The Slayer (1982)

Episode 488, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Well, I wanted to take us back to another ’80s horror movie, you know, this sweet spot in the early ’80s between ’81 and ’82. We did a whole theme month, I think, on ’82 horror, but there was still so much that we haven’t covered yet that I just keep pulling out of the ether.

Just when I think I’ve covered most of the weird, kind of obscure things from 1982, I’ll be on Tubi and I’ll be like, “Oh my God, there’s like five more things here,” all of which I’ve never heard of before, and most of which look at least a little intriguing. And I’m, I’m kind of a completionist in this way.

I love seeing what, what’s going on at this time period. And, uh, we just covered one a couple weeks ago. I wanted to keep going with this theme, and so I found this movie called The Slayer from 1982. It was, I don’t know, it was somehow in my list somewhere that kind of wanted to get to. I don’t remember what I originally read about it.

Nothing special. Just thought we’d go in blind and see how this turned out. And, uh, here we are. First time I had seen it, but it is available on Tubi. How about you, Craig? Had you seen this before or heard of it? 

Craig: No. No, I’d never seen of it or heard of it. And, you know, we don’t get paid by them. Tubi, if you’re listening, you could give us, you know, a shout-out.

Um, but seriously, like, really of all of the streaming services, I find that its catalog is kind of the most diverse, and they’ve got things coming and going all the time. You can almost always find… And, and to be fair, a lot of times- Tubi Fair … you have to wade through a… To be fair, a lot of times you have to wade through a lot of crap.

Like- 

Todd: Oh, yeah … 

Craig: I can’t tell you how many times, but that’s usually newer stuff, like lower budget new stuff that I put on and I can tell in the first five minutes, I’m like- Yes … this was shot on an iPhone. The acting is already terrible. I, I don’t, I’m not even gonna give it a try. But this older stuff, you will find, uh, some interesting stuff in there, some, some gems.

And I don’t know if I would classify this as a gem, but it’s interesting. Yeah. Uh, and I think it’ll be interesting to talk about. 

Todd: It’s gonna be really fun to talk about. It’s directed by this guy, uh, named J. S. Cardone or Cardone. I don’t know how you pronounce those names. And, uh, he’s done a handful of genre films, about 20 or so, all kind of like this, little horror, little thriller.

Stuff mostly either for TV or for straight to video it seems like. This one obviously did come out in the theater before it, it went to video. 

Craig: The only thing that I recognized on his list was he did the Prom Night remake. 

Todd: Yeah. Have you seen that? 

Craig: Yeah, and I remember next to nothing about it, which is never a good sign.

I mean, I, it was very typical of those 2000 slashers. Nothing, nothing to write home about. 

Todd: Well, this one in a way is very typical of these early 80s slashers. You know, we’ve done things like The Mutilator and the one that we did a couple weeks ago. These are shot in the US, so this is not a Canadian one.

In fact, this one was shot down in Georgia, and I was– As we were watching this, I thought, “God, these locations look so familiar to me,” and I’m trying to figure out, is it just because most of these movies take place in the same few settings, or is it because these are the actual locations I’ve seen other movies in?

And so I did a bit of a deep dive to figure out where this was shot, and it was shot on Tybee Island in Georgia. Mm-hmm. And indeed, we’ve seen a couple films that were shot on this island. 

Craig: Oh, really? 

Todd: Yeah. One of which was, well, The Menu. You remember The Menu? That’s a newer one. 

Craig: Oh, yeah. 

Todd: Uh, that was shot there.

At least, uh, it got, production got moved there about halfway through. But the other one we saw that was shot there was, uh, The Beach House. Remember that one? 

Craig: Oh, yeah, yeah. 

Todd: Baywatch has been shot there. Some Cobra Kai episodes have been shot there. And then it’s home to a couple forts. There’s, uh, Fort Screven, which is from like the Spanish American War, and there’s a Fort Pulaski, which is more Civil War era.

And I pi- pulled up the vi- because there’s a point in here where they walk through these ruins of, you know- Uh-huh … e- early on in the movie, and I thought, “God, I mean, what are those? We never see them again. That’s gotta be some location thing.” 

Craig: I know. 

Todd: And I think those might be the ruins from Fort Screven.

But while I was looking up Fort Screven, I saw- found this Fort Pulaski that’s also on that island, which is more brick walls and things like that. Again- Uh-huh … it’s Civil War era. And that is where Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies was filmed. 

Craig: Oh. And 

Todd: I tell you- That’s funny … you pull up those pictures, and you’ll be like, “Oh, yeah, clearly.”

Right, right. And it’s been the site of a lot of these things too. And there’s a theater in this movie, an abandoned, bombed out looking old theater that now has been completely restored and renovated and is a very active theater. In fact, in the movie, it’s clearly just sitting kind of by itself in the middle of nowhere on what maybe was an old main street or something of this, this, uh, island.

But I think the island since the early ’80s has really undergone some, you know- 

Craig: Oh, yeah … 

Todd: renovations and stuff. And now it looks beautiful. And that, that whole area, like, there’s, there’s buildings around it, and it’s clearly on, like, a street and, and, uh, there’s a lot of activity around that theater and stuff.

So it’s really neat to see, you know, how these old set locations, either they stay the same, they get razed or, in this case, just really built up. It’s, it, it was fun ’cause that theater is kind of a bit of a set piece toward the end of the movie and- 

Craig: Yeah. Well, and, and the whole island really serves as a, a really cool set piece.

I mean, you talked about them walking through that fort at the very beginning, and it looks really cool. Yeah. And it’s obviously, you know, it’s, it’s clearly an actual location. Th- and I feel like that’s what they were doing. Like, as soon as they arrive on the island, and we’ll backtrack a little bit here in a second, but as soon as these characters arrive on the island, they have to trek, like, all the way across it to get to where they’re actually staying And I think that they just did that to take advantage of the location.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Why would you not film on that location? Frankly, I, I question why they never went back there. I thought surely they would go back. Surely there would be some sort of climactic chase or scene or something- Right … there, and they never really do. That theater that you said, it’s like a, a rundown theater, and when I say r- like uninhabited, you know, it’s a shell of a theater basically.

Yeah. But it is cool looking, and you can totally tell it’s practical. And y- when you say, you know, you said it must have developed some since the ’80s. Well, yeah, I, I think that when they shot there, it was pretty much abandoned. I mean, very… almost uninhabited. And now I think, like, you know, you said The Beach House was filmed there.

That was a, a whole community of fancy beach houses. A- and like you said, they have renovated that theater, and at some point, I don’t know if it was for an anniversary or a celebration of the 4K release or something, they did a s- a screening of this movie there for the locals. 

Todd: Oh. 

Craig: And apparently some of the locals remembered when the cast and crew came through and all that stuff, so.

Oh, that’s so cool. Yeah, I mean, it’s, that’s, that’s one of the cool things about it. I mean, it’s shot on a really cool location. It’s on an island, so you get lots of beach footage, and the house that they end up staying in is, is really cool. I’m not sure. I didn’t read anything I would have kind of a difficult time believing that the exterior and the interior w- really went together.

