The Hills Have Eyes
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After the controversy and success of The Last House on the Left, Wes Craven really wasn’t interested in being pigeonholed as a horror director. However, with the funds running low and a couple of false starts, he caved and partnered with producer Peter Locke to create this masterpiece of cinema which, surprisingly, still holds up today in many ways.
Join us in celebrating our 300th episode milestone in our traditional way: Yet another fantastic film from the mind of Mr. Craven! And as a special treat, we left our discussion almost entirely unedited, in its full-length glory. Cheers!
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Ep 300, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw
Todd: Hello and welcome to the 300 episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: Craig, did you ever think we get to 300?
Craig: Absolutely not. I didn’t think we’d get to 30.
Todd: This isn’t. Oh my gosh. We started out the very first episode with the people under the stairs. And then I think when we got to 50, we were like, we should do another Wes Craven one since it’s like our 50th.
And we started with the Wes Craven one and then pretty much every milestone after that with one exception, I think we do. Something Wicked This Way Comes for like our 150th or something. Yeah.
Craig: Maybe we did. We, we deviated from our formula once I, uh, but then we came back
Todd: to it. It didn’t curse us still going another 150 episodes later.
So here we are, we still have more Wes Craven stuff to choose from. And not even the most obscure stuff either. The movie that we chose for today is 1977’s, The Hills Have Eyes, probably one of Wes Craven’s most notorious films from his early period. This was only the second movie. I think that he had written and he really didn’t want to continue doing horror.
Right. He was an English teacher, but really wanted to get into filmmaking. Uh, he wrote The Last House On The Left, directed it and wrote it. Primarily for the, uh, you know, drive-in crowd just to cheap exploitation movie, but, um, based off of an Ingmar Bergman film, you know, that guy’s smart and he has, he has a very literary mind and a good sense of what makes a good story and, uh, had good material to kind of choose from.
But that movie’s pretty brutal. Yeah.
Craig: Yeah, very brutal.
Todd: It’s really nasty. Yeah. Uh, and it’s definitely hardcore exportation exploitation, and he really wanted to do something non exploitative, but nothing was really getting off the ground. And, uh, he just realized I could do another horror film. And this was the result.
Craig: Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. It’s funny. I, if I remember correctly, I think, um, that the producer said, look, you know, like, uh, we’re out in Nevada and, uh, you know, our families are here. There’s lots of desert let’s, let’s, let’s make a desert horror movie. And, uh, I guess Craven went, I, he went into like the archives of.
Like a true crime stuff and was just kind of looking around and found a story of this family from the 14 hundreds, um, in England, I believe, or Scotland, I don’t remember
Todd: Sawney Bean, and his supposed clan.
Craig: Yeah. And it was like this feral family who, um, captured tortured and eight transience.
And, um, and like they’ve lived on the coast in this cave that faced the sea and like the cave would be concealed at high tide and nobody could find them. And, but eventually one of their victims escaped and, and talk to, you know, went to the king and, um, they were captured. And, uh, then they were all brutally tortured and killed as punishment for their crimes.
And that was really his inspiration for this movie, which I think is so interesting that the, like the, the idea of, you know, what is the difference between being civilized versus being Savage and ultimately how the most civilized of people can be just as Savage as the most Savage of people and vice versa.
And that was kind of. The setup for this story, which is far deeper than you would anticipate for this type of movie. But if you look at it through that lens, it makes a lot of sense. And it’s actually, it’s, it’s interesting in an intellectual way. I mean, the movie is, is brutal. It’s a brutal horror movie.
Um, it’s violent and scary, but honestly, if you look at it through that lens, you’ve got this white, suburban, um, Midwest family who you would never anticipate, could be capable of the kind of violence and brutality that eventually happens here. But when faced with it, uh, I don’t know if it’s just that their primal instincts surface when survival is necessary, but it, I mean, it does.
Todd: It’s kind of like a survival instinct too. Right. You know, there are a lot, there are a lot of movies, you know, since then. And probably before this to a certain degree, you know, have dealt with this Straw Dogs by Sam Pekinpah, one of my favorite movies, it’s really up there in my top, like 50. Deliverance, you know, where, you know, you just have these kind of people who are quite naive coming into a place and also with Deliverance and with that.
And I think also with this movie, there’s another subtext and that is that like, these folks are. Sort of outcast there, the disadvantaged folks, I feel like this movie’s really dripping with that subtext to particularly the way it’s set up. Um, when this family drive is driving through the desert to go to California, like you said, um, he’s the, the father’s name is Bob.
I think he’s a retired police officer. The mom is like super Christian, super nice gal is always huddling the family up to pray and telling everybody to watch their language. Um, you know, they have a dog. And then they have significant others. Um, and there’s a baby and they’re all just, you know, it’s this very suburban, like middle-class American road trip with a camper tray that their drive driving behind their, their station wagon.
You know, I mean, even up into the eighties, this is such a trope. Uh, you know, it’s just something we all laugh about and they’re driving through a place they’re completely unfamiliar with. You know, it could have been the woods. In fact, I, I read that he had originally wrote the script to take place in the, in the wilderness.
But this is just as much wilderness. I don’t know if you’ve ever driven much through like the Western west part or Southwest of the United States where it’s just nothing but miles and miles and miles of desert, as far as you can see, you can see for miles and there’s nothing there, you know, and it, except the sun and a very big landscape that although beautiful and expansive, it’s very unfamiliar, you know, to most of us yet, this is a place where our military has set up bases and is famously, you know, experimented with, um, with, with weapon, with weaponry and atomic bombs.
And it, it has actually had an effect on the few people that have lived out there. Most of whom were living out there before. Their economic conditions dictate it, you know, it’s, it’s cheap enough to be out there. And so in many ways, like, uh, they’re, they’re victims of, of, uh, the sort of terrible experiments where, you know, nobody really gave a shit, you know, about these people and knew what was going to happen and didn’t really care.
Uh, and so it feels like it’s that kind of harsh, brutal environment, very much like the guys jumping into the wilderness of the Appalachians or wherever it is. And in deliverance, you know, where they’re really out of their league, they really don’t know what they’re going, getting into. Um, they’re just often their sense of adventure going to California.
We’re in the
Craig: middle of nowhere. And I went down to the nearest cheeseburger folk up this way, where you’re heading California LA movie stars in fancy cars, California, who sure as hell off the
Todd: beaten track for that. They go up to the gas station and it’s the last gas station for miles. And, uh, Fred Fred’s Oasis, you know, there’s tiny little grizzly guy, you know, who’s, who’s 70 something and he’s in his seventies.
I did the math based on the story. He was telling he somewhere in his seventies. And what does he do? He says, you guys just do not veer from the road. Keep going, don’t go to the mountains. Don’t do anything like that. It’s just, it’s very much the gas station trope that I think the a few years before this was more or less set up by a Texas chainsaw massacre, which west Craven admired very much and a big inspiration.
Took a lot of inspiration from an even used some M crew from there.
Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. And you’re right. He, you know, I, I’m a, uh, a small town guy. Um, but the area that I live in is relatively rural. So I’m accustomed to the expanse of like a forest. And even in E you know, this is middle America where I live, the wilderness is accessible, but it’s dangerous.
You know, if you get lost out there, you could potentially be lost indefinitely. Um, I haven’t done. Of, uh, travel to the Southwest, but I have visited Las Vegas. Las Vegas is one of my favorite places in the world. And, you know, it’s just this crazy little city set in this valley, in the desert, surrounded by mountains.
