, so what difference does it make? And then and then they’ve got these 2 little kids there.

Clip: Why don’t we prep the children? When we’re finished with them, we can start on that girl. They’re so cute. I love working with kids.

Craig: Like, let’s kill them and drain their blood. It’s Yeah. It’s it’s so it’s so goofy. But before we get to all be because the whole last act of the movie deals with the scientists, but that’s boring.

Todd: It is.

Craig: What comes before that is so much more fun. Sam, has a nightmare about zombie cops chasing her and, like, Hector, he knows that his family is probably dead, but he he needs to go and and make sure and he does and they are and he encounters other zombies or whatever. But when Sam has this bad dream and she wakes up and she’s all upset and Regina’s, like, I know it will make you feel better. So they go to the mall. And then there is a shopping fashion montage Todd girls just wanna have fun.

Todd: Oh, it’s

Craig: delightful. I could have just watched that all day. Like, if if that had been the whole movie.

Todd: That’s that is the eighties encapsulated into one sequence right there.

Craig: Oh my god. It’s so funny. They’re just going like, they’re going around the mall. They’re trying on clothes, and somehow I feel like they loosely explained it, like their dad was in the military or something so they know where the the reserve is or something. You don’t actually see them getting the weapons, but somehow they get, like Uzis. Yeah. These machine guns and they’re, like, target practicing with the machine guns and and then they’re they’re trying on clothes and, like, they just casually set their machine guns down while they’re trying on clothes.

Todd: The casual nature of these girls’ familiarity with weapons and ability to use them is part of what makes us so hilarious.

Craig: I mean It is hilarious.

Todd: Look at it as intentional. Again, parody, they’re really trying to be funny, or you can look at it as absolute schlock. And I think it’s both. I’m really not willing to say what what, you know, one or the other, but it it does make it fun

Craig: to watch. And it oh my god.

Todd: For what it’s worth, you’ve got some very empowered women here leading this this story which I think is what makes it so interesting. Like you said, like, Buffy, even though they’re valley girl and they’re absolutely not at all they seem so clueless as to not at all be concerned about anything they should be concerned about or be emotional about any of bit of the people they’ve lost. Although, there is one little sequence where they talk a bit about, oh, the boy that they liked at school or whatever that, Sam does. Aside from that, they’re not acting at all like you would imagine people would act during this time. Still, when it comes to protecting and defending themselves, they they can do it. Yeah.

Craig: And it’s it’s adorable. And I totally see, you know, I can’t say the Buffy influence because obviously this came before, but I can see how this influenced Buffy because, eventually, you know, they’re at the mall. They’re trying out clothes. They’re having a great time. It’s super fun. But then it turns out that some sort of gang of thugs has, like, taken over the store,

Clip: I guess. The

Todd: Stockboys. The Stockboys at the mall. They must have been in I don’t know. Was the the warehouse the stock warehouse also steel?

Craig: I don’t know. I guess so. I also read there was, like, I don’t know, 20, 30th or something, Well, they did a commentary, which I would die to hear. I would love to hear that on the Blu Craig. But, they they talked about how they had so much fun in this mall scene, like, it was the middle of the night, like, it was an actual mall that the producers rented out for the or whatever, and they literally just got to run around and do whatever they want, and, they got to try on all these clothes and they had an absolute blast, And they said that the the production crew had such a great time too because they could just break any like, they they could break anything they wanted, and they were just, like, throwing stuff down and, like, they just had a great time. But, eventually, these mall thugs, show up, and there’s kinda, like, there’s a little bit of back and forth, like, the girls left one of their guns somewhere where the mall thugs got it, but they still have one of them and there’s kind of this shootout between and the girls are kind of separated and Reggie is the badass one with the gun and she’s, you know, totally taking people out left and right and, like, doing funny things, like pretending to be a mannequin so they don’t notice that she’s there, and then she turns around with her machine gun.

Todd: Oh, it’s total 80 schlock because the the these thugs have, you know, it’s indoors, it’s dark, and they’re all wearing sunglasses and shades. Like, half of them are, like, shirtless and, like, yeah, I mean, it is so so eighties.

