Ep. #282 - Castle Freak

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Castle Freak.

[0:04] Wait, for real?

[0:31] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:35] Oh, man, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:37] I'm Elliot Kalin, everybody's favorite child trapped in an adult's body.

[0:41] And we've got a guest tonight. Why don't you introduce yourself?

[0:45] Uh, Joe Bob Briggs.

[0:47] Oh, wow, a celebrity!

[0:49] This is amazing!

[0:51] This is awesome.

[0:53] What have I signed up for here?

[0:56] Oh, man, you don't even know.

[0:58] It's pretty menacing.

[1:00] I think the fact that you are in a lonely man's house where a cat is prowling,

[1:06] and also that he made you introduce yourself rather than introducing our amazing special guest

[1:12] that deserves a build-up and things like that.

[1:15] Yes, and a part of Brooklyn that I would have to fight my way out of, like the Warriors.

[1:20] Yeah, oh, sure.

[1:22] Yeah, he arrived in a car, and I could see him struggling for his face not to fall

[1:26] as he realized he was just walking into some dude's apartment.

[1:30] Yeah.

[1:31] Not some kind of fancy studio.

[1:34] Yeah, and in a part of the city that he had thought had been turned into a maximum security prison long ago.

[1:40] Yeah, come on, Stuart. So this is a movie that—

[1:46] Okay.

[1:47] Wait, can we build up our guest?

[1:50] Oh, yeah, sure. Hold on.

[1:52] Come on.

[1:53] That's an important thing, yeah.

[1:55] This is someone whose work has meant a lot to me in growing up.

[1:58] I was a real devout MonsterVision watcher back when it was on,

[2:03] and a reader of your columns and your reviews,

[2:07] and it's very exciting to me to have you on the show.

[2:09] I'm just super excited about it, which is why this is the first time I regret leaving New York City

[2:14] and having to do the podcast via Skype from Los Angeles.

[2:17] All right, well, I appreciate that.

[2:20] It's amazing how many people remember that MonsterVision show

[2:23] because it was on at no particular time in the middle of the night,

[2:28] and we just kind of continued—I guess the rules of TV were different in those days.

[2:36] Yeah.

[2:37] And as long as we were finished by 6 a.m., they didn't care what we did.

[2:40] And so sometimes the show ended at 4.30, sometimes it ended at 2.

[2:46] We just talked until we were done.

[2:49] Sort of like your show.

[2:50] Yeah.

[2:52] Now you're getting it.

[2:54] That was actually kind of my favorite era of television when cable first was kind of around,

[3:00] and they were like, okay, we've got all these channels.

[3:02] We're not quite sure how to fill the time, so I don't know.

[3:06] Comedy channel, I'm just going to put a bunch of clips of random stuff on the air.

[3:10] USA, I'm going to put T&A movies on late at night.

[3:13] It's just like let's fill the time however we possibly can, and that was so much fun.

[3:19] That was the era when you could take a videotape and insert it into a weird opening in your stomach, right?

[3:27] For maybe like one person.

[3:29] Okay, cool.

[3:32] Yeah, no, I'm sorry I didn't give more of a buildup.

[3:35] I'm so flustered by having an actual guest of note that I don't know how—

[3:40] You don't go out often, do you?

[3:41] No, I don't.

[3:43] Dan does better not in person.

[3:47] That's true.

[3:48] But you also don't do that great on Twitter, so I don't know what's your—

[3:52] Okay, I don't understand what this dragging me about Twitter is.

[3:55] Dan's real—his best stuff is via telegram.

[3:59] Like his best face is really via telegram because it's limited letters, but it also costs money,

[4:05] so he can't waste it on the kinds of jokes he does on Twitter for free.

[4:10] I don't know.

[4:11] This is turning into like a roast of Dan's Twitter feed,

[4:14] which lately has just been particularly prolific and of questionable quality.

[4:18] Yeah, I don't know what started that.

[4:20] So before we get into what we actually do on this podcast,

[4:24] which is talk about a specific movie that we watched,

[4:30] yeah, so let's talk a little bit about why we chose Castle Freak,

[4:36] the movie that we're reviewing today.

[4:38] I know why I would want to watch it because we recommend movies on this podcast,

[4:44] and out of the—we've done what, like 290 episodes, something like that, Dan?

[4:49] A little less, but you're right.

[4:50] I feel like I've recommended it 290 times.

[4:55] Well, I'm with you.

[4:58] I've always thought it was underappreciated,

[5:00] and of the three big Jeffrey Combs,

[5:06] Barbara Crampton directed by Stuart Gordon movies,

[5:09] which would be Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Castle Freak,

[5:15] it's probably the least well-known.

[5:17] There are people who love those other two movies and then have never seen Castle Freak.

[5:22] But Castle Freak, is that the only one that didn't get a theatrical release?

[5:27] I think it got a minor theatrical release.

[5:29] I think not in the U.S.

[5:31] Really?

[5:32] I'm pretty sure that's true. I'll look it up while you guys chat.

[5:34] Okay, well, I think the reason that it's not as beloved as the other two

[5:39] is that it's hardcore nasty horror with no comic relief, you know?

[5:43] It's so much rougher than the other movies.

[5:45] From Beyond is a movie where Jeffrey Combs eats a man's eyeball out of his head,

[5:49] like this, and this is still somehow much rougher.

[5:52] But with humor.

[5:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[5:56] From Beyond is such a silly movie in a great way.

[6:01] Oh, just because a man gets skeletonized by a cloud of bees?

[6:06] Yeah, it was a direct-to-video by Full Moon Home Video on 97.

[6:12] 97? Okay, I thought it was 95.

[6:14] I guess they had trouble releasing it.

[6:16] Well, it's weird. Wikipedia has conflicting information.

[6:19] Earlier it says 95, and then it says 97.

[6:21] Who would have thought that Wikipedia was not a reliable, I can't talk, reliable source?

[6:27] Maybe 95 was when it debuted at Cannes.

[6:32] Yeah, on the Palme d'Or.

[6:34] Well, it is the kind of movie.

[6:36] These movies were starting to not get theatrical releases at all in the 90s,

[6:41] whereas the other two movies were 85 and 86 when everything came out theatrically.

[6:48] Well, not everything, but...

[6:50] I was really lucky a couple of years ago to get to host a screening of Castle Freak

[6:55] at the Alamo Draft House up in Yonkers,

[6:57] and they brought Jonathan Fuller, the actor who plays Giorgio the Freak.

[7:03] He is the Castle Freak.

[7:05] Yeah, and he was the nicest guy in the world,

[7:07] and he had all these great stories about running around in Charles Band's castle that he owned

[7:13] and how they had a limited window to use the producer's castle

[7:18] before they use it for another one of his movies,

[7:22] and also just stories of wearing full-body prosthetics.

[7:26] And also he clarified a couple of important points for me, which we'll get to, I'm sure.

[7:31] But can I, is it too premature to talk about the movie?

[7:34] No, no, no.

[7:35] Jonathan Fuller, talk about full-body prosthetics.

[7:39] Usually when you put on the full-body prosthetics, that's it, that's the whole role.

[7:43] You walk around in the full-body prosthetics.

[7:45] Yeah.

[7:46] He actually does acting in the full-body prosthetics.

[7:50] It's a fully realized part.

[7:54] Yeah, it's amazing just the physicality he brings to that role with his,

[7:58] like from the way he walks to the way he holds his body to the weird, like, mumble sounds he makes,

[8:04] which I don't know if that was all 80-yard or not.

[8:06] The drool.

[8:08] There's more drool in this movie than any movie I've ever seen.

[8:11] Yeah, the costumer was like, time to add some drool.

[8:14] He's like, nope, I'll make it myself.

[8:17] Stuart Gordon was like, there's not enough goo in this movie, so let's add some drool.

[8:21] Well, it is, that's interesting you say that, Dan, because of those three Combs-Crampton movies that you mentioned,

[8:27] they're all Lovecraft stories, but this is the one that's least like what we think of as a Lovecraft story.

[8:33] The other two are very like mad scientist and monster stories, and this is like more gothic,

[8:38] and I wonder if that's part of it, that it's like there's not as much opportunity for goo in it.

[8:42] Well, and part of it is that it's not really a Lovecraft story.

[8:46] It's like so loose.

[8:48] It's the same way that, like, they do those old Edgar Allan Poe movies in the 30s,

[8:52] where they're like, it's based on the black cat.

[8:54] Well, how is it based on the black cat?

[8:56] Well, there's a cat in it.

[8:57] Okay.

[8:58] Well, and that's how this one happened.

[8:59] Charles Band had a poster.

[9:02] He made a poster, and he showed it to Stuart Gordon,

[9:05] and he says the name of the movie is Castle Freak, and Stuart Gordon said, what's the story?

[9:09] And he says, I don't know what the story is, but it has a castle and it has a freak.

[9:13] Well, I've already gotten a preorder from one S. Wellington for a movie ticket.

[9:21] Stuart Gordon found the only H.P. Lovecraft story that could be possibly used for that,

[9:30] which was told from the point of view of the freak.

[9:35] Yeah.

[9:36] I mean, it's a story about a guy who's been imprisoned from birth and has never been outside,

[9:45] and then he gets outside and he terrifies himself when he looks in the mirror.

[9:50] And so that's basically it.

[9:52] That's the whole story.

[9:54] It's like Lovecraft was reading Plato's Parable of the Cave.

[10:00] Yes, in Lovecraft form. He's a monster.

[10:04] So, and then they added the whole family plot and the, well, I guess we're going to go over the plot, right?

