Hell High (1989)

Episode 499, 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: Today was my turn to pick, and, uh, this week I found something that kind of dug out from the l- long list I have of ’80s movies that I’ve touched on or heard about somewhere. Somebody might have recommended along the way.

I don’t believe anybody I know has ever recommended this movie to me. Looking at it, I was kind of surprised that I hadn’t really heard of it or seen it, but it’s a 1987… Well, 1989 was when it was finally released, but it was filmed years before that. If you look in Wikipedia, it says 1989. If you look on IMDb, it says 1987.

But actually, it was shot in 1985. So I don’t know, I guess they were splitting the difference somewhere in there because the, one of the stars had died shortly after the movie was completed, I suppose. Anyway, this is Hell High, and, uh, yeah, I had never seen this before. I don’t even think I’d ever seen it on the video store shelves.

How about you, Craig? Did, did this ever cross your path? 

Craig: No, I don’t think I’d ever even heard of it before. And, and I don’t know what else to say about it beyond that. It, it was entirely n- I knew nothing about it going in. I mean, it was unfamiliar. I didn’t really recognize any of the people in it or anything.

So I’m always surprised when we come across these ’cause I- Yeah … I always kinda feel like we’ve seen everything at this point. 

Todd: We sure do, and yet 

Craig: And it’s, right, and yet, and especially something, you know, this is kinda right up our alley. And I’m less surprised when the movies are really, really bad. Like, that doesn’t surprise me so much.

Like, yeah, people don’t really talk about it ’cause it’s so bad, but this movie’s not bad. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I would say it’s, uh, competent and fairly par for the course for the time period. In terms of, like, how well-made it is, I think it’s pretty well-made. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: By comparison, pretty darn good for the time. So I’m, yeah, I was surprised that I had never heard of it before.

Todd: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if I would ultimately call this movie good, but I think I know what you mean in the sense that, like, we see a lot of trash. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: We see a lot of cheaply shot, amateur kinda stuff, and this movie is… It actually is well-filmed and well-lit and has a story of s- interesting story. You can tell that they’re going for something, uh, pretty typical for the time.

To me, it was almost a combination. I wasn’t sure if they were going for I Spit On Your Grave light. Oh, I wouldn’t say rape revenge, right? Because that’s really not exactly what happens here, but- 

Craig: Yeah, but sexual violence type stuff, yeah. 

Todd: Exactly. 

Craig: Last House on the Left light, huh? Right. Kind of. 

Todd: But very light.

But also you kinda cross that with, like, Teaching Mrs. Tingle or, oh, I think of the House on Sorority Row where- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: you know, or even I Know What You Did Last Summer, where some teens are responsible for a death and then end up paying for it in some way. So it’s kinda got both of those elements in it. I just kept getting flashes to those things as we went.

I think the thing that surprised me the most is that this is the director’s… Well, so the, it’s written and directed by the same guy, David Grossman. There’s another writer credited, but he didn’t really do anything else, and David Grossman really didn’t do anything else either, like wrote one other movie, and that was it.

So, like, it’s a one and done for this guy’s directing career as far as we know, and more or less writing career as well. And most of the people in here, acting wise, this is either the only movie they did or the only thing of note that they really did, with a couple exceptions There are a couple people in this cast who went on to very successful careers, and, and one of the stars who’s a little bit older was a, a television actress.

So we’ll talk about them as we come across. It’s just weird because usually with these older movies, a- and we’ve been doing a lot of them lately, it’s like, oh, w- look, you’re seeing this guy before he went on to do all these things, and oh, this director was kinda like their first shot at it, and then they went on to do a few more things.

And this movie isn’t really like that at all, even though it’s a pretty good movie all things considered. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: You know, there’s no reason why probably they couldn’t have used some of this movie to, uh, you know, as part of their resume. I was kind of surprised, but not really, ’cause it’s kinda typical for these movies too.

The shooting was all completed in 18- 1985. I think it took 18 days. The whole movie was edited and everything i- by ’86, but it wasn’t even released until 1989. 

Craig: Do we know why? I don’t remember reading why it was delayed so long. 

Todd: I wish I could have figured it out, but I couldn’t find any information on that at all.

Craig: I mean, I, I… These things happen. I mean, it, you know, it, it still happens today. Of course. Sometimes movies just get shelved for whatever reason. But like as you mentioned, you know, one of the main guys, I don’t know his name ’cause I didn’t recognize any of these people, uh, the guy who plays Dickens in this movie, a guy named Christopher Stryker.

Todd: Christopher Stryker. What a badass name, by the way. Stryker. Christopher Stryker. What if Curtains… Didn’t Curtains have like a main character’s name was Stryker? I don’t remember. Oh, God. Uh, but this movie remi- no, I, I g-

Craig: I get this movie mixed up with, not mixed up with, but it reminds me of several things. I feel like Curtains may be one of them, Pieces because- 

Todd: Oh, yeah … 

Craig: it’s one of those, it’s one of those typical movies where some traumatic childhood thing is going to lead to trouble later on. But- Yeah … anyway, this young actor, Christopher Stryker, who plays a despicable character, uh, in the movie- Oh, 

Todd: yeah

Craig: but, uh, it was kinda tragic because he filmed this and then before its release, uh, so he never even saw it, but before its release he passed away of AIDS. And I, I guess that he was a, a stage actor, and he had, I don’t know if it was on Broadway or, or where, but he had been in a production of Torch Song Trilogy, which is a great gay play.

But yeah, it’s, he, he passed away before it came out, which is too bad. 

Todd: That’s awful. 27 years old, right? Like- 

Craig: 27, I know … 

Todd: Jesus. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s sad. 

Todd: That was a time. 

Craig: I actually found this open- this opening to be really charming. 

Todd: It is- 

Craig: I thought it w- … in its own way … well, first of all there, you know, the, the title that came up on the version that I watched was Real Trouble.

I guess it was filmed on a, under a couple of different titles. Real Trouble was one of them, and then I guess at the last minute they changed it to Hell High to try to make it kind of a more typical horror title to entice audiences or whatever. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: But then you see this little blonde girl in like a pink baby doll dress.

Todd: Oh my God. That’s so typical. 

Craig: And she’s, I don’t know, she’s got like gold ringlet hair, and she’s like skipping down this, uh, dirt road. 

Todd: With these white shoes and- 

Craig: Yeah, like- Tights … like white patent leather shoes. Right. Like, she looks like a baby doll. And you hear a, a woman’s voice recorded over, “Brooke, don’t you dare go off to the swamp or you’ll get a spanking.”

And then she’s skipping off down the road. It’s so quaint and funny, and it’s all shot like through kind of a dreamy filter I feel like. And then she gets to this old shed that apparently she uses as like a playhouse. It- And she’s got a bunch of dolls in there and stuff. 

Todd: This is presumably in a swamp, but it’s really just a field-

with a puddle in 

Craig: it. There’s, there’s just something along a dirt road. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. Oh, and there is a puddle.

I forgot this was supposed to be a swamp. Gosh, yeah. That comes in later, too. It’s hilarious. But she hears something, like a motor or something, so she sneaks out the back. 

