This week, The B-Movie Boys stumble into the wonderfully weird world of The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, a movie that asks a very important question: what if someone lovingly recreated every 1950s sci-fi B-movie trope they could think of and then crammed them all into the same film? The result is a glorious collision of mad scientists, telepathic skeletons, stranded aliens, radioactive space rocks, and a mutant creature that somehow ends up having the most sincere love story in the movie. As Dave and Bryan quickly discover, the longer you think about this one, the more charming it becomes.

Along the way, the conversation spirals into discussions about intentional bad dialogue, self-imposed budget limitations, classic creature features, filmmaking authenticity, and the kind of obsessive dedication that only exists when someone truly loves the genre they're parodying. Larry Blamire didn’t just make a spoof. He practically built a time machine back to the drive-in era and then populated it with some of the strangest characters imaginable.

Also discussed: impossible missions that apparently aren't impossible, Animala's woodland dance moves, the Batcave, Kevin Smith's low-budget filmmaking ingenuity, and a restroom story so profoundly uncomfortable that it may permanently alter Dave's relationship with public handshakes.

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Mission: Impossible (1996)
• Tom Cruise
• Scientology
• Friends
• The Aristocrats
• Clerks (1994)
• Kevin Smith
• Batman (1966)
• Dax Shepard
• Gwyneth Paltrow
• William Shatner
• Roger Ebert
• John Waters

Our Links:

• BMovieBoys.com
• Official Discord
• Patreon
• Facebook
• Instagram

Incoming transmission. Incoming transmission. Let's boogie.

Welcome to The B-Movie Boys, where challenged movies get the love they deserve and the respect that they don't question. I felt like I needed a question. I'm having a lot of, like, a crisis trying to figure out what B movies truly are. Because there's so many things.

They're all the things at once, it seems, and while also being none of the things.

That is a really wild segue into. Into this week's movie that we're talking about. Because, yeah, it's also all of the things, but also none of the things.

Absolutely none of them. Well, being all of them.

Yeah. We're your hosts. I'm Bryan Betz. This guy over here, that's Dave talking to you.

Bryan, have you ever seen the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra?

I have never even heard of it.

And now that you've both heard of.

It and seen it, oh, boy. The longer I've sat with this, the more I have liked it. If you had asked me as soon as it ended, I'd been like, that was a trip.

But now, being a couple weeks removed, I adore it with my whole heart.

Hey, guys, thank you so much for putting up with our crazy schedule, by the way. Life got in the way. It happens.

It happens.

Apologies. I'll say. We'll make it up to you.

We won't.

Unless we do.

Unless we do.

You guys are the greatest. Thank you so much.

Thanks.

So sorry. We'll try to do better and keep life more organized. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. Everyone's fine.

Everything's great.

Everything's great. We're back.

That's all that matters. Right? Back on schedule. Just missed one episode. Dave, have you heard of this movie?

No.

Why would you have?

It is a. Why would I have? But then after watching it, I became, like, a little obsessed with it.

Yeah.

Again, I get that this keeps happening.

It's happened a lot of times now.

I keep going down, like, these insane rabbit holes from these movies because they do so many things that you don't expect them to do. They're supposed to be bad, cheap movies, and they're not.

Exactly. That's why we had to change that opening line, which it isn't even correct.

Still.

Still, challenged is more apropos, I think, than bad movies.

Stay tuned. The ever evolving B movie boys.

We'll figure it out. Probably.

But first I think we gotta figure out how good of a B movie the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is.

The Lost Skeleton of Kadavra. We will be going through our patented schlockometer completely arbitrary scoring system.

We have one movie, 10 categories, the first of which is the audacity. But before we can determine that, we need to tell you the tale of the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

Hold on.

Betty, head to a remote cabin in the woods to find a fallen meteorite containing a powerful entirely made up radioactive element called atmospherium.

Atmospherium. Great.

Name the best. It really lets you know exactly what you're in for for this movie. Chef's Kiss.

It's. It's so much more obtainable than. Adam.

Tatium, which is obtained.

It is. It's a bad name.

It's kind of like Mission Impossible where he does them all.

Not only does he do the impossible mission, he does it like nine times.

So many times.

How can you have that many missions impossible? Eventually you have to start looking at this Ethan Hunt guy. Like, this one might be possible.

What's a real impossible mission to this Ethan Hunt guy? He's going to figure out how to do it all.

He has so far. Nothing stopped him.

Nothing's impossible yet.

Maybe that's the real lesson. Nothing is impossible as long as you have the power of Scientology on your side.

Ethan Hunt wakes up in a dirty motel room and his kidneys gone. He's in a bathroom, but also his mouth is sewn on the butthole. Dax Shepard, attack Shepherd's mouth. The son of the butthole of Gwyneth Paltrow.

