In this episode, we explore the cult classic Halloween 3: Season of the Witch with guests Jake and Ian from Podcasty for Me. We delve into the film’s unique narrative, which abandons the Michael Myers storyline in favor of a standalone horror tale. Despite its initial box office struggles, we argue for its imaginative depth, touching on themes of capitalism, technology, and corporate greed embodied by the character Conal Cochran.

Jake shares his personal connection to the film, and we analyze how its eerie elements, such as the haunting jingle for the Silver Shamrock masks, reflect broader societal issues. Our discussion dives into the film's practical effects, dark humor, and standout performances, particularly from Tom Atkins and Stacey Nelkin.

As we wrap up, we investigate the film's ambiguous ending and its lingering impact on viewers, encouraging audiences to embrace Halloween 3 for its creativity and unique place within the horror genre.

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Evan: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. Today is Halloween,

Evan: so I am your host, Scary Evan, back again with another film discussion from the left.

Evan: You can support the show and listen on all platforms at leftoftheprojector.com.

Evan: And it being Halloween, it only seemed fitting to discuss a movie from the franchise

Evan: Halloween, the only one without the title character, Michael Myers.

Evan: And I'm referring to the third installment of the franchise,

Evan: Halloween 3, Season of the Witch, released in 1982, directed by Tommy Lee Wallace,

Evan: produced by Debra Hill and John Carpenter.

Evan: It stars Tom Madkins, Stacey Nelkin, Don O'Hellery. I said his name wrong. Don O'Hurley.

Evan: The film did not include Michael Myers.

Evan: It was a commercial flop, according to the studios, getting just $14 million

Evan: on a $4.6 million budget.

Evan: But don't let those numbers fool you. This is a great movie.

Evan: and back on the show i have hosts of podcasty for me i have jake and ian thank

Evan: you both for joining me this all hallows day eve no day well.

jake: Thank you so much for having us and by the way today it's podcast.

ian: Oh that's exactly right and i unfortunately do have to be every year halloween

ian: or in this case maybe i'll be sawian for this but i like that thank you.

Evan: Wait did i say did i say your podcast no.

ian: No no we're just making it spooky.

Evan: Oh podcast oh got it okay yeah.

jake: I mean there were a lot of different variations there was like odd ghastly gore shriek that's too much.

Evan: Though i just.

jake: I scaled it back so honestly you got aphysium.

Evan: Not too bad but yeah so uh yeah before we get into uh this uh you know i think

Evan: people may remember you from our episode on x-men the original X-Men.

Evan: But did you want to tell everyone about your podcast before we talk about Halloween and Halloween movies?

jake: Oh, I'd love to. Yeah, we do a show called Podcasty for Me.

jake: I feel a sort of kinship with you, Evan, and with this show.

jake: We talk about films from a left perspective, although we drill down into the

jake: individual filmography of a particular actor, director, or writer.

jake: We started with Clint Eastwood, hence the name of the show, and currently we

jake: talk about the films of writer-director Paul Schrader, explore kind of their

jake: context politically and historically, and also,

jake: you know, goof around and make fun of each other and stuff.

jake: So that's our show. We're over there at podcasty4me.com.

jake: Got all your links, everything you could ever need or want. And we have a Patreon

jake: where I'm about to upload a bunch of photos of Ian smiling in the beautiful

jake: city of Shanghai, China.

jake: So lots to enjoy.

Evan: Did you just come back?

ian: I did. I came back last Monday.

jake: Ian is working as what's known as a wet boy. for the intelligence services.

ian: What it was.

jake: Yeah.

Evan: The wettest boy. Got it. Well, that's great to, to have you back both on the show.

Evan: And I guess before we talk about the movie at hand, I'm curious if there's,

Evan: you know, it is horror season.

Evan: I'm wondering if there is a film that's on your list.

Evan: I mean, I guess you could have already seen it too. That was something that

Evan: you hadn't seen before this year that you might, you know, would tell someone

Evan: that they should also watch and enjoy or maybe not enjoy if you didn't enjoy

Evan: it i don't know if you had any recommendations for the for the listeners.

ian: Yeah i want to give two although i would imagine your listeners

ian: intelligent people obviously they're fans of the podcast so

ian: i'm not going to surprise them but i am going to

ian: recommend the film for

ian: children based on a ray bradbury story the halloween

ian: tree this is a television oh yeah yeah i loved this growing up still love it

ian: comes in at a cool hour I think you know as these TV Halloween specials do and

ian: then I will also recommend the real actual cinematic movie of Brain Dead which

ian: is the Peter Jackson film and it's.

jake: Sometimes known as Dead.

ian: Alive I think that's the US exactly and,

ian: there's a screening this week I live in Oaxaca Mexico but there's a screening

ian: this week and this is probably going to be my third watch the film I love it

ian: it's a if you ever wanted to get somebody onto gore

ian: without it being too scary or upsetting, I feel like it's the perfect movie

ian: to see the sort of the pleasures of just like a nasty glorpy.

Evan: Yeah. You might not want to eat soup anymore though.

ian: It's true.

jake: Let me turn your soup for a while. I think it set some kind of a record for

jake: the most fake blood used in a film production, at least for a while. It held that.

Evan: Yeah. I think that's right.

jake: Yeah. That's a great one. I currently, so I'm, I haven't gotten to it yet.

jake: But I have seen this year. I'm feeling like I've seen all of the good horror movies already.

ian: Wow. That's great.

jake: I'm really like at, I'm, I'm running out of like, at least, um,

jake: canonical classics to to check out for the

jake: first time although there's one that i it's managed to

jake: escape uh my voracious eyeballs and

jake: that is killer clowns from outer space i've never seen

jake: me either it's it's on the list this year uh i

jake: have it ready to go i have it queued up i haven't pulled the trigger yet uh

jake: but i'm excited to check that out no idea if it's good or bad no idea if i'll

jake: even like it so i won't make a recommendation however uh it's a good title and

jake: it seems like it's written and directed by like three or four brothers or something so i.

Evan: Didn't know that i.

jake: Don't even know i.

Evan: Know that it exists i've never seen it and i just people who like it i think

Evan: love it but then i don't know.

jake: Yeah i mean it's got a it's got a cult uh i think it's like a riff tracks classic

jake: or uh well i think they did a killer clowns maze at one of the haunted,

jake: the big theme park horror night things within the last couple of years.

jake: So clearly it's still working for people.

jake: It's still doing something for the people who like it.

Evan: Yeah, I'll throw a couple recommendations. These are movies that I just saw

Evan: for the first time, and I can't believe that it took me this long to see it.

Evan: The first one is the Italian film Torso, directed by Sergio Martino.

Evan: It came out in the early 70s, And it's kind of like the precursor to the monkeys film head.

jake: So I understand it. Oh, come on. We're having fun.

Evan: Well, it's like a, it's very much like a flat proto. Like, uh,

Evan: I feel like the movie, one of my favorite movies, black Christmas is kind of

Evan: loosely kind of, I don't want to say it's based on this, but without this one,

Evan: I don't think that movie exists the year later.

Evan: Maybe not. Maybe they already had written it and I'm just making things up,

Evan: but I feel like they're very perfect for each other.

Evan: And then also the other one that I saw, just the other day that i'm still kind

Evan: of uh feeling creepy from is the movie raw ah.

jake: Oh yeah yeah.

Evan: It was yeah i've been getting into these a lot of these uh french um you know

Evan: um extremity films yeah yeah raw ladies movie about about.

ian: Uh flesh that's always a good start.

Evan: Yeah it's really me out just uh yeah it's uh it's uh just it left me very much

Evan: moments of just i was yeah it was uh

Evan: Not as the same way that I felt after seeing the substance where I just was

Evan: kind of like laughing with like a giddy person at all the gore.

Evan: But yeah, it was a different, different one.

Evan: But yeah, those are the two that I've watched most recently,

Evan: both were on my lists and yeah, I guess I have a, the other question I sometimes

Evan: ask being that it's not when it's not horror season is if you could choose an actor,

Evan: I guess it could be a director living or dead to, you know, have a,

Evan: a beer a smoke a drink a dinner with who might you uh who might you choose.

jake: Uh i mean obviously there's a lot of

jake: a lot come to mind dw griffith polanski

jake: woody allen i could ask woody allen about how he dated stacy nelkin when that's

jake: true uh he claims she was of age no um i mean i would love to i would love to

jake: talk to charles lawton i think it would be uh a lot of fun and honestly if he could bring his wife,

jake: Elsa Lanchester, with him, the Bride of Frankenstein herself.

jake: But first of all, I think I could talk to, you know, just listen to him talk about anything.

jake: Obviously, I have questions about Night of the Hunter. I want to hear about

jake: hijinks on the set of Witness for the Prosecution.

jake: Was Dietrich doing pranks? Was she like the Clooney of her time?

jake: And also, I feel like saying Orson Welles would be kind of hacky,

jake: so I feel like he's I'm going to go with Charles Lawton.

jake: I would love to have a i assume a large beer with charles lap.

Evan: Sounds about right.

ian: I'm gonna i'll say a charles as well just to stick with my buddy here charles

ian: burnett i think uh still alive but probably would have no interest having a

ian: beer with me which is one of the things i respect so much about him i think

ian: he seems like a guy who's got his own stuff going on uh verner kind of a boring pick but,

ian: jake and i saw him speak live once and i mean the man can just talk about anything

ian: and make it interesting and he's from.

jake: Bavaria so he probably knows his way around beer I would love to know what he

jake: thinks about beer like what are his opinions.

ian: I mean he's got an opinion about everything and he's one of these guys who's

ian: lived a life so I'm definitely gonna pick a director I'm not gonna go with a

ian: film brat guy that type of person sorry to these guys but I want to hear about

ian: somebody who also ran guns in Mexico or something you know that lived something

ian: apart and then decided to go make films.

jake: Guy who walked across Germany.

Evan: He's not just going to like just drop references for 30 minutes.

ian: Yeah. Yeah. No.

jake: No. What about you, Evan?

Evan: I'm going to go with, I say, I answer this question a lot. I feel like I've

Evan: gotten over my good. I'm going to go with Joel Schumacher.

ian: Okay.

jake: Yeah.

Evan: And totally because I watched a few of his movies recently, I just did an episode on the lost boys.

Evan: I just think he would have some interesting, I don't, he has interesting politics

Evan: perhaps. I mean, he's also currently slept with like 10,000.

jake: Men or something in his life. Yeah.