Todd: It’s just like a cartoon, right? There are like two boards that just swing- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: swing open. And just- Yeah … and she just crawls through it, and then peeks through with her big blue, as blue can be, eyes looking right through these, this gap in these boards at what’s gonna happen inside.

Craig: Yeah. And what happens inside is this guy pulls up on a motorcycle with a girl on the back, and they come into the shed, and he throws her violently to the ground and starts- 

Todd: Fondling her … 

Craig: accosting her. Yeah. Yeah, like he pulls up her shirt and starts fondling her boobs. And she… Like, I, I thought that he had brought her here to like assault her, but apparently this is just how he rolls, I guess?

I know, right? And, and she’s, and she’s like, she’s like, “Knock it off. Not here. This place creeps me out.” And he’s not even nice. It’s so weird

Clip: How can you not feel safe? Come on, we haven’t got all day. I don’t like this place. What’s there not to like? Come on, let’s go. I- 

Craig: Oh my gosh. But eventually, I don’t know, she pushes him off, and they, they almost have sex, and the girl’s watching all of this through an enormous crack in the wall, like- Mm-hmm

how they don’t see her, I don’t know. I know. But they leave, and they drive off on the motorcycle, and then they turn around. Like, they had to go up the road to make a U-ey or something. And meanwhile, while they’re doing that, she’s behind the shed with this one little puddle where she, like, scoops up some slime, and when they come driving back down the road, she throws the mud on them- 

Clip: Mm-hmm

Craig: and they and they crash. And they crash and somehow both get impaled on different huge spikes that just happened to be sticking out of the ground. I don’t have- I don’t know … any idea what this is. But- But it’s hilarious. It, it’s so funny because, like, they are both just impaled on these huge poles. Oh, and it’s so bloody and gross and she’s just- Oh my God

and she just runs home. 

Todd: It’s hilarious because it- you would almost think you’re watching an intentional comedy- 

Craig: Uh-huh … 

Todd: because of how random this is. By the way, I gotta mention these two, this, this couple here. This guy is a longtime stunt guy. He got started in 1981 on Friday the 13th Part II doing stunts.

Went on to do stunts or be a stunt coordinator on so many popular movies. Sleepaway Camp, Alone in the Dark, The Flamingo Kid, The Money Pit, Angel Heart, Innerspace, Teen Wolf Too, Bull Durham. G- dude, you just read through his entire… JFK. I didn’t know there were stunts in JFK. I guess there were. 

Craig: Huh. 

Todd: But, like, you read through his entire resume, and it’s insane.

Almost every movie since 1981 that’s had stunts in it, including all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies- 

Craig: Wow … 

Todd: yeah, this guy has been a stunt, either a stunt performer or a stunt coordinator on. I- incredible. I guess this was one of his first stunts. Getting impaled on this thing. Maybe this is what inspired him.

Craig: That’s funny. 

Todd: It’s so charming, though. Like you said, like, everything about this is just uber cute, from the way the girl is dressed to, like you said, this is such a typical start for all these horror movies right now is there’s some traumatic childhood incident that happens. It’s usually sexual in nature, like this one is.

And then the way that they’re just… She just flings mud on them, and it’s enough to kill these guys as they fly off the road into totally random spikes that have no purpose for being there. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Ugh. 

Craig: The other thing that I found funny about this, and I didn’t think about- really until later. This causes her trauma and we, we, we skip now to 18 years later where she’s a science teacher, and I’ll come back to that in a second.

But what’s funny to me is that they could have shot this whole opening sequence at any given point with or without the knowledge of the actors in the rest of the movie because it doesn’t really matter. Like, ultimately she gets triggered by something that reminds her of this, and she has flashbacks to it, and she kinda loses her mind because of it.

But it could’ve been anything. Oh, yeah. She could’ve been- It could’ve been- It could’ve been any accident. She could’ve been involved in any kind of violent thing where she was maybe kind of responsible for somebody’s death. Car 

Todd: accident. 

Craig: Yeah. There’s no real reference to, a- aside from flashbacks, to this scene.

Todd: Yeah, except that the, the teenagers later, and I found this amusing too, when the teenagers eventually wanna go to the swamp, Dickens says, “Hey, let’s go to the swamp tonight.” One guy’s like, “I don’t know, man. That place creeps me out. Those two kids were killed there.” He says, “No, that’s a myth. No kids were killed there 18 years ago.”

Craig: Fair. You’re right, you’re right. 

Todd: And I’m like- 

Craig: It’s just so, it’s easy to miss that part because it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, no. Like, it just, it’s, it, it’s any childhood trauma as it always is. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: But yeah. But then, but then we cut to 18 years later and she’s Ms. Brooke Storm now. And she’s a science teacher and she teaches a science class full of 20-something-year-olds.

Douchebags. Douchebags. And they’re all… The first thing that I thought as I was watching this was this woman does not have what it takes to be a teacher. No. She’s not in control of this classroom. These kids are walking all over her. You have to have a certain grit to be a teacher and this woman does not have 

Todd: it.

I, I r- I honestly wasn’t sure how this woman made it through the next 18 years of her life the state that she’s in. I mean, they make her out to be the jumpiest, most t- timid, scared, anxious, on edge woman you could imagine. But one thing that I’m not gonna say about this movie is that the dialogue is really quite good and inspired.

Craig: No. 

Todd: The dialogue is really silly. While the class is just making fun of her and just seem like, “Oh, man, we have to turn in a test,” and I don’t know, they’re just making a huge deal out of something that they’ve gotta do in every class every day probably because they can harass her I guess. She’s back there yelling at them going- Class, 

Clip: you don’t understand learning, do you?

I’m here to help you if you’ll only give me a chance. Biology is important

I’d like to reach you people She’s enough. 

Craig: Oh my God. 

Todd: Oh, definitely something. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And that’s where we get our first look at, at Stri- I wanna call him Striker now, man, but it’s, uh, Dickens. 

Craig: Dickens, 

Todd: yeah. Dickens. Charles… Is his name Charles? I don’t… We ne- we never got his first name, did we? He’d just be an unnecessary dick to the teacher, and basically an unnecessary dick through the entire thing.

He’s a- 

Craig: Yeah, he’s a douchebag. At first I thought that he was just going to be, like, the class clown, but no, he’s a troublemaker f- for the sake of being a jerk. And- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: he just gets worse and worse as it goes on. Like, here he’s just kinda jerking around in class or whatever, but I don’t know, he’s just openly defiant for no reason.

Like, this poor teacher, again, she’s totally lost the script. Y- when you see a teacher in front of the room having to be like, “Come on, you guys, I’m serious. Really, come on. Calm down.” Like, you- you’ve lost it. Like, you- Yeah … you’ve lost control. It’s over. You may as well just go sit at your desk. She asks him to collect the tests or whatever, which he d- does in a butthole manner, and then he walks up to her.

She’s like, “File the tests,” and he’s like, “Okay.” And he throws them up over his shoulder so they, you know, scatter everywhere. He’s like, “They’re filed.” And she’s like, “I don’t even…” It’s such a stupid standoff. It’s so dumb. And he’s just a, he’s a jerk. 