[10:11] Yeah, I mean, I don't know. The rest of it was...

[10:14] Yeah, I don't think there was a, probably a drunk driving dad sequence in the Lovecraft story, but we'll find out.

[10:20] Well, before we get into the movie, like, I actually, I feel like we haven't done,

[10:24] we've done our guests at a service before. We'll plug again.

[10:27] Multiple times, sure.

[10:28] We'll plug again later.

[10:31] We'll plug...

[10:32] Yeah, we should, we should talk about what the guest is here to...

[10:34] We'll plug again later, but Joe Bob showed this movie on Shudder,

[10:38] and the fact that he's on Shudder showing movies is the reason that we've tricked him into coming to my apartment.

[10:43] So, we should just advertise Shudder and his involvement thereof.

[10:49] Yeah, wait, right now or later?

[10:50] I mean, just now. I'm just mentioning it now, and then we can, you know, get to the end.

[10:53] We actually showed it on the very first week of the series, because I was a fan...

[10:58] And just plug the name of the series, sir.

[11:01] It's called The Last Drive-In on Shudder. I don't care if we plug it or not, but the first...

[11:07] You just hope you get out of this alive.

[11:10] No, the first week they wanted to show Chud, and I hate Chud.

[11:15] So, we did show Chud as the first movie, and I said, we got to redeem ourselves with something for the second movie.

[11:22] You know, they like movies that are not, you know, extremely well-known, and...

[11:26] Daniel Stern just unsubscribed from our podcast.

[11:31] Now I need to find out why... I mean, Chud is not great, and why you hate Chud so much.

[11:34] And what are your feelings on Chud 2, but with Chud?

[11:37] The only... Well, the only... Oh, come on, please.

[11:41] You know, but the only movies that I really despise are movies where the people who make the movie seem to be superior to the movie.

[11:51] And Chud is the ultimate Shakespeare in the Park people slumming in the horror world, you know.

[11:59] It's... You know, remember the homeless woman who goes down in the tunnel at the very beginning?

[12:05] That's Norman Mailer's wife, okay?

[12:08] You know, if Norman Mailer's wife is in the movie, you know, it's not made by normal people.

[12:14] No, that's actually like... Yeah, there's a certain amount of, like, contempt for the audience, I guess.

[12:19] Or is it contempt for the material?

[12:20] Yeah, I mean, it was conceived at a Soho party, you know.

[12:24] And the idea... They came up with the cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers.

[12:30] They came up with the acronym.

[12:32] Chud!

[12:32] And developed a whole movie around that idea.

[12:36] And... But, you know, even if you like the movie, it's like, where are the Chuds?

[12:41] Where are the Chuds?

[12:43] I mean, how much Chud action is in this?

[12:46] 30 seconds of glowing yellow eyes that look like they're on a, you know, a toy.

[12:53] Uh-huh.

[12:55] For the first time in horror history, the poster promised something it did not deliver.

[13:01] Remember when the Chuds eat John Goodman in the diner?

[13:05] You don't even see the Chuds.

[13:07] I think you see a quick hand of a Chud or something coming out of a manhole cover.

[13:12] Oh, this is as if America's coming to the movies.

[13:15] Like, I came to see Chuds as if they knew what Chuds were.

[13:18] It's like, I haven't been this disappointed since Hot Dog, the motion picture.

[13:23] Hello, 911, I'd like to report a murder. The movie Chud has been killed.

[13:28] If you ask nerd heads from the 80s, you know, what do you like about Chud?

[13:34] They'll always say, well, remember that box? Remember that video box?

[13:37] Yeah.

[13:38] They'll say, okay, so you like the video box.

[13:40] Yeah.

[13:41] Presumably you took the video box home, took the video out of the box and watched the movie.

[13:47] Yeah, but that box, that box, it was so great.

[13:50] You remember that box?

[13:51] I don't understand loving a movie based on the box.

[13:55] Well, that is why I love munchies.

[13:57] Have you ever seen the movie Cyberkill?

[13:59] Can you describe the box for me?

[14:01] It's this movie that HR Giger did the cover, did the art for it.

[14:05] But apparently he got tricked into doing it.

[14:08] It's this super low budget thing where the mutants in it are like they're just people in punk outfits basically.

[14:14] And it's really terrible.

[14:15] And I remember when I was young, I saw that box and I was like, oh, this must be like Alien.

[14:19] This is going to be amazing.

[14:20] And it was terrible.

[14:22] And it was like a real part of me died that day.

[14:24] Okay, but see, that's a real reaction to false advertising.

[14:28] Some people love the box so much that they continue to love the movie even after it's this.

[14:35] It's a real stinker, yeah.

[14:37] And that seems to be the case with Chud.

[14:40] And they love the title.

[14:41] They love to say Chud.

[14:43] When I was a kid, I went to the video store and I was fascinated by the box for Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies because it's called Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies.

[14:52] And then years later I saw it and I'm like, no, thank you.

[14:55] No, thank you, friends.

[14:57] I feel like the biggest disappointment for me was I love the box art for Deep Star 6.

[15:03] And I feel like that movie isn't as good as the box art.

[15:06] But maybe I'm just being overly critical because I love the diving suit ripped in half in the middle of so many questions for my young mind.

[15:15] Should we finally get into the movie though?

[15:18] Okay, let's dig in.

[15:19] What movie are we doing now?

[15:21] We're doing a movie called Castle Freak starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Brampton.

[15:26] I'm not familiar with it.

[15:27] Okay, well, you're supposed to watch it, Elliot.

[15:30] That's kind of your job.

[15:32] Wait, because what do we do on this podcast?

[15:34] I'm unfamiliar.

[15:35] We watch normally a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[15:38] Well, we won't judge Castle Freak though.

[15:41] Yeah, we're going to flip the script because we're watching a good movie and we're talking about that.

[15:44] So the movie opens with an old woman pouring milk for a cat.

[15:49] As all the best stories do.

[15:52] She then starts chopping up a sausage in what appears to be foreshadowing.

[15:57] Sorry, Stuart.

[15:58] I hate to interrupt.

[15:59] The movie I was thinking of was called Future Kill.

[16:01] I did see Future Kill.

[16:03] I did see Future Kill.

[16:05] And you're absolutely right.

[16:07] It is extremely disappointing.

[16:09] So we have an old lady feeding a cat, cutting up a sausage, and we realize that she lives in a castle.

[16:16] Wow.

[16:17] She walks down.

[16:19] The movie's delivered on one thing already.

[16:21] Yep.

[16:22] She walks down into the dungeon.

[16:23] We see a lot of cat acting.

[16:25] The movie kind of takes its time and makes a point of kind of showing you like her journey from kitchen into the dungeon.

[16:33] And we see a very good cat actor.

[16:38] He's amazing or she's amazing.

[16:39] I can't tell.

[16:41] She opens up a cell in the basement and she begins beating somebody that's trapped down there that she calls Giorgio.

[16:49] She beats him with like a chain whip or like a chain cat of nine tails.

[16:54] Yeah.

[16:55] Which is weird because she already has a cat with a tail there.

[16:59] So that's a cat of ten tails, I guess.

[17:01] And she's in a cat stall.

[17:05] Yeah, that's true.

[17:07] So she beats him so hard that she goes back up to her bedroom with her cat of nine tails, gets in bed, and immediately dies.

[17:15] Now we have title.

[17:17] Right?

[17:18] Yeah.

[17:19] That's the complete performance of Helen Sterling, an English actress who played all the English roles that came through Rome.

[17:28] She lived in Rome her whole life.

[17:30] She's great.

[17:31] And I'm sure when she heard she was playing the Duchess D'Orsino or whatever, she was like, oh, great.

[17:37] What?

[17:39] So after that classic cold open, we get some titles and then we get one of those tunnel irises as we are introduced to the hero.

[17:48] Very detailed.

[17:49] The heroes of our movie, John, Susan and Rebecca, played by Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton and Jessica Dollarhyde.

[17:58] Thank you.

[18:02] First in a series of one movies for Jessica.

[18:05] This was her only movie.

[18:06] I think it was.

[18:07] She's actually pretty good in it, but I imagine this experience might not be the best one for a young person.

[18:12] By the way, you keep dragging my Twitter, but you know who follows my Twitter?

[18:16] Who?

[18:17] Barbara Crampton.

[18:18] Oh, wow.

[18:19] I feel bad.

[18:20] I mean, you can mute somebody without following.

[18:26] OK, so there it's a family of Americans who we learn have inherited a castle after an attorney or an investigator had to do some research and track down who the inheritors of this castle are.

[18:41] The family who would own the castle had had been bankrupted or they lost all their money in the war.

[18:48] So this this family of Americans had to have to move in and make a decision whether they're going to want to live in the castle or just sell it, which they decide to inventory it, inventory the castle and sell it, which I don't know the process of inheriting a castle.

[19:05] I guess that makes sense.

[19:08] What I like is that Jeffrey comes is like, I guess I'll inventory it.

[19:13] I guess I'll let's search the castle for booty.

[19:15] He keeps calling it booty.

[19:17] It's like I assume you'd hire a professional who could identify what all the things in the castle are like.

[19:21] Yeah, I'm just making a list.

[19:23] It's just like old bed.

[19:24] This is before.

[19:25] This is before.

[19:26] Paul's here, dude.

[19:27] Pondstar.

[19:28] This is before Pondstar or whatever.

[19:30] He would just bring each item one at a time into the pawn shop for Pondstar.

[19:35] It's like I got a castle full of them.