Evan: Yeah. Like Will Chamberlain level type. So I don't want to talk to him about

Evan: that necessarily, although I would be curious how he had time.

jake: I mean, Schumacher is one of those guys with, you know, with Guillermo del Toro,

jake: with I think Scorsese has one.

jake: There's there are certain directors who have an entire separate Wikipedia page

jake: for their unrealized projects.

ian: Yeah.

jake: And that's just that's a whole conversation right there.

jake: what happened with this one how did you you know how far along did you get with

jake: back batman dar night do you guys know about this no it was going to make a batman movie,

jake: called uh dark night but the k the shared together and the k was capitalized in the in what year,

jake: uh well 2002 i mean i think i think it was after it was going to be after uh batman and robin so,

jake: I don't know. I'll look this up. Well,

jake: you guys talk yeah.

Evan: Keep talking uh yeah i think he would be interesting guy to talk to i think

Evan: he'd have uh you know there are lots of films that he's in that i would like

Evan: to just ask him about you know i mean he's he is such a like a the most i don't

Evan: know he has very wide ranging,

Evan: films like he has things like falling down and flat miners he did the client

Evan: i mean they're just such such a eight millimeter i mean that movie absolutely fucked me up when i saw it.

jake: Yeah yeah Yeah, I mean, yeah, he saw Paul Schrader's Hardcore and decided it

jake: wasn't upsetting enough.

Evan: I think I've told this story on this podcast before, but when 8mm came out,

Evan: it was in 99. I was just under the age where you could see an R-rated movie, and we tried to sneak in.

Evan: But because it was so upsetting, they had a person checking tickets outside of the thing.

Evan: Because they're like, no, you guys can't see this. So we had to see whatever

Evan: PG movie we had bought tickets for.

Evan: And then I think we tried again like a month later and saw it.

Evan: And I kind of wish that I hadn't seen it.

ian: I was going to say, I hate to be on the side of the movie cops,

ian: but in this case, he might have been on the side.

Evan: He might have been on the side.

jake: I mean, this is a film about no one looking after the children.

ian: That's true.

jake: Yeah. So it's nice to know that there was someone, yeah, trying to protect your

jake: impressionable young mind from a sad movie.

Evan: Yeah, it had some crazy performance. I mean, yeah. Wasn't James Gandolfini was

Evan: in it, I think, if I remember?

jake: That sounds right. he pops up in a lot of stuff like that where.

Evan: He's creepy like.

jake: You know joel schumacher started his career as a uh the guy who painted windows

jake: like display windows for uh furniture stores and stuff.

ian: The one like wow.

jake: Saying like christmas sale yeah exactly christmas sale that's pretty cool um

jake: yeah new year's sale epiphany sale stuff like that.

Evan: Oh so the two so i guess you're looked up When did those Batmans come out? Like 95, 96?

jake: Yeah. It says Batman Dark Knight was, the script was written in mid-1998,

jake: so it probably would have come out around 2000 if you'd been able to stay on.

jake: But yeah, then there were a couple different ideas before they ended up with

jake: old Chris with Batman Begin.

Evan: But instead he made 8mm that year.

ian: Yeah.

jake: Yeah.

Evan: Like, well, I'm going to go the opposite way, guys. I'm going to make a movie

Evan: that just scares the shit out of children who decided to see this movie stupidly.

Evan: I don't think I've seen it since. I'm like, I'm not going to ever watch this movie ever.

jake: Yeah, it's not their revisit.

ian: I agree.

jake: No, not on the Patreon patron.com slash podcasting for me. Come on,

jake: just kidding. But do go there.

Evan: Yeah, that would be an interesting one. But yeah, so to talk about Halloween

Evan: three, we're you and I were just kind of briefly chatting while we were getting started.

Evan: I'm wondering just in general, you know, if you had seen this movie recently,

Evan: you know, this is one of those films, again, that bombed in the box office,

Evan: it was kind of meant to be this anthology series, because John Carpenter was

Evan: really he hated Halloween, too.

Evan: He like wished that they hadn't made it and, you know, in retrospect,

Evan: and he was very angry about it.

Evan: And he's like, okay, well, if you're going to do Halloween 3,

Evan: but there's no Michael Myers, I'm in to, you know, produce it.

Evan: So, what are your, you know, kind of history of the film and,

Evan: you know, your thoughts on it, overall impressions?

ian: Well, Jake, tell me if I'm getting this wrong. I saw this for the first time

ian: with you. Was that your first time also? Or you had already seen it?

jake: That is something I cannot say confidently.

ian: Evasive.

jake: It would have been like the second time.

ian: All right.

jake: Well, this is, yeah, I mean, I, I had like, uh,

jake: an, a really ideal video store experience in, in coming to this film,

jake: uh, at a video store that I later, uh, where I later worked,

jake: um, I was, you know, returning something or browsing the aisles or, or whatever.

jake: And, uh, there was a movie on the TV, um, you know, up above the shelves and

jake: it, there was something weird going on.

jake: A lady was like picking at a little, uh, something or other with a Bobby and

jake: all of a sudden a laser came out of it.

jake: Like her face turned into the most upsetting, like, uh, ripped open,

jake: cooked face prosthetic and a bug came out.

jake: And I said, what is this? And I believe I watched this movie before,

jake: I think I watched it before I ever saw Halloween all the way through.

ian: Whoa.

Evan: Oh, wow.

jake: Because I knew it was, you know, unrelated. So, yeah, I was...

jake: i i've i've loved it ever since it's also you know it's fun to root for an underdog

jake: it's fun to kind of champion a movie that people think is bad and you get to

jake: say no it's good actually give it a shot.

ian: Yeah i don't even feel like i'm being brave on

ian: this movie i did just check the archives jake we did

ian: watch it together for the first time and you hadn't seen halloween the

ian: first one yet that's beautiful so we watched it

ian: on jake's couch and what's my social security

ian: number i can't remember i'll bleep it out great uh

ian: i was stunned by it at the time i i

ian: think if you're not bought in by like minute 10 of this movie

ian: then it's not for you but if it's for you you're gonna

ian: be i mean you're just in for a treat it's so

ian: it's so good it takes elements

ian: of halloween this is the thing people complained about its lack of michael myers

ian: but i don't think that it's like totally unrelated to the original film it has

ian: spiritual connections i think it's just not the characters i mean it's not the

ian: the sort of like boring comic book sequel that maybe people wanted from a halloween

ian: three but i would say well.

jake: The thing is also like if you've seen any of the halloween this is the second

jake: or maybe best maybe first best.

ian: Halloween there's.

jake: There's they're they're junk like there's some positive aspects to some of the

jake: sequels but overwhelmingly like i don't think people are really riding for Halloween

jake: five, you know, the way that they are for like the nightmare sequels, or I think people.

Evan: You know, people stand up for the later sequels even.

jake: Yeah. The later Jason ones.

Evan: Yeah. I agree with that. I think, I mean, I have a spot for the first one in

Evan: the series, but I used to like go hard and be like, Halloween is better than

Evan: any other horror franchise.

Evan: And then I've since come around to thinking like, no, that's just not the case,

Evan: especially after the last two from the most recent trilogy or whatever you want

Evan: to call it. And yeah, but I, um,

Evan: I did not see this until about, I think, three or four years ago,

Evan: I did a watch of all the Halloween movies, one Halloween, and just went through

Evan: all of them until the ones that had come out.

Evan: I think it was before the most recent two had come out. And I thought,

Evan: man, I can't believe I hadn't seen this before.

Evan: And then I think I watched it a couple of years later. I have it on Blu-ray.

Evan: And just like the director, Tommy Wallace, said, he said, if this movie had

Evan: been named just Season of the Witch, they thought they would have had a banger.

Evan: It would have made a bunch of money. But instead, everyone wanted it to be Michael Myers.

Evan: Everyone went thinking, oh, it's going to have Michael Myers in it.

Evan: And then it's in it, not in it.

Evan: And then they probably told their friend, Michael Myers is in it.

Evan: Don't even go see that shit. And then no one did.

jake: I think it also, if it had been Halloween 2, I think that might have worked better.

ian: But there's already a precedent set for sequels, you're saying.

jake: Right, right, right, right. But it's, you know, I think Halloween 2 was something

jake: of a, was it a disappointment box office wise?

Evan: It didn't do great. Let's see. I had it open before. I think it made like 20 million.

ian: Mm-hmm.

Evan: 25 million okay.

jake: So you know not setting the world on fire.

Evan: Setting him.

jake: Setting michael on fire spoilers but uh yeah i mean i i they they got the guy

jake: who made who painted the michael myers mask to direct a movie about evil halloween

jake: masks what you know what's your problem.

Evan: It sounds great and seriously and yeah i was gonna say you.

ian: Brought up lost boys earlier this is this is a great of northern california

ian: cinema this is true northern california which i appreciate is the way i grew

ian: up so i love to see this representation it is a spooky place it's a it's a yeah

ian: exactly exactly inherently.

Evan: Cinematic it's foggy it's green.

ian: It's sort of weirdly between suburban and rural but it's california so it's

ian: developed i don't know it's prime it's prime for this stuff.

jake: And and my folks live very close to where this was filmed in petaluma california

jake: and there are some real connell cochran types up there we'll get to it when we get to it.

Evan: But like there's.

jake: Some there's some freaky rich guys up there doing weird stuff in old dairy factories for.

Evan: Real and the and the thing um so

Evan: i mean there are a bunch of like little funny little notes and if you watch some

Evan: of the like the special features some of i mean i'll just i'll mention

Evan: them maybe as they come in there but one that i saw was

Evan: that tommy lee wallace said he wasn't asked to be involved in halloween too

Evan: but then when he saw or like heard the script or whatever he said no i this

Evan: is terrible i'm not going to be involved and then when they contacted him for

Evan: the third one being no michael myers he's like yeah i'm totally in for this

Evan: and you know it's uh it seemed like the script was rewritten a bunch of times and,

Evan: you know, the only real original piece of it was the, you know,

Evan: the weird little chip on all the masks and, you know, the,

Evan: things like that and the kind of the controlling of people's minds a little

Evan: bit but it seemed like they uh they're going hard for invasion of the body snatchers

Evan: and uh they named it the town the same thing santa mirror is the same town.

jake: Right that's another great exactly yeah so i mean it's kind.

