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,]]>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...]]>78184542-efe0-48b1-9a6b-105c4fe05fe8Fri, 05 Feb 2021 16:29:00 -050001:09:25yesfull176On this episode, we talk about the hot Satanic desertfolk mess THE CROW: WICKED PRAYER! For a transcript of this episode, check out https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-176-furlong-and-goodnightQuincy & RyanEpisode 175: Admiral MoustacheOn this episode, we dig into a film that's somehow much better and much worse than it has any right to be -- alien goopfest XTRO 3!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-175-admiral-moustache

Transcript:

Ryan 0:33

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

Quincy 0:40

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:42

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

Quincy 0:43

Good. I recently picked up the Mill Creek sci fi double feature blu ray of Mindwarp and Brainscan. Ryan have you ever watched Brainscan?

Ryan 0:55

I love Brainscan. We got to do that on the podcast at some point. Like,

Quincy 1:01

Today was the first time I've ever watched that movie. And I did not realize it has Frank Langella in it and he is a gift.

Ryan 1:07

Frank Langella who is half asleep for most of this film.

Quincy 1:13

He's--

Ryan 1:13

Yeah, he's doing his best

Quincy 1:14

I also love a blu ray where the special features are subtitles,

Ryan 1:19

Man, honestly, the movie Brainscan. I feel like because I also have I have a blu ray of it that has like behind the scenes stuff for the movie Brainscan. I think my favorite thing about Brainscan is how much they were trying to make Trickster happen as like the next Freddy Krueger character where he's got like one liners and he's dancing to Primus. That's the that's the scene that kills me the most is when he shows up to Edward Furlong's house from a CD ROM and he's like, I'm going to put on some tunes and it's Primus and he's just like jamming

Quincy 1:51

Also, that he he trashes Edward Furlong's CD collection, because he's like, you don't have any good music. Good thing I brought my Primus CD, which is this biggest mood that encapsulates my high school experience. Hanging out with all of my friends,

Quincy 2:09

Just running and I'm putting on pork soda, pussies and just put it like, honestly, Brainscan is an incredible movie because like, when you when you see Edward Furlong in, like, you know, and it's supposed to be sad, but like his parents aren't around and it's just him by himself with like, a computer program that sounds like Igor who answers the phone. Like as a kid this was the life I fantasized about having you know,

Quincy 2:35

He's got his own refrigerator with a giant Ellis Cooper poster on it.

Ryan 2:41

Yeah, that and and his dirtbag friend who is like 40 years old in this movie. Like, I love so much that they refer to Fangoria to each other as Fango like that's that's true. 90s dirtbag shit is referring to it as fango because you don't have the fucking time to say Fangoria. Man. Yeah, Brainscan is good. Yeah, it's I feel like it's part of that wave of like mean spirited early 90s cyber horror.

Quincy 3:07

Oh, yeah. Well, the film the bluray have also has Mindwarp with motherfucking Bruce Campbell and Angus Scrimm on it, man.

Quincy 3:17

So wait, so Mindwarp. I've never seen it. My understanding of it is that it's kind of Nightmare on Elm Street adjacent with the dream stuff?

Quincy 3:24

It is. The tagline is in the future life will be a dream and reality and nightmare. So the whole thing is a virtual reality movie right

Ryan 3:32

Now we're talking

Quincy 3:33

Basically they can jump to a bunch of different genres and get away with it because you know, fingers wave internet. It was made in 91 so their conception of the...]]>On this episode, we dig into a film that's somehow much better and much worse than it has any right to be -- alien goopfest XTRO 3!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-175-admiral-moustache

Transcript:

Ryan 0:33

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

Quincy 0:40

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:42

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

Quincy 0:43

Good. I recently picked up the Mill Creek sci fi double feature blu ray of Mindwarp and Brainscan. Ryan have you ever watched Brainscan?

Ryan 0:55

I love Brainscan. We got to do that on the podcast at some point. Like,

Quincy 1:01

Today was the first time I've ever watched that movie. And I did not realize it has Frank Langella in it and he is a gift.

Ryan 1:07

Frank Langella who is half asleep for most of this film.

Quincy 1:13

He's--

Ryan 1:13

Yeah, he's doing his best

Quincy 1:14

I also love a blu ray where the special features are subtitles,

Ryan 1:19

Man, honestly, the movie Brainscan. I feel like because I also have I have a blu ray of it that has like behind the scenes stuff for the movie Brainscan. I think my favorite thing about Brainscan is how much they were trying to make Trickster happen as like the next Freddy Krueger character where he's got like one liners and he's dancing to Primus. That's the that's the scene that kills me the most is when he shows up to Edward Furlong's house from a CD ROM and he's like, I'm going to put on some tunes and it's Primus and he's just like jamming

Quincy 1:51

Also, that he he trashes Edward Furlong's CD collection, because he's like, you don't have any good music. Good thing I brought my Primus CD, which is this biggest mood that encapsulates my high school experience. Hanging out with all of my friends,

Quincy 2:09

Just running and I'm putting on pork soda, pussies and just put it like, honestly, Brainscan is an incredible movie because like, when you when you see Edward Furlong in, like, you know, and it's supposed to be sad, but like his parents aren't around and it's just him by himself with like, a computer program that sounds like Igor who answers the phone. Like as a kid this was the life I fantasized about having you know,

Quincy 2:35

He's got his own refrigerator with a giant Ellis Cooper poster on it.

Ryan 2:41

Yeah, that and and his dirtbag friend who is like 40 years old in this movie. Like, I love so much that they refer to Fangoria to each other as Fango like that's that's true. 90s dirtbag shit is referring to it as fango because you don't have the fucking time to say Fangoria. Man. Yeah, Brainscan is good. Yeah, it's I feel like it's part of that wave of like mean spirited early 90s cyber horror.

Quincy 3:07

Oh, yeah. Well, the film the bluray have also has Mindwarp with motherfucking Bruce Campbell and Angus Scrimm on it, man.

Quincy 3:17

So wait, so Mindwarp. I've never seen it. My understanding of it is that it's kind of Nightmare on Elm Street adjacent with the dream stuff?

Quincy 3:24

It is. The tagline is in the future life will be a dream and reality and nightmare. So the whole thing is a virtual reality movie right

Ryan 3:32

Now we're talking

Quincy 3:33

Basically they can jump to a bunch of different genres and get away with it because you know, fingers wave internet. It was made in 91 so their conception of the internet is about as accurate as the 1994 Brainscan where he's got to call a one 800 number to play a CD ROM.

Ryan 3:57

There's this theater in like Burbank, or something that years ago did like an all night feature of the first four Friday the 13th movies and I feel that you could do a mean cyberpunk movie marathon between Mindwarp, Brainscan, Lawnmower Man, and Hardware.

Quincy 4:14

I'm here for it.

Ryan 4:15

Yeah, yeah. Early 90s anxieties about about the internet and why it's going to kill you. And as we know, like the 1997 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where where Willow dates a demon from the internet.

Quincy 4:27

You mean the episode with techno pagans of which I purchased a sticker to put on my television?

Quincy 4:34

If you're not if you're not jacked in, you're not even alive. Yeah, it's I feel like that episode happened and then everyone was like, Alright guys, we're off the cyber horror. We can't we can't keep doing this.

Quincy 4:46

I love that we are so transfixed by that one episode of Buffy. That friends of mine will contact me anytime it comes up, or any time that they Talk about, that devils and the internet are in the same sentence. I'll also get a @ onling. Like, hey, we're talking about devils in the internet.

Quincy 5:09

That's because they did. That's because your brand is rock solid. Like it's like, oh no, there's demons on the internet's it's the cowboy. It's the console cowboys in the cyberspace just up to their old tricks again, and it's like, I love it so much because now at this point, the internet is like such an everyday part of our lives that like the thought of back in the day somebody being like, man, I don't know you go into one of those AOL chat rooms. You come out with a demon. I don't know. I don't know how it works on the internet, but I'm pretty sure that's that's what's gonna happen.

Quincy 5:38

So what ghoul shit have you been imbibing? Ryan?

Ryan 5:41

I'll tell you what ghoul shit I've been imbibing. Birdwatching, mostly. I in quarantine, I'm doing two things lately. And it's three things actually knitting, working out and looking at birds because we've got my like that where I do my work during the day, faces my backyard, and there's a big window. So I am just fully getting into bird watching and just like watching what it is. I can get into any animal or group of being as long as I can find out the ways in which this being can be a dick. Like, if I see birds being dicks to other birds, I am suddenly interested in birds. You know what I mean?

Quincy 6:21

Yeah, for sure. And birds are inequivocally. dicks.

Quincy 6:27

Yeah, yeah, they're their full dicks. Except for my my friend Jess, who lives in Canada. She takes care of pigeons and doves and apparently they are like doves are the sweetest bird in the world and will just snuggle her which I think is ideal, but I wonder if I wouldn't respect the bird if they wanted to be my friend too much.

Quincy 6:47

So you're telling me that they're literally lovey dovey?

Ryan 6:52

Jesus Mary and Joseph, I hadn't thought about that, and I'm furious, they are actually lovey doveys, and I'm, I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed of myself. But yeah, that's that's pretty much it. So you've been? I think you've been working the Pokemon mines this week. Yes?

Quincy 7:10

Yes, I have been playing Pokemon sword. And much to the chagrin of my seven year old, I've only gone to a single gym in the game, but I've been but because I'm an adult with a full time job. I have a Nintendo online account so I can trade with people on the internet. And my new favorite thing about trading online is naming Pokemon very silly names, which has always been a joy of Pokemon,

Ryan 7:41

Of course

Quincy 7:41

but then foisting those upon strangers. I was gifted Brock Lesnar, the machamp.

Ryan 7:48

Oh yeah,

Quincy 7:48

I have turned around and gifted Milli Vanilli the vanillite and Not the Mama the machoke

Ryan 7:57

Man. Honestly though, I feel like you know, like Brock Lesnar, the machamp. I feel like if you gave Brock Lesnar another set of arms it would almost be redundant. Like I think of him as having four sets, like two sets of arms.

Quincy 8:10

It is it is notable that when Hasbro made their line of WWE wrestlers that are superheroes, they made a Goro esque Brock Lesnar that was his action figure.

Quincy 8:28

Which feels it's not true it's not true, but it's real. You know? Like it's it's it's tonally consistent with with reality honestly, with Pokemon. I feel like I and I'm ashamed to admit this I have never played a Pokemon game past to the original Pokemon Red and Blue. Everything past the original one 150 Pokemon I'm always like, delighted and surprised to find out about a thing called like vanillite.

Quincy 8:52

I think it's ice cream Pokemon.

Quincy 8:54

Yes. Yeah, no, I'm completely into it. I think the newest Pokemon that I was made aware of that made me really happy to learn about was mimikyu which Oh, yeah,

Quincy 9:02

Mimikyu is very good because mimikyu only cares about killing Pikachus.

Ryan 9:11

Yeah, yeah, also because it was like, Well, I'm a sad lonely ghost who's decided to wear a shitty Pikachu costume because everybody loves Pikachu. And it's just like, I love that it's like single trying to single white female Pikachu. And I support this energy.

Quincy 9:25

Also, another great thing about mimikyu us are that when you use mimikyu in the new Pokemon series, and he takes a hit, his neck breaks and then it says "oh no his disguise has failed." As if that is the one thing that's keeping everyone to believe that you actually had a Pikachu.

Ryan 9:45

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's that's the bombshell. That's the thing. Yeah. freaks everybody out. Let's jump into the movie we're doing for this week, which is on Tubi as which as we know is a blessed slash cursed streaming platform.

Quincy 10:01

If so has a very nice blu ray DVD from Vinegar Syndrome, which they were kind enough to provide me and I'm super excited to talk to you about the special features of this thing.

Ryan 10:12

Oh, hell yeah, Vinegar Syndrome, which, as we know, is the standard bearer for hard to find weird forgotten gems and stuff that never really got a fair shake the first time around. And I'm not gonna lie to you. The fact that this, that Xtro 3 got a Vin Syn release immediately made me interested in it because like when you if you google Xtro 3, you're like, Alright, well, this is some weird fucking sci fi original programming circa 1995 at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday, I guess,

Quincy 10:42

It has the hardest sci fi channel at 2pm on a Sunday vibes of a movie I've watched in a long time

Ryan 10:50

For sure. And so finding out that, you know, Vinegar Syndrome, and the folks there looked at this movie and went, you know what, we're gonna do a fucking release with some goodies. They're not wrong to have done it. This movie is so much better than it has any right to be and also so much dumber than I thought it was gonna be.

Quincy 11:07

It's terrible. It's really bad.

Quincy 11:10

Oh, man. It's so yeah.

Quincy 11:11

They have an interview with the director Harry Bromley Davenport. So that, you know, they just sit him down and they're like, let's talk about this movie. And he says, I do not direct good movies. He's like, I've never made a good movie.

Quincy 11:26

Yeah, they just like, found him in a bathroom somewhere. And we're like, Hey, can we ask you some questions, and he wouldn't let him leave the bathroom until he answered it. Like Yeah, he he seems to have a pretty down to earth view of his time making this movie.

Quincy 11:40

Yeah, he's like, Listen, I know it wasn't good. He also straight up says that he he owns Xtro, the title. So basically, he got to make this movie because he went to an American production company and said, I'm the guy that owns Xtro and they're like, sure we'll give you money.

Ryan 12:01

You know what this empty Snapple bottle is mine

Quincy 12:03

Nothing to do with the other two Xtro films by the way.

Ryan 12:07

See, this was my next question, actually, was the fact that I haven't seen Xtro or Xtro two. And the story of Xtro 3 is pretty one and done. Like it's just it's the story it is and you know, at no point was I like Oh, how does this interact with the lore of the Xtro series? Because it's just fucking right there. Like there's there's no connection to anything.

Quincy 12:27

It's very much a Halloween three or Zombie five situation. It's just the name that will get people to watch the movie.

Ryan 12:36

Yeah. And of course, the director apparently who's directed every Xtro movie. So he's the Don Coscarelli of this of this franchise. Xtro three. Now see, here's the thing. So the movie starts out. And we get now because this was made in the mid 90s I feel like the 90s was having a real fucking moment with like, sort of cheery 50s throwback things where it's like, footage of people practicing hygiene or going to school dances and being like, hey, Jimmy, look at you going to school with your friend. And it's just like, you know, with the sort of cheery pizzicato music in the background like it was the 90s were all in on this fucking aesthetic as a goof.

Quincy 13:17

Yeah, I've been trying to figure it out. Because also we have a lot of in the 90s there was a lot of bowling shirt and rat fink kind of vibes to it. Yeah, if you do the math, it's about 50 years, previous 50, 40 years. So so that's like our, the 90s to us was the 50s to people in the 90s.

Ryan 13:44

Yeah, yeah, like that. That kind of aesthetic in that level of kitsch. You know what I think it is, the Dirty Boogie by Brian Setzer orchestra dropped and everybody lost their fucking mind. And they were just like, Oh shit, Madmen hasn't been invented yet. We got to use this font for everything like and so you know, we get this really 50s sort of and it's not even PSA. This is the kind of stuff that what it's parodying or playing off of is the kind of videos that you get in like Mystery Science Theater 3000 before they get into the actual movie where it's like, you know, sort of black and white you know, instructing children on how to do things videos. And we get this guy narrating this this video about this kid who filmed a crash landing of a UFO in the 50s and it cuts to the the UFO crash landing and it genuinely just looks like a fucking UFO smoking through the skies and plummeting to the earth. And you know, we get the the the PSA guy being like, Alright, Jenny, well, you faked that to scare your friends right in the kids like yeah, and the guy's like, Alright, great. one and done and just like moves on immediately and then we get to the present day. There was no real reason for this as an intro I feel

Quincy 14:58

The only reason is to say Set up again. The government conspiracy of Oh, it's a cover up because later we know that it's actually that was real footage and they pressured the kid into saying he's lying. But, and I would I would dog on that except that in 2020 government conspiracies are laughably stupid.

Ryan 15:24

Yeah, yeah, I mean well and that's kind of what it is actually. It's like they're, you know what I love? I love conspiracy theories that are actually harmless like Katy Perry is actually JonBenet Ramsey

Quincy 15:36

Oh man, that's that's great. No, it's way better than the glut of harmful conspiracy theories that are out right now.

Ryan 15:45

Yeah, yeah, like if it's if it's not racist and it's not like rooted in you know, white supremacy like it's Yeah, I'm a big fan of that shit, but like most of them are. And so we you know, because of the present day after this thing of like, Alright, well, aliens definitely don't exist and the government had nothing to do with this and everything's fine. There's this guy living in like, what looks like a van nuys studio apartment. And he opens the door to a lady. He He answers the door. Like he's Gary Busey in, like Palm Springs at like nine in the morning with a gun. Whiskey on his breath. Hawaiian shirt. Oh, it's like, wow, what do you want the ladies like, you need to ask you about all that stuff that happened. And this guy just looks. Now he is you know, and this is like in the morning when he answers the door and he's already fully, you know, tipping the bottle upside down into his mouth.

Quincy 16:38

And she's also a she's like, Listen, I'm a news reporter. And you said I could I could interview you so let's get that done.

Ryan 16:46

She's very like you called me motherfucker. Like don't answer the door packing heat like downing half a fifth of Jim Beam like, please, can you take this seriously, you fucking weirdo and he reveals that he is a demolitions expert, which is what you want from a guy sucking down this much booze. And he you know, he reveals his his dog tags. Now, and we find out that this man's name is Martin Kirn, who is an explosive specialist and he this actor has the magnetism of a dead crap. Yeah, he is just a it's just it's very, very bad. His name is uh, Sal Landi, I think he looks basically like, you know, Larry Drake, the guy that played Dr. Giggles?

Quincy 17:35

Yeah

Ryan 17:36

He looks like if you took Larry, Larry Drake, put them in Photoshop and stretched him vertically. And this is his face. And also it's full of liquor. And he, so, you know. So this is the framing device for the thing. The other framing device for the thing is that he's doing these like, Blade Runner voiceovers for half of the movie.

Quincy 17:55

I think it's supposed to be him telling the reporter what's going on, cuz like, the whole thing is a flashback. But also, they don't really come back to the framing narrative. For any real reason.

Ryan 18:11

No. And like, it's it's there at the end, but it doesn't need to be there at the end. Like, there's now, the thing about this movie, you could trim about a quarter of it without any consequence to the plot of the movie. And I wonder if it's just that the director was like trying to class the joint up a bit by being like, Whoa, framing device on Xtro 3?

Quincy 18:33

The honestly, it's because it's a 97 minute movie and without the framing device is not feature length?

Ryan 18:39

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. And so, Martin Kirn is approached by a military mucky muck, who is he? He's like an admiral or a general or something.

Quincy 18:54

He's actually a commander.

Ryan 18:58

Okay.

