Night of the Demons (2009)

Ep 511, 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: All right, we are week four, approaching Halloween here with our, uh, October fest of Halloween-themed movies, and I’m really liking our selection this year so far. It’s hard to believe 2009 was, uh, 15 years ago. 

Craig: I know. 

Todd: Oh, my God. But, uh, here we are. 17 years ago, actually, wasn’t it? 

Yeah.

But it’s a remake. This is Night of the Demons, not to be confused with the ’80s version of Night of the Demons that, uh, you and I did many moons ago. Mm. This is the 2009- Reimagining, remake, whatever you wanna call it, directed by Adam Gierasch. It was remake of the ’88 film by Richard Tenney, which we’ve done, and, uh, I held a special place in my heart.

I remember the original movie, and we- I think we talked about this when we did it, had a really, really freaky poster of, uh, Angela transformed into a demon that- 

Craig: Oh, yeah … 

Todd: that was up in, like, every video store. I- it feels like they must have just given those away by the scores. And, and then I remember watching the film as a kid, really enjoying it.

And then when we went back to see it as adults, we’re like, “Oh, man, this is, this is cringey, bad material,” but it was so bad it was fun. 

Craig: I was gonna say, I don’t remember. I vague- like, I, I vaguely remember liking it or, or at least finding it charming in some way. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. Very, very charming in the way that a so-bad-it’s-good movie is really charming.

But yeah, no, dude, it was like the acting is horrible, the writing is, is hilarious with just absolute corniness. If I remember correctly, that was the one where Linnea Quigley bends over. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Uh, she’s in, like, a tutu, and she’s shopping, and you get that long shot of her, of her crotch. 

Craig: Yeah, and that’s super early.

It’s like, it’s just a couple of minutes into the movie. So you know what you’re getting into right away. Yeah, I do. I remember that. 

Todd: It’s silly. It’s a silly movie, but it’s fun. 

Craig: I don’t know. M- maybe it’s just in light of having watched this movie. I, I think maybe I’m looking back at the original with rose-colored glasses a little bit.

I guess I should have either re-watched it or listened to that. God, I, I have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve heard that, that episode that we did on it. I, I just remembered feeling… You know, I, I, I remember specific things that I rem- that I liked about it. I, I really liked Angela’s dance. I thought, you know, that’s kind of iconic, and you see it all over the place.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: I did like, like, the demon design. Like you said, like, Angela’s face is really scary. It looks great on the poster. It’s, I don’t know, uh, it’s got, uh, kind of a playfulness about it, almost like a- It does … like a- Big time … like a, a Deadite kind of vibe to it, and that like- 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And, and I like that in demons.

I like that when demons kind of revel and have fun and they’re evil. Like 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: I think, I think that’s cute. So I like that about it. I, I remember I, I loved the super, super cheap-looking opening sequence, like the credit- Yes … sequence, like the really cheap- The cartoon … animation. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And it was very Halloween-y and ghosts and black cats and- 

Todd: Great song.

Craig: Yeah, so all these, you know, little things that I remember about it. I, I imagine that if I were to rewatch it again in its entirety, I could pick it apart a lot more. But I had those fond vibes of it. The reason I picked this one, we’ve kinda been going back and forth. We, we laid out a, a, a Halloween lineup pretty early this year, but we each picked our own choices, and this was one of mine And I think that I picked it because lately to go to sleep I’ve just been putting on pretty much any horror movie on Tubi, and then one of the things that I like about Tubi is that they just, you know, I, I, I’m sure you can change the settings, but my settings are when one movie gets over, it just rolls right on over to the next one.

Todd: Ah, yeah. 

Craig: And it’s like, “If you liked this one, you’ll probably like this.” And one night I woke up in the middle of the night and this movie was on. And I don’t remember what part of it was, but I- it was v- I, I think it was early on in the, the party scenes, which obviously we’ll talk about in a second. But at 3:00 in the morning, right out of sleep, I remember thinking, “Oh, this is fun.

It’s got a great Halloween vibe.” You know, it’s a, a remake of a, a movie that we look at fondly. It’s got, you know, it’s a really interesting time in horror where they’re doing a lot of remakes, and you have the sexy, squeaky teen focus. And like, you know, Shannon Elizabeth is in here right out of the American Pie series, and she was in Scary Movie also, and I like her and she’s hot, and it looks like it’s got a bunch of other hot chicks in it and- 

Todd: Right.

Craig: I thought, “This, this, this will be great. It’ll be fun.” And, and I had seen it before. The, what I remembered about it was that it was bad but fun. 

Todd: Uh-huh. 

Craig: And now I think that I was right on one of those counts.

Todd: I, 

Craig: I 

Todd: think, 

Craig: um- So my, my, my memory was half right.

Todd: Yeah. Not, not nearly as fun as the original. 

Craig: It’s not great, but it’s interesting. Like, if you’re a fan of the original, I think it can almost be fun to watch to be like, “How did you mess this up?” 

Todd: Right. Like, you had, you had so much to play with here. Like, you, you know- Yeah … the or- like I said, the original was pretty much anything Richard Tenney did.

God bless him. We love, like, Witchboard and all those. Th- they’re fun. W- g- Witchboard and Witchtrap especially, they’re fun, but the acting is horrendous. 

Yeah. 

But in that fun way that, you know, we like to see bad acting in our low-budget, low-rent horror movies. The dialogue is ridiculous. You remember there was that, the bigger guy in there who was the jerk who just called every woman a bitch every time he turned around?

And then that weird-ass scene with Linnea Quigley and her lipstick in the nipple that- 

Craig: Yeah, I liked that. 

Todd: Just comes out of left field. I know, right? Just comes out of left field like, why? Where did this co- okay, I guess this is what’s happening now. Just a lot of stuff thrown at the wall, and pretty simple premise, pretty simple plot.

There’s a lot of directions you could’ve taken this, and this is what we got, is a little disappointing. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s… And that’s the, the best way I think to describe it. It’s a little disappointing. Like, it’s not terrible. There’s just nothing inspired about it. Like, it, it’s not inspired at all. Yeah. It, it just kind of feels like…

Ironically, it feels like a cheap copy and paste, which I, I say it’s ironic because this movie had 10 times the budget as the original. Mm-hmm. Somehow the original with a million dollar budget managed to be far more- 

Todd: Successful? … 

Craig: interesting to look at. And yeah- Oh, yeah. That too. And, and, and successful in its, in its efforts than this movie which had more like a, a $10 million budget.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Um, and, and, you know, some of that has to do, you know, with the time period and, you know, I, I think the technology in 2009, y- you know, they, they had access to some CGI, which, you know, looks fine. I- it’s, it’s relatively limited, and for 2009 it looks fine. I mean, it looks like cheap CGI basically, but it looks okay.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But the practical effects in the original somehow look better than these. Yeah. That’s 

Todd: weird. 