Evan: Of like that movie reimagined with kind of like the halloween california vibe

Evan: i guess it's still california in both movies so.

jake: Yeah i mean it it's uh the the

jake: idea came from nigel neal right the court of mass guy and

jake: he also uh he wrote a a tv movie

jake: this like i think bbc does something called the christmas ghost

jake: story or they used to it was like a christmas tradition

jake: to have a ghost movie um england is

jake: so weird and interesting and looks

jake: a lot like this part of california honestly it's like foggy and

jake: and windswept up there um but he

jake: his his idea it's similar to he He did this Christmas ghost story called The

jake: Stone Tape or The Stone Tapes that's about some paranormal investigators going

jake: to a supposedly haunted old house.

jake: And it's a big influence on things like Poltergeist, obviously.

jake: And Prince of Darkness, the John Carpenter film, to the point that he is credited

jake: as a screenwriter on that film.

jake: carpenter credited him credited himself as martin quatermass

jake: and nigel neal said i haven't seen this

jake: but it sounds horrible so he really appreciated the the

jake: shout out but that guy i think combines the

jake: uh the the kind of

jake: old and gothic spooky with

jake: uh sci-fi horror in a

jake: in a compelling way and um my yeah i think that's that's one of my favorite

jake: parts of this film it's like the the sort of the twin horrors the joining of

jake: the old uh witchy stuff with the new kind of body horror um evil computer of.

ian: The advanced and ancient technology as he says yeah i i totally.

jake: Agree to see.

ian: The through lines of horror in the history of humanity but also to see the uniquely

ian: new aspects of horror from a political perspective from a political perspective

ian: I think, you know, it's exactly right.

jake: Yeah.

ian: The right approach.

jake: Oh, he's a, he would be a Greek statue in, in Twitter avatar.

ian: Easy guy. Yep.

jake: To, that, to give away my, my big brain read on Conal Cochran.

jake: Like he's this, he's one of these return tech freaks, but just for like the

jake: Druids instead of the Greeks. Yeah.

Evan: Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I, as you mentioned, kind of the beginning of the,

Evan: the, the movie, you really have, it's almost like they took,

Evan: I think you both said the fog, like, I mean, it's almost like they took the,

Evan: you know, the elements of sort of the environment and the vibe.

Evan: And then they added sort of a very similar song, like kind of the title track

Evan: from Halloween and kind of Carpenter Road. And apparently, he's like, it can't be the same.

Evan: So, we're just going to take out half the parts and make it,

Evan: you know, kind of like the lower version.

Evan: I don't – I'm not musically inclined. So, you can tell my – not understanding exactly what he did.

Evan: But they explained it more succinctly in the – on the DVD.

Evan: But the music is perfect. I feel like it's – Right. Yeah. I don't know.

jake: There's a track called Road to Santa Mira that I put on in the car while driving

jake: near my folks' house up there, and it was really foggy.

jake: And I got freaked out and changed the music to, like, you know,

jake: the Spice Girls or something less frightening.

jake: It's really effective.

ian: Yeah, I mean, it's got that beautiful synth, and the opening credits have this

ian: kind of, like, digital readout type of a thing going on. And then they lead

ian: directly into a chase, which I appreciate.

jake: The opening shot of this movie is so good. This movie is, it's shot by Dean

jake: Cundey, who worked a lot with Carpenter, but also worked a lot with,

jake: he was like the guy for combining,

jake: for compositing CG effects into,

jake: and really adding kind of special effects into live action for a while.

jake: So he shot Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Jurassic Park and all your favorite John

jake: Carpenter movies. And I think this is one of his, his best films as a cinematographer because the, the,

jake: dark is so dark. It's like opaque black, but then he, he has this way of making

jake: like, uh, computer readouts look so bright and so like neon threatening.

jake: Um, uh, yeah, it looks terrific. The, the, like spooky, uh, overpass and then

jake: a guy just comes sprinting out of it.

Evan: Yeah. Like the, like the cold, I know it's not really a cold open in a movie,

Evan: But it sort of almost just goes straight to action and you're not treated with any background.

Evan: You just see this guy running into the car yard and then you have these bizarre

Evan: looking sort of fed type men. I guess you could kind of call them that.

Evan: They're dressed in their nice suits.

Evan: Is that playing into this town? Is that how?

jake: I mean, I think so. Yeah, there's a Reagan, an early Reagan critique going on.

ian: Well, I think there's an interesting sort of two handedness to it because there's

ian: also the immigrant laborers coming in and replacing local people and like a foreign culture.

ian: And, you know, obviously, this is not exactly the type of politics we love.

ian: But I think it's first of all, it's funny that they go back to old school U.S.

ian: nativism, racism of being anti Irish and dogs are Irish.

ian: But also, I think, yeah, to have this gorgeous underpass opening,

ian: the underpass being maybe the dark heart of the suburbs or of modern America,

ian: you know, more so than the – we don't have the, like, great British manor to be scared of.

ian: We have maybe the urban blight environment or we have the underpass.

jake: Right. Well, yeah, because he runs into this car yard, which is sort of both

jake: – it's like a graveyard of useless manufactured junk.

jake: But it also is – this is a blue-collar workplace, and these suits come in,

jake: and they're just like completely unfeeling.

jake: We don't know yet why, but they're like – they seem to have no reaction to anything. They're just –,

jake: michael myers style like uh uh unfeeling killing machines.

Evan: It would have been cool if in that little court like the the

Evan: the car yard they had like christine kind of

Evan: like parked in the corner or something like he had he had a chance at

Evan: that but i don't know because there's little nods to

Evan: some of his other things i mean they show later on

Evan: one of the television like the hearth on is like they're showing the

Evan: original halloween i think on the tv right and this which i

Evan: think is just too funny i also found out just before this that apparently jamie

Evan: lee curtis his voice is the one on the operator when he's calling that's her

Evan: only role in this is that she's yeah they call because then she doesn't come

Evan: back i think till age 20 whatever the oh.

jake: Yeah helene h2o is.

Evan: That the one.

jake: Though she's in she's come back several times and i think.

Evan: Well she's in everyone since then it's just like yeah.

jake: They're non those are non-canon return josh hartnett is her son at some point.

Evan: Yeah rhymes.

jake: Is in one of these.

Evan: Some of those later halloweens get a little they get a little get wacky there's the cult.

jake: Of thorn i believe there's some kind of like they

jake: i feel like they borrow from some

jake: of the celtic druidic uh spooky british origins of of british irish origins

jake: of halloween in the later sequels that feels almost like an admission that this

jake: film had some cool stuff going on you know.

Evan: Well one of the notes i wrote when i saw the

Evan: you know these men dressed in their kind of suits and

Evan: you don't really get this feeling until later

Evan: when you see the uh like the compound where they're making

Evan: the like the mask factory but it feels very like um

Evan: i had a hard time describing it or thinking of

Evan: how to describe it but it was almost like surveillance statey you know

Evan: very um everything is very being

Evan: watched over i mean you know i guess you don't get that sense in like the hospital but

Evan: throughout the rest of the movie it's very much like uh

Evan: you know people are being watched you have tv is the obviously the main kind

Evan: of side note in this is that that's what's going to cause all the problems later

Evan: on and i guess the tv also is what causes you know what people are afraid of

Evan: at this time you know parents like all you kids do is watch tv and it's um,

Evan: at least four different scenes where like kids are like told not to sit as close,

Evan: turn this volume down. It's all very much.

jake: Yeah. The TV seems to have like a real tractor beam effect on every child in this movie.

jake: They are almost immediately drawn to it, stupefied by the televisions.

ian: Yeah. And I think, I mean, it unites for me. I think you're right.

ian: I mean, the surveillance States, but not in a red scare, paranoia about communism,

ian: but rather like native, you know, the, the capitalists are looking over us.

ian: the capitalists are the ones who are monitoring our behavior and trying to

ian: figure out how to engage with that or take advantage of

ian: it and of course the fact that they show the first

ian: halloween and if you know anything about john carpenter you

ian: know he's one of these guys who talks very openly about

ian: how much he hates the studios how much he hates

ian: the way his his uh like intellectual property

ian: is treated or how how hollywood operates so you know maybe it's a little obvious

ian: but to have him say like this my own film is now part of a machine that basically

ian: sells masks and turns kids into to bugs i guess turns kids into uh stupid little

ian: fools or something i don't.

jake: Know and it belts melts.

ian: Your brain yeah.

jake: The the film i wonder it's hard to get a read on how much it is taking a kind

jake: of perverse prankish pleasure in the fact that the kids are going to get their

jake: brains melted and how much it is trying to warn us about.

ian: Like.

jake: Unregulated corporate greed um and and cheap manufactured goods and uh you know

jake: stupefying children's televisions and commercials and all these things and it's

jake: honestly it's like it's crazy that this is it this is 82 82 i.

ian: Think yeah yeah.

jake: 82 yeah this is like you know they had barely started doing a lot of this stuff

jake: and they're already freaked out i mean this is this movie also functions as

jake: a as a satanic panic movie almost at the beginning of that i think because That

jake: starts in earnest in 1980,

jake: so they barely had any time to get into gear talking about the Satanic Panic,

jake: but shifting it from goth kids in the woods listening to heavy metal,

jake: being afraid of them, to being afraid of who I think are the actual summoners of ancient evil.

ian: Henry Kissinger.

jake: Yes and the the uh the capitalists who are yeah they're they're awakening these

jake: these ancient forces in order to further extract bugs from our heads.

Evan: Well it's it's interesting in all of like the like the

Evan: material the commentary tracks and everything like they don't they they mention

Evan: very gently like how they're kind of looking at you know companies and corporations

Evan: and all that but i don't know if it's one of those things where they weren't

Evan: thinking about those things but i I find that hard to believe that that wasn't

Evan: like top of mind when they're writing the script and filming it at all.

Evan: I mean, it's just like, they're just kind of not saying it or they're like,

Evan: this is like, it's kind of like a wink, wink, nod, nod. Like,

Evan: of course it's about all these things.

jake: I mean, they talk about the mall coming in and we don't see them all,

jake: but they talk about a mall coming in and, and threatening the,

jake: the local, uh, toy and gag shop,

jake: the Grimbridges, uh, just a wonderful Halloween movie name, Grimbridge, Ellie Grimbridge.

jake: And, uh, We also see the Kupfer character, the buddy Kupfer character,

jake: is such a disgusting, wannabe capitalist,

jake: so slick, so obviously ambitious. Yeah, their outfits.

jake: I do like that the kid flips his mom off. That's pretty cool.

jake: But yeah, I think it's in there.

jake: And I think especially with Carpenter involved, his generalized anger at everyone

jake: and especially people in power, I think it comes through.

ian: Right. I mean, this is the guy who's going to make – he didn't direct the film

ian: but produced this film and then makes They Live in, what, five or six years or something.

Evan: I was literally – that's exactly what I was thinking.

jake: Yes, exactly. And he's the guy who also makes Escape from L.A.,

jake: which is worth a revisit.

jake: It's not quite as worth reappraising as this film, but the ending of that movie,

jake: I don't want to give away, although the movie is like 30 years old, but that is a...

jake: deeply angry movie in a way that is, is pretty refreshing.

Evan: Yeah. You can, uh, you can go listen to episode 62. If you want to listen to

Evan: us talk about escape from LA, but we don't have an escape from New York.

Evan: So we just kind of went right to the new stuff.

ian: Yeah. I like it.

Evan: Well, interesting.

jake: Yeah. Well, yeah. The better one.

