Death House (2017)

Episode 177, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Todd:  And I’m Todd.

Craig:  And we decided to go with something new this week, at least relatively new.

Todd:  New for us for sure.

Craig:  Yeah. New for us. Yeah. It came out in 2017. I think that it was actually filmed, a little bit before that. Well, of course it was, but came out in 2017.

Todd:  It was actually filmed in 2018 in this remarkable publicity stunt. Yeah.

Craig:  And, the movie is Death House, and this was my suggestion.

Todd:  Thanks, Greg. Thank you so much.

Craig:  And I’ll go ahead and take the credit slash blame for that, right, from the get go. The reason that I was interested in this movie is because I had read about it for a while, in its planning stages and as it was being made and and when it was, finally released. I I I don’t even think it got a theatrical release. I think it was released video on demand.

Todd:  Imagine that.

Craig:  Yeah. But the reason that I was interested in it is because from the very beginning they were kind of calling it The Expendables of Horror. And what they meant by that was that like The Expendables, which pulled together, you know, all of these big macho action stars together, this pulls together a lot of the icons of the horror genre and throws them all in one movie. And with the list of people that you’ve got in this movie, you would think that it just would have to be amazing.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And you would probably be wrong. Yeah. You’re wrong. Yeah. The truth of the matter is, unfortunately, this isn’t really a very good movie. However, I still wanted to take a look at it because there are so many people in this movie that I know and many people that I admire and regardless of the fact that ultimately the movie ends up being pretty disappointing, It’s still for me first of all, to just see some of these people again, you know, some of them I haven’t seen in decades, you know, since since the movies that they are famous for came out and and then, to see them all together, was really kind of a cool thing. And so I’m gonna cling to that. Well because that’s about all there is to cling to.

Todd:  You’re clinging to it just like The Rock was, like, clinging to the edge of that skyscraper in that movie that just came out this year. Yeah. It’s a pretty Right. 10 it’s a you’re really dangling there with, like, a leg missing.

Craig:  I know. I know. I know. Did you know anything about this going in?

Todd:  I I didn’t. You know, you had mentioned it to me a while back and, not a not a long while back, but you had mentioned to me, oh, you know, it’s come up on Netflix. We should check it out. That might have been before you’d seen it, I think. But you said to me, oh, Expendables of Horror. And I thought, that’s gonna be awesome. At least, you know, it’s gonna be watchable. And, I have to say, like, dude, this frickin’ movie, it was a chore.  It was a chore to get through this. It wasn’t a pleasurable experience for most of it. And, I think, for me, it committed the worst cinema movie can commit, which is just to be downright boring.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  The only thing that kept me glancing up at the screen every now and then to see what was going on is to see if somebody that I recognized popped into frame for one of their, you know, quick cameos.

Craig:  And, thankfully, that happens a lot.

Todd:  Through the whole movie, pretty much. Yeah. That’s the only the only thing I won’t say that kept my interest, but at least kept me from turning it off. That and the fact that we had to talk about it. Right.

Craig:  To be honest, watching this movie for this podcast was actually the second time that I had seen it. I watched it when I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago, and I didn’t remember it being that bad. But, to be honest, that first time, I may have had a little bit to drink before I watched it.

Todd:  So this is gonna be one of those rare cases where upon second viewing you appreciate the movie even less than the first time.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. And and frankly, if you haven’t seen it and you want to, which I can understand the the draw. I mean, it’s definitely a draw. Well, I don’t know. Just just get a little loose first. Because, when it comes down to it, really watching it the second time, not only I don’t know if I would say it was boring. I mean, the it moves.  There’s stuff going on, but frankly, a lot of the time I didn’t even really understand what was going on. Yeah. By the time it got to the end, I kinda still didn’t really understand what was going on.

Todd:  Even with a second viewing, I’m I guess I don’t feel so stupid then because I completely agree. I didn’t know what was going on most of the time. Yeah. I just found almost incomprehensible. And then by the end, I thought, did I miss something in in the intro, or something that should explain what I’m seeing here? Because it it seems to take I don’t even wanna say it takes a right turn because it gives it too much credit, like there’s some crazy twist or something. It just is all over the place bizarre. Yeah. So help me out here.  Maybe you know a little bit more about the history of this movie. I read a little bit about it, like, a week ago. And didn’t Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface, originally write the script for this film?

Craig:  He did. And I think that he finished it maybe around 2015 or something like that.

Todd:  That’s about when he died, isn’t it?

Craig:  When he died. Yeah. Yeah. Then he died. So I I think that it was kind of a dream project for him, and he was getting all kinds of people on board with it. I think one of the first people to really get on board with it was Kane Hodder, who, was arguably the best Jason Voorhees.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  I think he got on board pretty quickly, and they were trying to put stuff together and people were kinda coming on board and then, sadly, Gunnar Hansen died. And, at that point, it kinda went into limbo a little bit. Nobody was really sure what was going to happen with it, but I I I think it was really Kane Hodder who continued to push this and try to get people on board and and finally got it made. You know, when you look at the people who are in it and I’m just gonna run through them. I went through the CAS list, and I I clicked on virtually every single person in there to see what they had been in. And most of them I recognized immediately. Some of them, I needed my memory jogged a little bit, but I hope this isn’t boring. I’m gonna try to do it quickly, but the list is just it’s kind of unbelievable.  Okay. So, you’ve got Bill Mosley, who is in Chainsaw Massacre 2 and who is in all of Rob Zombie’s movies. Tony Todd, who is huge in the genre, mostly known for Candyman. Adrian Barbeau, who was in the fog and tales of Halloween and the thing and Creepshow and Swamp Thing. Kane Hodder, who I already mentioned. Jason, he’s in Hatchet. He’s the Victor Crowley in that. He was in house 2.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Gunnar Hansen makes an appearance. I have a feeling they probably used stock footage of him. He only

Todd:  It looks like they used, like, maybe, an interview off of YouTube or something.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Well, you gotta use what you can use when the guy

Todd:  I guess.

