Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987)

Episode 158, 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. And I’m Craig. Well, Craig, today I think we finish up our month of requests, but we have received so many requests this month. We’ll probably do some more requests in the near future after after February. What do you what do you think?

Craig: Oh yeah, definitely. We’ve gotten some really good ones.

Todd: You know, we feel a little guilty doing a month of requests and during that month saying, hey send in your requests, when really we’ve already pre-selected

Craig: all of the requests. And pre-recorded.

Todd: It’s true. Sorry, folks. So we’re gonna honor those requests that are coming in starting, probably starting in March, because we have something special planned for February that I’ll probably tell you about at the end of this podcast just to keep you listening.

Craig: This week’s movie is actually a really nice transition.

Todd: It is, isn’t it? Because we could have done it for February. Yeah. So today’s movie was recommended by Tommy and it is Hello Mary Lou! Prom Night 2, the 1987 supposed sequel to Prom Night. That being said, it bears no relationship whatsoever really with the previous film. In fact, it was originally written as a completely different film, and the producers just renamed it Prom Night 2 to capitalize on the popularity and success of the original Prom Night. I mean, they have some similarities. They both have to do with Prom Night. They both have a principle that is highly involved in the stuff that’s going on. There is murder that happens in this movie, and they’re both Canadian productions. This has to be the most Canadian of Canadian movies we’ve seen thus far on this.

Craig: Oh my gosh. I don’t know I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know if I know what the characteristics of a Canadian movie are but if totally kind of weird and crazy is how you define Canadian movies then yeah Totally Canadian. No the other I was also reading they were like, they said there were other connections like the the high school has the same name as the high school in the original movie and supposedly that was totally coincidence. I don’t know, I find that a little suspect.

Todd: That’s a little hard to believe. I read that the director was, or actually the writer was asked to go in and do some additional directing on a couple more scenes when they decided to rename it. Maybe to give a little more tie-in and also I think they decided that the blood or whatever needed to be amped up just a little bit even though there’s or I don’t know they just didn’t feel like it really worked as well as it could and so he went in and added a few more scenes and I don’t know you can see a list on the trivia of it, but I don’t really see how those few more scenes really did anything different to an otherwise weird movie that’s a bunch of weird scenes strung together anyway.

Craig: Yeah, I read the same thing that you did, and the scenes that were put in post, they’re some of the crazier scenes, so I feel like they were trying to dial it up a little bit but I don’t know I had never seen this movie before I own it I’ve owned it for years but I had never watched it and you know I had heard a little bit about it here and there. I knew that it wasn’t really a direct sequel and I had heard that it was kind of, you know, it has a little bit of a cult following and but that’s kind of all I knew about it. And I was watching it and I just, it was so weird. Like it reminded me of so many things like I feel like I don’t know if it was inspired by directly or if I was just ripped off connections but yeah well it totally did It’s a mess like

Todd: it’s a mess of a movie. It’s like it’s like I think it’s a movie of ripoffs. It’s just 1 scene after another references some other horror better horror movie

Craig: well like they explicitly reference the Exorcist and there’s You know a possession thing going on here. It felt like so much to me. It felt like an early Nightmare on Elm Street movie. In tone and in imagery and stuff, it felt so much like an early Nightmare on Elm Street movie. And then the end is just demon carry, like explicitly. Yeah, it really is. They just take all of these elements from these other movies and paste them all together. And I can’t even really say that it doesn’t work. Like it’s cohesive, I guess. It’s wacky and off the wall, but I don’t know. I mean, I had a good time watching

Todd: it. I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun talking about it. I was really excited when Tommy recommended this movie and I think I really push for it because I remember remembering this movie, you know what I mean? Like, the cover, I knew I owned the VHS tape and in my mind I was thinking, oh yeah, as a kid I watched this all the time. I think we’re pretty honest about ourselves on this podcast. I think, you know, what we make up, what we might lack in intelligence and witty dialogue we might make up for in telling pretty personal stories about ourselves. Yeah. You know, we lay

Craig: it out for our viewers and- I’m worried about what you’re going to say. There’s only so much I need to know about your adolescence, Todd.

Todd: I think upon reflection, let’s just say I think I more or less wore out this tape on 1 scene and 1 scene only because that’s the scene I remembered And there is no other scene from this film that rang a bell with me at all. I mean, quite honestly, I really didn’t watch it very often. Just, you know, we’ll get to it. Okay, yeah, all right. There’s me, baring my soul for you guys. No, this movie, like you said, it feels like Carrie crossed with Nightmare on Elm Street. It really does. And then, like you said, there’s an exorcist bit thrown in, and then there are just bits and pieces of pretty typical genre fare throughout the movie. I felt it was like pretty predictable in many ways, although there were a few surprises. I think the unpredictability came from just the wackiness. You’re like, oh so this is gonna happen, You know,

Craig: and not knowing where it

Todd: was all going to end up. But at the end of the day, where it ends up is about where you’d expect it to end up. So, yeah, I mean, let’s just dive in. This starts out with a sort of flashback sequence in 1957. Well, I should say it starts out with a bunch of just credits and some shots of the high school being empty. And then it takes us to a trunk that I thought originally was in an attic, but I think later we find out it’s in the basement and the trunk is ominously zoomed in upon and kind of shakes and lights up or whatever. And then we go back to our flashback, 1957 prom at this school. Maybe before that there’s the confessional scene?

Craig: As the title would indicate, prom night 2, hello Mary Lou, which is a hilarious title by the way. Yeah. But yeah, this girl Mary Lou, she’s living her life in the face or whatever. She sure is. And she’s like, she’s real pretty and I couldn’t tell if this was like a Catholic school or if it was just like adjacent to a church. Like I couldn’t tell. But anyway, she goes to confession and her confession is hilarious. So funny and so cliched, but I love it. And then it goes to their prom in 1957 and she is a prom queen nominee and there’s all kinds of intrigue. I guess that she’s dating this guy named Bill, this good looking guy, and he gives her a ring with her initials on it. But then he’s walking around and he can’t find her and he ends up backstage in this gymnasium and he finds her, to say making out is really kind of an understatement. This girl gets around, but she’s making out with this other guy, Buddy, I guess, backstage. And she says something like, it’s not who you come with, it’s who takes you home, or something like that. I don’t know It’s almost like Billy her boyfriend and buddy are friends and then they like kind of commiserate about like oh, yeah you know Mary Lou, and she’s like that or whatever and So she wins prom queen But

Todd: There’s some people in the bathroom making stink bombs or something and Billy takes 1 out of the toilet or something and he goes up as Mary Lou is crowned prom queen in very Carrie fashion He goes to the catwalks above and he lights that and drops it down on her now He’s not really meaning to hurt her but he’s meaning to get back at her for ditching him and

Craig: well, he’s an idiot She’s wearing a taffeta dress. She’s gonna go up like a birthday candle. And she totally does, right?

