The House On Sorority Row (1982)

Episode 203, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig:  And I’m a sea pig. 

Todd:  Oh, you’re a sea pig. Don’t sell yourself short, man. Come on.

Craig:  Just had to get that one out there right away. It was my favorite line of the movie. 

Todd:  So The movie that we’re doing right now is called The House on Sorority Row, released in 1983. I think it was remade sometime in the early 2000s as Sorority Row. Yep. But we’re doing the original. Now I selected this movie for this week, and this is just a film I’ve always wanted to do. It has One of those that I always passed by on the video store shelves, but for whatever reason I never I never picked it up. I thought it looked, maybe like it wasn’t so good, but it did have a picture of a nice buxom half naked chick clinging to her neck with a on the front. The director actually wanted something Way different for the poster for the movie. 

Craig:  He wasn’t a fan. 

Todd:  It’s actually not a very compelling poster, to be honest, which is probably why I didn’t pick it up. The movie itself is written and directed by Mark Rossman. I think straight out of UCLA film school did a little bit of work with some big directors at the time and decided if he was going to become a director, he really just needed to write his own movie and make it himself. Yep. And so this is kinda what launched him into a Nice little career. I mean, he hasn’t done a lot of well known stuff, but it looks like he’s been a working director and writer, in Hollywood for Better For Worse and a little bit of stuff on TV. 

Craig:  Yeah. And some stuff that you would recognize the titles of at least and and not only in horror either. One of the ones that I thought was pretty funny was, Yeah. I I’m pretty sure he did, like, William and Kate. Like, the like, a a Lifetime movie about The prince William and duchess Kate, which I thought was pretty funny. That was pretty recent. So he’s, yeah, he’s been around. 

Todd:  Yeah. Seemed to be a number of these things They’re like Princess, a TV a Cinderella story. Did 11 episodes of Lizzie McGuire. Mhmm. Definitely. Couple episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney, apparently. This movie did some good stuff for him. I think he made it on a shoestring budget.   Initially, a $125 investment. In the middle of filming, they got it bumped up a little bit, because they ran out of money, and I think his brother or somebody secured a loan and got another 300,000. And then even a distributor picked it up and, paid for some finishing costs, and so they sold it. And it had a limited release initially in New Mexico, and then was released in theaters across the US And made, in 1983, a nice Todd sum of 10,000,000. Not bad Yeah. For this movie. Actually, I’m just gonna say right up front, I was kinda blown away by this movie. 

Craig:  Oh my gosh. Especially for a first movie, I was really impressed. Yeah. 

Todd:  Holy crap. Right? I was Really not expecting this caliber of film at all. And, I mean, I’m not saying it’s it’s it’s Shakespeare. I’m not saying it’s Hitchcock, but it it has elements of Hitchcock in here. 

Craig:  Oh, gosh. Yeah. 

Todd:  I mean, it’s dripping with it. He said actually that some of the inspiration for this movie came from a French film called Les Diablique. Am I saying that right? Le Diablique? 

Craig:  Diablique something 

Todd:  like that. I mean, it’s a pretty famous one. I think it was remade with Sharon Stone in the nineties. Mhmm. It’s a almost textbook slasher film, honestly. Mhmm. But it has enough little curves and twists in there to keep you in there. Although, even those curves and twists are fairly textbook.   Aren’t they? I don’t know if the movie ever completely fooled me, but it did surprise me a couple times. But it didn’t have anything I haven’t seen before. No. That being said, A lot of that that I’ve seen before has come since. 

Craig:  So Right. That’s that’s true. You know, I didn’t really have any expectations, I’ve certainly heard of this movie before. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it, especially now that I have Because it’s, so right on par with so many of the other slasher movies that are much more celebrated. You know, like Yes. The Jamie Lee Curtis movies of the eighties, like, Terror Train Prom Night. Like you said, it’s got some Hitchcockian stuff. You know, there are certainly big time shades of Psycho.   At points, I was kind of maybe expecting maybe, like, an April fools’ day type twist. Mhmm. One of the things that I thought that the movie did really well. Was it did? It kept me guessing, and there were lots Lots of red herrings that were skillfully played. You know, by about halfway through, I kinda had it figured out what was going on because there are definitely big time shades of Black Christmas going on too. 

Todd:  Yep. 

Craig:  So I kind of felt about halfway through. Like, I had kind of figured it out, but I still wasn’t entirely sure, and I really wasn’t entirely sure, until the end. Yeah. And honestly, I think that this movie is just as good as pretty much any of those, except maybe Psycho that I mentioned. You know? It’s it’s it’s a perfectly competent slasher. 

Todd:  I’m gonna maybe overspeak here, but I would say it’s even heads and Tales above half of what you what you I mean, it’s definitely better than freaking prom night. It’s just really well done. The the filming is good. The cinematography is good. The score? 

Clip:  I loved the score. I’m amazing. Something. Yeah. 

Todd:  You know, one of those moments where you’re like, I could actually have this, like, on my Ipod. This is an amazing score in this movie. And sometimes, you know, in the past we’ve said, Man, the score really elevates this film. In this case, it was exactly the score that a film like this deserved. My god. I’m sorry. I’m probably gonna gush all over this movie, Walt. 

Craig:  No. It’s alright. I liked it too. I mean, I I don’t think I’m gonna gush over it. I didn’t think it was amazing, but, I was really surprised. I was surprised by how good it was. 

Todd:  As we often say, if everything that we’ve said has compelled you to watch this movie, you should really stop the podcast now and go out and watch this movie. 

Craig:  We’ll probably blow the ending Early. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So if if you haven’t seen it and you want to because it is it’s twisty, and if you don’t want the twists blown. I I don’t know how we’re gonna be able to skirt around them until the end. 

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Let’s just dive into it. The beginning is done in, I guess, it’s black and white. It’s actually kinda hazy. Maybe that’s a criticism I have of it. I think they were just went a little too hard on the gauze over the camera.   But they were going for an Todd film noir look to it. Uh-huh. You know, we see these flashback scenes. This was a flashback to 1961, which would be just 20 years prior to the present day in this film, if you will. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  But they filmed it almost like freaking Citizen Kane. There are all these odd Dutch camera angles. There’s shots in warped mirrors. There are these strong shadows across the scene. There’s a shot of a nurse Standing in a window, smoking a cigarette that she’s all in silhouette. That took me by surprise at the beginning. That was a really interesting choice. And not only was it an interesting choice, but did a really good job of setting this of of filming it that way.   1st time director, I think even the cinematographer, this was his first feature film. It’s almost kind of Citizen Kane ish. There’s this woman. She’s laying in a bed. She’s obviously pregnant. The doctor comes in, shoos the nurse away, gets out a scalpel, Burns it in a candle. He’s gonna do a c section right there in the bed of this house. Right.   And, and this woman, yeah, gets a c section, I guess, with no anesthetic. Who knows? And by the time it’s done, they just have, an exchange. 