Craig:  Passes away, I suppose. Dee Wallace, who I’ve gone on and on about a bazillion times, Critters, Cujo, The Howling, Lords of Salem.

Todd:  Popcorn.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Barbara Crampton, who we’ve watched a bazillion of her movies, Chopping Mall, You’re Next, Re Animator, Michael Berryman, who was in Hills Have Eyes 1 and 2, the originals, Devil’s Rejects, Lords of Salem, Sid Haig, who we reviewed in Galaxy of Terror and who also is in House of a 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, 3 from Hell, which is coming out soon. Lloyd Kaufman, who is the trauma guy. Right?

Todd:  Yep.

Craig:  Yep. Toxic Avenger, Poultrygeist. Felissa Rose, who was Angela from Sleepaway Camp. Beverly Randolph, who is from Return of the Living Dead, our friend of the podcast, Bill Oberst junior, is in it. Yeah. Sean Whalen, who was Roach from People Under the Stairs, which we have reviewed. Camille Keaton, I think, who is the lead in I Spit on Your Grave. And he wasn’t listed in the cast list, but I’m pretty sure that was Danny Trejo in there early on.

Todd:  Yeah. He was in there for sure. He’s not listed there?

Clip:  He has

Craig:  a big card. Listed on the cast list.

Todd:  Don’t forget Craig Stevens.

Craig:  Who’s that?

Todd:  Slimeball, Bowlarama, Terra Toons, like, a 1,000. Like, I think she has almost 200, credits to her name. Maybe slumber party mask or sorority house mask or something like that.

Craig:  And and so many of these people do have I mean, I was just blown away that some of these people have so many credits. And if you look at them, so many of them have, like, a dozen or more films in production or in preproduction or in post production. Like, these are all people who are working all the time. Mhmm. And all of them work in the genre, but many of them work outside of the genre too, you know, in television, daytime television, mainstream

Clip:  movies,

Craig:  stream movies, Hallmark movies, you know. These these people are people who work all the time, and they pulled them all together. And a lot of them just have little cameos. Blink and you miss them kinda cameos. Mhmm. But to get all of these people together, it’s it’s pretty impressive. The one person who I was really shocked to not see here and the only person that I would have expected to see here that I didn’t is Robert England. Yeah.  Robert England claims that nobody asked him. He he just said, you know, he’d heard about it, but he had never been given a script, which is unfortunate because he’s a cool guy. I bet in $1,000,000 he would have done it.

Todd:  Oh, he sure would have.

Craig:  So, you know, with that list of of people, it it’s just kind of a a dream kind of cast. And then, sadly, the story is just not that great. It’s a

Todd:  dumbass movie, and it’s not competently made. It it just gets laughable. Some of these scenes, you’re just rolling your eyes. This is a movie you could laugh at, you know, with your friends quite a bit. But at times, the scenes just transcend that. They’re so dumb that you you don’t even wanna laugh

Clip:  at them. Like, that’s kinda how I felt a lot of the movie, to be completely honest.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s it’s not intentionally funny. It’s, like, oh, that’s crap. Well, there’s, like, there’s actually very

Clip:  little humor

Todd:  in it, and

Clip:  and that’s a

Todd:  little surprising for a horror movie, honestly. Mhmm. And maybe that’s one of the big failings is that the movie seems to be

Clip:  taking itself way

Todd:  too seriously. And, I don’t know, I guess maybe The Expendables of Horror shouldn’t be taking itself that seriously. You know?

Craig:  Yeah. And with all of these people, you would think that there really would have been room for some self referential comedy. I I mean, there’s a little bit. I mean, like, Phyllis Rose who was in Sleepaway Camp, her character’s name is doctor Angela Freeman. You know, she was Angela from Sleepaway Camp. Okay. Lloyd Kaufman is funny. You know, he’s a he’s a very, very brief moment of humor that’s I appreciated very much

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  Because I needed it.

Todd:  He’s the only one who displayed any kind of anything. I mean, everybody else is playing these very when you think about it, any one of these characters could almost be interchanged with another because there’s nothing distinctive about any of these personalities, except their roles in the film. These guys are the inmates of this crazy prison, these are the doctors, and then these are the 2 agents who’ve been sent there for reasons that aren’t even entirely clear. Right. All the doctors can be interchanged with each other. The two agents don’t really have any personality, and, all of these prisoners, once again, could be interchanged with each other. And they’re trying to give them these quirky personalities, like this guy’s the icicle killer, and these 3 guys think that they’re Satan, or this guy thinks he’s Satan, this guy thinks he created Satan, and this guy thinks he’s Satan’s son, the Antichrist. And these 3 guys in a room, and they’re all talking the same and acting the same and looking the same, and everybody’s so self serious the entire time

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  That it there’s just nothing interesting. In these wackadoodle scenarios that should be in and of themselves interesting the way that they’re played out on screen, they’re not at all.

Craig:  See and and I’m wondering, you know, because so many I don’t know if I wanna say big name, but because so many kind of genre in demand people were in it, I’m wondering if they kind of had to film it very piecemeal.

Todd:  Yeah. I was about to say that.

Craig:  And then just kinda cut and paste everything together because that’s what it felt like. It felt like kind of stand alone scenes that they just kind of cut and paste and and put in an order that the order didn’t really make much difference. Because you’ve got really good actors in here. You know, we’ve spoken with Bill Oberst junior, and he takes his craft very seriously. And and I think that he’s quite a good actor. You know, some of the films that he’s been in have not been the highest of quality, but he is a good actor.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And he’s just not given a whole lot to do and he does the best. He he’s one of those Satan guys. He does, I guess the best that he can with what he has to do, but it just all seems very kind of out of context. It doesn’t really add anything to the story at all.

Clip:  Call mister Deppin, please. Your rationalization that everyone in an insane asylum is necessarily insane is highly insulting. There are people here who are not insane. Those 2 aren’t. Each person is a temple. Please respect that.

Craig:  I have gone on and on and on and on and on about how great I think Dee Wallace is, and I really do. And in this movie, like, she’s just so one note.