Todd: And you’re right, she has no control. 

Craig: She has no control and, and he ends up kind of being the leader of this little group of outcasts, and there’s a girl named- 

Todd: At first they called her Elizabeth, but actually they call her Queenie for the…

I guess that’s her nickname, I suppose, Queenie. 

Craig: And then there’s a, a heavier set guy that they call Smiler, and they’re kinda this little group of outcasts. And then they immediately kind of take in this other guy named John John, who apparently up until today was a popular jock, but now he’s on the outs.

Do we ever find out why he’s on the outs with the… Why did he get kicked off the football team and they’re all taunting him and calling him a coward? Like, I couldn’t figure that out. 

Todd: I never figured it out either, but this school, I, I think this is an aptly titled movie, Hell High. If you went to this school, like, it would be hell.

The coach comes up to him in the hallway and is like, “John John, no one quits the team. You’re a coward, and I expect to see your uniform in my office as soon as possible.” He just tried to quit? Is that what it was? 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: Maybe they’re calling him a coward because he quit the team. 

Craig: I guess. I don’t know.

Todd: I don’t… He’s not the f- quarterback. I mean- 

Craig: No, there’s another character who I think his n- his name isn’t Quarterback, but that’s all anybody ever calls him. 

Todd: They literally call him the Quarterback a lot. He even calls himself- … the Quarterback at some point or two. He’s a c- he’s an archetype. 

Craig: Oh, boy. But, but yeah, there’s some setup, I guess, with the teacher.

I kept calling her Storm, I think. 

Todd: Brooke. 

Craig: But she gets asked out by the coach, but she’s so jumpy. Like, like you said, like, how is she even- survived life up until this point. She’s so jumpy, she doesn’t know what to do, and then she’s got another lady teacher friend who’s like, “No, seriously, you should go to the football game with him.

You really need to get out more,” which apparently she does. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Eventually, when she does go to the football game, and I don’t wanna skip the next part, but eventually when she does go to the football game, she goes, like, fucking incognito. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I… Like, what was that about? 

Todd: Got big old sunglasses on, a big coat.

Craig: She dresses like an old, like she, yeah, like she’s in an old-timey detective movie or something. Mm-hmm. She, like, wraps a scarf around her head and she’s just got sunglasses. Like, oh my God, I didn’t even understand what was happening. 

Todd: You would think she’s in the witness protection program or something. 

Craig: Yes.

And she’s just sitting there in the bleachers amongst all these other normal people, and she looks like she’s waiting for, like, a drop-off, like somebody’s gonna drop off a briefcase or something. I don’t know. It’s, it’s so weird. 

Todd: Well, the coach isn’t even with her. I mean, I guess he’s gotta be in the game, right?

But, like, she’s by herself. Wasn’t, like, a, the best date for her to get out on anyway, I’d suppose. 

Craig: But before that, Dickens, he’s just sitting in his car and, and John John, the disgraced football player is, is with him, and eventually they see Brooke, Mrs. Storm, leave and Dickens starts following her. And they follow her home I guess ’cause he’s mad at her because she back-talked him in class or something.

I don’t know. 

Todd: He’s, uh, unreasonably mad at her. It’s, he’s just fixated on her, yeah. 

Craig: Uh-huh. And they follow her home and then watch her shower. And listen, I’m not a lady so, mm, I don’t know. Maybe showering is a lot more fun and erotic for ladies than it is for dudes. 

Todd: If horror movies have led me to believe anything, then yes, this is one of those things.

They… Women spend a lot of time soaping themselves up and they get extreme pleasure from it. 

Craig: Yeah, like apparently w- I mean, when I wash my boobs, it doesn’t really do- … much for me, but when, uh, when this lady washes her boobs, man, she really gets into it. And they’re watching through the window like a bunch of couple pervs.

Todd: Not to be a perv, but they’re clearly not hers either. They clearly used a bottled body double for both- Yeah … of the, the little topless scene. And my, I think it’s even the same body double, to be honest with you. 

Craig: I, it might be. Uh- 

Todd: Yeah, it’s the same set Both times. 

Craig: Great boobs. 

Todd: Yeah. No, they’re, they are n- whoever they belong to, they’re quite nice.

All natural. I approve. It’s so typical teen movie stuff, right? They’re watching through the window, then they run off and I don’t know. It- like you said, she loves soaping up. She decides to go out with the coach. This neighborhood was interesting, wasn’t it? 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know if the movie was jumping around or if I was not really paying full attention- Oh, 

Todd: it 

Craig: was

which might be it, because th- th- they’re watching her undress and then she gets a phone call. I don’t remember who the phone call was from. But then all of a sudden, John is by himself driving in this ’80s neighborhood, this ’80s suburb neighborhood. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It made me very nostalgic. It reminded me of, like, ET or something.

When I saw, like, the kids on bikes, I was like, “Oh, what a better time it was.” 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: I, I live in a family neighborhood. I never see kids on bikes. It’s sad. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s just not a thing anymore. Westchester County, New York, is where this was filmed, and the homes here at this time, they all kinda look the same, but they’re not like the cookie cutter homes that you see now.

They’re like these two full-on two-story homes that all have this brown wooden siding on them. It’s so interesting. And then he goes to the door. He’s going to pick up Queenie for the, the game, right? 

Craig: I guess. I don’t know that we knew this. 

Todd: Yeah, ’cause he was, he was asked. 

Craig: Okay. All right. 

Todd: Yeah, it was just one line where for reasons I don’t understand, Dickens suggested that he pick up Queenie for the, before the game.

And he stands at the door, and he kinda turns around, and he looks at the neighborhood, kinda shakes his head, and goes, “America 

Craig: That was weird 

Todd: What was that all about? I don’t know. What was he, what was he thinking? I don’t, I don’t know either. Ah, but they’re trying to develop, not really strongly, but a sense of romance between these two.

Or at least he’s clearly into her, she’s clearly into him. 

Craig: Several things here. First of all, he goes up and he knocks on her door, fine. But nobody answers, and so he just goes in. Now this happens in movies all the time. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: U- unless it was, like, my parents’ house, I don’t knock on the door and if nobody answers I just go in.

Like … Okay, whatever. Oh. But anyway. 

Todd: It’s, it’s one of those movie things, right? It’s just like- Oh … hanging up the phone without saying goodbye, right? 

Craig: But he, nobody answers so he just goes in and he opens the door. He’s like, “Hello?” She’s like, “Oh, I’m up here.” And then we cut to her and inexplicably she is in a full leotard and, like, leggings and headband.

Like, she stepped out of a Jane Fonda workout- 

Todd: Yeah. … 

Craig: into this scene for no reason. 

Todd: No, she’s, like, stretching at first. Well, I think the reason is she’s got kind of a halter top. It’s, it’s one of those sort of, like, half leotards, right? It’s got straps that come over th- her shoulders, but then there’s a halter top over it.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And she’s perky. She’s perking out on this one, and I feel like the movie was very gratuitous in that way. And then, uh, she asks him to turn around. “I’m gonna put on a different top,” and when she, he turns back around she’s pulled up her shirt to flash him. 