[19:37] I have a I have a question about that.

[19:40] That's particular scene.

[19:42] OK, the castle freak, which we've seen being beaten with a cat and nine tails.

[19:48] Now, the only the the woman who can give him sausage or whatever she was preparing, she's gone.

[19:56] Yeah.

[19:57] Now, there's got to be a period of time.

[20:00] When her body is discovered, her death is reported, the attorney is hired, the Americans

[20:10] are contacted in whatever town that they live in, they go to JFK, they fly to Rome, they

[20:24] get the bus to the little town, they have a car, they have a driver who takes them to

[20:37] the little town, why wouldn't the Castle Freak be dead by then?

[20:41] I mean I think it says something about his almost inhuman constitution, that's what makes

[20:46] him a freak, it's not his appearance, it's his ability to not die.

[20:51] Because nobody knows he's there except the old woman who just died, right?

[20:56] I mean there's a chance that...

[20:57] And I assume the cat, maybe the cat's giving him food, I don't know.

[21:00] And he knows how to dodge inventory.

[21:04] That's true.

[21:07] I don't know what the bug situation is, maybe he's been eating a lot of bugs, I mean at

[21:14] this point, the movie asked for a certain amount of buy-in, at this point I'm with the

[21:19] movie, I'm okay with it.

[21:21] I do remember some water dripping down a wall or something.

[21:24] Uh-huh, yep, that's proof, yeah, you can get moisture, that's cool, H2O.

[21:28] So I'm going to suggest, much as some elephants to get the salt they need will go to salt

[21:32] caves and just lick the walls, that Giorgio has found the nutrients he needs in whatever

[21:37] deposits have been left by the water dripping down the walls, maybe it's a fungus of some

[21:41] kind that he's been eating.

[21:42] Yeah, and he's been eating like doozers and stuff.

[21:47] He's eating fraggles, doozers, whatever underground creatures or beings he can find, yeah, maybe

[21:56] someone from Pellucidar shows up and eats them.

[21:59] Yeah, that's a huge mistake.

[22:01] So we're also introduced to Agnesa, the housekeeper, who is the sister of the attorney character,

[22:09] the investigator character.

[22:12] I think we don't know that until later.

[22:13] Okay, that's revealed a little bit later.

[22:15] So right off the bat, we can tell that the relationship between John and Susan is chilly

[22:21] at best.

[22:24] After they move into the castle, yeah.

[22:26] Speaking of chilly, Susan does not want Rebecca to open the window of the car because it would

[22:30] be too cold for her, which is like a weird way of, which is very protective in a strange

[22:34] way, like you can't see, you'll get too cold if the car window is open, you're very fragile.

[22:39] As a parent, I was confused by that.

[22:43] Did we mention the daughter's blind?

[22:48] We haven't mentioned that yet.

[22:49] Rebecca, the daughter, is blind.

[22:50] I was going to mention it after the flashback, but I guess, I mean, I didn't want to highlight

[22:56] the challenge that she faces, but I guess it is a plot point.

[23:00] No, no, Stuart, you're right.

[23:02] We should not define her by her handicap, but by who she is as a person, which is someone

[23:07] who's very friendly and frequently will take off her shirt, you know, at an inopportune

[23:11] time for some reason.

[23:15] So the first evening John goes to visit, he makes a late night call to his wife because

[23:21] they're sleeping in separate rooms, and she is clearly not having it.

[23:25] We get a little bit of exposition here where we realize that he has had a drinking problem

[23:31] and that, what, like six months, nine months, some time ago, he had an episode and he has

[23:39] not been drinking since.

[23:41] She rebuffs his advances, aggressive as they are, and he goes to bed where he has a flashback

[23:47] dream, and in that dream...

[23:51] This is something that happens in movies a lot, but I've never had, where your dream

[23:54] is just a thing that happened to you.

[23:56] Yeah.

[23:57] I mean, I certainly haven't had that happen unmolested by my weird subconscious, you know?

[24:04] It doesn't happen literally as it happened to me in the past, you know?

[24:08] I wonder if, do you think what he's remembering is slightly different than what actually happened?

[24:12] Like there's some dream-like element to it, or it's just, it seems like a straightforward

[24:15] memory.

[24:16] I mean, the idea is that, I feel like that what we're seeing isn't actually going on

[24:20] in his head.

[24:21] He's just having a horrible nightmare similar to the dream, but we see the flashback because

[24:27] we need to know that information.

[24:28] Oh, okay.

[24:30] That's fair.

[24:31] In the dream he's having, he's actually running away from Grimace from McDonald's.

[24:37] But in the flashback we get some great...

[24:40] Grimace is also somehow his principal from elementary school.

[24:43] Yeah, yeah.

[24:44] And he's not wearing any pants.

[24:45] Well, of course he's not.

[24:46] He's Grimace.

[24:47] Yeah.

[24:48] Why would he wear pants?

[24:49] That would be crazy.

[24:50] It would be horrifying.

[24:51] Grimace would be creepier with pants on.

[24:52] How does he wear pants?

[24:53] Does he put them on his head?

[24:54] But it's like, if Grimace suddenly started wearing pants, he'd be like, wait, should

[24:57] you have always been wearing pants?

[24:59] Like, this is...

[25:00] Wait, where's your waist, Grimace?

[25:03] Yeah, that's the true otherworldly horror that we're talking about.

[25:11] So in this flashback we get some great Jeffrey Combs drunk acting where he's driving in the

[25:18] rain with his daughter and his young son, JJ, and he has my favorite line reading of

[25:24] the movie where he goes, everything okay back there, JJ?

[25:31] Of course, very quickly, everything is not okay as Jeffrey Combs flips the car, his young

[25:38] son is killed, and his daughter is blinded in the accident.

[25:43] So there we have the tragic backstory.

[25:45] Yeah.

[25:46] That's maybe why his wife's a little peeved.

[25:48] Yeah.

[25:49] I mean, it's definitely why she is, Dan.

[25:52] Did you not pick up on that?

[25:53] And I mean, this car accident is, I'll admit, probably not the most exciting car accident

[25:59] I've seen in cinema, but you know, whatever, they're making do with what cash they had.

[26:03] It gets the story across.

[26:07] But he is awoken from this flashback dream to a child's voice, and he goes and explores

[26:12] the castle and finds a really cool wine cellar, which is important because he's an alcoholic.

[26:19] So he picks up a bottle of wine, breaks it, and cuts his hand, as you do when you find

[26:27] a dope wine cellar.

[26:28] This is when, while cleaning his hand, he runs into Agnesa, and Agnesa pours a glass

[26:35] of wine for him.

[26:36] The housekeeper.

[26:37] Yeah, she's the housekeeper.

[26:38] And she pours a glass of wine for him and her.

[26:40] He declines it because he's bleeding, and he realizes he's an alcoholic.

[26:44] And she relates the tragic story of the castle.

[26:50] I think this is the first time we get the tragic story of the castle in this version

[26:54] we hear.

[26:55] The Duchess Diorcino, I think that's correct.

[26:58] I might be messing that up.

[27:01] Who's the lady who fed the cat at the beginning, right?

[27:04] And beat the man.

[27:05] I mean, I think beating the man is the more notable feature.

[27:07] But I was first introduced to her as a woman who feeds cats, so I guess that's just my

[27:12] impression of her always.

[27:15] We find out.

[27:16] Yes, she also horribly beat a man she kept in a cell in the bottom of a castle.

[27:20] Much like a former co-worker of ours.

[27:23] She loves cats, hates people.

[27:25] Wow, Dan, that was what a passive-aggressive attack at someone who will never hear this

[27:30] and nobody knows except us.

[27:31] A very specific joke at someone's expense that the audience will not appreciate.

[27:36] Yeah, they'll certainly think less of you for it.

[27:42] I just want to say, sure, she keeps her, as we learn, her son a prisoner for years and

[27:47] years in a cell.

[27:49] She beats him with a whip.

[27:50] Let's not forget the good things about her.

[27:51] She takes good care of her cat.

[27:53] And that's something I think should be, when her heart is weighed by Anubis in the afterlife,

[27:59] perhaps her service to her cat will help her get to that point where it's not as heavy

[28:03] as a feather and she can go to wherever the good people go in ancient Egypt.

[28:06] I don't remember where it was.

[28:07] That's a good point, Elliot.

[28:08] Thanks for making it.

[28:09] By the way, the housekeeper who comes with the inherited house is an idea that was first

[28:21] done in Thirteen Ghosts, where the Wicked Witch of the West was the housekeeper, Margaret

[28:28] Hammond.

[28:29] This isn't the later remake of Thirteen Ghosts, right?

[28:34] No, the original William Castle Thirteen Ghosts, which is a convenient, I never quite

[28:45] understood why personnel would be part of the inventory, but it seems to be a common

[28:55] thing in horror films.

[28:56] It's like, well, my contract was with the house, not with any individual human being.

[29:01] I have ominous tidings to bring.

[29:03] I mean, in a way, like when Trevor Noah took over for Jon Stewart, he inherited me and

[29:10] I've been haunting him ever since.

[29:12] Very true.

[29:13] Good point.

[29:14] That's a cool way to slip where you work right there.

[29:18] I mean, I don't think there's anyone listening who doesn't realize that.

[29:22] I think maybe she works for the exposition temp agency, providing household staff who

[29:27] can tell you what's going on in the movie for decades.

[29:31] So she's about to be the third exposition device after the flashback dream and now relating

[29:40] the sad tale of the house itself or the duchess.