Yeah. Um, only, only because the exterior looks a little bit run-down, not nearly as much as the theater. Maybe still inhabitable, but by the time they get inside, it’s, it’s super, super nice. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I don’t know if they filmed those on sets or, or what, but- 

Todd: I’m not sure … 

Craig: yeah, the, the setting itself is, you know, a big perk for the film as a whole.

Todd: And it’s a little nostalgic too, because so many of these movies, whether they take place, oh, in the woods, on a ca- summer camp, or here on the beach, you get inside these homes and they almost all look the same, don’t they? 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: Wood panels, ’70s era homes with, you know, a couple floors in them, and a big living room, and an odd kitchen in the back, and often, like, a patio out front.

I mean, this is the template for the house that the slashers happen in. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And I was, again, I was just thinking about The Mutilator because of the setting. I think when we did The Mutilator, we were talking about how unusual it seemed to have this setting that normally is, like, a summer camp, or it’s in the woods.

Instead, it’s a cabin on the beach. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And The Mutilator came out two years after this movie, so actually this one precedes it. I don’t know what other cabin on the beach movie there were. I get Bay of Blood, that Italian movie from way back- Mm-hmm … that precedes all of this, and sort of the prototypical slasher.

But, uh, yeah, I liked the setting. I thought the setting was almost as much a character as everything else, and it really fit in with the dreamy, drama-y nature of all of this. So much more you can do with the water, and the ocean, and the horizon, and the beach, and all the… I don’t wanna get too deep in here, but, like, you know, the, just all these imagery of the beach, and the sand, and ever-shifting patterns, and high tide, and low tide, and- Sure

all that, I think really helps play into the themes that they’re going for. Which I think are actually kind of ambitious. I feel like this movie, ultimately I found it kind of plodding and mostly- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: boring and slow. 

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: But I think they were aiming for something that they just didn’t quite hit. 

Craig: Yeah.

Yeah, I agree with you. It just seemed like every scene that wasn’t a, like, suspenseful kill scene just went on, like, three or four beats too long. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Why am I still watching this? Like, anyway. Y- you had talked about how it really kind of is one of those standard slashers of the era, and it is, almost to a frustrating amount- Hmm

for me. Because I feel like the filmmakers were attempting something different, and it just didn’t actually ever get realized. It, more or le- In terms of the way that it’s shot and the way that it looks and the way that the villain or, or killer or whatever is shown to us, it could be any slasher movie.

It could be Mutilator, it could be I Know What You Did Last Summer, it could be, you know, any typical slasher. But I feel like he tried to weave into the story this surreal, dreamlike, potentially supernatural element- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: that I wish they would’ve leaned heavier into Before the last two seconds. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Or, or before the last five minutes.

And, and maybe that had something to do with, you know, I don’t know, uh, budget. You know, I, I know that the studio that made this… I think that they were already done filming when the studio that made this went bankrupt, and they just kind of put together what they had. Like, I, I read that when it initially came out it hadn’t even been color corrected.

Like, a lot of the scenes were in pitch black because they hadn’t really done anything with them. I’m assuming that the one that we saw was the 4K transfer because I didn’t find that to be the case. No. I, I felt like even in the dark scenes I could pretty much tell what was going on. 

Todd: Honestly, I thought it was really well lit and really beautifully shot, honestly.

But yeah, I suppose that if we had seen this on VHS, you know- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: 20, 30 years ago it would’ve been very different picture for- 

Craig: Yeah. And, and, and, and I feel like it was… The movie is a little bit, not ahead of its time, but it, it’s, it’s a part of that transition from those typical slashers to something a little bit more heady.

Now, specifically you could easily draw major connections to A Nightmare on Elm Street. 

Todd: Oh, my God. 

Craig: Because- 

Todd: Yeah. I feel like there is a world that exists where potentially Wes f- Wes Craven saw this movie as he was, you know, thinking about his Freddy character. And I mean, it was only two years after this came out that Nightmare on Elm Street came out.

It certainly seems thematically to be coming up upon that idea. Just y- like you said, if, if they had developed it a little bit more it would look very, very similar to Freddy. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, without, without giving too much away, the main girl has nightmares and is convinced that something, something, she doesn’t know what, but something in her nightmares can do bad things.

And so she attempts to stay awake and, you know- Mm-hmm … uh, tries to warn everybody and all. There are tons of direct parallels. I mean, it, it’s, it’s ultimately different I suppose, but I feel like A Nightmare on Elm Street takes this concept and nails it. Crystallizes 

Todd: it, really. Yeah. Yeah. Crystallizes it into something you can hold and you can see and you can identify.

Uh-huh. Whereas this keeps things very nebulous. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And, uh, even with the ending as well, it’s just kind of a big WTF moment, which apparently wasn’t part of the original script. Apparently the ending that we see Was shot after photography had ended. They decided they wanted to change the ending, which just serves to confuse it all a little bit, but also adds an interesting element to the whole movie that makes it…

Again, I think they were going for something a little headier here, but by the end of it, it, it, none of it quite landed as hard as it should have. Whereas you take Freddy, Freddy is the embodiment of what these guys are kind of hinting at. 

Craig: Yeah. Well, and I don’t know who, I don’t know if it was the director or who it w- the writer.

I, I don’t know, but I, I read that they wanted to keep it a little bit more nebulous. Yeah. Like, they, it, it- 

Todd: Intentionally … 

Craig: the studio, I get it, you know, from a studio perspective, they wanted to see something. 

Todd: Mm. 

Craig: They wanted the audience to see something, and so there’s, I, I guess they kind of compromised, and I, I, I think that in the compromise it just muddies things for like- 

Todd: Yeah

Craig: go one way all the way or go all the way the other way. That kind of compromise just kinda- 

Todd: It leaves it a little unsatisfying … 

Craig: it, it doesn’t really work. Yeah, right. 

Todd: Well, we should just dive into it then- Sure … from the beginning because it actually starts out, you can, uh, it’s almost bookended in a way It starts out with this beautiful music.

And again, this is something I really like about this year. You know, it feels like ’81, ’82, we were still getting these orchestral scores- Yeah … some of which are really better than the movie itself on, in, in many cases. Right. Just, like, how did the movie deserve this gorgeous score? And this was sort of the last couple years of that, because shortly after this, everything goes to synth, and then synth becomes the language of ’80s slashers and ’80s horror in general.

And this is kind of the tail end of that with the beautiful… But we get this beautiful orchestral score. We got this ticking clock, this dramatic music, this superimposed image of this woman who, who looks to be staring off into space and troubled by something as she walks towards a doorway that’s open a crack, and the light from the doorway’s shining on her face.

But then, like, a- another doorway seems to blast open, and there’s, uh, clearly some kind of demonic figure and shadow that is standing there with the wind blowing behind it and the light streaming in from behind it. And then we’re back at her face, and she seems terrified, but then cuts back, and we’re just seeing her again looking through just this normal doorway, like she’s in the basement trying to get out, or she’s looking into a basement wondering what’s down there.

Tons of questions. And then from behind her, these hands come around and grab her across the face and the throat. 

Craig: Monstrous hands. Yeah. 