Craig: It is. It’s hilarious. The whole scene reminded me of the scene from Mannequin where they run around and

Todd: Oh, yeah.

Craig: Sorry. I I love that movie.

Todd: I used to watch it.

Craig: We’ll never do it on this podcast, but folks, I recommend it if you’re looking for eighties mannequin. But anyway, so but the reason that it reminded me so much of Buffy is because Sam, the one without the gun, is running around kind of doing, like, tricky things, like, tricking them into being in the wrong place at the wrong time or and and when she ends up being confronted by them, she always has some really quirky quip to say to them.

Clip: How do you like that? You can’t hit anything.

Todd: That’s right. Like, they have no care in the world.

Craig: Oh, Todd. It’s so funny. Well, they end up killing all those guys. Then the the scientists show up and I I feel like, well, I said they kill all of them. That’s a lie. They actually end up getting captured and they’re chained together. Oh, yeah. And the crazy thug guy is, like, threatening to shoot them both

Clip: at the

Craig: same time, but then the scientists show up.

Todd: This is the part I don’t understand. When she notices the girls in the mall on the security cameras, he says, it’s time boys. And they all go out and try to kill these ladies. And I’m thinking, why? What is his end game here? Like, why are these guys trying to kill these women who came into the mall? I mean, you would think that there’d be a purpose that they would serve. Right. But they don’t end up killing them once they’ve got them. Instead, he seats them down chained up. This is so dramatic. They’re like chained back to back in the stock room. And he explains to them, we’re the stock boys, and we own this mall and blah blah blah, yada yada yada. And she’s like, well, what do you want? What do you want from us? Like, Todd do you want us to pay everything back? And I’m sitting here going, yeah. Like, what do you guys want with them? Like, I am dying to see what you want with them. And he says to them,

Clip: you wouldn’t believe what we want from you. In your worst nightmare you wouldn’t believe.

Craig: What does that mean? Yeah.

Todd: I’m like, oh, I’m on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what this is gonna be. And then he just starts playing Russian roulette with one of them. Yeah. And then the scientists swoop in and shoot them at the last minute. Because just before this, the scientists went to the radio station, they weren’t there, and they looked at each other. And one says, let’s try using some deductive reasoning. And the female scientist is, like, oh, deductive reasoning. And she runs away. And he says, where would 2 teenage girls who have nothing to do want to go? They look at each other knowingly. To a shopping mall. And that’s what that’s what leads them to this shopping mall. Must be the only one in the city.

Craig: You saying it sounds so stupid. I mean, you saying anything sounds stupid, but, you saying that sounds so stupid that, like, that’s literally what they say.

Todd: It is indeed. It is indeed.

Clip: Let’s go back.

Craig: Let’s apply a little deductive reasoning.

Clip: Deductive reasoning?

Craig: Where would adolescents with nothing to do go? They also they also they also refer to the mall as the shopping arcade. Yes. Well, at what point he says never heard in my life.

Todd: In some really on point dialogue. Just, you know, this movie has no subtlety. He says, well, this entire area is a capitalist is a is a is a capitalist palace or whatever, but let’s try the shopping mall first or something like that. Really, I mean, I think you guys are going for social commentary here in the writing, but you’re not making it subtle at all. No.

Craig: And it’s yeah. Wrong place, wrong time. So the scientists show up and this is the part of their movie that really bothers me because Sam has kind of been complaining that she has a rash and and she says, I get rashes. You know, when I’m nervous in stressful situations, I get rashes, whatever, but she’s been scratching at her or whatever. And she makes the mistake of saying that in front of the scientist. So the scientists take Reggie away and what they say, well, we’re gonna leave Sam here so that we can wait for Hector to come back, because Hector is supposed to be coming back. Now this just didn’t make any sense to me at all. If it were an apocalyptic event and I were with one person, whether it be my sibling or my partner who whomever it was, the last thing that I would do Is separate. Would allow somebody to separate us. Like, it doesn’t make any sense. And Reggie, like, they show the helicopter flying away and, like, Reggie smiling and waving, like, bye. See you later. No. That’s so stupid. And it it turns out it is stupid because evil lady scientist is, like, talking to Sam and she’s, like, oh, you have a rash? And Sam’s, like, oh, yeah. I get a rash sometimes. She’s, like, oh, okay. Well, I’m gonna give you this injection. It’ll make you feel better. Again, no. I’m I’m just gonna go ahead and pass on the injection, scary scientist lady.