[29:47] The family's last name.

[29:48] Is it Riley?

[29:49] Yeah.

[29:50] Yeah.

[29:51] Yeah.

[29:52] John and Rebecca Riley.

[29:53] Jeffrey comes to saying, welcome to Castle Riley, and I'm like, that can't be the name

[29:56] of the castle, right?

[29:57] Like it's an Italian castle.

[30:00] If it's called Castle Reilly, there's a whole backstory there that I need to know.

[30:05] I feel like the movie doesn't need to get involved in.

[30:07] It all started in the Hundred Years War.

[30:11] So yeah, the backstory shifts over because we hear a couple different versions of it.

[30:18] It's a regular Rashomon.

[30:20] I believe the one she gives explains that the duchess fell in love with an American,

[30:26] maybe an American soldier, and he got her pregnant and then he ran off.

[30:31] And in her anger, she, at losing her husband, she killed her young son, Giorgio.

[30:38] Correct.

[30:39] OK.

[30:40] And at that point, you're like, but wait a minute.

[30:43] The guy she was beating in the basement was called Giorgio.

[30:47] What?

[30:48] Must be a coincidence.

[30:50] OK.

[30:51] So.

[30:52] Wait.

[30:53] Is this where they go to the tomb of Giorgio?

[30:55] I think that's a little bit later.

[30:57] OK.

[30:58] If it was – because I missed that she was supposed to – I thought he just died.

[31:01] She was supposed to have killed the son or –

[31:04] In the first –

[31:05] Why is she not in jail?

[31:07] Well, I mean because she's the duchess, dude.

[31:09] She makes all the rules.

[31:11] I don't know if that's how it works.

[31:13] You're a duchess.

[31:15] Well, we'll get to that later.

[31:16] So the next morning –

[31:18] Oh, but she also says people think the castle is haunted because they hear creepy sounds in the castle.

[31:23] It's like a child crying and Jeffrey comes, looks off, and he's like a child crying.

[31:30] So the next morning, John and Rebecca are set off to do inventory despite Susan's protests

[31:38] because she is very nervous that her daughter will be injured because he has not proven himself a very good caretaker.

[31:46] So they wander around the house and this is another time where we see –

[31:50] we get some glimpses of this beautiful house that Charles Band owns

[31:54] and a nice collection of paintings that include a ton of scary kids and a painting of Saturn eating his young and stuff.

[32:03] It's all baby-related.

[32:05] It's all like Memento Mori, like skull paintings and stuff.

[32:09] It's like Charles Band on brand.

[32:11] Like the guy loves death stuff.

[32:14] So they find –

[32:16] It would be really funny if they were walking around the castle and Charles Band's family photos were still up in the hallways.

[32:21] Like they didn't have the money to take these down and redress the set.

[32:24] Just like say that there's somebody who used to live in the castle.

[32:26] I don't know.

[32:27] Yeah, like a set decorator went to take a photo down.

[32:31] He's like, you're not Union.

[32:33] You can't take that down.

[32:34] You got to leave that up.

[32:35] No, there's all these full moon posters up on the walls.

[32:38] Like, yeah, well, I guess she was a big fan of the amazing films that come out of full moon studios.

[32:43] Like Puppet Master, etc.

[32:47] So like they find a creepy nursery with a bunch of like just dolls hanging.

[32:51] They find like a rocking horse.

[32:53] They find the duchess's bedroom where we get a big clue here.

[32:57] John finds underneath the bed.

[32:59] He finds that gross cat of nine tails, and he does exactly what you would think he would do, which is hit himself in his injured hand with it.

[33:09] Like this guy is not trusted around anything that's breakable or sharp.

[33:14] I guess that's a symbol of how he's kind of.

[33:18] Yeah.

[33:19] That's one idea that he's doing penance for his crimes or also that he's constantly like hurting himself.

[33:27] You know, he's his own worst enemy by lit.

[33:31] He really takes it in.

[33:33] It isn't until much later in the movie that he realizes there's something weird about an old lady having a cat of nine tails under her bed.

[33:39] He just he takes it.

[33:40] He's like, why does she have this crazy?

[33:42] Anyway, moving on.

[33:43] And then later in the movie, she's like, wait, why would she have a whip in her room?

[33:47] Elliot, just because you're an older person doesn't mean you don't have fetishes.

[33:51] It's fine.

[33:52] That's true.

[33:53] And I don't want to shame her on that.

[33:54] If that's what she's into, it's clearly not.

[33:56] We've seen the movie.

[33:57] She's using it to torture.

[33:59] But I don't want to shame her if she is into that.

[34:01] I will shame her for torturing a man in a prison cell.

[34:04] But you're right, Dan.

[34:05] Perhaps that just was an outgrowth of her natural kink, in which case more power to her.

[34:09] As long as she's not hurting anybody, which she is.

[34:15] But if that wasn't the case, then, yeah, go ahead.

[34:17] Go ahead, Duchess.

[34:18] You be your bad self.

[34:20] Live your truth.

[34:21] I actually think all of these little touches with Jeffrey Combs are to instill the self-loathing idea so that when he goes nutsoid in the third act, it's not overacting.

[34:36] There's – all this stuff is eating at him the whole time.

[34:41] Yeah, because overacting out of Jeffrey Combs would be very strange.

[34:46] I mean if you want somebody to go nutsoid in the third act, I mean I can't think of anyone better.

[34:52] I feel like –

[34:53] I want to make it clear.

[34:54] I love him.

[34:55] I'm not like – his overacting is great overacting.

[34:59] Yeah.

[35:00] Yeah, F. Murray Abraham, Sam Neill levels.

[35:02] Okay.

[35:03] Okay.

[35:04] So while John gets engrossed in a old photo album.

[35:09] Emphasis on gross.

[35:10] Yep.

[35:11] He gets engrossed in an old photo album.

[35:13] He, of course, is not paying enough attention to his daughter who then wanders off, and she hears a shuffling sound, and we're like, what is that sound?

[35:23] Of course, cat scare.

[35:25] We see that cool cat actor from earlier in the movie.

[35:29] Cat actor.

[35:31] The cat actor leads Rebecca on a merry chase.

[35:33] Give him or her the respect that him or her deserves.

[35:36] The cat leads Rebecca on a merry chase down into the dungeons.

[35:41] Rebecca takes a little spill, goes rolling down the dungeon.

[35:45] It's not even steps at this point.

[35:47] It's just like –

[35:48] Yeah, a ramp.

[35:49] Yeah, it's like a ramp filled with nodules and sharp points, and she cuts her knees, and the cat's like meow, and she's like shut the fuck up.

[36:00] And the cat –

[36:01] Stu, that is a radical reading of the interaction.

[36:05] You're putting a lot of – you're projecting a lot of yourself onto that interaction between Rebecca and the cat.

[36:11] Yeah, you know.

[36:12] So the cat is clearly leading her down there because the cat found the old like serving dish that Giorgio had been given earlier, a place that often sausage had been laid.

[36:27] So the cat is being very Garfield here where it's like feed me.

[36:32] I hate Mondays.

[36:33] I live in the castle.

[36:34] Yeah, and then that Garfield goes to find its Odie in the form of a very food-deprived Giorgio who's passed out on the bottom of his cell.

[36:45] Rebecca is asking if anyone's there.

[36:48] She's like – we have this moment of a blind character who's just right outside of the cell of a horrible monster character.

[36:54] And then she wanders off.

[36:56] The cat tries to leave not so fast, kitty, and we see a – as a cat lover, a kind of difficult-to-watch sequence where Giorgio drags the cat back into the room and then attacks a very funny cat puppet.

[37:14] Through the conveniently placed pet door in the torture cell.

[37:18] Yeah, that's actually – who installed that?

[37:21] That's my question is that the duchess was like, you know what?

[37:25] I want Giorgio to stay in here, but I want the cat to feel free to go wherever he wants.

[37:29] I'll just make sure that there's an entrance for the cat here.

[37:32] Yeah, do you think it's to enrage Giorgio further because he has – he's like I'm confined to this little cell, but the cat can go anywhere.

[37:40] Like, mom, you love that cat more than you love me.

[37:44] That's not true, Giorgio.

[37:45] Well, I'm a prisoner and the cat can do whatever he wants.

[37:48] Well, you make a good point, Giorgio.

[37:50] Like, it's – but I will say when the cat is pulled in through the door, that is the most effective cat acting in that I don't think that cat is acting.

[37:59] I think they are pulling it against its will through the door, which is kind of upsetting.

[38:02] Yeah.

[38:03] That's probably right, but it's – I mean it's very effective.

[38:08] Unless the cat was like spent the whole day being like I got to get into this moment.

[38:12] Like what do I draw upon in my own life to really feel like I'm being pulled through this door.

[38:17] The cat watches Roar a couple of times.

[38:20] The movie where lions attack people.

[38:23] Geez, I was trying to explain that movie to someone recently.

[38:27] I'm like, you know what?

[38:28] Explaining this is a fool's errand.

[38:30] You're like, mom, you have to understand.

[38:32] The lions are attacking people for realsies.

[38:37] But Yon DeBond's head, mom.

[38:41] It wasn't my mom, but that's – but for the sake of the show.

[38:45] So, yeah, Giorgio takes the cat, devours a chunk out of it, finally has sustenance and he powers up, and then he hurls the carcass into the corner.

[38:56] You see his energy bar goes all the way to maximum.

[38:59] That's right.

[39:00] Giorgio levels up.

[39:02] He's got access to better spells now.

[39:07] So at this point, we also have – John realizes that his daughter is missing.