Todd: Big, monstrous, like, demonic hands with long fingernails and l- and hairy and long fingers. And again, uh, what you said earlier about things going on just a beat or two too long, this is all really impressive.

There’s a little blood trickling down from behind it and everything. Until the last, like, two seconds of the final shot when you can clearly see a male arm. Like, these hands are just gloves. 

Craig: Gloves. 

Todd: Did you catch that? It- 

Craig: No … 

Todd: it’s, like, two seconds, but if you’re paying attention, as he pulls her into the shadows, it, it’s more of a medium shot, and God, they, they really fucked that up.

And I was like, “Oh, is this… This is the kind of movie we’re getting into.” And of course, the woman is dreaming, so she springs up out of bed, and we see that she’s in this beautiful ’80s style, o- I would almost say fancy bedroom. And she’s talking to her boyfriend. She’s had this nightmare again. But the shots don’t match up.

The shot of her sitting there kind of looking off to the side of the bed doesn’t match up with the shots towards him, which are Straight up- Mm-hmm … onto his face. Like, he’s looking straight down, like he’s over her. And the room isn’t that same room at all. 

Craig: I didn’t even notice. 

Todd: It looks like a cabin, the wood paneling.

It… There’s a skylight behind him. There’s, like, some bookshelf way up high by the ceiling. And then it flips back, and she’s in this room with these white walls and, you know, pink frilly things and, and, and stuff like that. I was like, “Oh my God, this is the kind of movie we’re getting into.” Just when things like this so easily slip by, you know what happened, right?

Oh, they’ve screwed up that shot. You know, they had to go back and reshoot it, but they couldn’t get the location again or, or they just had to shoot it quickly, so then they stuck in this other one, right? 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: However, I now think that might have actually been a little intentional. Now, maybe they didn’t mean for us to notice that the two shots didn’t match, but the way that he’s standing, and behind him is this skylight kind of up in the ceiling with an opening and everything, it seems to foreshadow his ultimate death that comes later on.

Craig: I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. 

Todd: So I don’t know if that was even more clever for its own good, like they really tried to do this kind of psychological trick on us, but they certainly intentionally tried to foreshadow this. Because there are a couple other instances later, pretty much each of the characters who die, and there are only three who die- 

Craig: There are really only kind of four in the whole movie.

Todd: Yeah. There’s technically a fourth guy who dies, but three of this group of the- of four who die, which is disappointing, by the way. All of their deaths are foreshadowed by something that happens a little earlier, and that’s, that’s a nice little touch. That’s why I say they, they were- Yeah … aiming for something artistic here.

Craig: I like that, particularly when it’s subtle and you’re more likely to pick up on it the second time around, and I, I think that this falls into that category. It’s not so obvious. 

Todd: No, not at all. 

Craig: And I, I guess she’s a painter, and she, I… is, is stressing out or something ’cause she’s got a big show coming up, and so her boyfriend, husband, I don’t know, David, thinks she needs a vacation.

So they’re gonna go on vacation to this island with her brother, Eric, and his wife, Brooke. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And they all fly out on to this island, like, in a Cessna, like, in a little seaplane. Their pilot is Mr. Marsh, who for all intents and purposes is the creepy gas station guy- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: of the 

Todd: movie. He really is. 

Craig: He even comes…

Yeah, he e- like, he’s creepy gas station guy in this moment ’cause Kay gets out and, like, she’s… Throughout my notes throughout, I’m like, “Kay’s acting weird again.” Like, she’s always acting weird. She’s- Oh, 

Todd: yeah. She’s off on another planet, yeah. 

Craig: The whole time. Like, there’s not a scene in the movie where she’s j- normal and fun.

Mm-hmm. Like, she is just always space cadet out there all the time. She gets off the plane. She’s 

Todd: like… I feel like 

Clip: I’ve been here before You ain’t the first I heard say that, and you won’t be the last. This island is the kind of place folks dream about

Todd: Said in a very dour, straight face that just looks pissed. They even comment on how creepy he is, right? And then when they look… As they’re talking about how creepy he is, he’s right there in the background in the window of the plane, like, looking back and being creepy. 

Craig: Staring at them. 

Todd: Yeah. God. It’s so great.

Craig: Yeah. And then they walk through that stone fort, which is really cool. I mean, it, it looks like, uh, at one point it was probably big and, and fortified, but it looks like it’s crumbled and, and all the big blocks of it are kind of just s- sticking up out of the ground. It’s a, a really cool set piece that- Yeah

like, that they don’t come back to. And then they pass that old dilapidated theater that we mentioned before, but of course Kay has to stand and look at it l- like a weirdo, and David comes up to her and she’s like, “I recognize this building.” “From where?” “From my painting. I painted it.” He’s like, “Uh, no, you just painted a building that looks like it.

Like- … get over it.” He’s very dismissive of her throughout. 

Todd: He 

Craig: is. Which is interesting in that, like, I can understand it, except for the fact that she’s always so weird. Like, there’s clearly something going on with her. Like- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: come on. 

Todd: He should be more concerned. 

Craig: For sure. For sure. 

Todd: Well, she’s been having dreams, and she’s been taking pills apparently and all that, so I mean, this could be a fairly new occurrence and whatnot, but- 

Craig: I suppose.

Todd: Yeah. As they’re walking, by the way, you know, they- they’re, they’re walking past that old theater, as you said, and there’s this one point where Brooke, as they’re coming over the crest of a hill, goes, “Ugh, I’m dying, Eric. I don’t think I’m going to make it.” N- And Eric goes, “Well, we just passed this boathouse, so we’re almost there.”

That also foreshadows her eventual death, which I thought was kind of- Yep … cute as well. 

Craig: Yeah, no, I never would’ve caught those things, but it’s true. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I guess it, it would’ve been right about where they were. Yeah, that’s funny. And then they get to this big seaside home, and Brooke is a little irritated ’cause it looks dilapidated from the outside, but when they get inside, it’s gorgeous.

Not only is it a beautiful home, but it- it’s- Pristine a- a- and clean 

Todd: And stocked 

Craig: full 

Todd: of good- 

Craig: The kitchen is fully stocked 

Todd: Yeah. You open that fridge, you can’t even put anything new in it. It’s totally full. 

Craig: I know. There’s fresh fruit in there. Like, I don’t know who stocked all this for him. The, the liquor cabinet’s stocked.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It looks like they could have a nice place, but- This 

Todd: is like Airbnb before Airbnb. Right. 

Craig: Right. So… Oh. But of course, Kay’s acting weird and notices some clock on the mantelpiece, which is a clock from the opening dream that we didn’t mention before. Mm-hmm. And then creepy Marsh, I guess, came back to give the whole creepy gas station attendant monologue.

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: Like- 

Clip: I came back to warn you. Warn us about what? Weather report from the Coast Guard says there’s a storm moving up from the Gulf. They’re real unpredictable this time of year. Weather looks okay to me. Things ain’t always what they appear to be. I used to live on this island, know what a storm can do.

It’ll come at you from all sides, make it impossible for me to land a plane. Well, I, um, I think we’ll take our chances. Suit yourself Don’t say I didn’t warn 

Todd: you We’ve also learned, by the way, that there is no phone service on the island. I think he told them that as well, or somebody else did earlier.