Todd:  She’s terrible. Honestly, her even in her scenes, it’s terrible. Like, the even her her acting. And I mean, the line delivery and I I think it has to do with the direction. Uh-huh. I’ve talked before, I think, maybe when we were talking about the Hellraiser episode about how, you know, the way that you direct the actors, the way that you edit and frame the scenes can really kind of ruin a person’s performance or at least expose the flaws that normally we would edit around. And it’s like they took one take of hers that probably wasn’t her best take and stuck it in the movie without any cuts. Yeah.  Yeah. So it lays it kinda bare, and it’s pretty lousy. And I was, I mean, I was kind of, like, my mouth was open during that scene because just like you, I know what an experienced actress she is and what a good actress she is. And to see that performance was just embarrassing. I she’s gotta be feeling betrayed. Yeah.

Craig:  You know? But

Todd:  going going back and watching it, half of these people do, really.

Craig:  Yeah. I know. It it’s unfortunate because I I do like her and and so many of these other people so much, and and it does almost feel like they were bamboozled. You know? Like, I hate to be too hard on it, but I don’t know what else to say. You know? It’s it’s just really kind of stupid. And the whole premise is you’ve got and then okay. So they’ve got all these amazing genre people, and then they make the 2 leads these nobodies who I’ve never heard of before. Yeah.  What’s the point? Like,

Todd:  come on. Maybe they were going for some contrast. Maybe the leads are the everyday people like you and me, and they’re the ones who are supposed to take us through this journey of, all star cast. You know, this this walk down Hollywood Boulevard. Right? This tour of the stars’ homes or something like that. Yeah. Maybe that was what was going through their mind. But but you’re right.  Their performances are pretty lousy Todd. And, they’ve got nothing to show for it. The characters themselves aren’t interesting. They’re they’re supposed to be interesting. There’s some implied backstory between both of them, but does it really come into play once the action starts?

Craig:  Well, and it’s very confusing. Like okay. So it starts out with this scene with Tony Todd. Again, you know, it just seems like they filmed scenes and then they’re like, well, we’ll figure out how to use it later. And like

Todd:  Yeah. Because please explain the scene to me. I do not understand what was happening.

Craig:  It doesn’t make any sense. I think I figured it out. The truth of the matter is I had to go to Wikipedia and read the plot synopsis. And when I read the plot synopsis, I was like, okay. I guess it makes sense, but I didn’t piece it all together. So in the beginning, Tony Todd is in the desert, you know, being creepy Tony Todd. I mean, that’s pretty much it with this drugged girl and he does I don’t know. It seems almost some sort of like voodoo or something where he she’s drugged and he, like, is talking to her all creepy and then he, like, reaches into her abdomen with his hand and is like fishing around in her abdomen and pulls something out.  And it’s like when he pulls it out, like, then her abdomen seals itself back up.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  It’s And we don’t even we don’t see what he pulls out. We do hear because they’re laying on the ground. There’s like a grate in the ground. We hear like this screaming and and stuff from underground, which I assume is supposed to be the prison that we’re gonna be introduced to Maybe. Here pretty soon.

Todd:  Maybe.

Craig:  I think what’s going on here because it it it bookends. Ends. He comes back at the very end, and we see that he’s got another girl. I think that he’s the collector. You know how, like, as it turns out, they use, like, sick and homeless people

Todd:  Right.

Clip:  For, like, victims or whatever? He’s the

Craig:  one who’s who’s grabbing them. I think so. Whatever. I think he’s the

Todd:  one who’s who’s grabbing them? I think so.

Craig:  I guess so. It’s so tenuous. I don’t know. Well and it

Todd:  doesn’t explain the whole scene.

Craig:  I mean, it’s a bizarre scene like you said.

Todd:  He throws her in the ground. She’s like

Craig:  You’re gonna rape and murder me, aren’t you?

Clip:  I don’t sell damaged guns. I used to raise plants.

Todd:  And then there’s, like, a water pump next to him, but when he opens up the water pump, this black stuff comes out, which I thought was blood, but it’s just kinda sludgy. Smears it on her face, tells her to eat it. She doesn’t. And then, like you said, performs this, what I recognize as a psychic surgery. There are all Yeah. Yeah. Charletons in this, South America, mostly, who claim to be able to do this. But it’s all

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  It’s all just palming blood packets and and, you know, little bits of raw chicken. And that so that’s clearly what he’s doing there. To what end, I have no idea. Because then he just kinda wipes her clean and chucks her in the back of the van. So what was that all about?

Craig:  I don’t know. Do you know? I don’t know. I have no idea. It makes absolutely no sense.

Todd:  Yeah. Okay.

Craig:  And then we’re introduced to our, 2 main characters who are these young agents, agent Boone, Toria Boone, who’s played by Courtney Palm, don’t know her from anything, and, agent Novak who’s played by Cody Longo. They’re just hot people.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  That’s that’s pretty much it. And they’re good at being hot. I mean, like, that’s it’s kinda it. Really, you need, like, the cliff notes to know what’s going on because it just doesn’t it’s totally unclear. Like, we we see this scene where agent Boone is with this guy named Sieg, played by Kane Hodder, and he makes her kill a couple of innocent people and then she shoots him in the leg and then he goes to jail. Now what I read was that she was working undercover to get him. And so she had to kill those innocent people Mhmm. In order not to blow her cover with him and then they were able to apprehend him And that’s why she has now been selected to be, like, this, I don’t know, top agent, secret agent,

Todd:  something. I actually did figure that out, not not anywhere close to the scene, but after we saw the story of the other guy. And then they were kinda talking about how they had been sent there together, I thought, oh, okay. So that was, like, her little secret agent story. Although, that scene doesn’t also make any sense because the way I read it was, they’re alone in this room, the 2 of them, with this other this woman and her kid. He turns around and turns on Wagner, like, you know, he’s a Nazi, you know, they played opera during Right.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And and and he’s facing the wall while she shoots this this woman and her kid. Then he turns around, she shoots his leg, and just as quickly, people storm in the the room and and take him away. Right. Well, why did she do that? If he had turned his back and there were people outside ready to storm in and take him away, why didn’t she just shoot him in both knees? You know? Yeah. I didn’t get that at all. I get more the other guy’s story. And we see a flashback a little later on where he’s, like, in Afghanistan or something and he’s embedded with, like, a Taliban or something. And, he has to actually slit someone’s throat in order to not blow his cover.