Todd: Her dress catches fire and she’s up in flames. And I read actually that up until this point this was the longest person on fire stunt that had ever been done.

Craig: It looks pretty good.

Todd: You did, and she’s up in flames for a while.

Craig: Yeah, and it’s cool. I don’t know how much of it is an actual fire effect and how much of it is other movie magic, but it’s kind of cool. You see her face looking at him. And like you said, he didn’t mean to hurt her. He was Just trying to do a prank because she jilted him or whatever like they lock eyes Dramatically and and I mean she just she goes up Part of

Todd: what makes it so funny, what makes it feel so long, it’s like nobody comes in to help her. No. Like everybody’s just standing watching. Buddy Cooper, you know, the guy, makes this sort of half-assed attempt to approach with a coat but just backs right away. And she just burns down in front of everyone in this campus while they just stare. So it’s a little odd in that way. But yeah, so you get your kind of Carrie moment, but clearly she locks eyes with Billy, and you know this is all going to come into play later. And then we end up in the present day. There’s this family, and again it feels like this woman feels like Carrie with friends. She’s totally sissy spaceck-esque, redhead, very, very fair, homely looking. But you know that just with a little bit of eyeliner and stuff, she’s going to look totally hot. She’s sitting there with her family who is and her mom is ultra religious again like Carrie’s mom

Craig: very much

Todd: And this is the point at which the movie just shows its fakeness ineptitude I think probably the way this was written on on the page It looked great But the way that it’s played out you have this extreme dynamic contrast between the mother, who is this prudish, like almost practically Amish woman, you know, sitting there praying and almost talking in King James style English to her daughter very properly, and then her dad, who’s kind of like, oh, you know, whatever Okay, but you know very subservient to the wife and not even in a way that it seems like she’s beaten him down That’s the problem with it It just rings really false because this guy just comes across as a dude who could be really cool and is really cool, but whatever his wife says, all right, I’m just gonna go along with it.

Craig: Yeah, it’s a weird dynamic, and throughout the movie, they appear, and the dynamic remains the same. But every once in a while, he’ll talk about when he and the mom first fell in love and it almost sounds like she might have been normal at 1 point. And somehow now she’s whatever. Now she’s a crazy religious fanatic and like, Well, I guess we just have to deal with it. Like… Yeah, yeah.

Todd: An interesting touch is the next scene is they’re in a 50s style diner drinking coffee. Vicky and Craig are on their date. Now they’re both sitting on the same side of the table drinking coffee as high school students. It’s a little weird. But okay. And they’re just talking about the prom.

Craig: I feel like Vicky is supposed to be the good girl. She’s established very early on as, you expect her to be the final girl, which, spoiler alert, she is, but I think they’re just trying to establish her personality as she may not be as oddly devout as her mom, but she is a good girl. She’s a nice girl, you know, and her boyfriend, Craig, great name, He seems like a good guy. You know, he’s nice and 1 of the problems that I had with the movie, because we’re introduced to other characters too, and like, I guess Monica is kind of Vicky’s best friend. And then there’s also another guy is his name Josh.

Todd: Yeah, the nerdy crazy guy or whatever. The 1 who’s cracking wise all the time, but he doesn’t.

Craig: Right, and he like runs the computer club or something. I don’t know. By himself, yeah. Yeah, by himself. The problem that I had with it was that aside from Vicky and Craig who? You are kind of rooting for throughout the rest of the characters were really unlikable Mmm, the first thing that I have written down about Monica and Monica is Vicky’s best friend. The first thing that I have written down about her is Monica’s a bitch. Now I don’t remember why I wrote that down.

Todd: Oh I know

Craig: why. But she must have done what she

Todd: do. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to talk about Vicky before she’s gone, but I think it would be a good idea to talk about Vicky in front of the camera. So, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to talk about Vicky before she’s gone, but I think it would be a good idea to talk about Vicky in front of the camera.

Craig: That’s right! So I wrote Monica’s a bitch. Well then later on, Monica is kind of like the nice friend who’s worried about Vicky when things start going on. So like it’s kind of uneven. And then like Monica and Josh kind of have these weird scenes that pertain to nobody else, like by themselves, or they have kind of like these really cute flirty moments. I’m like, aw, that’s sweet, look how sweet they are. Oh, look, Josh is the sweet guy. And then later he leverages his power for a blowjob. And I’m like, what? Like, you’re not a nice guy at all. Like, you’re all horrible.

Todd: I didn’t even feel like they were that well drawn. There’s another woman named Kelly, who’s the prissy girl who thinks she’s all that. She’s convinced that she’s gonna be the prom queen. And the way that we’re introduced to these characters, it’s in for a pretty rapid fire succession. And the other problem, I think, with getting behind these folks is we never really get to know them all that well. Aside from these instant stereotypes that they’re painted with, there’s such a, like this movie is, you can’t knock it for not moving. I mean, it’s always moving forward, but it’s just, it’s almost like you can never stop to take your breath because once 1 crazy scene happens, now you’re gonna get another scene, now you’re gonna get another scene, and therefore some of these characters, we don’t see them for a while. There’s a good distance of 20 minutes. Josh kinda comes in at the very beginning, and then maybe like 3 quarters of the way through, and then towards the end, he has a very prominent role in the plot, but we’ve barely seen much of Josh before that. It’s like that with Kelly, it’s even like that with Monica, and then there’s another friend, Jess, who comes and goes like that.