Right. So, you know, they’re like, “Okay, thank you. Goodbye,” and he leaves. So our setup: holiday on an island cabin, a isolated island, supposedly nobody else is around on the island, no phone service, and there’s gonna be a big storm so the plane’s not gonna be able to come over and get them. Very, very typical.

Craig: Yeah, but it’s a little atypical in that it’s not just a bunch of 20-something assholes. Yes. I mean, these are- 

Todd: Yes … 

Craig: these are two, not mature, uh, you know, they’re probably in their 30s, maybe early 30s, mid-30s I would guess, but it’s two married couples, which is a completely different dynamic. And, and they’re friends and family.

Eric and, uh, Kay are brother and sister, so- 

Todd: Yeah. That was refreshing … it’s 

Craig: a little bit different. It is refreshing. 

Todd: I actually wrote that down. It’s nice to see a slasher that’s, like, adults instead of teenagers that are actually adults playing teenagers. 

Craig: Right. And I like those movies too, and I like, you know, it’s cathartic to see young, sexy assholes get chopped up.

I, I like that every once in a while, but- As 

Todd: a, as a teacher?

Craig: But, uh- That’s good … but, uh, this was different and I appreciated that. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Um, so, and then, so then we get, I guess, the first kill. Is that right? Yeah. And it’s just some rando. That, that’s my biggest complaint about this is that though these kills aren’t entirely… It’s not that they aren’t interesting or unique in some way, but just the way that they’re executed in terms of the way that the killer is presented is so typical.

Like, it’s just, you know, a shadowy figure. We, we typically really only see the shadow of the figure. I don’t think we often even see the person thems- or, or thing itself. 

Todd: No, or hands or anything. 

Craig: No. It’s just we see shadows creeping up and we see their POV, and then we see the murder happen up close, but there’s really no indication of motive or any suggestion of who this entity might be.

Mm-hmm. And I, I feel like that’s somewhat of a weakness. Uh, that left me frustrated. And even if I… I don’t know. I mean, I guess they kinda try to start to explain it later on, but this guy, basically, Wally the fisherman, who we’ve never seen before and we’ll never see again, because he dies- … he’s just sitting there gutting his fish- 

Todd: Talking to himself

Craig: talking to himself and he’s like, “Oh, Wally, you’re hearing things that aren’t there. And before you know it, you’ll be seeing things that aren’t there.” And then his shadow sneaks up behind him, hits him over the head with an oar and the end. He’s, he’s dead. 

Todd: Yeah. Uh, I love that he says, “What you need is a companion, a woman, or maybe just a dog.”

Craig: And then he, like, smiles and nods to himself. 

Todd: Yeah. “

Craig: Yeah, probably a dog.” 

Todd: Maybe, maybe in a m- in a movie with a bigger budget, Wally would’ve been a character established with a dog, you know? Yeah. Think, think about that. I was thinking of Piranha, right? Wasn’t that that guy with that dog- Yeah, yeah … in 

Craig: Piranha?

It, it w- yeah. Ugh. 

Todd: Typical character, but, uh, yeah. But s- but this is clearly just inserted to give us something. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Anything. And I, I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t originally in the script, and some producer was watching the movie and was like, “Guys, we’ve gotta throw this in there.” 

Craig: Well, and it’s a good thing they did, because nothing else happens for a long time.

Yes. Like, there’s a completely unnecessary beach thing where, s- beach scene where Kay is acting weird. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Then Kay and Brooke have a conversation in the kitchen while they’re cooking dinner that I don’t think anything came of. 

Todd: No. 

Craig: And then- 

Todd: Eric’s been getting a flare gun from the basement, and he just casually tosses off, “You know this place has an elevator, huh?”

Craig: Right. 

Todd: I’m still curious about the elevator. I mean- 

Craig: I have no idea what was going on there … 

Todd: we do see the bottom of an elevator, but I have no idea where it goes to. Second floor, third floor, presumably? 

Craig: I don’t know. I 

Todd: don’t know. 

Craig: It was weird. And, and so then they have their dinner that the women prepared outdoors at night, right?

And, and this is when they have a conversation, but, like, basically Eric tells Kay that her new painting style sucks. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: That it’s too surreal, and she’s like, “I paint what I see.” And David’s like, “She paints what she dreams.” And like, who cares? Like- … she paints, like- Whatever … landscapes. Like, who cares? She 

Todd: can paint whatever the hell she wants from wherever she gets inspiration.

Craig: Well, I gue- I guess Eric is saying… Well, basically what he says is, “You were on a really good streak just painting these boring landscapes, and now you’re getting all surrea- surreal and shit, and people don’t wanna buy your stuff, and, like, shape up.” And, and the fact that he’s… Like, if this was just a friend, like, if this was just her girlfriend’s friend, I would think, “What an asshole.

Keep it to yourself,” but it is her brother. I think you get a little bit of- Yeah … license as siblings to be a little bit more upfront with people. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s true. E- everyone’s just privately fretting over her, you know? Even the other couple, Eric and Brooke, when they’re alone in bed, they’re talking about her.

And Kay tells Eric that she’s scared her dreams will take over real life. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: All of this is really ham-fisted. I mean, we get it. We, we’ve gotten it. Kay is melodramatically distant and troubled. Everybody’s troubled for her, and all they’re talking about is her dreams and how the dreams… Her artwork’s even gotten bad now that her, she, she’s dreaming.

When she says she’s scared the dreams are gonna take over her real life, the response is, “Oh, it’s just one of those demons that surface every once in a while. We all have them.” And I’m thinking, “Okay, there’s a pointed line right there.” Yeah. ‘Cause we’ve seen a demon. 

Craig: Yeah, but, but kind of. Uh… 

Todd: The vision of a demon in the beginning.

Craig: Right. That’s it. But David kind of, I mean, i- in saying that, basically what he’s saying to her is he thinks that she’s lose, you know, “You’re losing it. Pull it together.” 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But that doesn’t stop them then from going to their sex den and banging. 

Todd: Yeah, for quite a while. This is really, again, a little too long.

Craig: Yeah, way too long, especially since it was not really a sex scene. It was, like her… There are so many shots of her- … just laying on her back in this bed with, like, her hair sprawled out on the pillow, sometimes, like, one arm or both arms above her head in, like, this, you know, Gothic painting type way. And here, like, they’re laying in the bed and it’s all lit by firelight and stuff.

And it’s supposed to be, I think, like, this intimate, sexy scene, and it almost looks like he’s just molesting her corpse. Like, he’s just kind of- 

Todd: I was trying to figure out … 

Craig: rubbing his face all over her face. 

Todd: I, I couldn’t figure out what he was kissing. 

Craig: It wasn’t her mouth. 

Todd: It wasn’t her boobs. I mean, he wasn’t f- down far enough or, like…

I just didn’t know what was going on here except he’s just rubbing his face all over her. Yeah. 