Quincy 18:59

I don't know what ranks mean. But I believe he's listed as a...]]>rankandvile.podbean.com/4c7d58de-9cb1-3241-be2b-529f3c598754Fri, 29 Jan 2021 22:03:00 -050001:04:00yesfull175On this episode, we dig into a film that's somehow much better and much worse than it has any right to be -- alien goopfest XTRO 3! For a transcript of this episode, check out https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-175-admiral-moustacheQuincy & RyanEpisode 174: Pigeon ExplosionOn this episode we talk about 2005's found-footage gem NOROI: THE CURSE!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-174-pigeon-explosion

Transcript:

Ryan 0:36

Hey guys, welcome to Rank and Vile, the podcast where we are ranking every single horror movie ever made, and this is Ryan

Quincy 0:41

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:43

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

Quincy 0:44

It's going pretty good. I got a new audio cassette and I recently purchased a very nice used tape deck. I don't know if I told you about this yet.

Ryan 0:58

I don't think you have. Please tell me of your tape deck.

Quincy 1:01

I bought it at a Nashville Goodwill. So it's and what I've discovered is Goodwills, especially in the Nashville metro area, are starting to have old country music stars' stuff in them. So there's a lot of you know, there's you know, a surplus of John Wayne and Roy Orbison, like video cassettes but there's also high end stereo equipment. So what I have is a tape deck that is supposed to be hooked in to a soundboard to make an audio recording of the sound.

Ryan 1:48

Holy shit. That's--

Quincy 1:51

So I've also been able to hook this up to my cell phone and want to make mixtapes with a vaporwave.

Unknown Speaker 1:59

Man honestly vaporwave I feel like quarantine has been a great time for vaporwave, comma, lo fi hip hop beats to relax-slash-study to like this has been a great period for everybody getting back into lo fi in a way I really appreciate.

Quincy 2:14

Have you heard the Coronavirus vaporwave album?

Unknown Speaker 2:18

No, but I'm furiously googling it right now. I need this...

Quincy 2:22

It's called...

Ryan 2:26

Wow,

Quincy 2:26

I can't read this band's name out loud because it's just random Japanese kanji and and words, but it's just a whole vaporwave album themed around the Coronavirus.

Ryan 2:39

See this is, honestly, I've realized like music in quarantine has become a thing that's become really important to me in the regard that like, because I you know, I live in a house with you know, two other people. And so, during the day when all of us are going about our various like activities and we're working, everybody's kind of plugged into into our headphones because like you don't want to be that person in the house just like blasting music when everybody else is just like trying to vibe or trying to concentrate. And so lately for me, I... Quincy, what do you know about the band Wormrot? Have you heard of Wormrot?

Quincy 3:11

I have not heard about Wormrot, tell me more.

Ryan 3:13

Wormrot, you specifically need this band in your life. They are a Singaporean grindcore band. And they're they're just fucking phenomenal, like I've been so I've been doing a technique lately where I do the Pomodoro Technique like 25 minutes on working five minutes taking a break. And I've been combining this with listening to either death metal or grindcore because it's like just enough of a pounding beat to kind of keep me chugging forward, but not in like the melody and lyrics aren't enough that I can get distracted by them because it's just a sort of like brown noise at a certain point.

Quincy 3:46

It's also especially helpful because most grindcore albums are only 25 minutes long.

Ryan 3:51

Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Like grindcore especially like I love so much. Now Napalm Death, especially. I love what they eventually turned into. But when you go back and listen to those early Napalm Death records,...]]>On this episode we talk about 2005's found-footage gem NOROI: THE CURSE!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-174-pigeon-explosion

Transcript:

Ryan 0:36

Hey guys, welcome to Rank and Vile, the podcast where we are ranking every single horror movie ever made, and this is Ryan

Quincy 0:41

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:43

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

Quincy 0:44

It's going pretty good. I got a new audio cassette and I recently purchased a very nice used tape deck. I don't know if I told you about this yet.

Ryan 0:58

I don't think you have. Please tell me of your tape deck.

Quincy 1:01

I bought it at a Nashville Goodwill. So it's and what I've discovered is Goodwills, especially in the Nashville metro area, are starting to have old country music stars' stuff in them. So there's a lot of you know, there's you know, a surplus of John Wayne and Roy Orbison, like video cassettes but there's also high end stereo equipment. So what I have is a tape deck that is supposed to be hooked in to a soundboard to make an audio recording of the sound.

Ryan 1:48

Holy shit. That's--

Quincy 1:51

So I've also been able to hook this up to my cell phone and want to make mixtapes with a vaporwave.

Unknown Speaker 1:59

Man honestly vaporwave I feel like quarantine has been a great time for vaporwave, comma, lo fi hip hop beats to relax-slash-study to like this has been a great period for everybody getting back into lo fi in a way I really appreciate.

Quincy 2:14

Have you heard the Coronavirus vaporwave album?

Unknown Speaker 2:18

No, but I'm furiously googling it right now. I need this...

Quincy 2:22

It's called...

Ryan 2:26

Wow,

Quincy 2:26

I can't read this band's name out loud because it's just random Japanese kanji and and words, but it's just a whole vaporwave album themed around the Coronavirus.

Ryan 2:39

See this is, honestly, I've realized like music in quarantine has become a thing that's become really important to me in the regard that like, because I you know, I live in a house with you know, two other people. And so, during the day when all of us are going about our various like activities and we're working, everybody's kind of plugged into into our headphones because like you don't want to be that person in the house just like blasting music when everybody else is just like trying to vibe or trying to concentrate. And so lately for me, I... Quincy, what do you know about the band Wormrot? Have you heard of Wormrot?

Quincy 3:11

I have not heard about Wormrot, tell me more.

Ryan 3:13

Wormrot, you specifically need this band in your life. They are a Singaporean grindcore band. And they're they're just fucking phenomenal, like I've been so I've been doing a technique lately where I do the Pomodoro Technique like 25 minutes on working five minutes taking a break. And I've been combining this with listening to either death metal or grindcore because it's like just enough of a pounding beat to kind of keep me chugging forward, but not in like the melody and lyrics aren't enough that I can get distracted by them because it's just a sort of like brown noise at a certain point.

Quincy 3:46

It's also especially helpful because most grindcore albums are only 25 minutes long.

Ryan 3:51

Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Like grindcore especially like I love so much. Now Napalm Death, especially. I love what they eventually turned into. But when you go back and listen to those early Napalm Death records, it sounds like a really disappointed orc yelling because he can't get the office printer to work right. It's like a lot of funky noises and like "Reeeeaaaargh" it's just like, he's just so upset. But yeah, like honestly, I so Wormrot, you need to check out. So much modern grindcore I love that it's like almost non recognizable as grindcore as compared to like, early 90s like metal core and grindcore like I don't know if this is just like a genre thing. But it sounds new.

Unknown Speaker 4:35

The thing I really like is all of the women in the grindcore scene I've about gotten to the point where if you're a cis male and you're in a grindcore band, I don't care about you.

Ryan 4:47

Exactly

Quincy 4:48

But bands like Oathbreaker and Moth Mother are especially...

Ryan 4:51

Oh, really great.

Quincy 4:53

great. Moth Mother is amazing. If you haven't checked them out, yet. They have a EP that I have on audio cassette. And it's the same album on both sides because it's so short it fits on one half of a cassette, and they're especially good. I really like how... I'm trying not to use the word extreme when talking about

Ryan 5:22

I mean that's the vibe though.

Quincy 5:23

It's incredibly difficult not to talk about to use the word extreme.

Ryan 5:27

I mean, it is extreme metal. It's extreme punk. Like it's, it's no, this is actually this is my favorite thing is especially in terms of like cultural sort of cross pollination. I think my favorite thing about Japanese grindcore is that I, especially like mid 90s, Japanese grindcore sort of like took American and like sort of Western grindcore and went, "Oh, this is the heart and soul of what you're doing." And then they did it twice as fast and twice as intensely. And it's just like, it just obliterates everything else in like three seconds. But then you look at the dudes in the grindcore bands, and they're all sort of like wearing like hair metal outfits. And it's incredible because it's like they've absorbed all of these bits of Western culture and figured out what was actually interesting about any of it. I don't know, we're getting in the weeds with grindcore. The important thing is that we like to hear upsetting sounds while we work, I think.

Quincy 6:15

Yes, they're the best. So let's talk about an upsetting movie. We watched this week.

Ryan 6:20

Hachi mochi. So this movie... Alright, so this week we are doing the movie Noroi: The Curse from 2005 which was directed by Koji Shiraishi, who is the same guy who did that Kayako versus Sadako movie with like, The Ring... and now he's

Quincy 6:22

So I love that Noroi was his first movie. And then they're like, give this man the two Japanese ghost movie franchises. You know, it was just like action figures smash them together.

Ryan 6:55

Yeah, honestly, it makes me think of like the guy who did a City of Lost Children like Jean-Pierre Jeunet did that. And then Fox was like, hey, do you want to direct Alien Resurrection? And he's like, confused, but like, "Okay, sure." And it's like, they looked at this one guy who did this one movie, and were like, do you want this flagship property? And it makes me think of like, honestly, I stan David Lynch's Dune every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Quincy 7:21

It's got a pug in it, it canonically has a pet dog.

Ryan 7:26

I mean, there's not a lot of moisture on Arrakis and so that face, that's the face you get when there's not a lot of moisture in the region, it gets, it gets wrinkly, I honestly, that's my favorite thing is like when you get a director, right, who's got like a super strong voice, especially with like their early work, that somehow gets handed the keys to the kingdom to do a really big mainstream property. Now, the thing is, Noroi: The Curse was like, this was a hard to find movie for a long, long time. Like you, you couldn't really, you know, it was really, really hard to find in the West and then eventually, Shudder got the rights to you know, sort of streamed Noroi: The Curse. It is a found footage horror movie that is two hours long. I don't know how I feel about that runtime, by the way.

Quincy 8:13

So, you know, I was reading reviews online, and I saw a lot of you'll love it or hate it. And I'm pleased to say that I got sucked in. And the third act made the runtime worth it. And the format is, so I think we might have lost something by having HD because the best of these found footage movies are shot on tape. And this movie is the most grainy found footage movie I've ever seen. Now, part of that might be that my internet connection was poor the night I streamed this, but it looked like actual garbage. And it enhanced my viewing experience. 1,000%.

Ryan 9:05

Well, and this is a thing that I think we sort of talked about a lot with, you know, sort of physical media and the fact that you want you know, like for example the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you don't necessarily want to watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in you know, just like incredible high definition and able to see everything and actually I know H Bomber Guy, who's a YouTuber, has a great you know, video essay about this that like VHS was a format and is a format that's really really friendly to horror because of the sort of vibe that the graininess and the texture can give the thing you're watching about and especially if it's a found footage movie like Noroi: The Curse, like that's a big part of the appeal.

Quincy 9:45

Yeah, so the movie is about a paranormal author who is shooting a documentary. And the framing narrative is the cameraman says, I'm going to show you this movie, because that's going to help you understand what I'm going to tell you next.

Ryan 10:07

Yeah, which I side note here. I also love that there's a thing in found footage that a lot of them do where at the very top of the thing, there's a card that's basically like, this is the most brutal shit ever witnessed. We are banned from the Sundance Film Festival. This is you know, sort of, like where it sort of needs to put this disclaimer over the top of it that like, this footage is upsetting. Which you're kind of like, okay, man, yeah, like I was, I was on board. Sure.

Quincy 10:35

And then they actually followed through and they exceed all expectations.

Ryan 10:40

Yeah, yeah. Now and you're now the thing is, you're totally right, like the third act of this movie. I would say that for the first. You know, hour and a half of this movie. I was like, bored and annoyed? And then it kicks up, and I'm like, motherfucker, thank you. It's kind of is this a slow burn? Or am I being cranky?

Quincy 11:01

No, I think it, there's a lot of exposition.

Ryan 11:04

Yeah.

Quincy 11:06

And still, what's what's fascinating is normally exposition kills a horror film, because they don't need to know why the monster exists. I don't need to know that the old lady has been feeding an escaped circus alligator cows for 20 years. And that's why it's taken over the lake. I don't care. I just want to see it eat swimmers.

Ryan 11:31

Yeah, that's the that's exactly right. It's I listen, I don't need Michael Myers backstory to watch him kill people.

Quincy 11:37

And yet in this movie, it makes it work. It works. Because it is also intricately tied together. And also seemingly unimportant things become very important at the end of the movie, in a way that is really surprising. Especially because as a found footage movie, it is basically it becomes a biopic for this paranormal investigator, and you see all of these outtakes of interviews and these segments from TV shows and you think, why is any of this here? Who cares? You know, why is this relevant? And then by the third act, every single thing you've seen, is touched on and plays a key part to explaining what's happening.

Ryan 12:34

Absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, so we the the main character of or I guess, not main character, but the the protagonist of the thing is Masafumi Kobayashi, who is the the paranormal researcher slash documentarian. And he is investigating. So at the top of the movie, we are made aware that there is a lady named Junko Ishii who she is a bad mother, you sort of figured out immediately...

Quincy 12:58

So, so this is what I what I especially love is Marafumi was a writer, he wrote in print, and he's like, wait a minute, I can get a video camera and just record this batshit nonsense? Let me do that.

Ryan 13:15

Which is the same process that you use to start a podcast by the way. Where it's like, God dammit writing long form pieces about horror who has the time however, my friend I've wanted to do a podcast with like this is, you know, well. And the thing is, he also Masafumi has this thing where he's trying I think a lot of the time to maintain sort of an objective documentarian attitude toward all of this, but immediately, all of the stuff he's looking at makes it impossible for him to be a reasonable stoic documentarian.

Quincy 13:48

Except he also gives a lot of, Get a load of this. Get a load of this horse shit side-eye to the camera throughout the movie, and it is very good. Yeah, the earliest things that hooked me in is his Can you believe this? Yeah, so he attends he goes to a woman in the suburbs' home because she says there are weird noises and you think okay, this is just a ghost story. And then she reveals the weird noises are from the neighbor's house, not hers, and that's where things get start to get bananas.

Ryan 14:24

Well, yeah. And the noise that the neighbor hears are the sound of babies screaming like it's just really loud baby's crying. And immediately I think you know, the neighbor is trying not to be like, I don't know if she's just got like a dozen really unhappy babies in there or what but it's a lot and it's really loud. And so you know, the, so Masafumi goes next door and he's like, talking to like, he knocks on the door and Junko opens the door looking like fucking Gollum, like just emerges from the dark, dark circles under her eyes like. She's clearly having a bad time in her life. And she's just immediately like, get the fuck away from my house. No, I'm not letting you in, get the fuck out of here. And as you know, Masafumi is like retreating from the house with the camera. He looks over and sees a little kid pressing his face up against the glass and it looks like a little boy. So it's just like, Alright, so Boo Radley lives in this house, I guess?

Quincy 15:23

Yeah, so even the neighbor's like we saw them move in. And there is a boy, but he doesn't leave for school. And she leaves only occasionally to get food.

Ryan 15:35

Yeah, yeah. Like there's a very, I think that there's an analogue here for like abusive parents, or like maybe not even abusive parents. But like, when you live with a parent who kind of can't get their shit together totally. And you've got kind of a feral kid and a mom who doesn't really know how to take care of this kid.

Quincy 15:50

And I think it also speaks a lot to that. Definitely a Japanese cultural moment, but also a Western cultural moment of, well, I don't want to actually say anything. It's it's easier to just assume that there are ghosts than to actually recognize that we need to call some government agency to remove this child from this home.

Ryan 16:17

Yeah, that's what actually that's what this is, is it's like the Japanese cultural cultural norms around it. Slash Haddonfield, Illinois in Halloween, where you've got, you know, Laurie strode banging on the neighbor's door yelling, please help me and they turn on the light. Somebody looks in at her on the porch and then immediately shuts the lights off and closes the windows, and it's like, Hey, listen, man, I'm not I'm not trying to get involved in anything happening here.

Quincy 16:39

So it is important to note that Japan has a hyper rich history of ghosts and spooky shit. Which is why I really like a lot of Japanese media. And also because they the indigenous religion of Japan is polytheistic a lot of the spooky shit just gets lumped into shintoism it's just like, oh, that's just part of it. There's just you know, talking umbrellas and

Ryan 17:11

Yeah, well, I mean, that that's kind of the thing is when you know, when you think of Japanese horror, you think of ghosts you know, like you think of the sort of like the the Blumhouse intro card where it's like, lady with messy hair wandering around in front of cameras, sort of a thing. And, you know, and and Japan especially, they've never really got on board with the slasher thing until kind of later on. Like they're very preoccupied with ghosts, I think as folklore.

Quincy 17:39

Yeah, and really the only the slasher esque movies you get from Japan aren't even slasher movies as much as they're just like, extreme gore like the Guinea Pig series. And and yeah stuff of that ilk. It's, let's just be as gross as possible.

Ryan 17:59

It's like the grindcore of horror, really, like yeah, you get into like, Guinea Pig movies and and sort of Takashi Miike stuff and sort of like you know Tetsuo, the Iron Man. They never I mean, I think that there's a very specific version of like slasher movies that's particularly American. And these you know, like a movie like Noroi: The Curse so much now, here's the thing. I do think this movie is in a lot of ways in conversation with The Blair Witch Project.

Quincy 18:27

Yes.

Ryan 18:28

Just in the way that it's shot and the way that the third act plays out, like in the way that you know, it's, it's like, a really good so like Fallout New Vegas has a great thing where you get to sort of unravel stories that happened within bunkers by reading entries. And there's this joy about starting with a weird thing. Like, oh, this lady Junko Ishii is like, having a weird time and we're hearing babies crying, and then sort of following a cord all the way back to the wall and then finding out that it's ghosts.

Quincy 18:56

Yeah. It's been ghosts the whole time. It's very good. Another thing that's great is this director directed a slit-mouth woman film, which is a urban legend, ghost of a woman who has a botched plastic surgery and has her mouth slit from ear to ear. And she asks children, do you think I have a pretty smile? And if you say yes, she'll cut your mouth. And if you waffle and are unsure, she'll cut you. And if you say no, she gets mad and cuts you so really, it's a zero sum game. But also, he's made a slasher film of that concept, which is very good.

Ryan 19:47

I support that energy actually that like every there's a flowchart for the slit mouth woman and everything leads to I'm gonna cutcha.

Quincy 19:55

Varying degrees of cuts.

Ryan 19:58

Yeah, there's no way you can walk out of this one kiddo. I gotta listen. It's gonna happen. I honestly, Quincy, I don't know if you remember now in terms of ghosts in Japan. Do you remember when that movie The Forest came...]]>rankandvile.podbean.com/d1f13de7-dfb4-3f00-bf37-0f490b98f3afFri, 22 Jan 2021 23:41:00 -050001:05:54yesfull174On this episode we talk about 2005's found-footage gem NOROI: THE CURSE! For a transcript of this episode, check out https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-174-pigeon-explosionQuincy & RyanEpisode 173: Shock LobsterOn this episode, we talk about early John Waters filth-fest MULTIPLE MANIACS!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-173-shock-lobster

Transcript:

Ryan 0:36

[Theme Song] Hey guys, welcome to rank and file the podcast where we are ranking every single horror movie ever made from best to worst and this is Ryan.