Craig: Oh yeah, I totally forgot about her. Yeah. Yeah, she’s the she’s the first 1 who well, right? Well, I’ll get there in a second, but I also wanted to say that they also introduced I mean, I guess it’s not really introducing It’s reintroducing they the principal of the school, but he’s Craig’s dad and he’s also Billy from the 50s. Yeah. So he was Mary Lou’s boyfriend or whatever. And then I guess Buddy, the other guy that Mary Lou was making out with, he’s a priest now. Yeah. And like, and so they just really quickly establish this. They do. Like, you see them for just a second, just to let you know that they’re still around, and they come into play later. Principal Nordam is played by Michael Ironside, who has just been in like a billion movies. And he’s a great actor. There’s no way you’re not gonna recognize him. He really is. And they don’t give him much to do. No. Aside from look kind of menacing.

Todd: Didn’t the first prom night also have a principal who was related to, who was like the father of 1 of the kids?

Craig: I don’t remember. I don’t even know if I’ve seen it, frankly.

Todd: Oh, we did it.

Craig: Have we? Did we do it?

Todd: Greg did it on this show. Yeah. Go back and listen. I’ll wait. We were not impressed with Prom Night at all. I’ll remind you of that. I think this movie is 10 times more entertaining than Prom Night. I don’t know if it’s a great movie overall, but it’s certainly… I would recommend it over Prom Night if you’ve got to sit down and watch 1 of them. No, like that scene where he’s talking with his son is just so awkward. And I feel like Michael Ironside is such a good actor, but it seems like in this scene like he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be doing. And so he just kind of says some stuff to his son about how he needs to go to college and his son is saying, oh, I want to take some time off. And he’s just kind of like, well, I kind of wish you wouldn’t. And then his son leaves. And most of what Michael Ironside ends up doing through this movie is just pensively staring. Like you said, he’s not given anything to do, and so you really can’t even latch onto this guy as well. I found it really hard. I felt I was like a waste of this guy in this movie, I thought. Yeah, so

Craig: they introduce these people randomly. And gosh, like you said, I mean, it just moves so quickly. I don’t even remember Vicky’s mom told her that she couldn’t buy a new dress for the prom. So her friend Jess, who I guess is like a theater girl, I don’t know, she’s this tall beanpole of a girl with huge 80s hair. Jess tells her like, well, you should go check like the props closet or whatever. It’s like, oh yeah, that’s a great idea. So she goes down there and she finds that haunted crate, which I still don’t even understand what’s going on. Having seen the whole movie, I don’t, like, did somebody put all of Mary Lou’s stuff in a crate and lock it up down there and it’s haunted now? Like I don’t even understand what’s going on.

Todd: It doesn’t make sense. It would be like the kind of thing that in a better movie, this crate would have been some of Mary Lou’s heirlooms from 1 of her boyfriends or something that he had tucked in a shoe box and stuck up in his attic and practically forgotten about.

Craig: But no, it’s an enormous, like not enormous, not like the size of a room, but you know, like 1 of those army crate that you would keep at the foot of your bed or whatever.

Todd: Yeah, and it takes up half the prop room. And so it’s hard to believe this thing has sat dormant for 30 years without anybody opening it up.

Craig: Right. And it rumbles and like light comes out of it. And I don’t even remember how, you know, Vicky opens it up for some reason. And then There’s a picture of Mary Lou somewhere and it breaks. I don’t even know. So we just get all of these obvious clues that Mary Lou is around, like haunting or whatever. And There are just so many random things thrown in. Like you said, it’s just scene after scene. And I have to believe that a lot of this is due to sloppy editing. Or I don’t know, maybe it could be sloppy writing or a combination of the 2. But there’s a whole scene where Vicky has to comfort Jess because Jess reveals that she’s pregnant. And it goes on for a while.

Todd: Yeah. And then- It’s belabored, actually, the scene.

Craig: Yeah. And then Jess is alone in like the prop shop or something and everything starts going crazy you know like things start flying around and I thought surely they are not going to kill off the girl who just revealed that she’s pregnant.

Todd: Mmm, yeah.

Craig: They are. She’s the first to go.

Todd: It’s totally Nightmare on Elm Street too, isn’t it? I mean it’s like a total ripoff. Yeah. Like a cloth comes around her neck and gets dragged across the floor. Actually there’s an interesting fake out where you think she’s gonna get beheaded by a paper cutter, but then it actually takes her straight up to the lights instead and hangs her. And I thought, oh, okay, you know, they’re gonna all think she killed herself. And then at the end of the scene, it kind of backs off very dramatically and slowly like, all right, and, and scene. And then the next shot is suddenly of a body flying through the window and landing in the lawn. And I was like, who is that? Was this another kill? And it’s her. And then they said, oh, well, she, you know, she must have committed suicide. Okay, she hung herself and then threw

Craig: herself out the window? Well, and everything in the prop shop corrects itself, which is also very Nightmare on Elm Street.

Todd: That’s right.

Craig: Like Mary Lou’s ghost cleans up. Yeah.

Todd: What’s that movie we watched 2 weeks ago when this was like a favorite technique?

Craig: Oh yeah, the rewind.

Todd: And there’s a tiara, right? Apparently Jess’s big mistake was prying a glass jewel out of this tiara. That’s what got the trunk upset and sent the trunk after her. And then we see, again, it just immediately cuts to this priest again, And I guess he’s doing his nightly rites, which includes sitting down in front of a little shrine that he’s built to Mary Lou. Like, he has been so troubled over these last 20 years that this is, I guess, the focus of his ministry.

Craig: Yeah, in my notes I have, priest, praise, 2? 4? Mary Lou? Like,

Todd: what is happening? There’s a lot that goes unexplained, and it’s not like you have to explain all of it, but you have to wonder why, all right, maybe Jess is the first person to open this trunk, but Mary Lou seems to have a lot of powers. Maybe it’s the tiara, maybe it’s the dress, maybe it’s the ring. At any given time, there’s an implication that maybe any 1 of these things or maybe all of these things. But then, you know, there’s just these ominous signs that happen randomly in different people’s places, the picture shattering in the principal’s office or the priest just getting weird feelings. So, it’s a little muddy, you know, kind of the rules of how her spirit is awakening or being given powers to do this, that, and the other, the limitations of it. And the motivation, that gets pretty muddy too.