Craig:  Gotcha.

Clip:  So he

Todd:  has Todd, kinda, perform one of those Taliban executions. Right?

Craig:  Uh-huh. And supposedly, I guess that those are their qualifying moments. Like, that’s what qualified them. For what? I don’t really know because I don’t know what their purpose is. Okay. So they bring them into this prison called the death house and then the next 30 minutes of the movie is them touring slash virtual touring this facility.

Todd:  That’s because it takes 30 minutes to try to explain what this place is. And and it’s not easy to explain. It’s not easy to follow. It’s not easy to understand. No. And it starts out with just them walking into a room and being introduced to, like, 5 or 6 different people. I I love this scene because it was the first moment I laughed out loud at the movie where they’re standing there, and it’s, like, hey, you’re agent so and so. No.  Call me Victor. Victor, I’m agent Botha. Oh, doctor Fletcher. Doctor Fletcher, meet agent Botha. Agent Novak, meet doctor Fletcher. Doctor Fletcher, agent Novak. Doctor Karen Redman is coming in. Oh, this is doctor and the whole scene goes like that.  And I’m like, oh, crap. I’m trying to write these names down. I’m trying to remember them. In the end, it doesn’t matter because you don’t see half these people again.

Craig:  Well, and these things things just happen just seemingly totally out of context. Like, so okay. So I guess this facility, there’s some exposition where they kind of try to explain it. And, supposedly, it’s supposed to be based on Dante’s Inferno, which if that’s it it’s so loose. I mean

Todd:  Isn’t this the second movie that’s supposedly based on Dante’s Inferno that we had to go to IMDB to realize that it was based on I am Dante’s Inferno.

Craig:  The the only thing I mean, it’s so loose. The only thing is just that, like, in the at the bottom level are the most evil people or whatever. That’s the only connection that I can make.

Todd:  In the world.

Craig:  There there are levels and then at the bottom is the worst. Like, that’s the only connection I see. So they’re taking a virtual tour and, like, there’s some exposition. And I think that Adrienne Barbeau, who doesn’t even really appear in the movie, she just does

Clip:  a voice over. The death house established in 1954 under the Eisenhower administration was created in the wake of Operation Paperclip. This facility serves as a federal maximum security prison, medical, psychological and parapsychological research center. There are 9 levels with the first dedicated to prisoner intake and minimum security confinement. The 9th and final level is reserved for the 5 evils, one mile into the earth. Prisoners are confined to virtual environments that recreate environments before confinement to preserve their natural surroundings for study. Each containment cell is fed a chronic gas mixture to keep the prisoners amenable to the virtual illusions around them.

Craig:  They’re like looking around and and they say that they have all these criminals and they’re trying to study the nature of evil. And so to do that, they get these people and they put them in these cells and they drug them and through the use of hallucinogens, they recreate the environments that the killers are familiar with and allow them to recreate the crimes that they committed so that it’s like they’re in their natural environment and they’re trying to study their behaviors to try to see what the nature of evil is so that they can try to eradicate evil or whatever. Yeah. It’s weird. It’s all very convoluted.

Todd:  And and

Clip:  so

Todd:  we hear that, and then

Craig:  we see this scene that comes out of nowhere where agent Boone walks into a room and Danny Trejo murders this woman in her bed. And agent Boone is like, oh, no, mom. And then she shoots Danny Trejo. Now I I was so confused through all of this because at first, I thought that the whole thing was VR. Mhmm. Then I thought, okay. Well, they’ve got the prisoner in there, and they’re allowing him to recreate this stuff. So that part is VR, but the prisoner is really real.  But then it turns out that the victim is also real. Like, they’re they bring in these homeless people. There’s a One of them is Angela from sleepaway camp. And they’ve got all these people standing around and who are just, like, totally in a daze. And they explain how they select these people and then they, you know, put them in costume and in makeup and sometimes even put prosthetics on them to make them look like the victims of these murderers so that they can recreate these scenarios. And the agents are like I like, it’s almost as though the question of the ethicality of this is just

Todd:  Glossed over entirely?

Craig:  They vaguely mention it, but then it’s, like, well, I don’t know. Whatever.

Todd:  Well, it’s an absurd scene. And, you know, this was giving me shades of Independence Day. You remember Independence Day and Brent Spiner’s scene? He’s, like, that doctor, and he’s explaining about the aliens. And he’s kind of a little quirky and a little weird, but he’s also, like, super enthusiastic and jokey about what he does. Yeah. He was channeling that character, and it was a little out of place for this movie. And I guess, like you say, they were trying to be a little comedic about it, maybe trying to make some social statement or whatever, but it just kinda fell flat the moment that he walks over or the woman walks over to each of the girls and says, see? Have a look. And, like, tears their shirts off

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  To expose their boobs

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  Just to prove, I guess, that, see, we have used makeup, and we’ve used genetics and everything to recreate down to the preferences of these killers or their victims or whatever. Well, how does anybody know that? They’re just 2 random people standing here. Okay. I’ll take your word for it because I don’t know what killer they match with and what his preferences were. But I guess, you gotta prove that anyway by tearing their shirts off? And then they just stand there with boobs hanging out for, like, the rest of the scene. I mean, it it’s so bad. It’s so bad.

Craig:  It really, really is. At this point, they’ve been introduced to another doctor, doctor Redmayne, who’s played by Barbara Crampton, who I feel like, out of all the people in this movie, does the best that she can do. Like, I really like Barbara Crampton. She’s at least charming, you know, like, as as she kind of but even she, like, it’s just so poorly written. Like, at one point, they go on a virtual tour and she’s there and she literally says, I love being an avatar. It’s one of the perks of the job. Like, really? This is your writing. I mean, come on.  You got all of these actors and you couldn’t hire a writer that could come up with something better than

Todd:  I love being an avatar. One of the perks of the job.