Evan: I did. Well, I did actually record the first one, but the audio, you know.

jake: Who's in that sucks. Uh, that, um, that's a, that's perhaps evil spirits got

jake: into, the recording uh you know who's in escape from new york and also in this

jake: movie the beautiful tom atkins oh.

ian: That's right yeah and the fog.

jake: He's and the fog and the fog he this

jake: is a guy who i i misremembered him

jake: at being like i thought maybe he was a cop or

jake: something he plays a doctor in this but the man is

jake: just so visually like working

jake: he's like a working man looks like a beer the man

jake: looks like a human beer uh and

jake: so even though he's a doctor you can't help but think like

jake: this guy is not this is not like the a

jake: bourgeois he's a drunk yeah yeah he's a drunk philandering doctor he's also

jake: one of these guys i don't think they make guys like this anymore where like

jake: you look at him and you think he's gonna have a gut and somehow he doesn't he's

jake: like pretty snatched in this film but he's got the head of like assault like a linebacker yeah.

ian: I also remembered him being.

jake: A cop.

ian: Because of the power of his copyness and it feels like i mean he's like a martin

ian: brody you know he's like a failing dad.

jake: He's got the big mustache he's pockmarked well he was in uh.

ian: Maniac he was and it's true that's maybe part of it part of the problem.

jake: But.

Evan: Yeah also also a movie worth anyone revisiting for uh.

jake: Yeah that movie for.

Evan: That but yeah they.

jake: Was you're.

Evan: Gonna you're mentioning the um but yeah tom adkins in this is is great i mean

Evan: he uh his performance he like when they interviewed him about it he couldn't

Evan: have loved being in this movie more he thought it was kind of like like a little

Evan: bit stupid but he's like you know what i love this movie and it makes him so

Evan: happy that it's popular now again.

jake: He's you know.

Evan: It gives him uh you know makes him feel like it was worth worth it but he also

Evan: is like the shittiest dad maybe in any of these.

jake: Carpenters dude.

Evan: Just dude shows up with those like shitty plastic masks for his kids and they're like.

jake: No dad he's late he's been drinking and.

ian: They already have masks oh man.

jake: There's a,

jake: There's a brand of old Halloween costumes. I forget what the name of the brand

jake: is. Do you guys know about these?

jake: They were very popular and successful. And basically any type of costume or

jake: property from the 70s, you could get a costume from these things.

jake: But the costume, in scare quotes, is a plastic mask and then a printed square

jake: trash bag that you put on your body that says the thing.

jake: so it's not even like so if you were like the wolfman or whatever it would have

jake: a wolfman mask but then the plastic trash bag wouldn't look like a ripped shirt

jake: with like wolfman fur coming out of it it would like say wolfman wow.

Evan: No i don't know isn't that like there's a joke about that on like one of the simpsons halloween.

jake: It sounds like a very simpsons thing to make fun of like millhouse.

Evan: Is wearing some mask for someone they're like i don't think he would wear a

Evan: mask that looks like that if he was the.

jake: Exactly yeah this is like a the kind

jake: of thing dana gould would write like 10 perfect jokes

jake: about uh but yeah there's like a there's a i'm excited to talk about the halloween

jake: industrial complex as well because i think it's only gotten it's only gotten

jake: crazy did you guys see the that spirit halloween got into like a little tiff with uh snl recently No.

jake: So SNL in the opening of its... I'll look this up. It was on Twitter.

jake: SNL in the opening of the 50th season, the thing we all care about.

jake: They did one of those fake commercials, and it was...

jake: parody of spirit halloween who's doing you know dig digging at spirit halloween um this is not,

jake: a nick let's go uh no and

jake: then uh spirit halloween clapped back with

jake: a meme it says we are great at raising things

jake: back from the dead at nbc snl and then

jake: it's uh this is a meme format it's been going around it's a spirit halloween

jake: costume uh container with like

jake: the it says on the front what the what the costume

jake: is and so it says it's got a picture of snl 50

jake: the anniversary season and the name of the costume is irrelevant 50 year old

jake: tv show includes dated references unknown cast members shrinking ratings wow

jake: i mean this is from the official spirit halloween account so they're like yeah i mean you.

Evan: Know think of how much public publicity the fake commercial not that everyone

Evan: doesn't know what Spirit.

jake: Halloween is.

Evan: But that's and this is actually a fun fact, did you know that they made a Spirit

Evan: Halloween movie that has Christopher Lloyd I did not know that.

jake: Like direct to Chicken.

Evan: Soup with the Soul Plus or something I don't remember who else is in it I'm

Evan: sure that Christopher Lloyd wasn't in it much but the fact that that exists

Evan: in the world is kind of sad and.

jake: He probably says Great Scott at some point.

Evan: Oh god It made $81,000 in the two theaters.

ian: Wow.

jake: That's actually a lot of money for two theaters.

Evan: It's all two cities. It was in Georgia. Wait, no, I don't know. It doesn't say, look.

jake: If I, if I had $81,000 to my name, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be shaking a stick.

Evan: Well, the question doesn't say how much they know.

ian: No, I'm sure.

jake: Yeah. I read that it was free. The movie was free. So they have, they got all 81,000.

Evan: Well, they, they just shot it in the old, uh, spirit Halloween.

jake: Exactly.

Evan: Right.

jake: The former circuit city or whatever.

Evan: Toys R Us, something like that.

jake: But, uh, Spirit Halloween, like Silver Shamrock, has sort of taken over the

jake: guts of a de-industrialized husk, you know? The guts of a husk.

Evan: Oh, no way. The film was actually shot at a Spirit Halloween.

ian: Wow.

Evan: In Rome, Georgia.

jake: Okay.

Evan: Wow.

jake: Rome, Georgia.

Evan: That was a joke that I made that turned out to be like too on the list.

ian: Yeah, you're too tapped in.

Evan: Yeah. I mean, we can certainly talk about that. I mean, it's sort of,

Evan: uh, there are other parts to the movie, but I think it's worth talking about.

Evan: So part of, I didn't even really describe the plot, but you can,

Evan: you can go on to the internet and watch it or go on Wikipedia.

Evan: But essentially we have this doctor who's played by Tom Atkins,

Evan: who, you know, kind of uncover someone at his hospital who is kind of just destroyed,

Evan: uh, murdered by just like their, what are they, does it, does this where he

Evan: crushes his face or is that his eyes pushed in?

ian: Yeah.

Evan: Yeah.

jake: It feels like he pulls on the bridge of his.

ian: Note he's like pulls it straight up and out somehow.

jake: It's really nasty one of the first bits of uh.

ian: Gore it's the second because we get a great kill again at like minute three when or.

jake: When they pull the guy's head.

ian: No no no when he uh pulls the car like the chain that's holding the car and

ian: then the car rolls in and squishes the fed guy oh yeah Yeah.

jake: Yeah, yeah, yes.

ian: But, yeah.

Evan: Yeah, I mean, all the, all the, like, gory effects and all in this are all,

Evan: you know, all practical effects, which is a, you know, mostly Carpenter specialty.

Evan: But, yeah, so you have the, so you basically have that. And then you're introduced

Evan: to sort of the second, the female lead in this, Stacey Nelkin,

Evan: or Stacey Nelkin, character Ellie Grimbridge.

Evan: And she's, you know, her father was the one who had been running around at the

Evan: beginning of the film, we find out. And he's been murdered.

Evan: And they team up to essentially get to the bottom of this. And Tom Adkins,

Evan: of course, comes on to Ellie and, you know, she's what, 24 and he's got to be what?

jake: She's older than she looks. That's all that she says. Stacey Nelkin...

jake: claims that uh manhattan the woody allen film was based on her relationship

jake: with woody allen when she was seven or sorry when she was 16 i'm.

ian: Not inclined to doubt it you say claimed i'm gonna say yeah i guess this is alleged but.

jake: Right extremely likely.

ian: Is that it legally i.

jake: Don't think what he has much uh.

Evan: Much uh much you can't buy much stock in the right he says.

jake: Yeah he says he agrees that they dated but that she was not underage when they

jake: did so by his estimate that's.

Evan: Not how time works.

jake: He was merely a 42 year old dating an 18 year

jake: old so that's fine that's perfectly fine um and then she's she's one of those

jake: people who uh kind of stopped acting and became a like a substance abuse therapist

jake: like a licensed substance abuse therapist but also she goes on fox and friends

jake: and talks about like relationship advice so i don't know what's going on with stacy nildred.

Evan: Yeah she did have i learned in the uh in the behind the scenes or the little

Evan: documentary was that in the movie because she had her she had one uh love scene

Evan: with tom atkins apparently.

jake: She had a.

Evan: No nipple clause in her contract so.

jake: That it was.

Evan: They apparently had to practice like the positioning so that it would all match

Evan: up and she also was like tom atkins was really sweet about the whole thing and

Evan: you know it was a little bit.

jake: Weird to.

Evan: Hear her talk about it but you know.

jake: Santa's cousin nipple clause hey it's the wrong holiday you.

Evan: Gotta save that joke for uh.

jake: I will yeah i will save.

ian: That but yes.

jake: Hey no i mean she does something in this film that it absolutely disgusted me

jake: which is getting out of the shower and drying herself off with a blanket,

jake: she pulls the blanket from the the motel bed this was this is what you do.

ian: In like an.

jake: Emergency like.

ian: If the building is on fire.

jake: You could do that she like puts down the towel to wrap herself in the blanket

jake: i assume to kind of titillate the audience because you're like oh she's going

jake: to change out of the towel or something but you know whatever uh the rose of

jake: shannon motel of course yes well.

Evan: Yeah and so they they kind of follow the uh the trail and as we learned throughout

Evan: the heavily used commercial for silver shamrock is this you know mask company

Evan: they made three different masks they're kind of advertising constantly on tv

Evan: and if you're listening later you might hear that jingle right now, perhaps.

Evan: Yeah, and it's based on the London Bridge is Falling Down.

Evan: It really gets in your head. Apparently, the cast was saying,

Evan: to this day, they can't shake it out of their heads.

Evan: And apparently, Tommy Lee Wallace, the director, was the voice on the commercial.

jake: Oh, that's fun.

Evan: He also is the voice of the radio announcer in The Fog.

jake: Oh, great.

Evan: They got a lot of voiceovers. But yeah, so that's kind of how we kind of get

Evan: to learning about this company.

Evan: so a shamrock which is owned by this you know very irish name it's uh conal cochran connell,

Evan: yeah connell not connell connell cochran uh and you know that's where we kind

Evan: of are introduced to this police very heavily police statey kind of company

Evan: town with just surveillance cameras everywhere like super high tech but we also

Evan: learned that they don't hire anyone from the town, which is also very weird.

Evan: And I mean, this is a good point where we could talk about some of that Halloween,

Evan: you know, where I think one of the main themes of, you know,

Evan: you could probably say like, oh, this movie is about capitalism.