Craig: And he wasn’t on top of her. Like, he was, like, snuggled up next to her. Like, I guess he could have been grinding on her thigh or something, which that’s fine. Oh. Good times, but- 

Todd: It just wasn’t very well-directed Right, 

Craig: and 

Todd: it 

Craig: went on for so long.

Cut away. Oh, God. We don’t need to see that.

Ugh, God You 

Todd: know? But it’s very soap opera-like, isn’t it? ‘Cause there’s- 

Craig: It is. A lot of it, a lot of the whole movie, it, it feels like a soap opera, really … 

Todd: storms and the windows. Rain’s going against the window and we get a shot through the window from the outside. And, and I thought for a minute, oh, this is like our killer POV.

No, they just gotta show this from a sixth angle, the same boring sex scene. 

Craig: Right. There’s also a lot of r- really close shots on, on faces and, and reactions and, and dialogue scenes and stuff, and that felt very soap opera, too. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But after they bang, David hears a bump in the night and, and for about the next 10 minutes, he wanders around the house.

Ugh. 

Todd: Oh, 

Craig: my God. Yeah, forever. He finally ends up- 

Todd: It takes forever. He 

Craig: finally ends up, I guess, in the cellar. I don’t know. And I didn’t even really understand what was happening here. 

Todd: No, I didn’t, either. 

Craig: It seems to me like it was a cellar door, like one that opens from the outside and the two doors open and you walk down the stairs into the cellar, except he’s in the cellar- Mm-hmm

so he’s opening it from the inside, so he’s opening it up. And it seemed like it was, like, p- kind of partially ajar, so the water was leaking in and that was making noise, so he pulled it back down and closed it. But after he turns around, turns his back, he hears a loud noise and he turns around and one of the doors is open again.

So he goes and sticks his head up in there, doesn’t see anything, but then as he’s pulling back down, the door closes so that it clamps his neck right between. And he’s standing on a ladder, but in the commotion, the ladder tips over, and so he’s just dangling there, and it’s, like, cutting into his neck, and his eyeballs are bleeding and stuff.

He dies, and then something or somebody pulls his body back up. Now, later on when they go looking for him, she talks about looking for him at the elevator. Was that the elevator? 

Todd: I think it’s supposed to be the elevator. 

Craig: What the fuck kind of elevator is that? 

Todd: I have no idea. I, I, I am, honestly am still trying to figure that out.

Where did, how would that trapdoor… Is it the top of the- 

Craig: Freight elevator or something? I don’t know. 

Todd: Yeah, I don’t know. It, it was weird. I, I think this is supposed to be an open elevator shaft, but it’s not very well-established. And then for the rest of the movie, you know, when he said, “Oh, there’s even an elevator in here,” I thought, “Okay, cool.

We’re gonna get… Like, that’s gonna be a, some kind of factor. At least we’re gonna get a scene at the elevator.” I mean, this is interesting. There’s this house on the beach, but it’s got an elevator that presumably goes through three floors. That’s escape routes. That’s, you could fall down the shaft. That’s, you know, board up the elevator, you know?

Mm-hmm. But this is it. This is apparently the elevator, just this moment in this place. Because, uh, then later they get up and, uh, and he’s missing, and for a while they don’t give a shit. 

Craig: No. 

Todd: Kay wakes up to a bad dream. 

Craig: Yeah, except that’s gross, too, because she wa- We don’t know it’s a dream at first, but she wakes up And she kinda turns over, and it looks like David’s in bed with her except for his face looks kinda gnarly, like dead.

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And then she rolls over and starts kissing him, and his eyes open, but then blood starts flowing out of his eyes, and she notices blood on her mouth. And she sits up, and she pulls the blanket down, and it’s just his decapitated head. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And then she, then she wakes up and starts screaming, which happens every time she wakes up.

A 

Todd: lot. Yeah, she d- this woman doesn’t wake up peacefully. 

Craig: Yeah, and you’re right. At first, at first they’re like, “Oh, I’m sure he just got up before you and went for a walk on the beach. It’s no big deal.” And she’s like, “But no, I saw what happened. I know exactly what happened.” And yet they look around elsewhere for a while before they finally get to the elevator, and she’s like, “I know he died here.

I saw it.” Did ya? ‘Cause I didn’t see you see it, but- 

Todd: I didn’t see you see it, 

Craig: yeah. But, but there’s, there’s nobody there. And Eric- 

Todd: It’s kind of a cool moment … 

Craig: yeah, he, he pops his head up through the door, and he, like, if you’re him, you know, you, he, he pushes up the r- left side of the door and kinda pops his head out, and he looks around and he doesn’t see anything.

But the camera is shooting- I can’t describe it. Anyway- From- The, the point is- From 

Todd: the room he’s looking into, 

Craig: yeah. Mm-hmm … from the room he’s looking into. W- when he lowers the door, you see the blood on the other side. Yeah. It was just that he was in the wrong position to see it. So it does appear that this isn’t just in her mind.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: Something really is happening, but we don’t know what is happening. There was one little red herring that I kind of appreciated. The night that David dies, Brooke also wakes up early in the morning to find that Eric is gone, and she can’t- Mm-hmm … she looks around and can’t find him for a while, but she eventually does find him, and he’s coming in from the outside.

And she’s like, “What were you doing?” He’s all wet, and he says, “The storm windows were banging all night. I was fixing the storm windows.” And I thought that was a good red herring, ’cause I, I- Yeah … I really thought, “Oh, he was MIA when David was killed. There’s a nice lead for me to hold onto.” 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Doesn’t go anywhere, but I appreciated the moment.

Todd: Well, that’s part of the problem with this really small cast, right? Is that everyone is basically n- except for that one moment, nobody’s suspect. If they’re trying to make a mystery out of this, who’s doing the killing, and we’re trying to figure out who’s doing the killing, it’s either the pilot, who I think we figure out pretty early on, like, that would be stupid if it was him.

It’s just too obvious. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Or it’s just some other party that we’re not aware of yet- Right … that’s on the island doing it, which is a little unsatisfying when they’re trying to make a mystery out of it. 

Craig: Or it’s one of them. And without, without spoiling it, one of the last movies that we recently did, probably the last slasher that we did, it seemed like it must be one of them, and ultimately it was.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: Is that, is that, is that gonna be the case here? Like, yeah, I understand what you’re saying because it’s either got to be one of them or the pilot, and all of those just seem easy. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But if it’s somebody or something that we’ve never seen, that seems cheap. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Don’t bring in some rando in the end with some loony explanation like, “Oh, your dad cheated on me,” or I, I don’t know, something, you know- Yeah.

whatever. 

Todd: Right. Yeah. 

Craig: So yeah. 

Todd: You ruined my life. 

Craig: You ruined my life. Person I’ve never met before or whatever. Oh, God. Yeah, but- 

Todd: Well, they, they do the ridiculous thing that often happens in these movies, is there’s a person missing all day long, but the, nobody’s terribly concerned about it. In fact, Brooke is even reassuring Kay.

It’s nighttime, right? They’re sitting by the fire, and Kay is still disturbed, and Brooke’s like- 

Clip: You okay?

Okay, there’s nothing to worry about David’s out there somewhere. I’ll bet he just stumbled on something really interesting and got so involved he probably just lost his way. 