Craig: Ooh, she pulls it up for us. first. And then she says, “Okay.”

Like she tells him, “Turn around, I’m gonna change my shirt,” and he does. And she, then he turns around. She pulls her boobs out and then goes, “Okay.” And he turns around and sh- does she say, “What do you think?” 

Todd: Yep. 

Craig: And then they just leave? Or does 

Todd: she just- They just leave. She says, “Ha ha.” She puts it down and then they go.

Yeah. Oh my God. 

Craig: So weird. 

Todd: It’s so funny. It’s just, it’s just another excuse to pull these, this set out again. Apparently this actress was supposed to go topless herself, and then she got cold feet last minute, got nervous about the crew being around or something like that, and decided not to do it, so they had to use a body double.

And I guarantee you, same body double they obviously used for the shower scene. But, uh, eh, I don’t mind. Not in the slightest. So it’s the football game. We’ve been in this movie for 20 minutes, right? And nothing- Mm-hmm … terribly significant has happened, but it’s moved along all right. We have an hour left.

It’s not a long movie. 

Craig: No, it’s- 

Todd: Actually, I think it’s more like an hour and 17 minutes, something like that. 

Craig: I was gonna say, if you cut out the opening credits and the end credits, it’s less than an hour, 20. 

Todd: Oh yeah, for sure. And Dickens walks in, so like we see the game, right? There, there’s this team playing, and I have to admit, like they did a pretty good job.

Some of these movies with low budgets, it’s almost laughably bad how they try their best to make it look like a crowd and to make the game look like an authentic game. But you can tell it’s just 10 people kinda standing around in uniforms and like a crowd that’s just shot at very close up, just the same eight people sitting in bleachers staring off the camera.

Craig: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: Th- this one at least had some wide shots. It felt like a high school game that was just, I don’t know, more of a scrimmage than a full-on game really, but maybe early season. I don’t know. It, it didn’t come across as the big game that happens at night, but it, I actually thought that this did a better job than most of these low-budget movies of portraying a high school football game.

Craig: I agree with you. It’s just strange because it’s almost like they felt like they had to cobble together the things that you’re supposed to have in this type of movie. Mm-hmm. Because there was no reason for this scene really. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: It, it, it’s just kind of a pit stop. The three others aside from Dickens are all there at the game.

The teacher’s there incognito for some reason. The game is happening, and like you said, we see shots of that. But then Dickens arrives- … and I have no idea what was happening in this scene 

Todd: There’s just, just for no reason, he- as he’s walking towards the bleachers, he comes across a football player who’s been injured.

Looks like one hell of an injury. 

Craig: He looks like he got hit by a car. 

Todd: Blood all over him. There’s something’s with his leg. He’s… Nobody else around, right? Like, they just wheeled him out on the, to the edge of the track and just left him there for a while. He- certainly there’s nobody around because Dickens walks up to him and makes some comment to him, and then pulls out the biggest switchblade I’ve ever seen in my life, opens it up, menaces him with it, and then a medic comes by and wheels this kid off, and Dickens puts his switchblade away and then walks on.

Craig: Yeah. Dickens is like, “How’s the leg?” And the guy’s like, “I don’t know, Dickens.” And he’s like, “You- they’re gonna put you under the knife.” And then he pulls out his knife and he’s like, “I want you to think of this knife when you’re…” I’m like, “What are you talking about?” 

Todd: Why do you do this to people? What’s wrong with you?

Craig: And then, i- as far as I remember, there is no reference to this ever again. No. I have no idea who that kid was. I have no idea why Dickens is menacing him. I have no idea why this kid got hit by a freight train on the football field. It is so wild. And, and then he just goes up and sits with his friends for a minute- Uh-huh

until he can say, “I’ve got an idea.” 

Todd: I also have no idea why that guy was wearing a uniform that was different from all the other players on both, on the other two teams. 

Craig: Oh, boy. I didn’t even notice that. I didn’t even notice that. 

Todd: He says, “I got an idea.” He wants to go harass the teacher 

Craig: Yeah, and that’s kind of the crux of it.

Before they do that, they drive… Well, there’s like a music montage. Again- Yes … it, it, like, feels like- 

Todd: Typical … 

Craig: well, they’re just, like, piecing together what a teen movie is supposed to be. Mm-hmm. So now there’s this weird music montage where it’s, like, half action shots of the football game, and, like, the coach, like, getting comically frustrated, and then- 

Todd: Oh, and Smiler throwing popcorn.

That guy, every time he chucked a handful of popcorn down at somebody down below, I’m like, “There can’t be much left in that bag.” And then when they finally get up to leave, he comes back and dumps, like, a, another full bag of popcorn straight on those people. I was like, “Oh my God.” 

Craig: He keeps throwing it at the same two people, and I didn’t understand if this was supposed to be a joke.

Like, it’s these two guys who look almost just alike, and they’re both in, like, black leather jackets. 

Todd: Oh. 

Craig: I didn’t understand what was happening. Like, I didn’t know if they were supposed to be a stereotype of something or- Hmm. 

Todd: A stereotype lost to time. 

Craig: Well, I don’t know, but, like, they weren’t small guys, and they were in, like, biker leather.

Like, they should’ve jumped that guy and kicked his butt. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But whatever. Anyway, during this music montage, the other half of it is the four outcasts, I guess, in Dickens’s car, which is a convertible, and they drive out onto the field during the game. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: I thought for sure they were gonna hit one of the players.

Hmm. Like, I thought that was gonna be … It l- it looked like it was being set up that way. Yeah. But instead, John John, the disgraced football player, catches the football and is, like, celebrating with it. 

Todd: They drive off. 

Craig: And they drive off, and I honestly was perplexed at this- point and I was like, are we supposed to be rooting for these people?

Like, was that- Right … supposed to be like a heroic thing that they just drove out onto the field during a game? I said, i- in my mind I’m like, “‘Cause that doesn’t feel heroic. That feels like a douchebag move.” 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Somebody could have gotten hurt. It’s, it’s very main character energy. Like, 

Todd: like- But you’re right.

It’s, it’s like set up very triumphantly. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: Like a, like a, the football player catching the winning pass of the game or something like that. He’s- 

Craig: Yeah, like a hero moment. It’s weird. 

Todd: Yeah, he’s shot up against the sunlight, you’re absolutely right, and everybody else looks like, oh, shocked. They, they’re shocked and appalled and beside themselves.

Like, he really showed them, didn’t he? The coach is angry. Everyone’s upset because seems like they took the only football they had or something. I don’t know. 

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: But yeah, h- I’m still waiting for the hell of this high at this point. Like, so much movie has happened, and I’m waiting for the inciting incident.

Craig: Well, and it comes, I guess, but not before… I mean, there are so many- Not before a lot of other stuff … little things like, like I know right after the game, Storm, who’s in disguise, apparently flees the football game. I don’t know. Maybe, maybe she’s with the coach. Maybe the coach drives her home. But they end up at her door and she’s like trying to get in and he’s like, “Oh, can I come in?”

