2 Guys and a Chainsaw

The Deadly Spawn

The Deadly Spawn

big gaping mouth of teeth

This homage to B-Movie sci-fi films of the 50s becomes the very definition of a “creature feature”: An entire film centered gratuitously around a big, ugly monster and little else. Back when this rare and gritty low-budget gore-fest beckoned from the video store shelves, neither of us had a chance to see it. Thank you, Internet.

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The Deadly Spawn (1983)

Episode 180, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome Todd another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  Today’s movie is one that I’ve been wanting to see for quite some time. This movie shouted at me from the video store shelves, but only from certain video stores. It wasn’t one you saw up there all the time. This was one of those in a big box. You know what I’m talking about, Craig? Yeah. Like

Craig:  What do you mean?

Todd:  The I Spit on Your Grave size box.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you’re talking about.

Clip:  You know,

Todd:  the one that sort of screams like this this movie is maybe a little illicit or a little different from the others. Maybe produced and put out by a a smaller company. Maybe not so mainstream, and maybe it’s gonna be a little more dangerous than what you normally watch. Yeah? It, it had a a big three headed kind of alien with about a billion teeth on the cover, and it was called Return of the Deadly Spawn and just covered in gore. Absolutely blood on the floor, limbs everywhere, right on the front cover. Didn’t even try to appeal to anything but the basest of instincts. And so, I’ve been wanting to watch this movie for a very long time, and I just kinda stumbled across it and said, let’s do it since this is what we do. So the movie is called, The Deadly Spawn from 1983.  How about you, Craig? You talk to me about this. I I assume you have you’ve never even heard of this before in your life, have you?

Craig:  No. I don’t think so. I don’t know. I mean, the, box art was maybe vaguely Oh, god. Familiar. But I don’t know. I mean, the monster on the box art and in the movie itself kinda looks like three wieners with teeth. Yeah.

Todd:  Wait. Three giant wieners with teeth. Right? It’s like

Craig:  So I don’t I don’t know if I recognize

Todd:  Is this, like, your best and worst nightmares combined?

Craig:  That’s good. I don’t know if I recognize the box art or if that’s just vaguely familiar for some other reason. I don’t know.

Todd:  Dude.

Craig:  But that’s but yeah. I mean, that’s that’s it. No. I I hadn’t seen it. I don’t remember reading anything about it. You know, after I watched it, I, read some stuff about it, and I read that they made it kind of banking on the notion or hope that marketed as Return of the Aliens Deadly Spawn.

Todd:  Yeah. Right?

Craig:  Or something like that?

Todd:  Kinda try to pass it off as a sequel to Alien in some small

Craig:  Right. Right. And and you can definitely see some suggestions of that. There’s a big monster, and then it’s got, you know, like, its deadly spawn or whatever. And the deadly spawn kind of look like, the alien I don’t know what you call it. The the the little

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  Toothy thing that shoots out of their mouth. You know? I don’t know if it’s a tongue or whatever it is, but it kinda looks like that. I can see how they would wanna capitalize on that. Alien was a huge film, and, of course, then Aliens, when it eventually came out, was huge too. So good for them for trying to, you know, cash in on that a little bit. Well but but yeah. That I mean, that’s that’s pretty much it. I I didn’t know anything about it.  I went in totally blind. Usually, the first thing I do when we pick what movie we’re gonna do is I I get on IMDB, and I look up who the director is, and I look up some of the performers to see what I know them from. And pretty much 90% of the people who worked on this movie only worked on this movie. Yeah. Like, you know, like, that’s it. They never did anything else ever again.

Todd:  The movie itself was the brainchild of a guy named John Dodds, who was a special effects designer. This was really just I mean, just his way to showcase himself, really. The only movie that he had done before this was a movie called Night Beast, in 1982, the year before. Maybe even worked on it, you know, at the same time he was working on this. And then later, did at least some of the effects for Spookies. Remember Spookies?

Craig:  Oh, yeah.

Todd:  And yeah. Which really impressed us. And then, you know, past that, he did some work on Poltergeist three, Ghostbusters two. There was a TV series in the late eighties called Monsters. I don’t know if you remember that, but, he did a number of effects for that. So this is first and foremost an effects movie. It’s a movie built around the creature and the idea that we’re gonna show you a monster and a creature and a bunch in this case, a bunch of gore. You know what I mean? It’s total driving fair.  This movie is a % driving movie. And it was, put in the hands of it’s this guy and another guy just kinda got together. We’re gonna produce this movie. We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna have this monster. Let’s find somebody to write and direct it. And they found this guy. Again, only thing he’s ever done.  Douglas McKeeow? McKown? McKown or whatever. He lived in New Jersey. He, basically, is a teacher. High school acting teacher, I think. But he had done some super eight movies and did a lot of, like, little movies and things with his brother growing up. Was really into nineteen fifty style sci fi stuff. And, you know, we’ve done a movie just, last week. Right? There’s nothing out there.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  There was a, an intentional homage towards these nineteen fifties style sci fi movies. And I think this movie just falls squarely in that category. Yeah. I mean, the guy who made this clearly, had all of that in mind when he put it together. From the very beginning, like, when the when the music comes on, it’s got that score with the theremin in it. You know that

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Yeah. Yeah. That

Clip:  all of

Todd:  those movies have.

Craig:  That’s a track kinda deal.

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. And so, I mean, that kinda clues you in. The other thing that clues you in is it starts out, you know, with a meteor flying through the sky and landing somewhere. Right?

Craig:  Yeah. Against a matte painting, which I also love. I love that.

Clip:  It

Craig:  it’s so old school and, you know, fifties, sixties monster movie. You know, you you just throw this matte painting up on screen and, you know, just have a little just like a little green light just kinda fly down and and fall. Yeah. And and, of course, in in this instance, it’s a couple of, you know, guys camping in a tent who happened to see it, and it’s it’s just so classic. I mean, you’ve seen this scene a million times. Oh, what was that? They run over. Oh, look. It’s a meteor.  I gotta go get the camera.

Todd:  That’s right. And this meteor lands and there’s, like, a big crater and everything’s on fire. When it’s, like, obligatory. Yeah. I don’t know what the science is behind this, but, you know, I guess if meteors come through the atmosphere, they must be really, really hot, and they set the ground on fire around them. Yeah. Because it’s it’s set up exactly like all these movies. Now did you think it was interesting that there were two guys camping out instead of a guy and a girl? Camping out instead of a guy and a girl? I thought that was a unique twist.

Craig:  I don’t know. Why would that be interesting, Todd? I don’t know, Craig. It’s

Todd:  just a little different.

Clip:  From what

Craig:  we normally see. A little a little unexpected. I was. I was a little I was.