Oh, no.

Gwyneth Paltrow's mouth is sun on the butthole of William Shatner. Shatner's mouth is sewn on the butthole of the Rizzler.

Oh, my God, why?

And the Rizzler's mouth is sewn on the open wound of Tom Cruise's missing kidney. And the Talon agent asked, so what do you call this act?

Aristocrat? Impossible. What a cast.

What a cast. I can't believe they got the Rizzler.

Atmospherium. That's what we're going for.

At the exact same time, an arrogant rogue scientist named Dr. Roger Fleming is wandering these very same woods, looking for the Legendary Cadavra Cave so he can find a mythical lost skeleton, the titular lost skeleton of Cadavra, and use it to conquer the world. Surely these two worlds won't collide. Spoilers. They will.

They absolutely will. And you know what? Why don't we just throw in another world while we're at it?

Cause to add to all this drama, a 6th grade art project spaceship crash lands nearby and two aliens named Crowbar and Lattice are now stranded on Earth. And by some miraculous coincidence, they need the exact same atmosphere meteor thing to fix the ship's power core.

I feel like that's the thing that makes the most sense in this movie. I imagine they came from the same place. The atmospherium and the meteor and the spaceship, you know, they're both from the sky.

They need the thing to get back up there.

Here's your tropes, here's your MacGuffin. Go have some fun.

We've got three groups of people all going after this one element. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, that's right.

While the aliens crashed their pet mutant, a three eyed frogmouth fish scaled bat costume thing with leaves all over it for some reason escapes from its cage and starts roaming the forest. He comes across a farmer and a cheerful park ranger. And then he kills a farmer and a cheerful park ranger.

You know what's a problem? What is when in your head you sometimes confuse a ghillie suit and a gimp suit.

Yeah, that could lead to a very unfortunate circumstance where you're trying to be in hiding, but you're wearing black leather in the middle. Not even.

I know.

Not even leather. What is that?

We can find out shortly.

Yeah, why don't you google it for me?

What animalia comes into this movie?

I'm not the one who's gonna google. What is a gimp suit made of?

What is a gimp suit made of?

It's latex, right? No, it's not late. That's not something.

No, I'm pretty sure it's leather or pleather.

I'm googling it.

Can you imagine if Ross in the episode of Friends where he has the leather pants and he creates like that paste because he's trying to get him off? Can you imagine like the whole thing is a gimp suit and it's a whole ro. Rachel thing and it involves a sex swing somehow and they all find out?

Of course it has to. Okay, so they're usually made from. They can actually be made from any material. Leather, pvc, rubber, spandex.

They're all viable Options for your gimp suit needs.

That's good that they have options. A lot of people have different skins and different allergies. I'm happy that it kind of covers all spectrums of kink. That's good.

That is good. It's very inclusive. Bondage situation.

Speaking of bondage justice for Ranger Brad.

What?

Meanwhile, Dr. Fleming actually finds the lost skeleton.

He was really well hidden for so long.

It's literally just a plastic model skeleton lying under a blanket in a cave. The skeleton is fully sentient. It communicates telepathically with a big booming voice.

And it orders Fleming to get the atmospherium so it can physically move again.

How does the skeleton know that the atmospherium will work?

I'm not positive, but I do think if Christopher were still alive. I just figured out the plot for Superman 5.

Skeleton seems real smart. Just can't move.

Are you saying that people who can't move aren't smart?

No, I'm saying traditionally, skeletons aren't very smart because they lack muscle organs, brains,.

Mostly everything besides the skeleton.

Mostly just skeleton. So the moving would be difficult not having muscles and tendons, which is my atmospherium.

How does a rock help the skeleton?

You know, it's a magical rock.

You're. You're right. You're right.

Just a teaspoon of it could get us to the moon and back six times. I don't know why I remember that exact quote.

Because you remember science. Maybe this is how misinformation works, is it's got plan.

Your head.

You're just like, surely that's real. Obviously no.

1 Tablespoon of atmospherium, six trips to the moon and back. Maybe the skeleton is a former scientist. You ever think of that?

My real question is, we just proved you don't need to do that. Just slingshots. They're just fine. They do a great job. Yeah, physics. Physics we don't need.

Whoa, whoa, Whoa, whoa.

Space MacGuffin. Bullshit.

You talking about science right now? I'm something of a scientist myself.

We're all something of a scientist ourselves. Apparently. If you don't care enough and don't believe in anything, nihilists are just the purest scientists around.

I don't believe in anything. Wish I could find joy in things like cabins, bicycles.