Craig: I don’t get it. And, and the actors in this. I, I mentioned Shannon Elizabeth. I’m a fan of hers. I, I, I don’t think that there’s any universe in which anybody would go on and on about Shannon Elizabeth’s acting skills.

That’s, that’s not why we love her. She’s, she’s gorgeous first and foremost, which is I think why she got her break into filming. And, you know, in the American Pie movie, the original, you know, she was eye candy. That’s it. That was the joke. You know? Like- Oh yeah, yeah … the joke was that just she was just this super hot unattainable male fantasy.

That was the whole thing. And, and then she kinda built a career on that, and good for her. I’ve, I’ve seen her in stuff. I’ve seen her in interviews. She’s a smart girl. She’s not a stupid girl, and she’s a cool, interesting person. I, I think that she… I don’t think that she lives in the States anymore. She lives, I wanna say Australia, but I, I, I could be wrong.

I don’t know. But I wanna say she’s, like, vegan or, or… And really passionate about that. If it’s not vegan, it’s something like that. It’s something hippy-dippy. Hmm. But at the same time she’s really super passionate about it and serious about it, and, like, she’s a serious person. But she can have fun with herself too.

So I was excited to see her in this, and it’s not great. Like, I don’t know if it’s- Because there’s just, the movie doesn’t do much with her. Like, she’s Angela. Like, Angela is the- That should be- I… No, she’s the icon from the original. She should be the centerpiece of this movie, and she’s not. 

Todd: No. She’s not.

Craig: The other people in the movie are, you know, most of them are fine to look at. The girl that plays Maddie, I don’t remember her name. Hold on, I can look it up. I got it in front of me. Monica Keena. I’m pretty sure she was the lead in Freddy vs. Jason, and we liked her in that. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: You know, there’s basically three girls and three guys, and the three girls are all beautiful.

I could not, for the life of me, nail down what age they were supposed to be. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: They’re clearly out of high school, but they could be anywhere from, like, 24 to 35. I have no idea. 

Todd: Right. But, 

Craig: but the other two girls, so there’s Maddie, who I mentioned, and then there’s Suzanne and Lily, and then there’s, there’s Angela also.

And then there’s three guys. Two of the guys, Dex and Jason, are very, very typical, you know, same age group as the girls, good-looking guys. And then you’ve got Edward Furlong- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: who they try… Now, okay, now I get why they cast Edward Furlong. He’s famous, he’s genre famous. This is the ’90s, so it’s not that long after the huge success of Terminator 2 and, and, you know, he did Pet Sematary 2.

Like, this is a guy who had a huge career ahead of him, and it just didn’t work out. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I think that he struggled with substance abuse and alcoholism and, you know, God bless him, I think he cleaned up, but he put his body through a lot. And it’s just weird to have him in this- I don’t like commenting you know, negatively about people’s looks because I’m no stunner.

But neither is Edward Furlong. And in this movie, they treat him like he’s just one of the other hot people, and he’s not. Like- 

Todd: Uh-huh. 

Craig: Like, Monica, who is arguably the coolest of the girls… Now, it kinda depends on what you’re into. If you’re into boobs, you’re gonna be into Suzanne, ’cause she’s got them for days.

Right. Got some of the biggest tits I’ve ever seen. So if you’re into that, you’re gonna go for Suzanne. But Maddie is more my type. She’s like the cool girl. And the whole movie, or at least from halfway, the halfway point on, she’s like pining over Edward Furlong. I’m like, “I do not buy this for a second.”

This girl would not give this guy. Not only does he look like Edward Furlong, but he’s a loser. Like he’s a huge- Yeah … drug dealer loser, and this girl is chasing him around like a puppy dog. I’m like, “This is stupid.” 

Todd: Yeah. And also, this whole thing, his whole setup is so weird because you think there’s some thread that’s going to be through this film.

There is a lot of time spent with him in the beginning where he arrives at this like dingy- club or whatever and is ushered upstairs into this godfather’s, like the local mafia guy, whatever’s den, where he’s getting blown by this girl while he’s talking to him. And there’s this whole deal where it’s like, “You, you owe me this money.”

He’s like, “Oh, I d- I can’t afford to pay you back.” And he’s like, “Oh, you will, like double, and you’re gonna have to do it, like, tonight or else you’re gonna die.” So, like, he has this mission, that’s how it’s set up anyway, is that he’s going into this party that he’s not even invited to- 

Craig: Right … 

Todd: so that he could deal enough drugs on the sly to all the people there to win back his money.

I mean, this is a setup for a thing that you think is gonna be a, some driving factor, at least for this character in the movie. 

Craig: No, it just has to get him to the party. That’s it. Yeah. It doesn’t make any difference. And that scene- It doesn’t matter … no, it doesn’t make any difference. Like, he brings it up.

Like, he brings it up several times. He’s like, “Oh, I’m in big trouble. If I don’t die in here, that guy’s gonna get me.” Like, who cares? Nobody cares. Like- … they, that, that, that whole scene, that, that whole blowjob scene is tacky. Yeah. And like, I get… Like, I think that they’re trying to push the envelope. I think that they’re trying to push- Mm-hmm

the envelope beyond the, you know, beyond what the first movie did, ’cause you already mentioned the, the lipstick in the nipple scene. You know, that was that shocked me. It shocked me the first time I saw it. I had certainly never seen that before and- 

Todd: Nobody in the world had seen that before. 

Craig: No, I thought, I thought it was a cool effect.

I thought it was clever. I thought it was creepy and spooky. I thought it worked really well. And, and I… But it was pushing boundaries, and I think they were trying to push boundaries here. But it was just, especially in this scene, just the most juvenile way to go about it, and that’s… Like, the whole movie kinda felt like it was made by 14-year-old boys.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And, and this, the, you know, what, what? Are we supposed to think this guy is so cool that- He just has a girl hanging from his dick all the time and like, like so they sit there and have this like one-on-one interview while he’s being blown and the time that I watched it to, you know, for this I was watching it with earbuds in and like in the sound design they’re sucking and slurping like- Oh, right

I certainly didn’t, I didn’t hear that, you know, when I was just watching it on my laptop or whatever but- 

Todd: Hmm … 

Craig: gross. Like I, nobody needs that. Like it’s just- … so stupid. And right, and it, and it just serves, you know, to get him to this party. And, and that’s it. Like, like you s- there, there’s no plot to this movie really.

Todd: Oh, no. 

Craig: There’s some stupid background exposition that who cares which is also, you know, moves away. They changed that. I, I, I don’t remember the, the original movie was, it was some haunted mansion like Hull House or, or something. I, I don’t know. 

Todd: Right. Right. 

Craig: This moves it to New Orleans and sets it in a different mansion and it’s got its whole, uh, own backstory.