Clip:  I was

Todd:  a little surprised.

Craig:  I don’t know. You know, it was the the opening scene, I have to tell you, I I was a little bit worried, after that opening scene because it it seemed like it was gonna be a little bit more low budget than it actually ended up being. Now, it was fairly low budget. Mhmm. But in this opening scene, you know, you don’t see much. Not a lot happens on screen. You just the first guy, like, after

Todd:  It’s such a product of its time, this movie.

Craig:  Yeah. The the first guy, is, you know, still there by the meteor just, like, kind of gets real big eyed, like, oh, no. And, then you see some, like, blood splatter or whatever. Mhmm. And then the, the other guy’s back in in the tent, and he’s like, hey. Hey. Hey. Where are you? What Todd you like, just for, like, fifteen seconds.  Yeah. And then he gets kinda big eyed, and then, you know, there’s off camera action again and and blood splatter, and then you just kinda see his arm come out of the tent, and it’s all bloody, and it falls to the ground, and the blood comes out from underneath it. And the first glimpse that we get of the creature is a silhouette Yeah. In in the tent. And and it’s it’s difficult. I I wasn’t sure. You know, of course, I had seen the box art, but, it was difficult at this point to kind of tell what the creature really was. It looked kind of spidery with, like, kind of spidery legs, but then also, you know, just kind of a big toothy head.  It seemed to me that the suggestion was that it was growing. Like, you know, every time it feeds, it grows a little bit.

Todd:  I think you’re right.

Craig:  You know, it just seems very low budget, and I don’t have any problem with that. That’s fine. And I appreciate when, you know, filmmakers who are on a low budget are innovative with how they are gonna reveal things. But what I will say moving forward is that I was impressed that they do move beyond that. And we actually do get some really cool glimpses of this practical creature. And and and not glimpses. I mean, we see it outright Seriousness. Many, many times.

Todd:  Yeah. Right.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. It doesn’t skimp on the creature at all. I mean, you can tell this movie was built around a creature, and the creature is not disappointing in the slightest. No. No. But it does a really good job of, at least initially, of sort of following the formula of we’re not gonna blow our wad a little early. We’re We’re gonna show you glimpses. We’re gonna show you shadows.  We’re gonna have the hands reaching out. I think that was my one of my favorite parts of this movie was that it seemed like one of their favorite shots to show was a bloody hand Yeah. Reaching out or, like, by their side or whatever. If they’re not gonna show the creature, there’s, like, somehow blood is just coming off of a hand for some reason. And it’s the first bit of it. Actually, structure wise, for a guy’s first screenplay, he it’s almost like he just took one of these movies and just wrote, you know, verbatim what he saw because it follows the beats, that it should. The movie moves. I’m I was quite impressed.  I thought this movie is gonna be really, really lame. And not to say that it’s, you know, wonderful, But, I was really surprised at how the movie moved, how it stayed interesting, how the characters weren’t terrible. And the acting was quite serviceable, actually.

Craig:  You know? Not bad.

Todd:  For what they were given. I mean, it’s not like the lines were fantastic. But at least,

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  Like, the acting wasn’t like you’re gonna laughing at the screen because they they they’re so stupid. You know?

Craig:  Right. Right.

Todd:  And it has a surprise or two in there. It’s definitely a drive in movie, but it was way beyond my expectations. It was way more than I thought it would be. Not to say again that it we’re not at Bone Tomahawk level of production here. But, you know, it was Right. It was a solid solid movie that I actually enjoyed watching. I ended up

Clip:  kinda liking it too. Again, it’s not great. But, you know, for

Craig:  this creature Again, it’s not great. But, you know, for this creature feature kind of movie, it was it was kind of fun. I I have to admit I was a little bit worried in these first twenty minutes or so because after that first camping scene, then the next thing, if I remember correctly, that we see is this scene of this couple waking up in bed. Yeah. And we don’t know who they are, and he’s kinda greasy and I I don’t know.

Todd: 

And and I think it’s like he has obvious makeup on. It’s like I don’t know. It’s like they gave him a 05: 00 shadow with makeup, and they put darts Maybe. I I felt like that was kind of what was going on here. Like, the makeup showed up just a little too much on the screen. But didn’t he look a little too young for the woman he was in bed with?

Craig:  Yeah. I thought so. Yeah. And, ultimately, for who his character was. But who knows? Whatever. But we don’t know who they are. They wake up, and it seems like he’s, like, kind of in a rush. Like, they’ve got plans to do something.  And and the wife, I just wanna stay in bed in my gossamer gown and my perm. He it’s so funny. When he finally gets her out of bed, she gets out, and she’s in this completely sheer, like I don’t know. I don’t believe for a second anybody ever wore something like this to actually sleep in. Right. Maybe to get into bed.

Clip:  Yeah. You take it

Craig:  off at some point. Right? And and a little bit of nudity. Well, I mean, suggested nudity. Nipples through

Todd:  the the gossamer. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the only TNA you’re gonna get in this movie, which was a surprise.

Craig:  True. Yeah. It it was. I just I want I didn’t know who these people were, and I didn’t know what’s going on. And he says, oh, the the hot water’s broken again. I’m gonna have to go down and fix it. And she’s like, oh, does that mean we can stay home? And he’s like, no. Get up.  So she does. Whatever. And he goes down into the basement.

Todd:  Which is flooded, and it’s raining outside.

Craig:  Yes. Yes. It’s it’s been raining, a lot. And, he goes down there, and it’s flooded. And I was I’m still a little confused by this because I feel like he looked down at the drain and it looked like blood was going down the drain. Yeah. And I wasn’t really sure what was going on, but then he’s immediately dispatched. And, again

Todd:  In shadow.

Craig:  We get it in silhouette. Yeah. And I was like, oh, man. Is that all we’re ever gonna get is this silhouette? But, no, it’s not because, you know, now another of their favorite things to do is to splatter blood on a wall. Everywhere. Or or on a light bulb. Like, just you’re you know something’s happening because blood’s flying around, but that’s what you see.

Todd:  They this movie is awash in blood. Like, there is so much blood in this movie. There’s more blood than could possibly come from all of the actors, all of the characters in this movie combined. There’s blood

Craig:  everywhere. Yeah.

Todd:  It’s insane.

Craig:  And so he gets killed, and then the wife looks around, and I don’t know. She you know, there’s a cat, and she writes a note on a board, and she’s just kinda tooting around. And, but, eventually, she goes down to investigate, and it it’s it’s kind of a little bit of a slow burn. Eventually, she sees the blood going down the drain too, and she sees the blood splatter on the wall. And I love this gag, though. The hand gag?