Todd: Was so, okay, but, like, that means he’s lost. Like, you should probably be more worried about finding him. 

Craig: That’s, I know, that’s-

that’s so reassuring, too. Like, 

Todd: he’s out there somewhere. Well, yeah- Duh … probably. 

Craig: Like, he’s not here. 

Todd: He’s not here.

Captain Obvious. Oh. 

Craig: But yeah, they don’t look for him all day, and then he’s gone all night, and so then finally they’re like, “Well, I guess we should look for him.” Better 

Todd: look. And then- Let’s all split 

Craig: up … let’s all split up and walk around different parts of the island for another 10 minutes. 

Todd: Half an hour.

God. 

Craig: Oh my God. 

Todd: Yeah, that was, felt like forever. 

Craig: And Kay is, she goes to the theater, and we see her looking around the theater for a long time. She doesn’t find anything. Then we cut back to the other two who are looking around in other places for a long time. They don’t find anything. Then we go back to Kay in the theater.

Todd: Who seems to be investigating the theater for a second time- Uh-huh … or the first time ever. Like, what, why is she suddenly back out in the audience g- going back up on stage again? 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: The first time she, she went on stage, she actually went up some stairs, like, almost like she was going up to the, to the flies or something.

Mm-hmm. And then when it cuts back to her, she’s back in… And so I thought, what are they doing here? Is this itself a hint? Because we’re still wondering, deep down inside, if Kay isn’t somehow responsible for what’s going on. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: The other, a thing that’s going through your head, and then it’s later explicitly implied by Eric, is Kay in her dreams doing something?

Craig: Well, yeah, and it’s als- well, okay, so, uh, on that second trip in there, she does find his body hanging upside down- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: um, and, and mutilated. 

Todd: Headless, yeah. 

Craig: Do the others see his body, or do they… Do they even believe her? I don’t even remember. 

Todd: They all come running in, because now it gets real for them. It kind of cuts from the, David’s headless body swinging there to Eric talking to Brooke about Kay’s dreams.

He’s, like, loading up his flare gun and all that. Now it’s like, “We gotta get off of here.” He, he tells her a story about when they were kids. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: He said that Kay, uh, when she was a little girl, f- as a birthday present, got a cat from her parents or something, and they loved the cat, and then later, suddenly the cat was missing and they didn’t know where the cat was, and they found the cat was, what?

In the freezer? In 

Craig: the freezer. 

Todd: And Kay had dreamed that the cat was in danger 

Craig: or something like that. Well, Kay, y- yeah, they, they a- they asked Kay about it and she said that something in her dreams did it. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: So I think that what Eric is suggesting is that she’s a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and always has been.

Todd: He is, but then he immediately contradicts himself, because Brooke goes, “Well, then what, you know, Kay is the…” G- g- then K- you know, whatever. And, and Eric goes, “No, what killed him was not a nightmare.” Right. “It was something very real.” So I’m like, “Well, where is he even going with this then?” Like, what is he even thinking?

Craig: Well, I don’t remember. It’s right around this part. I, I think Kay is pleading with them to believe her and saying, you know, she can’t go to sleep and blah blah blah. But she says that something has been using her to do bad things through her dreams, and it will keep doing them through her until it no longer needs her.

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: S- I don’t really know what that means. 

Todd: She explains what Eric kinda did, but she’s going this direction with it, saying that somehow that… Yeah. And, and she says, “Queen something, queen something.” And they end up giving her some drugs to make her sleep, which ab- absolutely upsets her. 

Craig: Well, the… And this is just like Nightmare on Elm Street 2.

Todd: Exactly. 

Craig: The- Exactly … the parents drug the… You know, when the kids are trying not to sleep and the parents think they’re nuts, they, you know, they always drug them. 

Todd: And look, in recounting this, it sounds like a lot of stuff is happening, but we’re an hour into this hour and a half movie. 

Craig: And there’s not much left.

Todd: There’s not much left, and it has taken us so long to get to this point that it just feels… I was just like, “Come on, let’s get moving here.” Like, “All right, the guy’s dead. Now things are finally gonna move.” 

Craig: And they, and they do, but they just- 

Todd: They do from here … 

Craig: and they, like, things happen, but it’s just paced slowly.

Like, the scenes are unnecessarily long. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Eric thinks, because he doesn’t believe that it can be something from a dream, he thinks that it must be a person. He’s like, “Well, it’s just us here. The only other person we’ve even seen is Marsh.” And Brooke’s like, “Yeah, well, he left.” And, and Eric’s like, “Did he?

Did he?” “Did we, did we actually see him leave?” 

Todd: Well, we don’t know. Yeah. 

Craig: So, you know, against, uh, Brooke’s protests, he goes out to the boathouse for some reason. 

Todd: Flares. He wants to find more flares. 

Craig: Okay, fine. And somebody’s watching him, and he does find a couple of flares. But then he’s just standing out on the dock, and he, like, bumps into a fishing pole that’s just, like, been set up on the dock or whatever, and then he turns away from it.

And all of a sudden, he’s in a Hellraiser movie- … where all of these fishing hooks on a bunch of different lines simultaneously somehow hook him in the face and all over his body and drag him off to sea. That was so weird. 

Todd: Yeah. It just… Where did this come from? It looked like it came from above, first of all.

Dropped down from the sky, hooked around him. Again, like you say, we don’t see any- Uh-uh … person or figure behind this. We just see these lines and him get pulled away. And when you think about it, it makes no logical sense. The physics of this doesn’t work. He gets dragged off the dock and across the beach, and then finally into the water and into the darkness.

Like, whatever is dragging him is so far off into the distance that it’s just blackness out there, and we can’t see it. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: At this point, I’m thinking, “Okay, come on. Don’t ask me to believe-” believe this is an actual person doing this because it’s impossible. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: By the way, his, his death was foretold by a, a nick.

W- earlier in the movie he was chatting with Brooke before they even left on the plane, and he, uh, was shaving his neck and he nicked himself in the neck. 

Craig: Oh, that’s, that’s funny. It’s funny now to know that that was foreshadowing because I thought that it was hilarious that when he nicked his neck, it, the music got very ominous.

Yeah. And I was like, “Oh my God, he just cut himself shaving,” like- So 

Todd: sinister … “

Craig: I do that every day. Calm down.” I was thinking that too. 

Todd: Well, to be fair, the mo- the music does a lot of heavy lifting throughout this film. 

Craig: It does. 

Todd: All these scenes of them just prowling around, like him prowling around this boathouse is another 10 minutes, and the music just wants you to think there’s danger around the corner just a second away the whole time, and without that you’d definitely be bored to tears.

Craig: Well, right. It, it, well, and then it moves pretty quickly. I mean, his, his wife, Brooke, is worried about him so she goes out looking for him, so she goes out into the boathouse too. She is looking around the boathouse and she notices the name of the boat, like written on the boat, says Isle of something, and then she like dusts off the rest of it.

Queen. Isle of Queen. And she’s like, “Queen, queen something.” I still t- like, I know that Kay had said something about queen something earlier, but I- it felt like a very tenuous connection. I mean, it- Yeah … at least I guess for Brooke it kind of validated what Kay had been saying, which she had been tempted to believe anyway.