And, and, and I have, um, driven in and around Los Angeles and I visited the desert out there too. And, uh, it’s it’s and the production crew and cast talk about this and some behind the scene, things that we’ve seen, um, Craven and his producer scouted this area, I think they ended up filming in a place called apple valley or something like that in Nevada.
And it’s just a, you know, it’s, it’s the desert. And in the summer, the temperatures would reach 125 degrees during the day. Um, completely. Desolate and isolated, uh, where they filmed was a good 30 minutes from any civilization. And so they just packed their entire casting crew into like two or three Winnebagos and drove them out there each day.
And it was, you know, the just scorching hot weather. Um, and, and when they were scouting this area and they were asking around about it, you know, people familiar with the area were like, don’t go out there, you’ll die.
And here are these, you know, two guys from New York scouting, this area. They commented about how beautiful it is and it is, um, you know, just, uh, it’s, it’s a valley, basically. It’s just lots of flat land, um, but completely surrounded by these Rocky Hills that are beautiful as landscape, but also treacherous.
Um, and, and just the environment, the environment itself is dangerous and scary and, and take out the mutant hill people and these suburbanites who are completely out of their element stranded, um, with a disabled car in the desert, that alone is life threats. Um, but then, but then you, you know, you, you throw in these, this, this family of, uh, antagonists who, you know, they’re the bad guys, they’re, they’re cannibal, um, killers, mutants.
Um, but frankly they’re just minding their own business. And these people have encroached on their territory and these people, you know, are out there and they are desperate, you know, Fred, the gas station guy. Um, he talks in one of the very early scenes to what I think is the youngest of the clan. A girl named Ruby played by Janice Blythe and Ruby explains that they are desperate here.
Oh no, your dog. Ain’t no trading today. Ruby and not, no more. Neither you folks gone. Trooper been snooping around air force been through yet twice you folk to go Rob a God damn air force PX for guys sakes. Don’t come through back there anymore. They’ve basically been abandoned by civilization and society, and they’re just doing what they can and what they have to do to survive.
And she is desperate to escape. Um, but, uh, really doesn’t have any outlet. Fred is planning on leaving and, and Ruby wants to go with him, but he says, no, your dad would gut me. If he found out that I even was thinking about leaving, let alone taking you with me. So as, as villainous as they are and they are, and they’re, they’re brutal.
Um, They are, like you said, kind of victims of circumstance too. And I think that that’s something that’s easy to overlook. You know, if you’re just watching this movie as an exploitation, 1970s, violent kind of murder movie, it works on that level and it’s, it’s good and entertaining on that level. But if you think about it even a little bit, it’s more complex than you might’ve been.
Todd: Yeah. And, and I mean, you could almost miss that if you just missed the first, you know, five, 10 minutes, because I think Craven does a really nice job of setting that up in the beginning. Um, you know, especially when he’s talking about the air force, uh, you know, it’s, it’s like, it’s like civilization as nearby, but it’s literally fly over country.
Right. You know, these modern airplanes are zooming by and being noisy and disrupting them and they’re, they drop their junk there. These guys are running around with obvious, like surplus equipment that they found that’s been abandoned. Um, there we’re using walkie talkies that have USASF on them. You know, they’re really just scavenging this stuff.
The crumbs, you know, drop from the. But there’s some real peril, you know, uh, when he mentions all this, uh, he’s packing up a pig and a crate in the back of his car, his truck as he’s getting ready to leave, but he’s obviously really nervous even about leaving. Right. It’s kind of interesting. Like he, it’s almost, it’s never really said, but it almost feels like he has for a long time had this comfortable sort of understanding or relationship or agreement with them.
Because as, I guess we later learned he arguably fathered.
Craig: Yeah. That’s a big exposition piece later. Yeah. I mean, we may as well talk about it here because yeah, I mean it, but yeah, he says that he and his wife moved. To this area. And, uh, and I guess it, you know, it was before it was desolate and they had, um, a baby girl who he just gushes over and says she was the most beautiful child you’ve ever seen in your life, but then his wife became pregnant again and they don’t really make much of it in this movie.
They do mention the fact that this was like a nuclear, um, weapon test site. Um, I feel like in the remake, they make more of a deal out of it and suggest that, um, the disfigurement that these mutants or whatever have, uh, is, is potentially a result of the radiation in the area. They don’t make a big deal out of it.
In fact, most of the clan, the feral clan here is not disfigured with one exception that I can’t wait to talk about, but, um, But he says that his wife then became pregnant again and it was just a terrible pregnancy. And when she gave birth the kid, it was a 20 pound kid and he came out sideways and almost tore his wife in half and just disfigured and covered in hair.
And, um, was just, you know, trouble from the beginning. You know, from the time the kid could move around, accidents started happening. You know, they found, he found chickens with their heads bid off and, um, all kinds of other weird things happening until eventually he went into town to get supplies or something.
And we, when he came back. The entire house, uh, had been burned down with his wife and daughter in it. And the only survivor was this son. And so he beat the sun within an inch of his life, took him out to the desert and left him for dead. Um, but he didn’t die. Uh, Fred thinks, you know, eh, he somehow managed his words, not mine managed to steal some whore that nobody cared about and ended up fathering this whole brood of Farrah.
Children who are now adult and living in the Hills.
Todd: It’s a real kind of classically insane story, right? It’s like, it’s a really over the top tale, as old as time sort of Frankenstein type, type origin story for this clan. Yeah.
Craig: Not impossible, you know,
Todd: like,
Craig: so you’ve got that set up there and you don’t see that’s one of the things I like about this movie is you don’t see much of the feral clan at all for at least the first half of the movie.
Todd: Not until
Craig: they’re a real threat, right? You, you, you hear them talking and making noises, but, but the camera doesn’t look at them.
Um, and, and a lot of the time, uh, you see things from their perspective, They are a very voyeuristic for the first half of the movie, looking through, uh, binoculars and speaking via radio. And it’s very menacing and it. The title is, is fitting the Hills have eyes because it does look like this family who ends up getting stranded out there.
They’re being watched from afar,
identify mamma Pluto. You said a station wagon and a trainer. That’s what mercury said. She couldn’t believe him.
They stuck good, easy pickings now. And that, that voyeuristic, you know, kind of being observed, being watched, uh, it’s spooky. Um, because of course the family has no idea what’s going on. The, the family were introduced to immediately because they come right after the scene with Fred and Ruby. The family shows up and it’s a, uh, uh, a relatively big family, you know, traveling together.
The patriarch is big. Bob Carter played by Russ grieve. I don’t know a lot of these people. And I’ll gush about the ones that I do know about. And just a second, but, um, of course you will. Yeah. Big Bob Carter and his wife, um, Ethel played by Virginia Vincent they’re they’re the, the parents and they’re celebrating their 25th anniversary, which I guess is the silver anniversary.
And some relative, an aunt or something has gifted them an old silver mine because it’s their silver anniversary. And that’s why they’re here. They’re taking this trip to California, you know, Again, being a Midwesterner myself, my family did this, you know, we would travel to the coast. We would travel to Florida.
We would travel. I think we only went to California once when I was really little, but those of us who live in landlocked areas, these are like, you know, the exciting, you know, going to the coast and the ocean and seeing all of that. That’s, that’s a big deal. And so that’s what they’re doing, but they’re.
Taking a route so that they can see this mind that they have been gifted and Fred tells them that’s stupid. There’s nobody out there. The mine has been stripped. There is no silver. There’s nothing to see. Don’t go out there, but they’re determined. And they’ve got, uh, kids. Um, their oldest daughter, Lynn is played by Dee Wallace.