Evan: But like, literally, I think this whole, you know, piece of the movie of this

Evan: company that is essentially seemingly taking over the industry of masks,

Evan: like their other crappier masks, but no one wants to buy them.

Evan: They've kind of cornered the market.

Evan: And they've taken over this town. They, I don't even know how this town survives.

Evan: like where are the people working.

ian: Yeah i mean they take over like they take over

ian: an old factory it used to be a dairy town and then

ian: they turned it into this this mask factory town and look

ian: i think it's perfect in some ways because as somebody

ian: who now lives abroad and sort of

ian: has a i have a different sense now of how the story of

ian: the american dream registers to people outside the u.s which

ian: is not to say that it's totally distinct unfortunately you know part of

ian: the reason that people leave their countries which

ian: the u.s has extracted resources and labor from and

ian: want to go to the u.s is because you are told that there you could

ian: become the factory owner and you could be running your

ian: own town so i think the fact that we have connell what a

ian: pleasure i mean that's exactly the film is sort of saying like the

ian: culmination of this dream is a an awful nightmare to be the owner of what is

ian: the equivalent of like a mining town company where everybody in the town is

ian: an automaton that works for you and has lost their humanity and probably are

ian: paid in script or not paid at all or whatever the equivalent is for Halloween.

jake: The masks are edible. They watch your masks.

ian: Mostly cellulose.

Evan: When I was watching it, I couldn't help but think, I guess I kind of forgot

Evan: to mention that, that all the people who work there are these,

Evan: they're not really, would you call them robots?

jake: They're like drones. I think it feels like a kind of Reagan-era,

jake: critique of of the the corporate

jake: self you know the uh the suit who

jake: goes to get the office job there's one really uh

jake: wonderful shot where this is

jake: when when um dr chalice is

jake: first kind of catching on that these guys are not human and

jake: he sees a bunch of them sort of stationed all over the place staring

jake: at him but there's one guy who's standing in a doorway and the

jake: the light the sunlight is hitting the doorway

jake: such that like his head and shoulders are in

jake: shadow and the bottom of him is is in the sun and he's just standing there looking

jake: and it's like the kind of illumination that would that would land on a inanimate

jake: object and it's just like a really smart bit of filmmaking uh you know these

jake: these guys are really freaky they're like little american psychos cochran.

Evan: Says uh at some point uh you know they're easy to control unlike like, you know, real people.

Evan: And I mean, it's kind of not lost that, you know, that's what they want,

Evan: right? That's what these corporations want. They want people who will just do as they're told.

Evan: They'll be fine when you destroy their union and they'll take their shitty pay

Evan: and they'll live in their company town and they'll just follow whatever shit you want.

jake: Or even better robots who don't need pay or food or house.

ian: Well, yeah, that's what I was going to say, except to bring it back to your earlier point, Jake,

ian: I think the film is doing the much better historical, we could sort of say like

ian: Marxist reading of this labor exploitation process because they're not just like modern robots.

ian: There's this connection to sort of like clockwork.

jake: Automata sort of this like humans.

ian: Have long been interested in automating and making

ian: their their work easier which is understandable but also

ian: and then we go even farther back to the irish sowan

ian: like sacrificing children to make society work

ian: to to keep things going to to do what we have to to i think he says like have

ian: control over our environment or something so you know this is this is a new

ian: version this is a new iteration so when we critique modernity we can look out

ian: for new stuff but we should also be paying attention to how it fits into this rich and awful.

jake: Past but what i really like about the way this movie does it

jake: that i feel like it it would be easy for a

jake: movie like this to reveal also that conal cochran is like 2 000 years old and

jake: has been doing this the whole time but i think crucially he's not he is like

jake: a a contemporary vc guy who gets really into some esoteric uh philosophy and

jake: decides that he is like the contemporary,

jake: uh uh what's the guy of samoth

jake: race he decides he's a contemporary guy of samoth race or whatever and and i

jake: think it's it's crucial that he's not a magic being he is a dude who is taking

jake: the parts of like a historical cosmology that fit his own ends or that seem right to him.

jake: Although to his credit, to Cochran's credit,

jake: it doesn't seem like he's doing this to get rich. He wants power,

jake: but it's like beyond monetary power.

jake: There is a, you got to respect the man with genuine blood lust sometimes.

jake: Um, and, uh, of course that wonderful brogue.

jake: Oh, he's got such a, he's got such a, a Walt Disney, like Orville Redenbacher

jake: kind of kindly old industrialist.

ian: Yeah. Dan O'Hurley, he, for those who, uh, watch twin peaks is Andrew Packard

ian: in that show. and then also is in Imitation of Life and RoboCop.

ian: I mean, he's got a real career, this guy.

jake: But I think he often is playing the big boss of this guy.

jake: His introduction, we don't see him, but we see his limo or town car go by,

jake: and there's no noise coming from it at all.

jake: So it's just sort of gliding through like a ghost car.

Evan: Did he invent electric cars too? Is he like Elon Musk?

ian: Oh, yeah.

Evan: Level genius?

jake: The driving dutchman oh yeah we we should shout

jake: out uh i don't know if it's nancy kaiser kiez uh

jake: or credited as nancy loomis professionally um from she's annie in halloween

jake: and halloween 2 and she plays chalice's uh ex-wife in in this film and was also

jake: the she's the real life ex-wife of tommy lee wallace they were married oh they are no longer know.

ian: This okay well it doesn't paint her in the best lights.

Evan: No, like every time she's on the phone too, she's really just nag.

jake: Nag, nag. Yeah. Not, not a great, uh, not the most feminist portrayal.

Evan: No. Yeah. And was there something else about the, like, I actually,

Evan: the, this, the other thing about it, I mean, you said he's not really interested

Evan: in like really becoming wealthy.

Evan: It seems like all the money he's using is to develop, you know,

Evan: these robot, you know, creature, uh, you know, automaton people.

Evan: And then also the rest of the resources to bring in part of Stonehenge,

Evan: which is kind of like the thing, the plot this all hinges on.

Evan: You see it like a little TV report early in the movie where a part of Stonehenge

Evan: is missing. And then like, he just somehow got it.

jake: Yeah. I really love that where he's like, you know, I could tell you how we got it here.

jake: You won't believe me. And that's, that's all we get, which like, you know what?

ian: Fair play.

jake: That's who cares? Yeah. He's he's, they're like chipping pieces of Stonehenge

jake: off to turn them into, to put them into little logos.

jake: I do like also that the, the evil, the, the violence comes from the logo itself.

ian: Uh huh. Well, the logo with the microchip embedded in there.

jake: Right. So it's like an evil microchip and a piece of ancient, uh,

jake: what does he call it a like a not a stone.

ian: Circle ancient sacrificial circle sacrificial circle yes.

Evan: Well he also it's like the particles he's describing it is like on it yeah rubs

Evan: one on there and he's like up see it's ready to go.

ian: This is the this is the perfect amount of explanation for

ian: me of like bring me all the way and we also get a nice

ian: scene just the film is so good at so many things there's a

ian: mask production scene where you know i just

ian: love to see yeah see this kind of kind of stuff and evan

ian: you mentioned the fact that the film does not hold your hand

ian: with the opening and i think similarly it's sort of like it

ian: just orients you further because we see this chase we don't

ian: really know what happens and then we cut to this

ian: guy sitting in like a gas station watching the commercial and the power goes

ian: out so it's sort of like confusing it further but it's so it's such an appealing

ian: bit of filmmaking i don't know the film is sort of like more interesting at

ian: every turn that it has any right to be even if it has some you know slightly like low budget uh,

ian: unconcerned moments but but there's other moments where you just think like

ian: wow this is i just would not have bet that this was in here yeah.

Evan: And they have they have the like there's a scene where one of the guys you know lights himself.

ian: On fire.

Evan: In a car like there's just things that you're just very confused about what's

Evan: going on at that point you probably realize there's something also the music

Evan: that comes on anytime you see those workers is i don't know how to describe it but it's like a,

Evan: i don't know uh i maybe i'll be able to find it.

ian: But i.

jake: Mean it fits with it fits with with carpenters.

ian: Yeah synth.

Evan: Yeah it's like a little synth vibe it kind of gives you that body snatchers again.

ian: Element too.

Evan: We're like oh these guys are.

jake: Absolutely doing.

Evan: Something suspicious and yeah i also love the one note that i saw too was that

Evan: apparently only one of the masks was actually made for the movie so these were

Evan: already existing masks so i.

jake: Don't i.

Evan: Wonder then if the production thing was the actual production for.

jake: Possible i mean it's like the you know the the

jake: michael myers mask was famously a william shatner mask painted

jake: white so yeah you know there

jake: there's something inherently upsetting about the halloween mask in real life

jake: and people love to talk about like the uh to joke about the legally dissimilar

jake: uh names for costumes like you know you'll get like a it's obviously an austin

jake: powers costume but it's unlicensed so it's like.

ian: Groovy agent or.

jake: Whatever or like mystery dog and it's scooby-doo but it can't it can't say exactly

jake: what it is um and i think yeah there's some some of that,

jake: There's like an inherent shadiness and kind of grifter vibe to Halloween because

jake: it's the Halloween industry because it sort of comes and strikes quickly in

jake: like a month and a half and then disappears for the rest of the year.

jake: And, you know, I think this film gets at that in an effective way,

jake: especially because Cochran is revealed to be like a former gag man.

jake: Like he used to make pranks.

ian: He invented the sticky toilet paper or something. I forget what they said.

jake: Yes, he invented the sticky toilet paper. And buzzer. Yeah. There's another.

Evan: Does he say another one?

jake: Yeah, he says another one. I have it here somewhere. The dead dwarf gag.

jake: What could the dead dwarf gag be? That's a big step up from fake dog.

ian: What's funny is that they are saying these things, but they are showing not

ian: like spencer's gift stuff they're showing if anybody has been to san francisco

ian: there's a museum near fisherman's wharf called the musee mechanique it's like

ian: a weird museum of yes any arcade and and sort of like uh it's.

jake: Not in that's in uh don siegel.

ian: Oh is it is it in uh i think that's in

ian: you know what i'll look it up one with eli wallach is that the one you're talking

ian: about it is the one with eli wallach i'll figure out what it is all right uh

ian: but i think it's a funny contrast because they're making him sound like i don't

ian: know like mr goofball but they're showing these sort of elaborate clockwork

ian: creations i don't know i enjoyed it.

Evan: Well they actually forgot one other he also has the soft.

ian: Oh yeah the soft i looked.