Craig:  It is confusing because it cuts back and forth because sometimes they are actually touring and sometimes it’s the VR tour.

Todd:  Yeah. And then you think that they’re really there, and you’ve kind of move you’re moving on with the plot, and then suddenly there’s that picture of them sitting there with the VR glasses on. You’re, like, wait wait wait a minute. And we’re not talking, like, this is clever. Like, oh, is it a mirror? No, it’s not. Oh, it’s actually virtual. No, it’s just super confusing for no good reason. Because we’re still just getting a tour of the facility and getting an idea of what’s going on.  And what’s happening in this scene is that Sieg is strapped getting strapped to that Craig. And what she explains to them is that they’re stripping them they’re basically using drugs and things to basically wipe these people’s personalities clean, and then they’re refilling them somehow, using technology, I guess, with, what they say is a moral center or something a moral person. Yeah. What did none of this make sense, Craig? None of this makes sense. On the one hand, they’re trying to investigate the nature of evil by putting these people in their own little Star Trek holodecks and allowing them to recreate their crimes over and over on real people, so that they can study them how. What are they doing? And so then their ultimate goal is eventually to take those people and then just wipe them clean and put moral people in them Todd do what? To release back into the world?

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  What’s the point? I didn’t get it at all.

Craig:  Well, I think that at the end, we’re supposed to realize

Todd:  That it’s all a ruse.

Craig:  Well, that it is kind of a ruse and that really it’s nefarious in nature. But I don’t understand how the characters don’t get that from the beginning. Like, how can any of this be ethically none of it can be ethically justified. Yeah. Okay. So you’re you’re studying the nature of evil by supplying people to be murdered by these like, it just doesn’t it it doesn’t make any kind of sense. They straight up tell them, oh, we take these people and we erase all their memories and then we reprogram them. Next scene, for no reason, the two main characters shower together.

Todd:  Oh, without soap. I just wanna point that out.

Craig:  Right. And and in very cold water

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Because

Todd:  That much is obvious. Yeah.

Craig:  I’ll I’ll just leave it at that. Fine. These these two lead actors, they’re both hot. They they I get it. I don’t mind seeing them in the shower. But justify like, why do they have to take a shower at the same time in the same shower stall? It doesn’t make any sense at all.

Todd:  Like, it’s so that they can have this supposedly clever dialogue about their tattoos, which goes nowhere and isn’t clever at all and gives nothing of substance to the scene.

Craig:  No. And and there’s, like, I feel like there’s supposed to kinda be some sexual tension. Like, they’re both obviously, like, eyeballing each other

Clip:  the

Craig:  whole time. Like, I mean, if you’re gonna bang, just do it. Like, what different you know, like, you’re both naked right there in shower.

Todd:  If you’re setting up I’m

Craig:  just stopping you.

Todd:  Well, yeah. No no more skillful way to set up sexual tension, you know, just like Alfred Hitchcock would have done than to strip 2 people down naked and throw them in a shower a foot away from each other.

Craig:  Well and what I was getting at before is, you know, they had just been told we strip away their memories and then reprogram them with new personalities. And then they get in the shower, and they’re like, do you remember why you got your tattoos? Nope. I don’t remember anything.

Todd:  I know. I thought that was a I thought that was foreshadowing something.

Craig:  It is.

Todd:  Oh, is it?

Craig:  But but it’s so obvious. Like, they literally had just been told we wipe people’s memories and reprogram them. And then they get in the shower and they’re like, do you remember anything from our past? Nope. Do you? Nope. Like, put 2 and 2 together.

Todd:  So okay. I totally missed that, Craig.

Craig:  I don’t care if I spoil anything here because it’s so nonsensical that it doesn’t make any sense at all. When they finally get to the bottom where these supposedly worst most evil people are, the main one played by Bill Moseley explains to them, though even in the explanation it went completely over my head Yeah. And I had to read about it to see what was going on. What is really going on is that these two agents were prisoners in the death house. The Bill Moseley character, his name is Guyger, he says there’s not just one. There’s a bunch of them and you guys were, like, some of the worst of the worst. And they reprogrammed you and now you are what you are because they reprogrammed you or whatever. I watched the movie twice, and I never got that.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Did you get that at all?

Todd:  No. No. That went right over me. And furthermore, now that you explain it to me, I’m even more confused because then why were they brought back there? What was that purpose?

Craig:  I have no idea. I have no idea. When we get to the end, I’ll try to I’ll try, I guess, to kind

Clip:  of

Craig:  explain what I read, but it’s Okay. It’s dumb. And okay. So then, I don’t know. Nothing makes sense. Okay. So there’s a guard outside randomly, and he gets killed by a weird kid randomly. Yeah.  And this weird kid sticks something in his abdomen, and then he goes the they they bring the body back inside. I I don’t know how they think they’re gonna save this guy who’s had his entire abdomen

Todd:  ripped out.

Craig:  But alright. Whatever. And they realize there’s something in there. Thank Todd for Lloyd Kaufman. He’s really funny Yeah. In this movie. He’s kinda like the mad scientist doctor. He’s really funny.  But when he pulls out whatever this thing is, it sends out, like, an electrical pulse that knocks out all the electric in the whole facility. I have no idea who that kid was. Yeah. I have no idea who or what that kid was working for.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah.

Craig:  I have no idea why somebody was trying to disable the facility. No idea.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  I guess it doesn’t really matter. Yeah. They just needed to get the power out.

Todd:  I I have no idea why this kid who had no problem getting that far into the facility couldn’t make his way a little further into the facility if he had to detonate this out. But, more to the point, this electromagnetic pulse thing was so powerful that it was able to wipe out all of the electricity in this entire facility that goes 9 stories underground and spawns out in all these different directions. I would imagine that doing it just outside the entrance or doing it a little further inside wouldn’t make that big of a difference.

