On this episode, we talk about the hot Satanic desertfolk mess THE CROW: WICKED PRAYER!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-176-furlong-and-goodnight

Transcript:

Ryan 0:05

[Theme Song] Hey guys, welcome to Rank and Vile the podcast where we are ranking every single horror movie ever made in the history of horror and also movies from best to worst. And this is Ryan.

Quincy 0:48

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:49

How's it going Quincy, how's your week going?

Quincy 0:51

Good. I've gotten into collecting, specifically, bootleg kaiju action figures these days.

Ryan 0:59

Okay.

Quincy 1:01

So so they're Godzilla and Ultraman figures that I buy off of AliExpress who are not a sponsor of this podcast.

Ryan 1:10

Not yet.

Quincy 1:11

And what I love about them is they're the exact molds of like the real figures, except when you flip them over, where the normal action figure would have the copyright and the company name printed on the foot. It's just a very shallow, blurry version of the same thing. Like, yep, nothing suspicious going on here.

Ryan 1:34

Yeah, that's honestly like action figures, especially like, as an adult, I think that, you know, I sort of went through a period of like, you know, because you have action figures when you're a kid, and then you get older and you're like, like, whatever. And then at a certain point, you're like, no, I actually do I need this action figure to hang out on my desk where I work and just have it there. Like, it's, it's important.

Quincy 1:54

I'm not proud of how much I've been spending on bootlegs. Like, I know, they're not real. And for some reason, I've become more attracted to these fake versions of the toys than real ones there. They're a little bit more charming how they have less color application so so instead of like the five color paint job that a real one has, it has a two color paint job instead.

Ryan 2:20

I mean, I mean, obviously the god tier bootleg toy to me is sharp hand Joe in the shape of Freddy Krueger.

Quincy 2:26

Yeah

Ryan 2:26

I don't know I love this thing of all you need is like a mold and some plastic and you can basically make anything. And

Quincy 2:35

it's pretty great.

Ryan 2:37

Yeah, it's extremely good.

Quincy 2:39

I've considered even starting to make my own my own molds, but I haven't been that ghoulish. So Ryan, what ghoulish death metal Have you been listening to Lately,

Ryan 2:50

I've been rotating between Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel and Deicide. But the thing about deicide I always end up turning it because like, it's perfectly fine musically, but it's sort of, um, you know, when somebody's like a young guy, and it's always guys who sort of turn like 18 or 19. And they go through an aggressive atheist period where they're just like, did you know that Jesus of Nazareth sucked. And it's like, Alright, great, man. And it's, you know, it's just, it's a little bit much with those guys. relatedly. Like, yesterday was Sarah's birthday. And for their birthday, we watched, we watched the 1973 film adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Quincy 3:33

That's a buck wild movie.

Ryan 3:35

It is buck wild there is so much going on in that fucking thing. And I'm realizing my favorite bit of trivia that I cannot stop thinking about is apparently, while the the actor who plays Jesus was like, they're about to do the crucifixion scene, one of the Roman soldiers who was played by an Israeli dude who didn't really speak a lot of English, apparently thought that he genuinely had to hammer a nail through this guy's hand, and was just like, ready to fucking do it like time to meet the Reaper on this motion picture, man. And the director had to be like, no, don't hammer through his hand. I can't stop thinking about because I'm like, how did the director know that this dude was about to hammer a spike through this actor's hand. Like was he taking a couple of practice swings before driving it home? What was happening here like this is I'm assuming that it's just the desert sun was getting to everybody's brains.

Quincy 4:30

Yeah, so my favorite part of Jesus Christ Superstar is Josh Mostel, who I believe is who was in the 70s production. The guy who plays Herod, because.

Ryan 4:45

Oh, he's perfect

Quincy 4:46

Yeah, especially because the beginning where, you know, they're like kooky 70s we're all getting off the bus. He's just in a T shirt, sweating profusely and just over it from the very beginning

Ryan 4:59

Which really fits in with his character his Herod like Herod is the highlight of that movie to me because he's this like, which by the way, Josh Mostel son of legendary actors Zero Mostel. He is this like shitty loose shirtless guy who's like chubby and kinda gay but kind of over it but kind of a bro and all these tiny dances like it's it's he is the best part of that movie to me.