It’s like the Broussard family mansion in New Orleans and it is shot in New Orleans I guess ’cause n- at the time New Orleans was giving amazing tax breaks for film production companies or whatever. And whatever, I mean New Orleans is an excellent set piece for a horror movie. I’m down with that and, and- Yeah

you know, tons of great, you know, old historical spooky mansions and they pick one. You know, this is actual, at least the exteriors are shot, you know, at this actual Louisiana place. And it opens in 1925 and you just get some quick demon footage and you see a lady hang herself from a balcony and when she hangs herself her head falls off and rolls down the stairs.

And that’s how it opens and we get a lot more explanation of that later. It’s ultimately stupid like But whatever. Anyway, then we jump to Halloween, 85 years later, and it’s… Is it Bourbon Street? Is that the big street in New Orleans? 

Todd: Uh-huh, yeah. 

Craig: It’s a big New Orleans Halloween party and parade, which looks fun.

Todd: Uh-huh. 

Craig: And we see Angela, Shannon Elizabeth, organizing, you know, sending out invites via the internet for this big party at this mansion, and she, she too, for reasons unknown, has to make a bunch of money. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: I know, but- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: so, so that’s why she’s throwing this party. And then we get introduced, we get introduced to the three girls who I already mentioned, Lily, Maddie, and Suzanne.

Lily and Suzanne are both dressed as slutty cats. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Maddie, I can’t really tell what she’s dressed. I, I feel like she has, like, a couple of fake scars on her face. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And that’s it. Like, I don’t know what she’s supposed to be. 

Todd: Yeah. I’m not sure either. 

Craig: But the movie opens up really promising because you get this great Halloween stuff at, at New Orleans, which is debaucherous and, and crazy and fun, and then you get, you know, like, a great street with kids trick-or-treating and stuff.

And these little kids ring the doorbell at this house, and it opens up, and it’s Linnea Quigley in- Mm-hmm … her outfit from the original movie being the icon that she is in my eyes. I don’t know how other people view her, but I just think she’s hilarious and- Yeah, 

Todd: we 

Craig: love her … y- and, and her, you know, like, she is doing the whole ditsy thing here, and she turns around and bends over so the camera can leer at her crotch just like it did in the original, which I love.

That’s probably my favorite part of the movie. 

Todd: Linnea Quig- Quigley’s crotch was our favorite part of this film. 

Craig: The, the two seconds that she’s in here. It’s a 

Todd: direct call to the original. 

Craig: Yeah, I mean, if it’s not the exact same costume, it’s a replica, and she looks- Oh, yeah … 

Todd: the 

Craig: same. Like, 

Todd: She does look the same.

What would that be? 20 years later. 

Craig: Yeah, 20 years later, and she looks, she looks great. Sure, her body is still banging. She l- still looks fantastic. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: I wish they would’ve just cast her again. 

Todd: Honestly, why didn’t they?

Craig: It’s a great throwback to the original and, and you know, look that up on YouTube ’cause it’s worth seeing. I don’t know if you really need to see this movie in its entirety, but that, that clip is for sure worth seeing. It’s super cute. Great throwback. 

Todd: So you’re right. The setup is promising. They take us into the party.

They spend a lot of time on introducing us to all of these characters. I was looking at the clock and realizing, “My God, just how much time is passing by before anything happens besides…” And, and this is what I liked about, you know, the original movie being dumb and silly just has a lot of dumb silliness before the demons start coming out, and that’s fun.

This movie just has a lot of, “Here’s this guy, and here’s this person, and here are these two people, and here’s what… Now we’re gonna go into the part…” And, and, and after a while I realized at the end of all this, I don’t really know who’s who. 

Craig: It… Oh, it was so hard. 

Todd: I can’t really tell one person from the other.

Nobody, except for maybe Edward Furlong, nobody really has any defining character traits that set them apart. There are no stakes being introduced here. Again- The 

Craig: relationships don’t really matter. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s just nothing. It’s a bunch of nothingness. Just get us into the party and let some stuff happen, and it’s quite a while before anything starts to happen.

The movie is trying to be hip, you know, with the cinematography, and the lighting, and the zooming in, and the music and all that, in that very ’90s way. Uh, well, early 2000s way, whatever you wanna call it. But at the end of the day, there’s no substance behind it. 

Craig: No. 

Todd: It’s just, here we are in this house with a bunch of people having a party.

Yeah. And then, yeah. 

Craig: To be fair, it looks like a great party. Like- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: I, a party that I would be way too old to go to, but it, it looks like great fun. It’s, you know, uh, it’s, it’s crowded. There are a lot of people. There’s loud music. You know, it’s in this old mansion. It’s decorated the way that I want Halloween to be decorated.

Like, it looks kinda spooky, but also kind of cheap. Like, there’s, like, cheap dollar store paper decorations around, and, um- Mm-hmm … you know, atmospherically it’s good. And you mentioned the music. It’s, like, y- kinda, I don’t know how I would describe this music, kind of like hard house music- Mm … like, with a, with a rock edge to it.

But again, I was listening to it with my earbuds in, and the songs are hilarious. Uh- 

Todd: Oh, yeah … 

Craig: they’re so funny. There’s one that’s called Zombie Girl. All of the songs, I guess all songs- Oh, you somehow referenced the- … are original songs. But yeah. But they’re, they’re all very, they’re all very Halloween-y. Ah.

There’s one called Code Blue that’s all about necrophilia. It’s like- 

Todd: Oh my God … “

Craig: I wanna fuck-” 

Todd: How did I miss- “… 

Craig: a 

Todd: dead head.” How did I miss this? 

Craig: Um, there’s, there’s one song that’s called Invasion of the Ball Snatchers, and it’s all about these aliens- … that wanna steal people’s balls and put them in formaldehyde in jars.

I guess- Oh, God … I 

Todd: guess you were just so bored, you know, by what’s happening on the screen that you just start looking for interesting stuff in the background. Oh my 

Craig: gosh. The music was hilarious. And you know, Shannon Elizabeth as Angela has, like, an introduction moment where she, like, makes an announcement from the stairs and she’s like

Clip: Come to a place like this To everything dark and twisted in the human soul 

Craig: This could have been a great kind of iconic moment- Yes … and it’s just kind of blah. Like- Oh … like, okay. Thanks girl, go away. Turn the music back on. Like, come on, you’re Shannon Elizabeth. I don’t know. Be sexy, something. Like it just…

She, she really seems, and I hate to say this too ’cause I am a fan of her, but even though I don’t think she’s a great actress, it, it just really feels phoned in. Like- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: nobody really seems like they give much of a shit. Like… 

Todd: Yeah. Well, this is another stark difference from the original, is that Angela in the original movie is weird as hell.

Craig: Yes. 