Bicycles. We'll get there. Oh, we'll get there. This movie is a treat.

They got terrified by seeing a set of stairs and had to talk it out.

It's a series of smaller buildings that lead you to the entrance of the main building.

It's perfect. I could have had the whole movie right there.

That one was completely thought up on the spot on the day.

It's perfect.

It's amazing.

Dr. Fleming's gonna find the aliens transmute a Tron left outside the cabin and he's gonna use it to zap four different forest animals together to create a beautiful feral woman named Animalia. He passes her off as his wife so he can also infiltrate the cabin. Because as we all know, only married people are allowed to enter cabins.

I don't understand why he's like, oh, I better get me a wife.

It was the 60s, man. This is what we did.

Gotta zap four animals together to create a wife for me. I love that. They're like, we're not gonna tell you what four animals they were. You gotta guess.

I don't need to know. I can guess.

I feel like we get a shot when he. When she later on gets put back untransmutified is the better way better of putting it.

They rip four animals out of her, they turn it back into that. Those four animals now have seen things.

Those four animals now know things.

They understand where they possibly are on grand scheme of things. They had it real good.

They know about science now too, though. And dancing.

So you're saying that they're now going to be tortured after they become wooden creatures again because they're going to have just this knowledge of science and they're going to be like, there's that squirrel still looking for a nut. Doesn't even understand that. Just even a tablespoon of atmosphere. There's no clue just how small he is.

No idea. Maybe those four random critters will become leaders within their biomes and advanced science for all critterdom.

Their biome dome.

Their biome dome squally. So everybody's in the cabin now.

And this leads to hilariously awkward dinner party where the clueless Armstrongs entertain the disguised aliens, the evil scientists, and Animala, who acts exactly like a prowling, sniffing, jungling, jungling.

That's not a jungling cat.

Jungling cat.

You could definitely use that with cats because they can go to the jungling ball and people are like, is that like the Jellicoe ball. Like they're both short words. Doesn't matter.

Jellicles. Great. Anna Mel is definitely a Jellicoe cat.

Oh, without a doubt.

So the Armstrongs are hosting this dinner party unexpectedly, while everybody else in the house is trying to figure out how to steal the space rock. The only thing missing from this scene is Dwight bringing his former babysitter as a date and a sweet $200 plasma TV.

I think my favorite part about this entire scene is that you have the two aliens who are trying to figure out how to be human and blend in.

So good.

And the one that they're watching is Animalia.

Fantastic.

It's so good.

Such a well brought together scene just for comedy hijinks.

It's a classic comedy routine. It's so well done.

That makes sense.

On the DVD release when everything really came out.

We're gonna get there. We're burying the lead. There's no real reason to bury the lead.

That is by design.

It makes it so much more interesting. So the villains finally make their move when Animalia performs a bizarre hypnotic dance of the woodland creatures. Dance?

To completely distract Dr. Armstrong with sex and animals and stuff.

I mean, she's very animalistic.

At the same time, the telepathic skeleton uses its mind control powers to freeze the aliens in place, allowing Dr. Fleming to successfully steal the atmospherium.

This skeleton had mind control powers that could freeze people this whole time? Why didn't he just use his Mind Bullets?

He could have used the Mind Bullets the entire time, but that would have shortened the runtime. He should have used the Mind Bullets.

It's not how you retrieve space rock. While her husband is being distracted by the animal lady, dancing Betty is attacked by the escaped mutant monster.

And instead of killing Betty, the monster falls in love with her because, of course, he does.

Tropes.

Tropes. We got him.

So they're gonna use the atmospherium that they now have stolen, and Dr. Fleming is gonna successfully resurrect the skeleton.

Excellent.

The Skeleton walking is exactly what you would think from a $40,000 movie that uses a plastic skeleton where it's just two people on either side keeping their hands full of the frame carrying the skeleton between them.

I've seen Muppets walk more believably than this.

Oh, this is just so perfect, though, because it just leans into the. This is bullshit and we know it. And that's the idea.

We gave you, like, a paper toilet roll. Paper toilet. Toilet paper.

Toilet.

Toilet paper roll. God, that would make a mess.

Do you want to hear about a mess?

I. I do. I'm hesitant to say I do, but I do.

I know this is, like, a bad spot. No, it's a good spot. It's not a secret.

The skeleton's gonna immediately betray him and use his telepathy to enslave the rest of the group and force the alien women Lattice, to become his bride. Of course that's gonna happen.

We know this.

Of course that's gonna happen.

See right through it.

Do you know what's not gonna happen?

What's not gonna happen?

I'm not gonna be able to go in a public restroom and fear for my life.

I need to know what happened, Bryan.

Can you explain my history of restrooms?