Every, every, no, everybody knows. I don’t have to. Everybody knows. I, I just love Dee Wallace. I really honest to God think that she is a very, very good actress. She just has a natural presence. Um, she is believable as whatever character she plays. I’m I’m envious of her, you know? Do I act, I I’m hesitant to even say that because it’s silly community theater stuff that I do, and I don’t consider myself talented at all, but I enjoy doing it.
Um, and so I’m envious of people like her who can just be so natural and every role that they play. And the only movie that she had done before, this was a religious film. This was kind of her breakout role. Uh, and it very much was mean, you know, very soon after that she did ITI and, uh, she has just, she’s been around in Hollywood doing all kinds of movies.
She’s huge in, in the horror world still, she pops up all over the place and in cameo, We ended starring roles. I know, I mean of the 300 movies that we’ve done probably 15 or more, you know, she’s, she’s been in and she’s young and fresh faced, but you know, completely recognizable. Not only is she a beautiful woman, but she has, um, a beautiful, soft kind of soothing voice that I just love.
I could go on about her forever. I won’t, uh, I’ll, I’ll leave it at that. But her breakout role loved to see her in this. She’s married to a guy named Doug played by Martin spear and they have a baby named Katie. Then there are, uh, two other kids who, I don’t know if they’re twins. I was getting twin vibes from them just because they look similar ages and they’re both blondes, but, um, Bobby and Brian.
R, uh, the youngest Bobby’s played by a guy named Robert House dinner, Houston, uh, who, I don’t know anything about aside from the fact that he was not the first choice they cast somebody else, but the other young man that they cast in the role, read the script and was disgusted and, and turned it down. Um, and so he was second choice and he got called into play it.
And then Brenda is played by, uh, Susan Landwehr, who is actually she’s, she’s, uh, supposed to be D Wallace’s younger sister. She’s actually, I think, a year older than her, but she looks young. They’re the youngest and they have two dogs, two German shepherds, beauty, and beast. Um, and they’re all, and they’re all traveling together in a camper.
Uh it’s just so. I know these people, I am these people. And I think that that’s what Craven was going for. Uh, I think that he felt the same way. You know, he came from a, um, uh, like a Southern Baptist family. I think his father left and when his father left, his, his mother got very heavily into the Baptist church.
And so they were very, very conservative. Um, couldn’t couldn’t dance. Uh, the, uh, the only movies that, um, Craven saw in the theater until he was a senior in college, were Disney films. So crazy. I know. And you know, we have the reason that we do this is because we have so much respect and admiration for west Craven.
And because we love horror movies and he made so many great ones. I always love going back and watch. Interviews with west Craven and even him playing himself in new nightmare. You mentioned that he was an English professor, uh, and he seems like it, uh, yeah, it seems very much like an English professor, but what always, I I’m, I’m never surprised by how intelligent he is.
He just seems like an incredibly intelligent person, but he’s an incredibly soft spoken person. He has a very soft, soothing kind of fatherly voice. Like he, he just seems like somebody that you would go to, if you needed advice, you know, like, like say Julie wisdom, he seems like the kind of person that you would have gone to, and, you know, especially his first films and argue about.
Moving forward, his films are so violent and so brutal. And then you see the mind that they came from, and it’s just, it’s, it’s, it’s wild, you know, like you would never expect such an articulate soft-spoken seemingly gentle person to come up with these ideas and, and, uh, you know, everybody that I’ve heard talk about him, Heather Langan camp in particular comes to mind who, but really anybody who has worked with him, just talk about what a wonderful and amazing.
Kind man. He was, uh, and you know, all those nightmare on Elm street kids. I think that they looked to him very much as kind of a fatherly figure. And so I, I’m glad that we continue to honor him in this way, because I just have so much respect for him. Not only as a filmmaker, certainly as a filmmaker. Um, but he just seemed like such a decent, smart, cool guy.
Uh, and I love
Todd: that. Yeah, he really is. And, uh, and like you said, it doesn’t really matter. We’ve talked about this before, right? We’ve even talked about this in previous, uh, episodes, uh, you know, People misunderstand horror and people misunderstand, maybe the creative process and the process of making creative stuff.
You can write dark things, you can paint and draw dark stuff. Uh, you can even just love dark things or Halloween or, or, or music, you know, that a heavy metal that, you know, tens of it just has all this horrific imagery usually, actually doesn’t mean that you yourself have. Predispositions to being dark and acting in a evil, bad way.
It seems to be just an escape for us. Just a way to experience the darkness of life that we all know exists. And we have to encounter and confront from time to time in a very safe way. Um, and people have even argued that it, it may actually benefit people who are I, I read, I read this thing that, um, I don’t know if it’s true and of course you never know, but the studies, blah, blah, blah, have been done recently and talked about.
People who are horror. Fans have fared the pandemic a little better than others. You know, I don’t know this, this is some study. Somebody did somewhere, some university, but the, you know, the theory was that these folks kind of practiced for it. You know, like people like us have, have had to kind of confront these uncomfortable images and these uncomfortable feelings and live vicariously through these characters that are put in these absolutely horrifying situations on screen when you can’t help, but ask yourself, you know, what would you do in that situation?
You know? And so we’ve kind of worked through these emotions in advance so that perhaps, you know, when something truly horrible confronts. These folks are maybe a little more experienced and able to kind of compartmentalize or at least, you know, deal with those, those emotions a little bit better. It’s just a theory, you know, but it does make you think because there’s some pattern there, right?
Here’s west Craven who came from this extremely religious family and he was very sheltered as a child. And it turns out, you know, later on, this is the kind of stuff that he ends up really good at. It’s not the only stuff he ever wanted to do. You know, God, he tried really to break out and people kept turning his projects into horror movies and eventually just like, all right, well, you know, I mean, if this is my lot, this is what I’m going to do.
I’m just going to embrace it and do it. And he’s really, really good at it. Right. You know, it’s just, uh, it’s complicated right now.
Craig: Yeah. You know, the only instance that I can remember him branching out, he did a movie called music of the heart that I think started Meryl Streep and was a very sentimental kind of sappy movie.
I know that I saw it. I don’t remember anything about it at all. I imagine that it was quality, but yeah, I mean, he kind of fell into this niche, um, and he was good at it. He just happened to be good at it, you know, and talking about, you know, a horror film makers or writers or whomever and, and horror fans.
Yeah. You know, first of all, on a personal level, I know this to be true. You and I are huge fans of the genre. We, we are both big softies, you know, we,
Todd: we, we are,
Craig: we are we’re sensitive guys. Yeah.
Todd: Right in front of each other, embarrassingly on several occasions watching some sub touching moment in a movie.
Right.
Craig: And so, you know, on a personal level, I know that, but then also, you know, Linnea quickly told us, and I’ve heard this from not, not directly, but in interviews and things I’ve heard from other stars who do conventions and things that horror fans are the most gracious. And, uh, kind, uh, people that they have ever encountered, which is why so many people in the industry are willing and eager to do fan conventions and things because the fans are so grateful and, and, and generous and, and complimentary and, and kind, and I believe it, I believe at a hundred percent, you know, that I, I it’s it’s people like us.
And I don’t know, I, I don’t know if I can speak for you on this, but I can speak for myself. I, I think that I am a kind of person who found it difficult to find a community and a crowd. I eventually ended up finding theater people, and I found, you know, a deep affinity for people who shared my love of horror and that’s.
And so I embraced. Those communities and I’m grateful for them. And I think that there are a lot of people like me out there who wanted something to identify with and, and they, they came upon this and were embraced by a community and. Feels good.
And here we are. My goodness. How old is your kid? We’ve been doing this since, before your kid was even a twinkle in your eye.