[39:14] He goes running around the house looking for her.

[39:16] That, of course, makes Susan freak out because he did exactly what she expected, which was not pay attention to their daughter, and they go looking for her.

[39:25] They bump into her, and they have a scene where they talk about – they talk about various levels of responsibility.

[39:34] They address her injury, etc.

[39:37] Meanwhile, we have probably the most important scene of the movie, and that's where Giorgio, now powered up, realizes he needs to get the fuck out of there.

[39:46] We can't have a castle freak trapped in a cell.

[39:49] So he can't get his hand out of the cuff of his manacles, so he takes a big bite out of his thumb.

[40:00] breaking his thumb and then he pulls his hand from the manacle ripping his thumb

[40:06] from his hand uh-huh somewhere in the process I believe he also grabs a hold

[40:11] of his own ding-dong let us explain to our guests there's a long time

[40:18] controversy before any of us had seen Castle Freak other than Stewart

[40:23] Stewart explained that the Castle Freak was about this freak to live in the

[40:27] castle who at one point ripped his own ding-dong off now I I you know was it

[40:32] Stewart's words ding-dong was Stewart's words Stewart's words I of course was

[40:37] intrigued by this and by Stewart's enthusiasm for Castle Freak. Dan as a

[40:42] huge fan of cinematic genital mutilation said I've got to see this how did I miss

[40:47] it let me at this movie so I watched it and I was like I came back to the

[40:52] podcast I said Stewart there's no ding-dong ripping scene what are you

[40:57] talking it's and it was really great because you know a normal friend would

[41:00] approach me off-air I think they do show the ding-dong though don't they they

[41:13] should they show his like severed stump of a of a penis and I believe I will I

[41:19] will suggest that in the process he may even rip it off himself but we'll find

[41:23] out maybe I should check my autographed picture of Jonathan Fuller where

[41:27] Jonathan Fuller explains he ripped it off himself or maybe you should check

[41:30] the tweet you had from Stewart Gordon where he says no the Castle Freak did not

[41:35] rip his own ding-dong somebody somebody tweeted at Stewart Gordon hey did the

[41:40] Castle Freak rip his own ding-dong off and Stewart Gordon's entire tweet was

[41:43] just no it seems pretty definitive but it's a complicated issue do I need to

[41:50] explain artists intent to you I know I know that according to Marcel Duchamp's

[41:58] the role of the spectator in art Stewart your reading of this scene is as valid

[42:03] as Stewart Gordon's if anything more valid than Stewart Gordon's and that a

[42:07] piece of art does not really exist as a piece of art until it is observed by a

[42:11] spectator and interpreted but in this case I think I'm gonna have to probably

[42:16] go with Stewart Gordon okay well so this is this is in either case this is an

[42:21] incredibly grisly scene. Isn't this verifiable? I mean the fact about it not being in a movie is verifiable. Can't a freeze-frame solve this?

[42:35] What I would ask Dan to do is after we're done recording to go frame by frame like

[42:40] what you did when you rented a DVD of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Go frame by frame to prove that I'm wrong.

[42:53] Otherwise I think I mean you know whatever. I think Stewart I don't know

[43:01] why you haven't yet done at a live show a Zapruder type presentation of the scene

[43:06] where you have a you have a pointer and you're like down and off he makes it

[43:10] down and off. Clearly you can see where his hand goes but maybe that's for another day.

[43:15] What would be the motivation for ripping off his ding-dong? We know the motivation for ripping off his thumb.

[43:22] Yep that's true that he's ripping off his thumb to free him from like physical

[43:28] captivity and I feel like he's removing his ding-dong to separate himself from I

[43:33] don't know the captivity of sexual desire. Exactly the temptations of the flesh or the

[43:39] responsibility of being a air-producing landowner. You're saying that he didn't

[43:48] want the responsibility of taking care of a child. Yes. And so this was the

[43:51] quickest way to ensure that never happened. But we know from later scenes

[43:55] that he is not freed from sexual desire. That's true. Well we'll get there in a

[44:01] second. So Stuart perhaps he and this is the last I'll interject about his

[44:06] ding-dong for the moment perhaps he like Boston Corbett the man who shot John

[44:12] Wilkes Booth perhaps like him he removed it on purpose with a pen knife so that

[44:18] he could be more holy and not be plagued by those sexual desires which that man

[44:23] did do at one point and then he had to go to a doctor and the doctor was like

[44:26] why did you do this yeah well we'll see maybe it'll play out in the rest of the

[44:33] movie so wait or is it possible that there was a little manacle around his

[44:38] penis yeah I mean I don't know that's a good way to trap somebody yeah to be

[44:47] honest I'd be much more ginger about trying to pull out of that manacle than

[44:50] the one on my on my wrist yeah so give me a second I have to okay cool so we

[45:03] Giorgio escapes Giorgio sees himself in a mirror and shatters it okay I think

[45:12] that was probably the nod to the movie poster well and to the to the the

[45:18] Lovecraft story yeah the climactic point in the Lovecraft story so we we

[45:25] we cut to a scene of the the daughter Rebecca asleep at night and Giorgio

[45:31] creeps up on her and he does some creepy shit where he keeps trying to pull her

[45:34] covers down and then he he makes he makes a sound and she wakes up and he's

[45:41] terrified he's hiding from her and then he flees in terror cuz he like doesn't

[45:46] want to interact with her and this is a great this is a great scene of Jonathan

[45:50] Fuller's acting and it builds this full castle free character I like it Rebecca

[45:57] at this point is freaking out because there's somebody in a room she tells her

[46:00] father he tries to find the intruder of course we have a scene where Giorgio

[46:05] draped in a blanket pretends to be furniture draped in a blanket that's a

[46:12] little foreshadowing for what's gonna happen to our heroes later it's the one

[46:16] moment where I'm like oh so the Duchess did she Joe Giorgio like Abbott and

[46:20] Costello and John you know John's looking for an intruder and this is

[46:26] when he finds the family tomb specifically finds the the grave of

[46:33] Giorgio who and there's a little photo next to his his tomb and it looks

[46:38] exactly like his son JJ so we have the scene of him looking at the picture he

[46:43] touches the picture he says JJ over and over Giorgio sneaks up and watches him

[46:48] do this it's like it's like Giorgio is like are you calling me Oh JJ I thought

[46:56] you're saying Giorgio I'm so sorry about that let me I mean I think Giorgio is

[47:02] the JJ of Italy Jimmy JJ Walker is that what you're Jay Jonah Jameson is

[47:09] actually Giorgio Giorgio Jameson wait that doesn't make any sense Jonah is

[47:14] clearly his middle name why wouldn't Jonah doesn't stand for Giorgio what I

[47:18] don't know why you're slowing the podcast down so John contacts the police

[47:24] and of course they don't believe him that's I mean that's an important horror

[47:29] trope and he also tells he tells his wife and she thinks he's going crazy

[47:33] yeah and I mean maybe maybe I mean she she obviously doesn't she's not gonna be

[47:40] on his in his corner in any situation at this point so he John storms off she even

[47:47] says they you know they have a fight he's trying to show her that Giorgio

[47:53] looks just like JJ and she clearly believes that this is his guilt weighing

[47:56] down on him and he he makes the comment you wish I had died and she's like yeah

[48:01] totally I wish he'd died so he storms off he climbs to the the like the

[48:07] parapets of the castle and there's another moment where the the movie

[48:10] actually follows him all the way through the castle so we get some sense of like

[48:14] sense of the space like we get there we get an understanding of the geography of

[48:18] the castle and he can also it doubles as if in case Charles man wanted to sell

[48:22] the castle he would already have like a walkthrough video he could show to

[48:24] people like we like this place but does the freak come with the no that's a good

[48:34] question the freak will come with me the housekeeper stays with the house but

[48:38] alt that's my freak and I'll take it I'm in the I'm in the process I'm in a

[48:43] similar process of a home shopping right now and that's the kind of conversation

[48:47] I have all the time does the fire table come with the house no we'll take that

[48:51] with us but the freak will stay in the basement well I could you take that

[48:55] because I don't have to pay for the removal well we'll give you credits off

[48:58] of the closing costs to pay for the freak removal it's not the same thing

[49:02] but okay so John John climbs up to the battlements and he contemplates suicide

[49:07] for a moment like he he's he's at a very low point okay so instead of doing that

[49:14] he does the next best thing which is he falls off the wagon and he goes to a

[49:20] local cafe in town and starts drinking he gets very drunk he befriends a local

[49:27] prostitute named Sylvana and he gets 86 from that bar and it is a very brightly

[49:34] lit bar that looks like it is not prepared to handle a very drunk American

[49:39] guy also great Jeffrey Combs drunk acting they get thrown out and he

[49:46] suggests hey I have some more wine I know a place where you can get some wine

[49:50] of course he takes I think he's not aware that she's a he's so drunk he's

[49:54] not aware she's the town prostitute that's that's probably true she he's I

[49:58] mean Jeffrey Combs is

[50:00] an incredibly handsome leading man type so he

[50:08] I'm not sure if that was a dig or not doesn't make sense

[50:10] although one of the things I like about this is that of if you look at that the

[50:14] If you look at the the trilogy of Jeffrey Combs Barbara Cramp and Stuart Gordon movies

[50:19] He plays a different type of character in each one. And this one is yes more straightforward non

[50:25] Mad scientist he cared. Yeah, I mean you compare this to Herbert West and it's and they're they're totally different characters

[50:31] They still have that they still have it that same kind of madness in a way

[50:35] But yeah, they're they play different roles and they're different personalities. It's really fantastic

[50:39] Mm-hmm. Whereas Herbert West is obsessed with some kind of green liquid. He

[50:44] John Riley's obsessed with some kind of alcoholic liquid. Mm-hmm amber or purple liquid depending on I guess what he's drinking

[50:51] So John and Sylvanas go back to the castle into the wine cellar drunk that I guess he doesn't notice if you he would

[50:57] To be honest him

[50:58] He would never know that she was a prostitute

[51:00] except for the way she's dressed and how she immediately puts her arm in his and also how she's the only woman in the entire

[51:05] Bar and everyone in the in the room has the familiarity that you would have with someone that you've slept with

[51:10] So, how could he know?