Evan: It up and apparently i was trying to figure out like what the dead dwarf is

Evan: and it's like this is the only.

ian: Reference like in the history of yeah of cinema the.

jake: Film is uh is the.

ian: Lineup by the way Don Siegel's The Lineup.

jake: Written by Sterling Siliphant, who's, in addition to being a funny name to say,

jake: is also a renowned screenwriter.

jake: And wrote something, I believe he wrote something that we talked about on podcasting

jake: for him. Oh, yeah, he wrote, he's credited on The Enforcer, the third Dirty

jake: Harry movie. There you go.

jake: And Village of the Damned, which is a big John Carpenter film.

jake: So, you know, big influence on him, and he remade it.

jake: And that's another, he puts that up in the same part of Northern California.

jake: There's something spooky about this place to him. It is a big dairy production place, too.

jake: In Petaluma, where my folks live, every year there's like, it's like the egg and dairy festival.

jake: And some 17-year-old girl is crowned egg and dairy queen.

ian: Queen.

jake: Well, she's queen of both. I don't think there's an individual.

Evan: Well, the...

Evan: This is unrelated to that, but going back to the mask thing and also the little

Evan: token, what would you call the thing that's on there?

jake: It's like a badge or a tag. It is like a pog.

Evan: A pog with computer magic, something inside, microchip that's tracking people,

Evan: which is also another thing too, the idea that they can track the people who own their masks.

Evan: This is at the beginning of, I don't know,

Evan: we guess we don't really know as much about what the cia was doing at this point

Evan: but like the whole uh mask production and then the company there and then the

Evan: fact that they then did sell masks after also like just adds to the you know

Evan: maybe john carpenter dig at the idea that his stuff is being i think you mentioned earlier.

jake: The fact that the fact.

Evan: That yeah that halloween is in the

Evan: movie also shows that you know this he doesn't own any of this stuff and.

jake: Right they're they're using his film to like lure children to their deaths right the ultimate prank.

ian: The ultimate prank.

jake: Yeah you're right killing children the ultimate prank that film is also like

jake: involves both a murderous child and children who are threatened right right

jake: carpenter in in assault on precinct 13 an early instance of on-screen violence

jake: toward a child something that.

ian: Upset me to see in cinema yeah seeing a child shot.

jake: Yeah like.

ian: Sort of an unadulterative i.

jake: Mean i think this this movie really threads

jake: the needle because basically the kid puts

jake: the mask on by the way at just a

jake: lifelong anxiety of mine it's like

jake: putting stuff on my head and not being able to get it off so this is a yeah

jake: this film is really speaking to me on so many levels uh but you know he sort

jake: of tips forward And then we see an obviously fake like dead boy with with bugs

jake: and snakes coming out of holes in the mask.

jake: So they really, I think they make it as on upsetting as possible.

jake: And there's a I've seen a few films recently that have like pretty,

jake: pretty grotesque violence towards children in the context of a horror movie.

jake: and in a way that i just think is like not

jake: it's unearned it's not fun it's not

jake: spooky there's a there's a line you have to you have

jake: to ride this line with a horror movie where i mean this is why slasher movie

jake: victims are often underwritten right because like you don't feel bad when they

jake: die um and i think having you know they're very fairly recent films so i won't

jake: name them in case people care about spoilers,

jake: but like just having a kid get brutally murdered for the sake of shock is especially

jake: right now seeing genuine images of horrific violence against Palestinian children. Yeah.

jake: and lebanese children uh i i'm not interested in that for my horror movie um

jake: just go ahead and have bugs crawl out of a mask like that i can handle you know.

Evan: Yeah i don't know apparently that

Evan: scene like from a like the production of it they only had one

Evan: like the mask that he starts so he's wearing the regular mask and then you can

Evan: clearly see it's like a different mask they only had one so you only had one

Evan: take to take it oh they were afraid he was gonna like rip it apart too soon

Evan: before he like falls and they switch body or whatever and I don't know like

Evan: it doesn't look great but it's you know it's enough the snakes there's.

ian: Enough snakes and bugs that it sort of makes up for any of the silliness of

ian: the mask and you can sort of see his hair coming out the back I found that that

ian: was the right level of creepy for me.

jake: Yeah I just imagine the poor PA who has to like try to get.

ian: All the crickets out of that.

Evan: So there's a funny note about that is apparently for like three or four days

Evan: after all they could hear was crickets around wow of.

jake: Course yeah that'll happen to you.

Evan: Yeah Yeah.

jake: There's a famous family story. Like my aunt or something had a pet,

jake: I don't know, iguana, something that ate crickets.

jake: And they ordered crickets through the mail to feed to the pet because this was the 70s.

jake: And they thought it was like a dime, a cricket, and it was a dime for 20 crickets.

jake: So they ended up getting like 800 crickets to work at their house.

jake: And of course, they realized there were too many crickets. It's once they had

jake: opened the cricket housing.

jake: So, you know, think twice before you.

jake: Go getting a bunch of crickets for fun. It'll really bite you in the ass.

jake: And my aunt actually was killed by this commercial in real life.

Evan: Well, that's the whole – So I guess we kind of already talked about it a little bit.

Evan: But the fact that his – I mean, I was joking that it's like the ultimate prank.

Evan: But I mean, really, it's not really a prank to him. It's like this 3,000-year-old

Evan: thing that they have to accomplish.

Evan: And it also gave me vibes where he's saying it's like a – What did he say?

Evan: It's like the earth needs it.

ian: Hmm. Yeah.

jake: Yeah. Like it appeals to some kind of balance.

Evan: Yeah. It's almost like over, he didn't say this line, but I was almost expecting

Evan: him to be like, Oh, it's like over the world.

Evan: The earth is overpopulated. We have to, you know, get rid of people,

Evan: but they're only getting rid of children.

Evan: So presumably they're getting rid of a lot more because.

jake: So you think he should have gone further. Is that what you're saying?

Evan: Well, I'm saying he should have made like, if he was going to do an ultimate

Evan: prank, it would be almost be like that. It turns the kids against their parents.

Evan: And then they really murder them.

ian: Which I think I maybe thought was going to happen the first time I saw the movie.

Evan: I thought so too when I first saw it.

jake: That's basically Village of the Dam.

ian: Yeah, it's true. It's true. But I think the line that you guys are talking about

ian: is, we don't decide these things, you know, the planets do.

Evan: That's it. Yes, right. So, I mean, it felt very like a weird cult kind of vibe

Evan: and also, you know, bringing back the Irish, you know, like, oh, this is us Irish.

Evan: Also, this is not a very kind movie to Irish people as well.

Evan: Kind of paints them in a bed.

jake: Well, Ian and I both have some Irish heritage.

ian: Yeah, I'm a Hurley, not a Hurley he, but I believe we're from the same lineage.

jake: Okay.

Evan: Does this offend you?

ian: No. I love it.

Evan: Okay.

jake: My people are the Dooners, and they're from Killarney or something.

jake: I don't know. But, you know, the guy came over here, he made little extremely

jake: racist, coin-operated little tin toys, and...

jake: managed to build an empire with

jake: which to essentially perform like feats of planetary engineering so i yeah.

ian: I don't feel like they're they're totally talking down to us you know he's achieving things.

jake: Yeah yeah they are at least saying that the

jake: irish are capable of great power whether whether

jake: they're using that power for good or evil different question uh i

jake: was i was reading this uh this book called masks in

jake: horror cinema eyes without faces by alexandra

jake: heller nicholas and to to back

jake: you up and she talks a lot about conal cochran as

jake: like a trickster figure a you know he's in line with loki um loki's or various

jake: coyote various uh tricksters throughout mythology and one of the things that

jake: uh uh one of the the commonalities among these trickster figures is that they pretend to be gods.

jake: I think that's perhaps the ultimate prank.

ian: Sure.

jake: That you're God.

Evan: I mean, that's kind of the vibe you are getting from him, like really is playing

Evan: God that he can decide who lives and dies, right?

Evan: I mean, I guess also a lot of the adults will die, right? Because if they're

Evan: in their house with their kids and the snakes come out and they bite them.

jake: That's a good point.

Evan: So they are going to kill a bunch of people, yeah.

jake: It doesn't necessarily, like it's not like adults couldn't put the mask on.

Evan: That's true.

jake: Do you guys dress up for Halloween? Evan, you have kids, right?

Evan: I would say probably half the time now.

Evan: okay 50 50 and.

jake: Are you doing a what's a go-to for you are you are you doing like a pop culture

jake: character are you doing a classic halloween.

Evan: I think like two years ago and maybe even like four years ago i was just cameron

Evan: from ferris bueller's day off because i have a red wings jersey yeah require

Evan: i mean probably anyone like of like our anyone under 30 probably has no idea

Evan: what you know what it is but like people who are like who get it like oh nice you know and that's.

jake: Tell them that's the succession guy.

Evan: Oh, yeah, right. Exactly.

jake: Kids love succession.

Evan: They do. There's another one that I was recently. I can't remember what it was now.

Evan: My kids want me to go as like, you know, something from Lord of the Rings.

jake: Okay. I was Frodo once when I was like.

ian: Yeah, I did a Legolas. Yeah, when that came out. That's fun.

jake: That makes sense. Our relative heights as younger people. Did you have fake ears?

ian: I did have fake ears. I had to go to a Halloween store to get them.

ian: Not a spirit, though. I think it was some kind of a local house of parties, party house.

jake: And then I got a cloak from the Renaissance Fair months prior in anticipation.

jake: Because I was reading the books.

ian: Although I love to dress up. I love to participate in Halloween.

ian: I think it's, I don't know. There's still something there for me.

ian: There's something pure that you can find.

ian: Maybe I'm a fool. Maybe I'm naive to say that, but I think there is something real about it.

jake: I believe this because one time Ian came over to watch movies like on the couch

jake: and it was, I believe there were three of us. It was me, my girlfriend and Ian.

jake: And he disappears for a moment and comes back out having...

jake: put himself in basically dress himself up as a full scarecrow,

jake: like mounted to a cross made of wood.

jake: And then he had taped to his, his front like a piece of paper and he had a bunch

jake: of straw coming out of his, his sleeves and he was a straw man argument.

ian: No, that's not correct. I was a red scarecrow. So you're misremembering.

jake: Oh, okay. I'm misremembering. Well,

jake: regardless, he, he basically crucified himself for us to go ha ha ha.

jake: And then he took most of it off to sit down on the couch, probably to watch Halloween actually.

ian: Yeah.

jake: Yeah.

ian: Yeah.

Evan: There was a period where I was more into the, maybe it was even before kids

Evan: where I would just do always do kind of like those pop, you know,

Evan: current pop culture references and things like that.

Evan: And I think I was, I was Marty McFly one year.

Evan: Yeah. I guess it's like always ends up being like my favorite movies,

Evan: you know, from sure. 80s, 90s.

jake: I had a weird stick up my ass about like

jake: i said yeah yep yep uh

jake: i had a weird a weird like uh rigidity about

jake: not doing pop culture costumes and trying to stay true to the the spooky tradition

jake: and dressing as as like public domain ghosts and ghoulies so i was like i was

jake: a a vampire one year and making sure everyone knew I wasn't necessarily Dracula. I was just a vampire.

jake: I was a skeleton with like a body suit.

jake: I was a chicken.

jake: Just like any no particular chicken. But I've softened.