Todd: She is bizarre and strange from the beginning. She’s the one who’s all gothed out. I mean, in this movie it’s just like everybody in early 2000s, it’s like everybody’s gothed out ’cause that’s the thing. So that doesn’t make her distinctive at all in this film. But in the original film, she’s the weird quirky goth girl who’s throwing the weird ass party that nobody’s…

It just seems to be for, like, five people, and she does a weird dance. She is an icon in that movie. Yeah. Here she makes this little entrance that could’ve been great and wasn’t, and now she’s just one of the group for the rest of the movie. Pretty 

Craig: much. Like, I think she’s a little bit older than them, and the girls are intimidated by her ’cause she’s like a man-eater or whatever, and that’s fine.

I mean, it’s Shannon Elizabeth. She’s gorgeous. You have to capitalize on that. But i- in the original, Angela wasn’t sexy. No. In fact, she was kind of an outcast. Like, she was kind of a loser. Like, nobody really knew why they were going to her house. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: It’s not like that actress. I mean, her performance has become iconic, but it’s not because it’s good acting- No

but it’s because she commits to it. Like, she goes for it 100%, and that is fun. Whereas here it’s just, oh, she’s a sexy girl. Okay. Or like, who cares? 

Todd: Yeah. And they try to like… There’s just really lame efforts to make her like that ’cause it’s all just spoken. Like, I’m just thinking about the time when Matty goes into the bathroom, and she opens the mirror and closes the mirror, uh, gets some stuff out, and then a hand breaks through the mirror and grabs her.

She runs out and gets somebody else and brings them back in, and of course the mirror’s intact again. And she- they’re like, “Oh, you know Angela, this must have just been some elaborate trick that she played on you,” or “that she’s playing on us.” And again, this was not like a thing that they committed to or even, even really alluded to outside of that, that Angela might have tricks up her sleeve.

Craig: Right. 

Todd: That she organized this party, and it’s gonna be weird, and maybe we can’t trust everything if she’s behind something. You know, which is an aspect of the original movie that keeps it interesting. Here there’s none of that. There’s that little drip of it, but again, it doesn’t commit to it at all. 

Craig: No.

Todd: So disappointing. Especially, God, especially when you’ve seen the original. It’s especially disappointing to compare the two. 

Craig: And it’s also a little bit confusing too, because I, I guess this house is just haunted all the time. I, I don’t know. Because nothing has happened up to this point to, like, release the demons.

You know what I mean? Like- Right. Right … this is certainly a supernatural thing that has happened. And, and the hand coming through the glass is, you know, not a, an original gag, but I mean, it worked. It’s a, a good jump scare. It looks good, whatever. But where does that come from? Ultimately, the, the party gets shut down- Mm-hmm

pretty quickly For some reason that I don’t understand, Colin, Edward Furlong the drug dealer, has to get down to the basement. Like, all of a sudden- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: everybody else is gone except for our main characters, the group who have stuck behind, and Colin’s like, “I have to get to the basement.” And Angela’s like, “Okay, I’ll show you.”

Like, wh- wh- why? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Why are you going down to… What is in the basement? 

Todd: I honestly had to read Wikipedia to figure that out. Apparently he hid some drugs there earlier that he was going to get. 

Craig: Okay, ’cause I totally missed that. 

Todd: Now, I still don’t remember why he has to go get there. I don’t know why he… I don’t remember seeing a scene where he had hid them.

Craig: Me either. 

Todd: And so it feels like there’s some editing issue here, that maybe there was a, something that wasn’t cut in that needed to be cut in. 

Craig: Well, they clearly needed to get them down to that basement because- 

Todd: Well, yeah, ’cause we had to get the, we had to find the hidden door. 

Craig: Yeah. Well, that’s another thing that I love.

Like, I don’t remember how long ago this was supposed… So it was 18… No, I guess it was 1925, so really, you know, 85 years ago that this happened. And we get the backstory in, like, these sepia-toned flashbacks that are- 

Todd: That 

Craig: look- … pretty lame … really 

Todd: cheap. Yeah. It’s really pretty bad. 

Craig: It looks like those old, like in, like in old silent movies where they would, like, play a gramophone in the back.

Todd: Oh. 

Craig: And, and, and right, right, right. And, like, really choppy film and… But anyway, you know, and it’s revealed over time, but basically the backstory is this woman, this Evangeline Broussard, who lived in this mansion, and she was shunned or something, and then she threw a party and she invited these people over, and I don’t know, they did a seance or something and demons.

I don’t know. Something stupid. 

Todd: Yeah. Exactly. 

Craig: But anyway, the, the point- 

Todd: And then they were missing 

Craig: And then they were missing Nobody could find them. Right. They- Yeah … nobody could find them. So Furlong and Angela go down into the basement. I don’t remember what they’re looking for. 

Todd: But within seconds- 

Craig: I know.

And she says, she says something about how l… He’s like, “There are so many doors down here,” or something, and she’s like, “Yeah, there’s even supposed to be, like, a tunnel to the property next door.” And why they start looking around? Like, if he hid drugs down there, surely he knows where he hid them. 

Todd: Yeah. Go to that spot, grab ’em, and leave.

Craig: Right. But it’s as though they’re searching for something, and he looks on a shelf and he’s like, “Wait a second, this looks like a door back here.” He’s like, “Help me take these shelves down.” Now, these are just, like, like, floating shelves on, on a wall. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And they start taking stuff off the shelves. It then cuts to the other side of the door-

that they open Which is clearly just a door behind these floating shelves. So we are to believe that these seven people went missing and nobody ever looked in that door that was like- 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: What? Yeah, and so there’s just, like, seven skeletons laying in a circle, and Angela’s like, “Come on. Come, guys.

There’s skeletons down here.” And so they all go down there and they’re like, “Do you think these are those seven people that were missing?” Well, yeah, probably. 

Todd: What do you think? One, two, three, seven. Yeah, probably. 

Craig: And they can’t call the police ’cause their cell phones don’t work, and somehow they find out that the gate is locked, and they can’t get out, so they’re stuck there.

And does Collins… I think maybe Collins steals something from one of the corpses or something. I don’t remember. Yeah. But I do remember that Angela’s… She looks at one of the skulls, and she’s like, “Is that a gold tooth?” And she reaches for it. And I’m thinking, “Are you gonna **** steal it? A gold tooth?” Like, what are you gonna do with it?

Like, y- like, you’re gonna pull it out of a cor- Like, there’s- … there’s a corpse on the ground and you’re gonna pull a gold… What, like, are you a pirate? Like, what is happening? 

Todd: Right. I 

Craig: don’t understand. This is your first 

Todd: instinct? This is the interesting thing about this whole room? 

Craig: Like, right, like, ooh, I, I need that gold tooth.

I mean, I guess she, I guess she needs money. I guess she’s gonna pawn that gold tooth. Uh-huh. I don’t know. But anyway, she reaches for it and the skull bites her. 