Todd: Yeah. Yeah. He’s five now. Yeah, you’re right. We had no idea.
Craig: Yeah. So it’s been like six years or something that we’ve been doing this, and we’ve said a hundred times that the reason that we’re still doing it is because we receive such positive and encouraging feedback from people all over the world.
It’s gratifying. It feels good. And we’re happy to, you know, I love talking to you every week. You and I have become, I consider you one of my closest friends. I don’t think that we would continue doing it and recording it for posterity, if it would work, if it weren’t, if it weren’t for that, you know, kind of community that we feel a part of.
So yeah, the, the people out there, and it’s not, I’m not going to be reaching any of them via this podcast, but the people out there who don’t get it, they just don’t get it. But those of you who are listening and those of you who are fans of the same way that we are, you get it,
Todd: we’re really patting ourselves on the back here. Aren’t we we’ll go to the club.
Craig: I’m not meaning to, I, I really, I, well, I haven’t really just trying to express gratitude, gratitude. Yeah. You know, like I I’m so thankful for it. It really, it brings a lot of joy to my life.
Todd: This. Really fun, safe. Uh, you know, you wouldn’t, again, people looking at it from the outside, wouldn’t see it.
Um, wouldn’t wouldn’t necessarily understand it or believe it, but for those of us in the know, including all of you guys listening out there, you get it, you know, you know, this is, uh, this is our safe space, I
Craig: guess. And I want to make. A safe space for our listeners. And recently I offended somebody and I honestly try really hard not to offend anybody, uh, because that’s, that’s not what this podcast is about.
This podcast is just about having fun and talking about movies. And I don’t want to, I don’t want to turn anybody off. I don’t want to offend anybody. First of all, you know, we want listeners, you know, but secondly, you know, we, we do want to make this a place where people can, um, how you retreat and not be on their
Todd: guard or something like that.
Yeah,
Craig: exactly. So my point is I never, obviously you and I are people, um, real people with feelings and. Thoughts and opinions. And, and I’m bound to say things from time to time that some people are not going to agree with. There’s just no way of getting around that. But I never mean to, you know, I respect our listeners and, uh, I respect their ideas and their thoughts and their values.
Um, I never mean to come from a place of, of challenging people or, or demeaning people I never mean to come from that place. So moving forward, I hope everybody will keep that in mind. I I’m just trying to have a good time and, and we don’t script this stuff, you know, we’re just talking off the top of our heads and I say stupid shit all the time.
Um, and often. I begged Todd to edit it out.
And usually for, you know, what we publish, you know, out there publicly, you do edit out my stupid shit. And I really appreciate that. But, uh, I also really liked the fact that on our Patrion page, we are posting these things unedited because those fans who appreciate us enough to want to subscribe to our Patrion, I want them to get the whole raw deal.
You know, I want them to know the things that we say behind the scenes. I want them to know the things that we say and cut out because I feel like that gives them some more insight just into who we are. And it’s maybe a little bit more of a genuine. Look at us. And, uh, I like, you know, you and I, every, every time we do this, we’re like, I’m Todd and I’m Greg with two guys and a chainsaw.
And that’s where the episode ends. And then you and I keep talking for 15 or 20 minutes and we keep talking about the movie or we, uh, talk about things that are going on in our lives. Um, and I, I like that the people who choose to have the opportunity to, to hear that. Yeah, maybe we better get back to them.
Todd: sure let’s do it. Well. I mean, you know, I would say it follows a formula, but it also kind of helped establish the formula to some of these things. Anyway, the gas station attendant warns the family not to go, uh, it had been done at least once before, but you know, crave and liked it and he did it and it became a troll.
Then, you know, we got this, these themes that continue on into deliverance and things like that. It, it does at some point become kind of a rape revenge story. And again, themes like the, you know, the straw dogs exploded. It explored as far as what are you going to do when the most brutal things happen to you?
You yourself have to stoop to the level of what you’re up against in order to do it. And honestly, the whole man from nowhere. Thing of the Western genre is, is very much of that, which also takes place in the American west. Nobody from the town can deal with the bad guys because the bad guys are so bad and nobody in town is you got to have this guy from absolutely nowhere, just this mythical figure, a Deus ex Mokena kind of person to just show up with a mysterious past and nobody who who’s, where he’s from.
Uh, he’s got to deal with the situation because he only, he can get as brutal as he needs to get to get things done. And then he has to leave because he’s not welcome in the community anymore because he’s violated all the social norms. He’s the hero, but he can’t stay. That’s just sort of the mythology there.
These people are getting into this situation that they are completely unprepared for. Like, I would be driving across the west there. They suddenly, um, get spooked out by some planes flying really low overhead. And Bob kind of goes a little crazy with the car, tries to Dodge, a rabbit in the middle of the road, like really stupidly rolls off of the, of the road.
Oh, by the way, they’re a bit lost as well. Their axle completely breaks right in the territory. Like you said, of where we have seen, um, these bad guys have been surveilling them. Well, we haven’t seen the bad guys. We’ve heard them, we’ve seen through their POV and we know that they’re in trouble and what happens, but Bob goes off in one direction and Doug is one of the older, yeah, the.
It goes in the other direction and they’re going to leave the two girl. Well, the three girls, Claire played by Dee Wallace, the younger daughter, her name was Brenda and Bobby. He’s the man who’s left behind to guard the gals, but they’re not really worried about anything. Right. Because
Craig: they can’t, I mean, the, the mom’s like worried about rattlesnakes, but there are certainly.
Worried about feral, cannibals living in the hill,
Todd: uh, for sure. And, and, you know, you can see for miles, right? Except for the Hills nearby, you know, you just, you, if you feel like if there’s something coming at you, you’re going to see it from a mile away anyway. Yeah. Like some animal or
Craig: something like that.
And they’re relatively prepared. I mean, you know, they’re in a camper, so they have food and water. Um, and, and, and, and they have weapons. Um, they have guns, they have two pistols. Uh, big Bob takes one. Uh, and he leaves one with Bobby. The mom says that she’s thinks that Doug ought to have a gun too, but Doug says, I am not comfortable leaving you all here.
You know, with the women without a gun. So he goes off without one, but he’s not worried, you know? Like,
Todd: and I also like how big Bob has sorta set up as a tough guy. I mean, he’s an he’s. We hear that he’s a retired cop from, you know, 25 years on the force. He stands out there and he’s just cursing up a storm.
It’s actually kind of a Lariat twenty-five years.
Craig: I’m a cop in the worst goddamn precinct in Cleveland shooter as that man hillbillies. So dogs off the roofs that man, I don’t even shot out on two separate occasions by my own man, but none of these bastards ever come as close to killing me as my own goddamn wife and her goddamn road maps in our wrong turns and her goddamn hysterical, screaming, and her watch your language and you watch your heart too.
You know what? Dr. Spring, you said, well, Dr. Springer can take a stethoscope and shove it into his little black bag. I mean, I understand that it’s the seventies, but he’s also racist.
Todd: They’re going to have to believe some things. Yeah. Uh, you know, again, also sort of like deliverance where these guys really set themselves up as, as tough wilderness folks, you know, they’re going to kind of go out there on their adventure. They realize that they’re, they’re just not equipped for this maybe in the city, but, uh, you know, with his badge and his backup and all, all the stuff at his disposal and his knowledge Bob is, is good and fine, but he’s gets neutered very quickly, uh, out here in the wilderness.
Um, and that’s terrifying, right? Cause he’s like your best hope.