Todd:  Yeah. The hand that touches her on the shoulder, and she turns around, and it’s it’s jutting out from the creature’s mouth. Yeah. That was fantastic.

Craig:  Right. But that’s when I was like, oh, thank Todd. Because then you get

Todd:  Full on.

Craig:  The shot of the creature. Yeah. And it’s it reminds me a little bit of, Audrey two from, Little Shop of Horrors. A little bit, but a little bit fleshier and toothier. Like, it just has these rows of teeth.

Todd:  Like, a billion teeth.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  And and they’re all wet and dripping all of the time. Yeah.

Craig:  This

Todd:  thing This thing should be dehydrated by the end of the movie as much Yeah. Water, slime is pouring out of its mouth and off of its teeth. It’s not disappointing at all.

Craig:  No. At one point, when some of our other characters discover one of the little ones, they suggest that it might be like a lamprey. And and that really is mostly what it looks like, you know, like those those sucker fish that that have those rows and rows of teeth that, like, cling on to sharks and

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  You know, eat their leftovers or whatever. That’s that’s kinda what it looks like. But we we get to see it here. It kills her in a very gruesome fashion. It it rips her face off.

Todd:  Yeah. Close-up.

Craig:  Yeah. Close-up. And it’s all practical, and you can tell, and it’s done with dummies and makeup and and prosthetics. And, it looks really good. And I was like, oh, okay. Good.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Craig:  This is the kind of movie it’s gonna be. And then she’s done, and then the very next scene is another alarm goes off and another ugly couple wakes up in bed. And I’m like, come on. Another ugly couple. This last scene just took ten minutes. Are we just gonna watch a series of these ugly people waking up in bed and getting eaten by this thing?

Todd:  That’s exactly what was going through my mind too. And then and then the funniest thing was this other ugly couple wakes up and they walk they get up and they walk through it, and you realize it’s the same freaking house. It’s the same house. How many people live in this house? How many Yeah. How many ugly couples live here? It it it turns out and they’re even uglier than the first two.

Craig:  They were.

Todd:  It turns out that they’re like the I guess, they’re the aunt and the uncle who are staying over, the ones who got dispatched. Right?

Craig:  So they wake up in the morning and and so she sees the note that the lady had written, and it was something like we’re we’re gonna be gone all day, but an electrician’s gonna be here, so somebody needs to be here or whatever. And then we also see these two young men wake up. And I say young men. One of them is probably, what, like, 12? Mhmm. And the other one I think we’re supposed to believe is, like, I don’t know, 19. He’s in college, I guess, because he’s a science major.

Todd:  Oh, gosh.

Craig:  But we we see we see them wake up. And I I actually thought that it was pretty bold as far as the writing went that I would have expected it to be the visiting aunt and uncle that got dispatched right away. Nope.

Todd:  Right.

Craig:  Mom and dad are dead in the basement from the get go Yep. And just nobody has any idea.

Todd:  It’s nuts. And, I mean, you’ve got already four four deaths right in the beginning. And they’re gory, and they’re bloody, and you just full on see the creature. It’s a great way to start out a movie. I mean, it’s fantastic. And so you got these four people. And I guess the uncle I don’t get his name, but he’s like a psychiatrist, I guess.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  And they have their typical dinner table conversation, and pretty soon, two more kids come down. There’s a younger kid named, Charlie Yeah. And an older kid named Pete. So Charlie is what? I don’t know. 12? Yeah.

Craig:  I would guess.

Todd:  And Pete, like you said, is is like the college age kid. And they come downstairs, and they have some chatter. But it’s set up pretty early on that Charlie is really into horror and sci fi movies. And I and I bet he’s just a personification of the director. When you when you go on and you read his profile, it seems like that’s him. And so his room is filled with, posters, classic posters, really.

Craig:  Oh, yeah.

Todd:  Lots of posters. Movies you’d recognize if you’re into this sort of thing, of the time anyway, of sci fi and horror movies. And then he has, like, monster outfits. And he kinda needs to get a life and some friends because Right. All he really does, it seems like all day long, is put on his cape and a and a mask or something and try to run around.

Craig:  Try to scare people.

Todd:  Scaring people. Which which comes into play later, which is quite nice. Exactly.

Craig:  Like, I was gonna as soon as I saw it, like, you know, he he tries to he puts on this big, you know, scary costume, and and tries to scare his aunt, which is totally ineffective. She’s like, oh, that’s cute. But he has flash powder to, you know, make a flash and some smoke for when she walks into his room. And the second I saw that, I was like, oh, that’s gonna come into play later. Like Of course. You you don’t just show us this really close-up of him, like, you know, making this flash powder bomb. Like, that’s obviously gonna come into play later, which, of course, it does. But, and and that’s not uncommon either.  I mean, that’s No. I got we have talked about probably two or three movies where there’s the kid that likes horror movies, and so he kinda, you know, has this special skill set that’s eventually gonna help him Mhmm. You know, defeat the monster. And so it’s it’s cliched and expected, but fine. You know? Like, alright. I get it. I see where we’re going with this.

Todd:  Well, and, interesting bit of trivia, the kid who plays Charlie is the son of a guy named Tim Hildebrandt. And Tim Hildebrandt and his brother Craig Hildebrandt are well known as, illustrators, fantasy illustrators. They Tim Hildebrandt made the, like, the the original Star Wars posters.

Craig:  Oh, wow.

Todd:  Very award winning guy. In fact, later on in the movie, there’s a Todd, or outside the house, clearly a miniature scene. And he did the miniatures for this. And this a lot of this movie that was shot inside the house was actually literally shot in his house. Charlie is his actual son, and that was actually his bedroom.

Craig:  Oh, wow.

Todd:  Yeah. He actually had all this stuff up in there. They had to do very little set dress. Whereas, the rest of the house, they had to move things around and kinda redress it every time they did it, which they said was a huge pain. His bedroom was more or less the way it was. So it’s kinda neat that he got a pretty big role in this movie playing, more or less, maybe the kind of kid he was. Who knows? But, you know, you got a dad who’s a fantasy illustrator, really well known. And, I I like this.  You know, I was actually getting shades of Phantasm a little bit. You remember A little bit. There’s the kid in Phantasm who, at some point, is really clever and kinda Rube Goldberg’s things together and is able to Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah.

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  Yeah. It was kinda the same thing. There are a lot of call outs, I think, to a lot of horror movies of this time that came just before it. There’s some alien references in there. Yeah. Like I said, there’s some I think there’s a phantasm reference in there. A lot of the blood spraying or at least especially downstairs, they make a huge deal of, like, squirting blood on the light bulb, which seemed to be something that Evil Dead did.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  And some of the shots where, like, downstairs with the monster, which are good shots actually, where the the the single light bulb will be swinging. And, it’ll alternately things will be in shadow and then sort of be revealed and be in shadow and be revealed. It’s it’s it’s clever cinematography Todd though it it really just borrows from a lot of these other movies. It works. Yeah.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. And it also you know, I I imagine this was unintentional. I imagine it just had to do with, you know, kind of the constraints of what they were working with. But, it reminded me quite a bit of critters, too because most of it is confined to this one house.