[51:12] So they go back to his wine cellar

[51:14] They drink a little bit of wine and then they get frisky

[51:19] Giorgio sneaks up and watches them make love

[51:24] She then reveals John's immediately embarrassed and then she reveals that she is a prostitute by asking for money he

[51:33] Accepts this and then he goes and he lays he like curls up in a corner and gets drunker and passes out

[51:38] She has to find her way home. Oh

[51:41] She's trapped in that castle

[51:43] Giorgio sneaks up. Yeah, Giorgio uses the nursery to lure into the room and then he captures her

[51:52] And this sex scene like a lot of Stuart Gordon sex scenes is

[51:56] pretty explicit

[51:57] Yeah

[51:59] That's okay. That's I got nothing to say about that

[52:02] Okay, but the freak the freak sexy. Well, that's good. We'll get to that

[52:05] But I think the sex scene like there's I don't know that I feel like the sex scene between

[52:09] Jeffrey comes and this actress is pretty

[52:13] Fairly I think the only thing that that bugs me about it really is that he starts pouring wine all over her and like that

[52:19] Just seems gross. Yeah. Yeah seems that's usually not that's not like first date material

[52:23] Yeah, and she's clearly miffed by it at first until she remembers that he's gonna pay her money afterwards

[52:30] But like she's probably all sticky after that

[52:39] I mean again, though. I don't want to yuck anyone's young but like I've never understood

[52:43] I've never understood the food. I don't want to yuck anyone's young. We've talking about a ding-dong being ripped off

[52:49] But I've never gotten the food and sex thing because I like watch it in movies. I'm just like, ah, that's a lot of cleanup

[52:56] That's all I can think about when I'm watching

[52:59] For the trouble. I don't know

[53:03] Index afterwards, I think combining two of life's greatest pleasures in one situation is the ideal way to go. Mm-hmm

[53:09] You think they'll clean up is too much too much. Okay. I mean it doesn't always have to be like soup

[53:20] Correct me if I'm wrong. It isn't he about to use his mouth on her that's how he pours the

[53:26] That's and the fact that he does use his mouth on her. Uh-huh. Yep is an important signal

[53:32] Yeah, oh, it's like has that has bad consequences

[53:37] Yeah, horrifying

[53:39] Yeah

[53:42] His

[53:43] For Giorgio that will unfortunately be replicated. Yeah, and before we leave off that subject Dan

[53:49] Sex tip. Do you don't have to use molasses? I think I know you love it, but try something else

[54:06] Of molasses

[54:08] So we cut to the next morning the police arrive at the castle and they want to ask

[54:14] Ask John some questions because Silvana never came home that night and that she is a mother that she has a child

[54:23] Giorgio at this point while the police are interrogating or just asking questions with John

[54:29] Giorgio and that of course leaves that leads to an awkward situation with John's wife because

[54:36] Susan is already angry with him. She's not more happy by him bringing a prostitute to their castle home and then her disappearing

[54:44] Giorgio has

[54:46] has

[54:48] Tied he's chained Silvana up in the basement and he he tries to form some kind of a connection with her

[54:56] He tries to replicate behaviors that John was performing

[55:01] She tries to convince him to let her go. He can't communicate because he has been mutilated and doesn't have a tongue

[55:09] she then tries to

[55:12] She then tries to I guess pleasure him and realize that he doesn't have a penis

[55:17] It was removed in earlier scene that I mentioned

[55:21] I think that annotation. I'm gonna have to take issue with I believe it's we don't know the cause of the non penis

[55:29] But I don't know. I believe we do see something fleshy and floppy. Yeah

[55:34] His ball sack all the visual effects were provided by I think like optic nerve visual effects

[55:41] Which is the effects company run by Glenn Hetrick from that face-off television show on sci-fi Channel

[55:48] The guy who looks like goth Guy Fieri

[55:52] Which is awesome

[55:54] So meanwhile, I Agnes of the housekeeper finds Silvana's purse

[56:00] She

[56:02] tells

[56:03] Her brother who is the attorney that she's found this person the attorney lets John know look

[56:10] They're going to arrest you and if you want me to help get you out of this trouble

[56:15] But if you need help getting out of this trouble, it's gonna cost you more money

[56:18] This this is such a it's such a great scene because the guy playing the attorney is so completely inhabiting this

[56:26] Totally amoral like unethical attorney was like it's not a problem. They have no evidence

[56:31] She's a she's a woman of ill repute dude off to worry about it. You're totally fine

[56:34] She gets a phone call from his sister that the bags when he goes

[56:37] Well, this is a different story and my services of course will come at quite a price

[56:42] He doesn't even skip a beat. Yeah, it's like there's no moment where he even has to think about it or switch gears

[56:47] He goes immediately like ah, yes, this is easy. Okay. Now I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna blackmail. Yeah

[56:53] He's so good. And he also he explains that the he also finally reveals John's relationship with the family that

[57:01] That the American soldier who the Duchess had fallen in love with they had gotten married

[57:07] They had had the child together and then the American

[57:10] Ran off with the Duchess's sister and they ran to America and they had a child and that child's name

[57:18] Was John Riley, that's right. Jeffrey Combs is

[57:22] what half-brother of

[57:25] Giorgio

[57:28] And of course, you know, he's shocked and he has that revelation etc, etc. Meanwhile

[57:34] Back at the castle

[57:37] Giorgio is doing some horrible things to Sylvana

[57:41] She had attempted to stab him

[57:45] And to free herself and that did not go well, and he he attacks her

[57:51] Agnes a follows the sounds and finds Sylvana only to be

[57:57] Attacked by Giorgio with his manacles and she gets yeah, it's pretty gross. Anyway, can we backtrack just for minutes?

[58:04] You know in in reanimator

[58:07] Stuart Gordon has a head

[58:11] Giving head. Yeah. Yes. Yes movie. He he he has

[58:17] Giorgio, uh-huh, literally eating pussy. Yeah, he does he

[58:22] He's copying Jeffrey Combs, but so Stuart Gordon has this thing about taking clearly

[58:29] A literal sexual slang and enacting it visually on screen

[58:38] To various levels of appeal I

[58:42] Wish I wish that he like took that as far as he could go with like literalizing phrases

[58:46] Where it like there's a certain point where dogs and cats are literally falling out of the sky

[58:52] Like Stuart Gordon he makes these great horror movies, but he's always got to include one pun in there

[58:57] No, he's got a little or literalize a turn of phrase

[59:00] But this this is the scene in the movie where it like and I I I like horror movies a lot

[59:05] But this is the scene in the movie where I'm like

[59:07] Check please like too much for me. It's incredibly graphic

[59:13] Actually eating. Yep, Sylvana. Yep. Yes

[59:16] It's it's it's it's incredibly gruesome even the more so when you realize that she isn't still alive. Well, this is happening

[59:23] Yeah, you know, it's yeah, it's horrifying and

[59:25] Giorgio when Agnes a fine Sylvana who's still alive. He kills the two of them

[59:33] Meanwhile the

[59:36] George just like I killed the maid am I the maid now?

[59:41] Dresses up in her clothes and is cleaning the house. Yes. I belong to the house the

[59:47] Rebecca and Susan and Rebecca try to leave they're tired of John's bullshit

[59:52] But the police stop them and they start searching the house

[59:57] John they John shows up with

[1:00:00] with the attorney. They're checking out the tomb. John's trying to explain his theory when

[1:00:06] they come upon the dead bodies, dead and mutilated bodies of Sylvana and Agnes and the attorney at

[1:00:16] this point. At this point we realize John is definitely going to need an attorney and then

[1:00:22] his attorney starts attacking him because his sister was just found murdered. At some point

[1:00:29] we discover that the investigating police officer is the father of Sylvana's child.

[1:00:37] Yeah I think it's it isn't for sure but it's heavily believed among the town that

[1:00:42] though she has had relations with everyone in the town he is the only one who has given her a child.

[1:00:48] And considering we see them together later at the end I think we can,

[1:00:52] unlike the ding-dong theory which has no supporting evidence within the film,

[1:00:56] this theory is amply supported with visual and thematic evidence and plot evidence.

[1:01:02] And probably multiple reddit threads explaining it.

[1:01:07] All those articles on Vox that were like the relationships of Castle Freak explains,

[1:01:11] the end credit scene explains.

[1:01:13] So John has figured this whole thing out. He knows that there's someone else in the house,

[1:01:19] he talks about the whip, he realizes that the duchess had been holding Giorgio there.

[1:01:29] He breaks open Giorgio's coffin to show that it's empty, there's just rocks in it, there's no body.

[1:01:35] John is arrested. Susan and Rebecca are expected to stay in the castle as,

[1:01:43] I don't know, some kind of a hazing ritual in order to get the sorority.