Fascinating things happen to Dave in public restrooms. He gets himself into more shenanigans than I've ever been in in a public restroom.

It's not fun. It's not cool. I don't know why people feel like they need to approach me in public restrooms.

It could go back to, they think I work in every place that I'm ever going to.

That's true. That's. That's kicked up recently, too.

It has again. I texted a picture. I was at a shoe store trying on shoes, and then lady asked me if I could help show her, like, the ladies shoes were the back. It's.

No.

No.

But they're probably back by the side. I don't know. I don't work here.

I'm trying to. Do you think the people who work at the store are regularly trying on shoes?

That's not how the perks work, lady. It's not, Bryan.

Yeah.

I've been doing a better job getting myself out in the community.

That's. That's good. That's commendable.

It is good. One of the churches in town this past weekend had a big, like, festival, lobster fest type thing.

Okay.

It was great. It was fantastic.

Love lobster.

Malukai's like, dad, I gotta go pee. And I was like, that works out great. Cause so do I.

What do you know?

To take the little guy to the bathroom. He does this thing. I do my thing. Start washing hands.

As you do.

An elderly gentleman walks In. And sure enough, my son's just washing his hands, and he says, hi, nice old church guy. Just like, oh, hello, hello.

Starts being all friendly old church guy. Like someone's acknowledged his existence, and that's not happening. He goes to the urinal next to the sink, and he's still talking.

Oh, no, is that the urinal next to the sink? I'm washing my hands. The guy's washing his hands. He sees my son's got his baseball train. He's like, oh, did you just come from baseball?

And my son's like, yeah, I just carry baseball out. And he's like, oh, are you guys active in the church? I was like, I mean, we're active in BART Savannah. He's like, oh, my name's John.

And he reaches over and shakes my hand.

What?

And I shook the man's hand while.

He was using the urinal.

And I'm saying, this is an elderly man, A, because he was sure. But B, he's also lived life long enough. He doesn't even bother with zippers when he's wearing shorts.

Oh, no.

He just picked whichever leg it was going down at the time. And that's where he just lifted his shorts up the bottom of the shorts and the side that he. That the side that he chose was sink side.

We've all done that move at home. The privacy of our own home with some gym shorts, of course, but in public at a church.

So he lifts up old right leg and just right on out and just starts going for it. And he shakes my hand, and I shook the man's hand. And you want to know why I shook the man's hand?

Why?

Because I had to make a good example in front of my son. Because the man was wearing a hat showing that he was a military veteran.

Oh, my God.

The situation made me want to physically just die. Yeah, that's here.

That's an Alzheimer for the bathroom stories.

A Vietnam veteran's hand while he pulled his dick out of his shorts and.

Talked to me about having conversation with you and your boy.

That's where I am in life right now. Things are fucking bleak. What do you do in that situation?

Did you just shove off, Listeners? Dave just shoved half a glizzy down his throat after he asked that question. What do you do in that situation? No beat just half a hot dog.

I fear he might be choking and dying on it right now.

Mom, he just.

Kobayashi.

What's the point of anything anymore?

Oh, my God. Nothing matters. You're shaking hands of men as they pull their Dick out and pee the.

Veterans fair to him. Thank you for your service.

This is. We've gone all the way off the wall, huh? To happen. Yeah, why not? What do you do in that situation? I guess what else can you do?

You got to shake the man's hand, I guess.

Shake the man's hand.

You're already seeing some shit. You're already washing your hands. You just continue.

I mean, I had to redo it.

Yeah, you had already finished.

Obvious. Of course I did. I'm trying to get the little guy to finish wash his hands. I don't want this man's dude's dick is down his leg.

Just being down his leg anymore next to me.

Yeah, obviously I didn't know he's going.

To come in for that type of shake. Yeah, you wait for the shake. Not that one.

No.

Not a handshake.

How many pumps did he shake your hand?

A single pump.

Oh, just one pump.

That's all I needed. A gentleman shake.

Gem shake.

Right, Right.

You do it three times, you're playing with it.

What's twice?

I. I guess a more formal handshake. I don't know.

Is that like the. The formal U in Spanish?

Yeah, exactly.

The double pump.

The double pump. Or you do the old Donald Trump chainsaw method. Not a chainsaw. Chainsaws are. You don't have to move your arm when you hold the chainsaw.

Famously.

Don't have to be like a. A regular saw is what I was thinking of.

This makes me wish that Bryan organized the great outdoor games back in the day.

It be very interesting as somebody who's never been outdoors.

Famous bubble boy organizing outdoor events.

Oh wow.

That end this movie.

Yeah. Oh yeah. We should do that. Okay.

That I'm wrecked for life.