Todd: Oh,

Craig: man. And, but, and somebody… I feel like there’s one guy who’s dressed as a doctor, and I don’t know if it was him that said it, but I hope it was. ‘Cause somebody says something like, “Must be a reflex thing. They are skeletons.” There’s

Todd: nobody… Oh my God. 

Craig: Oh, boy. The- Okay, so see, but now it would make more sense if that mirror thing happened now because now it would make sense that the demons are woken up. Before that, it doesn’t really make any sense. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And at this point, the demons are woken up, and, like, Angela immediately starts acting funny.

Like, at first she just kinda starts acting like she’s a little out of it and a little bit sick a- a- and, and they realize that they’re all stuck there, and so they’re kind of settling in, and eventually she excuses herself to the bathroom. And in the bathroom, like immediately when she looks in the mirror, her head does this weird fast shake- 

Todd: Mm-hmm

Craig: which they do multiple times. It’s like i- it’s a transition that they used to use a lot before CGI could do good transitions. So she’ll, like, shake the head back and forth really fast. It gets blurry. It gets blurry, and then, and then when it stops, it’s transformed into something else. In this case, it’s transformed into a, a demon face.

Uh-huh. And then it shakes back, and she’s her again, but, like, she looks in the mirror and smiles and comes back out. And so now we know that she is a demon. And then it kinda becomes chaos from then on. And I guess if I’m going to give it any credit In terms of pushing boundaries, it does a little bit.

Now, I’m not particularly impressed by the way that it does, but it does, I guess. 

Todd: Right. There are a few scenes. I’m just gonna say right now that almost from here on out I found the mu- movie either confusing or just… I mean, I just got bored because there’s never really a sense of where they are in the house, how they are in relation to each other, what’s going on.

I feel like it’s just a succession of scenes in which people get att- well, like, one person possesses another person, possesses another person. 

Craig: Right, right. Like, it’s spread like a disease, basically. 

Todd: Yeah. You know, there’s a problem I have sometimes with, with modern action movies where everything is just done in close-ups and, and fast cuts.

There’s some big action scene happening in front of you, but all you see is just this, this fist connecting with a cheek, and this kick, and then somebody flies across the room, and you see a close-up of them hit the wall, and then… But you never get a sense of space. You never get to see somebody approach somebody else, or where somebody could run to, or somebody being backed into a corner or whatnot, because everything is happening in close-up with really, really quick cuts.

I felt like this movie was a lot like that. They’re running from demons, and demons are jumping out from here and from there and chasing them. But seems like there are times when they can be in a room quietly investigating something right after they were chased down the hallway by a demon. 

Yeah. 

Then a demon pops out, and the whole time I’m thinking, “Just leave the house at least?

Maybe go into the yard?” I just got bored. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: And so all of those moments where things, like, did kinda… You know, there are scenes, like you said, there are some scenes where suddenly there are two people in a room and a thing happens that’s pretty shocking. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: But I never really knew how those two people got into that room, where that room is in relation to anyone else- 

Craig: Right

Todd: you know, that kinda thing. 

Craig: Right. I, I would guess a lot of that probably… I, I’m, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, I’m sure, but just because they were s- shooting on sound stages, like, the set pieces probably weren’t connected. 

Todd: Right. Yeah. 

Craig: Like, so, like, so for example, you know, there, there’s kind of at the bottom of this big staircase, there’s kind of a living room where they hang out for a while, and they play Truth or Dare, and there’s a whole, like…

The guys get all googly-eyed when two girls kiss, but then they make them kiss and, like, they make the two boys, two of the boys kiss. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And they make such a big deal out of it. Straight guys are such pussies. Like, just do it. Like, get over it. Nobody cares. But that was kinda funny. But then while they’re also playing Truth or Dare, Angela spins on one of the other girl’s boyfriends and, like, kisses him super, super hard.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And that makes the girl jealous, so she grabs her boyfriend and takes him off to a bedroom. Well, now apparently Angela kissed a demon into him. Now, I don’t know… I, I think- He wipes some blood off of his mouth, or she wipes some blood off of her mouth. 

Todd: Right. ‘

Craig: Cause it seems like it gets transferred through blood, which is also further disgusting because then, pardon my French, but I’ve been waiting to say this since yesterday, he butts the demon into that other girl.

Todd: Yeah. This is a first for our podcast. You know, you think you’ve seen it all.

I’ll never forget this scene as long as I live.

It’s 

Craig: pretty crazy. 

Todd: It’s a very, it’s a very porny sex scene. 

Craig: Except for that they’re fully clothed- 

Todd: That’s the weird part … for a minute. Like, it kind of pans around and behind them, and I’m thinking, “Really? We’re gonna do this?” But it’s like his pants are on. I guess there’s an opening in the front. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: But it’s real close on her face, and you can ima- I mean, you know, she’s really into it, and it’s, you know, it could be pretty hot.

And it is, feels a little hot there for a few minutes. And then- 

Craig: Uh-huh … 

Todd: and then as it kinda comes around, like you see him demon out, and then almost without a break in the action, right, suddenly she’s demoning out. 

Craig: Well, first she looks a little bit surprised, and then she says, “Wait a second. Wait a second.”

Right? It’s like, “This is the wrong hole.” 

Clip: Baby? Baby. Oh, if you’re gonna put it in there, you’re gonna need to use- 

Craig: He thrusts and she screams so loud that they hear it outside. That’s dirty. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But then, then she’s a demon too, and once she’s a demon, then she’s into it again. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And, and, and tentacles are coming out of her boobs, like- Oh my gosh

it gets crazy. 

Todd: It was a bit much, actually. Honestly, 

Craig: like- Yeah, it is a bit much. That- See, that’s what I mean. Like, like they’re, they’re trying to push the envelope and they are, but like… 

Todd: It’s not clever. 

Craig: I don’t know.

Todd: I, 

Craig: it’s a little, it was a little much. It was a little much. I, I, I, I think that I even could have just done without the, “Well, if you’re gonna put it in there,” like I could have deduced that myself. Like, I- Right … I, I, I don’t think I needed it drawn attention to precisely what was happening. 

Todd: It was a little too on the nose- Right

of a comment. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: Yeah. And then she gets the tentacle boobs, which is great for like a one-time gag, but I feel like they come out an awful lot. 

Craig: Oh my God, a lot. And it’s not just her. The, the other girl, Suzanne with the big boobs, she, uh, has tentacle boobs too. 

Todd: She had them too? Okay, thank you. I thought, is there more than one girl with the tentacle boobs even?

Craig: Yep. 

Todd: It’s just a feature of these demons, I guess. 

Craig: Like, 

Todd: they’re like- If you’re, if you’re a female possessed by this demon, you get tentacle boobs. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and they’re like, you know, like monkeys have what they call them, like, like prehensile tails that can, like grasp and stuff, like these, like these te- They’re like octopus tentacles.