Craig: Oh yeah, it gets really muddy because like you said it, I mean it seems, is it just Mary Lou? Like that seems like that’s the implication that like she’s haunting specifically Vicky. But seriously, she’s got some serious powers because they have Jess’s funeral and everybody’s there of course and then Vicky just casually wanders over and sees Mary Lou’s grave. Like I don’t even know why she would know about this girl from 30 years ago or whatever. And then there’s this stupid scene where Kelly, the mean girl, taunts her a little bit. But then we get into this weird sequence that goes on for a long time. Vicki having these weird visions. She’s in her school, but it’s like she’s transported back in her school like to the 50s, but it’s not even just like she’s just transported back to the way that it was. It’s like some hellish nightmare version of the 50s.

Todd: It’s like Silent Hill. Yeah. Suddenly the school is like all rusted and dingy and nightmarish. And again, something pretty straight out of Nightmare on Elm Street too, right? Totally. But it’s not really cohesive, right? It just, you kind of wonder why. And that’s why, you know, Freddie, Freddie’s goal is just to give people nightmares and to torment them before he kills them in those nightmares. What is Mary Lou trying to accomplish here? Is she a master over dreams too? Is she kind of possessing her? And so she’s kind of getting this crossover hellscape visions. And then they’re so random too, right? It’s like she’s in the cafeteria and the cafeteria lady serving up bugs and gross stuff and then like, presumably Mary Lou’s face floats up from the dish. And then she runs down and she almost gets like assaulted by a guy who I don’t know if he was supposed to be somebody in particular, but you know, like a 50s guy with sunglasses. And it just goes on and on and there are like 2 or 3 of these. Like there’s 1 where she’s- yeah,

Craig: there’s blood in the water fountain.

Todd: Oh, I called that totally by the way I was like she’s standing Blood in the water fountain in 321

Craig: Yeah, yeah But no, you’re right I mean then then there’s a little break or like she fights with her mom about college or whatever and like she has a fight with her mom and then she goes up to her room and starts putting makeup on like I don’t even understand what’s happening and her reflection which is done up even more than she is like winks at her and that freaks her out so she starts taking off her makeup. It’s so weird. And then the next day at school, like Kelly hits her in the head with a volleyball and all of a sudden, whoop, we’re back in flashback again.

Todd: Yeah, Hellscape flashback. Where the volleyball net’s a spider web that she gets caught in and twisted around. And then she wakes up screaming, I’m not Mary Lou, because everybody’s calling her Mary Lou, which the principal hears, because he happens to be near her.

Craig: Right. So he goes and checks on the crate. Like, he knows that there’s a haunted crate in the props room and like no, right he just said Get it And as you know as much as I’m laughing and saying I don’t get it like in the moment I didn’t get it and I was a little confused but it moves so quickly that you know, I was Engaged, you know, I was interested on what was going on It was very confusing but it at least it moves quickly and they move from 1 confusing thing quickly to the next. So it’s not like I had time to linger, you know, like, all right, just roll

Todd: with it. You’re just kind of wondering, is Vicki possessed? It’s sort of like they don’t really want to commit because she’s quite normal, except for she’s being haunted by these things. She seems to be cursing and swearing maybe more than she normally does. And so I felt like that was the implication. But then, like I said, with all these other weird things going on as well, it’s not your standard, like, this person gets possessed and therefore all the evil is kind of emanating from them. It’s like there’s just a bunch of evil happening everywhere. Yeah. And oh, she might also be getting possessed, and so maybe we need to worry about that. But we’re, you know, we’re almost, we’re about halfway through the movie and it’s still not clear.

Craig: To be fair, that’s not atypical. When you’ve got these possession movies, like it is, you know, sometimes I suppose it’s kind of all at once somebody gets possessed, but a lot of the time it’s kind of gradual and you know, they start to change gradually and things happen gradually. And I think that that’s supposed to be what’s going on here. But and that’s what it ends up being. She is being possessed by Mary Lou. But that’s not entirely evident from the beginning. And then these weird things start happening. And there’s this scene with Vicki in her bedroom. Yeah. Where like she puts on this you know I don’t know big sweatshirt or something like she’s going to go to bed and then she pulls a sketchbook out of her closet and then she gets in bed and she drops, well first of all, she’s got this nightmarish carousal horse in her bedroom, which I don’t know why anybody would have that. I mean, even if it weren’t evil, it would scare me. Yeah, and you see the eyes move as it walks by her, and then she gets in bed and she drops something on the floor And she reaches over and she picks it up and she gets back into bed and there’s a big Sketch a really good sketch of Mary Lou in her sketchbook Then the rocking horse starts rocking and she says get out of here This is my room. Leave me alone And then she is totally assaulted by her sheet. And the thing that really struck me about this scene and scenes moving forward was that they were really, for me, almost uncomfortably sexual.

Todd: Like, yeah, there’s quite a bit of this moving on.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, OK, so when I say she’s attacked by her sheet, It’s almost like her sheet becomes like a airtight bag. Sucks to her. Sucked in around her. Yeah, and so she can’t get out. And the horse is rocking and its eyes are moving and then at 1 point it’s got this big gloopy tongue that like comes out and flops around, it’s disgusting.

Todd: Yeah, it’s Freddie though. Yeah, totally. You know, it’s like Freddie’s tongue coming out of the phone.

Craig: Yes, absolutely. The whole thing, the whole thing, very Nightmare on Elm Street. While she’s sucked under this sheet, you also see These hands under the sheet come up on her body and they’re just groping at her in a very sexual way. I can’t believe I’m going to say this out loud, but I’ve had sex before. So you know, it’s not like- Oh my

Todd: God. We’re really revealing personal things on this show, aren’t we?

Craig: And I’m not even married. But, But, like, so it’s not like I’m uncomfortable with sexual content, but it just seemed, it just a little bit out of place to me. And I guess, contextually for the whole movie, because things like this continue to happen, I guess really it’s not that out of place, but it was just a little bit surprising. I don’t wanna say shocking, It’s not like I was horrified, but it was a little surprising to me.

Todd: Well, I think it’s because you got to consider the source, right? Presumably who’s doing the haunting here is Mary Lou. So it’s this woman from the past who was clearly got around herself, right? Bit of a bitch, but she was unfairly and unjustly set on fire and died a horrible death. And so I guess she’s coming here to get her revenge. But, you know, in the way that Carrie gets her revenge on everybody because, like, everybody is implicated in taking her down and being an asshole to her.

Craig: Yeah, right.