Quincy 0:43

And this is Quincy

Ryan 0:44

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

Quincy 0:46

You know? I've been finding a lot of solace in video games.

Ryan 0:52

Yeah, which ones which ones are you playing this week?

Quincy 0:54

So I just discovered a in the year of our Lord anno domini 2021 I found a flash game that I really love. Ryan Have you heard of Friday Night Funkin'?

Ryan 1:08

Never. Wait I wasn't aware that flash was still a platform This is incredible. What please What is this game?

Quincy 1:14

So Friday Night Funkin', which is available on Newgrounds

Ryan 1:18

Haha, holy shit. Holy shit

Quincy 1:20

But also itch.io for like real people.

Ryan 1:25

Man. Yeah, Flash games were some of like my first introduction to like anything on the internet. Like you you could not escape flash games back in the day.

Quincy 1:36

Well, hold on to your butt, Ryan, because not only is this a flash game, but it is a PaRappa the Rapper style rhythm game.

Ryan 1:46

Oh shit.

Quincy 1:47

Where you are trying to date your girlfriend and your girlfriend's dad is a demonic ex rock star. So you have to get in a Singing Battle to win your girlfriend's hand, which like the gender politics are kind of sketchy.

Ryan 2:04

Oh, sure.

Quincy 2:04

But all of the music is like hyper pop hyper pop 100 guix style vocaloids. And you just use wasde or the arrows and just DDR, with your Play Dance Dance Revolution with your fingers.

Ryan 2:20

You know what I was about to clown you playing a flash game on Newgrounds this actually sounds dope as hell.

Quincy 2:28

It is amazing. The music is infectious and has wormed its way very deep into my brain. It's got the perfect quantity of Scott Pilgrim and also just like, internet and micro genres.

Ryan 2:47

Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna say kind of Tenacious D with like having a Singing Battle with Satan.

Quincy 2:53

Yeah, so in the later level, you actually fight the mom, the demonic mom of your girlfriend. And the first song is a new jack swing song. It's like 90s r&b bop. And the mother is flanked by demons in hammer pants dancing on a limousine,

Ryan 3:19

God damn, that...

Quincy 3:21

So all the vocals are Vocaloid so it is 100% robots going "meep moomoomah meepmurp meep moop" depending on which way you point the arrows on your keyboard.

Ryan 3:32

Holy shit. This is honestly so I've been so I finished Yakuza Zero and I'm making my way through the series proper starting with Yakuza Kiwami which is like the the original game on PS2 that they remastered for PS4 anyway. There are so many mini games in it and also a lot of rhythm mini games where there's one where you'd have to disco dance and like it's a rhythm game and then there's the the karaoke mini game which apparently like... This was my first understanding of Yakuza was the karaoke mini game because of the meme with like, Baka Mita from the thing but with Dobby from Harry Potter's face superimposed over him on karaoke. The internet is so goddamn weird. And so anyway, are you familiar with Crypt]]>On this episode, we talk about early John Waters filth-fest MULTIPLE MANIACS!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-173-shock-lobster

Transcript:

Ryan 0:36

[Theme Song] Hey guys, welcome to rank and file the podcast where we are ranking every single horror movie ever made from best to worst and this is Ryan.

Quincy 0:43

And this is Quincy

Ryan 0:44

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

Quincy 0:46

You know? I've been finding a lot of solace in video games.

Ryan 0:52

Yeah, which ones which ones are you playing this week?

Quincy 0:54

So I just discovered a in the year of our Lord anno domini 2021 I found a flash game that I really love. Ryan Have you heard of Friday Night Funkin'?

Ryan 1:08

Never. Wait I wasn't aware that flash was still a platform This is incredible. What please What is this game?

Quincy 1:14

So Friday Night Funkin', which is available on Newgrounds

Ryan 1:18

Haha, holy shit. Holy shit

Quincy 1:20

But also itch.io for like real people.

Ryan 1:25

Man. Yeah, Flash games were some of like my first introduction to like anything on the internet. Like you you could not escape flash games back in the day.

Quincy 1:36

Well, hold on to your butt, Ryan, because not only is this a flash game, but it is a PaRappa the Rapper style rhythm game.

Ryan 1:46

Oh shit.

Quincy 1:47

Where you are trying to date your girlfriend and your girlfriend's dad is a demonic ex rock star. So you have to get in a Singing Battle to win your girlfriend's hand, which like the gender politics are kind of sketchy.

Ryan 2:04

Oh, sure.

Quincy 2:04

But all of the music is like hyper pop hyper pop 100 guix style vocaloids. And you just use wasde or the arrows and just DDR, with your Play Dance Dance Revolution with your fingers.

Ryan 2:20

You know what I was about to clown you playing a flash game on Newgrounds this actually sounds dope as hell.

Quincy 2:28

It is amazing. The music is infectious and has wormed its way very deep into my brain. It's got the perfect quantity of Scott Pilgrim and also just like, internet and micro genres.

Ryan 2:47

Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna say kind of Tenacious D with like having a Singing Battle with Satan.

Quincy 2:53

Yeah, so in the later level, you actually fight the mom, the demonic mom of your girlfriend. And the first song is a new jack swing song. It's like 90s r&b bop. And the mother is flanked by demons in hammer pants dancing on a limousine,

Ryan 3:19

God damn, that...

Quincy 3:21

So all the vocals are Vocaloid so it is 100% robots going "meep moomoomah meepmurp meep moop" depending on which way you point the arrows on your keyboard.

Ryan 3:32

Holy shit. This is honestly so I've been so I finished Yakuza Zero and I'm making my way through the series proper starting with Yakuza Kiwami which is like the the original game on PS2 that they remastered for PS4 anyway. There are so many mini games in it and also a lot of rhythm mini games where there's one where you'd have to disco dance and like it's a rhythm game and then there's the the karaoke mini game which apparently like... This was my first understanding of Yakuza was the karaoke mini game because of the meme with like, Baka Mita from the thing but with Dobby from Harry Potter's face superimposed over him on karaoke. The internet is so goddamn weird. And so anyway, are you familiar with Crypt of the Necrodancer?

Quincy 4:14

Oh, I I love that. So on my Nintendo. It lists the the games played from most to least, Crypt of the Necrodancer is in my top tier next to Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. So like, we're talking 200 hours worth of Crypt of the Necrodancer.

Ryan 4:37

So you're saying that like the the Spotify year-end thing that shamed me by being like you're one of Rob Zombie's 1% of super fans? It's just like shaming you like you have played so much goddamn Crypt of the Necrodancer.

Quincy 4:49

Yeah, yeah for sure.

Ryan 4:51

Oh my god. Alright, so let's get into it. Let's get into the movie we're doing this week. Holy shit. I'm probably gonna have to put a trigger warning at the beginning of this because I... Although I feel like we could just start off with the fact that like, Hey guys, this is early John Waters, which should I think serve as a trigger warning?

Quincy 5:08

So I just watched the I Am Divine documentary on Netflix, which is one of the major reasons why I wanted to do an early John Waters movie for this podcast.

Ryan 5:19

Hell yeah.

Quincy 5:20

And what I love is that especially towards the end of Divine's career, he was like, so many people have asked me about the dog shit. It doesn't matter what it is anymore.

Ryan 5:35

Man Divine's, honestly Divine's commitment to eating shoot like disgusting things on on camera puts puts her in like the top 10% of like, honestly, we jerk it to like Brando doing method. No, cowards. Divine will eat horrifying things on camera in a way that like, Look, Dustin Hoffman's ass isn't eating like raw animal parts.

Quincy 6:01

Oh, and in the documentary, they have shots from the day and apparently they just had to follow the dog around, and when they were filming Pink Flamingos they had to follow the dog around and John Waters was like, Divine, when it shits, just eat whatever comes out and they had given the dog laxatives to Divine's like it wasn't even normal consistency dog shit it was runny dog shit. He's such a master of his craft and I'm using "he" because everyone in the documentary talks about how it was simply a character, it's it's a drag persona and there is there's a pretty extensive part of the film where they talk about Divine's sexuality and they're like no Divine was not trans. This is a job. This was a thing and and he actually spent most of his time out of costume and frequently said like, well, I hate wearing dresses, but this is my career.

Ryan 7:08

So So I haven't seen the documentary but so I fell down. So upon rewatching Multiple Maniacs I did a deep dive

Quincy 7:14

We're doing multiple maniac, folks.

Ryan 7:16

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we're doing Multiple Maniacs by John Waters from 1970. Which this movie I feel I here's the thing.

Quincy 7:25

It's the first feature length John Waters, and it's definitely a nerd with a 16 millimeter. Not really knowing what he's doing.

Ryan 7:34

Oh, he can barely hold that fucking camera. Now the thing about it is the movie Multiple Maniacs. So you know, like, I'm, you know, watching it in the harsh light of 2021. As a, you know, I'm queer and nonbinary and tired, also. I also, you know, we do a podcast where we watch upsetting things, like technically for money. And so, you know, I've seen a lot of really upsetting stuff. And so part of me was tempted to be like, Oh, I get it, this is, you know, whatever. But if I if I had been a queer person during 1970 that had just seen this, I would have been rock hard to see this level of like, transgressive queer cinema.

Quincy 8:16

Yeah, it is. Wholly, and unapologetically, queer. And I think that's the point is, it's just a bunch of kids in Baltimore, saying, what can we do to freak out the norms?

Ryan 8:31

Yeah, well, and you know, I found myself wondering, like, I think I saw a portal to hell while watching this. And that portal to hell would be like a 16 year old queer kid on Tumblr now, having discourse about early John Waters with other 16 year olds, like trying to make sense of like, I feel like this is the worst thing I've ever seen and deeply problematic.

Quincy 8:56

So John Waters is also a notorious interviewer, and is always, you know, game for a pullquote. In I Am Divine he was saying, well, you all don't understand. It was the late 60s. And being gay was very dangerous. And he's like, frankly, it was a lot more fun, then he winks at the camera.

Ryan 9:19

I mean, that's kind of the thing is like, there's something--

Quincy 9:21

They interviewed Divine's girlfriend, and she's like, Yeah, um, we went to this costume party, and he dressed up like Elizabeth Taylor, and I thought he was so beautiful. And then we got to the party, and everyone was dressed like Elizabeth Taylor. And I thought that was weird, but I didn't think anything of it.

Ryan 9:43

Yeah. You know, that was just that was just the style at the time. I mean, you got to understand everybody was dressing up like Elizabeth Taylor during those days, the men, the women. Now, and honestly, the thing is, with John Waters, I this was years ago, John Waters was he was flogging a new book that he had out. And so I went with Christina and my buddy Anna and we like went out. So I think it's like Burbank or something where he was, you know, like giving giving a talk and sort of... The thing about John Waters is he like, he is a gay man. But he also comes from money in a way that like, he's never really had to worry about where his next meal was coming from. And so I think occasionally, like, you know, he's still an old white guy, like, Yes, he's John Waters, and he is like the prince of filth. But there are going to be some blind spots, especially with like a guy. I mean, this is a movie from 1970. Like, there are so many things about john waters, like he would say something spicy during the talk about, you know, like, trigger warnings on textbooks are bad because college is where you're supposed to get exposed to new ideas or whatever. And it's like, Look, somebody probably explained the concept of trigger warnings badly to him. And also he's older than shit. Like I'm not expecting him to, to have the same language we have to talk about being queer.

Quincy 10:55

So what is the plot of this movie? Multiple Maniacs?

Ryan 11:01

So Multiple Maniacs Alright, so we're starting out.

Quincy 11:04

Okay. And when I asked you what is the plot, I don't mean the Wikipedia summary. Because I read that Wikipedia article. And it is not the same movie I saw. It is such a belaboured, "No, no, no. What actually is going on is this." It's like, it is literally scenes, set pieces and and dialogue and then a transition to another scene and no real connection in between.

Ryan 11:35

I mean, that's, you know, here's, all right, you know how the plot of Purple Rain is Prince is awesome. Yeah. The plot of John Waters Multiple Maniacs is "Be gay, do crimes." Pretty much. Now and it's alright, so this movie follows a group of grifters slash sort of circus geeks like they're. They've got this like sort of oddity sideshow thing where it's, we started out with a guy named Mr. David now, by the way, Mr. David...

Quincy 12:04

He's actually just David Lochary. Like, everyone in this movie. They're like, eh...

Ryan 12:10

David Lochary, who plays a guy named Mr. David actually, what's incredible everybody in this place like Mink Stole play someone named Mink, Cookie, Cookie Mueller plays someone named Cookie Divine. Except Paul swift plays Steve. And so, at the top of this thing, you know, we've got Mr. David who has I want to say the worst haircut I've ever seen in this movie.

Quincy 12:34

It's It's so insane. Also, David Lockhart Lochary did all of the Divine makeup and kind of helped develop that aesthetic? David Lochary, he was the one that's like shave your hairline back to behind your ears. So we can put bigger eyebrows on you.

Ryan 12:54

Yeah, apparently, you know, and Divine even said like, I had never even heard the word drag before David Lochary. Like David Lochary was the one who kind of, you know, hipped, you know, hipped him to the whole thing.

Quincy 13:03

And David Lochary, he was a hairdresser. And you know, I don't want to come off too spicy on this podcast and say that hairdressers are notoriously bad at doing their own hair. But David Lochary does have a widow's peak. Dark roots, but bleach blonde curly hair mullet?

Ryan 13:28

Yeah, it's a real of "the cobbler's children go shoeless" sort of a thing. Like this. He's maybe it just he, you know, he was immune to his own. His own acumen.

Quincy 13:37

His hair was limp so Divine's hair could soar.

Ryan 13:43

That's what it is. He allowed his hair to be defeated so that Divine's could be triumphant. And he saw at the top of the movie, you know, he's got a not a megaphone, but he's like, he's pulling a carnival barker routine, where he's doing patter to like, draw people in. Now. He's just standing in the middle of like, a little pocket park in the middle of like Baltimore.

Quincy 14:03

Yeah, it is literally they walked down the street and set up and just like, go ahead and start talking, David.

Ryan 14:12

Yeah, yeah. And so apparently, like all you had to do to draw a crowd in 1970s is to like roll up to Baltimore with a tent and then promise the suburbanites all manner of horrors like these dudes kiss and this guy is on drugs. And you know we

Quincy 14:30

And also here's a guy that needs puke which made me about yarf.

Ryan 14:34

Apparently the guy who eats puke apparently that was creamed corn. Yeah, which is actually to me like more upsetting than puke because creamed corn is, it was devised by demons like i don't i hate creamed corn so much. And so you know, we get him sort of promising the people like you know, like, quote, "real actual filth who have been carefully screened in order to present to you the most flagrant violation of natural law known to man." And but he's just like standing in the middle of a field by himself yelling this, which feels very quarantine feeling.

Quincy 15:12

Just also everyone that walks by is like we don't really have time for that and they keep walking, he's like no really please come into our our cavalcade of debauchery.

Ryan 15:23

Yeah. Do you know what it is? This routine wouldn't have worked in Minnesota, because everybody would have been too fucking nice about it because it would be like come look at these vile degenerates making out they'd be like, "Oh, yeah, that sure is transgressive. There. Okay, I gotta go. You have a good one." Like they would just be perfectly nice and dismissive about it. But you know, so we get, you know, exposed to this group of people. Now and we, you know, we sort of keep cutting to back behind the tent and it's all of them. Quincy, you've seen Untucked from RuPaul's Drag Race, right?

Quincy 15:56

Yes.

Ryan 15:56

Where it's just all of them sitting in the untucked lounge talking shit. That's like most of this movie.

Quincy 16:02

It's like, um, the Boulet Brothers drag show where they're like, oh, the popular part of Drag Race is reading. So we're just going to make the entire show reading and talking shit in the green room and the one challenge of the week.

Ryan 16:21

That's what it is like, you know what? You know what I'm only saying about drag, it's too nice and approachable. What if we made it more mean spirited and catty, like we ratchet that up a little bit and make it more hostile and inaccessible? Now, we, you know, we get a bunch of the hippies like chewing on like women's underwear and like laughing and...

Quincy 16:42

A bicycle seat? There's a woman just like smooching a bicycle seat, which, how much of this is supposed to be like, satire of suburban hand wringing?

Ryan 16:58

Oh, I'm gonna say 100% of this movie. Now that's the thing. Like so much of this movie is a parody of it's like a rude parody of human relations by by an alien who's just like super bitchy. And just like, whatever. This is what you guys look like where you've got, you know.

Quincy 17:15

We also have to recognize that we are not of Waters's generation.

Ryan 17:20

Oh, yeah.

Quincy 17:21

So a lot of the things that come, it's just like how I had to explain the singular they to my parents by saying just pretend that the person has a mouse in their pocket because grammar was, they're like that's not grammatically correct.

Ryan 17:41

Which is also silly because singular they has been around since Shakespeare. Come on, guys. But yeah.

Quincy 17:46

Also, I mean, like, grammar is literally made up. Yeah, each language, we we just kind of make it up as we go along. And we all just sort of agree on on language.

Ryan 17:57

Yeah. Natural pronouns don't grow on fucking hedges, like we get to decide what words mean. Which actually, this reminds me of, I was talking to my dad a couple of days ago, and Sarah came up, and my dad like misgendered them and then was like, "Oh, shit, sorry. It's them. Right? It's them." And I was and I didn't have to tell him like, I love you. The fact that you are trying means so much like, he has largely given up on knowing how to do it with me because I you know, I've been my dad's kid for 34 years, so he just thinks of me as a dude. But I think the fact that he's doing it with Sarah is like, you know what, alright. You got that one. That's, that's good. I'm willing to I'm willing to work without. But yeah, like watching a movie made in 1970 with like, a mostly queer cast. Like, I can't even imagine making like, this was the movie that an angry young queer kid in Baltimore is going to make during this period,

Quincy 18:49

Oh, yeah. And it's like, you know, they're probably thinking we're smooching bicycle seats and eating creamed corn.

Ryan 18:57

Yeah, just all that kind of stuff. And you've got you know, the the normies sort of standing around yelling things that sound like autogenerated mean straight people things like, "why don't they like females? These are homosexuals in a tent!" like it's it's incredible...

Quincy 19:13

The way that two mustachioed men in the 1970s are kissing in this movie is shot as if it is a horror film. Yeah, it's

Ryan 19:22

Yeah, yeah. You know that you know that thing in fanfiction of people. "Their tongues battling for dominance?" It's basically that words like it's like their, their their tongues or cars and just crashing...

Quincy 19:34

Angles.