Quincy 5:28

Yeah

Ryan 5:28

Like either either him or like the guy that plays Judas which by the way, I love that this movie drives home the fact that the bad guy should always be a better singer than the good guy. The guy that plays Judas is just fucking destroying that performance just chewing the scenery hitting those notes it's Yeah, that film adaptation Christina was also a little bit high on CBD oil at home watching it which I think was the ideal way to watch the film adaptation

Quincy 5:56

The CBD I'm familiar with our chicken biscuits and Dr. Peppers so I can't really identify with that

Ryan 6:04

This just makes me think of how many different people without talking to each other at tweeted cock and ball dorture for some reason, which is what I think of every single time. Speaking of cock and ball dorture, let's get into holy shit the movie we're doing for this week, which is The Crow colon Wicked Prayer from to 2005 and this is the the fourth crow movie overall the third sequel

Quincy 6:31

and and final crow movie I think like this one they're like good we can end it.

Ryan 6:37

Yeah, I well. And that's kind of the thing is okay, so we're looking at the tag lines you know, like we've got like The Crow is a great movie and then The Crow: City of Angels which we did on a previous episode of course, is believe in the power of another where it's like come on I know he's not Brandon Lee but come on. The the tagline on the poster for The Crow: Wicked Prayer is passion, revenge, eternity. Like are you just naming things you like this point?

Quincy 7:04

Like, I especially love the poster has passion, revenge, eternity. And Edward Furlong's beleaguered face. me like why am I in this movie? I love that Edward Furlong. Edward Furlong's character doesn't want to be the crow either

Ryan 7:22

Oh, it's actually this is the thing I kind of love is how much through this movie, The crow is just like, dude, I want to die so bad. I didn't want to come back for this. I woke up in a fridge you motherfuckers I don't want to do any of this.

Quincy 7:35

Okay, so basically, this is an especially strange The Crow sequel. So the original is based off of a comic book. And the comic book was a way for the author to process the grief of his fiance being killed by a drunk driver.

Ryan 7:54

Right. And it was the idea of like, goddamnit I just wish so much that I could like exact vengeance on somebody for taking, you know, my life away from me. And it's like, that comic, by the way, fantastically different from the original Crow movie in so many ways. I did not expect the comic to go that hard after watching The Crow a million times.

Quincy 8:13

It does not fuck around comics, independent comics in the 1980s. Especially, were truly the Wild West. You can put anything in this. And also, the 80s was a time when independent comics were going. We're not your dad's comics, we're not kids' stuff. So they go very hard.

Ryan 8:35

That was their cultural cachet was I mean and you're exactly right about the Wild West because and I think that there's a conversation between comic books and horror movies where you can get away with so much shit because nobody's really looking over at you. Like if you're in the 1980s indie comic scene. You can put all kinds of shit in there that either the cognoscente know about and are down with or they're like, oh, comics, you mean like the funny papers? I like that Dagwood Bumstead. And they're not reading the Crow. Like, you don't gotta worry about it.

Quincy 9:04

Like, where's funky winkerbean?

Ryan 9:06

Oh no funky winkerbean's been disemboweled. Like it's just it's not it's not happening. Um, and so the Yeah, the Crow Wicked Prayer which at this point, Quincy, I'm gonna keep it 100 with you. I knew about the Crow City of Angels. I knew about the Crow Wicked Prayer. I didn't know about the Crow Salvation from 2000

Quincy 9:26

So, the Crow Salvation I have read is actually one of the I have not seen it, but I've read reviews and it sounds like the actual interesting Crow sequel, because it is about crooked cops.

Ryan 9:40

Now we're talking. See this is there's a weird conversation between the Crow himself and law enforcement in these movies, I feel because like, obviously the iconic now and I'm gonna make sure that we don't spend this podcast just talking about how much we love the movie The Crow, which we still haven't done on this podcast somehow.