She’s like, “Oh, no, I better not.” And he’s like, “No, really, I wanna come in.” And she’s like, “Oh, no, no, we’ll, we’ll catch up another time.” Like, she’s desperately trying to get away from him and sneak into her house. Which, a- again, I don’t understand. And then he’s like… 

Clip: Boy, those kids really let me down. If we’d have won the game, she couldn’t have waited to get me in the sack Those little bastards made me look bad.

They better pray tomorrow never comes 

Craig: It was so random. I didn’t know if they were trying to set up a red herring, but it doesn’t make sense to set up a red herring because there’s really no killer to speak of at this point. 

Todd: Yeah. A better movie would’ve taken advantage of these situations or just not put them in there at all.

Craig: Y- not put them in there at all, I think. I mean, I guess you kind of have to include Storm, uh, Brooke, whatever her name is, in the narrative to justify her importance later, but it really feels shoehorned in. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: And then I didn’t understand at all, okay, so the four of them, the, the four bad kids or whatever, park, I said in the woods, but you reminded me earlier it’s supposed to be a swamp-

and they split up, and I couldn’t figure out what they were doing, but they all have, like, trash bags. And this is clearly not a swamp. Like you said, it’s just, like, a, a field or something, and they must have had to, like, dig little holes that they then filled with I don’t know what it’s, what it really is.

I, I guess they’re supposed to be gathering, like, mud or something. But they’re basically scooping with their bare hands dirty water- … into garbage bags. 

Todd: Yes. It’s so con- It’s 

Craig: so stupid. 

Todd: It’s so stupid. Later he calls it slime And later, it appears green. So I’m thinking that this is just poor production design, honestly.

I think in the script is they go to the swamp to get gross swamp slime, you know- Uh-huh … smelly, nasty. But you’re right. It- they’re scooping dirty water into trash bags, which I don’t know why they had to split up to do this. 

Craig: I don’t either. 

Todd: I swear every shot is of this, is of a different kid at the very same little puddle.

Craig: Yeah. Sh- like shot to shot, i- in the exact same location as though we’re supposed to believe they’re in different places- Mm … but it’s the same. 

Todd: And Smiler just can- can’t stand this. He goes, “Shit, I hate this. I can’t live like this. I can take care of myself.” And then, like, he pulls a doll arm out of there and gets totally freaked out by it and falls backwards.

And there’s a POV at some point. It looks like something unknown might be stalking them, and I’m thinking, “Why?” Like, we know what happened in the swamp. There was nothing supernatural. It was this- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: accident 18 years ago. We know who was involved. There’s nothing. So, like, it’s setting the swamp up to be this scary place with the music and with them, you know, turning around at a sound, and this little POV shot that turns out to be Dickens- 

Craig: Uh

Todd: scaring some of the other kids. But again, it’s so unnecessary. It’s just more baffling than anything else. 

Craig: Yeah. It’s stupid. 

Todd: Almost like you said about the football thing, just stupid. Like, oh, this is how these movies always go. There’s a scary swamp or a scary forest, and there’s something mysterious about it, and so they do this.

But there is nothing mysterious about this place. 

Craig: No. John John and Queenie make out for a second in there, and then they get scared by Dickens, but then it’s, it’s pretty inconsequential. I mean, they just needed to be there to get the mud. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And, and then they go off to scare Storm. Now, this is the part of the movie that bothered me.

There are things that I liked about it. They show up at her house, and they put on these masks, and I really liked the design of the masks. Yeah. They were cool. I didn’t read anything about them. I don’t know where they got them. 

Todd: They look like they probably came off the shelf somewhere. They’re not, you know- 

Craig: Probably

Todd: but they’re cool. 

Craig: They’re good, yeah. I mean, one is, like, a scary head with another head, like, eating its way out of it. John John’s is kind of like a jester with, like, kind of a phallic nose. One’s just kind of a devil, I think. But they, they look really good, and they are menacing. But that’s what they’re gonna do.

They’re gonna come scare this teacher, and when they get to her house, John John’s a little nervous about it. 

Clip: Look, I don’t wanna do any more than what we talked about, okay? We’re out of our league just by being here. Yeah, right. A little scare, and we’re out of here. The masks are just for protection. It’s not that I’m scared, but she’s real.

This is big-time stuff and real trouble if we blow it. What do you mean she’s real? She’s just another victim And besides, everybody knows you’re just a coward, John John 

Craig: Like he’s supposed to have some shred of moral dignity or something. I don’t know. Yeah. Um, but anyway, they do it anyway, and they climb up on her roof, stomp and make a lot of noise to scare her And she is very scared, as I can only imagine you would be.

Now, as a teacher myself, I think my first thought would be, “Oh, it’s probably kids messing with me,” but I would still be scared. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And that’s not okay. And like I have told… I do, I teach high school, and kids, you know, can be kind of stupid. There was one year that their senior prank was that they all took sleeping bags and slept on the lawn of one of the other teachers, a, a, a young, popular teacher.

Uh-huh. And they were telling, they were telling me about it the next day and I said, “That’s hilarious. If you did that at my house, I would call the police.” Like, 

Todd: I, 

Craig: I seriously, seriously doubt that there are any teenagers listening to this podcast right now, but if you are, do not with your teachers outside of school.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: They are just normal people, and they don’t want you m- hanging around- … outside their house, outside of school hours. I would call the police. 

Todd: Let alone dancing on their roof. 

Craig: Yeah, and, and, and it goes, it goes even beyond that because, I don’t know, I think she calls somebody. There, there’s kind of a break in it.

Todd: At first, you know, they’re dancing on her roof. That’s freaking her out, ’cause we already know she’s just a neurotic mess. Then they toss that slime on her window- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: which makes her distraught and pleading. Now, look, this was his grand plan? We’re gonna dance on her r- on her roof and we’re gonna throw slime on her window?

It seems like that was his main plan. At least that’s what he- I 

Craig: don’t 

Todd: know … comes up with with the kids, right? But it seems to imply that he knows that this slime is gonna affect her. You know what I mean? Because we know her history. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: That she had that accident, and it was some of that slime that she threw on the bikers that caused that accident.

But he doesn’t know that. Nobody knows that. 

Craig: No, no. 

Todd: So it’s just a coincidence- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: that he picked for his plan the exact thing that was probably gonna freak her out the most. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: So I thought that was a little dumb. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And you’re right, I, I don’t know if she called anybody or if this was just her friend coming by to see how the date went.

Craig: I think that’s, I think that’s what it is. I mean, it, it bothered me. Okay, so they dance on her roof and that scares her, and she’s like having flashbacks to the opening scene when she accidentally killed those people, and she’s like really freaking out. They take a break and like have a five-minute conversation on her roof.

I was like, “What are you doing?” Yeah. “This isn’t even good pranking. Like, you need to get out of there. Like, surely the police would be coming or something.” 

Todd: They think it’s great, though. Like, one of the chara- one of the guys goes, “I have to give it to you, Dickens. You sure came up with a good one tonight.”

And I was like, “It’s so s-” I know, it’s so 

Craig: stupid. No. It’s so 

Todd: dumb. 

Craig: And I, okay, I get it, it’s just mud or slime or whatever. That’s vandalism. Don’t- Vandalize people’s homes 

Todd: We sound like, we sound like- It’s 

Craig: horrible. 