Ryan 19:37

Yeah, like there's I feel like there must have been like foley for the kisses of just like somebody gently stirring a bowl of chili. Like it's just it. It all...]]>rankandvile.podbean.com/8a14462d-9b3e-3f55-ba15-6f9cd6e44175Sat, 16 Jan 2021 00:06:00 -050001:08:54yesfull173On this episode, we talk about early John Waters filth-fest MULTIPLE MANIACS! For a transcript of this episode, check out https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-173-shock-lobsterQuincy & RyanEpisode 172: Cat CrimesOn this episode, we talk about the fantastically upsetting 1994 German animated cat movie, FELIDAE!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-172-cat-crimes

Transcript:

Ryan 0:05

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

Quincy 0:43

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:44

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

Quincy 0:46

It's been going good. My lovely girlfriend gave me Junji Ito's Cat Diary for Christmas. So I've been while you're reading Yon & Mu.

Ryan 0:55

Oh my god, tell me about it.

Quincy 0:57

This is maybe one of the Junji Ito is pretty beloved and rightfully so he's incredibly talented. Um, and this comic is especially mean it's very difficult to be to know who Junji Ito is and not see this comic. But it exceeds the hype. It is incredible.

Ryan 1:18

So this is the one with the cats who apparently he was like, he's like a lifelong cat lover in his normal life.

Quincy 1:27

What's interesting is he says, actually, I prefer dogs.

Ryan 1:31

Really?

Quincy 1:32

Yeah. But it's like my my S.O. wanted a cat. So I was like, Yeah, sure. But what's great is he writes and draws this nonfiction comic like he does. He paces a horror comic where he's like, the gnawing dread of getting this cat is his lady's like, Hey, remember that cat at my parents house? He's like, Oh, yeah, that's a that's an okay cat. And he's like, actually kind of in, you know, to the audience. He's like, actually, it kind of freaks me out because he's really intense. He's like, well, he's gonna come move in with us. And he's like, what? That curse is coming to my home? And he does not draw his girlfriend with pupils. She's just totally like, wide eyed the whole time.

Ryan 2:24

Holy shit. I this is honestly I feel like if anybody can sort of engage with and understand the innate horror of cats, it has to be Junji Ito?

Quincy 2:33

Yeah, it's also besides just being terrifying. He includes actual there's actual photos included of both Yon and Mu, and the lightness. Because Yon has like a weird skull pattern on his back and you're like, there's no fucking way that that cat can actually have a skull in spots. And that motherfucker does.

Ryan 3:02

Yeah, that's exactly it like honestly. Junji Ito he's one of those people that if you tried explaining his work to somebody who'd never seen a Junji Ito comic before, like, there's something ineffable that you kind of can't totally translate.

Quincy 3:16

Yeah, there's something about the way that he draws faces that is, especially faces and teeth, I think are some things that he's very good at drawing very unsettling renditions of.

Ryan 3:33

Yeah, well, he's also like, a really great, like, sort of intro to guro. Like, yeah, I mean, because especially with guro I think it's that you know what it is, you're, you're like a normal, nice kid. And then you have like a dirtbag classmate or something, or you fall down a hole on the internet. And they're like, Hey, what do you know about guro and you're like, by, like, Sailor Moon. And they're like, sure, this is like that, but way more guts and then they just, like, give you the worst things in the world. And I feel like as an adult, I can appreciate the shit out of how much of Junji Ito like so many of the like, the scenarios and the things in his work are immediately familiar to you on some level, like the comic of like, about people like climbing into holes in the wall and then emerging as like sausage meat on the other side. Like, there...]]>On this episode, we talk about the fantastically upsetting 1994 German animated cat movie, FELIDAE!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-172-cat-crimes

Transcript:

Ryan 0:05

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

Quincy 0:43

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:44

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

Quincy 0:46

It's been going good. My lovely girlfriend gave me Junji Ito's Cat Diary for Christmas. So I've been while you're reading Yon & Mu.

Ryan 0:55

Oh my god, tell me about it.

Quincy 0:57

This is maybe one of the Junji Ito is pretty beloved and rightfully so he's incredibly talented. Um, and this comic is especially mean it's very difficult to be to know who Junji Ito is and not see this comic. But it exceeds the hype. It is incredible.

Ryan 1:18

So this is the one with the cats who apparently he was like, he's like a lifelong cat lover in his normal life.

Quincy 1:27

What's interesting is he says, actually, I prefer dogs.

Ryan 1:31

Really?

Quincy 1:32

Yeah. But it's like my my S.O. wanted a cat. So I was like, Yeah, sure. But what's great is he writes and draws this nonfiction comic like he does. He paces a horror comic where he's like, the gnawing dread of getting this cat is his lady's like, Hey, remember that cat at my parents house? He's like, Oh, yeah, that's a that's an okay cat. And he's like, actually kind of in, you know, to the audience. He's like, actually, it kind of freaks me out because he's really intense. He's like, well, he's gonna come move in with us. And he's like, what? That curse is coming to my home? And he does not draw his girlfriend with pupils. She's just totally like, wide eyed the whole time.

Ryan 2:24

Holy shit. I this is honestly I feel like if anybody can sort of engage with and understand the innate horror of cats, it has to be Junji Ito?

Quincy 2:33

Yeah, it's also besides just being terrifying. He includes actual there's actual photos included of both Yon and Mu, and the lightness. Because Yon has like a weird skull pattern on his back and you're like, there's no fucking way that that cat can actually have a skull in spots. And that motherfucker does.

Ryan 3:02

Yeah, that's exactly it like honestly. Junji Ito he's one of those people that if you tried explaining his work to somebody who'd never seen a Junji Ito comic before, like, there's something ineffable that you kind of can't totally translate.

Quincy 3:16

Yeah, there's something about the way that he draws faces that is, especially faces and teeth, I think are some things that he's very good at drawing very unsettling renditions of.

Ryan 3:33

Yeah, well, he's also like, a really great, like, sort of intro to guro. Like, yeah, I mean, because especially with guro I think it's that you know what it is, you're, you're like a normal, nice kid. And then you have like a dirtbag classmate or something, or you fall down a hole on the internet. And they're like, Hey, what do you know about guro and you're like, by, like, Sailor Moon. And they're like, sure, this is like that, but way more guts and then they just, like, give you the worst things in the world. And I feel like as an adult, I can appreciate the shit out of how much of Junji Ito like so many of the like, the scenarios and the things in his work are immediately familiar to you on some level, like the comic of like, about people like climbing into holes in the wall and then emerging as like sausage meat on the other side. Like, there are certain things that you get obsessed with and you're like, this is my hole, it was made for me! You follow it down as far as you can.

Quincy 4:25

But did you know that there's now a midori challenge on Tick Tock?

Ryan 4:31

What is that where you'd like the alcoholic drink like green Midori.

Quincy 4:34

No like the movie we watched about incest and circus freaks licking eyeballs?

Ryan 4:41

Oh, you mean the most upsetting anime of all time? Yeah.

Quincy 4:44

Yeah, the most upsetting anime of all time is now a tik tok challenge. Where do you watch it and post your reaction?

Ryan 4:52

Holy shit. We watch that entire thing for this podcast.

Quincy 4:56

I'm weirdly tickled pink that this is a thing that The Kids are into these days,

Ryan 5:02

You know, God bless

Quincy 5:03

Especially because I've also gone on sticker app and custom made some Shojo Tsubaki stickers recently, because I can't be happy, I guess.

Ryan 5:17

Yeah, it's just fundamentally Not gonna happen. Honestly. I love I love that the internet because, you know, you sort of worry with like, hard to find stuff like Midori, where it's like, oh man, upsetting things that might ruin somebody's childhood, like, you know, where are they going to get those now we had those when we were kids. The Internet actually makes it way more widely available. And I think that's beautiful.

Quincy 5:35

Yeah, yeah. We just had to rely on Saturday anime on the sci fi channel, but now they just have YouTube.

Ryan 5:43

Yeah that's exactly. Honestly here.

Quincy 5:45

Which is where found this movie.

Ryan 5:46

I mean yeah. Although, yeah. Okay, so, holy shit. So the movie we're doing for this week, which is our 500th movie on our list that we have now done and not ranked yet, because that's at the end of the episode, but

Quincy 6:00

I'd also like to talk about how we could have done so many more movies. And yet, you and I learned the existence of this movie this weekend. We're like, no, we're not gonna do a John Carpenter movie. We're gonna do this son of a bitch.

Ryan 6:14

I was actually that this is what it is at the outset. Because on our last episode, at the very end, we realized like, Oh, shit, that was our 499th Movie, what are we going to do? And my impulse was to like to go big time where I'm like, let's do one of the heavy hitters like we've never done the original Friday the 13th we've never done like the original The Fly or any of those. And I love that this was the one we left it on

Quincy 6:41

Especially because like, I don't want to park the curtain too much. We had some really good picks for movies we could have done. I don't want to mention them because I don't want people to turn the episode off out of frustration.

Ryan 6:55

Right

Quincy 6:55

But we did have some some movies from the happy Madison canon.

Ryan 7:01

Oevre. Yeah, yeah. Several sort of spooky related Adam Sandler movies which, honestly, listen, I can watch Midori I can watch Lily cat. But you know, Little Nicky, I'm sorry. There are certain lines you don't cross. And Happy Madison is one of them.

Quincy 7:21

Spooky Buddies is one thing, but Little Nicky? Absolutely.

Ryan 7:25

Certainly not. So yeah. So Alright, so the movie we're doing for this week. It is from 1994 it is a German animated Neo noir horror mystery called Felidae. Felidae?

Quincy 7:40

Well, it's Latin. So I guess it would be Felidae.

Ryan 7:43

There we go, Felidae. Which now this came out. And I need to point this out. This movie came out the same year as the Lion King features a very different cat centric narrative. This movie was apparently so this was at the time the most expensive German movie ever made. Apparently the like millions of dollars went into this. Like this was a big deal for Germany at the time. Which sort of makes sense to me that like, I mean, because you think of the German film industry and it's like, Okay, well, what was now Okay, here's the thing. You might look at the cover of this movie, you know, you're nine years old, and you're like, oh, there's a nice font on this on this poster. There's a cute cat in front of the sun. Looking funny. This is probably a kid's movie. Oh, friends and neighbors. It is not a kid's movie.

Quincy 8:35

And I also like that they make very, they're very intentional about as the movie begins saying, This is not a kid's movie in the weird prog rock Bilbo Baggins as...

Ryan 8:52

Speaking of Bilbo Baggins, it's incredible to me that this movie is not a Ralph Bakshi production. Like this is not the same person who did Fritz the Cat or like Heavy Traffic like this is because you think of movies. Now, here's the thing at the top of the thing I need to point out this is a movie about animated cats doing animated cat stuff. And they disembowel each other and they bleed all over the place. They get their heads chopped off all manner of fucking horrors that you would associate with like a Ralph Bakshi thing. And it's just a German adult cartoon about cats.

Quincy 9:28

Yeah, I think I also need to be a grump for a while and talk about how we associate animated movies like this. Like you can either be Walt Disney or you can be Ralph Bakshi, right. But animation is not a genre.

Ryan 9:43

That's true. It's a medium.

Quincy 9:44

It's a medium. And I think we kind of fuck up when we start to talk about like, no, it's a genre and it has to do certain things. Because then you get stuff like Felidae. That's like, I'll show you, I'll show you all

Ryan 10:01

I mean Felidae honestly, for me, I saw so many of those upsetting animated movies when I was a kid, like All Dogs Go to Heaven. I feel like it prepared me for watching an upsetting animated movie. And like this is again, by no means certainly by 1994. This was by no means a new and novel thing. Like there had been adult animated movies. You know, there'd been Heavy Metal. And Fritz the Cat, like we said, like there, there have been so many up until this point that by 1994, it was not such an odd thing to have an animated movie that you should not bring your kids to.

Quincy 10:36

And what's also fascinating is this is based off of a novel, which is an adult novel with a cat protagonist.

Ryan 10:45

Now, and you know, at the top of the show, as many of our listeners might know, I'm fucking obsessed with cats. Like I'm a weird cat person. Like, if I did not live with Christina and Sara. I would 100% be a weird cat guy with like, nine cats shitting up my house. I love cats so much. And that being said, like this movie. Now, a thing that I appreciate about this movie is that I feel like this movie is down with why cats are the shit worst.

Quincy 11:15

It really does spin. At the end of the movie. You're like, No, I don't like any of the characters in this movie.

Ryan 11:24

Makes me think of when I saw Cats 2019 which, by the way, that was the last movie I saw in theaters before quarantine. So it was Cats 2019 For God's sake, but you know, like somebody tweeted after they saw Cats 2019 like, God dammit, I can't even look at my cat in the face now. And so much of this movie now. Alright, so at the top of the movie, we it's a NEO Noir. The main character of the movie is a tom cat named Francis or I guess Tom cats don't have their balls. He's a cat named Francis. And he is sort of like a Philip Marlowe Sam Spade, sort of a character

Quincy 12:03

Big balled fellow.

Ryan 12:05

Yeah. And he so he comes to this now. So he comes to this house. And He notes that it smells like toxic waste and shit. Like he gets sort of humans are very few and far between in this movie, I think.

Quincy 12:20

Yes. And yet they do talk like it would have been very easy to have like a to have like a Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown's teacher kind of thing where like, they don't understand the humans. But you actually see the few humans that are in this movie quite a bit. And they're just bungling idiots.

Ryan 12:42

Yeah, yeah. And the cats can understand the people and I think that so much of this movie is the idea. Now and I will say a thing I really like about this movie and the animation in this movie. You never see cats moving like people like the cats. Their body motions are always pure cat and I think that's really fucking cool to have maintained for the duration of a movie.

Quincy 13:03

Especially because they could have made this a ristic aristocats but with fucking. Aristocats doing the aristocrats. Yeah.

Ryan 13:16

Yeah, which is basically kind of what this movie is in places there is holy shit. There's a lot to unpack. So Francis gets trapped in this house and he quickly befriends a one eyed bastard cat named Bluebeard.

Quincy 13:28

Oh, I love Bluebeard. So much.

Ryan 13:30

Oh, man. I think of Bluebeard as being kind of the the like Roadhouse. Like he is the Sam Elliott character to Patrick Swayze's character? Where, you know, like, Francis is sort of like trying to make sense of everything. And he's like, helpless. And this guy's just like, forget about it, kid. I'm a cat with one eye and I would smoke a cigar if I could. He's just like, all over this movie. He's I think my favorite part of this movie, actually, is Bluebeard. The cat.

Quincy 13:57

Yeah, yeah. So Francis discovers almost immediately after moving into his new house, that cats are being murdered in this neighborhood.

Ryan 14:09

And not just murdered, but like...

Quincy 14:12

Vivisected?

Ryan 14:13

Yeah, yeah, like heads chopped off, guts strewn around. And it's pretty bad. Now there's another thing that I love, which is that they brief they do this a lot in the first act of the movie and then nowhere else, they refer to human beings as can openers. And that's just the most badass power move I've ever heard in my life is cats just being like Ah, that's stupid can opener didn't know what he was doing. Like it's God. It's It's perfect. And he starts to unravel this thing of like, wow, it's there's a lot of dead cats in this vicinity guys. And it's sort of a Blue Velvet thing where he starts sort of like falling through the cracks of this thing and like trying to trying to figure out what happened.

Quincy 14:53

Especially because he doesn't really it. It's that great noir trope of, I have nothing to do with This and could very easily just leave it alone and live a normal life, but I got to pick the scab, I got to figure out what's going on. And it's way deeper than he could have ever imagined. but also they're cats.

Ryan 15:14

Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. Like, I also I love that as a noir theme that like, you know what I could just have, like, you know, three Hots and a cot at this house and then never bother myself with anything else. But you know, he he he finds that a cat another thing that happens is that he starts having these dream sequences. Now the dream sequences in Felidae are incredible.

Quincy 15:38

They're the most feverish nightmares. I've seen animated in. Maybe ever. No, not ever, because I've seen Midori. But like,

Ryan 15:53

Sure, I mean, that's a high bar

Quincy 15:55

Midori... grotesque.

Ryan 15:56

Yeah. And I mean, it's on the level of sort of, like the surrealism, like, you know, you got this, the shot that I can't stop thinking about now, there. There's a narrative running through this movie involving human beings. That on the first dream that Francis has, there is a human who's back is to him and he's wearing a white lab coat and Francis is like, Hey, I'm a cat. And then the guy turns around, and it's he's got a void where a face should be it's like his face got scooped out with a melon baller.

Quincy 16:24

Yes.

Ryan 16:26

And it is fucking upsetting. And he's, you know, he puts a leash around this cat's neck and then just starts like, there's a chain attached to it. And he's just like, using this cat just like at like a like a flail, just like hitting it hitting him against the walls. It's so upsetting. They never they never really ease up on the dream sequences being upsetting, which I really appreciate.

Quincy 16:48

No, in fact, that's the that's relatively mild compared to the the eviscerated cat marionettes that Francis dreams about later

Ryan 17:00

Oh, man, it. Yeah, yeah. So he, you know, so he starts to figure out like a Lovecraft protagonist that like, Huh, something's hinky around here. And we're introduced to this other cat named Joker. Joker is a son of a bitch.

Quincy 17:16

The dirt worst,

Ryan 17:18

Just the absolute dirt worst. He's a big fucking beefy bastard cat who rolls up on Bluebeard and Francis and I want to say makes an alarming number of homophobic slurs for an animated movie.

Quincy 17:31

A whole lot

Ryan 17:32

Oh, it's a lot where he's just like he literally and this is verbatim dialogue. This cat yells to Bluebeard. I see. We've been cruising the gay scene for a change that cute little thing behind you is a juicy number and I'm like, What the fuck are we doing in this cat movie? Like, can we not and he's you know, sort of like promising the guy like, yeah, you know, we'll have a date later where I kill you. And it's like, this is 100% more homophobic threats that I'm used to an animated movie. It's a little jarring.

Quincy 18:06

Also, I love how horny on Main all the cats are? Blue. One of the first things Bluebeard says to Francis is I've had sex with more women than Henry the 8th. And by women. I mean, other cats.

Ryan 18:22

Yeah. Now that's the thing. This movie has an Ambient hornet corniness that's not actually wholesome. Like it is it's uncomfortable like these cats fuck and It's horrifying a point which they explore later on in the...

Quincy 18:37

He's also called Bluebeard and of course the legend of Bluebeard is the pirate who murders his wife on their honeymoon every night.

Ryan 18:46

Yeah, so that mixed with Henry the Eighth is he just his Bluebeard just bragging about like, I have murdered every cat I've ever slept with. I got I got them all I got them all stored in my cat kennel like it's it's a weird brag to have if your name is Bluebeard. Which by the way in German now, this is this being a German movie. Bluebeard is the English translation. I watched the English English translation ,His name is Blau Bart, which I like very much. Quincy. Wait, did you have this on blu ray like where did you Where did you find this?