Todd:  True.

Craig:  There’s really only one other location and that I assume they probably just shot in somebody else’s house, you know. And it’s it’s not a a big sequence.

Todd:  Yeah. Well, it’s tightly done. Yeah. Because, you know, when the guy before he went downstairs, our first victim in the home, before he went downstairs, I told you it’s raining. He goes outside. He gets the paper. He goes and he picks up the paper. And as he walks inside, the camera pans down just to show you that the basement window is open.  Uh-huh. Like, that’s significant. It’s it’s really good. I mean, it’s really smart. Everything about this movie is pretty textbook smart, I think, as far as the structure, the cinematography, just the way it goes. I mean, formulaic, yes. Yeah. But at least they’ve stuck to the formula, and they did some cool things with it.  You know? A lot of these low budget movies are just really crappy.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  And this movie just never I I don’t think it ever really gets Craig. And I was so surprised.

Craig:  Me too. Because I thought

Todd:  I thought it was gonna be really crappy. So the kid, you know, is obsessed with horror and makeup. And again, the woman, you know, they have their dialogue or whatever. They’ve seen that the mom has already left her note that says, hey, we’re going out or whatever. So Right. There’s an explanation why the dad and the mom aren’t there. The woman has to leave the house to go to her mother’s house, who they make they make a point of, oh, it’s my mother’s vegetarian ladies get together.

Craig:  I don’t know why that was so funny to me, and it just cracked me up. And

Clip:  It was.

Craig:  It doesn’t come till later in the movie we’ll get there, but I swear that that scene with the vegetarian

Todd:  lady’s scene in the whole movie. It was the best. It was the best.

Clip:  I can’t wait to talk about it.

Craig:  Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We okay. But it’s not till later. Okay.

Todd:  No. What happens first is, you know, part of their dinner table conversation, which is a little weird and a little stilted, is that this uncle, who’s a psychiatrist, is really laying into the young kid about his obsession with horror movies and whatever. And he’s like, I wanna interview you. You would make a fascinating subject for me, you know, your fascination with horror movies or whatever. Can I interview you? And the kid’s like, yeah. Yeah. Whatever. That’s fine.  Mhmm. And so then they go out onto, like, the screened in porch, and they sit down, and they have what I thought turned out to be a slightly creepy dialogue. He’s like interviewing him, and and it’s supposed to be somewhat scientific, you know. Oh, you’re really into horror movies. Oh, you know, explain that a little bit, you know. What kind of monsters do you like? Oh, do you like to dress up? Like monsters? Yeah. You know, I like to dress up and walk around.

Clip:  Are you afraid of the dark?  Not really.  Would you be willing to put on one of your monster costumes and scare me?  Well, I don’t know. Oh,  that’s stupid. How could you scare me if I know about it? Besides, I don’t scare easily. Forget about it. I’ll tell you what, though. I’m gonna be working down here for a while. How about if I come up later and you show me some of your stuff? How would that be? Okay?  K. Great.

Craig:  Exactly. It was really weird. I didn’t the aunt and the uncle were even talking about the kid before. And, like like, the uncle’s, like, making notes about the kid or, like, writing questions down that he’s gonna ask or something, and the aunt’s like, lay off. He’s a cool kid. Like, he’s fine. Leave him alone. And I didn’t get it.  I’m like, what do you think is wrong with this kid? Like, he seems perfectly normal. Okay. Maybe he’s a little quiet. You know? Maybe he’s a little introverted, but it’s not like he’s some kind of freak show. Like Sure. Like, what? Okay. So they’re on vacation now, the aunt and the uncle. And right after this, they’re going or at least he says they’re going to some, like, psychologist convention or something.  And he tells the kid, you know, I I just think that this would be people would be interested in hearing more about you. I think you’re a really interesting kid. I I never really understood what his motivation was.

Todd:  Yeah. It was dumb.

Craig:  Like, leave this kid alone, you weirdo. Yeah. Well, you weirdo with a terrible, horrible comb over. Like, oh my gosh.

Todd:  Ugly man.

Craig:  Okay. So then he interviews the kid, and then he falls asleep in the chair, and that’s it. Like

Todd:  He sets his notes down and he decides, I guess I’m gonna go to sleep. And he puts his head down and just falls asleep in the chair.

Craig:  And then all this shit is going down, you know, all around and, you you know, apparently, he’s just there. There were kind of a lot of those moments because at some point, Charles, the younger boy, he makes his way down to the basement Yes. For for some reason. Oh, it’s because the electrician was coming and he sees through his window the electrician come in. And so he puts on a costume. I think he was gonna go down there and scare the electrician, which I think is kinda hilarious.

Todd:  Yes.

Craig:  But when he gets down there, the fuse box is, like, sparking and the electricity in the house goes out, which everybody else notices, of course, too. And, but then he’s looking around. All of a sudden, he just sees the monster Everything. In all of its glory.

Todd:  Everything. Their monster is there. His mother’s head is there. We get a nice super close-up of his mother’s head where all of the skin like, the monster has these, like, tiny little you know, which you said earlier, it’s spawn. It’s like these tiny little tadpole things with teeth and whatever that scurry quite

Craig:  They’re almost identical to the little things from the movie Slither Yes. The James Gunn movie.

Todd:  Yes. They are. And and they and they’re quite actually, they’re quite good.

Craig:  Oh, they are.

Todd:  They slither around in the floor and and up the walls and around, and they kinda turn out to be more of a threat, because it’s, you know, it’s the monster extending itself out. And so these little creatures, these little tadpoli creatures with nasty teeth are pulling the flesh off of the mom’s face until, you know, it’s just it’s just skeleton underneath. He sees his dad there at the monster’s feet, half eaten up. The floor is, like, you know, five inches of blood. It but the funny thing about this scene is he just stands there and he looks left.

Craig:  He just stands there.

Todd:  He looks up. He looks down. He looks right. It’s, like, ten minutes

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  Of this kid. It’s almost a quarter of the movie is this one scene of this kid standing. And I I don’t know. Like, are we supposed to think he’s frozen in terror?

Craig:  I guess. I was really surprised by it too because, initially, when he sees it, it’s kind of like he’s in shock and awe. But then when his mom’s head rolls out of the thing’s mouth, I thought for sure that that would have more of an impact on him. And I guess it kind of does, but it was almost like the emotion that you saw in his face was more anger than fear. Yeah. And I’m like, wow, dude. Like You’ve got a I would be shitting my pants. Like

Todd:  Seriously.