Craig: Well, and, and Bobby, the young son, I feel like he’s put in a position like, oh, you stay back with the women. And he is young. And I feel like initially he has kind of some like bravado, like, you know, he’s, he’s kind of a tough guy. Like he can do flips and stuff.
but I also like that, one of the first things that happens is that the dogs are agitated, especially, uh, beauty, the female she’s very agitated and she’s barking. And they talk about the women and Bobby talk about, you know, you know, what is her problem and this, well, maybe there are snakes around or, or, and she can hear them or something.
And, and I think it’s a Lynn D Wallace’s character. Who says well, but beauty is not freaking out. And one of them says, well, or excuse beast, isn’t freaking out. And one of them says, well, that’s that’s beasts emo. Uh, he’s always quiet until he makes the kill strike. He doesn’t want anybody to see it coming, which is important later because beast becomes a really important character later in this movie.
But beauty is freaking out and she ends up getting loose and running into the Hills. And Bobby goes running after her and, and he can hear her barking. Um, and he hears other noises and eventually he hears that terrifying sound of a dog. Fatally hurt, you know, that, that terrible squealing yelping sound.
And he actually finds her and, and, um, she has been killed and gutted. Um, and it’s, it’s pretty gross. Uh, and apparently, uh, Craven and the producer bought an actual dead dog from like the Sheriff’s department and used it as the prop. It’s pretty gross. You know, I love dogs and I hate seeing them in parallel, but like, if it’s really an inservice to the movie, I can totally deal with it.
And this is because not only does Bobby find the dead dog and know something weird is going on, but he also, I don’t know if he fully see. One of the hill people, but he definitely knows that there’s somebody around and, and he ends up, uh, trying to run back home, but he falls, um, and is unconscious apparently for a while.
And doesn’t end up coming back until quite a bit later when it’s dark and he doesn’t tell anybody else what he’s seen. And I’m not sure if it was just because he didn’t want to scare them, but ultimately I don’t think that was a wise choice. Yeah,
exactly. I think maybe if they had known that there was a menacing presence, that they would have been a little bit more on guard and a little bit more prepared and they wouldn’t have felt comfortable splitting up when things started to get hairy, which they do. Pretty soon, but that all starts with when big Bob finally does get back to the service station.
Todd: Big Bob is walking in the direction of the service station and he sees, uh, that, you know, the well it’s kind of a, you know, there’s lots of little things in the image, you know, it’s quite good filmmaking, actually the little things in the image that suggest things that are ominous. One of the things that’s that that pig is no longer in its cage.
You know, the door’s a little open, big Bob walks in there seems to be blood on the wall, on the floor. Uh, he pulls out his gun and he’s very cop, you know, going in there. Um, and then he gets shot at, we know that as Fred or we imagine it’s Fred, uh, and he. Goes to the door where Fred had shot him from and bangs on it and bangs on it and finally kicks it in.
And Fred is, is hanging from the ceiling from a belt and he pulls him down. Get your stupid neck out that Belcher Jack ass
Craig: hanging up. Get took a shot at me until you telling me what the hell is going on.
That’s right. And you always try to stop trespassers by
Todd: hanging yourself.
Craig: Well, Fred says, I thought you were somebody else. Um, and this is when he gives that whole backstory explanation that we’ve already explained gone through. Yeah. I think that he was killing himself because that would have been preferable to actually being confronted and assaulted by his son.
Jupiter, who we haven’t seen yet. But we see now.
Todd: Yeah. Jupiter leaps out at Fred. Well, how does he take them? I can’t remember. He takes out Fred first and then he
Craig: gets jumps. He jumps through the glass window and pulls Fred out and we don’t see what happens. But then Bob goes out and finds Fred, like. And paled into the door of the outhouse.
Todd: Yes. And then, um, big Bob jumps out and starts smashing him in the head with. It’s a brutal attack. And apparently they had to make some cuts to some of these things, including the scene in order to not get an X rating from the NPAA because Craven was very, you know, he, especially early on, he was very, uh, well, this is also a Vietnam war era time.
We’re kind of coming out of that, had very clear ideas about violence and how he felt that movies particularly westerns really glorified violence. And he was like, people need to see real, you know, violence on the screen. Like, like they need to see it up close and personal in all of its actual brutality so that it’s not glorified.
So if you’re going to have violence on the screen, it needs to be realistic and it needs to be extremely uncomfortable. You know, when you did the house, the last house on the left, that was kind of his, his creed, his credo for that. And, uh, he carries that through, into this film as well. He had to make some cuts, but I’ll say even, I think even.
Even today, the film feels pretty brutal. There are more brutal things. Now we have seen much more realistic and bad stuff, but I think the emotional reactions of the characters, especially in some of the scenes coming up later, uh, just really support the stark brutal reality of what’s happening to them.
I can’t think of many bad, many worse ways to go than to be, you know, bludgeoned over the head with a crowbar or something like that.
Craig: I don’t remember
Todd: that. Maybe it was Fred who was bludgeoned with a crowbar at
Craig: first. Yeah, I, yes, that’s it because, um, Bob runs back, tries to run back to his family, but he’s being tormented offscreen by Jupiter is the dad’s name.
Yeah. And eventually Bob, I don’t know if he has a heart attack or if. Is having heart pain, but he’s all sweaty. And he falls to the ground and
Todd: seems to be a heart attack because it’s set up earlier that she says, remember your heart condition
Craig: and he’s, um, disabled, the Jupiter gets his gun and then Jupiter gets on the radio and says something like it’s a go.
Uh, and that’s when things. Getting scary. And like you said, like the movie is brutal and it is violent and there is some violent content, but compared to today’s standards and far of how, in terms of how graphic it is, it’s really not that graphic. It’s just really scary. Like it’s so terrible.
Todd: And the high, it feels real.
It feels it has just a grittiness to it, I think. And a reality to it. You know, I just actually, just, before we sat down to record this, I got off of watching the evil, dead remake. I finally got around to seeing that and my God is that a virus, but, but you almost laugh at it. It’s so over the top, it’s scary and it’s super bloody and the effects are great and very realistic looking, I suppose.
But I mean, it’s over the top silly, like you’re not going to imagine anything like this as ever going to remotely happen to you or your
Craig: friends, but something like this, it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be all hacking slash to be scary just to feel. Powerless. And especially, I think, uh, it’s smart to put a family in peril because when you’re in, when like this happens every day, if you’re in a situation where there’s a lot of danger and people are potentially in danger, if you’re in a situation like that with strangers, sure.
You have empathy, you care, you don’t want to see people get hurt, but at least it’s not you, but if it’s your family, It may as well be you, you know, it’s an extension of you. And, uh, what happens is they lure Bobby away from the camper by imitating the beast, the dog who is also runoff at this point. And once he’s gone, he comes back and he goes to open the camper and it’s locked and he thinks that he’s just locked himself out.
But we immediately see that the truth is in his absence, Pluto. Another one of the family has gotten in there and just. His presence in there, you know, the mom Ethel and the sister, Brenda and the baby are in there asleep completely vulnerable. And even though he’s not doing anything menacing to them in that moment, just knowing that he’s locked in there with them and that they are completely vulnerable is so scary.
And I do want to pause here because this is really kind of the first time I think that we’ve seen him, but, uh, Pluto is played by Michael Barr. It’s Berryman, right? Michael Berryman, Michael Berryman, who, if you are a horror fan or a fan of weird science from the eighties, you will totally recognize Michael one
Todd: flew over the Cuckoo’s nest.
He was,
Craig: was he in that? I don’t remember that. Um, but uh, this guy, he. Was born premature with something. I think he has said something like 26 birth defects, um, and his cranium wasn’t fully formed and he had to go through all kinds of surgeries. And so he. Has a somewhat disfigured look and he’s very menacing in appearance.