To save the day, Paul and Betty lure the love struck mutant to. To the skeleton's forced wedding. Because the mutant's brain is too simple for the skeleton to mind control.

The monster easily grabs the skeleton, throws it over a cliff to shatter into pieces, and then tragically dies from its own injuries. The surviving humans and aliens happily share the atmospheria because sharing is caring.

The audacity.

This is pretty much every B movie trope slapped together for the most part.

Yeah. Yeah. They are hitting the marks. The commitment is. Is just so good too. From the very start of the movie with the dialogue.

It's like, okay, I see what we're doing here.

I mean, it should be noted that this is a parody.

Yes.

But it's a ridiculously accurate parody.

Very much so.

Like, to the point that it's a.

Little scary sometimes at points it's parodying things that I hadn't picked up on as B movie tropes.

Yeah. Like the dialogue.

Like, yeah, we've had some crappy dialogue, but this was like this really honed in on what makes the dialogue bad and just unnatural. Talking about science.

This guy wanted to make a proper 50s B movie. And his budget for it was $40,000. And that wasn't because that was the money he could get for it.

That was self imposed wild because that's what they would have had to spend. And he said, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it.

Yeah.

So he put the financial restrictions on himself to do it the right way to make this parody.

I mean, that is commitment to the bit for sure.

Yeah. Because like the. The plot itself isn't original, but that's by design.

Yeah. It's supposed to be every trope slapped together. It's supposed to be exactly predictable and everything you know and love about these movies.

Right. But the idea of parodying an already insane genre in itself is pretty audacious.

I'm.

I think. Yeah. Why don't we go with like a 7?

I feel like that's appropriate.

Yeah. And the next category is heart.

Self imposed budget restriction in order to make it authentic, which is a word I know I'm using generously. Will get there.

Yeah. Authentic.

We'll get there. Something we will have to talk about in great detail. Yeah. But we'll get there.

This guy absolutely cares. I actually ran into, in my research for this movie, like a message board that he frequented in the years after this movie came out because he never.

Nobody who actually worked on this ever expected anybody to see it. And they're completely blown away by how successful, quote unquote, it's become.

And you could tell when he talks about it the way he talks about it that like, this is a labor of love.

Like all of these movies are.

Yeah.

Seemingly seeming because they have to be. I feel like you have to, on a certain level, throw yourself in in order to make this work.

Unless you're.

Holy shit.

Masters of the universe.

Also true. But even, like the rules that he put on this Movie. Like the actors had to say the dialogue. Word perfect.

Yeah.

You could not improvise because he understood. I wrote this dialogue because I. I know it's redundant. I know that I'm repeating words that don't need repeating. Like that's the idea. That's joke.

They're not allowed to ad lib anything.

It's so good.

It really is. I'm going with a 10 for heart. I loved it.

Yeah. I agree. 10. We get into technical incompetence.

And again, this is traditionally our low scoring category because it turns out that most of these move here. Most of these movies are made by people who know how to make movies.

Yeah. And it makes me feel like we just haven't talked about a truly incompetent person yet.

Except for like, what was the one that Birdemic? Birdemic was pretty incompetent.

Yeah. That was hubris and incompetence mixed together. That's a really interesting mix.

But outside of that, everything is pretty. I mean, these people know how to make the movie they're setting out to make on the budget. They've, they're. They have. Or they've given themselves.

But he was so meticulous in the way that he shot every single scene knowing, like, no, the camera's obviously going to have limited movement because it's just going to be on sticks. Because they would have to turn a quick setup and a quick turnaround to quick everything.

Right.

He has a theater background. Larry Blumeyer. So he knows how to block. He knows how to block to one direction already, which is really convenient.

When you don't reset, you don't do other setups other than like a master. Maybe a close up. Maybe a close.

That's it. Yeah.

When you're on a set and you're moving quick. And I think the most important thing about this movie was that he filmed it at Bronson Canyon.

Yes. Absolutely. Incredibly important. And a site where lots of these science fiction, 50s flicks and horror movies were shot.

But he did it again for authenticity's sake. But it's authenticity to the era, which is really, really interesting.

Yeah.

And we're going to get there.

Yeah. The site permit for shooting at Bronson Canyon was the single largest expense of the film's entire budget.

That doesn't surprise me at all.

Yeah. The cave.

Awesome.

Also famous for being the exit of The Batcave in Batman 66.

It sure is.

Which is the actual cave they used where the skeleton was.

If you don't think that's cool, then you could fuck all the way.

Right? That is awesome. The skeleton was hiding in the bat cave.

Guys, I'm going to like. It's got to be low again.

So super low. Because anything that seems like a mistake in this is done intentionally.

There's nothing from real.