And so then she’s scared, and so she looks over towards the door and there’s a t- um, just a pitchfork peeking around the door. Floating. Just 

Todd: like- Pitchfork as character- Yeah. … in this movie. Almost, like, puppeteered. 

Craig: And then in the slowest chase scene I’ve ever seen, because first of all, it only spans about 10 feet.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But over the next two minutes she runs about six feet away. She gets tangled up in a fishing net for a couple of good minutes. And then she takes another 30 seconds to get to the window. It’s a huge window with, like, three wooden slats on it and, like, six giant panes. 

Todd: Uh-huh. 

Craig: And she very easily could have pulled down one of those boards and gone through any one of those panes.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But she feels it necessary to pull down all three boards, fi- take, use one of the boards to bash out the entire thing. Meanwhile, this guy is right behind her, and so she just- 

Todd: Slowly. 

Craig: Yes. This, 

Todd: I think this thing was, could’ve been strapped to a turtle. 

Craig: Oh my God. That’s how slow this is coming after her.

It’s so slow. She is taking so long, like- 

Todd: I was just like, “Girl, just go around the boat.” 

Craig: Right, and, and- “

Todd: Just go around the boat.” 

Craig: Or have you never seen, like, Texas Chainsaw? Like, just jump through that bitch, like for- Jump through the window … forget about the glass. My God. But so she gets up into the frame of the window and then, you know, she gets a startled look on her face and you see the tines of the pitchfork come through.

Todd: Oh, this was fantastic though. 

Craig: It looked really good. 

Todd: It did, like you see… It wasn’t like cut and there are tines in her. You saw the tines come through her chest and then retreat back in. Only the prowler- has a better pitchforking scene than this one. This is, this is like number two in my book, and the only thing that makes The Prowler better is the pitchfork actually went into, like, a, a topless- Like, like there was no clothing or anything obscuring- 

Craig: Right

Todd: the, the penetration. God, it sounds so sexual when I say it. And, and so I was really im- I was like, “Okay, good. That was, that was really impressive for this film. I was not expecting to see an effect that good.” 

Craig: Well, and I would say the effects are pretty good throughout. 

Todd: They’re not bad. 

Craig: They’re not bad. Yeah.

Eh. I mean, there was… The one that bothered me the most was when the severed head was crying blood, and you could clearly tell where the duct was- Mm … and it was not near enough to his eye. The eye. Right. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: But yeah, so and okay, so that all happens at night. Kay wakes up in the morning. She goes down near the boathouse, sees Eric’s body floating in the water, immediately then almost trips over Brooke’s body on the beach.

Todd: It’s so funny ’cause it’s that classic, uh, the la- final girl discovers all the bodies at once- 

Craig: Yeah, but there’s only two … except you only have two 

Todd: bodies to discover. Yeah. 

Craig: I know. So she runs back to the house, and she shutters all the windows, and she barricades all the doors. And this was another scene I was like, “I don’t need to see her move every piece of furniture to barricade every door.”

Oh, my God. I get it. 

Todd: She closed every window. We did not need to see this happen- 

Craig: I- … every 

Todd: step of the way … 

Craig: get it. And, and- I, 

Todd: at this point, I just felt they were really pressing for time. I suppose. They were really just trying to stretch out the time. 

Craig: And she’s, she’s trying to stay awake, and she’s… Uh, the first thing she does to try to stay awake is read what sounds like one of the most boring books I, I’ve- Like, that would put me to sleep.

Then she- Well, 

Todd: she’s got a cup of coffee 

Craig: She makes herself some coffee. She’s smoking cigarettes. Uh-huh. Eventually she burns herself with the cigarette, but I, it, it almost appears like the ecstasy of the burn puts her to sleep because- 

Todd: You’re right. 

Craig: Then she’s asleep, and the generator goes out, and there’s something trying to come in and rattling the door and stuff, and she grabs a big knife.

And at this point, she’s, like, peering through slats, and it’s entirely reminiscent of the opening scene. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: It’s like she’s watching through a slatted door, and the lights are sl- you know, slat- m- making slats across her face. 

Todd: And that clock is ticking- And the clock is ticking … and the pendulum’s going.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And she closes her eyes, and there’s a banging window that wakes her up. And at this point I’m like, “Okay, is she dreaming now? Has she fallen asleep?” Well, yeah. You know, I’m thinking that- That whole Freddy thing, you know? I’m thinking, did she actually fall asleep and, and they’re faking us out here?

Craig: Yeah. I, I, I think she c- that could’ve been the moment that she fell asleep or it could’ve been right after she burned herself. I don’t even know that it necessarily matters, but- Yeah … at some point presumably she did. And, and, again, I don’t know if the suggestion is that she is asleep and dreaming or just the fact that she went to sleep released the beast?

Like, I don’t know what that means. Yeah. 

Todd: I’m not sure either. 

Craig: The, she, she moves to in front of the fridge. She’s used the, the refrigerator to, to block a door, and then all of a sudden the refrigerator starts getting shoved from the other side, and somebody or something reaches over the top and she stabs it in the hand, and it sure sounds like a dude to me.

Like, it goes, “Ow!” Like a… I mean, like if that’s a monster, that’s a pretty lame- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: sound for a monster. 

Todd: Well, it, it would also be the first time we’ve ever seen a limb or anything. I mean, even when the pitchfork was coming after that girl, we didn’t see what was holding the pitchfork. We didn’t even see hands around it.

Craig: No. 

Todd: It just looks like a floating pitchfork in a way. So this would be the first time that we’ve ever seen anything physical. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: And so immediately I was suspect. I was like, “Well, that’s not it. That’s probably the, the, the pilot.” 

Craig: Well, I didn’t know, um, because she runs and she, like, trips on the staircase, and whatever it is that’s pursuing her gets through and runs towards her and we kind of vaguely see it in silhouette, and she shoots it with a flare, and when the flare lights up we see that it’s a man.

Now, it, it had to… It was the pilot, right? There’s nobody else it could’ve been. Yeah. I, I couldn’t tell. 

Todd: It was. We see a couple close-up shots on his face as the fire goes. 

Craig: Yeah. I just didn’t recogn- I didn’t know if it was the same guy. I assumed so, but because she shot him with the flare, he falls over and the whole house catches on fire.

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: So she runs up the stairs and is, like, running through an attic or something and she gets to a door or a window and it bursts open, and there’s a giant scary monster that we’ve never seen before. 

Todd: Well, we saw it in the beginning. 

Craig: Kind of. The very beginning. Kind of. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. Not in this detail, but yeah.

It’s a callback to that original, the, the thing that opened up over the credits, for sure, yeah. 

Craig: For sure. And, and it’s, you know, we don’t see it in its entirety. It’s kind of from mid, midsection up, and, and we definitely see its face and its… Oh gosh, it’s got giant long pointed teeth and it’s all kind of insect-like maybe, and it- Looks pretty good

slimy and gross. It looks fine. I think it was smart not to show it to us for very long. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: But anyway, she screams and it, it cuts to a shot of the house outside and it’s just her screaming and screaming and screaming, and then you hear somebody say, “Kay, wake up, wake up.” A little girl with red hair, obviously Kay, wakes up.