[1:01:47] It's pretty crazy that they're like, this is a crime scene. Of course you two ladies are free

[1:01:52] to stay. They're not even given the option of getting a hotel room. It's just like,

[1:01:57] oh well we would never seek to kick you out of your home that you've been in for several nights.

[1:02:02] Yeah they're given a police detail to protect them of two policemen who I hope don't have families.

[1:02:10] Giorgio uses all of his stealth techniques that he's learned

[1:02:15] to distract and then murder the police. Yeah he's a real solid snake. He's just going through

[1:02:19] the vents sneaking around. John is interrogated and he manages to trick the detectives and break

[1:02:29] free and get out of there. Now by trick you mean he hits the detective over the head with like a

[1:02:37] chair. I mean that's a classic trick. I mean it's not a battle of wits. He hits him with a

[1:02:44] stick and then he runs away. It's certainly the fate of anyone who does not give me a treat on

[1:02:48] Halloween. So Giorgio has taken out the cops. He waits for Susan to leave Rebecca alone before he

[1:03:01] uh he knocks Susan out and then he he sneaks up on Rebecca while she's changing and then

[1:03:09] drags her away. Susan chases after them. They have a showdown where Giorgio has Rebecca in

[1:03:17] his clutches and Susan shows up with a knife and hidden behind her back and she distracts him and

[1:03:24] says no take me take me instead of my daughter. He attempts to and then she stabs him with that

[1:03:31] knife. The two of them run away. They run up onto the parapets of the castle that we'd seen earlier.

[1:03:39] It is raining heavily. Giorgio shows up covered in blood and not happy but before he can stop them

[1:03:48] before he can he can do horrible things to them uh John shows up recently freed from the police

[1:03:55] custody and uh they get in a fight on the roof. They battle for a bit. John eventually gets taken

[1:04:03] down and Giorgio hits him a bunch of chains uh and then John grabs until that until that moment

[1:04:10] John is fighting amazingly well yeah a man who is I still probably hung over yeah and also has

[1:04:17] been dealing with being interrogated by policemen he's like he's really taking it out of this freak

[1:04:21] and it was at that moment that I was like why did I assume the castle freak would be super strong

[1:04:26] and an amazing fighter he's been trapped inside of a cell for it's like it's not Cape Fear where

[1:04:31] he was working out in his cell for years right I mean he's also fighting for his family Elliot

[1:04:36] imagine imagine the uh the preternatural strength that you would have if your family was threatened

[1:04:44] oh no I mean the the scariest thing about this movie to me watching it this time because the

[1:04:48] last time I saw it was before my children were born watching it this time the scariest thing in

[1:04:52] it was the idea that I would somehow be responsible for my son's death in a car accident or that he

[1:04:56] would or that he would die in a car like that I was so much more frightened by that and then when

[1:05:00] the freak showed up I was like oh thank goodness this is like movie scary stuff like it's like when

[1:05:04] I saw when I saw uh the Babadook and every when she's in the car and her son is just really

[1:05:09] bothering her and she's losing it I was like this is too real and then when the Babadook showed up

[1:05:13] is the same reaction of like oh what a relief it's a monster okay good but but all all the over

[1:05:20] the top uh Jeffrey Combs acting here at the here at the end is is justified by the fact that um

[1:05:28] he's already he's already screwed up twice yeah and it's like now the now the two last

[1:05:35] remaining members of his family are about to be killed yeah and so he he's he's got he's got

[1:05:42] absolutely no nothing to redeem himself yeah yeah this is this is last chance he can't just

[1:05:47] stop him the only way he's going to have to do it the only way he's going to save his family

[1:05:52] is by grabbing onto a chain and dragging Giorgio off the parapets both killing Giorgio and himself

[1:06:00] so the only way which is also how his family is by it's also how Stewart saves his family ends

[1:06:05] right with franken yeah to a monster and jumping off a castle yeah exactly now Giorgio is totally

[1:06:13] dead but he is John is just dying so he gets one final moment where he gets to uh you know he gets

[1:06:19] to say his parting goodbyes to uh his wife who forgives him I think in her like her final thing

[1:06:25] which of course you're gonna do like a guy's dying like you don't gotta be mean to him

[1:06:30] but it's yeah it's not like it's not like you're you're like ice cube killing the anaconda at the

[1:06:37] end of anaconda you don't have to say something Stewart's etiquette book I would love like a guy's

[1:06:42] dying you don't gotta be mean to him and then then we so the the nightmare is over we get the final

[1:06:49] shot Susan and Rebecca dressed for a funeral are in a car in the car leaving the castle and they

[1:06:55] pass the the head of the police who is holding hands with what we assume to be Sylvana's uh son

[1:07:02] uh and uh that's the end of the movie and I think uh I think a very kind of a meaningful somber

[1:07:08] final shot yeah so normally normally going sorry I just wanted something that I noticed this viewing

[1:07:16] of the movie which I didn't notice for is that Giorgio the castle freak and again I just want

[1:07:20] to say what a great performance it is and there's a there's a before he goes before the fight with

[1:07:25] with Barbara Crampton there's a long scene of him trying to win over the daughter and not quite

[1:07:29] being able to do it is that Giorgio as this character who is kind of like this kind of like

[1:07:35] bestial figure he can only talk in grunts and kind of trying to say words he's all chained up he's

[1:07:41] this kind of like thin but wiry and strong figure I realized and it's this like scraggly hair coming

[1:07:47] off of him he's basically a gritty reboot of animal the muppet when it comes down to it okay so

[1:07:53] okay I wondered I I never noticed what there's a certain point in the movie and I was like wait a

[1:07:57] minute it's like and he chases after women just like animal the muppet does I'm like this is kind

[1:08:01] of it's like if animal the muppet was a real thing he would be incredibly frightening just

[1:08:07] this like creature dragging chains and chasing after people and just grunting at them so I

[1:08:12] wonder if that was I would love to talk to Stuart Gordon and be like were you at all inspired by the

[1:08:16] Muppets when you made Castle Freak and I assume he would then block me on Twitter and close the

[1:08:20] door in my face or whatever whatever response but but but does the Castle Freak have any even

[1:08:25] slightly redeeming moment you know like you know Frankenstein does and King Kong does and you know

[1:08:33] like a moment of tenderness a moment where you kind of feel the pain of the freak because you

[1:08:39] I don't think I don't think there is I don't think you ever like yeah I mean like the freak

[1:08:45] even even the moment where even the early moments where he's trying to like form some kind of a

[1:08:50] connection with Rebecca it's done it's pretty creepy like he's like creepy yeah the only time

[1:08:56] you feel sorry for him is when he's beaten with the cat of nine tails before the opening credits

[1:09:02] yeah that's that's kind of the only part yeah uh but I mean you're like oh that poor man and

[1:09:07] then you see him and you're like whoa oh boy what is this cat of nine tails please

[1:09:14] yeah you're like I totally get it the dust should be beating him with that cat of nine

[1:09:17] tails it's sort of it's sort of one of those where oh this guy has to die yeah from the very

[1:09:22] beginning you know yeah as as as like sad and horrible monster he is he doesn't like yeah it's

[1:09:29] time you got to put him out of his misery you gotta get rid of him but do you do you see that

[1:09:33] do you think that's kind of like a failing of the movie or just I think okay I think it might

[1:09:37] be a failing of the movie it's like yeah because he he is as he is through no fault of his own

[1:09:44] yeah and so yeah I would say that I and I think one of the things that's interesting about is that

[1:09:49] like Jonathan Fuller's performance as Giorgio is so great that he could have like he could have

[1:09:56] handled a little more nuance like he could have get if they had

[1:10:00] Even in more or a sympathetic scene. He could have delivered with it

[1:10:03] Yeah, I mean we have to assume that Stuart Gordon just wanted it to be in your face nasty

[1:10:10] Irredeemable. Yeah, I don't know

[1:10:13] You know, he's something that really get people to break out their barf bags. Yeah

[1:10:19] Because it is very it is like it's so hard to get over that that scene with

[1:10:24] Silvana and it's like like you're saying like Frankenstein causes a little girl to drown, but he's still

[1:10:30] Sympathetic it's still clear like he doesn't know what he's doing and it's you know, he's just trying to he's trying to play but with

[1:10:36] Giorgio, it's so horrific that you can't be like, oh, well, he's just he doesn't know what he's doing

[1:10:40] Like it's I don't know. Yeah, and the stuff the can excuse him and it's I mean

[1:10:44] It's such a it's such a high bar at that point

[1:10:47] It raised the stakes so high where you're like, oh my god. I don't want to see him do this again to anybody

[1:10:53] No, the you'd have to donate a lot of money to the local hospital to get over to really get over that the

[1:11:00] Open the Giorgio the the Giorgio t-freak wing of the local hospital

[1:11:05] The I do also want to point out before we wrap up our conversation on Castle freak

[1:11:10] Mm-hmm. I think the score for this movie is so

[1:11:15] Hilarious, it's so like like weird classic like medieval

[1:11:20] Like like Knights and Swords type scores like

[1:11:24] Like in scenes where he's like cheat like this horrible monsters chasing people through the castle, it's still like silly

[1:11:32] It's obviously the cheapest possible thing they could do but man

[1:11:37] Now

[1:11:39] Now we have to talk about what dark rear lobe of your brain. Uh-huh makes you constantly have to revisit Castle

[1:11:50] Wow, I mean, you know, maybe I'm exploring some of my own demons

[1:11:56] Guys I forgot to tell you that uh before the podcast started 12 years ago. I inherited a castle