Like they can grab you and pull you and stuff. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: Oh, it’s pretty crazy. Oh. Okay, so there’s that, and then the guy that’s dressed as a doctor and the drug dealer and the cool girl are outside looking for… And, and this is, this comes from the first movie, I, I think, that somehow they’re sealed in there.

Like they, they can’t get out. There’s only one gate and it’s locked and they can’t get out. 

Todd: Well, the original movie was better in that they go outside and literally there is no gate anymore. It’s like the whole place is one big wall that they can’t climb over. With this, it’s just a locked gate, which I would think that of all the effort you’re taking inside the house, like just figure out a way to get over or around or through- Get over it

that locked gate. Yeah, climb over. Surely there’s a way to- You know, climb it. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I c- I couldn’t sort why that would keep them in. 

Craig: Yeah, and then there’s a scene… Well, before even they get out there, there’s a scene where Shannon Elizabeth fellates a wine bottle, which I guess some people get off on that kind of thing.

It just seems like a cheap, like- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: don’t make Shannon Elizabeth do that. Like, come on. But anyway. Then they try kind of to recreate the Angela dance, but- 

Todd: Oh … 

Craig: it doesn’t have any of the charm of the original. Like it’s, like Shannon Elizabeth just does a sexy dance for a few seconds, and then it’s like she’s seducing big-boobied Suzanne and, and they’re dancing together, and then they’re floating, and then she full demons out.

And I feel like this is the first time you see her full demon face. Right. And I do like the d- I do like- Like the design of it, it just doesn’t look particularly well executed. It kind of looks like a mask that she could put on over her head. I don’t know. But anyway, she rips Suzanne’s face off, and then right after the homage to the dance scene, we get the homage to the lipstick scene.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It plays out pretty much the same way that it plays out in the first one. It just goes further. Yeah. So, so Lily, or so Dex goes- Dex is the guy who’s– No, it’s not Dex. It’s, um, Jason, I think. Whatever. The one who’s dressed as a doctor. He goes to the bathroom to pee, and he closes the door and he starts peeing, but then she appears behind him, and she’s s- like, being seductive.

She looks normal. She looks like herself, but she’s being really seductive. And she’s like, “Will you fix my whiskers?” And hands him the lipstick, and he starts to go put it on her face. She’s like, “No, not there.” And then she pulls down her top and her boobs are out, and then she takes the lipstick and sticks it in her nipple, just like Linnea Quigley did in the original.

Now, I don’t remember in the original. I feel like in the original, Linnea Quigley pulled it back out from under her skirt, didn’t she? 

Todd: Uh, doesn’t it come out her mouth? 

Craig: I don’t remember, but what I know is that it was not nearly as graphic. It’s really, really graphic in this. Like, you don’t see her lady parts, but it’s all squishy and bloody and slimy.

It’s disgusting. 

Todd: Is blood pouring out of her crotch? Yeah. If I remember correctly, the Linnea Quigley nipple thing happens. She’s by herself. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: She’s by herself in a closet. It’s, it’s a, the weirdest thing because she’s performing for no one. She’s just dragging this lipstick from her lips down across her chest and then down around one nipple and down around another, and suddenly she’s pushing it into your nip- the nipple, and we’re– you’re like, “What?

W- what is happening?” In this one, she’s performing this for the guy, right? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And so he just kind of backs out of the room with a, “Well, that was weird,” 

Craig: kind of attitude. This, this, this scene is hilarious. He stumbles out of the bathroom and into the room where the other two are, Maddie and Colin.

Clip: There is some freaky stuff in this b- 

Freaky. Yeah. Uh, Lily, she, uh- 

Oh, God. Did Lily and Dex get into a fight? 

Is she into magic or, or anything? You know, uh, like sleight of hand and stuff? 

No. 

Okay, uh, she… There might be something wrong with her then. 

What? What, what do you mean? 

Uh, she, she’s acting, um… She, she sort of took her, her shirt off.

There wa- there was, um… There, there was blood. What? And, uh, you know, you know, I, I don’t, I don’t wanna talk about it. 

Craig: Oh my God. Is she hurt? 

Clip: I, I don’t know. Uh, I, I saw, um, I, I, I saw, uh- 

Craig: What? Well, what did you see? 

Clip: She stuck a lipstick in her boob and it fell out of her pussy. 

Craig: Okay?

Oh, God. Oh. And that’s such a… It’s such a, a silly and juvenile and crass word. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: But it’s so funny. It’s so funny. Oh. In that line. I just laughed and laughed. I laughed out loud at that line. It’s so funny. Ugh, so they- Oh, God … go looking for her, but they don’t find her, but they do find No-Face Suzanne, who attacks her.

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: And they run away, and this… It just becomes a big chase from this point on. Now first, Colin remembers that, um, what’s- whatever her name, Angela, told him that there’s a tunnel in the basement. So they head down there and they find a shotgun, and first they lock themselves in the corpse room, but then they find the tunnel, I think, and they go running through it.

And it really bothers me when things lead nowhere, and literally this- Hmm … tunnel leads nowhere. Leads nowhere. Like, they, they make a point of planting the seed early in the movie that there’s a tunnel down there. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: And then they get back down there and they’re like, “There’s no escape,” except, “Oh, wait, there’s this tunnel.”

And then the only reason to get us into that tunnel is for it to serve as a set piece because it doesn’t go anywhere, and it makes me so angry. So they go in there, and they’re… You know, they walk around for a little while, and then they end up and they’re like, “Oh, crap, it’s a dead end,” and it looks like it just collapsed.

So I guess we’re meant to believe that the demons or something have power to make the tunnel collapse. Okay, whatever. I was hoping that they were gonna find something cool- Yeah … at the end of the tunnel. Mm-hmm. No. They’re just stuck down there so that we can see the demons crawling towards them on the ceiling in a cool tunnel shot, and that’s it.

That’s the only reason they’re in there. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s a setup with no real payoff. You could have made it there… The demons are chasing them, and then the, the demons immediately cave it down in front of them. You know? It just, just- 

Craig: Something … 

Todd: something could have happened there except- 

Craig: But no. They, they just fight.

They have a fight and, you know, like, vines come out of the walls, and they have a gun, and he shoot… You know, the doctor shoots one of the other demons, a big hole in his head, but it just heals immediately and they just r- they just leave. They, they, they- They just run out … run back out the same trapdoor they went through.

Todd: Yeah. And then somehow they’re in a new room, which is the maid’s room, right? There was, like- … a maid in the backstory 

Craig: Yeah, that you see for a second. You see for one second her painting something on the wall, and that’s it 

Todd: Yeah, and it turns out she’s drawn symbols- Protection spells … all over the walls.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, and I don’t remember. 