Todd: I’ll work this out on my own. Thank you.

Craig: Yeah. I get rashes. It happens. I’m fine. Thanks. But so this lady gives her an injection, and she dies. Like, okay. I’m I’m making that sound really dramatic. She doesn’t really die. But in the moment and, again, it’s been 15 years since I’ve seen this. But in the moment, I thought, oh my Todd. They just killed her. She’s my favorite character. It was

Todd: this was, I’m I mean, when I saw this scene, I was like, oh my word. And it for the first time in this movie, I had an emotional response. Like, it was pretty heartbreaking. Just the whole situation is heartbreaking.

Craig: Well, in part part of the reason that I think that it was so heartbreaking is because it was not played super dramatically, like No. The lady just gives the lady gives her the injection and she just kind of keeps talking very nonchalantly the way that she always has been and then she just goes out, and I really thought she was dead. I I was mad. I was, like, you are kidding me. You’re kidding me that you just killed off my favorite character. Mhmm. But, again, folks, she’s not really dead.

Todd: She comes back. But that pissed me off.

Craig: I know it did. It pissed me off too. And I have written in my notes later, Sam’s not dead exclamation point. The lady scientist tricked the other scientist, which is yeah. Yeah. I I yeah. That that’s what it is, because then we go back to Reg and Reg is being questioned by another scientist, doctor Carter, who’s played by Jeffrey Lewis, who is so recognizable. And I looked at his IMDB page and he’s been in, like, a bazillion things, but nothing so notable that I could even mention it. But I swear to God, you’ll recognize find out

Clip: that

Craig: they’re harvesting blood from the survivors. And we also find out that the scientists are losing it. Like, they’re deteriorating because they left the vents open or whatever. And, this doctor Carter tells Reg your sister’s dead, then they’re, you know, they’re harvesting blood from people. And there are these 2 kids around, and the the 2 kids really serve no purpose except for Todd be, like, like, to make the audience be, like, they’re not really gonna kill the kids, are they? Like, that’s the whole reason they’re there. Basically. And, so eventually, Reggie, she breaks a chair or something and she knocks out this scientist and she’s running around the facility and everybody’s looking for her. And Hector, who okay. So Hector had gone back to the Craig station, where the lady scientist who quote unquote killed Sam is waiting for him and she kind of gives him the lowdown on what’s going on and then she injects herself with something, presumably killing herself. Yeah. But apparently, she gave him enough information that he can go find this hidden facility and he shows up there and he starts, like, setting bombs and stuff. But when he shows up, he shows up at the guard gate, and he’s like, hey, partner. Like, he plays like this Cowboy. Cowboy. It’s hilarious. Yeah. He’s talking to the guard at the gate. He’s like, hey. You like girls? Let me show you something. And he opens up the trunk, and dead Sam is in there and the guards, like, she’s dead. And he’s, like, no, she’s not. And then she pops up and I’m, like, yes, she’s not dead. Thank God. I was super glad.

Todd: I felt cheated. I felt cheated of the emotional yeah. I felt cheated of the emotional moment that was created earlier of Sam dying. I mean, if you had left that in the film, that would have cast a real shadow over the rest of it. And I think given it some serious weight instead of make it this fluffy, goofy b movie that it that it ends up being. Not that it I mean, it needed a lot more than that, but I’m just saying, I would thought that was a really powerful scene, and then to have her spring up later. No, I’m not dead after all. It’s kinda, oh, please.