Yeah.

About this movie, despite complicated and the.

Bad Foley and the weird shots. All on purpose.

Yeah. Market down too. It's low. It's really down there. He's a guy, knows what he's doing big time.

But that leads us to low budget ingenuity.

Full blown 10.

Absolutely.

The man knew what he was doing. Again, he proved it by saying, now I'm pretty technically competent. I could figure this part out too, pretty easily. Watch this.

Yeah, I'm gonna shoot this thing for a low budget. No problem.

And then he did. No problem.

I read something this week, actually, about Clerks that the reason it was black and white was because of the neon lighting in the store. Everybody would have shown up green if they kept it in color. So that's the only reason that Kevin Smith decided to do it in black and white.

Because he couldn't afford the extra money to, you know, light it. And then in one of the earlier reviews, he read somebody attributed it to being the security cameras. And he was like, yeah, I'll just run with that.

And that's what he's been telling everybody for years. But he just recently came out and said, no, it's because we couldn't afford to shoot in color.

No. Color is really expensive and requires a million other things. He'd have to replace the lights in the convenience store every single night.

Yeah.

While shooting.

Yeah.

You don't need that.

No, that's. That's insane. Just shoot it black and white.

I don't know what color would do to enhance the salsa shark.

I think the movie would not have been as successful if it had been color.

No, it had just been another movie.

We didn't even. We wouldn't even know who Kevin Smith is right now if they had sprung for lights.

What's next? Genre exploitation?

Sure is genre exploitation.

It's got to be an 11, right?

I mean, if anything has been this, this should be so. Yes, an 11. This takes not just the sci fi genre, but the B movie genre and leans so far in.

This is kind of like a. These movies planted the seeds so that he could. The Plant. That's really what it is.

Yeah. Yeah. How many sequels did they make to this?

Too many, I would say, but another will get there.

I think there's only one, but I.

Know what I said.

Yeah.

Too many.

There's. There's also a making of documentary of the sequel, so.

Oh, baby.

Yeah.

How great is that?

That brings us to the Holy Trinity, and this is a rarity. No blood.

We got an over.

An over. No blood, no boobs, no booms.

Bryan, I asked, what's the point of any of this anymore?

Another hot dog. You gotta be kidding me. Got Joey Chestnut over here on the podcast just firing down hot dogs after asking philosophical questions.

And I'm doing my best to make him choke on it.

I just don't know if the point is anymore.

No, what. I mean, what could. You should dunk that in water. Then you could eat it faster.

That's.

That's the strategy.

Only pussies do it that way.

And you're just doing it. There's no condiments on them. You're just firing down raw dogs.

I'm a raw dog and son of a bitch.

They are cooked, though.

Maybe.

Maybe. Oh, Jesus. Okay. This is the kind of lifestyle that leads you to shaking hands with strangers in bathrooms while they're peeing.

I'm going downhill fast.

It's unraveling like you wouldn't believe. A zero for the Holy Trinity. I mean, we didn't get any blood.

Boobs or boobs.

But we got a couple wieners on the.

On the podcast, so you are welcome.

Next up, we have memorable characters. We've got a lot in this one. I think we do.

The skeleton's gonna shine for forever. Forever.

Even the Mutant with no lines, just the look of it, is memorable.

I love with the Mutant. They purposely made it hard for him to move.

So good. Stupid. Stupid, but so funny. And you can see, like, at certain points, like, the face of the guy wearing the giant mask in the neck of the mutant.

Thing of beauty, man.

It's great.

Think of beauty.

And then you got Animala, who is very memorable for being a amalgamation of four different woodland critters, who dances sexy and is also, should be noted, director, writer, star Larry Blamire's actual wife.

Sure is.

She chose that role, too. It wasn't written for her. She saw the script. She could have easily taken Betty, but she's like, no, I want animal. That's the one I want.

Yeah, I'm going with like a. The seven.

Seven. I like seven.

I think seven.

We haven't really talked about Lattice, the lady alien. She is.

Yeah. That's a problem because they were two of my favorite, but then they're also kind of in the back of my mind right now. That's a problem.

It is a problem, isn't it?

They're pretty great. Seven. I'm good with seven.

I like seven. Seven feels right. Next up, we have quotes.

Holy shit. Are there quotes in this movie?

Yeah, this thing is definitely chock full of one liners and just amazing readings because again, they did have to be word perfect on the script, so there's not a lot of leeway there. But the acting. Oh, God, the acting.

Even when I was a child, I was hated by skeletons.

I've seen a bear do things. Well, even things that a bear wouldn't do.

Together, you and I will conquer the world. Together.

Sorry. Sometimes my wife forgets that she's not an alien from outer space.