Craig:  And screaming and running. I mean, what it establishes that he figures out very cleverly, I mean, totally unrealistically in my opinion, but that he figures out is that it hunts by sound.

Todd:  Yeah. It can’t see.

Craig:  But it it can hear and and, like, he even tests it. He snaps his fingers and it draws its attention and gets really close to him, so he has to throw his flashlight to divert its attention. And all that was kinda cool, but I just like you, I just thought, how is this kid being so composed? And then just like the uncle sitting in the chair, it cuts away and we get, you know, twenty minutes of scenes with other people, and then it cuts back to him. And I’m like, he’s just standing down there with that thing? Like, what?

Clip:  So Like, I

Todd:  know. It’s unrealistic, and it is it is gratuitous. It is nothing but scene after scene of gore and blood and his limbs and and his mother and his father and the her the electrician and these things scurrying around and all this stuff. And he’s just standing there. Now I read an interview with the director online, and he said that actually this movie was taken away from him later. That the special effects guy and him, the the guy mentioned earlier, John Dodds, they had a major disagreement about how he was filming the scenes with the creature. John Todd, being the producer, just took him off the project. Now he was still credited as the writer and the director, Douglas McCown.  But John Dodds apparently took the movie over, re shot a number of scenes that in included and involved the creature to his liking, and took over the editing. And the director said he said, look. He said, I went to see it when it show when it premiered. And I was really disappointed at how they cut it together. It didn’t fit my my script. He said, especially this particular scene went on so long. He said, it just shouldn’t have been that way. It wasn’t my vision for this to be that way.  Obviously, just want to show off his creature and all these cool effects and things that he did. But he said, you know, later he had a a conversation with the editor, and his editor didn’t even have a shooting script to go from, and he had one. So he’s like, the editor didn’t even wasn’t even provided the script that he had from shooting the movie. So the the editing of this film, you know, sort of the final cut was a bit of a departure from what was originally planned, what the director originally had envisioned, and it seems to have been the special effects guy, John Dodds, who really took over and made it so gratuitous. So that that kind of explains this scene.

Craig:  Yeah. That sounds about right. But Yeah.

Todd:  I mean, honestly, it’s Todd disappointing. I mean, if you came to see a movie with a lot of gore and a lot of blood and a crazy ass creature and really nutso effects, you’re gonna get your eyefuls, you know, with this scene. Right. I mean, it’s worse. I mean, it’s more so than almost any movie we’ve ever seen.

Craig:  Yeah. And I’m being, you know, I I’m being dramatic in my response because really Todd didn’t yeah. It didn’t make a lot of sense that that kid was down there for so long.

Todd:  Or at

Craig:  least it seemed that way in the way that it was edited. Had it been edited in a different way, it probably would have been, you know, four and five minutes, and it wouldn’t have seemed so long. But because it was spaced out over, such a span of time over the movie, it just seemed a little bit long.

Todd:  That’s the biggest problem is that so much else happens. Right. We cut away from the scene. Like, twenty more minutes of the movie comes by, and we cut back to that scene. Right.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  Timeline doesn’t really line up. You’re right.

Craig:  It Exactly. It’s

Todd:  not realistic.

Craig:  Before we move on, which I do want to, but we’ve mentioned them before, but these little, like, tadpole, like, spawn deadly spawn or whatever they are. I was so freaking impressed by that. Yeah. I I I had no idea how they were doing it, and I wondered if they were using some kind of actual marine life because it looked real. You you’re organic.

Todd:  Those little tails were flapping around and they swiggled around the floor. Yeah.

Craig:  And I I read, you know god. It’s just it’s it’s so clever that they just cut, you know, like an s shaped track into the floor and then just from beneath, you know, moved it through that track. But I I really thought that maybe they were using some sort of fish, like they were just dumping fish on the ground because it really looked super organic. It does. I was I was really, really impressed. They did some really good work. And this creature, it’s big, and it seriously, you know, I usually will not apologize for being crude, and I won’t know either. It looks like three dicks.  It looks like a big dick in the middle, two smaller dicks on the side with these big teeth. And it’s wet and oozy, but it just looks great. Like, it it looks so Todd. And and they do such a good job of of, you know, doing close ups on the teeth, you know, so you really get that sense of its danger and power. But then even there are long shot. I mean, not super long, but, you know, they pull back so that you can see it in its entirety. And despite the fact that it’s relatively stationary, even if it were real, it’s so large that you can imagine, especially if it’s down there to, like, hatch its young or whatever. Yeah.  It would hold itself up in a corner or whatever. Yeah. It looks so good. And I guess the guy who made this big creature, I guess he just he built it in his basement. And then when they had to move it to set, like, they couldn’t get it out, and they had to, like, you know, cut one of the dicks off and sew it back on later.

Todd:  You have a very different impression of this creature than I ever did. I just have to say.

Craig:  Oh, don’t lie. You know that’s what it

Todd:  looks like. I was thinking three dicks.

Craig:  But I I just it really was some really fun practical

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Much much much better than I had expected. And, again, this is not an amazing movie, but some really skillful stuff.

Todd:  Well, if you can imagine going to a drive in and watching this movie, it’s like the perfect movie for that. Yeah. It is so gratuitous in this way. This guy, the older kid, Pete, has two friends who come over, Frankie and Ellen, and they both come over and they have this silly dialogue about science and all this stuff because, they have discovered one of these creatures, one of these little tadpole things, but it’s dead. Right. And so they bring it over and they know that he’s interested in science, but he’s more into astronomy.

Craig:  And he’s the very logical one. Like, oh, everything has to be the scientific method. And Yeah.

Todd:  It gets a little stupid. Yeah.

Craig:  Well, I’m just gonna throw this out here. I don’t even know that this is necessarily intentional, but Pete is an asshole. Like, he is such a jerk. Yeah. It’s true. In the beginning, it doesn’t really come across because he kinda sticks up for his little brother, and it seems like he and his little brother, you know, kinda have a good relationship, and he’s polite with his aunt and his uncle. But then he talks to his friend on the phone, and he’s like, oh, make sure you bring Ellen with you or whatever. And he thinks that his friend and Ellen are together, and that doesn’t stop him at all from totally putting the moves on her

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And treating his friend like he’s a moron. That made me so mad. And, like, the movie kind of sets it up that way. Like, Pete wears glasses and, you know, a button down top or whatever, and the friend, whatever hit Frankie, wears overall. So he’s clearly a bumpkin. Yeah. He plays it a little bit more simple too. But, god, Pete is such a dick.  He’s condescending to his friends. He legit sends Frankie out of the room so that he can hit on his girlfriend.