Craig: I get what you’re saying because that scene where I thought she was dead really was a gut punch for me. Yeah. So I I I get what you’re saying, but I want this movie to be The stage white. Cheesy and funny.

Todd: Mhmm. I get that. Right.

Craig: I want it to be I want it to be light. And so I was glad when she came back. And I I think that had she stayed dead, it would’ve not that it would have ruined the movie for me or anything, but it it it really made me sad, Todd.

Todd: Poor Craig. I’m so sorry.

Craig: And I and I didn’t want her to be dead. So I was glad when she wasn’t. I was glad when she came back. We removed we review

Todd: all these films where people are just, like, torn limb for limb and shit like this. And you really really want this drill to survive, or else you’re gonna hate this film. That’s right. We’ve come to the core of your being

Craig: right here. Alright. And so then we’re in the scientist place and, like, we’ve got this goofy scene with these 2, like, heartless nurses who have already killed 1 guy, and now they’re gonna kill these kids. They really like working with kids, but they don’t have any problem killing them. And, like, they’re getting ready to inject them with this stuff that’s gonna make them brain dead, apparently. And the kids are like, wait. I thought you weren’t gonna give us a shot. And they’re like, oh, well, it’s just a a a quick shot, and then once you get it, you’ll get sleeping, you’ll go to sleep. And when you wake up, you’ll be at the North Pole with Santa and you’ll be with Santa forever.

Todd: Where did they pull that from?

Craig: I forgot to say. I can’t believe that I forgot to say. This is a Christmas movie, friends. It takes place right on Christmas. There’s Christmas music throughout.

Todd: Yeah. It’ll pass right by you.

Craig: It’s not really a Christmas movie, but it’s set at Christmas.

Todd: The silliest thing about this scene, aside from this whole notion that they’re telling them that Santa, is these kids look like they’re 1213, but they’re being played as that they were 5 and 6 years old. The girl’s running around with the teddy bear and they’re talking, like,

Clip: what’s this? Oh, blah blah blah.

Craig: Yeah. They’re totally obnoxious movie kids.

Todd: Oh, my gosh.

Craig: When the nurse is like, you’ll go with Santa, and the boy’s like, there’s no such thing as Santa. And then the scary, ominous scientist is standing in the door, and he says, what? You don’t believe in Santa?

Todd: That’s gonna help.

Craig: Oh, god. It’s really funny. It is. It is. My other favorite line there is when they’re trying to give the kids gas and, like, I feel like you don’t even see the kids when this, like, somebody’s coming through a door, so this is just kind of in the background. But the little girl says

Clip: I don’t know. My parents told me never to breathe anything from strangers.

Todd: Oh, man.

Craig: Oh, somebody had Todd have written that line on the set and said, just say it. Say it.

Todd: You probably won’t include it. Nobody’s stupid enough to include it, but please say it.

Craig: Oh, god. It was so funny. Okay. And so then so everybody gets back together. Reg and Sam reunite and they they take the kids and they go out and they find Hector and Hector’s got the getaway car and, like, they start to drive away and then he stops and, they’re like, what are you doing? And he’s like, hold on a second. I wanna see something. And all the scientists get in a van and, like, he’s obviously placed a bomb there, so when they started it explodes. But then a zombie scientist attacks the car and then Hector shoots the zombie and then apparently they’re fine and we cut and then we cut to what I guess is the next day or soon thereafter and it’s raining and the rain washes away all of the scary red dust from the dead people. And it also washes away the filter from the camera because the sky is not red anymore. And then we see Reggie and Hector and the kids and they’re a nice little family and they’re dressed in very eighties fashion clothes.

Todd: Oh, and this was so cute because now suddenly valley girl teenager who hates her mom and everybody so lame turns into the doting stereotypical goofy mom and is setting the kids up for a picture that she’s taking.