Todd: Mary-Lou should have some pretty specific targets here, you know? And you can say, okay, sins of the father, and so maybe because, you know, maybe she’s going after Craig because she’s the son of Billy who set her on fire, even though he did accidentally. And of course, she’s going to go after the father, Cooper, because whatever, because he didn’t throw the thing over her or whatever. But like this girl, Vicky, she’s gonna be her tool, right? She’s supposed to be possessing her and using her. That’s what she’s doing. So why is she going to these extra lengths on her to also get grabby, touchy-feely, molesty. I think subconsciously, whether you’re consciously thinking of this or not subconsciously, it’s just really odd. Again, it’s just a kitchen sink kind of movie and I don’t think these things really, I don’t think there’s a cohesiveness behind a lot of this stuff. I really feel like they were going for Nightmare on Elm Street 5. And while it makes sense for Freddie to do, to just terrify them in whatever ways is gonna terrify them, and he gets very sexual, you know, with the kids, because they’re adolescents, and it’s a thing, for her, it’s hard to justify.

Craig: It’s weird, Yeah, I don’t know. And I mean, from there, just… I don’t know. A lot happens very quickly.

Todd: Then they just throw in these odd little scenes like they’re trying to remind us, Oh, by the way, this is a high school movie and we still have some other characters that we want you to get to know for 10 more seconds. Josh and Monica are walking along the street. Such an awkward scene.

Craig: That’s what I was saying before, like they’ll throw in these scenes like they try to make them cute. Josh plays the very like, oh, you know, I’m that guy that the girls like, like the guy that I was in high school. Like I’m the guy that girls want to be friends with, but don’t really have any interest in. And like, so he’s trying to kind of ask Monica to go to the dance with them and she’s kind of pretending like she doesn’t want to or whatever and then they end up kissing and I’m like oh that’s cute they’re cute but really not I mean like they’re their characters aren’t after being bitchy to that 1 guy in the beginning she doesn’t really do anything else that is untoward or anything but Josh does like he gets totally gross

Todd: yeah

Craig: and so what’s the point like what’s the point of this scene we don’t care it doesn’t advance the plot at all

Todd: it doesn’t It doesn’t really help us in the slightest. In fact, do we even see them going to the prom together at the end?

Craig: No, because she gets killed before prom. Oh, that’s right.

Todd: Well, we don’t see Josh Mourninger, you know? And that’s another thing. Like, people get killed left and right and they don’t really… Notice. Oh, it’s not true. People don’t get killed left and right

Craig: No, they don’t get killed left and right but like Prominent people like Monica who is with them all the time like she gets killed eventually and then nobody even like is Vicky goes back to Mary Lou’s grave and the priest.

Todd: He also happens to be there.

Craig: Yeah, it happens to be there. And then like she cusses him out. So I guess we’re supposed to realize that she’s kind of changing or being possessed or whatever. And then he goes and performs an exorcism. Yeah. So like there’s like a 30 second exorcism. And then he goes and visits Principal Billy and says, Oh, she’s back and she’s going to possess somebody and she’s totally going to get you. She won’t get me because I’m a priest. But then there’s a scene in the diner where Vicky’s talking to Craig, and he picks her up from home for school, and he’s like, you look terrible, which she does. She’s like, well, great, thanks. And then they go eat or whatever. I get that we’re kind of supposed to be getting that she’s becoming possessed, but it really isn’t entirely clear. I was still confused as to what was going on.

Todd: We’re not seeing much of a change in her actual behavior. We’re seeing her get freaked out a lot, but we’re, you know, especially up to this point, we’re not seeing her behavior change much except for these occasional times where she cusses someone out. But then when she does that, it’s not like the people around her act like so shocked, like oh my God, Kelly, she would never say damn or hell or the F word, and she just did this time, you know? Help me out here, because I cannot pinpoint why the priest has enough information to make such a grandiose claim. What has he seen or what has he experienced up to this point for him to go into Billy’s house all upset with this grand theory about demon possession and all that?

Craig: I don’t know. I guess just because I don’t even know what led him. You know he performs that exorcism whatever I I Guess he must just suspect and then when his Bible catches on fire I guess that’s his confirmation,

Todd: but I don’t even know what why he felt the need to do the exorcism like he’s never You know this movie the only times we see him He just you know there’s like that confessional scene early on.

Craig: And he randomly shows up while Vicky is visiting the grave. Like, she’s there randomly, and then he just randomly shows up. I don’t know. I don’t know. But then, you know, I feel like we’re really kind of getting to the good part because Vicky is in class and Kelly, the snotty girl, says something snotty to her and when Vicky looks at her she sees Mary Lou, So she slaps the shit out of her, and I love that part. So Vicki has detention, and the teacher leaves her alone in the room. She sees chalk, just, you know, magically or whatever, right, help me on the blackboard. And she goes up to the blackboard and she touches it and all of a sudden the blackboard, you know, it’s obvious the way that they did the effect, even though despite the fact that it’s obvious, I still thought it looked great. They inverted the scene clearly so that actually really the blackboard was in the floor and it was a pool and she gets pulled into it and then she gets dragged around in there kind of like it’s a whirlpool or whatever and Then she disappears and I and I I appreciated that that this is 1 of the scenes that the producers or whomever Insisted that they Shoot and post and put in but I’m glad because it looks good. It’s it so she gets sucked in Then we go back to the magic haunted crate and it starts rumbling Vicky I’m doing air quotes right now Vicky comes out of it completely nude And that’s the point where I feel like they’re finally just really shoving it in our face, okay, she’s not Vicky anymore. She’s now Mary Lou. And I have to give the actress credit. Wendy Lyon. I have to give her credit because she really does play 2 different characters in this movie. And there is a clear distinction between her characters in her physicality, in the way that she talks, in her affect, you can tell when she’s Vicky versus when she’s Mary Lou. And that’s not an easy thing to do. So I will give her credit for that. But then from here on, we’re dealing with Mary Lou, and Mary Lou is just a nasty bitch and she’ll cut you in. Yeah. You know like.

Todd: Watch out. So now we know she’s possessed. Kelly’s asked Josh to fix the vote and he has said well I will for a price and she’s offering money, he types something into his computer.