Todd: We sound like the most upright, we sound like the Upright Citizens Brigade here. Don’t vandalize people’s stuff.

Don’t. 

Craig: Come on. Somebody’s gonna have to clean that up. And- A- and after they take their little break, that’s where they start sliming the house, and then she, like, opens the door and she’s freaking out, and somebody dumps a big garbage bag full of slime right on her- On her, 

Todd: on her 

Craig: head. She, she’s looking up screaming, mouth wide open, and she just gets a bag full of slime just all over her, and then she goes back in.

Now, you said you thought that this was Dickens’ plan all along. I think that this was part of his plan all along, but I also think that he had planned all along to assault her. 

Todd: You think so? 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t think that the rest of them were in on that. In fact, I don’t think the rest of them really knew what was happening.

Mm-hmm. Um, after, after they threw all the gunk at the house and on her, they ran off, but apparently only three of them, all of them except Dickens, ran to the house. Oh, 

Todd: that’s right. 

Craig: And, and they’re confused. They’re like, “Where is he? What’s going on?” Meanwhile, we see that he’s breaking into her house. I- in fact, that happened during the, the big attack.

Yes. Like, while they were all throwing slime, she was standing at her locked door, and Dickens broke in and, like, reached for her. And again, I’m thinking, “Okay, fine, the masks and the stomping. Okay, fine, the th- the mud or whatever.” But no, you don’t break someone’s window and try to grab the… Now we’re talking about breaking and entering, and assault, and- 

Todd: Yeah.

I did think at some point this was gonna turn out to be one of these home invasion movies, you know? With the masks and everything, and him breaking his way in. But actually, he runs off at this point because that’s when Brooke’s friend comes over. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And she reaches in through the broken window, and she doesn’t do her any favors, this woman.

Like, “Oh, you’re gonna be fine. Don’t worry.” It’s like she doesn’t even realize that th- all this went down. 

Craig: I know. She’s like, “It’s probably just some kids.” 

Todd: Just some kids. 

Craig: Mean- meanwhile, listener, don’t forget that her friend is covered head to toe in swamp muck. 

Todd: Like, yeah. She just helps her wipe it off and s- and gives her a Quaalude.

Craig: Puts her in bed and gives her a Quaalude. “

Todd: It’s gonna be fine.” Her friend’s like, “No, no, no, no.” And she’s like, “No, it’s okay. Tr- trust me, like, all the kids do them. You know, just here, take this. It’ll help you calm down. I’ll just come back in the morning and check up on you, all right? Believe me, everything’s gonna be fine.”

And just leaves her like an asshole. Oh my God. By the way, we now only have 35 minutes left in this movie. Again, this is a significant event, but we are, we are over two-thirds of the way through this film and we’re just now getting to this. 

Craig: And this is… Yeah. 

Todd: If I hadn’t been tracking the time ’cause I just had it up on my screen the whole time, I wouldn’t have been as puzzled.

I would’ve thought, “Okay. Well, it took a while to get to it, but we got this. Now we got a lot of movie left.” There is not a lot of movie left after this. 

Craig: Mm-mm. 

Todd: Everything just happens very quickly from here on out. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and there’s quite a lot of it. I mean, it, it also takes a weird turn here where Dickens breaks back into the house and starts molesting her.

Now, this Quaalude ha- I don’t know anything about Quaaludes. I, I think of the ’70s when I think of Quaaludes. Yeah. But I, I, I think that they were or, or have historically been used as date rape drugs sometimes, and, and she’s out of it, and Dickens is gross, and he’s, like, molesting her. Yeah. Like, playing with her boobs and, and rage-talking at her, and it’s all very misogynistic and gross, and, like, he’s gonna get her back for what she did, and it, it’s all disgusting.

And at some point, they … The, the rest of them are in the, in the car. The other two boys are like, “Send…” They send the other girl, they send Queenie to look for him. It, it’s like they’re joking about it. Like, Smiler’s like, “You never know what that Dickens is getting up to.” Like, this isn’t a funny joke. Like, he’s, he’s accosting her.

It’s disgusting. And then when Queenie shows up, she walks in as he’s, like, fondling this unconscious or semi-conscious woman, and she kind of chastises him a little bit but doesn’t really make that big a deal out of it, and then she starts molesting the teacher. This was so weird. I know. This whole part was very strange, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

And when she is… Like, she pushes Dickens off the lady, and then she’s, like, fondling her and stuff, and she’s like, “Oh, do you like it? Do you l-” She’s asking Dickens, like, “Does this turn you on?” And it does, and then he gets back in on it, and then he liter- I, I think that he says that he’s going to rape her, and it appears that he’s about to when the other two boys walk in and have to interrupt it again.

And it was all much darker and, I don’t know, it felt a little uneven- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: at this point. I’m like, “What kind of movie is this? I don’t understand.” 

Todd: You remember that other movie we saw with the monkey that went nuts, and it was the Italian director? 

Craig: Primal Rage? 

Todd: Primal Rage, remember? Where it’s a lot like this, too, where there’s- 

Craig: Yeah

Todd: there- there’s a lot of goofiness and hijinks and cartoon characters, and then suddenly you get this extremely dark assault. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: And it’s, it just really comes out of left field, and it casts a little bit of a cloud over every- you know, the whole movie at that point. 

Craig: Uh-huh. 

Todd: Yeah, it was weird, and I wasn’t…

You know, it’s just these characters feel so unreal, and everything they’ve been doing l- is such a eye-rolling, groaning up u- to this point that when it goes to this level all of a sudden, you’re right, it’s just off tonally. It just totally changes. 

Craig: Well, and it seems like it’s approaching it with a little bit of dark humor, and I don’t know if there’s an audience for that, but I’m not it.

Like, I- Yeah … I just never find any kind of humor, dark or otherwise, in this kind of violence and assault. It’s not funny to me. I don’t… And again, maybe that’s just a matter of taste, but I don’t like it, and it was off-putting to me. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: Now we got all these kids back in the room with her. We see, we the viewers, the camera sees that Brooke has regained consciousness and she’s kind of opening her eyes and her eyes are fluttering around.

While the kids are arguing about what to do next, she jumps out of bed and throws herself out the window, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre style, through the glass of the second story window, I think. And, and they see her down on the ground, and Smiler goes out there and checks her pulse, says, “She’s dead.” Yeah.

And then they have to figure out what to do. Like, they drive away at first, and then Dickens is driving the car and he pulls over and is like, “We have to have a plan. This is gonna ruin our lives.” And he somehow convinces them, I don’t know, he convinces them that they have to cover it up somehow. 

Todd: They have to frame somebody else for it.

Craig: They have to frame somebody else. 

Todd: And who are they gonna frame? I don’t know, let’s just frame the quarterback of the- The quarterback … of the football team. 

Craig: Why not? 

Todd: Right? ‘Cause John John used to be on the team, so he can go to the diner where they all eat afterward the game, he knows they’re gonna be there, and get something from the quarterback that they can plant in her house.