Clip:  Where’s my baby?   I’m sorry, missus Slater.   No. No. 

Craig:  And this was, again, skillful, and I hate to blow our wad right from the beginning, but it blew by me in the 1st place. But then when references to the Scene kept coming back up. They never say here we here we go. They never say the baby died. Yep. Now, like, that was what I just assumed. You know? Like, that’s oh, god. The doctor’s so sorry.   She’s so upset. You know, obviously, she lost the baby, and that’s terrible. And and then that’s it. And then it cuts to their Present day. And all this stuff, I believe it was shot in black and white. I read that it was actually the distributor. It’s it’s tinted blue, and I guess it was the distributor that did that, which, you know, way to take some license with, you know, the film, I guess. But 

Todd:  Who the hell cares? Right? I mean, like, I don’t see what that added to it. 

Craig:  I mean, it it works fine. It’s kind of dreamlike. You know? It establishes It has a flashback, and it’s really brief, and we don’t get a lot of information. We just see these people. I have a feeling that maybe Part of the reason that, it was as hazy as you said is that they were maybe trying to hide the age of the actors Actors 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  The same actors play the same roles 20 years later and and Don’t look are supposed to be 

Todd:  significantly older, 

Craig:  and look significantly older. Older, so maybe that was part of the reason that it was a little bit hazy. I don’t know. But whatever for whatever reason 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  It it worked. And then it cuts to, just this sweeping shot, like a crane shot of this university campus, a woman in A white graduation robe running across campus, and that that was when I first noticed the scores when these the the opening credits We’re running. The title sequence was running, and I I wrote it down. 

Clip:  I’m like, wow. This is a really good score 

Craig:  right here from the very beginning. 

Todd:  It’s amazing. It’s, I mean, it’s just sweeping and it’s grand and it’s gorgeous, and then the cinematography is so is totally matching it. It’s purposely taking us through these obvious scenes of college wrapping up. Girls posing for a photograph in front of their sorority house It’s on the it’s it’s just off the quad, I guess. And, we do get a a shot across there of many of the girls in that sorority, which we’re gonna see later. It kinda takes us into the house, and they’re all kinda packing things up, and they’re kinda moving around. There are these kinda long, very nice Dolly shots and and Todd cam shots through the different rooms and as they’re going, it’s just so nice. Mhmm.   It just Set the scene so well, this is what made me kinda sit up and take notice of this movie at the very beginning. Okay. This might end up being different from what I expected. Richard Van Richard Van is the guy who did the score, and he has basically made a life out of scoring low budget horror movies. I mean, Almost every low budget horror movie we’ve done, he scored, like freaking Ghoulies, The Re Animator, we’ll do some time Troll, terror vision, puppet masters, movies, all of those, demonic Todd. And 

Craig:  I didn’t know that he was the guy that did troll, but you know how I feel about that movie, and I love the score in that movie. So it doesn’t surprise me. 

Todd:  Yeah. And, I mean, he’s so good. And but then I think about some of these other scores, like, for puppet master and stuff. And I’m gonna have to go back and remember what we thought of it, because I thought, eventually, it kinda gets into synthy Kinda standard horror y type stuff. Maybe I’m my recollection is wrong. Nice sweeping score. Nice establishing shots. Takes us in here.   And, we get into the room where there’s a woman named Katie. And she is packing things up, and her mom is there helping her pack things up too. 

Clip:  Well, we’ve just had the pool man over so you can swim all summer while you’re at home. I’m not moving back home, mom. This has nothing to do with you. I just have a lot to think about, like what I’m gonna do with the rest of my life. Well, I should think after 4 years of college, we’d have a start in those decisions. 

Todd:  Vicky pops around the corner and says, hey. A bunch of us are gonna stay for a little while longer. I think during the 3 months of the summer, they’re gonna plan to stay in the house. Is that right? 

Craig:  No. No. No. They’re they’re just gonna stay for, like, another 5 days or something like that because they 

Todd:  to do their party. 

Craig:  To do their graduation party. And and we don’t find all this out right now, but we eventually find out that they had a graduation party plan somewhere else, but they couldn’t come up with the money for the deposit or something. And so they had to postpone it, and their big idea was they’re just gonna at their sorority house. The only problem is that, their house mother closes up the house on June 19th every year, and then it’s it’s closed for the summer. But they just kind of choose to ignore that, and they’re gonna do it anyway. 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Craig:  I wanted to say most of, the actresses in this movie and actors, but, most of our lead people are, these young women, most of them, this was their 1st movie, and many of them, this was the only thing they other did. Some of them, have maybe 1 or Todd other credits. The exception to that is Vicky, who is played by Eileen Davidson. And You make fun of me. I don’t care. You can go ahead and make fun of me, but just, you know, recently, we did death house. And, Guess who’s in it? I one of the the 5 evils from death house was a a chick from days of our lives, and you’re like, horror horror, you know, days of our lives horror crossover, and I said, it happens more often than you would think. Well, it happens here again because I know Eileen Davidson From Days of Our Lives.   My parents watched Days of Our Lives all through their youth and growing up, and and So they continued watching it when I was a kid, so I always watched it. I watched it pretty religiously all through college. 

Todd:  Oh, wow. 

Craig:  It’s pretty typical as far as Daytime soaps go, but they would have certain story lines that would just be ridiculous and crazy. And And Eileen Davidson came on that show, and and she started out as kind of this sweet romantic lead. But then it turned out that she was, like, The illegitimate daughter of the biggest villain in all of days of our lives history. And so and so then she became this evil character. And then when I was in high school, she had this storyline where it turned out that not only was She, the daughter of this bad guy, but somehow she was also kind of like the genetic 

Clip:  I don’t remember I don’t remember how they justified it, but when it came down to it, there were 5 of her. What? 

Craig:  And they were all distinctly different. 

Todd:  Are you kidding me? 

Craig:  And and she played All 5 roles. 4 of them women, one of them a man. And it was just freaking hilarious, and She was fantastic, and she continued on in that role. They only recently, recast her. And she still does daytime drama stuff. And she was also a real housewife of Beverly Hills, which I don’t watch that show, but, I know that she she did it. So She is kind of a big name now, and I had no idea that she was in this. And when I saw that she was in it, I was like, Oh my god.   Yes. 

Todd:  Wow. Wow. You had a real moment there. 

Craig:  I did. And it’s not like she’s amazing in this or anything, But, oh, man. So many connections for me. It was a it was a nice little Easter egg for me. 

Todd:  Kate McNeal, who played, may our our okay. We’re gonna say our final girl, Katie. Kate Kate McNeal also has quite a few credits to her name. I think she’d be about the other one. She’s been all over television quite quite a bit. 