Quincy 19:18

I watched the YouTube dub as]]>rankandvile.podbean.com/3ba70c2f-e50a-311b-a1d1-631676ce84adFri, 08 Jan 2021 09:00:00 -050001:10:33yesfull172On this episode, we talk about the fantastically upsetting 1994 German animated cat movie, FELIDAE! For a transcript of this episode, check out https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-172-cat-crimesQuincy & RyanEpisode 171: Theatre Kid InfernoOn this episode, we dig into 2014 comedy horror musical STAGE FRIGHT! Minnie Driver is actually in this! She's visible onscreen and she says stuff!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-171-theatre-kid-inferno

Transcript:

Ryan 0:05

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

Quincy 0:42

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:43

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

Quincy 0:45

It's good. At the time of recording. We're in that wonderful period between Christmas and New Year's.

Ryan 0:52

Oh yes.

Quincy 0:53

Where I don't have to work. So time has meant nothing. And my child and I have just been playing video games.

Ryan 1:01

Yeah. I feel like everybody in between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve like we all just look like the two Jeremy Ironses in Dead Ringers toward the end of the movie. In a room full of like, Chip wrappers and dishes and we're all just like muttering nonsense into the ground.

Quincy 1:20

It's so weird because what I imagined some people have been living their entire 2020 like, like the end of Dead Ringers. And I really envy people that that have been able to just sink into a non human state of existence.

Ryan 1:41

Yeah. And actually, now that we think about it, like the the bit in Dead Ringers, where they're like, hey, it's our birthday today. And then one of them's like, yeah, we've got cake. And he's like, do we have ice cream? And everyone's like, No, we don't and he's just like, I want ice cream is like that's how I feel during this entire pandemic because I can't go like go out to a bar or just order a pizza.

Quincy 2:00

Buddy, I learned that the grocery chain Aldi delivers for free.

Ryan 2:06

No shit.

Quincy 2:08

It's a game changer.

Ryan 2:09

Oh, that's a genuine game changer. Fuck. That's incredible.

Quincy 2:12

Yeah, it's very good,

Ryan 2:14

Oh man. So what so what ghoul shit or not even just ghoul shit? I think we're in quarantine. Everything kind of becomes ghoul shit, what activities have you been ensconced in?

Quincy 2:24

Okay, so I actually have been playing a ghoulish video game. Have you heard of hell taker?

Ryan 2:29

No, but that's a great fucking title.

Quincy 2:32

There's a game on Steam where you are. Basically John Travolta. In Saturday Night Fever. You're wearing a white disco suit.

Ryan 2:41

What?

Quincy 2:42

So you wake up one day and go demon harem. I have to have a demon harem. So the video game is half Sokoban, a Video game where you just are moving blocks in order to get to a sexy demon girl. Because you only have like 20 moves or the the ground of hell catches you on fire and sucks you in?

Ryan 3:06

Uh huh.

Quincy 3:06

And then once you actually make it to the demon girls, it turns into a visual novel, where you have to say the right thing to woo the demon girl to get her to join your harem.

Ryan 3:17

Oh, shit. So it just becomes a demon dating sim?

Quincy 3:20

Yeah, it's half demon dating sim half puzzle. And when you need help with the puzzles, it goes back to dating sim because you can ask the girls in your harem. Hey, how do I beat this level?

Ryan 3:34

This is fucking incredible. Also, I love the name Hell Taker, because immediately it's like, so you take hell or you are taken by...]]>On this episode, we dig into 2014 comedy horror musical STAGE FRIGHT! Minnie Driver is actually in this! She's visible onscreen and she says stuff!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-171-theatre-kid-inferno

Transcript:

Ryan 0:05

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

Quincy 0:42

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:43

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

Quincy 0:45

It's good. At the time of recording. We're in that wonderful period between Christmas and New Year's.

Ryan 0:52

Oh yes.

Quincy 0:53

Where I don't have to work. So time has meant nothing. And my child and I have just been playing video games.

Ryan 1:01

Yeah. I feel like everybody in between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve like we all just look like the two Jeremy Ironses in Dead Ringers toward the end of the movie. In a room full of like, Chip wrappers and dishes and we're all just like muttering nonsense into the ground.

Quincy 1:20

It's so weird because what I imagined some people have been living their entire 2020 like, like the end of Dead Ringers. And I really envy people that that have been able to just sink into a non human state of existence.

Ryan 1:41

Yeah. And actually, now that we think about it, like the the bit in Dead Ringers, where they're like, hey, it's our birthday today. And then one of them's like, yeah, we've got cake. And he's like, do we have ice cream? And everyone's like, No, we don't and he's just like, I want ice cream is like that's how I feel during this entire pandemic because I can't go like go out to a bar or just order a pizza.

Quincy 2:00

Buddy, I learned that the grocery chain Aldi delivers for free.

Ryan 2:06

No shit.

Quincy 2:08

It's a game changer.

Ryan 2:09

Oh, that's a genuine game changer. Fuck. That's incredible.

Quincy 2:12

Yeah, it's very good,

Ryan 2:14

Oh man. So what so what ghoul shit or not even just ghoul shit? I think we're in quarantine. Everything kind of becomes ghoul shit, what activities have you been ensconced in?

Quincy 2:24

Okay, so I actually have been playing a ghoulish video game. Have you heard of hell taker?

Ryan 2:29

No, but that's a great fucking title.

Quincy 2:32

There's a game on Steam where you are. Basically John Travolta. In Saturday Night Fever. You're wearing a white disco suit.

Ryan 2:41

What?

Quincy 2:42

So you wake up one day and go demon harem. I have to have a demon harem. So the video game is half Sokoban, a Video game where you just are moving blocks in order to get to a sexy demon girl. Because you only have like 20 moves or the the ground of hell catches you on fire and sucks you in?

Ryan 3:06

Uh huh.

Quincy 3:06

And then once you actually make it to the demon girls, it turns into a visual novel, where you have to say the right thing to woo the demon girl to get her to join your harem.

Ryan 3:17

Oh, shit. So it just becomes a demon dating sim?

Quincy 3:20

Yeah, it's half demon dating sim half puzzle. And when you need help with the puzzles, it goes back to dating sim because you can ask the girls in your harem. Hey, how do I beat this level?

Ryan 3:34

This is fucking incredible. Also, I love the name Hell Taker, because immediately it's like, so you take hell or you are taken by like, it's one of those titles. It's like, I know that I like the word hell and the word taker. And we're off to the races. Let's dive into the movie we're doing this week. So this. Oh boy.

Quincy 3:53

I'm so pleased with this.

Ryan 3:54

Boy, howdy, it is. So this week, we are doing the movie Stage Fright from 2014 which is a musical horror comedy?

Quincy 4:04

Yes. Now this was a listener request, it came in through our email. And if anyone wants to request a movie, they can just shoot us an email at rank and vile cast@gmail.com.

Ryan 4:14

Thank you for the request also.

Quincy 4:17

And Jacob asked us to watch this now this is on tubi however, it is also available on DVD and I cannot stress that the DVD. I can't stress enough that the DVD has a singalong special feature.

Ryan 4:35

Oh, that's what you want. I think that's it. You just have like a little bouncing ball then?

Quincy 4:39

Oh, yeah. It's it's totally worth the money.

Ryan 4:42

Oh, that's lovely

Quincy 4:43

This is also a movie that I found at Dollar Tree for $1. So

Ryan 4:48

Oh, wow. That's You know what?

Quincy 4:50

The true cyberpunk dystopia is it is cheaper to buy physical media than digital media anymore.

Ryan 4:57

Yeah, to just like and when you buy the digital media You're not even actually buying it. You're just buying access to it. Like there's no anyway, but I feel like every episode, we need to have at least one moment where we like spike the camera and go own physical media, it will outlast your digital subscription. Especially because in my house this week, we ran out of internet for a couple of hours in the evening hours when we watch stuff. And so we were forced to go like, Jesus, let's look at our DVDs and we ended up watching the Wachowskis' Speed Racer movie and then tapped out of it after 20 minutes because we were all just like, this is too much Dude, I'm not I'm just trying to chill and have a good time and

Quincy 5:37

It is a movie with Speed Racer is a movie with zero chill.

Ryan 5:41

Yeah, yeah, it has never at any point found any chill. So Stage Fright being Okay, so here's the thing. In college, I had a friend who was obsessed with Repo, the Genetic Opera that and I was living with her. I hate that movie now because of how many times she rewatched Repo. So I feel like I was at the outset of Stage Fright. I was I was predisposed to being like, fuck this, like horror comedy musical. But here's the thing. It's great?

Quincy 6:10

It's very good. My my only major complaint and we'll get into this is that it doesn't have more music in it.

Ryan 6:20

You know what it is though, actually, and this is I realized that but then I was also thinking of Okay, so a lot of this is a send up of Phantom of the Opera. The thing about the thing about Phantom of the Opera, there are three genuine bangers on that in that musical and the rest of it is all gristle and fat.

Quincy 6:38

It's such a send up of Phantom of the Opera that they cast Minnie Driver.

Ryan 6:43

And yeah, Minnie Driver, who of course played Carlotta in the the Joel Schumacher Phantom of the Opera movie. And so for me like if there's a lot of filler songs in this I'm also kind of like yeah, that's like everything in Phantom of the Opera that's not music of the night, the title track and no, it's just those two actually. It's now here's my question, though. When you were growing up, was your mom a phantom head at all like was she into Phantom of the Opera.

Quincy 7:09

So both my mom and dad were italics Theater people. Close italics. Dad was an actor in community theater, and mom did the costumes for community theater. So a lot of my childhood was spent playing with Batman The Animated Series's clayface in the back of a community theater.

Ryan 7:31

Oh, yeah.

Quincy 7:31

Or in the back of the local colleges theater, like black box theater. So um, I don't know what what. What I'm beating around the bush to say is I don't know what normal is. I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show on mute when I was like six.

Ryan 7:50

Oh, man, that explains so much.

Quincy 7:52

Yeah. I glommed on to all of my parents' friends, because in casual conversation, things were mentioned like, Oh, yeah, John Paul has seen Godzilla before. And I'm like, let me ask you every single question ever.

Ryan 8:07

I've got so many questions like that.

Quincy 8:08

I'm not gonna ask you. I don't care that you're wearing lipstick at this Halloween party. What I really want to know is

Ryan 8:16

Yeah, I mean you're asking the serious questions

Quincy 8:17

who would win in a fight Godzilla versus King Kong?

Ryan 8:20

It's an important question like that's so yeah, like growing up in that environment your your understanding of what is like. Well, I don't know like for me like growing up my mom was super into Broadway and was also like, a huge Phantom of the Opera fan. That play. The thing is I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber, but the thing about the thing about it is Phantom of the Opera is not good. But you know what, it does have a fucking banger of an opening track with the bomb. bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb. Like I there is no irony. I am capable of zero irony around how cool that opening is.

Quincy 8:55

I think you also have to note that every time people talk about Phantom of the Opera, they say how about that chandelier?

Ryan 9:03

I mean, yeah. Oh actually. Yeah, excuse me. It's there three things about it. It's the title track, Music of the Night, and that fucking chandelier like that's that's what you're that's what you're buying a ticket for. Stage Fright. Okay, so we get the opening scene featuring I shit you not Minnie fucking Driver. I yelled. Honestly, when Minnie Driver popped up.

Quincy 9:23

Yeah, it's great casting. It's like the best get of the whole movie. And it also stars Meatloaf.

Ryan 9:31

Also starring Meatloaf, which by the way, I'm right or die for Meatloaf. Like I very consciously don't pay attention to any of his political beliefs. Because I love Meatloaf so much.

Quincy 9:42

You know, what's really interesting is the political section of Meatloaf's Wikipedia page.

Ryan 9:47

It's it's a lot he Yeah, he's he's uh, he. Yeah, but you know, I also respect Meatloaf so much as a side note, because Are you familiar with where he got his stage name?

Quincy 9:58

Is it because of like, abuse from his father.

Ryan 10:02

Yeah, his father who abused the shit out of him and actually stabbed him at one point like his horrible father who because you know, he was a fat kid and his dad called him meatloaf as an insult. I respect so much that as an adult Meatloaf was like, You know what, that's my fucking name. Now I'm gonna be Meatloaf and I'm going to be a rock star named Meatloaf. Like that's, that's the dopest shit

Quincy 10:21

And I'm gonna get a bad ass motorcycle.

Ryan 10:23

I'm gonna get so many goddamn candelabras on stage, then you'll see you'll all see. But so the movie opens and we get this opening track. That's like a takeoff on Phantom of the Opera called the haunting of the opera. And the it opens with a guy like a guy getting stabbed. And then you realize like, Oh, this is all on stage and an audience is watching and Minnie Driver is the like Sarah Brightman

Quincy 10:47

One of those fakeouts. They pull the camera back and it's a pause. Then we pull back and we see in the wings of the theater to little Moppets watching starstruck, and the best stage manager in Motion Picture ever. This guy is amazing.

Ryan 11:06

Yeah, I now. The thing is, he has a very, he's sort of like audibly gay, but in a way that made me worried that this movie was like, this is a straight actor doing his best like jack from Will and Grace. He's like, your mom is fierce. And it's, I think he actually is gay. Like,

Quincy 11:25

yeah, I don't know. Um, it rang true. I will say that it felt like people that I also have worked with in community theater.

Ryan 11:36

Oh, definitely. And I mean, like this movie, a thing that I appreciate about it. It's sort of ambiently gay with the kids in this movie. Like and

Quincy 11:44

And it even we'll get to the the gay jokes in a moment. What I like about it is it knows exactly who its audience is.

Ryan 11:52

Oh, yeah.

Quincy 11:52

And it's not going to make fun of the LGBT community. Because it comes from a bunch of theater nerds. Like it's very clear that the two guys that wrote a rock opera horror movie, about phantom of the opera are not going to stoop to low hanging fruit of like, gay jokes

Ryan 12:19

They know what side of the bread their butter's on. It's like, when I was in the one act festival in college where like, you know, a bunch of student directors would like do a one act play in like big blocks to sort of cut their teeth on directing. I remember when we were doing auditions, the head of the department at the time Graham was doing this thing. This room full of people he was, you know, sort of talking about, like, you know, for some of these roles, you're gonna have to be okay with cursing. If you're homophobic. Why are you in theater? It's just like, Yeah, no, this is the land of the gays. Now the thing about the haunting of the opera, the name of the main villain is opera ghost. Guys, you couldn't find another opera. Okay. All right

Quincy 13:04

I also love that throughout this movie, opera ghost is a perfect synthesis of Rockso the rock and roll clown and Freddy Krueger

Ryan 13:16

Yeah, God He is spitting out so many Freddy Krueger one liners later in this thing it is it is egregious.

Quincy 13:22

He's got this raspy guy in a heavy metal parking lot voice

Ryan 13:28

Just cream like surprise bitches like it's just, it's it's truly incredible. The thing raps and then we get Minnie Driver getting sort of hugged from behind by somebody in a cloak and a mask. And then

Quincy 13:41

But you're forgetting. So the kids in the audience go back to see their mom and it's like your mom's a star and she's amazing. And we see meatloaf's very bizarre. Lip carpet for the spiffy

Ryan 13:55

Oh boy. Howdy that mustache? It is. Um, I would describe that mustache as it's like he face fucked a lint trap. It's just it's there. But you're like, should it be? I don't think it should be there.

Quincy 14:10

It looks like Ernie's eyebrows.

Ryan 14:15

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. He Yeah. And and that mustache stays throughout the movie, which I feel is

Quincy 14:21

Yeah, but what's interesting is later in the film, it's because the this is a introduction and then we go 10 years later, it's like a natural gray for the rest of the movie. So I wonder if they dyed meatloaf's actual hair black for the scene. And that's why it looks so stupid.

Ryan 14:43

All right, like because they had to show the passage of time that he's got a white mustache now instead of black mustache.

Quincy 14:49

I guess I'm not really sure.

Ryan 14:51

Yeah, yeah. That God that mustache. It is it is truly something.

Quincy 14:56

So the only real thing that we have to talk about Is the the way this movie's pretty good about motifs? Minnie Driver sings her daughter a little like, ditty, and the daughter sings this for the rest of the movie.

Ryan 15:13

Yeah. Now and actually, I would say that like the songwriting in this, it's kind of spotty, but the bits that work like when it works, it totally works.

Quincy 15:23

Oh, absolutely, yeah. When it works, and when it remembers what it's doing, it works really well. I think the problem is, it is trying to be two separate movies. It's a musical and it's a horror movie. It's not really a horror musical.

Ryan 15:39

No, no, not really. It's it's there's music and it's a horror comedy. But it's it doesn't quite do all three of those things. And as you know, like, I think on this podcast, I think I get sort of harsh toward horror comedies, and I'm very judgy about them. Because for me, I'm either like, either you need to be genuinely scary or you need to be genuinely funny and make me laugh because I think so many horror comedies are just this like mishmash and it doesn't succeed on either of those levels.

Quincy 16:07

And, and what really speaks to that is how immediately Minnie Driver is like, making out with the opera ghost in her dressing room after her kids leave. And then she's like, Oh, no, and the opera ghosts stabs her to death and stabs the knife in her mouth.

Ryan 16:27

Okay, stabs her to death. Let's this she. They kill the shit out of Minnie Driver in this, like.

Quincy 16:34

And I wonder how much of this is the director saying? You'll make fun of theater kids, huh? theater kids aren't tough, eh? I'll show you I'll show you all.

Ryan 16:45

These ain't your mom's theater kids. Yeah, like Minnie Driver who God bless her for being like, Alright, you guys got me for about two days of shooting because you don't have like hire Minnie Driver full time money. But she Yeah, like gets stabbed through the the front of her throat and then in the back of her head like out through her mouth. There is just there is so much blood during this scene that I actually like blurted Good god during

Quincy 17:09

Yes, it is harrowing. And yeah, we've watched a lot of very gory movies. But to go it's jarring how it shifts tonally because you don't really expect to see you know, torture porn. But

Ryan 17:27

Yeah, it's it's, you know, and actually, I'll go ahead and say it the effects in this movie pretty fucking good.

Quincy 17:34

Pretty fucking good. Very fucking good.

Ryan 17:36

Like I never feel like I'm watching cheese. And I also never feel like I'm watching over produced like, we did this in Adobe After Effects like

Quincy 17:43

yeah, and the DP. Now another thing is the DP definitely focuses on that sort of washed out mid 2000s. Even though this is a 2014 film, it still looks like a 2005 movie. It's very dark colors. And what's frustrating is the stage production. That's later in the movie is supposed to be bright and colorful. And we even have Allie MacDonald like in this very over the top face paint and yet the lighting still looks like it is in a warehouse.