Quincy 9:59

And we never will because it's I mean, it's unassailable. There's nothing that we can say.

Ryan 10:06

Yeah, I think at this point we've talked so much about the movie The Crow that we've basically ranked it number one in our hearts and talked about the entire thing. But so the Crow Wicked Prayer was based on a tie in novel of the same name for the Crow which by the way, I got a shout out Poppy Z. Brite's Crow tie-in novel which feature which features twincest and one of them becomes the Crow after his brother gets murdered. You know, we're working twincest into the crow, that's wild

Quincy 10:35

Another vein of you can do anything I still, sometimes I'm having a perfectly good day and think about a paragraph from Exquisite Corpse and it just ruins everything

Ryan 10:47

Quincy Is it the shrimp deveiner

Quincy 10:49

It is the shrimp deveiner, how did you know!

Ryan 10:52

I have the same thing that oh my god Poppy Z Brite Yeah, they splatter punk. I think for me Poppy Z Brite is like the only splatter punk writer who really really does it for me because it's upsetting and also gay. So it's you know, it you know, it really does it for me but so the Crow Wicked Prayer centers around a man named Jimmy Cuervo which by the way your name is Jimmy Cuervo and you're a white Edward Furlong? Come on. What are we like this? This cast is like largely Latin x and you know you've got Edward Furlong looking like you know what Edward Furlong looks like? That flashforward in The Simpsons where Bart is in a band called the tequila mockingbirds with Ralph Wiggum. And he's just like shitty and has a rat tail.

Quincy 11:40

I see it. I really do believe that the producers have no concept of what ethnicity is because they also cast a Japanese man as a Hispanic man. And they cast David Boreanaz as a Hispanic man as well.

Ryan 12:01

They also cast Dennis Hopper as a jive talking pimp at the end of this movie, which we're holy.

Quincy 12:08

I can also cast a woman with brown eyes as a character with blue eyes. And multiple times in the movie they talk about Look how blue Her eyes are with close ups of her having visually Brown eyes.

Ryan 12:25

This is you know what? Y'all had Dennis Hopper money but you didn't have blue contact lens money? Like this is you know what this is? This makes me think of Mark Hamill telling the story of while they were filming the original Star Wars right after the trash compactor scene. Mark Hamill was like wait a minute in the next scene. Shouldn't Luke have like wet clothes and hair because we were in there with like the filth water. And then Harrison Ford leaned in and was like, kid, this is not that kind of movie. Like if anybody is picking up on those details in Star Wars. We are all in big trouble. And that's this where it's just like nobody's looking at her eyes to confirm that they are in fact Perfect Blue eyes as they keep telling us.

Quincy 13:12

I love that Harrison Ford and Alec Guinness are notoriously crotchety to Star Wars fans, Alec Guinness would crush children's dreams. They would write him letters and he'd be like, Listen, spend your time watching real cinema. Don't waste your time with this bullshit. I'm Alec Guinness, I was in On the River Kwai.

Ryan 13:33

You know what, though? For me if you're Alec Guinness, and you've been like a Shakespearean actor of many, many decades, and this is the shit you're known for. It's like Peter Cushing being known for Grand Moff Tarkin when he's been working the hammer horror mines for like two decades. Like it's it's rough, man. But so Jimmy Cuervo is a he's serving parole with his mullet and his nobody in this movie has ever washed their hands.

Quincy 14:05

Ever.

Ryan 14:06

Ever.

Quincy 14:06

Also, there's just scorpions everywhere.

Ryan 14:10

Yeah, lousy with scorpions. And so the thing is that what we're introduced to so this is this takes place on a raven Aztec reservation. And so much of this thing is built around, there's like a mining town. And there's like labor disputes, but we get like the first 30 seconds of the thing going oh man labor disputes in a mining town. The movie promptly fucks off and forgets about all of that.