Todd:  That’s right. Like, the scene where that happens is is extremely unconvincing.

Clip:  Are Are you and Frankie going together or not?  Well, we’re going to the movies with you tonight.  You know what I mean. Are you going together? I guess you know, Frankie would rather go to to the movies with somebody else.  What’s that supposed to mean? Well, you  know Kathy Todd?  Yeah.  Yeah. Well, he’d rather take her anywhere than go with us. So you’re not going with  him? No.  You wanna go with me? To the movies?  Pete, I think I have to figure out a few things about you first. I know the real reason you wanna go with me to the movies and it’s not to see the movie. Because if you went to see the movie, you probably faint trying not to use your imagination.

Todd:  And then suddenly, they’re kissing. Again, in this interview that I read with the director, he said one of the things he was really mad about was he had some earlier scenes in the movie that really set up their relationship. So it didn’t seem so jarring that the two of them would finally be lip locked, but those were totally cut out in favor of the monster in the basement. So

Craig:  Gotcha.

Todd:  But yeah. Yeah. I mean, you evaluate the movie on what what what you have and it is Right. Yeah. He totally hits on her. He comes across as a big dick. And but the movie kind of subverts your expectations in a number of ways. And I think one of the ways it subverts it is you kinda get the sense that maybe this is gonna be one of the guys who has some good ideas who is going to take care of the monster.  And it turns out he’s got nothing.

Craig:  He’s worthless.

Todd:  Yeah. He’s totally worthless.

Craig:  He’s absolutely worthless. Yeah. And and okay. So and then the kid is still in the basement. I mean, my Todd. He’s been down there for an hour at this point.

Todd:  During the the vegetarian meeting.

Craig:  Yes. Oh, okay. So that was so funny. Okay. So the aunt gets over to the grandma’s house, which is funny. She walked there in the pouring rain. I I don’t really understand that, but she did. And they have kind of a funny, you know, dialogue Yeah.  Between them. It’s just brief and it’s like

Todd:  I think it’s quite charming. I I

Craig:  It was charming.

Todd:  Between the two of them was extremely natural. Once again Yes. Almost in contrast to the rest of the movie, very natural, very charming, very easygoing, like, this is definitely her mom. This is definitely her daughter.

Clip:  And do you remember Zhu Zhu? Oh, how is she? Very well. Surprisingly healthy for a non vegetarian. She’s bringing her seven Craig black strap molasses bread and two fries. What are we making? I’ll give you a hint. There’s a pot of lentils on hold. Oh, you’re paying stew. And brown rice with green sauce. Great.  What shall I do? I’ll start you with the green sauce.

Todd:  And they’re gonna cook this vegetarian meal for her vegetarian friends. Right. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be funny or something, but, you know, they can’t

Craig:  I think it is supposed to be funny. I I don’t whether it’s supposed to be or not, it’s freaking hilarious. The only other thing that’s going on is back at the house, we have seen that these little, you know, wormy things, which are getting progressively bigger, which I also thought that they did a really good job with as far as continuity went. Like, they they get just a little bit progressively bigger

Todd:  over time. And there’s a dissection.

Craig:  Right. They dissect one and then have talk about science.

Todd:  Very long dissection of where she’s gotta cut it open, and and it it it goes on a little long and blood sprays everywhere. It’s like there’s a lot of close ups on gooey stuff and blood. And, you know, the movie does a really solid job of of putting that in at regular intervals.

Craig:  Yeah. And and you see that these little things are squirming around underneath the carpets and behind the drapes and those kinds of things. So so we get it. You know? They’re out and they’re around. And we also see that they have gone out the cellar window, and we get POV shots to indicate to us that they are also at the grandma’s house. Yeah. The grandma is, you know, chopping up her vegetables or whatever, and she throws some stuff in the garbage disposal. And one of those things comes up out of the drain and is, like, eating her leftovers and drinking the water out of the drain.  It it’s cute and funny. Yeah. But then all of the vegetarian ladies show up, and it’s so silly. Like, they have the most ridiculous vegetarian dishes and

Todd:  Oh, your soy balls.

Craig:  Isn’t yeah. Your your Swedish soy balls. Balls. Oh, god. I wrote that down, Swedish soy balls. And one somebody made another thing that, like, looked like a mouse, like, coming out of some lettuce or something. I don’t know. It looks so silly.  The grandma is like, oh, and I’m making my special green sauce. And they’re like, okay. We see her put everything in the food processor, and I was like, oh my Todd. One of these things is going in the food processor. I know it.

Todd:  It’s broadcast a mile away and that’s what makes it so cool. Like, you know

Craig:  exactly what’s coming. Yes. And of course, she doesn’t see it go in there. So she just goes in and hits, you know, puree or whatever, and and it just starts chopping up these vegetables. But then the next scene we see is, like, she serves it to everybody, and everybody’s like, oh, we love your sauce. And they all take a bite of it, and then they all get this terrible, disgusted look on their face until finally, the grandmother takes a bite too and gets a horrible look on her face. And then it’s just too funny. Oh, I I had no idea how it was gonna play out.  I was waiting, like, on the edge of my seat, like, what is going to happen to all these old bitties in the veggie club? Right. Right. And it it it it paid off in spades. Yeah. I just loved it.

Todd:  It’s true. Yeah. This one of these things comes under the sofa. And I guess, you know, you see it come under the sofa, and then it cuts away to the kid again. He’s still in the basement, like, staring at things. And when it cuts back to the scene, I guess the the daughter is in the kitchen. She hears screaming, and she walks into the into the living room, and all hell has broken loose. Like like, two of the ladies have these things just, like, all over them.  There’s one on one of the kid girl the mother’s face.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  And the daughter runs over to yank it off her face and is taking her skin off and she throws it across the room and it hits a picture on the wall, a picture frame, which swings down and they’re, like, five of those things behind the picture frame swinging around.

Craig:  There’s one Everywhere.

Todd:  One on one of their legs is, like, it’s

Craig:  so funny. Women are up on the couch like there’s a mouse on the floor, and everybody’s screaming. And most of them have one of these things, which at this point are probably, I don’t know, a good 10 inches long hanging off of them. And, of course, it’s all practical. So they’ve just got these prosthetic things glued to them, but they’re they’re doing their best to, you know, move around to make it look like there’s movement and and there’s so much blood. And and and it’s just all these old biddies just getting attacked by these things and

Todd:  It’s great.

Craig:  It’s good fun. The aunt, Todd bless her, you know, doing everything that she can to help. And and they finally flee and leave all of these things behind in the room. And and and really, the whole scene is maybe three minutes long, but, oh, it it it was the highlight of the movie for me. It was so funny. Oh. It just paid off just paid off in every way.