Craig:  Oh, that’s right. That’s And 

Todd:  then as far as movies go, she was in Monkey Shines, which we might end up doing someday. Actually, my favorite John Claude Van Damme movie, and I’ve seen almost all of them, Is Sudden Death where Yeah. Have you seen that one where the hockey game gets invaded by terrorists? It’s it’s really actually pretty good, Especially for a Jean Claude Van Damme movie. She she’s, she’s really good in this. Honestly, I think all of the acting in this movie was was except for the older woman. 

Craig:  And the sexy See, blondes. The sexy blond was 

Todd:  Oh, she was horrible. That’s true. 

Clip:  It’s definitely horrible. Alright. So those 2 

Todd:  with the exception of those I thought all the other acting was quite good, actually. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  That they all had me convinced. And it’s a real ensemble type movie even though you don’t get much more than a taste of each of these different characters. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  You do actually get a sense that there’s a character behind each one of them, you know, which is a little more than true. Than can be said for a lot of stuff that we review. 

Craig:  The funny thing is I never knew any of their names until after they were dead because as soon As soon as they would die, then people would be like, wait a second. Where is Where 

Todd:  is Jeanie? 

Craig:  Where where’s Jeanie? Jeanie? Jeanie? Where’s Jeanie? Hi, JD. 

Todd:  That’s so true. 

Clip:  So I would always write down, oh, okay. Another The the sexy Todd one died, and then I would go back and write, oh, that was whatever her name was. 

Craig:  I’ve got it written down so Morgan. Morgan. 

Todd:  Morgan’s the sexy. I Still not exactly sure who Stevie and Liz were. Yeah. I don’t know. But the names came up once or twice. Yeah. So it’s kind of established that she’s gonna hang out a little bit longer. I guess her mom just goes home.   Yes. She’s gonna hang out a little bit longer and party with the rest of the girls for these 3 days. In the meantime, we get a shot back to a hospital where there’s that doctor from that flashback scene, and he is talking with a nurse, and they have this kind of cryptic conversation. And then the woman who we had seen earlier who had had the baby comes into frame. And, you know, I mean, like you said, it’s the same actress, and she looks about as old as she did 20 years ago, Except her hair is maybe a little wider. And again, they have this sort of cryptic conversation. She’s going to leave the clinic against the doctor’s wishes, which she usually does, right, this time of year? 

Craig:  Well, alright. But if you went back and watched it again, which I didn’t, but I I thought about it in hindsight, the way that they talk about it is vague enough, that when the big reveal happens, you’re like, oh. Because the he says something about, like 

Clip:  You’re just asking for trouble. You’ve got to reconsider.   My mind is made up. I intend to spend this summer as I spend all the rest But   the environment here is so much more helpful.   I told you, there’ll be no one else at the house. It was closed for 3 months today.   I understand, but anything might happen. He’s here. We’re prepared to handle it. Condition is getting worse. You know it as well as I do. We Knowles knew the risks, but 20 years from blaming me for what happened. 

Craig:  You would have no reason to think that they were talking about anybody but her. Yeah. But it turns out that they’re not. 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  But it’s so subtle. I never would have suspected, what was coming based on this conversation because it totally sounds like she has some issue that she has had because of this traumatic birth that she had. And whatever the Issue is it’s getting worse, and the doctor is concerned that that something bad is gonna happen. And and I don’t think he says it to her, but at some point, he says either the nurse or somebody else. If there’s any trauma at all, it will lead to a psychotic break, and it will lead to violent 1st Yep. Or something like that. 

Todd:  That’s right. I think that comes a little later in in another scene. But yeah. Yeah. He’s he starts talking about it here. So she is going to leave. Vicky and her boyfriend go up into a barn and have a little shootout where the boyfriend loans her his, gun and shows her how to shoot it. But it turns out she’s already pretty good at shooting a gun. 

Craig:  Yeah. That was kinda weird. 

Todd:  It is kinda weird. She Vicky from the get go seems like just a little too headstrong, Kinda that bad girl, you know, which she’s very much painted that way from the beginning. And then that we get to this girl’s partying scene. And even this scene I thought was really clever, in that they’re all sitting around drinking, and they’re, you know, they’ve all have mugs, and they’re singing their sorority song, and then they each kind of give a toast. And for each of them, it each of their toast tells a little bit about themselves in a clever way, and I thought that was really nice, a really nice touch. And then it kinda the camera spins around all of them and then toward the door where alright. So her name was Genie. Genie, the one who pukes all the time.   Queasy genie. So she gets up and runs runs out to throw up, and runs right into, this woman, who’s missus Slater. And this is where we find out that missus Slater is actually the house mom, yeah, of the sorority. So so that’s a little confusing, Especially considering the previous, scene that we had, like, how can she be staying at this clinic this whole time but also be the house mom? 

Craig:  Well, but but she She wasn’t staying there. I I think that 

Todd:  That was the impression I had gotten, though. 

Craig:  What seemed to be suggested was that she she is the house mom during the school year, but then she closes up the sorority house in the summertime, and she goes and stays in the clinic. 

Todd:  Oh, I thought it was the opposite that she goes and stays in the sorority house during the summertime. 

Craig:  No. I think it’s the opposite. That, You know, they they’re tricking us. Yeah. But that’s supposedly why she closes it up on, you know, right at the very beginning of the summer is because then she has to go and stay in this clinic for the summer. 

Todd:  That makes sense. I think somewhere in my mind, I was thinking that it was the opposite because, When all the girls were gone, she could kinda brood alone in the house and kind of mourn the possibility, the loss of her son. And then She’s really upset that the girls are there and, demands that they get out, but they’re like, no. We’re not gonna do it. We don’t have Todd, and so they don’t. She goes upstairs 

Craig:  And that’s when I realized that the room that she lives in is the room that she was giving birth in. You know? Like, it was in that sorority house. Same same place. And she also goes upstairs and kinda hangs out in the attic a little bit. And, like, the attic’s Kinda weird. Like 

Todd:  It’s got little kids’ toys. 

Craig:  Yeah. It it’s kind of bizarre. It seems like, You know, that she is just tortured by her loss, and so she’s kind of built this little sanctuary up in the attic for herself where she can go be depressed or or whatever. 

Todd:  Yeah. Exactly. And everything set up in this movie has a payoff Todd. And that’s what’s cool. Like, even as is going through the attic. We’re seeing these toys. She picks up a ball. She picks up this this Todd.   Like, all of this stuff that we’re seeing is gonna have a payoff later. So the movie’s really tight, just giving you enough information, keeping those other things cryptic, to keep you kinda strung along and interested. I’m super interested. I was. 