I sleep now.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

It's a perfect movie when you think about it.

Seriously, Betty, you know what this meteor could mean to science if we find it and it's real? It could mean a lot. It could mean actual advances in the field of Science.

10.

10.

Like, this is such a brilliantly quotable movie.

It's. It's so much fun.

I wonder. Cut away to a man who's not even anywhere close to them.

I wonder as well.

Oh, it's so good. So, so good.

Dumb. I love it. Speaking of loving it, entertainment value, I.

Want to deduct points.

Oh, okay.

And I say that because I loved this movie. Yeah, I really did. But man, is it too long.

It's. It's absolutely too long. Which is crazy because it's 90 minutes.

And a lot of people call this movie out because they said if you were being true to the genre that you were trying to do a parody on, you would have made it like a 72 minute movie.

That's true. Yeah. I. I feel like Larry didn't know what to cut.

I agree. It's a lot of darlings, but you.

Got to kill someone's choice.

You got to do it.

You got to do it.

It's a long movie and you feel it.

You do feel it. And if you for some reason were to miss the opening, I think you'd never really catch back up. You never really get on board.

Right.

It requires your full attention, I think, to really appreciate it.

I'm going to go with a. I want to say like a seven or an eight.

Yeah, that's kind of where we've been with this movie all around.

I'll go with a seven.

Okay.

The length really bothered me.

I agree.

Said no one ever to me.

Is that a third hot dog? I'm just kidding. It wasn't. It's. Oh, wait. But wait, there's more. He pulled out a third hot dog. Wow. Right on cue.

I. I'm terrified to ask how many you have lined up there. I guess we'll find out. The Mystery show.

We never know.

1, 2, 3, 7. Entertainment value. And our final category is cult ability.

This movie would be awesome to see at midnight.

I completely agree.

I'm going with the dead.

I think this is a movie that speaks to the people that would go to see a midnight movie. This is like for the people who appreciate B movies and would be a blast for a midnight viewing.

It's a love letter.

It is a lovely love letter.

And a love letter that was helped along by a controversy.

Controversy.

Because Roger Ebert saw this movie.

Okay.

And gave it one and a half stars.

One and a half.

He gave this such a low score because he said that camp can only be found not made.

I'm sorry, what?

His argument was that it was false camp.

False camp. Forced camp.

Is there a difference?

I don't know.

Because his argument was that Larry Blymire and his crew were intentionally trying to make a quote, unquote, bad movie. A B movie.

Yeah.

Of that era. Of that genre. A time period with Roger Ebert would be ridiculously familiar with.

Absolutely.

But Roger Ebert uses Ed Wood to prove his point. Because Ebert says that Ed Wood really tried to make the best movie that he possibly could.

Sure. Yeah.

He sincerely went for.

Has the authenticism.

The badness is entertaining, whereas with this, the badness is manufactured.

Okay. I mean, I could see that. Huh. It just. It just feels weird coming from Roger Ebert who wrote beyond the Valley of the Dolls there you think you'd be.

He would be able to appreciate what. What this movie was doing. That's. It's interesting.

I found the interesting quote that he had was that he quoted Dave Kerr, who's a fellow film critic, who said that true camp sincerely wants to be itself.

Okay.

What are your thoughts on this kind of controversy that this movie caused about this?

That's interesting because, like, true camp wants to be itself. I think you'd have a hard time arguing that this movie doesn't want to be itself.

This movie is extremely self aware and leaning into the tropes in a way that, I mean. I mean, you're not going to. It's hard to say because, like, you're not going to put it in the same category as like a John Waters movie.

No, you can't, because John Waters famously says his movies aren't camp, they're trash.

Right. But when you're talking camp, usually John Waters is one of the go to.

Yep. But still.

But yes. Oh, that's. Camp is such an interesting thing to try to define to begin with.

So are B movies, as we're learning.

Yeah. I mean, everything's fluid these days. Right. Happy Pride month, everybody.

Yeah, it.

There it is. Glizzy number four. Wow. That one was impressive.

You're welcome. I love that.

Yeah, that's. It's important to know that all of these have had full bunch that he's not phoning it in, just going straight dog.

This is one of the most insane bits I've ever seen on a podcast. Yeah, wash that. Wash that hot dog down with a nice cold taste of the Rockies.

Delicious.

Yeah. Well, your mountains have gone gray, so I don't know how delicious it could possibly be. Room temperature Coors. Just like being at the ball game.

That's right.

I feel like it is important to note that Roger Ebert did admit that if this movie had been made in total ignorance 50 years ago, it might be recalled today as a classic.

What is he even saying with that? Like, hey, if this was a. A real authentic effort at this, people would love it.