Craig:  Well and also, like, when it wipes everything out, the characters are, like, do your cell phones work? And they’re, like, no. But all the batteries and the Flashlights work. Yeah. At at one at one point, I feel like Dee Wallace even says, are the batteries gonna work? Oh, yeah. They do, inexplicably. Yeah. Like

Todd:  Oh, well, this happens when they’re in an elevator as part of their Todd, these 2 agents. Dee Wallace is with them. And Dee Wallace is going through this long explanation, almost as though she herself is bored with it, about Yes. The the power and how the power works at the facility and all this stuff. And she just is completely emotionless, like, completely not concerned in this entire scene, until the point where she actually literally, like, recedes into the background. Like, these 2 agents are trying to figure out how they’re gonna get out, and he decides to go up and try to get out the the trapdoor at the top of the elevator, because we know all elevators have 1. And and she’s literally doing nothing. She’s just standing there looking around, watching watching what they’re going to do.  This woman, who supposedly has all of this encyclopedic knowledge of this facility, has no good ideas and not even trying to volunteer any way for them to get out of this situation.

Craig:  And seems comp like, it’s not as though she’s I don’t know how you would even explain it. Like, it’s just so deadpan. Like, oh, yeah. All the power’s out. If it doesn’t come back on in an hour, everybody’s gonna get out, and then we’re gonna be dead.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Like, It’s just so dead bad. Like, no panic. Nothing. Her entire performance is so flat, and it made me so sad because I love her.

Todd:  I know. It was awful. It really was. So he breaks out. He goes up, the elevator shaft and, instantly so the deal is that now that

Craig:  He climbs it. He’s like, I love you know, just hand over hand climbs the wire the cables.

Todd:  The idea is that once now that all the power is out, this keeps the gas. This this hallucinogenic gas that’s keeping these people drugged or whatever in their own worlds is gonna go away, and they’re gonna wake up, and then it’s very easy for them to break out of their cells, apparently, and go loose. But then, there’s some other gas that, is like the fail safe switch that they can release that will kill absolutely everything in the facility. Mhmm. And so I’m trying to figure out, were they trying to get out of the facility, or were they trying to go to the fail safe to flip it? Because at one point, I thought their goal was to get out. But then, I guess at another point, they decide that they need to go further down or go to some failsafe to trip the I wasn’t entirely clear on that. Because so he goes up, and he comes out, and he has this fight scene with this guy who’s already loose, which you can’t see anything that’s happening because everything’s really dark.

Craig:  And And it’s just I mean, it’s so stereotypical and gratuitous. Like, this guy just keeps going on and on and on about how he wants to rape him. Like Yeah. Like Yeah. Come on. I, like, I I don’t have any problem with that in theory. It just seems so, like, oh, we need to have this mo it’s a

Todd:  prison,

Craig:  and we’ve got a hot guy, so we need to have one of the prisoners want to have sex with him. Yeah.

Todd:  So so they start wandering through basically a haunted house. It’s just these dark corridors with doors off the side of them, and there’s just random intestines and gore on the floor and in the rooms and handprints on the wall. Like, these prisoners were really really busy over the last 10 minutes

Craig:  Yes.

Todd:  Tearing somebody to shreds.

Craig:  Yes. And then, I mean, we had seen them, like, beat and kill the guards and stuff and presumably some of the scientists and stuff Todd. But like you said, it’s just ridiculous carnage. Just body parts everywhere. And then there’s, like, a petite woman in her panties, like, eating the insides of a guy. Like, who is this? What? What kind of facility is this?

Todd:  I know. Like And they just walk up to and go, well, that’s gross. Keep walking.

Craig:  Yeah. Well and then they get to this one room that Dee Wallace is like, oh, I know this room. We’ll hide in here. Just stay close to the door. And they’re like, wait. What else is in here? And she’s like, no. Don’t look. And I am still baffled as to what was going on in this scene.  I have no idea.

Todd:  I don’t either, man. Again, it’s just like a haunted house scene. These odd half decomposed

Craig:  Humanoid. Yeah. Like, skinless.

Todd:  Just wailing and just kind of crouching and standing in the corner, and then one of them picks up what’s supposed to maybe be a baby’s corpse and starts eating it or something? And but there’s a microphone in the room, and it’s Yeah.

Craig:  And one of them is just constantly wailing into the microphone.

Todd:  I was totally I was totally thinking about Return of the Living Dead 2 when the when the zombie gets on, the police, radio. You know, it

Craig:  is like, sad more cops. Yeah. It makes no sense. And, like, I feel like they don’t even the the guy Novak is, like, what are these people? What happened to them? And Dee Wallace is, like, we don’t know.

Todd:  We haven’t been able why how are they still alive? And she says, we haven’t figured that out yet. Like, something like this should that should kinda put a pause on the whole operation. Like, you should really stop and really study what’s what’s going on in this room. That that would be a pretty big contributor to science right there.

Craig:  Todd. I don’t know.

Todd:  Well, in the mean In the meantime and please explain this to me too. In the meantime, now that they’ve kind of subdued all the guards, Kane Hodder’s, character comes running out, and he stands up above them. And I guess he’s supposed to be the worst of them.

Craig:  I guess.

Todd:  He yells down and goes, alright, now, everybody listen up. And he’s got a head in both hands. And suddenly, he gets shot from out of nowhere, and he falls forward to the ground. And I thought, oh, that was a surprise. Mhmm. Oh, okay. Wow. What a what a strange turn of events.  Then, 2 big burly guys come walking out of nowhere. Don’t know who they are. Were they horror actors making a cameo?

Craig:  I didn’t recognize them. I don’t know.

Todd:  I didn’t either. And one of them bends over this guy, plunges into his stomach, and rips out his whole upper intestine and slaps it on the ground. Turns to walk away

Craig:  After he’s already been shot. Did you say that? Yes. Somebody shot him. Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. He’s shot. There’s a big hole in his chest, and then he rips this thing out and throws it down, and he spins around. And then suddenly from behind him, is that all you got? And they turn around and he’s standing right there. Yeah. Woah. I and I was

Craig:  looking No. I have no idea.