Ryan 18:19

Yeah, I think that's kind of my thing is I so I just for reasons that elude me. I just...]]>rankandvile.podbean.com/2aa823d2-c640-3396-bd27-c1d596462000Fri, 01 Jan 2021 09:00:00 -050001:01:54yesfull171On this episode, we dig into 2014 comedy horror musical STAGE FRIGHT! Minnie Driver is actually in this! She's visible onscreen and she says stuff! Read the transcript at: https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-171-theatre-kid-infernoQuincy & RyanEpisode 170: The Hills Have MetaphorsOn this episode, we talk about the mean-spirited 2006 remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-170-the-hills-have-metaphors

Transcript:

Ryan 0:35

Hey guys, welcome to Rank and Vile podcast, where we are ranking every single horror movie ever made from best to worst. And this is Ryan.

Quincy 0:42

And this is Quincy

Ryan 0:43

How's it going? How's your week going?

Quincy 0:45

It's going pretty good. Um, I am living in that space where I spend a lot of my time with children. So all of a sudden, I know a whole lot about Among Us. And I'm kind of wrestling with that.

Ryan 1:02

Man among us. I just think of the fact that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, like did a charity stream of herself playing Among Us with people it looks, my understanding of it is that it's like sort of small, evil Teletubbies that want to betray each other.

Quincy 1:18

So it's enraging because it's an incredible game. It is a game where you're a little tiny astronaut without arms, and you're on a space station, and you're rushing to do little mundane tasks. And it's all touchscreen based. So it's literally stuff like you have to swipe your ID to get into the lab. But if you swipe your finger too fast, it doesn't work. And if you swipe your finger too slow, it doesn't work. So you literally have to just do it at the exact right way. Meanwhile, there is an imposter among everyone who's sneaking around killing all the other players. So you have to swipe a credit card at just the right speed so that you can go through a door and not be all alone and murdered.

Ryan 2:12

That sounds amazing.

Quincy 2:13

The thing that fucking sucks is I've been playing it just with people on the internet. And it is awful.

Ryan 2:23

Yeah, it seems like one of those games that if you're playing it with total-ass strangers, like that's way less fun than if it's just like you and your buds playing this.

Quincy 2:31

And you can play with a private server and I think we need to get some organized play done. But the worst thing is just the I have profanity filters off because I'm all on because I'm also 97. So like no one should say the F word to me. It just shows up as Asterix. But that still doesn't stop people from posting their Snapchat IDs and asking me because I choose purple as my player character, are you a girl. Will you add me on Snapchat? I'm a boy. Are you a girl? who is a girl? who wants to add me on Snapchat? I'm really bored.

Ryan 3:10

Yeah, and they're just like trying to find you on Snapchat like I sent you. I sent you my small suspicious looking teletubby please respond. For Rank and Vile, we absolutely need to at some point do like a twitch stream of us playing Among Us with people like we can. Like I don't know, like

Quincy 3:26

That would be amazing. I'd be very down with that. We could also do a twitch of just animal crossing.

Ryan 3:32

Just chill vibes only. It's just yeah, it's just us playing Animal Crossing, honestly. So the thing that I've been unbelievably buried in for the last couple of days is on Netflix, there is a show called tiny, pretty things are you very familiar with this?

Quincy 3:47

tiny, pretty things I haven't seen it sold me on title alone.

Ryan 3:52

I mean, kind of. It's about. So it's adapted from a book and it's about it's sort of like suspiria for kids, where it's about this elite ballet Academy in Chicago. And there's like, you know, young kids are like not young kids. They're like teenagers. And they're all played by actors who were like 30 but you know, there's like...]]>On this episode, we talk about the mean-spirited 2006 remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-170-the-hills-have-metaphors

Transcript:

Ryan 0:35

Hey guys, welcome to Rank and Vile podcast, where we are ranking every single horror movie ever made from best to worst. And this is Ryan.

Quincy 0:42

And this is Quincy

Ryan 0:43

How's it going? How's your week going?

Quincy 0:45

It's going pretty good. Um, I am living in that space where I spend a lot of my time with children. So all of a sudden, I know a whole lot about Among Us. And I'm kind of wrestling with that.

Ryan 1:02

Man among us. I just think of the fact that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, like did a charity stream of herself playing Among Us with people it looks, my understanding of it is that it's like sort of small, evil Teletubbies that want to betray each other.

Quincy 1:18

So it's enraging because it's an incredible game. It is a game where you're a little tiny astronaut without arms, and you're on a space station, and you're rushing to do little mundane tasks. And it's all touchscreen based. So it's literally stuff like you have to swipe your ID to get into the lab. But if you swipe your finger too fast, it doesn't work. And if you swipe your finger too slow, it doesn't work. So you literally have to just do it at the exact right way. Meanwhile, there is an imposter among everyone who's sneaking around killing all the other players. So you have to swipe a credit card at just the right speed so that you can go through a door and not be all alone and murdered.

Ryan 2:12

That sounds amazing.

Quincy 2:13

The thing that fucking sucks is I've been playing it just with people on the internet. And it is awful.

Ryan 2:23

Yeah, it seems like one of those games that if you're playing it with total-ass strangers, like that's way less fun than if it's just like you and your buds playing this.

Quincy 2:31

And you can play with a private server and I think we need to get some organized play done. But the worst thing is just the I have profanity filters off because I'm all on because I'm also 97. So like no one should say the F word to me. It just shows up as Asterix. But that still doesn't stop people from posting their Snapchat IDs and asking me because I choose purple as my player character, are you a girl. Will you add me on Snapchat? I'm a boy. Are you a girl? who is a girl? who wants to add me on Snapchat? I'm really bored.

Ryan 3:10

Yeah, and they're just like trying to find you on Snapchat like I sent you. I sent you my small suspicious looking teletubby please respond. For Rank and Vile, we absolutely need to at some point do like a twitch stream of us playing Among Us with people like we can. Like I don't know, like

Quincy 3:26

That would be amazing. I'd be very down with that. We could also do a twitch of just animal crossing.

Ryan 3:32

Just chill vibes only. It's just yeah, it's just us playing Animal Crossing, honestly. So the thing that I've been unbelievably buried in for the last couple of days is on Netflix, there is a show called tiny, pretty things are you very familiar with this?

Quincy 3:47

tiny, pretty things I haven't seen it sold me on title alone.

Ryan 3:52

I mean, kind of. It's about. So it's adapted from a book and it's about it's sort of like suspiria for kids, where it's about this elite ballet Academy in Chicago. And there's like, you know, young kids are like not young kids. They're like teenagers. And they're all played by actors who were like 30 but you know, there's like secrets and death and intrigue and all manner of stuff. And I've realized that like ballet is basically body horror, to me.

Quincy 4:20

Oh, like It's horrifying. The toes, google ballet dancers toes.

Ryan 4:26

Oh, there's Listen, there's a lot of pretty tasty gore on this show of just like people like peeling their toenails off and it's you know, you watch the human form, do those things. And it's like, it's like when you look at a pug and you're like that we did that to you like you. You are not supposed to evolve this respiratory system and this is against the will of God. So before we get into our movie, I wanted to point out that we have a bunch of new stuff up on our Patreon for so for $2 on our Patreon you get our show notes for $5 you get our bonus episodes. We just did one for Santa with Muscles.

Quincy 5:05

And this is probably coming out around the holiday season. Yeah definitely coming out before the epiphany. So you might wanna watch the worst Christmas movie or listen to us so you don't have to

Ryan 5:19

yeah yeah listen to us talk about this this fucking Hulk Hogan holiday vehicle, which by the way was funded by Jordan Belfort the literal last Wolf of Wall Street who definitely used it as a tax shelter. So yeah go go check out our Patreon if you haven't already. Let's all right let's jump into the movie we're doing for this week we okay so our movie this week is the Hills Have Eyes remake the The Hills Have Eyes remake from 2006

Quincy 5:46

Directed by Alexandra Aja,

Ryan 5:49

Right the guy who did High Tension. He's done a bunch of other movies right?

Quincy 5:52

I think but I cannot tell you anything besides High Tension and this

Ryan 5:57

Yeah. And I think he got the job for the Hills Have Eyes because like so much of now and I know that Quincy as on a previous episode when we did High Tension. You are not a fan of the movie High Tension.

Quincy 6:08

I'm also not a fan of the Hills Have Eyes remake, which we will talk about.

Ryan 6:14

Yeah, yeah.

Quincy 6:15

So Alexandra Aja has made actually quite a few movies. He's been very prolific, but some reason I cannot remember anything except for this one.

Ryan 6:28

Yeah, and this movie I feel like I there's so many things I like about this movie, but Well, yeah, let's Alright, so this movie, obviously is a remake of the original The Hills Have Eyes, directed by Wes Craven, who apparently executive produced this one. But as we know, executive producer doesn't actually mean anything necessarily.

Quincy 6:49

So we haven't ranked the original.

Ryan 6:53

Yeah, we haven't you Oh, that's right. We're doing this before we do the original. So at least, you know that that's that's a stay tuned for sure. Because also the original is pretty great.

Quincy 7:02

So I've been reading John Kenneth Muir. And one thing he talks about about horror film remakes is how it's a really damned if you do damned if you don't space for filmmakers. Because critics historically don't respect remakes, because that it seems like Hollywood chicanery, it's very much bereft of originality is just a quick cash grab. And for fans, you either run the risk of you know, introducing a new generation to a product, a franchise or IP, but alienating the old or failing to grab the new and failing to grab the old or failing to only grab the old so it's really tough. The other thing that Muir talks about is how this is buck wild. He says that in the recent years, society is more tolerant. So horror subtext doesn't work as well. His Case in point is the queer subtext in Fright Night had to be removed for the remake. I kind of call shenanigans on that. But also this book was published prior to 2020. So I'm not going to, to you know, shove him too hard into a locker. But in 2013, John Kenneth Muir says, you know, society so tolerant that a lot of the subtext about race and sexuality don't really work in remakes which,

Ryan 8:41

Yeah, which I don't know. And that's kind of my thing is I don't totally buy that because I feel like a popular take in I think horror is that remake bad that like anything that's a remake that isn't the original is by definition bad. And that's fucking silly, because like, The Thing was a remake of The Fly was a remake. Like, I think my favorite kind of a remake is the one that isn't just a do over of the original movie because like, for example, Fright Night 2011 it's about a different thing. Then the 80s Fright Night because like, the the mid 80s Fright Night, it was dealing with queer subtext, but kind of didn't know what it wanted to say about it. Because it's like, you've got this next door neighbor, he's a gay dude who might also want to cuck you I you know, like, it doesn't really know what it's trying to say. But it's trying to say, you know, it's important that it tried to say something where the remake which fucks by the way knows exactly what it's trying to say about like toxic masculinity and cycles of abuse and I don't know I feel like the the Hills Have Eyes remake to me. The thing that I don't know if I like it or not, is that it takes the subtext of the original because now the original The Hills Have Eyes. This was like a big yawp of rage from West Craven about like the Vietnam War and America's foreign policy, and kind have, you know dealing with the fallout of you know that at home where the Hills Have Eyes remake? It has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the teeth.

Quincy 10:10

Yeah, that's kind of the thing that and what's weird is and this is the thing that John Kenneth Muir is like building up to kind of missteps as he says, remakes are good when they recontextualize the ideas of the original. Yeah, which is what this is trying to do. But what's wild is in 2006, when I saw this in the theater, I did not leave and go, thank goodness Alexandra Aja is, you know, really sticking it to the Bush administration.

Ryan 10:40

Yeah.

Quincy 10:41

It does not feel like any sort of comment on red state versus blue state war on terror in the way that all of the critics who liked this movie say it's such a good thing now, reading criticism where Muir says, and you know, they literally stab a man with an American flag. Oh, okay. Yeah, you're right, that does that say

Ryan 11:07

I do kind of love that

Quincy 11:08

But what frustrates me is despite being so like having the opening credits in that very 2000s way of grainy stock footage of sideshow freaks and pickled punks

Ryan 11:21

Right.

Quincy 11:22

And like you know, nuclear nuclear test clips and like, we're gonna talk about how this was a Los Alamos, you know, town type thing. And trying to like add lore to why the mutants are mutants.

Ryan 11:37

Yeah

Quincy 11:38

It tries to do anything but what I found so frustrating about the remake is that it takes every set piece that makes the original great and does not innovate it simply does it with more of a budget.

Ryan 11:52

Yeah, well, and it's also you know

Quincy 11:53

Right down to Bob literally gets crucified and set on fire exactly like he does in Craven's original.

Ryan 12:01

Yeah

Quincy 12:02

The father kills the last moon in the exact same way as the father does in the original It is like almost shot for shot in some cases. The same movie.

Ryan 12:14

Yeah. Well, and the thing is now so yeah, so that that that opening thing, you know, we get the opening crawl that tells us that like the United States conducted atmospheric nuclear tests in the desert and that today, the government denies that there's genetic fallout from it now and the original I think was also kind of dealing with Agent Orange in Vietnam and the effect on on the Vietnamese population, which so the original did not have anything about radiation. It was just like, there's desert there's like tusken Raiders just living out in the desert. And that's just what it is. This one

Quincy 12:50

It really is the only thing in the original is it's it's implied that Pluto was a big baby. Like his dad in the original says like, Oh, that's that child would eat like whole chickens when he was three. So I just said fuck off and live in the desert.

Ryan 12:51

Yeah, now and now a thing that I will say about Alexander Aja. To say nothing about any of his ideas or politics or, you know, his narrative intent for this. He can shoot a really good horror action scene.

Quincy 13:22

He can he is a very talented cinematographer. The only thing about that, I'll give you that. I'll just give you that. If he if his shots don't have any original ideas behind them. It just leaves me feeling kind of meh. If the most innovative stuff is like, you know, the kid looking through the outhouse stall and like literally looking down at the shit that he just pooped and like, the gas station attendant who blows his head off and of course, Aja was like, but we're gonna show you his actual head being shot off with a very you know, expensive special effects shot.

Ryan 14:07

Yeah, it's an it's extreme. Yeah, it's it's very much that so we get an opening thing of dudes in hazmat suits with Geiger counters, sort of fucking around in the desert and then they they get killed and it's that that's how we open the thing. We the the the the credits of the thing. I cannot. I cannot deal with nuclear footage set to like old timey 50s music because it's just like, you're thinking of Fallout, like Fallout has the corner on the market for that kind of a thing. I feel like you can't do it.

Quincy 14:38

Now, is this a chicken or an egg situation? Ryan, which came first this movie came out in 2006. We have to remember that in the same period we had the Dawn of the Dead remake with Johnny Cash. This really does feel like that exact thing but done. less good.

Ryan 15:00

Yeah, yeah, it's it's less good. So we get the the the guy at the gas station who he is. He's just a leathery old fella and he's just like, yelling at an unseen force in the desert that he's like, I can't do this anymore. I'm out. And you know, it's sort of he's the entire interiority of the gas station looks like the fucking Museum of death. There's just like, Oh, yeah, just got newspaper clippings about disappearances tacked to the wall and jars full of weird shit. And this is just his, like, gas station? It's a lot

Quincy 15:34

It's Yeah. So basically, we find out in a departure from the original, that the the gas station attendant who is related to Pluto and the mutants, is selling out the very few people that come through and sending them to their doom.

Ryan 15:56

Yeah.

Quincy 15:57

Now here's the thing that strikes me is that that's a very bad business model.

Ryan 16:04

Yeah, and Oh, yeah. And also the fact that like, how was he getting the newspaper clippings for this? Like? Is somebody delivering newspapers out here? And why isn't he sending them to get eaten by the mutants?

Quincy 16:15

It is such a info dump very like ham fisted exposition because Bob discovers these in the dark in the middle of the night with a flashlight. And he goes, aha, like that makes everything makes sense.

Ryan 16:34

Yeah. Now let's get into big Bob. So this family shows up. And it is led by a guy called Big Bob, who is played by the guy who played Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, which I did not realize until halfway through his voice. His voice was really down low and he's just kind of talking like this? And like the entire time, I was like, I know he sounds familiar. I actually yelled out loud when I realized who he was. And this guy, he's an ex detective. And he's basically just archie bunker. Like, yeah, he's he's just like, conservative McGunface. He's got a big fucking mustache. He's got and because you know, we have to place this solidly in 2006 he's got the giant like American flag window hanger. On on his like camper. Yeah, God, you couldn't get away from those. And you know, you've got this like whole big family, you've got his son in law, who's a little Wiener with a floppy haircut. And big Bob, his name is Doug. And the big Bob just like busts this guy's balls constantly and he's got. Now the thing is, I feel like I'm supposed to relate to or like this guy. But he's such a petulant little shit.

Quincy 17:41

Yeah, it's funny because the son is the relatable character. And I think part of that might have been audience focus testing, because you have Doug, who in the original movie was the audience identifying character, the effete, you know, liberal arts educated guy who, you know, crosses a corner and becomes like a savage survivalist to save his family. But in this, he's just a literal cellphone salesman, whose main role in the first act of the movie is to hold up a phone and go, there's no signal, which might be my favorite trope of early 2000s. Where

Ryan 18:27

Oh, yeah

Quincy 18:27

So many of us crusty jerks made the joke of why don't you just call with your cell phone that they literally had to have a decade of movies where characters said, Hmm, I don't have any cell service here. We're in that 3% of America without cell service.

Ryan 18:44

Yeah, and this guy, like it's, I think the entire idea is meant to be like the one thing this guy is able to do with selling cell phones, they are now in a place where cell phones aren't going to do shit. Because it's like the land that God forgot to pay.

Quincy 18:58

So we're talking about 2006 and you know, as a person who lived part of my life without a phone and then got a phone 2006 was not the point where cell phones fixed everything.

Ryan 19:14

No, I didn't I honestly I don't think I had a cell phone until like 2008 maybe

Quincy 19:19

Now I will concede that probably about 2010 to 2010 to 2013. When GPS started getting added on phones, right? Then I was like, Oh, thank God I have a phone. I'm no I'm no longer lost in public because I refused to carry an atlas in my car. That's not what this movie is doing with it's just I can't call for help.

Ryan 19:46

Right. Side note here. Did you ever used to print up directions to places on MapQuest and then look at it while driving.

Quincy 19:54

100% had stacks of MapQuest directions to my favorite locations. In other towns and would just keep them handy for when I would hop in the car to go to the record store one town over

Ryan 20:08

I'm astounded that I didn't have more car crashes during this time because I definitely did have some car crashes around this time unrelated to like just glancing down at MapQuest it's you know what it's better now it's better now with like Waze and Google Maps I don't I don't want to go bag

Quincy 20:26

the one thing that's been improved upon

Ryan 20:29

goddamnit]]>rankandvile.podbean.com/37178549-7873-3dbf-95a0-83a4c49c0884Thu, 24 Dec 2020 09:00:00 -050001:02:10yesfull170On this episode, we talk about the mean-spirited 2006 remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES! Read the transcript at: https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-170-the-hills-have-metaphorsQuincy & RyanEpisode 169: Bad Times in Ratwater CityOn this episode we're joined by the incomparable Alasdair Stuart (co-owner of the Escape Artists podcast network) as we talk about 1992 cyberpunk buddy cop horror romance classic SPLIT SECOND!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-169-bad-times-in-ratwater-city

Transcript:

Ryan 0:36

Hey guys, welcome to rank and vile, the podcast where we're ranking every single horror movie ever made from best to worst. And On this episode, we are joined by co owner of Escape Artist Podcasts, and all around wonderful human being Alasdair Stuart.