Now, anytime you see him in interviews, he is highly intelligent, incredibly well-spoken. Um, and, and just seems really nice. Just seems like a really cool dude who was just given this lot in life with his appearance and capitalized on it. Good for him. Um, and he’s great. Uh, as a menacing presence in these movies, I’m actually a really big fan of him.
I don’t think that I would be such a big fan if I hadn’t seen him in interviews, but seeing him in interviews, he’s just so articulate and he speaks so smartly about the industry and his place in it. And, uh, I just, I have a lot of admiration for the guy. He looks like a crazy Backwoods. You know, they, they don’t have to do anything.
They don’t have to make him up. They don’t have to put prosthetics on him because that’s what he looks like. And it’s, uh, it, it really works, but he’s in there and then it’s just a siege and, and eventually they set off a bomb, I guess,
Todd: of sorts. Doug had come back from his outing and he had just, he said he didn’t really find anything, but there was a big junk yard.
And he had a bunch of random stuff, like a spool of wire. And I don’t even know what he was planning on doing with all this stuff. Honestly, he just thought it was cooler. And he and his wife, they are actually banging in the, um, station wagon when this guy sneaks in and. And Bobby is lured away. So when Bobby comes back, he knocks on the station wagon door and interrupts them and says, Hey guys, I locked myself out again.
And like you said, at this point, nobody, you know, they don’t realize that the Pluto is inside taking things out of the fridge, taking out meats, scavenging base. And then, um, around the corner, I think comes a what’s his name? Mars. Mars. Yeah. They all have these names of planets or, yeah,
Craig: I thought it was really funny that the, um, German, the German censorship committee or whatever, you know, I suppose our equivalent of the NPAA, um, they, they forced a lot of cuts and they changed the family from being cannibalistic humans to.
Aliens
Todd: alien to hate humans that makes everything more stomach I get
Craig: because they were all named after different planets. I thought that was really. Funny, but they, they are, they’re just very menacing. They’re dirty. And they’re, I mean, they look kind of feral, uh, apart from Pluto though, they, they just they’re, they’re just dirty people, you know, they’re not in the remake and the SQL of the remake.
They are horribly disfigured. Yeah.
Todd: Yeah. In bread and yeah, they’re, they, they, they look like monsters. I think it’s better to not have them look like monsters. Honestly, it’s better to humanize them as much as possible. And again, it just goes again with that idea that these are real things that could happen to real people.
I know we can’t glorify it. Life is not so black and white, you know, there’s a scene here before, again, he, the explosion hasn’t gone off yet, but he is getting the key from those two. And he admits that Butte, uh, Bobby admits, uh, that beauty is dead. He just cries his acting here. Is fantastic. Just like you had said before, Bobby, and really want to talk about it.
He seemed disturbed sort of the whole time and you could just tell something was off and you know, then the other dog runs off. So he’s distressed about that. And he just kind of has a little breakdown here.
Craig: Here’s dad, dude, he’s been dead since this afternoon.
what happened? Why didn’t you tell us sooner? I didn’t try.
When I found her, she
Todd: got it. She, somebody slid her right up.
Craig: It was pretty bad. Uh,
Todd: I also scared I ran away apparently. Uh, one of the requirements for this role was to be able to cry on cue and he was able to do that in the audition. Oh God. He was, I love that. And again, this is just one of those very, very touching human moments about this movie, where these characters are so real, um, and their emotions are so genuine that it does make what happens to them.
Just feel more visceral and real and brutal
Craig: of the brutality happens in a matter of minutes. You know, this is an hour and a half long movie, and maybe this, this whole scene is maybe five, seven minutes long. Maybe I, I think it’s a distraction. They, uh, kind of set off this explosion and they see and hear that big Bob is like nailed to a tree out in the desert and he is.
Engulfed in flames and what makes it all the more horrific is that he’s not dead and he’s pleading for help. And he’s clearly an agony and he’s on fire. Doug goes into the camper and gets a fire extinguisher. Still has no idea that Pluto is on top of Brenda, you know, holding her mouth closed so that she can’t scream.
He’s completely oblivious. And he just shouts to her to take care of the baby. And so then they all run out. Everybody else. Who’s still there runs out to where Bob is on fire and they put them out and pull him down and Ethel, the mom is completely in shock and in denial. And she’s just saying, that’s not my Bob.
That’s not my.
Todd: It’s such a convincing emotional breakdown and your heart just breaks for this woman. Acting is so good. And this moment is so touching and real, you know, which we don’t often get in horror movies. You know, one of the biggest things that makes me crazy sometimes about these movies is like somebody’s friend will die right in front of them.
And then they just kind of bounce back and get back to escaping or doing whatever. Like they’ve almost forgotten about it an hour later, you know, or something like that. But definitely not in
Craig: this movie, she is completely broken and completely detached from reality. From this point on, she just cannot accept what’s happening, no
Todd: help to anybody at this point, including herself.
And apparently when they were shooting us in the original script, he was supposed to be nailed to a tree. And, uh, there are no really no trees out in the desert, but, and they kinda realized that when they were out there filming and they just kind of looked one way and looked the other way. And ended up setting all this up, uh, at this Joshua tree, which is an endangered plant.
Um, they should have gotten in real trouble for setting this, this tree on fire actually, but
Craig: it was the
Todd: seventies. They got away with it. It was a never in time. Well, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what was happening back in the trailer. Mars comes in around the corner. Um, they’re both inside there and this is just it’s shot in a very messy, appropriately, messy way, you know, very documentary style.
Yeah. We can hear that. Pluto was back there attempting, if not actually trying to rape this woman, Mars comes in and he tears him off of. And it says, what are you doing? You’re not a real man. Let me show you what a real man is. And he goes back there. In the meantime, he GRA he sees the baby, he hands the baby to Pluto.
He says, here, take the baby. They run out with the baby. The mom is in there. They drop the baby on the floor. He’s just a mess inside
Craig: Bobby and the mom and Dee Wallace. Um, come back only to see Pluto running away. I only gives a baby yet, but they go in and Mars almost immediately shoots the mom, um, the chest and she fought.
Down like onto a couch or, or something. And then Lynn realizes that her baby is right there. And of course she is a hundred percent motivated by protecting her baby, but marsh shoots her and she still continues to try to fight. And she actually gets one good stab in, she gets, she stabs him in the leg, but then he shoots her again, close range in the chest and she’s dead.
You know, this is brutal. This is a young mother trying to defend her infant. And she’s just brutally, brutally murdered right there. And as you said, like it’s, it’s, it’s very much suggested in this movie that either Pluto or Mars or both had raped, Brendan. In the back of the camper, um, in the remake, which I will contend is a good movie from a cinematic perspective.
And it’s very true to the original. There, there are very few changes in terms of plot and pacing and that type of thing. Um, but it’s even more gratuitously, violent and brutal. And I don’t remember if I, I surely. In 300 episodes. Um, this is the one movie that I made my partner Allen watch, and he was mad at me for weeks.
Like he was so disturbed and upset by it that he was legitimately angry at me for making him watch it. Why did you make him watch it? I do kind of thought it was a good movie. Like I thought that, you know, as violent and as graphic as it was, I thought that it was really, really well made. I don’t know why I thought that he would appreciate that because he doesn’t even really like horror movies.
Right. And, and much like me. He is particularly disturbed by sexual violence and the sexual violence is a lot more explicit. Um, it’s not, it’s not just a suggestion. It’s very clear what is happening. It’s not, um, terribly. Graphic. Like, it’s not like there’s a lot of nudity, but it is very clear what is happening.