Craig: This was in- Did somebody happen to know them? This was infuriating too. Yeah. Like, they’re like, “Oh, it’s protect-” It, it- They’re like, “There are weird symbols on the wall. What could it be?” And then Maddie, as though she, like, just magically speaks whatever ancient language this is, just fucking reads the whole thing.

I know. She’s like, “Oh yeah, these are protection spells, and it says as long as we stay in here, then they can’t hurt us.” And, like, she reads a whole bunch of stuff. It’s not- Oh … in English. Yeah. What is happening? Like, it doesn’t make any sense. 

Todd: This is where- 

Craig: It’s not even really words. Like, it’s just symbols on the wall.

Todd: Yeah. Again, they have just run away from a bunch of demons who are coming after them, but what is it, 10 minutes in this room? Where they can just sit and chill and, you know, tend to their wounds and read the wall symbols and things like that, and glean all this information. 

Craig: Right, and I don’t know if she gleans the information or if she’s just known all along and she just now tells us that, oh, you know, Evangeline’s story is she made a deal with these demons, and there had to be seven of them, and that’s why she invited these seven people.

And- Oh … they all got sacrificed, but they needed these demons who, like, got kicked out of hell for trying to overpower Lucifer or something. You know, they needed this opportunity to get out, but they had to have one living host. And when Evangeline realized that they had to have one living host after all those sacrifices, she hung herself, and that’s why…

Like- All of this- This is a lot 

Todd: of- 

Craig: And this is in, like, the last 10, 15 minutes of the movie. Like- 

Todd: Yeah … 

Craig: who cares? 

Todd: At this point, it doesn’t even matter. I think there’s one bit that she says, I think it’s here, right, where it’s something about as long as they can last until 6:00 AM or something like that- Right

the demons will go away. Like, what is the point of all… I, I don’t get it. It, it just neuters, to me, the whole movie. What, does this happen every night? 

Craig: Right. I think it’s a Halloween thing, but apparently it can happen every- any Halloween. Who knows? 

Todd: It’s just a lot to dump on you at once through this weird exposition tactic, and it doesn’t help us really except apparently now you’re thinking, “Well, if they can just last a few more hours, I suppose they’ll be okay.”

Craig: Well, right, and the movie has backed them… They’ve pa- the p- the movie has painted itself into a corner because they are now in this safe room where the demons are outside but can’t get to them, so the demons just have a little orgy for a minute. 

Todd: Yeah, that was weird. 

Craig: And, and then Angela shows up at the door while the boys are asleep and, like, taunts Maddie, and Maddie’s like, “Shut up, bitch,” and slams the door on her, and that’s it.

And then they wake up and it’s, like, the sun… Which happens first? The walls start bleeding at some point. 

Todd: The walls start bleeding, and they’re washing the spells away that are protecting the room. She knows this apparently. And so they’re like, “Oh, my God, it’s, it’s washing the spells away.” So they start trying to redraw the spells on the wall.

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: What? 

Craig: The, these ancient foreign runes. 

Todd: They just know how to draw them now? They know where they go, and- Uh-huh … I mean, it’s pretty quick thinking, but, uh- And 

Craig: it works.

Stupid. 

Todd: Really dumb. 

Craig: Right, and then the sun comes up, right? 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: The sun comes up, and the birds are singing, and they’re like, “Well, I guess we did it.” 

Todd: Uh-huh Yep. And then for no reason at all, the Edward Furlong guy is like, “Wait, I think there’s something wrong here,” and chucks a rock or something through the front window, and shatters.

And real- and it turns out outside there’s actually still dark. 

Craig: It’s still dark. It was all a trick, 

Todd: right. It’s still dark. They set our clocks ahead or something. 

Craig: Right. 

Todd: I mean, I don’t know why he had this idea that it was a trick. 

Craig: I don’t either. 

Todd: I don’t know why they didn’t just try going outside anyway.

Craig: I don’t know. 

Todd: I don’t know why they’re hanging there for a while questioning what was going on. 

Craig: Yeah. Right. So, so they’ve been tricked, but they’ve, they’ve been lured out of the room and so they’re standing at the front door, and they turn around and the demons are all gathered on the steps behind them, and Angela’s, like, suspended in midair and- Uh-huh

it’s, it’s kind of a, it, I don’t know, it, it’s kind of a funny ensemble shot. But- 

Todd: Pastiche. 

Craig: Yeah. Pastiche. And then a Night of the Demons song comes on. It’s like, “The demons come alive on Halloween.”

Todd: Uh, there’s gotta be a soundtrack to this movie that I probably need to track down. I mean- 

Craig: You should. And if you find it, share it with me, ’cause it’s hilarious. Like, it would be fan- oh, it would be great at a haunted house or something. It’d be so good. 

Todd: I missed… You know, my new TV here in this apartment, it s- has trouble sometimes with the s- I have to crank things up really, really high just to get sometimes audible audio, for some reason.

So, you know, I should start, I should start doing what you do and put headphones in and listen through my laptop, ’cause I missed so much of this. 

Craig: Yeah, this one was for sure worth l- putting the earbuds in. There’s a lot going on. Um, but, but, but they, they, they get Jason, the doctor. Angela rips his guts and he immediately turns into a demon.

And then Maddie and Colin run back into the room where they should be safe, but there’s a tub full of blood there now, and- Uh-huh … one of the other demons jumps out of it and attacks Colin. And then for some reason that I don’t understand, Edward Furlong falls through the floor, and then through every floor- 

Todd: Right

Craig: until he’s back in the basement. And then, I don’t understand this either, so he falls through the floor and instead of just going downstairs, she finds a rope and climbs down the rope- … three stories. Why? 

Todd: Right. Just run. I have no idea. 

Craig: I mean, I could, like, she, I, I can understand, “Well, I can’t leave the room.

I can’t go out the door because the room is protected.” Bitch, you’re going out of the room anyway. Yeah. You’re just going through the floor. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: It doesn’t, ugh, it doesn’t make any sense. Okay, so she find, she gets down there and his leg is hurt, and I guess because he has an open wound, he then turns into a demon.

And I swear to God, the last two guys, Jason and Colin, when they turn into demons, it’s the same mask, and it’s a cheap, lazy one. They look exactly the same. But she stabs him with a rusty nail, and then she goes back to the safe room, I guess, and finds supplies- … to make a bomb? Or, like, or, or she fills a bunch of bullets with rusty nails or something.

Todd: I don’t know what that was. I 

Craig: don’t 

Todd: know. It’s so… It’s just thrown in so quickly. 

Craig: Well, she holds them off with that shotgun for a while, and then there’s- 

Todd: Uh-huh … 

Craig: more titty tentacle stuff, and she’s, she’s still just trying to hold out for dawn, and eventually- Honestly, 

Todd: it’s a big mess. It’s a huge mess. I can’t tell what’s going on.

I, um, it’s a bunch of close-ups of special effects. 