Craig: And I totally knew what he was gonna type, right? Like you knew what he typed, right? Like they don’t show it, but like she looks at him with disgust and she’s like, you’re so gross or whatever. It’s just, It’s so weird because it’s so uneven. Like, first of all, he’s supposed to have this thing for Monica, and like they’ve just had this sweet, you know, kissy kissy moment. And so you think that he is like puppy dog in love with her. And also, like he’s just supposed to be kind of the nerdy outcast guy. And now all of a sudden, when the snotty popular girl asks him for a favor, he’s telling her that he will exchange that favor for a blowjob like yeah

Todd: what

Craig: you are very bold for a nerdy high school boy but she rejects him

Todd: in the moment yeah yeah the next scene is in a confessional and this is 1 of the minor scenes I do remember from my childhood and it’s Vicky in the confessional. It’s a revisiting of the confessional scene the very beginning of the movie with Mary Lou in 1957. And he’s like, what? Yeah I know And then she burst through the confessional. I thought this was ridiculous.

Craig: It is ridiculous, but I have to give them props for being bold. Being the good Catholic boy that I am, it makes me uncomfortable to even hear that kind of language in a church or in a confessional. But you know, they went there. And then she kills him with a crucifix, which, you know, I thought was a pretty bold move. You’ve got the whole infamous exorcist crucifix scene, which is crazy, but this may be 1 of the only other times that I’ve seen somebody take something so religiously iconic and use it in such a way.

Todd: Stab it in his mouth, yeah.

Craig: So then he said, I feel like we are totally working up to your favorite scene because.

Todd: I guess you want me to describe it. Well,

Craig: let me set it up for you so you can get in the mood. The friend, Monica, they go to gym or something, and then of course they’re in the locker room after, and Monica kind of calls her out for acting weird. Vicki is at first just kind of cool and cold with her and then she says something that really irritates Monica. And so Monica goes off to shower and take it away.

Todd: You’re really trying to make this awkward for me, aren’t you Craig? So Monica goes into the shower and Vicki comes in after her a minute later and she’s also completely naked and she approaches her and puts a hand on her shoulder and says oh I’m really sorry whatever and Monica’s like that’s okay and like they’re making up but even from this moment it’s feeling pretty weird and awkward And not just because of the situation, but also the way it’s staged and the way it’s acted, it’s actually quite poor. Vicki laughs and kind of hugs her and then starts to kiss her and Monica runs off freaked out.

Craig: I also have to say the fact that, you know, Vicki and the actress who played her, they both seem very sweet. They’re wholesome. And to see her then, you know, Monica throws on a towel, but Vicky then just continues to slowly and coolly pursue her throughout the locker room, Completely nude. And when we’re saying, when I’m, you know, we see nudity in horror movies all the time, but it’s usually…

Todd: Topless.

Craig: Or if you see a full body shot, it’s usually relatively brief. Now this girl just walks around bush to the wind, like for… Lingering long shots. A good 4 or 5 minutes, yeah. And she’s a lovely young lady, you know, like she would have nothing to be ashamed of in her nudity. And I read that it wasn’t scripted that way. It was scripted that, or at least it was insinuated or implied that she would be wearing a towel, but they shot it with her completely nude. There’s just something about that, her confidence and her nudity, that makes her even more menacing.

Todd: Yeah, she’s really not her, right? She’s just a body that somebody else is possessing. And so why would that person have any qualms or any care about the body that they’re possessing? They don’t have any attachment to it. So yeah, I’m nude, I’m not, it doesn’t matter to me. So you’re right, it seems very cool and spooky. Now what I was really getting at was 2 things. First of all, I thought the encounter in the shower, it took Monica way too long for her to think something was weird about it.

Craig: Yeah, yeah.

Todd: It just didn’t ring true. And the second thing was, Monica’s reaction isn’t like, oh, Vicki, you’re gross. It’s pretty disturbed and that’s fine, but she runs away. And the way that she runs away is in the way that she feels like Vicky is a danger to her and I don’t feel like Vicky has come across as a dangerous person to her.

Craig: Yeah that’s in this moment.

Todd: You know it’s like she just tried to kiss her she was maybe trying to get romantic with her but you’re not gonna like suddenly fear for your life at that point. Sure. You know slinking around the room and she does. And so, you know, she’s going between the lockers and she can’t get out of this place for some odd reason. Like doors are locked. Again, in a better movie, like maybe the doors would supernaturally lock around her. Here, we really have no idea why she can’t get out. And so she just gets into a locker Vicky slowly is walking singing very quietly and menacingly On oldie

Craig: and then she does she does the Freddy Krueger hand Like I swear to God it’s it’s directly out of Nightmare on Elm Street. She takes her hand and runs it along the lockers, like she has Freddy Krueger claws, and it even makes the sounds.

Todd: The same sound.

Craig: Yeah. She doesn’t even have the claws, but it still makes the sounds. Like that had to be intentional. It had

Todd: to be. Homage or ripoff, I guess you can choose.

Craig: I was surprised by the culmination of the scene because Monica hides in a locker and then Vicky just kind of, you know, she walks by and then she turns around and she looks at the locker and She sings some appropriate a wop-bop blue-wop a wop-bam-boom Yeah, and then the the lockers collapse in on Monica and blood all shoots out And again, this is another 1 of the scenes that they added in in post, but I was just surprised that Monica died. Because she was kind of the best friend and well, they needed more blood and death in the movie. I agree entirely that they needed it. I was just kind of surprised that’s where it came from.

Todd: Well, yeah. And because in service to what? You know, plot wise, like, why did she have to go? How was she standing in her way? She annoyed her? Okay, maybe Mary Lou is really that bitchy, I guess. But, you know, it’s like this, again, I feel like this girl’s got bigger fish to fry. Why is she still hanging around doing high school things, letting her best friend annoy her and then killing her? It just feels like the scene was there because they needed a kill and they ripped off of Nightmare on Elm Street to do it. And honestly, I feel like every scene in this movie happens in slow motion. This movie is almost 2 hours long and it could have been an hour and a half, an hour or 20 if the scenes had moved a little faster. Even the scenes that are murder, kill scenes, they’re really drawn out and I think that the people shooting them really think that they’re making these long and suspenseful, but I didn’t really feel that. I just felt like they were lingering a long time on these images and all of this stuff because they thought it was really creepy. Whereas I felt like it would have been more effective to cut away from this stuff a little earlier, or put us through this kind of a shock and then let’s move on. Instead of lingering too much, you start to see the seams and you start to get a little bored. I did anyway. Yeah. I felt the pacing the movie suffered in that way.