Todd:  And they end up most of them they they live. Right? They all just kinda run.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. They all get away. Yeah. They all run out in the Craig, and they all pile into one car. And that’s all the last we see of them until the very end.

Todd:  And at this point, we’re going, like, what about freaking Charlie in the basement?

Craig:  Like Right.

Todd:  It’s still there. And I

Craig:  don’t even remember how he got out of the basement. I just eventually, the brother and Pete and his friends, they’re gonna show the dissected dead one that they found. They’re gonna show it to the uncle because he’s a scientist.

Todd:  Oh, that’s right.

Craig:  And, they go down there and they go to show it to him, and he has been totally eaten and hollowed out by these things.

Todd:  Yeah. And one burst out of his stomach, it looks just like alien. It’s it’s nuts. Yeah.

Craig:  And then it’s just pandemonium from then from there. Yeah. They’re just they’re running around. And I didn’t even you may have to help me out with this because at some point, Charles ends up back upstairs, and they’re being chased not only by these little ones, but also by a big one. Was that the big one from the the basement? Okay. I thought so.

Todd:  Supposed to be. I mean, it’s not clear. I mean, you know, it’s just, like, one minute it’s there, one minute it’s not. We don’t really get a sense of its ability to you know, its locomotion. I think they go into the room, and they barricade themselves in the room for a while. And then Charles wants to come in, but they’re not sure. And they let him in. And then another girl just shows up.

Craig:  Yeah. Kathy.

Todd:  They see her out the window, and they’re like, no. Don’t come in. But she doesn’t hear. And then suddenly, she’s upstairs and in the door and almost gets attacked, but they pull her in.

Craig:  And that was oh my god. Okay. So she’s just this cute girl who shows up for a study session because that’s what they’re all there for. Mhmm. And they’re all like, oh my god. Come in. Come in. She’s like, what? And then she gets attacked from behind by the huge thing, but they’re able to pull her out of her jacket and get her in the room.  And they get her in the room, and they close the door. And it’s just a a a single Craig shot out of her, and she goes, what the fuck was that? At that moment, I

Todd:  thought, finally, a legitimate reaction to this creature.

Craig:  Oh my god. Great. Oh, I laughed out loud. That may be the only time I laughed out loud, but I laughed out loud at that line. It was so funny.

Todd:  A number of them go run end up running up to the attic. And somehow, I think it’s Ellen stays behind. And now the creature starts busting through the door into that room and he gets her and rips her head off.

Craig:  And throws her out the window.

Todd:  And throws her body out the window. I was absolutely not expecting this from the beginning. I mean, you would thought that she she would be the final girl.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  And if you go to IMDB and you read the trivia, it says that she had some other commitments or whatever, all these other acting jobs that this woman Yeah. Never acted anything else has to do, and so she couldn’t stay, so they wrote her out of it. But, actually, the director is quite adamant. And remember, he’s the guy who wrote it. He said, from the beginning, I wrote her in there to die there and that way because I wanted to subvert expectations. Everybody thought she’d be the final girl, and I wanted to kill her off. So I I don’t honestly see how they could have filmed this movie and just written her out of it unless they were filming it in sequence. Because it’s pretty important that she dies because Pete goes freaking crazy Yeah.  Once that happens.

Craig:  Like, he’s in total denial. Again, I mean, it was kinda contrived and stupid. It’s the whole science thing. Like, he just can’t wrap his mind around it. He ends up on the roof, and then he ends up in the attic with, Kathy and Frankie. And he’s like, oh, I have Todd find Ellen. She’s in trouble. No, dude.  She’s dead, and you’ve seen her. Like

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  You know this. But he’s like, no. It can’t be happening. It’s not scientifically logical. And, like, at this point, not only not only is he worthless, but he’s also, like Dumb. Drawing the creature up to them.

Todd:  Yeah. Because of the noise.

Craig:  Yeah. And he does. He’s screaming and yelling, so it comes up and it busts in to the, attic where they are. And that’s when Charles comes in and saves the day. Now we skipped one little part before the creature got up there. In an effort to distract the creature, Charles makes some noise. Mhmm. But the way that he makes the noise is he plugs in a radio and turns it up on full blast.  The electricity is out, Todd.

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. I mean

Craig:  I don’t understand how this happened. It’s been out for the last

Todd:  hour. Yeah. It’s a big hole in the movie. It doesn’t make any sense. He he he plugs in this this Craig, and he pulls the cord three feet across the kitchen. It you know, it’s it’s trying to be tense. But it yeah. Anyway, the monster ends up eating the radio and whatever.  The running upstairs. Charles runs and then after the monster runs upstairs, Charles has got the radio again, but it’s covered in blood. And this time, he has an extension cord. Then we get sort of our what I call, again, that that phantasm scene where

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  The kid decides he’s gonna he’s gonna figure something out. So he goes to his room, and he takes all the stuff that we saw before, his fake head, his flash powder, and all that. And he constructs Bomb. A fake head with a whole bunch of flash powder inside and sticks the end of a wire in there that can plug into a wall and gets his extension Todd, and he goes upstairs. And, I thought that scene was quite good, actually. Oh, no.

Craig:  He did too.

Todd:  Yeah. He goes into the attic. And one of the things that the director actually mentioned in that interview was he was I think he was defending himself after having his movie taken over. He said he was extremely insistent that in this movie, they wouldn’t just show shots of the creature and then shots of people, and shots of the creature and shots of people. That they would get the creature and the people in the same frame as much as possible, so it didn’t look cheap.

Clip:  Right. So it

Todd:  didn’t look like just like everything was shot separately. And he does a really good job of that, actually. Yeah. So the kid sneaks upstairs behind this creature who is starting to come towards the others, and he kinda yells, you know, don’t make a noise, and maybe they sort of get it. So the creature is up there, but he’s sort of facing off with the others. This kid sneaks around the side, sort of around the chimney area, just around the corner from the creature. And he finds a ski pole. And he jabs this head that he’s made onto the ski pole, and he sticks it out.  And this moment, I’m thinking the creature’s not supposed to be able to see. What’s the deal? Right. But then he yells, and the creature swings around and eats the head. And then we get this sort of it’s a little stilted, but it’s fine. Oh, he can’t reach the plug. Mhmm. He’s gotta plug it in, but he can’t quite reach. Then the creature hears the noise, and he kinda comes over.  Eventually, he ends up plugging it in. And for a movie that’s really delivered on all the goods to this point, I was really surprised we didn’t get, like, this huge exploding creature scene.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Todd:  We didn’t get anything except off screen. And then a shot of the kid looking at what ends up being just the creature’s remains on fire.