Quincy 14:38

Yeah, it's like, okay, and it also is really weird how it positions, the villains of the film, as the heroes of the film in the first scene, because they're involved in the labor disputes, but also you don't know which side you're supposed to go with because they haven't told you what the dispute is, so you see famine, pestilence and war? Just murdering people and you're like, Oh cool. They're like Robin Hood types and then you're like, or not for something.

Ryan 15:15

Yeah, no yeah it's it's weird as hell because they kind of you know when you're like a blue collar union worker who's also in a satanic biker cult, like they can't quite decide on on what to do with them but

Quincy 15:29

and they give us the Smash card.

Ryan 15:32

Yeah, it's it's like it's like a Yakuza game where you get like pestilence, chairman of the biker gang family and it's like, you know, the problems that we get these smash cards that by the way, everything in this movie from the music down to the font on the credits is giving us wild west realness.

Quincy 15:51

Yeah, it's very like, again, it's that the producers of this movie have never talked to any Latinx person ever.

Ryan 16:01

No, no, at no point,

Quincy 16:03

And they're like, Dia de los Muertos is a thing so let's just do that.

Ryan 16:06

Which is also weird because they did fucking Dia de los Muertos saying like the crow City of Angels with the parade at the end while they're like fully hanging the the crow in the town square. Well, anyway, they go back to that well a couple of times in this franchise. But you know, again, these

Quincy 16:25

This is all wells there is nothing different about this movie. any of the other three previous iterations

Ryan 16:33

No, but I do got it. I'm just gonna I'm gonna be upfront with you. This movie is so much better than the Crow City of Angels to me. Because

Quincy 16:42

It is leagues better

Ryan 16:43

Oh my god, like the crow City of Angels. Now the funny thing to me because I do think the Crow City of Angels try doing a color palette thing where it was like, okay, the Crow was about rain. This movie is gonna be about smoke, like as an element and then the movie, The Crow Wicked Prayer was like, we're gonna be about Brown things? Like dirt, dirt, dirt and grime and the color brown. It's it's a choice that actually I think kind of works. Like I'm kind of here for it. But so these we get introduced to the the biker gang, all of whom are named after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. So you've got war and death, famine and pestilence,

Quincy 17:25

And they have barrio style graffiti of Mexican gangsters dressed as the plague, like,

Ryan 17:34

Yeah, I'm wondering how they settled on that as a motif for their gang. Like, was it like, one of them wanted to do The Three Musketeers with them, or they were one of them was like, Look, there's there's four of us and it's not our vibe. And then they were like, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and everybody nodded and went, fuck yeah. And death is played by the, the antagonist of the film The main one, Luc. Quotation marks "death" Crash. Who is Luc Crash and his girlfriend Lola Burn, so you know, crash and burn

Quincy 18:09

crash and burn, an actual thing because suddenly his powers Oh, so his name is L-u-c Luke, because later he embodies Lucifer.

Ryan 18:20

Oh, I didn't catch that. Look at them. All right. I mean, it was either that or he was like it was either gonna be that he was gonna be like, Bill Death Zebub. And like, was gonna, you know,

Quincy 18:31

This is also a movie where the guy that turns in the into the crow's last name is Cuervo.

Ryan 18:36

I mean, yeah, yeah. Which is obviously Spanish for you know, crow. The thing is, this is I think the first movie in the franchise that I've seen that's actually brought in the existence of actual ass God and Satan. Like, otherwise, it's like, yeah, there's an afterlife, but we don't know what goes on after that. We know that there's a crow involved as a kind of middleman. But you know, when you die, there's no coming back unless you're really upset.

Quincy 19:02

Also, for a franchise that's obsessed with crucifying the superhero, the Crow, it's pretty buckwild This is the one that's like now Satan is also involved in this scenario.

Ryan 19:15

I feel that we did not need Satan in the mix. But what I think happened with this movie

Quincy 19:20

Actual Christian ass Satan

Ryan 19:23

Yeah, old scratch ass Mephistopheles devil horns is is in this...