Craig:  I was too. That same night, Vicky comes back from her little shooting gallery or whatever and With her boyfriend, she invites him up to her room, which I guess is unusual. I don’t know if she thought that the housemother wasn’t gonna be there or what. 

Todd:  She didn’t care maybe. 

Craig:  She, invites him up there. And it’s she’s like, give me 10 minutes and then come up. And he goes up, and she’s, like, Lounging, and she’s like, look what daddy got as little princess, and it’s it’s a water bed. Like, look. It’s a sexy water bed. Funny story. I had a water bed in college, and you would think that that would be really sexy. Really not so much.   It makes things kinda awkward. Kinda hard to get your footing. 

Todd:  I was just about to to question, yeah, how sexy a water bed really would be when it comes right down to it. 

Craig:  Really not. 

Todd:  Get me off this thing. Splash. Kathump. Kathump. 

Craig:  It’s it’s It’s it’s not really great. But, and and mine was super classy too and had a mirror on the headboard. We’ll talk later. 

Todd:  It seems like as the years go on, Craig, we get Just a little bit more information about you from college days. So, 

Craig:  she opens up her shirt, and you see her boobies, and then they Todd getting it on or whatever. Well, missus Slater hears them and comes downstairs, and she carries this cane, this very ominous looking Cane is very pointy and sharp on on 

Todd:  Both ends. 

Craig:  Yeah. Both ends, really, I guess. So she walks in, and, of course, they don’t See her, and she raises the cane. It looks like she’s going to hit Vicky with it because Vicky’s on top. But she she brings it Todd, and Instead of I don’t know. I don’t know if she was gonna hit her with it. I don’t think so. No.   Like, they they roll away, And instead, she just totally slices open the water bed. Yeah. Water everywhere. 

Todd:  And And let’s talk about for a second how good the scene is because it’s preceded by the vignette of her ripping up the sorority girls’ photos Yeah. And tossing him into a fire. And one of the last things she does is bring that sharp pointed cane down, to shatter a picture right where Vicki is. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Just coincidental, I guess. But, it it makes it seem like she’s out to kill Vicky. And then this is a very well Stage back and forth kind of psychosque bit here. But at the same time, kind of in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, It can’t happen. Like like, it’s too obvious that the mom I mean, is this just gonna be a movie about the house mother that we already know from The first, you know, 15 minutes is just gonna go around killing everybody. It can’t be that way. 

Craig:  And I wondered why doesn’t she like Vicki? Yeah. And and, you know, it was one of those, You know, when it boils right down to it, Vicki’s a bitch. So Yeah. There doesn’t need to be much more motive than that, but, you know, I’m wondering, and I’m like, Is Vicky somehow connected to her personal tragedy? 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  Is Vicky maybe her baby? Like Yeah. I didn’t know, you know, what was going on? 

Todd:  It’s really good. 

Craig:  But the fact that missus Slater popped her brand new waterbed really pisses Vicki off. So she’s complaining about it the next day with, the other girls. They’re down by the pool. The pool’s all gross because miss Slater won’t Pay anybody to clean it so they can’t even swim it or anything, but they’re all hanging around down there. And Vicky says we gotta get her back. 

Clip:  Well, how about if we give her a good old fashioned sorority prank? Alright. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s 

Clip:  a good idea. What? Are you kidding? Like what? 

Todd:  Wait a minute. 

Clip:  Let me think. How about how about we TP her room? No. No. No. Okay. How about the old dog shit 

Todd:  in the 

Clip:  paper bag room? 

Todd:  Oh, we 

Clip:  got a fresh Bad. 

Craig:  Here. How about 

Clip:  a blow head of water over a door? So when she comes in, she cuts in. Tomorrow night, we could short sheet her bed. No. No. No. No. I got a great one. Let’s spray glue on her toilet 

Todd:  Thank you, Sandra Dee from the fifties. 

Craig:  Yeah. Vicky’s like, no. I have an idea. We’ll do it right before the party, and then pretty much nothing else happens before we see them preparing for the party. And they’re, you know, they’re they’re decorating, and they’re all, you know, looking pretty and and whatnot. And missus Slater wakes up, and Her cane, which she keeps by her bed, is gone. So she goes down to confront them, and she yells at them for decorating, tells them to take everything down, and Vicki says, Oh, you seem to be missing something. 

Todd:  Now real quick. There’s a little scene before that happens that’s kind of important. I think it was well placed. We get back to the doctor’s office, and he’s he’s examining x rays of of a Craig, and it’s the woman’s brain. And that’s when he says into his tape recorder. Basically, saying Slater could go psychotic, has latent violence that could be triggered by a traumatic episode. Again, we assume that he’s talking about her, And then this is happening. So we’ve got it kind of in the back of our mind that whatever they’re doing to her, whatever they’re playing to do to her could possibly trigger Right.   Something. Right? So there’s that ass that layer to it as well. 

Craig:  Exactly. Vicky says to her, oh, it seems like you’re missing something. And, missus Slater’s like, where is And she’s like, we want you to look down by the pool. So the old lady goes down by the pool, and all the girls follow her. And the cane is floating on, like, a tire in the middle of the pool, and Vicky’s like, why don’t you go get it? Now this is the prank. It is the worst prank ever. Yeah. It’s awful. 

Todd:  It’s terrible. 

Craig:  This was Like, What are you thinking? Like, this is such a terror okay. So, she’s like, why don’t you go get the cane? And and she’s like, no. I’m not going to. So then Vicki whips out the gun, Dirty Harry style, and points it right at her face. And she’s like, Go get it. And I’m thinking, okay. Well, you know, it it’s a squirt gun or or something or whatever. But, no, She immediately proves that it’s a real gun by shooting out a light, which, you know, encourages missus Slater to get into the pool And somehow, really super fast, get in the pool, get out with her cane. 

Todd:  Well, what happens is the other girls are freaking out. They’re like, oh, come on, Vicki. This is going too far. Come on. Stop Vicky. And 1 girl rushes at Vicky, and she spins around and shoots her in the leg. She falls down. You could see she’s got a a wound in her in her ankle.   And everybody’s like, oh my god. You just shot her. And she’s like, don’t worry. She’s fine. And points the gun back at Slater. And at this point, you’re like, what in the hell? Right. This is the weirdest thing in the world, but, yeah, you’re right. She comes out of the pool.   What happens? 

Craig:  She slices somebody. She takes a swipe at somebody with her cane. I don’t remember who she hit, and I don’t even think she necessarily wounded Anybody, I think maybe she just sliced open somebody’s shirt or something. But for whatever reason, I guess that freaked Vicki out. So Vicki shot her again. 

Todd:  Like, yeah. 

Craig:  And, like, this time, I guess, really shot her, and she fell in the water. And, like, they jump in and grab her and pull her out and take her pulse and stuff, and they’re like, she’s dead. And this, kids, is why we don’t play pranks With guns, Vicky. God. Like, come on. This is this something horrible is bound to happen. 