Craig:  Yeah. And then that’s pretty much it. Now I’ve I’ve read that there are different edits of this movie, so I don’t know how it originally ended. But, what we see next is kind of the aftermath where the townspeople and the police are, like, hunting and and killing these deadly spawn.

Todd:  The theremin music comes back in.

Craig:  Right. And they’re using, like, cattle prods to electrocute them and stuff. And, it it’s kinda fun. You know, it’s kind of a fun scene that they’re rooting these things out. And, like, there are TV crews around or whatever, and the ants shows back up, at the house. And I thought it was hilarious that never once did she mention or show any concern for her husband. But, she was concerned about the boys. Pete is is still, like, totally catatonic.  Charles kind of is too. And so they load Pete into an ambulance. They load Charles and his aunt into a police car. That’s kind of the last, that we see of them. But we see, you know, these cleanup efforts. And the last thing that we see is this cop.

Clip:  How’s it where you are?  Under control. They just pulled a three foot thing out of the bushes.  Three foot, that’s nothing. You see what they got down out  of the attic. Eight feet long. Eight feet here.  I guess they just keep growing.

Craig:  And then there’s, like I don’t even remember how it plays out, but, like, all you just kind of hear, like, ominous sounds and a scream on, the walkie talkie, and it cuts back to that matte painting. It it’s it’s very much like the original unused ending of Little Shop of Horrors where you see that one of the mountains that or hills, I guess, would be a better Yeah. Description, that the the house is set against rises up, and it’s just an enormous one of those creatures, even bigger than the house. And it looks like it’s all done in

Todd:  With miniatures. Yeah. This is the miniature scene that Tim Hildebrandt did. This is what he contributed, the fantasy guy. If you go online, you can actually see a behind the scenes photo of it. In fact, if you go to YouTube and you search for this movie, not only can you find the entire movie somebody’s uploaded there, but also there is a good four minutes of behind the scenes footage that’s kind of fun to watch Cool. To see how they did all these effects. Yeah.  It’s really kind of unique actually for a movie like this.

Craig:  Yeah. I I and that’s it. You know, honestly, I expected this movie to be really bad. And I I suppose if you were being, you know, super critical, you could say that it is a bad movie. But even, you know, just talking to my partner, I said, yeah. I mean, it was kind of a bad movie, but nowhere near as bad as many of the movies that we’ve seen. And, you know, there’s a lot of good stuff

Clip:  going on

Craig:  There is. Yeah. Which which really surprised me especially since so many of these people, the director, all of the primary actors, this was all they ever did. It was far more competent, I think, that it it had any right to be. I was really pleasantly surprised. And and at the end of the day, even though the first twenty minutes, I was very skeptical, at the end of the day, I was, like, that was kind of fun. That’s kind of a fun movie.

Todd:  Honestly, one of the most fun movies we’ve done, I think. I would totally recommend checking it out. If you have a strong stomach, you gotta check it out. It’s super important. It was almost picked up for a theatrical release by Paramount. Mhmm. I’m I’m surprised. Yeah.  Well, I’m not surprised it wasn’t. I mean, this is not a mainstream movie by any ever. This was would never have been a mainstream movie. No. It’s just too gory. It’s too bloody, but definitely serious drive and fare. Like, classic drive and fare that just touches all the right buttons.

Craig:  Yeah. I totally agree. And, I guess, I don’t know if it was a Korean film or if it was just, you know, distributed in Korea, but there was a unofficial sequel called Metamorphosis the Alien Factor and, it was shot on a much larger budget and so even I I don’t have the full story. I don’t know if it was intended as a sequel and then they kinda wanted to distance themselves from the original because the original was lower budget. I don’t know. But, you know, again, if you look at IMDB, it says followed by Metamorphosis, the alien factor. Factor. And I just real quick looked at the cover art for that.  And and you can certainly see the

Todd:  The dick?

Craig:  Well, just one really toothy one. But you, but you can I mean, you can definitely see the influence? Of course, I haven’t seen it, so I can’t really say with any authority. But

Todd:  They cut it down to one dick, but it’s a really, really fierce dick.

Craig:  Yep.

Todd:  I guess so. Well, maybe we’ll maybe we’ll hit that one later. I’m sure it’s

Craig:  We’ll see.

Todd:  We’ll see. My guess is it won’t be nearly as charming as this movie.

Craig:  I I can’t imagine.

Todd:  Yeah. Well, thanks again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us on anywhere, really. Just Google us, Two Guys and a Chainsaw. We’re on Facebook. Let us know what you thought of this movie. You can go to YouTube and watch it.  Please do. And also, give us a request. We love to hear from you. We love to hear what you wanna see. We love to watch what you want us to watch for the most part.

Craig:  For the most part.

Todd:  Until next time, I’m Todd.

Craig:  And I’m Craig.

Todd:  With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

6 Responses

  1. Joel says:

    Hi guys! I just wanted to say that I love your podcast and have made my through your back catalog like a Crite chews through disposable extras.

    I recently watched (to the general annoyance of my family) Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. If you still do requests or whatever I’d love to hear your take on the best bad movie ever.

    • toddkuhns says:

      Hi Joel! Thank you for the message! The title alone sounds crazy. I will add it to our list. At one point, I suggested to Craig that we do a theme month of “killer objects” horror, like The Lift, Killer Condom, Christine…and this would fit in neatly. Thanks for listening! How did you find us, by the way? -Todd

  2. Gary says:

    I also just discovered your podcast and enjoy it quite immensely, and am in the process of catching up (The way I found it was just typing one of my favorites, Sleepaway Camp, into the podcast search function on iOS). You both seem to greatly enjoy what you’re doing.

    I’d like to request the 1997 cult classic, Cube. It’s unlike any movie I’ve seen, and far ahead of its time. It’s just a really fascinating character study with thriller and horror elements. I’d also like to request the b movie cheese fest, 2003’s Leeches. Literally about an almost always shirtless male swim team being stalked and sucked to death by leeches mutated by steroids.

    • toddkuhns says:

      Thanks Gary! We made a promise to each other, long ago, that we would stop doing this when it stopped being fun. Here we are, 180 episodes later and counting! Thank you so much for the kind words, and I’ll add those two movies to our request list. Cheers!

  3. Joel says:

    I found you guys on iTunes, I’d just watched Chopping Mall after listening to an episode of the — sadly now-defunct — Horror Show podcast, so I wanted to listen to another take on that insane movie (great episode too by the way!).

  4. toddkuhns says:

    Ah Joel, that’s great! Chopping Mall is one of my all-time favorite episodes of ours, actually. It was so much fun recording that one. Thanks for listening!

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