Alasdair 0:51

Oh, you, thank you so much for having me on. Ryan. This is brilliant.

Ryan 0:55

Oh my God, I've wanted to have you on the show for such a long time because of how frequently we talk about horror movies. Like it just I feel like every time we talk it always ends up with horror movies. So this was this was always going to happen.

Alasdair 1:10

And what and what better movie to land on?

Ryan 1:13

no, no shit. Oh my god, like watching this movie. By the way. My, my partner, Christina sort of, like, craned her neck over while I was watching. It was just like what the fuck is this, and then a beat afterward is that Rutger Hauer? So it? Yeah, it's extremely good. So Alasdair, we have a question that we like to ask guests who are on the show for the first time is what is your background with horror? Like how did you how did you get into horror like what was your What was your horror onboarding process, like?

Alasdair 1:43

My horror onboarding process was hilarious, because it was basically two decades of denial, followed by a realization that I actually work in the field. Growing up, I was always like, No, I'm a spaceship kid. I like spaceships. I'm into Doctor Who. And the Star Wars and spaceships that go boom, and all of this good stuff. And the whole time this was going on. I was I was about 5'11" by the time I was 12, my voice broke by the time I was 13. So I was plausibly getting into 15 year old movies, which my mom was giving me a lift to, by the time I was 13, or 14. And also I was able to rent 15 or 18 movies. For us listeners, the English movie certification processes U, PG, 12A, which now means a lot of cases, a single fbomb, 15 and 18. And I was growing up at a time when 18 meant hold on to your intestines, because something else is going to be as well.

Ryan 2:42

Yeah, this is gonna be the good uncut shit if it's if it's 18

Alasdair 2:45

Absolutely. So you know, I was coming up at the exact right time for stuff like Aliens and Terminator, and all those horror movies disguised as science fiction films. So those were kind of really pivotal texts for me. And then as time went on, I realized that you know, there were a couple of really important radio shows to me, fear on four, which is the BBC's postmodern undying horror narrator who just emerges from the depths of broadcasting house once a decade or so. Hello, I have a story for you. It's about

Ryan 3:23

You just blow the dust off. Every time he comes, he pops out and they put it back in the box.

Alasdair 3:26

Exactly. And he's like Doctor Who's goth older brother, you know, we never actually see regenerate. He's just suddenly there. And I really, really loved that. And I was when I found comics, the first thing I dived into was hellblazer. And then a couple years ago, I realized that the longest job I've held the longest in my entire life is hosting a horror podcast. So someone actually went so you're a horror guy now and I think I always was

Ryan 3:53

So and that's the thing is like, you sort of look up and]]>On this episode we're joined by the incomparable Alasdair Stuart (co-owner of the Escape Artists podcast network) as we talk about 1992 cyberpunk buddy cop horror romance classic SPLIT SECOND!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-169-bad-times-in-ratwater-city

Transcript:

Ryan 0:36

Hey guys, welcome to rank and vile, the podcast where we're ranking every single horror movie ever made from best to worst. And On this episode, we are joined by co owner of Escape Artist Podcasts, and all around wonderful human being Alasdair Stuart.

Alasdair 0:51

Oh, you, thank you so much for having me on. Ryan. This is brilliant.

Ryan 0:55

Oh my God, I've wanted to have you on the show for such a long time because of how frequently we talk about horror movies. Like it just I feel like every time we talk it always ends up with horror movies. So this was this was always going to happen.

Alasdair 1:10

And what and what better movie to land on?

Ryan 1:13

no, no shit. Oh my god, like watching this movie. By the way. My, my partner, Christina sort of, like, craned her neck over while I was watching. It was just like what the fuck is this, and then a beat afterward is that Rutger Hauer? So it? Yeah, it's extremely good. So Alasdair, we have a question that we like to ask guests who are on the show for the first time is what is your background with horror? Like how did you how did you get into horror like what was your What was your horror onboarding process, like?

Alasdair 1:43

My horror onboarding process was hilarious, because it was basically two decades of denial, followed by a realization that I actually work in the field. Growing up, I was always like, No, I'm a spaceship kid. I like spaceships. I'm into Doctor Who. And the Star Wars and spaceships that go boom, and all of this good stuff. And the whole time this was going on. I was I was about 5'11" by the time I was 12, my voice broke by the time I was 13. So I was plausibly getting into 15 year old movies, which my mom was giving me a lift to, by the time I was 13, or 14. And also I was able to rent 15 or 18 movies. For us listeners, the English movie certification processes U, PG, 12A, which now means a lot of cases, a single fbomb, 15 and 18. And I was growing up at a time when 18 meant hold on to your intestines, because something else is going to be as well.

Ryan 2:42

Yeah, this is gonna be the good uncut shit if it's if it's 18

Alasdair 2:45

Absolutely. So you know, I was coming up at the exact right time for stuff like Aliens and Terminator, and all those horror movies disguised as science fiction films. So those were kind of really pivotal texts for me. And then as time went on, I realized that you know, there were a couple of really important radio shows to me, fear on four, which is the BBC's postmodern undying horror narrator who just emerges from the depths of broadcasting house once a decade or so. Hello, I have a story for you. It's about

Ryan 3:23

You just blow the dust off. Every time he comes, he pops out and they put it back in the box.

Alasdair 3:26

Exactly. And he's like Doctor Who's goth older brother, you know, we never actually see regenerate. He's just suddenly there. And I really, really loved that. And I was when I found comics, the first thing I dived into was hellblazer. And then a couple years ago, I realized that the longest job I've held the longest in my entire life is hosting a horror podcast. So someone actually went so you're a horror guy now and I think I always was

Ryan 3:53

So and that's the thing is like, you sort of look up and then you know, it's it's like when you move to a city and you're like, oh, I've just moved here. And then someone mentions like, pal, you've lived here for 12 years, and you're like, Oh, shit, I can say I guess I'm, I guess I'm a native now?

Alasdair 4:06

I speak the language. And it was it always Latin, you know?

Ryan 4:09

Yeah, exactly. Well, and honestly, hellblazer is such a good place to start. Because like, that was I was never a big comic kid. But that was always the one that I wanted to read because it looked sort of, you know, adult and a little forbidden. And you've got like a mean protagonist in a cool coat, which was, you know, very important for me as a kid.

Alasdair 4:24

Oh, God. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. And the thing about hellblazer was that it was often not subtle. But when it was subtle, it was better. The very first issue I remember reading, there's a scene where John goes for lunch in a park with a friend of his, and he's talking about the fact that he's ill and whether her boss can do anything about it. And it's pretty clear that there are supernatural overtones to all of this. And the last panel of the scene is his friend Ellie, looking at him over the top of her coffee mug, and her eyes are just horrifyingly distended and alien and she smiles entirely too wide her mouth going, Don't worry, john, there's a space for you down there and you're like, [gasp]

Ryan 5:04

Oh, that's Jesus. Yeah, honestly, by the way with the rating system, I realized that like, my entire understanding of the rating system in Britain is like the the video nasties of the 1980s. Like, it was such a like, I feel like whenever we talk about sort of like transgressive movies or like sort of bad 80s B movies like there are I think like four different documentaries about the video nasty phenomenon in the 1980s on like Shudder. It seems like Britain was having a moment with with media and trying to figure out where the goalposts were

Alasdair 5:38

That that about once a decade, this country decides to have a very serious moral panic about something. And unfortunately, this decade is looking like the are trans rights human rights, to which the obvious answer is, fuck you.

Ryan 5:51

Yeah.

Alasdair 5:52

But in the 80s and 90s, it was oh, but should our kids have to watch these movies? And the answer is that if your kid looks like they can pass for 18, yeah, they will. And it's how can I put this. I was never, the way that I've described it is a lot of the horror movies I saw damaged me in a good way. They introduced me to narrative forms I wouldn't have understood before they assisted in my cultural and emotional education. And you could say the same thing a decade later with video games. There is this there's a comic writer who's sing-- who had the single perfect aphorism. And it was the best way to get kids to want to see or read something is tell them they can't.

Ryan 6:35

Yeah, exactly like that. That was exactly how I got started with horror,

Alasdair 6:39

Right? You look at this stuff, and you go, Oh, that's about three hours past bedtime? Well, obviously I'm setting the tape for

Ryan 6:45

Yeah, well, and honestly, this is the thing that I worry about is that and yeah, sort of damaged in a good way. Like the kids right now and concerned that like, where are they getting? You know, their the material that's going to like scar them for life and get them into horror. Get them into that like wonderful little forbidden feeling of like, I am watching something I definitely should not be watching. Like, they have, you know, access to any movie they could possibly want to watch anytime they want to watch it. And I'm wondering what they're doing with that.

Alasdair 7:12

I choose to believe it's the Tiktoks.

Ryan 7:15

Yeah, definitely

Alasdair 7:16

Find it on the Tiktoks. That's that's obviously that's a conversation for another time. But Tik Tok is doing incredibly interesting narrative stuff, which, clearly the Chinese intelligence agencies who designed it to steal facial recognition data, never for a second thought it would.

Ryan 7:33

Yeah, honestly, a tik tok I feel like it's doing fun stuff with surrealism that this was always going to happen. I think with like, sort of weird internet humor. So yeah, I believe I believe the children are the future. Let's let's dive into the goddamn the movie we're talking about this week. This movie is utterly singular, and yet made. It's Frankensteined together from basically every other movie from around the country. We are doing a Split Second from 1992 which is a cyber horror. thriller.

Alasdair 8:08

It's a cyber horror thriller, cyberpunk mismatched cop movie.

Ryan 8:13

Yeah, yeah. And it's which I feel like everything they're going if it can be a buddy cop, action comedy, it will be a buddy cop action comedy. And this movie, it's starring Rutger Hauer which this this weirds me out. He plays a good guy in a movie? I'm I'm uncomfortable with this somehow.

Alasdair 8:34

No, this is wrong. This is just wrong.

Ryan 8:37

Like he's got such unwholesome vibes on the screen that like seeing him and, and his character is sort of a straight ahead like Bruce Willis, cynical cop whose partner died

Alasdair 8:48

because Willis always had that kind of, even now has that kind of slightly romanticized sleaze to him. And you look at Harley and think if I touched you, you'd be sticky.

Ryan 8:58

Yeah, yeah, there's a film on him. Right? Like his. His name is Harley Stone, which is just an outstanding name for any cyberpunk cop. He, he looks dead on like a shadowrun character.

Alasdair 9:14

Like yeah with the boots and the trench coat and

Ryan 9:18

The little sunglasses like he, yeah, yeah. And like, you know, we get the opening of the movie and it's him sort of like striding down a hallway with a shotgun over his shoulder and he's got the cool sunglasses. And then the movie's like also he's a cop, I guess?

Alasdair 9:35

Also, that first shot and they they do the Rutger walks purposefully down the corridor in the precinct, like three or four times thing. If you notice every single time I choose to believe this was written into his contract. A female cop stops and goes, HelLO

Ryan 9:54

Yeah, that's definitely in the mix. Like, like the narrative needs to inform us. Yes, this man is very attractive. As many takes place in the it's like 15 minutes into the future. It's like global warming, as we used to call it has filled London with water and rats? It's it's never they never really I feel like they never really go back to what is going on with the global warming and the rats.

Alasdair 10:23

The thing I loved more than anything else when I rewatched this yesterday, we're seeing that big portentous openings opening crawl within London The city is now largely underwater, and the criminals have gone feral. And then there's just stock footage. Nothing yet nothing at all is flooded. Apart from the two soundstages which all the sets are on where everyone has to splash throught ankle deep water the whole time. And the rest of London there's a chase sequence at one point and they drive around some pools and it's pristine. There are buses.

Ryan 10:58

Yeah, there's there's no I maybe they didn't have the budget to flood London for the for the filming of this motion picture. I mean, it's it's wild. It's wild also because like I feel like during this period, intros to movies loved doing the the news footage intro where it's flitting from headline to headline to like, get you up to speed with where everything's on?

Alasdair 11:19

Yes. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Ryan 11:21

And it's, it's so what's incredible. So we get this big bar scene now. I've realized that as a kid, I think I assumed that in my adult life, there would be more sort of scary bars with people dancing around in bondage gear, possibly there'll be fire. There's industrial music, like, have you you've seen Hellraiser three right?

Alasdair 11:43

Oh, many times

Ryan 11:44

Yeah, the club from Hellraiser Three. That's like somehow a combination restaurant bondage bar and music venue?

Alasdair 11:52

When you get this sneaking suspicion, there's a there's like a fight bill up. So should I open cage fight night? Tuesdays that kind of thing?

Ryan 12:00

Yeah, exactly. That now that's probably also what's weird to me, is that so everything is meant to be submerged in water. But also everything is just constantly smoking in this movie. Just it looks like the entire city is gonna explode. Like there's just so much smoke rising up. I don't. It's I don't know if that was a choice so much as the movie going? Well, it's a cyberpunk horror thriller. So yes, we will have smoke.

Alasdair 12:26

This is something I'm sure we're gonna come on to. But I mean, this this thing, there's a lot of things very, very wrong. But as you pointed out, when we were talking about this earlier, it looks a million quid. I mean, probably not much more than that. And, you know, it's maybe borrowed some stuff from its mom, but it actually looks really good. A lot of the time in how it's shot.

Ryan 12:46

It really does. Like, it looks so much better than I think it has any right to honestly

Alasdair 12:51

Oh, god yes.

Ryan 12:53

Like, like, especially like, this is like a big set full of like, all manner of now I love the people in the background who sort of look like the thugs from a Frank Miller comic.

Alasdair 13:06

Yes!

Ryan 13:07

Where they all just have these little nasty sunglasses and goofy haircuts. And it's like, during that period when nobody quite knew what punk rock was on like a Hollywood level, but they they figured they had an approximation of it. So Harley goes to this bar, and what we find out is that his partner was killed by a serial killer?

Alasdair 13:27

Mm hmm.

Ryan 13:28

Is it ever explained like that? We never found the serial killer and he's sort of scarred by the experience. And apparently, this serial killer's MO is to just rip people's hearts out of their chests.

Alasdair 13:42

Yeah, just it this this particular killer is is a lot. There is zero chill here. Things are ripped out things are bitten. You know, there's, there's running it's a whole the whole thing.

Ryan 13:56

Yeah. Although I appreciate the killer's branding that he's like, very consistent with like, I'm the I'm the rips I'm the rip out hearts hearts guy. Like that's what I do. I have to it makes me think of this killer must have done the thing that Keith Moon once did where they got in the car to the to go to the airport. And then he's like, wait, no, we have to go back to the hotel. I almost forgot. And then he like goes back in, throws the TV out the window, and then goes back down to get in the car to go to the hotel. Like this is I assume the killer in Split Second was like Oh shit, I forgot to rip the heart out. He had to go back and do it.

Alasdair 14:29

Sorry, sorry. Okay, we can go now

Ryan 14:33

I'm just gonna sneak past her. rip out heart real quick. Okay, thank you so much. Now, what I also love is that Ian Dury of Ian Dury and the Blockheads is sort of the bar manager for this place.

Alasdair 14:43

Yes. And he because he's he Ian Dury. There is no acting. It is literally Ian Dury is Ian Dury in Split Second.

Ryan 14:52

Yeah, yeah. Like he's one of those people that like he I honestly I have a thing. I think he has the only authentic cockney accent and everybody else's putting it on

Alasdair 15:01

All others copied from him. there's a there's an exam clearly.

Ryan 15:04

Exactly. He honestly his his screen presence his I love his voice so much it's just this raspy nasty little deep voice he's he's a he's a treat anytime he's on screen and so there's a woman at the bar who's like I there's like a weird flirting thing with with Harley where she's like, Hey, I'm going to go into the bathroom Can you can you watch out for me and he's like what? Yeah, she's like alright, Don't sneak into the bathroom to watch me and he's like, will do like he's so uncomfortable with this interaction. And she she in very short order, she gets murked and dies and

Alasdair 15:43

And dies a lot It must be said

Ryan 15:45

She dies so much like that. But now this movie has I assume the budget was for two things. It was for neon lights. And the other one was blood.

Alasdair 15:53

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Ryan 15:55

Like it is just everything is soaked in blood in this movie. And she so she screams to let everybody know that. You know, there's like something hinky is going on and they run in there she's dead. And also there is scrawled on the wall in in blood "I'm back" which means that the killer had enough time to both rip her heart out. Scrawl that on the wall and skip town before anybody else could could make it into the room.

Alasdair 16:19

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we that I have theories about a lot of the things missing from this film, which as we get on will I'm sure we'll discuss but this this whole the killer is an invisible eight Foot Ninja element does become much more important as time goes on.

Ryan 16:37

Yeah, yeah, it does the well what it does is the alien thing of you never totally see what the monster looks like until the the third act.

Alasdair 16:46

Yeah. And the third act which it turns out was shot by someone other than the original director.

Ryan 16:53

Wait No shit, what happened there?

Alasdair 16:55

Massive amounts of stress basically. The the original director basically two thirds in just went, I can't do this. And they parachuted someone else in. And Stephen Norrington who would go on to be the man who retired Sean Connery from movies if I remember correctly.

Ryan 17:16

Wow.

Alasdair 17:16

Designed the creature.

Ryan 17:18

I mean, it's a it's a it's a good design.

Alasdair 17:20

It is

Ryan 17:21

It? It's like primarily teeth based like this thing. It's it sort of looks like venom. If venom did had more teeth instead of eyes.

Alasdair 17:30

That's a really good description of it. Yeah, it's a little bit kind of deep sea fish as well.

Ryan 17:36

Yeah, yeah. There's something Yeah, like just that jutting. Scary tooth jaw. Honestly, I think I wish more directors were able to do what the first director did actually to just go You know what, I'm having a bad time. Friends. I need to, I need to, I need to end this collab. We need to get someone else...]]>rankandvile.podbean.com/0e47e4ed-92ff-3cf6-ba68-611f873ae523Thu, 10 Dec 2020 09:00:00 -050001:06:41yesfull169On this episode we're joined by the incomparable Alasdair Stuart (co-owner of the Escape Artists podcast network) as we talk about 1992 cyberpunk buddy cop horror romance classic SPLIT SECOND! Read the transcript at: https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-169-bad-times-in-ratwater-cityQuincy & RyanEpisode 168: Gabba GhoulOn this episode we talk about mafia- and cat-centric Stephen King anthology film CAT'S EYE!

For the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-168-gabba-ghoul

Transcript:

Ryan 0:05

[Theme Song] Hey guys, welcome to Rank and Vile, the podcast where we're ranking every single horror movie ever made. And this is Ryan.