Craig: I don’t know. At least it happens fast, yeah. And eventually she empties her gun, and they’re like, the demons are, like, chanting. They’re like, “Seven we are, evil we are.” And then, you know, God knows why, I guess she decides that because that Evangeline chick killed herself and that ended it, she makes a noose out of a rope and runs and jumps off the balcony and is hanging there dead.

And the sun comes up immediately. If she had held out for two more seconds, it would’ve been fine. 

Todd: It would’ve been fine, yeah. 

Craig: But the sun comes up, and the demons go poof like the vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They- 

Todd: Mm-hmm … 

Craig: and their ashes, you know, go back down to the cellar and reform skeletons.

And then it cuts back to the girl hanging, and it turns out she’s alive. She has pulled a Veronica Sawyer from Heathers, and she has jerry-rigged this noose so that it’s not really around her neck. It’s around her waist, apparently. But this also infuriates me because the reveal, she, like, opens her eyes like she’s alive, and I’m like, “Okay, I know this trick.

I saw the trick in Heathers. That’s fine.” But then when she goes to, like, let herself down, there’s no tension anywhere in the rope. Like- … 

Todd: nowhere. 

Craig: Like, the rope that’s supposedly attached to her back is loose too. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So what she’s suspended by, I have no idea. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: But she dro- she drops to the ground. 

Todd: How she put this together so quickly is, uh, mind-blowing as well.

Craig: Uh-huh. Well, I mean, she also made a bomb out of nails. Yeah, that’s true. So she’s, she’s innovative, I guess. I don’t know. And then she says something really stupid like something about demons, not so smart, and she, she walks out of there all beat up and bloodied up and these, you know, rent guys are… They’re like, “We’re here to pick up the sound equipment.”

She’s like, “It’s inside.” 

Todd: Uh-huh. 

Craig: And walks away. 

Todd: She leaves. 

Craig: The end. 

Todd: It’s another one of those weird things that kind of bothers me too, where these supernatural beings can be tricked- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: so easily. When there’s this thing, like we have to possess bodies and there, there’s gotta be an eighth one or whatever, this person can pretend to be dead and it foils their plan.

I never buy that shit when it comes in these movies. Unless there is like a s- explicitly w- some world building that happens that kind of establishes that there’s something about these demons they can’t really, they can’t really get into you. Right. You know, into your head or into your mind or, or sense and feel what’s- 

Craig: Right

Todd: the nature around them. Anyway, that’s a, that’s a minor point. It- she walks out and I was just like, “Thank God it’s over,” ’cause I just, I was pretty bored for, for half the movie. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Todd: Because it just became one big long chase, and I couldn’t really tell what was going on and… I mean, I could tell what was going on, but I- 

Craig: Right

Todd: it’s just a big long chase, you know? And, and- 

Craig: Right. And then the- there’s a stinger after the credits. I didn’t even bother to watch it. I just looked up what it was. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: Uh, it, it just goes back to that same guy in the club. Y- apparently, finally by the end of the movie, the girl has finished him off, and he comments on it.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And that’s the end of it. But, you know, I, I think the reason that this movie is so disappointing is because I wanted it to be good. The original is, is so campy and it’s kind of a cult classic, and you would expect if somebody was gonna remake something like that, you would expect it to be… And now I don’t know anything about this filmmaker, so I, I, I have no idea what was going on in his mind.

But you would expect that if you were gonna remake this movie, or at least you would hope that it was gonna be done by somebody who was doing it because they loved the original and- 

Todd: Right … 

Craig: um, they, they either wanted to really pay homage to it, or they w- really wanted to pay homage to it by doing something new and fun and creative with it And this just doesn’t really.

It, it, it really feels more just like, I would say a cash grab, though I can’t imagine that this made any money. It feels more like a nostalgia grab. Like w- we’ve got a built-in… You know, this is a cult movie, so there’s a built-in audience for it. Let’s throw it together and… I don’t know. It just doesn’t work for me, and I feel bad even saying that because it’s not a terrible movie.

We have seen far, far worse. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. 

Craig: It’s just by com- I m- if you’re gonna s- If you’ve not seen either, watch the first one. It’s better for every reason. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Even though it, it’s not a good movie either, but it’s fun. No, it’s campy and 

Todd: silly- 

Craig: Yeah … but it’s fun. But it’s fun. Mm-hmm. And I don’t know. I mean, if you had never seen the first one and you never had that context, like in 2009, if 20-somethings saw this movie around Halloween, I mean, I guess there’s some fun to be had.

Mm-hmm. There’s attractive people in it, fun music. It’s got a fun Halloween vibe. Just by comparison, I, I guess my expectations were too high, and ultimately I was a little bit let down. It’s not terrible- Yeah … and I don’t, I don’t wanna say, “Oh my God, stay away from it. It’s awful,” because it’s not. It’s not that bad.

It’s just not… It’s forgettable. It’s forgettable. 

Todd: I toss it in the same bin that, uh, honestly a lot of these direct-to-video, cheap-feeling horror movies go, or especially this time, you know, this early 2000s or whatever, where… E- except, it, this one has the additional problem of being a remake- 

Clip: Mm-hmm … 

Todd: to a, a beloved movie, so you expect more care would’ve been placed into it, and it…

They were trying. It just didn’t, it just didn’t work. You’re right. L- they, they took these iconic scenes and they, they put them in there, and they tried to update them and make them more edgy And those on their own, I suppose, are fine. Uh, they seem to be trying a little too hard- 

Craig: Yeah … 

Todd: like we said, and that’s a little cringey.

And the rest of it’s just, yeah, it’s just competent filmmaking, and the effects are fine and whatnot. And, and it’s, it’s another horror movie where demons are chasing people around a haunted house. There’s nothing really inherently wrong with it. Just like you said, it’s disappointing. 

Craig: Yeah. And, you know, again, throw it on your Halloween party playlist.

You know, i-i- in terms- Mm-hmm … of background stuff, sure. There’s enough to l- Like, there’s, there’s big boobs and, you know, lots of blood, and demon faces and stuff. But it, it’s a slog to get through if you’re just sitting it, is sitting down to watch it. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. Yep. Well, that’s all I got to say. 

Craig: Me too. 

Todd: All right.

Well, thank you guys for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. We ha- still have one more movie coming up, uh, for Halloween, so, and then that will be Halloween Day. You can find us online, chainsawhorror.com. Let us know what your favorite Halloween movie is. Let us know what you thought of this one as compared to the original.

I’d love to see if there’s some wildly varying opinions out there. Yeah. Especially, uh, your opinions of our podcast. Leave us a review somewhere, Apple Podcasts, wherever your favorite podcasts are, and let us know, uh, how you feel. We’ll see you next week for one more Halloween episode, and hope that you’re enjoying the spooky season so far.

Until then, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.