Todd:  It’s a Stupid thing. But this is so Christopher Pike. It’s like a Lois Duncan novel. Very much. Yes. I know what you did last summer. It’s, like, so And I just thought it was delicious. You know? Just this prank gone wrong.   And I’m like, oh, man. We’re gonna get this kinda movie now. Right? 

Craig:  And it is. 

Todd:  They’re not just victims here. They’re, like, culpable in doing this, and so it it just became even 10 times more interesting for me. 

Craig:  Yeah. At some point, It’s revealed that the other girls, apparently, all except for Katie, were in on it. They knew what was going on. Yeah. Like, the girl who got Shot didn’t even really get shot. Like, it was all just a ruse. Mhmm. But missus Slater getting shot was not part of the plan.   She’s dead or they think she is. And then, You know, again, it’s that very much I know what you did last summer. Katie, the good one, who you know is gonna be the final girl because she’s the only one with any sense. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  She’s like, oh my god. We have ambiance. They’re like, no. We can’t. Our lives will be ruined. Mhmm. So she’s like, okay. So what should we do? So, Well, the oh, oh, oh, oh, the band’s here.   The party’s getting ready to start. So, somebody go distract the band. She tells I think she tells the slutty blonde one to run and and, distract the band, and the slutty blonde one just kind of Slowly gets up and, like, saunters away. Like, she’s not concerned at all. But, anyway, So they wrap her up in some towels, tie her up in some towels, and throw her in the pool. Now as soon as they throw her in the pool, they all turn and run back into the house, and then the body floats back up to the top. And because they turned and ran away so quickly, I thought that it would be perfectly plausible that she wasn’t really dead 

Todd:  Mhmm. And 

Craig:  she got herself out of pool. Mhmm. Because she would have had time. She wasn’t in the pool that 

Todd:  long. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s not like she was underwater for a 

Todd:  long time. And we get a nice little bit of underwater photography In the as it sinks to the bottom and then floats to the Todd. I mean, what a nice little touch. And this is by the way, this is a gross pool. This is like Green through and through. You like, you can’t see the bottom of it. That’s why tossing her in the pool was their way that they were just gonna temporarily get rid of the body until after the party, and then they could deal with it. So but that has to be said.   I don’t know why people keep coming back to this nasty ass pool throughout the movie because why you would wanna jump into this thing For any reason, it’s totally beyond me. I don’t know if the ads grow. 

Craig:  But, anyway, so so then they have their party. And, like, at first Because all of these girls kind of look alike, like, I didn’t even really you know? I I could barely distinguish between them. And at first, You know, they’re showing the scenes of this party, and I thought that it was all of our girls who we know just partying and having a time. Like happened. Like, wow. They got over that awfully quick. Well, as it turns out, that’s not true because then There’s a a really nice shot later 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Yes. Hands through the party to each one of our girls who we know, and they are all Clearly distraught and distracted and, don’t know what to do. 

Todd:  That was so nice. That was a great shot, just like you said. And, again, just another layer here of reality that we don’t again, we don’t often get these horror movies. Like, I can’t remember what that movie was. We I think it was Bloody New Year, where it was, like, somebody would get killed. And then, like, the next scene, like, everybody’s just drinking and hanging out again. Like like, nothing had happened. But it was really important to this movie that everybody was still extremely uncomfortable, and I think it helps build that tension.   And you constantly have Katie through this, who’s jumping in at the moments where they have to regroup and rethink things. I was like, look. This is insane. Like, we gotta stop this. We gotta call the cops. And For one reason or another, it doesn’t happen. That hooked me. You know? It really did hook me because I think I was just putting myself there, like, my Todd.   You do some really dumbass things when you’re a college student. You know? It could happen. You know? And, and this is exactly how I would feel. I I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the rest of my life, You know, let alone party. Right. So, it was good. The reality of it, I think, was was really refreshing and and well played. 

Craig:  We also see at some point right around here that either she got out of the pool or someone got her out. And and that that’s what I wrote down because that’s what I was thinking. Either she got out or someone got her out. I wasn’t sure. But we see somebody, like, wringing out the Towels and and whatnot. And some drunk guy walks down there and, gets stabbed through the neck with the cane. It’s practical. I mean, you know, the the impact itself is clearly with a dummy.   Yeah. That’s I mean, it looks it Still looks pretty good. I mean okay. I appreciate a good practical effect. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But but it was clearly real. You know? Because, again, at this point and even a little I don’t know. Maybe not much further into it. But at this point, I was also thinking, Again, red herring. Maybe this is all just a trick on Katie because she’s the naive one and because she was the only one who wasn’t in on the whole gunplay deal. I thought maybe maybe nobody’s really going to die. Maybe It’s gonna look like they are, and then it’s gonna be again, spoiler alert if you haven’t seen April fools’ day. Everybody jumps out at the end.   It was just a big joke on you. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  But but this guy gets killed, and it it looks like he really gets killed. So 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  I guess I let that theory go. And then this guy shows up looking for Kate. Vicky has set her up on a blind date with this guy named Peter. And Poor Peter. He’s this nice guy, and he really just kind of chases her around the party through the whole movie. And I won’t I’m not gonna have a whole lot Todd say about him because he doesn’t play a huge role except for, again, I thought that he was a Todd red herring. 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  There were several times throughout the movie I thought maybe it’s Peter. Maybe Peter is Miss Slater’s lost son. Yeah. Turns out it’s not. But but I really thought it might be, you know, up almost until the very end. 

Todd:  Well, the party’s kinda going on. And, you know, Peter has found her upstairs. She’s kinda distraught, but she’s kinda trying to play it off a little bit. And finally, he’s like, no. No. No. That’s okay. But he kinda disappears.   And then, they notice I think, it’s after this scene that you had mentioned Earlier about the the pans across them, they’re all look just standing there not enjoying the party. They noticed there’s some commotion down by the pool, and there are 2 guys who are, like, swinging a girl like they’re gonna toss her in. So they all run down there to stop that from happening. And once they all leave, the girls look at each other and, like, what if somebody turns the pool lights on? That’s gonna reveal the body. Stevie decides that she’s gonna go into the basement slash boiler room and pull out the the fuse, so that nobody can do that. So, you know, this movie, we’ve got in the attic Scene, of course, we had to have a basement boiler scene. And while she’s down there, there’s clearly some eyes looking at her from behind a slated, Like, door that’s put up against the wall. And it looks an awful lot like Slater.   Mhmm. The Woman. I mean, it looks very much like her. So much that I thought, Jeez. Maybe it is her then, you know, who came out of it. And, again, really suspenseful, well staged Christine reminded me a little bit of Black Christmas, reminded me a little bit of Hitchcock. There’s the ball that rolls Across the floor that 