So then John John proceeds to do this in the worst possible way, the stupidest way possible. He sneaks up into the parking lot. They can see through the window, and it, it looks like there’s the table the quarterback’s eating at. One of his buddies keeps kinda looking out the window like he’s kinda wondering what, what’s going on out there.

But he manages to successfully get his letter jacket from the car, and it’s like, okay, then run away. But he decides he’s gonna slash his tires first. That didn’t make any sense. 

Craig: No. I didn’t get it. 

Todd: And then when he leaves, instead of just sneaking out, he peels out fast, which then raises the suspicions of the guys inside, and who’s like, “Oh my God, that’s Dickens’ car.

We need to follow him.” And they see the tires are slashed, so they get on the motorcycle and they f- and they chase after him. 

Craig: Why? Why are they chasing him? 

Todd: I don’t know. They have no idea, right? They don’t know what’s going on. They… There’s no need. There’s no need for this. I 

Craig: mean, it’s fine. Like, I, I… It’s fine that they are the popular football players and they don’t like Dickens, ’cause they don’t even know it’s John John driving.

They think it’s Dickens driving. It’s fine that they, like, are high school rivals or whatever, but why are they chasing him? Like- 

Todd: They have no motivation. 

Craig: No, it doesn’t make any sense. 

Todd: So Dickens’ car peeled out of the parking lot, so what? Like, they don’t know what’s going on. 

Craig: Right I mean, it’s just to motivate a chase scene.

Mm-hmm. And a completely unnecessary chase scene that goes nowhere. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: They chase him on the motorcycle down the dark highway, and eventually he does a U-ey in the highway and somehow makes them crash the motorcycle, which explodes. 

Todd: It blows up spectacularly. 

Craig: A huge explosion. 

Todd: Yeah. Okay. I 

Craig: mean, it was good.

It was a good explosion. 

Todd: Didn’t make sense, but yeah, it was a good explosion. And- 

Craig: And then we never see those people again, I don’t 

Todd: think … but we know they’re fine. I guess they, they end the chase there. But now this guy’s left this huge trail of suspicion behind him. I mean, my God, this is… This really ruins your plan.

But back in the house, Dickens is arguing with everyone. Queenie eventually storms out, and she- 

Craig: The house, right? They’re just… They’re hanging out at the dead woman’s house- 

Todd: Yeah … which 

Craig: I thought was sus, but whatever … 

Todd: does- didn’t make sense either. You’d think they’d wanna be gone. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Who knows if her friend’s gonna come back.

You know, you never know. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And then we see Brooke’s eyes open. I thought he checked her for dead. Guess he didn’t do a good job. Yeah, 

Craig: well, he is kind of a big dumb-dumb, so maybe he doesn’t really know how to check a pulse. I don’t know, ’cause presumably this is, I… This is not intended to be a supernatural deal, right?

Like- Right, 

Todd: yeah. I don’t think so … 

Craig: she just was not dead, and now she’s alive, right. 

Todd: And, you know, the movie cinematically does a good job of all this. I mean, you can see the anticipation when the camera kinda starts from far away and slowly dollies across the grass and into her face. You’re like, “Oh, God.

Her eyes are gonna open.” 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And, and they do. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s very typical, but it’s al- Like you said earlier, it’s very well done And I also really liked the fact that a lot of this took place outside, and it wasn’t so muddy dark that you couldn’t see what was going on. 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: yeah. Nor was it so well lit it didn’t seem like darkness at all.

It, it was really nice in that way. And I don’t know, uh, we might have been watching, like, a remastered copy. Maybe if we saw this on VHS it would’ve been dimmer, but it was really nice. And so now it, like I s- like we said, it, it kind of almost becomes like I Spit On Your Grave or Last House On The Left.

Craig: But it all happens so quickly. Oh, yeah. Like, it, it, it really seems like this should’ve been the most of the movie. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: But they just have to wrap it up in, like, 10 minutes. 

Todd: 15 minutes. We have 15 minutes left and, like you said, like five minutes of that is end credits. This should’ve happened in the first act.

This should’ve been the end of the first act. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: And instead, this is the tail end of the movie. 

Craig: And it’s relatively anti-climactic because we see her wake up, and then Dickens gets in a fight with Queenie and sends her outside. The, as soon as she gets outside she hears from the woods, “Help me. Help me.”

So she walks out into the woods. We get the classic j- just shot of her face. “Oh, it’s you.” Right. “

Todd: Oh, 

Craig: thank God you’re okay. Come on, let’s go back to the house. I won’t let that guy hurt you anymore. We’ll get you help.” And then she gets her face smashed in with a rock. Right. The, the teacher, who is all bloody now and just in…

Like, like you said, it feels like I Spit On Your Grave ’cause she’s just in her underthings. Like, you know, she’s in, like, panties and, like, a camisole or something, and she’s all beaten up and bloodied. And she hits that girl and kills her presumably. Mm-hmm. And then John-John gets back and he hears a woman’s voice from the woods, and he thinks it’s Queenie so he goes out there.

He gets hit in the head with a rock- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: and falls down a hill. And, I mean, anybody who’s over the age of five knows that he’s not dead obviously. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But then we have to deal with the other two who are still in the house. So we just get a random shot of her bloody hand grabbing a pencil- … and a comically large knife.

Todd: From a drawer that is lit on the inside. 

Craig: Specifically just those two things. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s very giallo. 

Craig: Yeah. And then we cut back to the boys. Smiler at this point is kind of freaking out and because he’s freaking out I guess his, he gets the tummy rumblings, and he has to go to the bathroom. So he goes up s- he goes, he walks up the stairs where he’s immediately stabbed with a pencil through the temple.

And then with the pencil in his temple he waddles back down the stairs and collapses at the foot of them, and then to she- Does she jump down the stairs on top of Dickens? 

Todd: She just comes down screaming, like Psycho style. And, you know, Dickens wanders over to see what’s going on with Smiley, and she comes r- screaming down the stairs with a knife and immediately pins him to the wall.

And he’s- Yeah … and he’s gone just like that. 

Craig: No, he’s not dead. 

Todd: Pinned to the wall, I guess. 

Craig: Because then, big twist, John’s not dead, and he wakes up and he comes back in. And oh my God, this makes no sense. Then we see the teacher looking at a medical book- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: with a scalpel. What the f- 

Todd: I think this is all supposed to call back to that first scene in the beginning of the movie, including the, the number two pencil.

You remember at the very beginning, the, um- Oh, 

Craig: yeah … 

Todd: what’s-his-name makes a comment about why we always have to use a number two pencil, and someone says, “‘Cause it’s the hard lead.” 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And, and this, they were, I think, dissecting. They were showing the anatomy of a frog. They had just dissected a frog. I think their whole test was to identify the body parts, and so this is supposed to call back to that.

But it’s dumb, right? This isn’t, like, part of her history. This is just something that recently happened. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: So this isn’t a very elegant thing for her to do. But anyway. 

Craig: It makes sense, I guess. She has him tied up to the heat, kinda like a frog would be pinned down. That, that 

Todd: makes sense. Yeah. But, but I mean, again, i- if this called back to her childhood, that would be different as far as I’m concerned.