Quincy 0:43

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:44

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

Quincy 0:46

It's going good. I finally got to finish Stories Untold on Nintendo Switch. Ryan, have you played this game?

Ryan 0:53

No. Tell me about this.

Quincy 0:55

So Stories Untold is an episodic horror game that takes the form of text based PC games.

Ryan 1:06

Oh, okay.

Quincy 1:06

So the first episode, you're literally in a house playing a text adventure game of a haunted house, while the house you're in is actually haunted.

Ryan 1:18

Holy shit. That's incredible.

Quincy 1:19

But the best thing is the screen. The view of the screen is not simply an Apple 2 black and green screen. The screen is a disk with the Apple screen in the corner. And you literally have to hit the L button to lean into the screen to read what it says. And then lean back out and type on the keyboard your command.

Ryan 1:45

Holy shit. Honestly, if it's if you're a horror game, and you don't have a lean button, what are you doing? I feel.

Quincy 1:52

It's on the e-shop on Nintendo, I it is a strong recommendation. I didn't think I liked this kind of game until I got deep into it and played it. If you want to learn from my mistake, play it in like a week, not over several months, like I did, because I found out that the skills I learned in playing a text based adventure game and how to operate a drill on alien technology were skills that showed up later in the game and I had to know how to do that

Ryan 2:26

Yeah, honestly. Yeah, this seems like one of those processes where like, by the time you figure it out, it's just like, this is fine, you know?

Quincy 2:34

Yeah, but yeah, so what ghoul shit Have you been up to Ryan?

Ryan 2:38

I just started reading VC Andrews's Flowers In the Attic yo for the first time for the first time. I've never read it. I know the big twist that it's incest but I've never read it before. I know that my aunt had a copy of it that had one of those covers that have like the cutout on the front cover and then a page on the inside? You know the ones. Quincy Have you read Flowers in the Attic?

Quincy 3:02

I have not but I know a lot about VC Andrews and also the VC Andrews brand because she died very soon after her books became popular. So like Ann M Martin of Babysitters Club fame. Her name is on every book, but she is not the one who has written most of the books.

Ryan 3:26

Ah, so it's like a James Patterson situation.

Quincy 3:29

Yeah

Ryan 3:29

Yeah, honestly reading Flowers in the Attic...

Quincy 3:31

I love how my example is baby sitters club and your example is James Patterson. To the point where I was like, What? No

Ryan 3:41

I was thinking I was like no Babysitters Club was up. They were above board they were legit. Shut up. Shut up. It was it was her. Yeah, I honestly reading Flowers in the Attic. The thing I was not prepared for although I was I am I am ecstatic about, every line of dialogue in this book reads like it was ghostwritten by Cheryl Blossom from Riverdale. When you get Cheryl Blossom saying like Mumsy, I've had the most...]]>On this episode we talk about mafia- and cat-centric Stephen King anthology film CAT'S EYE!

For the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-168-gabba-ghoul

Transcript:

Ryan 0:05

[Theme Song] Hey guys, welcome to Rank and Vile, the podcast where we're ranking every single horror movie ever made. And this is Ryan.

Quincy 0:43

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:44

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

Quincy 0:46

It's going good. I finally got to finish Stories Untold on Nintendo Switch. Ryan, have you played this game?

Ryan 0:53

No. Tell me about this.

Quincy 0:55

So Stories Untold is an episodic horror game that takes the form of text based PC games.

Ryan 1:06

Oh, okay.

Quincy 1:06

So the first episode, you're literally in a house playing a text adventure game of a haunted house, while the house you're in is actually haunted.

Ryan 1:18

Holy shit. That's incredible.

Quincy 1:19

But the best thing is the screen. The view of the screen is not simply an Apple 2 black and green screen. The screen is a disk with the Apple screen in the corner. And you literally have to hit the L button to lean into the screen to read what it says. And then lean back out and type on the keyboard your command.

Ryan 1:45

Holy shit. Honestly, if it's if you're a horror game, and you don't have a lean button, what are you doing? I feel.

Quincy 1:52

It's on the e-shop on Nintendo, I it is a strong recommendation. I didn't think I liked this kind of game until I got deep into it and played it. If you want to learn from my mistake, play it in like a week, not over several months, like I did, because I found out that the skills I learned in playing a text based adventure game and how to operate a drill on alien technology were skills that showed up later in the game and I had to know how to do that

Ryan 2:26

Yeah, honestly. Yeah, this seems like one of those processes where like, by the time you figure it out, it's just like, this is fine, you know?

Quincy 2:34

Yeah, but yeah, so what ghoul shit Have you been up to Ryan?

Ryan 2:38

I just started reading VC Andrews's Flowers In the Attic yo for the first time for the first time. I've never read it. I know the big twist that it's incest but I've never read it before. I know that my aunt had a copy of it that had one of those covers that have like the cutout on the front cover and then a page on the inside? You know the ones. Quincy Have you read Flowers in the Attic?

Quincy 3:02

I have not but I know a lot about VC Andrews and also the VC Andrews brand because she died very soon after her books became popular. So like Ann M Martin of Babysitters Club fame. Her name is on every book, but she is not the one who has written most of the books.

Ryan 3:26

Ah, so it's like a James Patterson situation.

Quincy 3:29

Yeah

Ryan 3:29

Yeah, honestly reading Flowers in the Attic...

Quincy 3:31

I love how my example is baby sitters club and your example is James Patterson. To the point where I was like, What? No

Ryan 3:41

I was thinking I was like no Babysitters Club was up. They were above board they were legit. Shut up. Shut up. It was it was her. Yeah, I honestly reading Flowers in the Attic. The thing I was not prepared for although I was I am I am ecstatic about, every line of dialogue in this book reads like it was ghostwritten by Cheryl Blossom from Riverdale. When you get Cheryl Blossom saying like Mumsy, I've had the most frightful day mare, or like mumsie has been cultivating esoteric herbs in the conservatory like tannis root and the deadly jimson weed, and it's that but straight faced and all the time. It is just a fucking delight. There's a bit that's at the opening of the book, where now it's obviously about children who were like sort of orphaned and end up in the care of their sadistic grandmother, the dad that dies at the top of this book. I am obsessed with this thing of like, this fantasy of what it's like to have a supportive father. Where like he comes through the door and we yell papa and he's and he booms come smother me with kisses. If you love me and he has brought us all of these curios from his travels abroad. And it's just it's like a rude impersonation of wasp family dynamics and I'm I'm obsessed with it.

Quincy 5:05

It sounds delightful.

Ryan 5:06

Yeah. So that's I'm firmly ensconced right now in Flowers in the Attic. So that's Yeah. Listen, if you if you haven't read it, get it on Kindle. It's I implore you like every other page of this thing. I'm like, showing it to somebody that I live with and yelling because of how completely insane the dialogue is.

Quincy 5:28

So let's talk about our Patreon.

Ryan 5:31

Yes, over on our Patreon we just.

Quincy 5:34

It's time to pay the fucking Piper.

Ryan 5:38

Listen, the

Quincy 5:39

Roddy Piper,

Ryan 5:40

you got to pay the Roddy Piper. The rent is come due. Listen folks. If you go over to our patreon at patreon.com slash rank and vile we have a plethora of content we've got an episode about Santa with muscles it's going to be dropping very shortly we've got an episode

Quincy 5:55

You hear some shocking revelations from your hosts and their feelings on Christmas

Ryan 6:01

Yeah, it's it's very Rank and Vile after dark I feel if you want to if you want to see like the real the real unfiltered shit when we're not talking about VC Andrews.

Quincy 6:10

Can we do like a Cory 900 number. Here's words that rhyme with Cory?

Ryan 6:17

Yeah, it's you'll get the real shit. We've got an episode coming up with Matt Wallace about the movie Roadhouse. That whips ass, guys, if you ask for a mere $5 for the price of like a decent gas station sandwich, you too can be the proud owner of our Patreon content. So head on over there if you like what we do and you maybe want some more of that.

Quincy 6:41

I'll tell you that your money helps us do things like pay hosting fees, upgrade equipment, purchase movies to review on this show, because they're not all free and we have to it is our duty to review everything not just everything on Tubi.

Ryan 7:01

Exactly the warts and all if there is a Blu Ray copy of Necromantic 2 that we need to fucking dredge from the deep we're committed to the gimick of this podcast we're doing every movie ever made. But yeah, so head over there if you feel so inclined. And also I guys we it's it's content that sort of we're already kind of loopy by the time we do the Patreon content. So it's it's it's particularly extra I feel because we're doing

Quincy 7:30

I would agree

Ryan 7:30

Because we're doing non a lot of non horror movies over on the Patreon that wouldn't go on the list and so yeah, yeah, so head on over there. Let's get into the movie we're doing for this week.

Quincy 7:41

Cat's Eye

Ryan 7:42

Cat's Eye from 1985. This is so Cat's Eye is so here's the thing. Stephen King short stories are better than Stephen King novels.

Quincy 7:53

Stephen King short stories are better than Stephen King full stop.

Ryan 7:59

Yeah, yeah. If he is Yeah, better than the sum total of him. And Cat's Eye is an anthology horror film cobbled together with three different and but intersecting kind of whatever. Listen, every anthology movie that wants to have a through line. It's it's always contrived, I feel.

Quincy 8:19

Oh, yeah. It's like, well, a cat sees a lot of crazy things.

Ryan 8:24

Yeah, this this cat is a he's a real cat about town and he just sort of happens to end up in all these segments. So cat The cat in Cat's Eye. Do you ever just look at it. He's a tabby cat. And do you ever just like look at a cat and you know that his heart is full of bees and that his hands are guns? Like there's something in the eyes that's just like I am down for some bullshit. And the cat in this movie. He gets snatched up off of the pavement by what looks like a mafia goon and turns out to also be a mafia goon

Quincy 8:59

Yes

Ryan 8:59

And we get also we get a bunch of like shameless pops up at the at the top of the movie. For other Stephen King properties.

Quincy 9:07

Yes, there is a Cujo ass St. Bernard running around. There's Christine the automobile because it has a bumper sticker that says I am Christine.

Ryan 9:19

It's It's incredible. By the way that like this the actual car from Christine it says in full Watch out for me. linebreak I am pure evil capital P capital E. I am red font. Christine.

Quincy 9:32

all caps, red font all caps. Christine. White period.

Ryan 9:37

This is the car Christine cutting her own promo like this is just good branding is like, you know, wait, who is this car? Let me tell you, watch out for me. I am pure evil. I am Christine. And so we get

Quincy 9:50

Can we talk about the director's cut of Christine where this bumper sticker is actually on Christine and the kid's like I don't think I want to buy this and the car salesman's like, Ah, don't worry about that and he like tries to rub it off with his sleeve

Ryan 10:08

After the events of Christine, they notice Wait a minute, look at this bumper sticker. It was there the whole time. We should have looked at that first. Now Alright, so the cat gets scooped up by a mafia Capo and we don't see him again for a bit. We are introduced to the first segment of this which is called Quitters Incorporated. And it revolves around So James Woods now. I hate that I get excited when James Woods shows up in things because he's the worst man in the world.

Quincy 10:39

Wait a minute. Like. He's a shoot bad person?

Ryan 10:44

Oh, do you not know about James Woods?

Quincy 10:46

I I'm upset. I'm learning about it right now.

Ryan 10:50

Oh my sweet Quincy. He on Twitter. He is the archest of maga chuds. Like he is the maga chud like he's, it's bad. And also there's stuff about how he like was cruising on teen girls back in the like back in the day and just like him being a creep. He is apparently just like just irredeemably maga in a way that's like it taints the experience of watching James Woods in movies. I'm so sorry to make you aware of James Woods' extracurricular activities outside of horror movies.

Quincy 11:25

Well, it makes me feel better that I purchased this on VHS for $1 at my local record store

Ryan 11:33

Oh shit yeah

Quincy 11:33

Because James Woods is not getting a residual check from that

Ryan 11:37

You know what it is? I feel like I imprinted on James Woods when I was a kid because of repeat watchings of Disney's Hercules.

Quincy 11:45

That that'll do it to you

Ryan 11:46

Like his performance as Hades. It's really good. It's such a shame that he recorded a Videodrome did nothing did Disney's Hercules and then died like you wonder what could have been if he lived after that. So James Woods is a shit. But so he is a smoker and a smoker's smoker. You know what I mean? Like he is just never not smoking.

Quincy 12:08

Just lighting cigarette off the end of another cigarette, constantly.

Ryan 12:13

Yeah. And he shows up to this office called quitters. Quitters, Inc. and the waiting room is like it's a problem like it's Bedlam. There's people yelling at each other there's spouses fighting, people look like they've been electrocuted, because they've been electrocuted. And he at this point is like, Oh, hey, I don't think I Oh, it's James Woods. I don't know if I want to be in this office. And he starts like going to walk away and then the largest mafioso in the world stops him and is like

Quincy 12:43

Oh, come on in. It's your turn. Or whatever he says

Ryan 12:47

Right. And so we get so Quincy what is the basic premise of this company?

Quincy 12:55

This company figured out that they could torture people to make them quit smoking.

Ryan 13:05

Yeah, yeah. And the way that they

Quincy 13:06

But basically it was their founder had lung cancer and died and they realize you know, he was very persuasive man because he was a mobster. Let's just use that to cure the world of smoking.

Ryan 13:20

Yeah, like they're like using mafia tactics because and now Honestly though, I love that this is the thing is like well our mafia boss died so we decided to harass people into non smoking because it was lung cancer and the now here's the thing when I I've thought about Quitters Inc. a lot in my life because of how hard it was for me to quit smoking and I'm two and a half years nonsmoker which is both exciting and also I'm like boy as an as an asthmatic from childhood probably wasn't a great idea to start smoking in retrospect. So and the the idea that Quitters Inc operates on which I genuinely think is pretty clever is like, Alright, once you're in the program, there is no backing out. You cannot cancel We are the mafia will fucking kill you. And the way that the guy describes it to James Woods' character is we will be watching you. It may be we watch you for two hours, one day a week. It might be we're watching you 24 seven, we might watch you for a week, a year from now and then nothing else. And the way that he says it is you may see some of us some of the time you will never see all of us all of the time. And the idea is like Okay, so we're gonna watch you and make sure you don't quit some and make sure that you don't smoke on the first infraction if we see you smoking, we will abduct your spouse and electrocute them. On the second one, we do worse things and it ramps up and up and up and up until it's like on the sixth one. We if all of these other deterrents about Like chopping off your loved ones' limbs, and doing all manner of horrors to them if after that you can't do it, we will kill you because we will have failed.

Quincy 15:10

Yeah, it's wild. And then they're like to show you we mean business. Here's the cat that ties this movie together being electrocuted.

Ryan 15:20

Yeah, they put the cat in the room and they put on like sort of 50s Rock and Roll while they're just like, it's like

Quincy 15:25

What the fuck is up with that. They're like it's conditioning. But I don't understand why that needs to be part of this scene.

Ryan 15:35

It's it's like a room that it's like not even electrocuting people directly. It's just like, the floor is electricity.

Quincy 15:43

Yeah, the floor is lava. And you have to skip around the floor or you'll get fried.

Ryan 15:49

Yeah. And they abducted a cat specifically to prove this point to this specific person, which I feel is like, pretty specific.

Quincy 15:57

Yeah. They're like, we're, we're committed to this.

Ryan 16:02

Yeah. Now, James Woods, and I hate to say this, is great in this movie.

Quincy 16:07

Yeah, he really is. Because he plays a harried man very well.

Ryan 16:16

Yeah, he's just so nervy. And just like, now that it's, I think the best illustration of nicotine withdrawal I've ever seen is James Woods, just like snapping at his wife. And, you know, and he's like, trying to maintain and trying to be nice, but ultimately, like your body is giving up a chemical that it's become dependent on and your nervous system is shot. He does a really good job portraying a guy trying to quit smoking.

Quincy 16:44

And also, there's this really fascinating moment where he's like, I quit smoking, and his wife's like, you did that for me? You're so romantic. I love you so much. And he's got the this look like Yeah, but you don't know what they're gonna do to you. When I don't stick to it.

Ryan 17:01

Yeah, like I technically quit smoking for you, in that if I smoke, you'll get electrocuted.

Quincy 17:07

But what's wild is even when they electrocute his wife for the first time, instead of slapping him and beating him up like the other wife we see in the waiting room earlier in the film. She's like, come near you big goon. I love you. We'll get through this together. thing it's which is what? I don't get it.

Ryan 17:31

That's insane. If I get electrocuted in the mafia closet, because my partner took on this contract. We're getting a goddamn divorce. Like that's you don't do that.

Quincy 17:44

What am I supposed to take away from that? Is this yet again? Stephen King not knowing how to write women. Same author who wrote It and the infamous sewer sex scene?

Ryan 17:59

Yeah the sewer, the sewer gang thing? You think that guy might not be up on his gender politics? Maybe a little bit?

Quincy 18:05

Yeah.

Ryan 18:06

Yeah. Well, well, and so we, you know, we get sort of these bits of like, there's like a mob goon jogging around in front of his name is Dick. Which, sure. And there's like, you know, he walks out in the morning. Now, we get a bit where there's like somebody that we know is in his coat closet watching him while he's about to start smoking. And as he's about to light up, he hears a noise and then is like, Hey, I didn't smoke so you can tell your boss I didn't smoke, so you don't need to electrocute my wife. Gabagool. And so we never find out if the guy is actually in the closet, but it's pretty obvious that he is. A thing that I appreciate is that this movie has the strength of its convictions to use. I'll Be Watching You by the Police. Diegeticly.

Quincy 18:51

Yes. It's so good. Also, the way that we see him break down and actually smoke. The he's stuck in traffic. He's stressed. He's like, no one can see me. I'm gonna bend down into my car and smoke. Because no one is inside my car. I was waiting for a guy to sit up from the backseat.

Ryan 19:19

The glovebox box pops open and Vinny two-nostrils come Hey, I saw you smoking that cigarette. We're gonna kill your wife. Just from the trunk? I fucking smell it dude, you can't beat the premise forever. Oh, fuck yeah, we get this really great, like, cartoon dream sequence. He's at this party. And like, it's like when a cartoon is on a deserted island and everyone's head is like a turkey leg or whatever. Where...]]>rankandvile.podbean.com/6db718f2-ddde-3d56-a4f6-9ac2e9bdc1a9Thu, 03 Dec 2020 09:00:00 -050054:15yesfull168On this episode we talk about mafia- and cat-centric Stephen King anthology film CAT'S EYE! Read the transcript at: https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-168-gabba-ghoulQuincy & RyanEpisode 167: Baroque MistakesOn this episode, we dig into Italian rock weirdo curio PAGANINI HORROR!

Mentioned/of interest:

• The Guardian interview with RAW writer-director Julia Ducourneau
• Snippets in this video of Ducourneau speaking about the film
• APPETITES: WHY WOMEN WANT by Caroline Knapp