And her mother and father are standing over her and say, “Oh, no. Did you have a bad dream again? Hold on. Let us get your brother in here. We want him to be here for this.” And again, it’s, it’s very similar to that shot from the beginning where she’s laying in bed and the, the other people who are standing above her are shot almost from her perspective.

Yeah. So we’re looking up at them. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And the brother, presumably Eric, comes in. I mean, I think s- somebody even says his name, so we know it’s him. Yep. And the dad says, “Happy birthday, daugh-” or, “Merry Christmas” or something, and pulls out this kitten from behind his back and goes to hand it to her, and it cuts back to the little girl, who just looks horrified like, “Oh, no.”

Clip: Not again. 

Craig: Not again. 

Todd: Freeze frame 

Craig: Freeze 

Todd: frames Credits 

Craig: Right. So I don’t know what to make of it. Like, is this whole thing, was the whole movie just a recurring nightmare of a young girl? Or is this some sort of loop that this woman is in? And is it a supernatural loop, a psychological loop? Like- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: I don’t really get it, but I don’t so much mind the ambiguity.

I, I thought the- Yeah … I thought that the end was actually kind of clever. I, I think that I like it more than if it had just- 

Todd: Ended with her in the house … 

Craig: see, right. See the monster, hear the screaming from outside, see the house from the outside, credits. That would’ve been okay. This, I think, throws a little spin on it.

And because I don’t find the movie to be all that great anyway, tacking this little spin on it at least gives it a little bit more intrigue. 

Todd: Elevates it a little bit. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. It does elevate it a little bit, and I agree with you there. And once again, I, I gotta go back to the inspiration. Somebody had to be…

Maybe Robert Shaye was watching this when he made, you know, Wes Craven tack that little dream ending onto the first Nightmare on Elm Street. Oh, maybe. You know, the, the parallels are just so close here. You’ve got this supposed dream demon- 

Craig: Mm-hmm … 

Todd: I guess. What else has killed these people? If this all actually happened, these people really did die, and there’s no explanation as to who it could’ve been except for her dreams and this demon that apparently manifests at the end.

So if we take it all literally, then yeah, her dream demon came out and, and murdered them all just like she said, and, uh, just as she apparently experienced to some extent when she was a kid. But I don’t think it’s quite that simple. It’s purposely left ambiguous, and I think it’s probably a stronger movie for it.

Because if this ended up being more straightforward, it’d be even less remarkable. But, I mean, I think it’s well shot. The cinematography is quite good. The lighting is quite good. The music is good. The acting is fine. I liked some of the things that they’ve done with it, with the story and, and this ambiguity and this…

Again, almost like Curtains and some of these other movies that just seem to be aspiring to more than just horror, but they’re trying to add a lot of psychological intrigue and drama and heady stuff. It just doesn’t work as well as some of those other movies do. 

Craig: Yeah. I, I agree. And, and the pacing is slow.

You, you said the acting is good, and I, I think that’s fair. 

Todd: It’s not terrible. 

Craig: No, my only criticism would be that the actress… Y- I’ve read a lot of praise about her performance. 

Todd: Which one? 

Craig: Not Brooke. The, the Kay. Kay. The m- the main, the main girl. 

Todd: Uh- 

Craig: I just- 

Todd: Kinda one-note. 

Craig: One-note. That’s what, that’s what I was gonna say.

Like, yeah, I mean, she plays that cuckoo well But it’s one note. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: There’s no levels to it, you know? And, and I don’t even particularly have empathy for her because she’s such a weirdo. Like, I don’t know. Yeah. She’s not humanized enough, I guess, as a character. She’s just the weirdo sister who, I don’t know, is around, but- 

Todd: It’s interesting, right, how you can have a role like this, which is pretty one note, and it’s really written that way.

She’s just gotta be loopy and, and upset by her dreams the whole time, and there’s really nowhere else to go. Yet you can have a similar type character in a movie like David Cronenberg’s The Brood, which we did- 

Craig: Yeah, yeah … 

Todd: who you could also argue, but somehow that performance just came across as far more real.

This troubled woman felt like she had layers to her even though She was honestly really just acting in the same place the whole movie, right? Sitting in a bed- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: kind of in the same state the whole time. Somehow that performance was way better. 

Craig: Well, right. You 

Todd: know? 

Craig: And I mean, basically, if we’re drawing the comparison, Kay is the equivalent of Nancy, and Nancy is a very human character.

Right. She, I don’t, I mean, she kind of gets to a point where she’s exhausted and, and, and a little unclear, never to this extent. But even, what was that movie that we watched, we compared it to Nightmare on Elm Street 3? It was about a girl in a hospital, and it had the girl from Nightmare on Elm Street 3.

Oh, yeah. That reminds me of this, except- Bad 

Todd: Dreams. 

Craig: Bad Dreams, right. And she- Mm-hmm … the main character, she would have moments of wackiness where people thought she was being weird and, but she also had moments of clarity and normalcy, and I, I connected more with her as a character than I do with Kay. But, you know, that’s a, that’s a minor thing.

I would say overall, as you said before, if you are kind of like us and like to be the guy in the room who’s seen everything, and, you know, people can ask you about a movie and, you know, you’ve got the knowledge right on the tip of your tongue, which is something that I take pride in, then yeah, this is- Yeah, 

Todd: it’s kind of our job, 

Craig: isn’t it?

I, well, I mean, it’s, it is, yeah, it’s kind of our shtick, I would say is more, is a better way of putting it. 

Todd: Yeah. If, if only this were our job, 

Craig: right? But, uh, but i- if you’re that type of person, if you’re an aficionado, it’s definitely worth seeing. If you’re just looking for a fun slasher to watch with your friends at a sleepover or at a party, there are way more fun ones.

Yeah. Way, way, way more fun ones. 

Todd: This is almost like watching a soap opera with some horror elements to it. It’s, it’s- Mm … kinda slow and dramatic. Slow. 

Craig: Well, and I would say it almost feels even more like a stage play in some way in the pacing of it, but I, I don’t know. That may be kind of a stretch. Anyway, it’s, it’s, it’s not great.

I, I, I wouldn’t steer anybody away from it, but I certainly don’t need to see it again and- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: you could miss it and probably be okay. 

Todd: I agree. I, I totally agree. Well, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can find us at chainsawhorror.com, or you can send us messages either by voice or by text.

You know the drill. We’ve got Facebook and Instagram channels out there. Please send us your requests. And we’re coming up into the summer, so send us some good summer horror movies that we oughta do, uh, especially, like, for me anyway. I wanna, I wanna see some of these long lost films and figure out if they’re lost gems or if they’re forgotten for a reason.

If you know of any of these kind of movies as well, please send them our way. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/chainsawpodcast, where you can vote on our requests as they come in. Also, a book club going on back there, the unedited versions of our phone calls- That produce these episodes, direct access to us, some minisodes up there, lots of goodies.

Five bucks a month gets you access to all that, and our undying gratitude. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.