And it is very disturbing and very upsetting and it was a mistake to have him watch it
Todd: on that I paid for. I mean, it, it really like, I, it was a hard watch and I’m not, you know, I’m not really interested in seeing that movie again for that reason. That scene was just upsetting. Once again, you can say that again, it services the plot and the whole point and the whole theme of the movie.
I’m certainly not against violence, as long as it’s not gratuitous. I do feel that. That’s sort of veered into gratuitous exploitation, like, Hey, it’s the modern age and we can do more and we should do more because what’s the point of remaking this movie, if we can’t and arguments can be made for that, but that’s true.
Craig: But at the same time, if you watch that movie and if you compare those scenes, they’re not that different. Really? I don’t know why. I think that maybe it’s just because I don’t know, this feels very seventies and, and the remake is very sharp and clean.
Todd: Yeah. It’s very much it’s like it could have happened yesterday.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There’s maybe a detachment from the era, the time period, you
Craig: know? Yeah. I, I don’t know. I mean, this, this movie is disturbing and upsetting too. Um, and, and, you know, all that happens really, really fast. And then Mars as Doug and Bobby are, you know, coming back Mars poles, Brenda, out of the camper.
And almost as though he’s doing it intentionally to hurt them, right. In plain view, he like pulls Brenda’s hair back and sticks the, the muzzle of the gun in her mouth. Like he’s going to blow her head off right in front of them. It just so happens that the chamber is empty. Um, and so he, so he’s, instead he says, I’ll be back for you, which then, you know, she, more than anybody.
Terrified for the rest of the movie, because she is certain that they will be back for her. And she’s right to think that, because that is their plan, they
Todd: leave. And Bobby is like yelling out at them and eat the camera from the point of view of the Hills, just poles back, you know, it’s a zoom back we talked about before.
And once again, they are completely surrounded by nothingness. That’s how quickly these people came in, took their baby, killed a couple of them, terrorize them and then left. And what are these people going to do now? You know, uh, it’s truly like that shot just shows what a hopeless, helpless situation they’re in.
It’s brilliant. Well,
Craig: and, and they have no choice, but to take matters into their own hands. Now we see the whole family. The the, the clan family, you know, gather, um, and they’re really excited to have a baby that they’re going to eat.
Todd: They talk
Craig: about eating it, they call, uh, to. There lookout. It’s one of the they’re brothers mercury, who is played by the producer.
I think Peter Locke, Peter cameo role. And you only see them a couple of times, very, very briefly, but they, they, they call to him and say, you know, come join us. You know, we’ve got a baby or whatever, and he gets up to come, but beast sneaks up behind him and pushes him off
Todd: the cliff. Oh, that’s such a
Craig: great, I actually, I love that beast becomes an active character in this movie.
He, uh, does things to actively protect this family, which I believe dogs are loyal and they’re intuitive and they can sense danger. I don’t know if I believe that this dog could be as stealthy and meticulous as he is, but I love it in the movie. Um, so he kills mercury. Jupiter, uh, Papa Jupiter, um, asks Mars.
He says you killed them all. Like I said, right. Um, and of course, Maurice has to admit that he didn’t, that he says, all right. We’re not going to eat the baby yet, keep it alive because I know that the dad will come for it. And then the night passes and it’s morning. And he, of course is right. You know, Doug immediately is running out with the east to try to find them and beast leads Doug, right to them.
And also Bobby and Brenda are left at home and Bobby and Brenda have been painted as the kids of the family, even though technically speaking, they are adults. And, you know, I would guess that they’re supposed to be 17, 18, somewhere around there, but they are kind of left alone and they find that somebody has left behind one of the radios that they communicate with so they can hear what they’re talking about and their plans.
So they’re a little bit prepared. Does. Tells me to go get the bad guys because Pluto and Jupiter are headed towards the camper. And so beast goes after them. He ends up taking out Jupiter, stalking him, um, quietly, uh, sneaking up behind him, um, and, and first tearing out his Achilles tendon. Uh, and then later, while he’s disabled coming back and ripping his throat out and Bobby and Brenda.
Set up a trap. I’m using the materials that Doug brought back from the abandoned military site or whatever. And it’s kind of this genius trap where they wrap that steel rope around the, um, the wheel of the car, the broken wheel of the car. And they set, they set like a loop trap and they use their dead mother’s body as bait, which is diff like Prentice.
Like we can’t do this. Like, it feels. You know, a desecration of their mother’s body to use her as bait, but they do, and it works Jupiter, uh, arrives. Um, he stands right in front of the mom. He’s confused. They start up the car and hit the gas and that wheel starts spinning and pulls the rope. And he’s trapped in the loop that they’ve set and he gets dragged in and, uh, they’re celebrating their win.
But then the, the trap breaks and Jupiter gets free, but they have another trap set. I don’t know if Craven or whoever designed this, came up with it, but we’ve seen it done in other movies that we’ve talked about. Um, they, they fill the, uh, cab. Of the camper with gas, they’ve got like gas tanks or something and they run into the camper, but then they jump out the back window and they’ve got it set up so that the, if the door opens, it will strike a match and blow the camper up, which it does.
Um, but somehow I think that Jupiter smelled the gas and was suspicious. Um, and somehow it didn’t get him. So when Bobby runs back to make sure that he’s dead, Jupiter attacks him, but then Brenda attack. Jupiter like jumps on his back, like a spider monkey and it’s like hitting them and stuff. Which I, again, I just, I love this movie because you take ordinary people who you couldn’t imagine could be capable of something like this, but when their life is threatened or the lives of the ones that they loved are, are threatened.
Survival instinct just takes over. And I believe this, I believe that a little tiny blonde girl in an effort to save her brother and herself would jump on this 250 pound guy and do everything that she could. To fight. Yeah. And somehow they, uh, ended up, I don’t remember how they ended up killing him. Um, I think it’s Bobby that kills
Todd: him.
Okay. And then they’re just rejoicing. There is, I mean, they’ve, they’re hugging, it’s like they won the football game. He’s got her up in the air and they’re just super happy after Jupiter
Craig: has taken out. The only business remaining is rescuing the baby and that’s all on Doug. Well kind of it’s on Doug and Ruby.
Yeah.
Todd: Cause Ruby’s our, you know, Ruby’s are a little rebel there, you know, you remember she wanted to escape earlier. Um, and so you can tell she’s a little getting uncomfortable with the baby thing. So she actually steals the baby away from the family and runs off and basically delivers him to Doug as Doug is up there looking for them, but there,
Craig: but, but what’s his name?
Mars is right behind and.
Todd: He is. And so there’s a, yeah. Wow. There’s some really interesting action here. I think really effective. Uh, you know, they kind of hides the ducks. They ducks into a crevice and Doug pops out at Mars is right there. These chasing him,
Craig: ours is the last one, except for Ruby and for the mother of the clan who never leaves the cave.
She’s a, she’s a heavy woman, um, who never leaves the cave. And ultimately when the movie’s over, she’s kind of the only one that we don’t really know what happen. Yeah.
Todd: I mean, that’s maybe setting up for a sequel or something who knows she’s still there, but Doug he’s got his gun. Right. But he, that kind of goes off, but Mars ends up on top of him and there’s this huge kind of fight with a knife and it looks like Mars is going to stab Doug.
There’s a really close call next to his head. Finally, dog turns the tables on him gets on top of him and stabs him relentlessly.
Craig: Well, that’s the first they’re in like a rattlesnake den. Um, and, uh, and Ruby grabs a rattlesnake by the neck and like puts it’s kind of silly. I don’t know. It is silly. It didn’t bother me.