Craig:  And I I was thinking that a troll was gonna drop jump out of 

Todd:  her. Right. She picks up the ball, and then as she looks up, like, the the now the light bulb is swinging at the other end. Somebody’s disturbed the light bulb, and she goes over bulb. And then we get another murder scene of her, but it’s all in silhouette. And she’s clearly, again, getting stabbed with a cane, like, first couple times in the chest and then right in the mouth, but, again, all All in shadow. So, 

Craig:  Yeah. And the the cane is the primary weapon, throughout the movie, and this is a wicked cane. It can Slice and dice and all kinds of things. And then they have, like, a snowball dance or whatever. It’s just distraction or whatever. And then these random scenes, the these 3 guys In tighty whities are down by the pool. I guess they’re gonna take a swim. Like you said, why? Like, this pool’s gross.   Like, are you really that desperate to Swim that you’re gonna jump in is gross. And one of them is this big guy, and, one of 

Clip:  the other guys Pushes them in, and that’s I’m a. He comes up and says it. It’s so funny. 

Craig:  And then for somehow, the pool lights come on, And the girls are I don’t know how they know the pool lights come on, but they do. And so, again, everybody runs down to the pool, And there’s that guy. Like, his friends have just abandoned him, and he’s just, like, floating there in the pool. And they’re, like, looking at him, and he just looks at them. I’m a sea Pig. But they see that the body is Obviously, not in the water, and so they’re convinced that miss Slater must be alive, that she had gotten out somehow. 

Todd:  And It’s actually a weird kind of logic. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense, because they kinda go back and forth. And it almost seems like They don’t really know what to think. They’re just trying to keep Katie from calling the police. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  So on one hand, they have this meeting in the kitchen. And again, Katie wants to call the police. And the first thing they kinda start out saying is, oh my god. She’s alive. Like, we threw her in the pool, And she wasn’t she wasn’t Todd. And now she’s gotten out. And then they’re, like, yeah. But if she was alive, wouldn’t she have already called the police? So then that must mean maybe she’s not alive, but then they sort of decide that they need to go out and find her.   I don’t know. Are they looking for her body? 

Craig:  Vicki says, I don’t know where she comes up with this logic. Vicky’s like, well, she must have been alive when she got out, but then she must have dropped dead somewhere else. Okay. 

Todd:  Yeah. Alright. Whatever. It makes no sense. It just gives them all an excuse to disperse Mhmm. And keep again, Katie from calling the cops. And they do. And so then it becomes very much what you would expect.   So they have all dispersed Todd these different areas, and then we start getting picked off 1 by 1. But it’s also again, it’s just all so well shot, and it’s so compelling and interesting. I I just I was way more involved in this movie than I am in a lot of these slasher movies that we do. True. And I thought, what about that band, What’d you think of the band? 

Craig:  I mean, they were fine. 

Todd:  We got, like, we got, like, 5 or 6, like, solid songs out of them. It seemed like the band might have been They 

Craig:  all sounded the same to me. I I just felt like they’re playing the same song over 

Todd:  and over. Like the band was angling for for getting half their album out in the movie because it seemed like sometimes the only reason we cut back to the party scene was so that we could hear, like, you know, about 5 bars or whatever they were playing. 

Craig:  Yeah. Like you said, at this point, they they, again, they do. They just Keep finding reasons to either peel off from one another or somebody will send somebody else off on their own. Oh, why don’t you go do this? Like, why don’t you go get the car? Why don’t you go Check something. Like, at this point, they send Morgan, the sexy blonde one, to, clean out Slater’s closet so that When she comes up missing, they’ll just think she left. And while she’s in there, a body wrapped up in towels, so supposedly Slater’s body, falls on her. And she’s fine, but she’s freaked out, so she runs back to her room and takes her top off we could see her boobs for a second, and then she hears, like, some music or whatever outside her door. So she opens up her door, and she finds this jack in the box again from the attic.   Mhmm. And then she too is impaled from behind. 

Todd:  Good effect. 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it’s Todd, but at this point, it didn’t feel redundant Watching it, in fact, I was impressed that the movie really kept moving. It never dragged. Like, it it something was always happening. It it never got boring. But to just cut and then so and so ran off and got killed. Then so and so ran off and got killed. I mean, that’s that’s pretty much What happens? At some point, the girls, whichever ones of them are left with Vicky as the leader, put Slater’s body In a dumpster to try move her to the garage so they can drive her somewhere? 

Todd:  Stupidest idea ever. They end up kinda pushing the dumpster down the driveway or down the street or something, and they bump right into a police car 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  That I guess had pulled up at that moment. It’s a little awkward. But, again, there’s more of this tension, like, Okay. You’ve just put a body in a dumpster, which is where all bodies end up. So, you know, the cop comes out of the car, and he’s, like, what are you girls doing pushing this dumpster? And he starts to interrogate them, and he even starts to go over and lift it up. But then a call comes over the radio at the last second, and so he goes back to the radio and he kinda disappears. So, Like, it there’s some nice little moments here, I think, of tension. 

Craig:  Tension. 

Todd:  That are cool. Like you said, it keeps moving. There’s always something interesting happening. And then, I don’t know, like, Diane decides to go hang out in a van? 

Craig:  Oh, well, she’s going to, like, get the van to, like, pull it out of the garage or Some things so that they can put that’s like their getaway car. Oh. And she gets killed in there. The important thing that we can’t fail to mention is that for some reason, Katie ends up in the attic. Yes. She looks around, and she finds all this weird stuff and, like, all these Todd. And there’s definitely, like, a Clown theme, and she finds, like, a a jester’s costume, like, hanging on the wall. And she also finds a birthday card that says something like, happy birthday, Eric.   Love, mother. And that’s important. And then, again, a great, you know, red herring, Peter, who’s drunk at this point, joins her in the attic. He’s just trying to flirt, but, like, he sees these Todd. And he sits down on, like, this little kid riding Todd, and he’s scooting around on it. And he says, this used to be one of my favorite things. And I’m like, what? Like Like, just these little, like, innocuous lines, like, I thought, how could that have been one of your favorite things? Is this your attic? But But that that’s good. You know? I feel like that’s good writing.   It’s the natural thing to say. You know? It it’s It’s fine. It doesn’t end up amounting to anything, but it’s a good you know, it it diverts your attention. 

Todd:  Yeah. For sure. 