Evan: Those are good. You can recycle them. You can wear that five years from now

Evan: and no one's going to be like oh that doesn't make anything anymore. yeah oh.

jake: You're ken bone okay.

Evan: Well that actually i mean

Evan: that's a good thing so in my like the notes for this i was trying

Evan: to see like what do you think that it's around this

Evan: time that like halloween became more of

Evan: a phenomenon for kids like i mean i couldn't

Evan: find any data going earlier than about 2000 ish

Evan: as far as like what was spent in the united states on halloween but from like

Evan: 2005 to 2018 it went from 3 billion to 9 billion and then the spirit halloween

Evan: um bookopedia that i was looking at before said that it's even higher now something

Evan: like they make up 10 billion which i don't i don't maybe that's true i don't know but i.

jake: Think i think the combination of this

jake: incredible ramp up of commercial toy

jake: and like general kids junk manufacturing that you get in the 80s combined with

jake: the slasher boom and the kind of slasher boom and also the video horror boom

jake: that you get in the 1980s suggests that there's like a perfect storm of,

jake: uh money to be spent on halloween starting

jake: around this time you know how the halloween the movie is is 78 right and then

jake: um the big slasher sequel craze is all throughout that decade so it would make

jake: sense to me i don't i'm not i'm no halloween economist but it would make sense

jake: to me that it it's really pops off around.

ian: That i mean i think don posts the guy who created the

ian: mask for this he also just popularized masks to

ian: sell in general for halloween right so this is this

ian: is also i mean we can link this to the rise of like single use materials i mean

ian: i will say that i think probably a hundred years ago the idea that you would

ian: buy a costume to wear one day and give that to a child who basically weren't

ian: even considered people a hundred years ago i think it's like yeah not really

ian: something that people were probably interested in they can barely haul,

ian: at all so i.

Evan: Mean they can put their hands into the machinery at the uh.

ian: Right yeah that's that's one of the only things they have going for them but.

Evan: You're right they could you could buy a 20 costume now to be you know snow white

Evan: in the seven one of those seven dwarves and then you just toss that in the trash

Evan: i mean you don't have to throw it away it like falls.

ian: Apart by.

jake: The end of yeah like it's they're so nasty i i saw something at the target recently

jake: uh sorry i Maybe we shouldn't plug that.

jake: I saw something at a concentric circle-themed big box store. They were...

jake: I don't know if this is deliberate or if this is just the reality of long-lead manufacturing.

jake: They have costumes for the as-yet-unreleased Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie.

jake: They're basically selling advertisements. They do this with the Marvel movies, too.

jake: They're just expecting that everyone is going to enjoy Keanu Reeves' performance

jake: as Shadow the Hedgehog enough that they won't regret dressing in Shadow of the

jake: Hedgehog months before the film comes out.

Evan: They're also doing this for the Wicked movie.

ian: Wow.

Evan: They're selling Wicked costumes. I think my daughter said that someone at school

Evan: wants to be the character from Wicked, and you can buy that costume.

Evan: It says NBC Universal's Wicked as the costume title.

jake: It's right on the box.

Evan: It just destroys the Halloween spirit. It does.

jake: I mean, cosplay is like extreme dork shit to me, but I do respect the enormous

jake: amount of work and craftspersonship and ingenuity that goes into people.

jake: People like have incredible skill when they create these costumes,

jake: even if the end result is it's confusing to me that you would want to do to do that.

jake: I respect a hell of a lot of people who do it as opposed to just buying like

jake: a really thin piece of like some polyester derivative that like explodes as

jake: soon as you put it on yourself.

ian: Plus, I have a friend. She's a seamstress. I think cosplay represents like a

ian: significant portion of her income is like custom things that she is commissioned

ian: to do, which I think is cool. I don't know.

ian: I mean, in some ways it makes me feel like maybe the people who are this into

ian: cosplay, their energy, their excitement is, is maybe being wasted somehow,

ian: but I'm happy that they have something at least to.

jake: Right, I feel that same way when I see an extremely impressive fan art.

ian: Right, right, yeah.

jake: Like, what if you weren't drawing pregnant Shrek?

jake: You know, what if you were, but I guess, you know, you think about the great

jake: masters, maybe they didn't want to be drawing Jesus and other biblical scenes.

ian: That's just what the Pope paid them to draw, yeah.

jake: And now, nowadays, the Pope is paying them to draw Anna and Elsa kissing, yeah.

jake: so uh you know who knows

jake: but yeah you go you go into like a joanne fabric uh

jake: around this time of year or honestly probably like the

jake: whole year around they have a whole section of cosplay fabrics where like they

jake: are materials that exist exclusively like there's no reason you would buy this

jake: unless you were making like some kind of anime cat boy superhero costume uh

jake: so a lot of there's comic cons.

Evan: Like every city you know they have cosplay conventions and.

jake: I was gonna make a joke about how somebody should maybe devise a silver shamrock

jake: style scheme for the furries but you know what i'm not now i'm.

ian: Diverging from you i think these are good people these are again maybe.

jake: I think that.

ian: Well just people into.

jake: Cosplay some of them are cops that's that's true yeah sure i.

ian: Think they're i mean by and large

ian: they're 16 i think and then there's something who are older but i think.

jake: Oh the thing i would i would hope they were all 16 i think troublingly many

jake: of them are like 30 some evan you're conspicuously silent on the furry question i stepped into i know.

Evan: Very little other than just i i actually have heard there are a lot of cops

Evan: that go to these things for whatever.

jake: Reason that as well i mean it's masking it's in it's in the the ancient tradition

jake: of of uh hiding your face so that you can you know stray from societal norms

jake: which on the one hand that's why it's so popular with like the trans community.

ian: And stuff right this is a connection.

jake: To feel.

ian: Like they're played there are spaces where people are already comfortable with

ian: the non-normative behavior.

jake: I saw a picture of a guy who made a fursuit of a plane like he wanted he sexually

jake: he wanted to embody an airplane but i think that the the space for that only

jake: exists within the furry community so for some reason it was a plane that has fur this.

Evan: Could be like the anti 9-11 you know ah.

jake: Yeah yeah exactly they might hate him well but.

Evan: Speaking of like the costume this is like this is a very not a very good segue

Evan: but one thing I am curious about is so you at some point when they're at the

Evan: factory Ellie is sort of kidnapped or captured or.

jake: Whatever and then.

Evan: We later see that she becomes a.

jake: Fembot type thing like.

Evan: Was she killed and they just used her mold to create a new one?

Evan: Is that what you're supposed to think? And why send?

Evan: What's the point of sending? Is it just cool because at the end they can cut off her arm and head?

jake: Well, some of that. And then I think also some of the – it's a good way for them to stop Dr.

jake: Chalice before he can interrupt the plan. I always love when there's a person

jake: clearly made up to be their own severed head.

jake: There's a great effect shot of just some other woman's body laying face down

jake: with like a trick severed neck.

jake: And then Stacey Nelkin's head, clearly she's like buried under the set with

jake: her head sticking out and blinking.

jake: And that's always fun. Who doesn't like that?

Evan: It's like the alien with, was it an alien?

jake: Yeah, yeah, with Ian Holm.

Evan: Yeah, I think a few times. And then again, with Prometheus, I think they do it too.

jake: Oh, yeah, they do that as well. Yeah, it's fun. It's a great time.

jake: And I think the practical effects in this are they're literally doing a lot

jake: of the same kind of prankish physical tricks that like Connell Cochran is doing.

jake: So I would suspect that, you know, the former art director,

jake: Tommy Lee Wallace, does feel a certain affinity with the people making these

jake: masks while also maybe repulsed by his own complicitness and complicity in making the Michael Myers mask.

ian: Yeah, I mean, it is ultimately something that requires ingenuity,

ian: but then is frequently used to dark commercial ends.

ian: So it makes sense to feel both ways about it. And this is also just a classic

ian: body snatchers surprise.

ian: Somebody you feel is close to you may have also been taken in,

ian: may have also been lost to the world of this stuff.

Evan: That's a good point. Like it's very much of the, and I think that's what the

Evan: end to apparently the studio did not like the ending. The ending is so good to get Carpenter.

jake: I think it's the best part.

Evan: Carpenter wanted them to like, they told Carpenter to convince him to change

Evan: it. And he's like, no, fuck you. I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that.

Evan: I don't think that would have changed whether audiences liked it,

Evan: but it's very perfect in the line of, you know, the end of both invasion of

Evan: the body snatchers where you just kind of are left hanging, especially I think the first one.

jake: One also i recently watched the the abel ferrara body snatchers that one's creepy,

jake: yeah and that that has a real uh

jake: that one is also especially like anxious about

jake: yuppies and sort of post yuppies

jake: but a suspicious of like suburbanism and like

jake: the the robbing of character from

jake: american life obviously at abel ferrara like

jake: the the man who was like born in a downtown new york

jake: government uh is gonna find cookie

jake: cutter neighborhoods in the midwest upsetting but uh

jake: i think that film is is in line with it's shares some of the same ideas and

jake: frustrations as as this movie um and i from what i recall has a similar kind

jake: of downer ending uh to the the first two adaptations i haven't seen the invasion

jake: is that the one with nicole kidman yeah,

jake: 2000s version.

Evan: Something like that I have not seen that I feel like it's been about 20 years

Evan: it's time for someone to do a remake I guess.

jake: Yeah, unfortunately, I feel like it would be like an irritating,

jake: like, Lib Trump thing, right?

jake: Don't you think it would be like, or like a Q thing, but it wouldn't actually

jake: be touching on, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't go far enough. I would just say

jake: like, these people are crazy without examining why.

ian: Without the type of historical analysis we get from this film, the continuity.

jake: Yeah did you guys notice that the technician who is starting up the commercial

jake: in the warehouse in the the cochran in the silver shamrock factory he punches in 666 on the panel oh.

Evan: I didn't notice.

jake: That's fun yeah just having a good time but.

Evan: Clearly uh tom atkins saw him push the code in right because he knew what to press later on.

jake: Right oh and that i mean this has become something of a even among people who

jake: like this movie the mask toss onto the onto the security camera just like the tiger would yeah it.

Evan: Would have been cooler if he you know if he had missed the first time and then

Evan: had to like reach his leg out to pull the.

jake: Mask exactly second shot yeah exactly but you know that's the kind of high school

jake: football star athleticism you can expect from a man who looks like tom well i.

Evan: Think he did it on the first try because he was like still a little drunk have he been oh yeah.

jake: Right yeah like like when ian's driving yeah actually he's.

Evan: Calling his wife lying and he or his ex-wife lying he's like grabs a six-pack

Evan: off the top of the phone booth and he's like.

jake: Copping in the car yeah oh we didn't even talk about the oh sorry that's.