Craig: Yeah. It’s cute. Yeah. I guess Sam is on the other side of the street and so the kids are wanting to run over to them and Regina’s like, no, you can’t cross against the light, and they’re like, what are you talking about? There’s no trick. I know. And and she says, the whole burden of civilization has fallen on us. We have to teach these kids the right way to do things. And Sam’s like, oh, that’s stupid. There’s no traffic. I can just dance in the middle of the street. So she does, and then this sports car comes racing around the corner and almost hits her and there’s this cute teenage guy about her age in the driver’s seat. He’s like, what are you doing? You can’t just why did you cross against the light? And so now she’s, you know, Hector and Reg are this cute little family with their 2.5 kids or whatever, and now, apparently, Sam’s got a little cute boyfriend and they ride off into the sunset and then Reg and Hector and the kids play football in the street and it’s so cute, and then a cute eighties love power ballad comes on and, and the end.

Todd: That’s it. That’s it. It’s so charming in its pure eightiesness. I I I have a feeling that if, you know, our listeners who are younger than us who maybe don’t have the the level of nostalgia that you and I have for this time period are probably not gonna have wrung as much enjoyment from this movie as we Oh,

Craig: no. Yeah. Oh, no. Absolutely not. I mean, I I I think that this movie, you know, when it came out it it It did well. It didn’t make much. It Todd it do well?

Todd: It it made 14,000,000 from a $700,000 budget. Wow. That’s really good. It almost instantly became a cult classic. Now, I mean, it didn’t it wasn’t a mainstream hit. Let’s put it that way, but, yeah, cult classic.

Craig: Well, and it, you know, there are lots of fans of it now. I think that it was funny that the working title of the movie was Teenage Mutant Horror Comet Zombies. I think it would have

Todd: been even more successful if it had been.

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s kind of a stretch, but I don’t I I do think for me, you know, a child of the eighties, the nostalgia of it, that’s what endears it to me. It’s a cute movie. It’s cute. It’s funny and the lead actresses are super Adorable. Yeah. They’re adorable and you really really like them. That maybe is cross generational, but for me, it’s the nostalgia of the eighties. Like, I and it’s it’s funny because we keep talking about, like, eighties fashion. Yeah. It’s eighties fashion, but in the way that eighties fashion was portrayed in the movies. Yes. Over the top. People didn’t really Yes. Most people didn’t really wear those things.

Todd: Those were the things that movie stars and people in movies wore. Yep.

Craig: Right. But it’s definitely identifiable as as totally eighties and, I just have such nostalgia for that time period. I don’t know, you know, watching it again for the second time, there were there were times when I’m, like, dude, why did you pick this? Yeah. To myself. And then there were times when I’m like, oh, yeah. Now I remember. Yeah. Yeah. It’s fun. It’s just it’s fun. It’s it’s it’s not high standards as far as cinematography and filmmaking go, but it’s not poorly made. It’s it’s well made and, it’s it’s just a cute and it’s funny. It’s quirky. It’s not scary. It’s not scary. No. But it’s cute and quirky and funny, and I I like it.

Todd: It’s cheap. It’s the USA up all night film, you know. I bet they ran this

Craig: But a good one. Sometimes. Yeah. That’s what that’s what I kept thinking. It’s like those movies, but better done than most of them.

Todd: Less boring for most of it. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed it for many the same reasons you did, but I as I said, I had to watch it a second time before I could truly appreciate it, but I was motivated to watch it a second time.

Clip: So I

Todd: think that says something.

Craig: Good. Well, I’m glad you liked it.

Todd: Thank you again, Craig, for not being patronizing.

Craig: That’s what I’m here for. Alright. Alright. Well, thanks folks for listening to another edition of, 2 guys in a chainsaw. Oh, man. You’d think we do this all for you, but we don’t. We just do it to get together. Get together and laugh and hang out together, but we hope you enjoy listening to it. And if you do, you can find us all over the place. You can find us on, Facebook, on Stitcher, on Itunes, on Google Play. We’re all over the place. Any place that you can find your favorite podcast, you’ll be able to find us. We’d love to hear what you think of this movie or what you think of our thoughts on the movie. So please feel free to drop by our Facebook page and leave us a comment. We love interacting with you. Until next time. I’m Craig And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.