‘Cause, you know, the whole notion, right, is that she’s regressing or something like that ’cause she’s going crazy. ‘Cause she’s saying things like, “You should never have hurt my dolly,” and- Yeah, 

Craig: like, she thinks that this is the guy that she killed before. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. “You should’ve stayed in the swamp where I left you.”

Just as she’s about to cut into Dickens, I think she cuts into his shoulder, John John leaps in, and they have an extremely brief altercation, and she falls to the ground. 

Craig: He knocks her out, right. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, sort of. Yeah, he knocks her out. He lets Dickens out, and Dickens gets mad and he’s like, “I’m gonna kill her,” and he runs to leap on her.

Craig: This was hilarious. 

Todd: Oh my God. This was so funny. 

Craig: Like, flying leap. He’s like, “I have to kill her.” 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Flying leaps. She’s on the ground. He flying leaps over the couch, knife in hand. She, while he is midair, wakes up, grabs a fireplace poker, puts it upright so that he impales himself on the fireplace poker, but still manages to land directly on top of her in exactly the correct position to slit her throat.

Todd: Oh, it’s so clunky and unbelievable. 

Craig: So then they’re both laying there dead. And John-John just grabs the letterman’s jacket, throws it over the top of them, and leaves. This is hilarious to me. Yeah. Like, evidence. Like, like, the, oops, the killer just accidentally left his letterman’s jacket thrown over the bodies.

Todd: Oopsie. 

Craig: Oh my God. Yeah. So funny. 

Todd: And of course, we still have a few minutes left, so John-John is going a little nuts. He’s just paranoid, I think, and he’s staring at an empty, you know, at the, at the fuzz on the TV for a while. And the next day at school he can’t concentrate, and the teacher’s telling him he needs to look up at her, look up at her, look up at her.

And the police show up at the school. 

Craig: And he’s all paranoid like they’re coming for him. 

Todd: They just walk into the classroom, pick up the quarterback, walk out, and take him into the car down below and drive off. Like, this, these things, I’m sure that’s exactly how they go. Uh, what I loved though was how the quarterback reacted to all this.

As he’s being dragged off he’s like, “Hey, what are you doing? I’m on the football team.” I’m the quarterback. I’m the damn quarterback. Like, “Oh, sorry sir.” 

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: John John screams 

Craig: Yeah, he freaks out 

Todd: His screams echo through the hallways and all the way outside. He’s gonna be tormented forever, and that’s the ending. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Ooh, what a lot of fun this movie was. 

Craig: It, it was fun in a weird way. Like- Yeah … in a weird way it was kinda fun. Like, it was so random and such a hodgepodge of different things, but it was watchable.

Like, it was 100% watchable, I think. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: You’re right that it was slow, and then the last act is so rushed, but for whatever reason, I was engaged in it. Now to be fair, I, I was probably looking at my phone. At one point, I looked, I looked at the, I looked at the screen and I had no idea what was going on.

And I realized that I had been looking at my phone, like, trying to figure out what I wanted for dinner. Like, I was on, like, the Domino’s app- … like, seeing if they had any deals, and then I looked up, I’m like, “Wait, I don’t know what’s happening.” And so I had to rewind it, like, a couple of minutes. Sure. So I suppose you could kind…

Your mind could wander, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. Eh, I don’t know. It, it’s not a good movie, but it’s far from bad. And if you just need something to put on that you haven’t seen before, you could do far worse. I don’t regret watching it. It was fine. 

Todd: I think, you know, people like you and me, and our listeners, will think this movie is fun because of all the things we’ve outlined.

I mean, we’ve talked about how silly it is, but we expect that from these movies and we appreciate it. When it crosses a certain line and gets just so bad it’s unwatchable, that’s when we’re, you know, gonna pan it and say it’s not worth your time. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: That said, I don’t think the general public is gonna have the patience for this, you know?

Probably not. They’re, they’re gonna look at this and they’ll be like, “This is stupid.” The dialogue is dumb. It feels like it was written by high schoolers. The inciting incident, you gotta wait till two-thirds of the way mo- through the movie for it to happen, and then before you know it, the movie’s just got 10 minutes of the most interesting stuff that it’s gotta whiz through real quick in what ends up being a very unbelievable way.

Mm-hmm. Like, all around, like every bit of it Almost every scene doesn’t make much sense. We find charm in that, and we kind of enjoy that, but, you know, most of my family’s not gonna feel that way about this movie, I think. Oh, 

Craig: yeah. Right. No, this is more for kind of diehard, deep dive fans. Yeah. I agree 100%.

But I can imagine some of the people that, you know, talk to us and, and, you know, listen, I, I, I can imagine them actually really enjoying it. So if, if you’re a fan of that type of thing, I, I would definitely encourage you to check it out. There’s something about it. There’s something charming about it despite its many, many flaws.

Todd: Exactly. Exactly. And I did wanna call out John John, the actor, Christopher Cousins. If you’re a Breaking Bad fan, which I am… Did you– Are you a Breaking Bad guy? No. Did you… Oh, okay. Ted Beneke, one of the great characters on that show, a very pivotal character, that, that’s played by, by John John here. He’s fantastic in, in Breaking Bad.

He’s had a nice long career. Over 111 credits. He’s had a long-running stint on a couple soaps, The Young and the Restless, but just all over film and television, mostly television, since he did this. So he’s one of the few people here who actually went on to do big things. And then Daniel Beer, who played the quarterback, he was Randy in Creepshow 2.

He was in the raft segment. 

Craig: Oh, okay. Yeah, sure. 

Todd: Which actually came out before this, if you can believe that. But again, this was shot before that. 

Craig: Right. Right. 

Todd: So… But yeah, and he’s been in quite a few television shows and movies, uh, since then that you would recognize. So, uh, there are a couple people who did ki- kinda go on to do some cool stuff from this movie, but not most anybody here, and certainly not the writer-director.

It was critically panned when it came out, and you can totally see why. 

Craig: Oh, sure. 

Todd: It would’ve been very run-of-the-mill for its time. And by this point, you know, this is when Roger Ebert was about done with what he called dead teenager movies ’cause they felt like they were all the same, and most of them were.

Now we look back on this era, and we seek out these hidden gems ’cause we find them charming, and we like to just keep watching the same type of stuff over and over again. Sure. So yeah, I w- I, again, like you, I would also encourage people to check out Hell High. I would also encourage you to, uh, check us out online at chainsawhorror.com or at any one of our social medias over on, uh, Facebook or on Instagram.

Drop us a line there. Let us know if you’ve ever heard of this movie or seen it. Let us know what movies you would like us to review. And if you’re really interested in talking with us a little bit deeper, go to patreon.com/chainsawpodcast, where for just five bucks a month, you can get access to our inner circle, chat with us behind the scenes there, join our book club, get our complete unedited versions of our podcast.

These phone calls, so the before and after, and all the stuff that we don’t, uh, release to the general public are there and free and available for you for just five bucks a month at patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. We’re coming up on 500 episodes here, Craig. 

Craig: I know. It’s wild. 

Todd: 499. It is insane. So our next episode is gonna be quite a celebration.

We’re really looking forward to that. Until next time, I’m Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.