Evan: It i was just that's it yeah.

jake: I was gonna say we didn't even talk about the the woman

jake: in the like morgue or whatever who he's he's

jake: sweet on oh yeah uh we just get

jake: this this kind of running investigation that he checks into every once in a

jake: while she's like you must have switched the samples there's nothing in this

jake: this but car parts this isn't this isn't a man yeah it's really it's just a

jake: fun kind of there's an archness to this that is not winking like it doesn't feel like

jake: Like it thinks it's smarter than horror movies. It's just sort of,

jake: we're all caught up in the, the kind of classic spooky tale tropes that we all enjoy.

Evan: They send someone to kill her.

ian: Yeah, well, that's true. Exactly. We need someone to kill. And she's to me like

ian: a classic quarter mass figure.

ian: There's like a lot of the only film of those that I've seen.

ian: There's a bunch of doctors discovering things all the time. Like you're not

ian: going to believe what this means.

ian: So I think it's fun that she's in there, but it's also kind of a red herring that is this you know.

Evan: Well yeah and that doesn't doesn't he she's like oh you owe me a dinner and

Evan: you're like i owe you a dinner and he's like ah she's like i don't think you're

Evan: actually gonna do it or whatever right clearly he just gets favors yeah he doesn't

Evan: put out and return i guess yeah she tries to kiss him.

ian: At another point he's he's irresistible uh tom atkins and.

jake: Yeah clearly he was he's one of those those men who hides his age professionally

jake: Like if you go to his Wikipedia page, it's his age is not listed.

jake: And I admire that he's still around. No idea.

Evan: You got Jamie Lee Curtis in the fog. So he's got, he's, you know, he's getting.

jake: Exactly.

Evan: He's getting the star.

jake: I mean, he's, there's, he's got his father worth in a steel mill.

ian: You know, like he's.

Evan: Didn't he find the military?

jake: This is a solid man. Yeah. He, well, he enlisted in the Navy and then this is

jake: from Wikipedia. It says he, quote, noticed that the officers lived great,

jake: but that was only because they had gone to college.

jake: So he he has some some good class analysis. But then he leaves the Navy and goes to college.

jake: But, you know, then he met a girl who was in a theater troupe.

jake: And that's how he got into acting. It's so funny. It's so funny.

jake: for me to think about the guys who

jake: play like tough guys in movies at some

jake: point taking acting classes like no matter

jake: how tough and like robert loja would only play characters who would call actors

jake: probably like homophobic slurs and yet robert loja is an actor yeah he's like

jake: preparing his lines you know it's always always fun same with same with uh tom atkins did he um was.

Evan: He in any of the um a romero movie.

jake: Yeah he's in creep show creep.

Evan: Show okay i thought.

jake: So because he's like a pittsburgh he's.

Evan: From pittsburgh so it makes sense right.

jake: Yes yeah yeah yeah he's a creep he's in creep show evil

jake: eyes night of the also night of the creeps is

jake: a fun one the fred decker film enjoy that apparently

jake: he's in drive angry i don't remember him in drive angry with uh

jake: i don't think i've seen nick cage kind of a crazy crazy movie

jake: a little bit a little bit knowingly crazy this is before this

jake: kind of movie was made knowingly uh tropey or knowingly or something yeah sharknado

jake: i'd like to put the silver shamrock mask on like the movie i think it's fine

jake: to say that yeah that you want a movie to die well.

Evan: It's crazy that this is the lowest grossing halloween movie and there are people

Evan: who still i'm like oh you should see halloween theater like ah i'm sure that's

Evan: crap And it's like, no, you should really, really go see that.

Evan: And I don't know. A lot of fun. The last thought I had, I mean,

Evan: this is the last thing, is I put down that it's probably, it's kind of like

Evan: the ending is very ambiguous, which is like in a good way, like a very good

Evan: cliffhanger ending. Yeah.

jake: Yeah.

Evan: Assuming that what happens, what, like, you know, you expect to happen,

Evan: it's a pretty brutally downer type of kind of horror ending.

Evan: But I think it's leaving it unknown makes it so it's not as brutal in some way.

jake: Yeah, it feels like the end question mark kind of it feels like a Treehouse

jake: of Horror episode or something like we know this has been a spooky what if tale.

ian: Yeah yeah something like that and i do think horror films

ian: make that mistake sometimes maybe this is i guess this is kind

ian: of a spoiler non-specific spoiler but like the mist if

ian: you guys have seen that movie there are choices where you're sort of like oh

ian: leaning i hate the ending leaning into like don't you see how grim and miserable

ian: it is in a way that feels like i'm being punished as the viewer somehow instead

ian: of this sort of tension this unresolved like the threat is still out there which

ian: i think this this type of film does well.

Evan: Yes yeah sometimes movies uh go like beyond i mean that movie was changed i

Evan: actually just did an episode on that with uh the fog as like a double feature

Evan: and i was saying i think the miss is probably up there as far as there's some

Evan: movie you know maybe newer ones that are pretty brutal but maybe one of the most brutal.

ian: Endings for.

Evan: A film that like you can ever see truly but absolutely.

jake: Same with uh alita.

ian: Battle Angel.

jake: Just seeing the end of that movie and knowing we're almost never getting a sequel.

jake: One of the most painful experiences in my movie-building life.

jake: I love Elite Battle Angel.

Evan: Anyone who hasn't seen Halloween 3, you should. It's Halloween today.

Evan: You could watch it right now.

Evan: That's not too late for you to watch this on.

ian: Exactly. To me, the perfect Halloween movie has spookiness, has fun, and it has...

ian: Sort of strangely stuck in the middle sexuality. And I think this film achieves

ian: all of those parts beautifully.

ian: And I don't know what else you want from a Halloween movie. It's not this.

Evan: I can't imagine having gone to see this when you were in 1982 and walking out

Evan: being like, that sucked.

ian: Yeah, I don't get it.

Evan: Or even today and thinking that it sucked.

jake: I mean, I think it's the persistent tyranny of the nerd. yeah.

ian: I saw some complaints about like plot logic which really felt like wow you just

ian: missed the whole boat on this thing if that's your concern.

jake: Yeah the first halloween is about a a psychiatrist trying to kill his patient

jake: with a handgun and then they like completely.

Evan: Blew it up when they making laurie his like this the the sister it's like.

jake: The sister he also like you know michael myers seems uh to be invincible something

jake: of a plot logic hole that's not a type of thing that can happen what you mean.

Evan: You can't burn someone and they could just like not die shoot.

ian: Them out a window.

jake: Yeah i did like the part in the the reboot uh the 2018 one where michael myers

jake: uh brutally murders two podcasters two true crime podcasters that part that

jake: i can get on board with There is a film,

jake: there's a Dominic Senna film called Season of the Witch with Nicolas Cage and

jake: Ron Perlman that was shot in like Croatia.

jake: I don't really recommend it. I did watch it out of curiosity because,

jake: and also because I, you know, I'd watched this film too many times.

jake: So I threw that on. It's not great, but it is kind of fun to see Nick Cage and

jake: Ron Perlman pretending to be Teutonic Knights. If that's of interest to you.

jake: Also an early, an early career, Claire Foy.

ian: Yes.

jake: The queen herself, man.

Evan: Looking at a bunch of like the one star reviews on letterbox.

Evan: Like I don't, I don't, I don't, I just don't get it. I don't know.

Evan: Are people just like writing edgelord reviews? Like they just have to hate it because people hate it.

ian: I don't know.

jake: I mean, yeah, probably. The piling on, especially of a famously,

jake: quote-unquote, bad movie from a while ago, like Ishtar or Showgirls.

jake: I mean, people are coming around with Showgirls, I think, much more readily.

jake: But yeah, it's fun to you to be like this? I don't understand.

Evan: Go watch Halloween 3, Season of the Witch.

Evan: Just call it Season of the Witch. Tell people to go watch Season of the Witch,

Evan: and they will enjoy the hell out of it. but uh thank you both uh for being here

Evan: ian jake it's been a pleasure talking uh on this hallow halloween oh.

ian: Thanks so much.

jake: For having us it's a true honor yeah not.

ian: To be on a podcast that's not a great honor to me although your podcast is a wonderful podcast.

jake: But to be.

ian: On somebody's halloween special that is like.

jake: Oh my god real event of my life thank you so much movie i hope we did justice to the film yeah.

Evan: There was i've done the original one by myself on an episode ones but i think

Evan: this was like the perfect i think it's the perfect halloween film.

ian: I think so too.

jake: It's one of them it's it's the there's a

jake: very strong argument to be made uh people

jake: should also check out the film the sentinel from 1977 that's

jake: not a great halloween film in my i have not seen that it's uh it's like a an

jake: exorcist exploitation movie they some other studio scooped up another horror

jake: bestseller and tried to make it into the exorcist but it's really spooking and

jake: bridges Meredith throws a birthday party for his cat okay.

Evan: Hmm it looks like it takes place in New York it looks like.

jake: It almost gave me the vibe of like uh.

Evan: Rosemary's baby a little.

jake: Yeah yeah yeah Rosemary's baby and the exorcist there was like a big rush to adapt all the big uh,

jake: best-selling horror novels mostly to middling results but the sentinel is something something.

Evan: Especially made me watch both the exorcist and rosemary baby when i was like

Evan: 11 years old i would say made me they're like oh you should watch these movies

Evan: they're really good thanks,

Evan: especially the exorcist when you're 11 was a little oh yeah yeah that's probably the way parents.

jake: If you don't want your your child to turn out to be a podcaster don't show them

jake: right exorcist and rosemary's baby when they're 11.

Evan: Or eight millimeter when you're 17 yeah yeah exactly all those are all those

Evan: are bad ideas but yeah you guys uh should all all listeners out there should

Evan: check out podcasty for me or what was that pod you said podcastly podcastly

Evan: for me shriek for shriek uh yeah.

jake: Please check us out podcast for me.com and uh we we haven't announced where

jake: we're going after schrader but i can tell you a certain left of the projector

jake: host may be joining us for our well.

Evan: How many uh do you have left of the straight to record we only have like.

ian: Three left uh to come out four or five.

jake: Yeah yeah but then you know we're also we covered clinty's with first so we'll

jake: be coming back for a juror number two episode when that comes out and that Paul

jake: Schrader's got a new film, O Canada, coming out in, I think, December.

jake: So we've got plenty of work cut out for us before we cover our next subject,

jake: Roman Plansky. Oh, sorry, I let it slip.

ian: No, not even as a joke.

jake: What's the Jeepers Creepers guy who was like a straight up actual child predator monster?

jake: Anyway, we're not covering any of those guys. but uh happy halloween.

Evan: Well uh you can also follow this podcast on left of the detector.com and uh

Evan: we'll catch you all next time.