Todd:  Was there like a I thought was he like a hologram, or was he like an avatar, or no? But that couldn’t make sense because there was no electricity in the building. What was that?

Craig:  I have no idea. And he goes on to say later, I’m immortal. What why? Like, did something happen that I missed? I I don’t get it. Yeah. But yeah. And and so, like, he’s on this mission to get down to the 5 most evil people or whatever. Like, he follows them or worships them or thinks that they are salvation or something and he’s trying to get down there. He gets one of those Satan guys and takes him down.  It doesn’t make any difference, like, it seems almost pointless to mention any plot points because none of it matters.

Todd:  No. But some of these scenes are absolutely hilarious. Like, this the the 2 agents and Dee Wallace are are walking around now either trying to get out or trying to find the kill switch, not really sure which, and they come into this room that looked like a saw set Uh-huh. And there are these corpses that are kind of tied up in bags hanging from pipes on the ceiling. Now, it was a short it wasn’t a really tall ceiling. Uh-huh. It looked like kind of a meat locker type room. And there’s just, like, a pool of green below them, and this is when we get the revelation.  And I this was so stupid that I wrote it down.

Clip:  The kill switch is a gas that disables the immune systems, allowing your own body’s bacteria to eat you alive, which results in this, no human remains.

Todd:  Like, what science book Okay. Did they pull this out?

Craig:  I couldn’t I and and okay. So, like Yeah. But then Alright. I mean, we knew it was the kill switch. So what difference does it make?

Todd:  It doesn’t make a difference. So then, they hear the sounds. It’s these other people coming towards them. The Kane Hodder crew are coming down the hallway towards them. So their way of hiding is to leap up and grab onto these dummies, like they’re gonna hang from these dummies. Alright. So suddenly, this room where these dummies were just like maybe 4 feet off the floor, we’re supposed to believe that they are hanging from these same pipes, and they’re so high up above these guys walking in the room that they can’t see them.

Craig:  Right? And if they’re that high up there, how did they get up there?

Todd:  Exactly. So we know they’re not that high up there because there was no way for them to leap up and grab it. However, the way that the scene is now shot from above, it looks like they’re, like, 15 feet in the air above this group of people who’ve come in. And they swing their flashlights around and up, and they don’t see them, but Dee Wallace can’t hold on. And she slips. And the scene of her falling is like Cliffhanger. Is like the guy at the end of Die Hard falling. Yeah.

Craig:  It’s like, no. You know, she gets

Todd:  smaller and smaller. You are falling 4 feet tops.

Craig:  Yeah. And then she dies. She dies.

Todd:  From a fall. Okay. So so what is the tension you’ve been building up in the scene? They’re gonna get discovered, and they’re gonna be killed by this group of people. Right?

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  They come in. They look at her on the ground. They swing their flashlights up. They see them up there, and the guy just says, fucking we got somewhere to be.

Craig:  Freedom. Literally

Todd:  says that, turns around, and they all walk out. What?

Craig:  And then the next thing is probably my favorite scene. I have no idea why, but for whatever reason, Boone and Novak decide that the only way out is to go out through the bottom. Like, somehow, they’re going you know, like, these 5 evil people at the bottom, that’s gonna be their escape. I have no idea why. And they’re like, well, how do we get down there? Oh, well, we’re gonna free fall through the elevator shaft, holding on to the elevator cables

Todd:  With our bare hands.

Craig:  With our bare hands and just shooting as we go. So we get this long scene of them just holding on to the wires, like free falling down these stories, shooting shooting. I don’t know what they’re shooting or who they’re shooting at.

Todd:  I don’t know. But there’s this heavy metal soundtrack that suddenly kicks in behind him, and we get these shots down the elevator, these computer generated shots of them flying. And I’m like, okay. This is gonna be good. I wanna see how they’re gonna stop. Like, are they really gonna squeeze this elevator cable with their bare hands? And it just, like, that’s it. Like, they just cut the scene away. And the next scene you see of them, they’re at the bottom.

Craig:  Mhmm. And they go and they find these 5 evil dudes who are supposedly well, they’re not all dudes. There’s a chick too, that supposedly are immortal, I guess. I don’t even understand. They’re like superheroes down at the bottom. Like, they’re just like

Todd:  They have superhero outfits on. They all Yeah. Are wearing these oh, god. They they each have, like, a symbol that’s on their chest that looks looks like it’s made of electricity and stuff. And they’re they’re in these weird sci fi ish type suits.

Craig:  Yeah. And there’s, Geiger, who is Bill Mosley, and he’s like some evil Nazi enthusiast. And Balthoria is the only female and she’s like, the countess of Bathory, whoever, who like to bathe in people’s blood. And Alexei Nila, who is a cannibal and a necromancer and Craig, who’s played by, John Berryman. I think that’s his name. He was a bioweapon, and I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this matters. It’s a style as a satanist. Right.

Todd:  Expertise in the satanic arts. And and when they were reading their bios at the very beginning of the movie, you just had to laugh because, like, the things that these people did were so over the top ridiculous. Like, this person went in and massacred an entire church and then went down the street to a nursery and gutted all the children in the nursery. Yeah.

Craig:  And and, like, you know, Bill Moseley is a cool and he I like him in this movie. He’s one of the only good performers in this movie. And I am so familiar with him from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and the Rob Zombie movies where he always plays, you know, a real dirty kind of gritty character. And here he’s almost gentlemanly.

Todd:  Yeah. True.

Craig:  And I like him in this. But you’ve got him and, you know, these other people who are supposed to be so badass. And then the one chick I’m like, oh, she’s surely somebody. I’m like, she looks kind of familiar to me, and she’s from Days of Our Lives. Like, where did where what she must she must be somebody’s girlfriend.

Todd:  But I don’t know. Was she the most evil character on Days of Our Lives?

Craig:  No. She was sweet. Oh.

Todd:  Comparatively speaking? I don’t know.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  I don’t know.

Todd:  It’s always nice when you could have a horror days of our lives crossover. You know, it’s nice to see that.