But because it's an intentional parody, it's not hitting the mark for him.

All right, so this is actually a pretty famous Roger Ebert argument, and that's why I wanted to really bring it up. And the thing that always bugs me about this type of argument is everything that you see on the screen is fake, period.

Yeah.

Hard stop. No matter what, you're watching a movie.

Right.

Those people that you're seeing up there, they're also documentary. They're reading the pretending lines out of a script there. They are making pretend up there, as Kevin Smith says.

Right. As Ian McKellen says in that one bit. What I do is I read the words on the script and then I perform them.

I imagine what it would be like to be a wizard.

He's not really a wizard. Should be noted. That's important right now. I just find it really interesting that this is a.

A hill that Ebert was willing to like, die on when we're talking about things that are entirely manufactured.

Right, right. The whole industry is fake, like, to.

The point that even if you want to bring up John Waters Pink Flamingos, it's an exercise in filth.

Right.

It's a man who's actively going all the way for art.

Right.

He's making this up. Like this scenario in Baltimore doesn't exist in this trailer.

Right.

There's no egg lady in there. A.

There's no real egg lady.

I know. I'm so sorry. Egg lady. Frayed. Not. I like to put out Roger Ebert little things. It's fun because I love the man so much and respect the man so much.

And whenever you get one of these weird ones, you're like, hold on a second.

It's weird to get hung up on authenticity in a land of make believe.

Not really all that funny, but just something to think about, something to consider. How'd this movie do? Because it feels like it did pretty good.

It's. It's a pretty good. Before I get into that, I will tell you The Rotten Tomatoes critical 54% audience 85. Big gap. Obviously, we do fall within the gap.

IMDb, it's got a 6.8 Metacritic, it's got a 45 letterbox, it's got a 3.5. So, yeah, this was all over the place. All over the place. We are firmly right in the middle of all that. At a 74.

I'm all right with that.

Yeah, it feels right.

That feels great. Actually.

Three out of four stars any day of the week. Almost.

Almost. Three out of four stars.

Just barely.

I don't want to go all the way. Can't do it. Like, just a little one of those pointies.

Just gotta round off a little. Round it up a little bit. One of those stars isn't all the way filled in. It's got a point.

I can't recommend this movie enough to people, at least for one watch.

One watch. And with friends, with a group like we. Like we say frequently, these movies are better with people.

There's so much fun with people. It makes me, like, miss movie theaters like the way that they used to be.

Yes. You want more of a Avengers endgame crowd than you do, like, random Tuesday matinee.

Exactly.

The more people you watch this with, the more fun you'll have.

People who want to be there and know why they are there.

Exactly. People who appreciate the genre and will get the jokes. So that has been Four Hot Dogs and the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

Now we got to figure out what we're talking about in two weeks.

Well, I am so happy that you asked because let me just plug in all these numbers into our computer here and see what it's going to pop out with.

And.

Oh, Bryan, I hope that you are ready.

I have no idea what I'm in for.

Well, for our next episode, obsessive scientist Dr. Pretorius successfully discovers a way to access a parallel universe of pleasure by tapping into the brain's pineal gland. When he is seemingly killed by forces from this other dimension, his assistant, Dr. Crawford Tillinghast, is accused of the murder.

That sounds like it's gonna be a trip.

I hope your pineal glands are ready.

My pineal gland is primed and ready to go.

Next episode: From Beyond.

Until then, be sure to rate Review Subscribe Share with your friends. Thank you guys for listening. Check out our patreon, patreon.com/macguffinstudios that's Mac like the burger. Guffin like a muffin.

We have all sorts of exclusive content over there that spans three, four podcasts, and I can't count anymore how many we've done and how many things we've tried years. There's a whole bunch of stuff on there that's fun to check out.

It's a time capsule.

There's some fun stuff in there. Go check out our Armageddon episode where we specifically watched with the commentary on the Criterion version, which is just unbelievably good.

It's a treat.

You can check out our discord with the link in the show notes. It'll bring you to our our fun little community where we chat about these movies.

And we also have our Monday Night Midnight Movie Madness, which is not at midnight because we are adults with day jobs and it's Monday, so we do it at 10pm Eastern.

We should note we say watch the movie with us and we literally mean watch the movie. Yeah, the chat's open.

Oh yeah.

We are all having a ball watching these together.

We're having a great time and commentary is encouraged.

Yes.

Please follow us on social media @bmovieboys on Instagram, Facebook, send your emails to [email protected] if you've got any questions or suggestions.

Bryan, you got anything else?

That is it for me.

But until then, be like an old man at a urinal, pulling your dick out through the bottom of your short, shaking hands with strangers, wishing them a good journey.