I re you know, this was a live rattlesnake that actually at one point got loose and everybody freaked out until the snake handler, uh, found it. Um, but the actor. Who played a Ruby, her name’s Janice blinds, who by the way, was, was called into audition for D Wallace’s part, but she really, really wanted to be Ruby.
She wanted to be the wild girl. She felt like that was more challenging that there was more meat to it. And there’s a cute story about how basically the role came down to a foot race between all of the actresses literally were, were slated. And, uh, there was a literal foot race where, uh, and, um, west Craven was present.
And, uh, he said that, uh, They, you know, they said go and Janice, but blinds didn’t run with the rest of the girls. And she just kinda looked at west Craven and he looked at her and was like, what are you doing? And she kind of smiled and then turned and took off overcame all the rest of the girls to win the race.
And so she got the role now I’m sure that that’s a very cute story and it’s not the only reason that she got the role, but it’s a good story. Nonetheless, this was a real snake and they wanted her to pick it up and she said she wouldn’t do it unless the producer did it too. And so I guess the producer very gingerly kind of touched the snake really like, um, but that was enough for her and she did it and she paid.
Yeah. And, uh, she uses it to disable Mars and then you’re right. Doug gets on top of him and just stabs him. Oh, I don’t know, 5, 6, 7, 8 times. Now.
Todd: Which version of the movie did you see? Did we watch the same version when I first saw this? Uh, when I was in, I think in her high school and I’d rented it from the video store, this is where the movie ended.
Craig: Yeah. The image of his face goes to red. And then, uh, and then the credits began that, and this is
Todd: the ending that west Craven really liked. And I guess it was maybe the original ending. I’m not sure when the alternate ending got tacked on, but you know, again, it really hits home. I mean, first of all, it hits home.
The fact that this guy is just a Savage now, as these people were, you know, it, it was exactly wrapped around and bookend. What, what, what he, the point he was trying to make, it also kind of leads you to wonder frustrating, like, well, what happens to everybody now? Right. You
Craig: know, and I like that. I like that.
You don’t know. I mean, there’s still in the middle of the desert, you know, still have no way to, half of them are dead.
Todd: Could there be others what’s happened to the mom? You know, half of them are dead. You’re right. It’s like he got his revenge, but it doesn’t change anything. Right. It doesn’t change the fact that many of them are dead.
Uh, they saved the baby, but then I was surprised because I expected the movie to end there. And then we got one more scene in the version that I have, which is actually a little sappy where there’s a sunset behind them. They’re kind of half and silhouette and they’re walking along and Ruby is there.
Behind them and they kind of turn around and there’s just almost like an acceptance of Ruby at this point, Brenda reaches out and holds her hand almost like building a bridge between the two cultures and then the camera’s zooms in on the hand, holding with the sunset in the background and it kind of fades out.
I was like, that’s weird.
Craig: Yeah. I th and I think that the remake does something similar, but then I think the remake goes even a step further. If I remember I may be making this up because it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen it. But I think that the remake ends with one of those binocular POV shots, suggesting that there are more of them that they don’t know about.
Um, and that they are still potentially in peril. Um, but I like the way I like the original ending of this. Um, it feels very seventies. Uh, Grindhouse things aren’t just, you know, wrapped up with a nice, neat, nice, neat little bow. Uh it’s. It’s kind of left. Well, it’s, it’s jarring, you know, you don’t, you don’t get things tied up for you.
And I like that there is a sequel to this movie and I grew up watching it. Um, in fact, I believe I saw the SQL before I saw the original and the SQL is not very good. Uh, it features a lot of flashbacks to the original movie. It’s about a biker gang, kind of, not a gang, but like a group of kids who are like doing like a, uh, dirt bike, something in the desert.
And they end up getting besieged by these people. And as it turns out, one of the. Kids in this group is Ruby, which you don’t find out until near the end. And, um, I grew up with it. So I have an appreciation of it. I don’t think that it’s great. And then of course there are the remakes, the first. I saw in the theater and it was a very difficult watch it’s it’s oh my goodness.
It’s so violent. It’s it’s one of, um, the most uncomfortable movies I’ve sat through, but at the same time, like I said, I thought it was really well done. And west Craven was involved. He didn’t direct it. I think he was a producer on it. Um, and he liked it. He was very satisfied with it. And I thought that for what it was, it was good.
Like you said, I don’t really feel the need to watch it again. And then there was a sequel to the remake, which was just really, really gratuitous and I didn’t think it was good at all. Um, I, in fact, I rewatched it recently against my better judgment and was reminded, no, this is crap, but this movie I do recommend, uh, It’s only it’s west Craven’s second movie.
Um, very much in keeping with his first movie. It’s it’s brutal. It’s it’s unapologetic. We’ll never know how brutal it might have been because they were forced to cut quite a lot. And that footage is believed to be entirely lost. Like it just doesn’t exist anymore. So we’ll never know how it might have turned out.
Um, but, uh, it’s just the, the, the character performances are believable. Uh, it’s real. It’s, it’s oddly relatable. Like you can almost put yourselves in the yourself in these people’s shoes, the villains are brutal and nasty, but if you take a moment to think about it, you realize that they are a product of their circumstances too.
And I do think that that’s an excellent juxtaposition to show that. By nature or by circumstance, you’ve got this kind of feral, violent family, but then by circumstance, the nature of the civilized family comes out. And when it comes right down to it, and again, I’m not trying to offend anybody here. This is my opinion, but we, you know, we are animals when it comes right down to it.
And we do have a survival instinct and we do have an instinct to protect. Those who are near and dear to us and put in these types of situations, we might find ourselves capable of things that we would never otherwise think ourselves capable of. Um, and I just think that that, uh, really resonates. Um, if you choose to think about it, if you don’t, it’s still a really good seventies Grindhouse type movie, um,
Todd: with the quality of acting that you don’t normally find in this.
True.
Craig: Yeah. And so you could, uh, in the same amount of time, you could either watch it or listen to us, talk
Todd: about this is turning out to be a banner episode for us,
Craig: so supersize episode, but that’s okay because it’s our 300th and we’re allowed to be a little self-indulgent the
Todd: celebration here. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I cannot believe that we’ve been.
300 nights of sitting down or mornings for you now sitting down and chatting about 300 horror movies. It has been and will hopefully continue to be just a, uh, a highlight of my week, every single week. Um, I love chatting about these things with you. I love the excuse to watch these movies and to talk about them in depth.
And also like you had said earlier, just really, really grateful for the support and the people who. You know, quite frankly, if we had not been getting feedback and not have developed relationships and con conference had conversations, you know, with our listeners, um, over all these years, we probably still wouldn’t be doing it today.
So, um, we’re very grateful for those folks. And also, you know, are just, uh, those folks who have enjoyed us so much and, and really support what we do so much that they’ve reached out and actually, uh, thrown a few bucks our way to help us, uh, do some more things with this podcast. So I just got to give a big shout out to our supporters on Patrion, no matter where you come from, no matter how you’re supporting us.
We’re just grateful that you’re listening to this now and have made it to the end of this very long episode. Yeah.
Craig: I know a couple of people who will appreciate it. You know, we we’ve talked about this before, like, oh man, we’re running long. And then we have a few friends who are like, no, we love it. So to those two of you.
You’re welcome
Todd: for them to say they never see what I cut out.
Well, thanks again for listening again. Thank you for your support on our 300th episode here. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us online. You can access the other 299 by going to our website to guys as.red, 40 net.com. The search to guys in the chainsaw podcast, you’ll find our Facebook page or Twitter feed.
And of course our website, leave us a comment, any one of those places to chat back with us. And until next time I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.