Craig:  It happens more than you’d think. So they get down there and they talk to them, and that’s when he explains to them, you know, you’ve been manipulated. You were one of us. In fact, you were like the worst and and it goes into this whole big philosophical thing about the nature of evil. And in order for good to exist, evil has to exist because there has to be, like, a dichotomy and they he says, you know, this this whole system is corrupt. They’re trying to build this new society where technology is the Todd and there is no good and no evil and that goes against, you know, human nature and the laws of nature and all that stuff. So it’s bad, basically is what he says. And so what he says is, we need you so that we can escape so that then you can come hunt us.  Because we need to go out there and be evil so that you can be good and that restores

Todd:  The balance.

Craig:  Natural balance. Yeah. Stupid.

Todd:  And then Kane Hodder’s character bursts in, like like kinda like, hey,

Clip:  me too, guys. What about me?

Craig:  Can I can I join you? You know?

Clip:  I’m evil too. You know? I’m I’m I’m immortal.

Craig:  And they’re like Right. Oh, really?

Todd:  And then they say you were part of our plan all along. Why? Why? I’m sick. You’re, like, shaking my head. What plan what were you planning from down here? I I don’t get it.

Craig:  Right. And what did he do? Like, he didn’t do anything.

Todd:  He he yeah. I don’t know. I I I have no killed the guards?

Craig:  I get it.

Todd:  I Maybe? I don’t know. But but they’re then they just stare at him and, I guess send their chest electricity out towards him, and he burns up and

Craig:  does. Incinerates.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. Uh-huh.

Todd:  And then they, the 2 agents, just leave. Right? I mean Yeah. They just leave. Go out. Suddenly, they’re upstairs and out in the bright sunlight, and they just look at each other and they’re like, well, I guess what are you gonna do? I guess I’m gonna try to find my own way. And she’s like, yeah. Me too.

Craig:  Right. Like, let’s do it together. And, like, I didn’t get it if they meant that they I I I I kind of got the insinuation that they were now gonna go out and hunt those 5 evil people that had escaped or whatever. But then when I read about it online, it said that they were gonna go out and look for their true identities. I don’t know. I have no idea.

Todd:  Oh, god. Setting us up for a sequel or something?

Craig:  No. Real quick. Then there’s the Tony Todd scene at the end where he does the same thing with another girl. It doesn’t matter. But I did read that there is a prequel supposedly in the works. Oh, god. I can’t imagine it yeah. And it’s called, Rise of the Five Evils.  Oh.

Clip:  It’s supposed

Craig:  to be about those 5 evil people from the bottom. I can’t imagine that it will actually end up getting made. I read that this movie grossed, like, $25,000. Like, I can’t imagine that they would ever put together a sequel based on that return.

Todd:  It’s rare that I say this, but I have not watched a movie this bad and this tiresome to watch in quite a while. And we see a lot of bad movies. At least there’s usually something redeeming about it. But when the only redeeming thing about this movie is that you can pick out some people that you recognize, man. That is, No.

Craig:  Yeah. And and I’m telling you. Okay. So if you are really a a horror fan, which Todd and I are, you know, like, we’re we’re totally into this, get drunk and then watch this movie. Because because spot the celebrity is really kind of fun to play Yeah. If you’re not at all concerned about what’s going on. Because what’s going on is completely nonsensical and stupid, and not even worth your time. But it is kinda cool to see some of these people.  I don’t know. We skipped over a couple of things like Sid Craig, who I really enjoy, has a a totally inconsequential scene as an icicle killer. I mean, he literally sits in a chair and delivers a monologue. Yeah. But but I like him nonetheless. And like I said, you know, I think Bill Moseley does a good job. Phyllis Rose, Angela from Sleepaway Camp, she looks good.

Todd:  Yeah. She does.

Craig:  I was impressed. I was like, dang, girl. That movie is old and you be looking good. So it was it was kind of fun, you know, to see these people again. But that’s it. That is the only appeal of this movie.

Todd:  It was actually that Sid Craig scene that made me realize for the first time that that’s probably how they filmed it, like you said, was just, tried to find some scenes that were all separate from each other, where they could get these actors on a green screen. I I really think that’s why they did the whole, they’re kept in their own little, you know, Star Trek holodeck universes, is so that they could have an excuse to put an obvious sort of green screen behind these people. So it’s like, okay, Sid, we’ll go to your house, and we’ll set up a green screen in your living room, and we can film your your your scene here, so you don’t have to come all the way, you know, to LA or something. And they just sort of did that with Danny Trujillo. They did that with Bill Oberst and, you know, the other 2. They never left that room. Right? So No. It’s probably how it was filmed, and probably why it’s so disjointed.  Mhmm. And doesn’t make any sense. Maybe they were when writing the script, you’re trying a little too hard to to make the logistics of getting all these actors in the movie together, and you end up with a script that’s just nothing more than getting a bunch of actors in a movie together.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. It’s too bad. I and it’s dedicated to Gunnar Hansen and, you know, for his sake, you know, I think that this was something that he was something that he was passionate about. For his sake, I I’m glad that it came to fruition. I, you know, it’s unfortunate that it’s kinda Craig, but whatever. He was a a cool guy and it is sad that he’s gone. But anyway, you know, it is what it is.  I I folks, I I Todd texted me yesterday and said, this is what we’re doing for tomorrow. Right? And I was like, yeah. I’m sorry.

Todd:  Good to dance.

Craig:  And and that’s kinda how I feel, you know, talking to you out there, and I guess we suffer for our Craig. Well, thank you for joining us again for another episode of 2 guys in the chainsaw. If you enjoyed this episode, please check us out all over the place. You know, we’re on Facebook, Itunes, Google Play, Stitcher. We’ve got, a website that you can find. Just Google us, 2 guys in the chainsaws out there. Let us know what you thought of this episode. Let us know what you thought of this movie, especially if you have any insight or positive things to say that we neglected.  I would love to hear it because I really wanted to like this, and I was sadly disappointed. And beyond that, we just love hearing from you guys. If you have any recommendations or suggestions of things that we should watch in the future, let us know. But until next time, I’m Craig. And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.