Craig: Yeah it’s drawn out a little bit longer than it needs to be I agree. Yeah. And just as this podcast is ending up… But you know like other things happen like Vicki is obviously you know possessed now and so other things happen, like she goes and she there’s 1 weird scene where she starts making out with Craig and like she’s getting all hot and heavy with him and then all of a sudden she knees him in the junk and then like she’s taunting him like yeah calling him a fag and and I didn’t even understand what the purpose of that was I

Todd: didn’t get that well then there’s the scene where she’s you know back in her room and again it’s just bing bang boom and now her horse is a pet like its tongue is still hanging out she’s wondering it and stuff like that and her dad comes in to give her a pep talk about going

Craig: to the prom and I’m glad you’re laughing I’m sorry like This part just made me really uncomfortable.

Todd: Yeah, it could have done without this.

Craig: Yeah. You say it!

Todd: He starts giving him this very nice dad pep talk about going to the prom, and she’s like, thank you daddy, and she comes up to him, and she just starts completely making out with him. Gross. It’s really gross, but also he’s not like immediately pushing her back. I know! And I couldn’t tell if it was just ineptly done. Like, they wanted this shot to go on a little while. So they were like, just look a little uncomfortable for a bit and we’re gonna shoot this. And then the editing should have caught away a lot sooner. So dad just sort of stands there and lets him kiss her while he’s kind of moving his head a little bit and kind of looking uncomfortable. And then mom pops in from behind and says, what’s going on? And you know, the girl runs out and the dad just kind of turns around like, oh, and

Craig: then mom chases after the daughter. And it couldn’t total carry white moment where the mom is like chastising her, you know, and throwing all of her religious stuff at her. And then Vicky like supernaturally throws her mother through the door. Like she doesn’t physically touch her but like with her mind, with her telekinesis. It’s such a ripoff. It’s a huge ripoff. But that’s not even, oh my, that’s nothing in comparison to the end. We finally get to the prom. It’s a fun 80s prom scene, great, whatever. There’s a whole bit where Kelly, the annoying girl, finally goes to Josh, who’s in charge of counting the computer votes. I love how they make a big deal out of computers. Like, computers, they’re so exciting and new. So she finds him, you know, he’s waiting for his date, Monica, who obviously doesn’t show up because she was crushed in the locker. And so then he’s just drinking beer by himself, like in the audio visual room or whatever. And she comes in and he’s like, I told you what my price was, because she asked who won. And he’s like, well, I’m not supposed to tell but it wasn’t you, I told you what my price was. And so then she blows him, which is really uncomfortable. And then he starts to go in and fix the computer votes. But Mary Lou slash Vicky apparently senses that he’s doing this. So she grabs like the ethernet cable in the gym. And electrocutes him through the computer and and Makes it so that she I mean she was rightfully going to be the queen anyway, but she you know fixes it so They announced that she’s queen she goes up. She looks super happy. She’s standing there, and then all of a sudden the principal, Billy, shoots her. Which I found kind of, I found really shocking, because I thought, you know, like, God, I mean, that’s still Vicky. Like, yeah, you couldn’t have thought of maybe something else to try before you just waste her. But whatever. So she falls over and like she’s dying and then it seems like she’s dead. But then she kind of wakes up again.

Todd: Well, she doesn’t just wake up again. Mary Lou bursts through her chest.

Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which actually, you know, it looked pretty good. It did. There’s a scene just like it in Poltergeist 3, which is not a great movie, but a movie that I love nonetheless, where a person literally comes up out of the body of somebody else who’s just died. And when she first comes out, she looks super burnt up and demon-y. And it’s not great. You can clearly tell she’s wearing a mask like you can see the seam of the mask Not even like glued to her skin Mm-hmm as time goes on like that kind of fades away, and she looks more like she did in life, But the scene after she comes up out of the body, Mary Lou, this gross burnt up prom queen, is standing on the stage in front of this whole auditorium full of kids. And then she makes the electricity start malfunctioning and it all turns into like this big fire. It could not be more of a ripoff of Brian DePalma’s Carrie. I mean it virtually looks like the exact same scene. And I’m not complaining. I mean it looks pretty good and it’s perfectly fine to pay homage or whatever.

Todd: You choose, rip off or homage, right?

Craig: Right, right, right.

Todd: Yeah, it’s an excuse anyway. Well, we were just making an homage.

Craig: Oh my god, like how did you even get away with this? It’s the same exact scene.

Todd: Well, it’s not as good a film. That’s probably partly why. That’s true

Craig: And then the other thing

Todd: is it just goes totally batshit crazy from here on out, too There’s this sort of you know showdown and and I’m wondering like what did Craig do Because then she’s really going after Craig. Like, I thought, oh, she’s gonna turn and it’s gonna be a big showdown between her and Billy. But Billy just disappears for a while, And she starts running after Craig. I’m like why so anyway she goes after Craig And he you know the 1 place he decides he can run to is the prop closet Which was convenient down to the creepy trunk and so there’s a lot of creepy trunk stuff and there’s a bit of the old switcheroo where he’s locked himself in a room and suddenly he hears Vicky’s voice on the other side and like a dumbass goes and opens the door and Vicky comes through except we know it’s not Vicky, we know it’s just Mary Lou pretending to be Vicky because she has Mary Lou’s ring on. Right. The trunk opens up and there’s just this huge void and Craig starts to get sucked into it and then the dad comes in. So then Billy shows up to save the day and the way he does is he’s got her tiara and he approaches Mary Lou and I guess the way this is supposed to be happening is that he is kind of consummating the night the way it was supposed to be by giving her her crown, and suddenly she turns to him and she’s all nice Mary Lou, and then we get what is sort of a pseudo flashback scene kind of rewriting of history kind of thing maybe where the 2 of them are I got the notion this was like, you know in Purgatory or whatever like they’re dancing

Craig: supposedly. I think that what it’s supposed to be is like her tormented soul is appeased. Like she gets what she was supposed to get from the beginning. She had said something, I don’t even remember who she said it to, but she said something like, you know, I was in the prime of my life. I could have been anything. I could have done anything This was just the start she gets crowned and they have their dance as prom king and queen and it seems really nice And it seems like her soul I guess is then appeased And then does she just go away?