Craig:  Then like you said Diane gets killed in the van. Jeanie goes looking for Diane, and she gets attacked, but she runs back home where she finds Katie. And so now Katie knows that people are being attacked, but, of course, she leaves thing. And Jeanie gets chased upstairs to the bathroom and gets killed in the bathroom. Like, she’s hiding in a stall, and somehow the killer opens the latch from the outside. That’s not how bathroom 

Todd:  stalls work. It’s it’s all a little weird. That sequence, again, it’s your classic Sick person’s trapped in the bathroom, and somehow there are showers in there too. I don’t know. I I didn’t quite figure out the whole layout of that whole place. I mean, they I think they filmed that in a totally different place. Pretty obvious because here, this is this nice little sorority house, and they have this, this shared bathroom that looks like a locker. You know, it’s like cement.   It’s like concrete block walls and stuff like that in there and, like, proper stalls, and it’s a little bit bigger than it should be. But, yeah. So she gets killed I think she gets Stabbed with a with a knife she’s holding, doesn’t she? Like, in the neck. Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty Mhmm. Pretty gross. But, again, it’s not close-up.   It’s more Bladder on the wall. So then Diane Katie finds Katie. Yeah. 

Craig:  Katie finds the tag. 

Todd:  Yeah. The 

Craig:  Which we failed to mention. 

Todd:  Yeah. We didn’t mention that. The doctor had given, It’s the the house mother, a new tag, he said, and like, a medical tag. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And it had a number on it. And so Katie decides to run inside and call that number, And he gets the doctor, and the doctor says, oh, I’ll be right there. So he shows up. And then, he goes up and has a nice little exposition in the attic. Yep. He tells us the information some of the information, that we need to hear. 

Craig:  Slater wanted to have a baby, but she couldn’t. And so he was doing this experimental thing, and he was doing these experimental drugs. And, he tried it with a whole series of women, and she was the last one. And Something went wrong. Something went wrong with all of them. That’s basically all he says. And she’s like, but I don’t get it because I found this birthday card. And the doctor says, oh, well, she celebrated his birthday on June 19th every year as as though she had a normal loving sun.   Mhmm. And, again, he doesn’t say as though the sun were still alive. They’re so It’s just so I thought it was so clever that never ever ever do they say that the sun died. Yep. You just assume that. It seems like the most logical answer 

Todd:  And and and honestly, at this point, I was actually convinced there was a sun. And when the doctor showed up and explained this in this way, I thought, oh, I guess there isn’t a son. I mean, I guess he really did die because the Doctor Shirley would have revealed her son still alive in some way. And, again, he was just clever enough to not quite say that, and I didn’t pick up on that, you know, honestly. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Now I’m thinking, okay. Well, then who could it be if it’s not a living son? So yeah. So then they anyway, I think it’s the doctor finally calls the cops. 

Craig:  Well, they they find the bodies in the pool. Yeah. 

Clip:  Oh, yeah. 

Todd:  They run dead. 

Craig:  They know some of the girls are dead. 

Todd:  And then he asks her, where are the others? And they say, oh, they’re in the cemetery. I I missed that part where they had told her that they were gonna take the body to the cemetery. 

Craig:  I did too. 

Todd:  But there the next shot is Vicki and, I don’t remember who else. Liz? That might be Liz. Vicky and Liz are digging a hole in the cemetery. So what? Were they gonna just Take this body and give it a proper burial or something. Like No. Find an empty plot, dig a fresh grave, and throw the body in and cover it up. 

Craig:  Their plan their plan was it was An empty grave. They were just gonna dig down a couple more feet, throw the body, and cover it up, and then somebody else would get buried over her. 

Todd:  Okay. Alright. I got it. So Liz, gets goes to the van to get something, and she sits in the front seat. And from behind, pretty brutal throat slash, Again, with the pointy end of the cane across her neck. Vicky comes over there and sees it. She gets hacked as well. By the time Kate and the doctor show up, they find the the 2 bodies that have been tossed into the pit.   And in the way over, Kate actually tells the doctor the whole story. Because the doctor keeps asking, well, where’s missus Slater? Where’s missus Slater? We need to find missus Slater. And She’s just been kind of avoiding the topic. At this point, she tells the doctor everything that missus Slater is now dead and that they killed her. They were trying to hide her body, Blah blah blah blah blah. 

Craig:  And they thought that they had her body, but, Kate says she must have replaced the body with 1 of the other girls. But then they check it and it is Slater, 

Todd:  she 

Craig:  is dead. That’s when the doctor 

Clip:  goes, he’s alive. 

Todd:  This came out of left field to me, that he drove her back. And and the first thing that I was thinking about at this moment, like, next scene, he’s in the van driving her back. And I’m thinking, where are the cops? Because because they were supposed to meet at the cemetery. And, like, 2 seconds after I thought it, Kate turns to the doctor and says, where are the cops? And the doctor Grabs her arm and jams a syringe in it. I was not expecting that. So he clearly didn’t call the cops. And now the doctor takes this Half drugged Kate into the sorority house. Now, by now, the party is conveniently dispersed.   Mhmm. So it’s just a big empty house. He starts locking all the doors, drags her down to the Todd the downstairs where there is a, like, a living room that faces the pool with some French doors. And so he opens the French doors, sits her on a chair right in front of those French doors facing the pool. Amelia, I’m thinking, scream, by the way. 

Craig:  I know. It did seem like that, but the funny thing is it wasn’t Facing the pool. This is so no. This is so weird. Basically, the exposition that he tells her is these kids were all born with deformities. And I don’t know why he didn’t know that this kid, Eric, was still alive, but, apparently, he didn’t. But He says, you’re the last of your friends, so you’re the bait. Now the reason that you thought that it faced the pool is because Kate starts hallucinating. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  And if if you look when it’s not from her perspective, it just opens up into another room with a bunch of furniture. 

Todd:  Really? 

Craig:  But she’s yeah. But she sees it as though it’s like a veranda, and she has these really trippy hallucinations of missus It’s a Slater and the cane, like, spinning and all of her friends all dead and gory, And it’s really choppy and weird cut frames and, like, then they all walk away. I I thought it was great. I love the old hallucination scenes. 

Todd:  Yeah. Well, it also kind of establishes that this girl’s almost completely helpless now. Like, no matter what’s gonna go on here, she’s not gonna be able to tell Reality from fiction. I thought, you know, she would end up kinda stabbing the wrong person or something would happen here. Uh-huh. What kind of turns out is Peter, who we haven’t seen for a long while, Poor mopey Peter comes walking in, and the doctor who was hiding around the corner waiting for the kid, Eric, jumps out. And, did he shoot at him? 

Craig:  He he shot him. 

Todd:  In the arm. 

Craig:  And yeah. 

Todd:  So he immediately has to go down and tend to Peter with his back to it. In the meantime, she gets up and sneaks away, and starts running, away. So it gets very Hitchcockian at this point. She’s running around through the house. The doctor gets up, and he gets Stabbed in the hallway. 