Todd: Like, it’s like that we’re done. Like, suddenly they’re gone. I thought maybe they were whisked away. I thought maybe there was like a sacrifice element like for Billy, like, Like she had to have a soul and so he was offering up his, you know, by appeasing her. But then, you know, he had to kind of continue it out by, I don’t know, dancing with her through all eternity in the spirit world.

Craig: Sure, something. But, cause they were gone. Yeah, they’re both just mysteriously absent. And then Craig opens up the crate, which closed again apparently. This time it’s Vicky and it really is Vicky and she’s like, I didn’t know what was happening. You know, it looks like, I also thought it was kind of funny because then it looks like it’s kind of a happy ending Like I don’t know how they were going to explain to the rest of the world what happened at this prom All the cops you know the cops and the ambulances are there, and the kids are okay. There’s actually a line by

Todd: the cop. We get that shot outside the school and the cameras pan across the cops and 1 cop is talking to a reporter and the line is, I don’t know what we got here, something strange. And I thought, that’s a pretty good summary of the movie actually.

Craig: Yeah, yeah. Well yeah, so Vicky and Craig are standing there and the dad, Billy, approaches and…

Todd: That shocked me. I was like, oh, I guess he’s okay. Everything’s fine.

Craig: I guess he’s okay. I kept expecting the other dead people to show up I’m like, oh everybody who died is gonna show up and it’s gonna be fine. No, apparently they’re still dead But

Todd: just the 1 who had the other body bursting out of her body,

Craig: right? She’s okay.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: and so the dad’s like, okay Well, let’s go or whatever And he puts them in the back seat of the car and then he gets in the car and he turns on the radio and it’s the Mary Lou song from the 50s that we’ve heard a bazillion times like it’s the only song that ever plays on the radio in this town And and so we hear the Mary Lou song and Vicky’s like oh No, what’s happening? The dad puts his arm like back behind the passenger seat and we see that he’s got long fingernails and he’s wearing Mary Lou’s ring. As it turns out, Mary Lou has now possessed him and he drives away and Vicki and Craig are freaking out and the license plate is Mary Lou 2 and they drive away and that’s the end.

Todd: It’s total Nightmare on Elm Street Twisted 2, right? Oh yeah,

Craig: totally, totally. Oh my gosh. Ultimately, I had never seen this movie before, Which kind of surprises me. It’s not a good movie really, but it’s so bizarre that it’s really I think worth watching and there are interesting things that happen throughout it and some interesting cool effects and even though the the story is wacko and doesn’t really make a lot of cohesive sense, I don’t even know if it’s fair to say that I was entertained by it, but It was so strange that once I was a good half hour into it, I had to see the rest of it to see how it was gonna play out. Like it was just that odd. So I’m glad to have seen.

Todd: I don’t know how I could recommend it or who I would recommend it to, but it’s a weird little movie.

Craig: It has like a surrealistic quality to it. If you knew what kind of movie you were getting into, if you knew it wasn’t going to make a lot of sense, sort of like I watch the Giallo films, I just get into the atmosphere and the set pieces and I just go with it. I think if you knew this, if the movie wasn’t really setting itself up to make sense, but you came into it like you were kind of coming to a David Lynch film or a Dolly sort of thing, then it’s a little more watchable Maybe and I guess maybe that’s an argument that could be made Maybe if we had the filmmakers on here talking about their film, they would be like, yeah Well, you know, we were trying to keep it surreal and and make it not clear what was going on and yeah, you know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but the plot’s not important. It’s really more about the atmosphere. Okay, you know, I could almost get on board with that kind of argument.

Todd: Yeah, and it got poor reviews, almost universally poor reviews, But 1 of the only positive reviews that it got referred to it as the blue velvet of

Craig: horror movies. Oh, David Lynch.

Todd: Yeah. I see that. I’ve never even seen Blue Velvet, but I’ve seen some of David Lynch’s other movies and they are weird and you don’t know what’s going on and you’re totally confused. And this maybe wasn’t even that confusing, but I can see the parallels. Certainly not of the same quality, but similar in nature, I guess.

Craig: I think If you wanted to save yourself the trouble of maybe, like you want the vibe of a Nightmare in Elm Street movie and you want it just delivered to you like a huge shot in the arm over, you know, almost 2 hours, then you could probably put this movie in. You’re not going to get Freddy. You’re not going to get stuff as good as that. But you know, it’s going to be a lot of that same stuff. 1 scene after another of just dreamlike, surreal, bizarre imagery that doesn’t really have a through line, but if that’s kinda what you’re looking for, that’s what you’re gonna get here.

Todd: I’m glad we did it. Oh, me too. It was fun to talk

Craig: about. Yeah, thank you so much Tommy for recommending this film to us. And It was fun to talk about. Yeah. Thank you so much Tommy for recommending this film to us And it was fun to talk about and I think that’s why you know what Craig I’m just gonna say we really need to thank our listeners for Yeah For being engaged enough to give us these things because it does make for better shows sometimes than you and I would do alone. Like, you know, we pick these movies for our own reasons, but when somebody challenges us with something that we wouldn’t necessarily be quite on board with or come up with ourselves, we usually find some gems or we find some interesting things, we get exposed to other stuff. Absolutely. So yeah, we’ll definitely continue requests after March. But what we have coming up in February, we liked doing it so much last year, we’re going to do it again this year. And that is sequels. Part twos. It’s the second month of the year and so we’re going to hit 4 or 5 part 2’s next month.

Todd: And then we will. We definitely will get back into requests. We’ve gotten so many good ones and we so appreciate when you engage with us on social media or wherever. We really do try to get to some of the stuff that you’ve recommended, even if it’s stuff that we would not necessarily choose on our own. So don’t stop recommending. Yes, We keep a list. Just be patient with us and we’ll do our best.

Craig: All right. Thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You know where to find us. We’re on Google Play. We’re on Stitcher. We’re on everywhere podcasts are. You can also go to our website, twoguys.red49.com. You can leave us a comment there. You can leave us a comment there, you can leave us a comment on our Facebook page. Again, send us requests, send us your thoughts about these films. We do love to hear from you. Happy 2019. Until next time,

Todd: I’m Todd. And I’m Craig.

Craig: With 2 guys and a chainsaw