Craig:  On the stairwell. Yeah. And he goes over the banister. When Katie comes out, She comes and looks over the banister, and she sees his body down there, and there’s somebody standing over him. And that person looks Up. And it’s the only time, really, that we see Eric. And he is kind of this deformed Jason Voorhees kind of looking castle freak, kinda looking guy. 

Todd:  And there’s a bit of Halloween here. Right? Like, just his demeanor. He just kinda looks up. Yeah. 

Craig:  He’s just kind of that stalking presence. And so he chases her upstairs, and, of course, she runs to Vicky’s room, Super smart and gets Vicky’s gun. And then she comes back out to shoot him, But the gun jams, and so she runs again. She ends up in the bathroom. She sees that 1 girl’s head in the toilet. And somehow, you know, Chasey, Chasey, Chasey, somehow they end up in the attic or she ends up in the attic, and she tries to lure him up the stairs with The Jack in the Box, the music box. Mhmm. And she’s standing waiting for him to come up the stairs, you know, with the gun pointed, You know, ready to shoot him.   But she’s standing right next to that jester costume, and I knew immediately he he’s in it. Like, you know, he’s in that costume. But, again, she’s hallucinating. She’s seeing weird things. But then slowly, we see The head of the jester start to rise, and then he raises up the cane. But she notices right at the, you know, last 2nd, And she jumps out of the way, and they struggle. This part was really weird to me. I don’t even know how She thought of this, but she picks up a doll, I guess, and rips off its head.   And underneath its head is like 

Todd:  A spike? 

Craig:  Yeah. Like a railroad spike. Like, this huge spike. 

Todd:  Like this kid’s doll, what you know, the doll was popped on the the neck by a spike. Yeah. 

Craig:  So she stabs him with it multiple times, And he’s, like, grunting. He never says anything. 

Todd:  No. And he’s still in costume. Yeah. So we don’t even see his face. 

Craig:  Uh-huh. Yeah. He’s grunting, and and she stabs and stabs and stabs a bunch of times. And, eventually, she throws him off her down through the attic door, And he lands at the bottom of the attic stairs, and she kinda just collapses. And that’s, you know, where it appears to be over, but, of course, You know, it the camera zooms in on his face, and the last thing that we see before the credit rolls is his eyes open. Yeah. Did you read about the alternate endings? 

Todd:  I did. I did. There was an alternate ending where she was, the last shot was gonna be her floating in the pool. Like, he eventually killed her. 

Craig:  The like, the cops were gonna Find, you know, all this carnage, and they found somebody in the jester costume floating in the pool. But when they pulled it out, it was her. Yeah. Another one supposedly was that the last shot was going to be her in a hospital being pushed down the hall in A wheelchair, and then the camera panned up, and the orderly pushing her was going to be him. But somebody, I don’t remember who it was. Somebody made the decision that both of those endings were too bleak, so they just cut it with him opening his eyes, which, I think is fine. 

Todd:  It’s still pretty bleak. It’s kind of a black Christmas ending because you get the sense in the attic that she’s so tired that she kinda passes out. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And then the next shot is him downstairs opening his eyes. And so I was really left with the impression that she’s not gonna live through this either. 

Craig:  Right. Right. I me too. 

Todd:  Yeah. So it’s still kinda bleak. I guess not as bleak. You can hope that maybe she wakes up just in time and dispatches him. 

Craig:  So it ended up being very black Christmas and that this weird freaky guy was living in the attic the whole time, and they didn’t know it. 

Todd:  Do you think he was living in the attic the whole time? Yes. I no. 

Craig:  Because I think that he was because it wasn’t when the doctor was saying we need to do this clinic Stay. He was talking about the kid. The kid needed to come for the summer to be observed and Treated. No. That doesn’t make any sense. It would make much more sense if he was in the clinic during the school year and then went home for the summer. That would make much more sense. 

Todd:  Well, see, that’s where I was confused. I really thought it was the opposite. And so I thought the kid was in the clinic the whole time and that he would let her and the kid go because she had kinda threatened him, back to the house for the summer. And so then while they were gone, you know, he was kinda, you know, going through all of his stuff and going, yeah. This is this is gonna be a problem. 

Craig:  Well, that does make more sense, so maybe I misunderstood it. I’m I’m not sure. 

Todd:  Yeah. Maybe maybe we gotta go back and read the Wikipedia summary or something like that. I don’t know. But, 

Craig:  It was it also, you know, very psycho in you know, because, before he was in the jester costume, most of the murders that he committed, he was dressed as his mother. He had a wig on like his mom. So, you know, shades of all of these different movies, but it didn’t feel like a cheap rip off. 

Todd:  No. 

Craig:  It felt like, you know, kind of Umagi in some ways, and and it was put together in clever ways that it didn’t it I wouldn’t say it felt entirely Fresh, but it didn’t feel just like cut and paste either. No. And I just can’t believe that this was this guy’s 1st writing credit and 1st directing credit. That Speaks a lot to, his talent, I think. In the end, I thought it was if if you like, You know, eighties slashers and you haven’t seen this one, like, I hadn’t, run out and find it. You can rent it on YouTube. That’s what I did. Because, I don’t understand why it’s not more widely known. 

Todd:  That’s what I don’t get. 

Craig:  It’s just as good, if not better, than a lot of them. 

Todd:  Oh, it’s way better than a lot of them. Again, I’d put it on the level of Halloween, Black Christmas. Like you said, even though Fry yeah. Even though it it pulls it clearly pulls from some of those that came before it. They didn’t come too far before it. Uh-huh. Nobody hurts anybody for, like, Homaging Hitchcock. Mhmm.   You know, you see in a lot of stuff is generally a smart thing to do. Mhmm. And he does it really really well in this film. It is kinda like watching a Hitchcock movie in movie in many ways, and the also the moral ambiguity of it. One of the things that’s kinda great about a lot of Hitchcock movies is That sometimes that victim is not entirely clean. You know? 

Craig:  Yeah. Right. 

Todd:  And in this case, it’s it’s great. It’s again, it’s like I know what you did last summer. Like, Definitely. All these girls did something terrible, and so it’s being revisited upon them. And that just gives you a certain You know, it’s just not innocent campers getting hacked hacked to kids. It just makes this a more interesting film and guessing all the way through. God. 

Craig:  Yeah. I would I would I would definitely recommend this. Go go out. It’s worth the $3 to, rent it on YouTube. 

Todd:  Yeah. Totally. Well, thank you again for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us, of course, as always, on Facebook. Just search for 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. Find us in your favorite podcasting service or software, we’re there too. Leave us a review if you like our podcast.   We’d certainly love to see more of those. And also just leave us a Comment either on our website, 2guys.red40net.com where you can, find all of our past episodes streamed. Leave us a comment there. Let us know if if there’s anything you want us Todd the future. Until then, I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 guys and a Chainsaw.