[1:12:05] Yeah, maybe you've never invited us over

[1:12:10] Yes, maybe maybe the relationship between John and his half-brother Giorgio, I think maybe that has something to do with my own

[1:12:18] Relationship with my own brother, maybe we'll find out

[1:12:21] I would love it. Stewart if you were like, I don't know. There's nothing I don't I don't know why I relate to it

[1:12:26] I mean, I was raised in a cell and constantly beaten with a cat of nine tails and ripped off my own ding-dong. Wait a minute

[1:12:35] Psychological break Chaz Palminteri at the end of usual suspects moment of like

[1:12:39] All those things happen in the movie

[1:12:45] Wait a minute I get it. I like Barbara Crampton

[1:12:52] Force for the trees there, but once again, there's another great Barbara Crampton performance. Oh sure

[1:12:57] She's all it is even though she's not a she's it's a very mom role. Yeah, which is not what she normally does

[1:13:03] She's very like nagging in this movie

[1:13:06] She's nagging enough that even her daughter who does a lot of nagging is like hey mom, you're nagging too much

[1:13:13] Well, it's it's they all the what that's another another failing of the movie for me

[1:13:17] Is that it's kind of like in Breaking Bad when Skylar everyone's like, uh, she's such a shrew and it's like well

[1:13:22] Her husband's being really terrible as a husband and father that like Barbara Crampton comes off as nagging

[1:13:27] But like she has a genuine beef with her husband's the alcohol who killed her son and blinded her daughter, you know

[1:13:33] Yeah

[1:13:34] look

[1:13:35] Normally here we would do final judgments

[1:13:37] but I think if we said anything other than this being the greatest movie that was ever made Stuart would rip his own ding-dong off

[1:13:47] Yeah, we wouldn't I mean because mainly because this is an audio medium and people wouldn't get to enjoy that

[1:13:54] Like the movie which features it

[1:13:57] Oh

[1:14:02] Genre film fans hear me. I know you're out there. Do not be ashamed of your love for gore action sci-fi or fantasy

[1:14:09] It's time to come out of the shadows because on switchblade sisters. We celebrate our love for genre films

[1:14:15] I'm film critic April wolf each week

[1:14:17] I have a conversation with a different female filmmaker about their fave genre film and we cover film craft getting projects off the ground

[1:14:24] Working with actors in our general love for genre movies. I've had so many great guests like Heather Graham in the past

[1:14:30] It's like so many films are made by men that the female point of view is not always

[1:14:34] Respected which is why all these stories haven't come out till now Jennifer's body director Karin Kusama

[1:14:39] I think there's a lot more fantasy and a lot more expectation projected on to a woman director

[1:14:45] Comedian and actor Kate Burland. I mean it sounds so cheesy to talk about it in yourself

[1:14:50] You just keep going you're you know, I'm just a vessel like I I just do it, you know

[1:14:54] I don't think but like that is what it is and many others

[1:14:57] So check out switchblade sisters every Thursday on maximum fun org or wherever you get your podcasts

[1:15:06] Hi everybody, I'm your oldest brother Justin McElroy

[1:15:08] I'm your middle is whether Travis McElroy and I'm your sweet baby brother Griffin McElroy me and three thousand your closest friends

[1:15:14] Just found your next podcast obsession

[1:15:19] Okay, but like the second best podcast

[1:15:25] Just listen to my brother my brother me on maximum fun org, there you go

[1:15:37] Hey guys, we hope you're enjoying this special episode that we had a guest on mr. Joe Bob Briggs to that end

[1:15:46] While we were recording we didn't want to make him sit around while we did all of our housekeeping

[1:15:52] so there are a couple important announcements that it falls upon me to

[1:15:58] Fill you in on after the fact

[1:16:00] The first is the flop house is going on tour this summer and fall

[1:16:05] We mentioned it a little bit during the max fun drive, but the max fun drive was kind of

[1:16:10] What we wanted to put the main focus on so we didn't talk about it a lot

[1:16:14] But we're gonna be at Revolution Hall in Portland on June the 8th

[1:16:19] We're gonna be at the Parkway in Minneapolis on July the 13th

[1:16:25] in Boston will be at WB you are city space on September the 28th and

[1:16:32] in Los Angeles will be at the Regent on October the 12th, and if you go to

[1:16:39] Flop house podcast calm and click on the events page. You can get links to tickets to all of those and

[1:16:47] More details like the exact time or whatever. They're all at night. So you can guess at the time, but

[1:16:54] But yeah, that's the deal. It's gonna be a lot of fun a lot of travel for us a lot of

[1:16:59] Carry on baggage a lot of me lugging

[1:17:03] Technical equipment around hoping that no one thinks that they're dangerous in any way and tries to confiscate them

[1:17:11] Just a lot a lot a lot of fun for everyone. Not a not a lot of stress for me at all

[1:17:17] moving on

[1:17:18] there's a contest a

[1:17:21] Hopefully not ill-defined contest this time around that I wanted to announce

[1:17:26] If you have noticed the Flophouse merch that you can get at the Topatico store has not been

[1:17:34] Replenished in a long long time nothing new to buy there if you're interested in Flophouse items

[1:17:41] so we wanted to change that we wanted to do a new t-shirt and

[1:17:45] We're not good at this. So we thought why not make you do it with a design a t-shirt contest

[1:17:52] So

[1:17:54] The outlines are simple

[1:17:57] do a t-shirt design and

[1:18:00] Then mail it to us at the Flophouse podcast at gmail.com. That's the Flophouse podcast at gmail.com

[1:18:09] Put

[1:18:11] Let's say t-shirt contest and the subject line. So it's all easy to filter out for me and

[1:18:19] the winner

[1:18:20] Will get to choose a movie for us to talk about and they'll also get a little scratch. Not that much

[1:18:28] Basically the typical deal is

[1:18:31] You guys will get whoever wins will get one dollar per shirt sold in the first six months or we can

[1:18:38] Pay you a flat rate around 100 to 200 dollars. Not a lot of money

[1:18:42] I apologize for that, but I'll also let you know a little secret

[1:18:46] We do not get rich off the merch the merch is a very small cut of any money we see from the podcast

[1:18:52] so we're not trying to screw anyone over here, that's just

[1:18:55] kind of what we can do for you, but we

[1:18:58] We didn't want you to get nothing if we were profiting off of your design

[1:19:02] So that's basically it to get you the prize is get to choose a movie for us to talk about and a little money

[1:19:09] Sorry, I'm coughing a lot

[1:19:11] Not now obviously, I'm obviously not coughing but if my throat seems

[1:19:16] raw and

[1:19:18] I'm clearing my throat a lot. That's why I apologize

[1:19:21] But here's the boring technical information that doesn't make any sense to me, but hopefully makes sense to you as a designer

[1:19:28] for shirts

[1:19:31] Maxfond likes to work within a 12 by 14 inch area maximum and keep the ink colors to four or fewer

[1:19:40] CMYK files preferred RGB is fine though

[1:19:46] And 300 DPI minimum

[1:19:49] so

[1:19:51] 12 by 14 area

[1:19:53] Keep the ink colors to four or fewer

[1:19:56] CMYK files preferred RGB

[1:20:00] is fine. 300 DPI minimum. Unless that was all a joke from Kira from MaxFun to make me

[1:20:09] read a bunch of gibberish. Those are the technical stats. Oh, and the contest period will be,

[1:20:18] let's say from when you hear this episode in mid-April sometime, I'm not really sure

[1:20:24] when this drops, until the end of May. So you have until the end of May to get those

[1:20:31] contest entries in. Thank you for listening, sorry I wasn't as rambly as normal, and back

[1:20:36] to the show. We've been going a little while on Castle Freak, as we should because it looms

[1:20:42] so large in Flophouse lore, but now we should move on. Now we'll move on to the rest of

[1:20:51] the show, where we will make our guest sit through the other random stuff that we did,

[1:20:55] and then apologize to him afterwards, I assume. No, I hope he has stuff to add, except for

[1:21:00] probably not this next immediate bit where we talk about Squarespace. I don't know, maybe

[1:21:10] Joe Bob has experience with Squarespace, I think I should assume. With Squarespace you

[1:21:15] can create a beautiful website to turn your cool idea into a new website, that's redundant,

[1:21:19] but blog or publish content, self-products and services... Okay, Dan, I'm going to ask you to start over.

[1:21:24] Wait, I shouldn't copy-edit the copy? Sorry. Nope. And more. Look, if you want to put a great

[1:21:31] Castle Freak fan site online, why not do it with Squarespace? Because it features beautiful,

[1:21:37] customizable templates created by world-class designers, a new way to buy domains and choose

[1:21:43] from over 200 extensions, analytics that help you grow in real-time, and 24-7 award-winning

[1:21:49] customer support. If you want customer support, why not make it award-winning? And 24-7. Make it

[1:21:56] stand out with a beautiful website from Squarespace. Hey, check out squarespace.com

[1:22:02] slash flop for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code FLOP to save 10%

[1:22:09] off your first purchase of a website or domain. That was, you were saying it was going to be our

[1:22:14] special thank-you gift to Joe Bob for doing the show. He can use the offer code FLOP to get a

[1:22:20] discount on Squarespace. Now, Dan, I was wondering if Squarespace could help me. I had an idea for a

[1:22:26] website. I wanted to run it by you and see if Squarespace would be able to help me with it.

[1:22:31] Look, how many times has this happened to you? You just inherited a castle,

[1:22:35] and you're having trouble keeping track of how many freaks are in there.

[1:22:38] Well, that's what we at inventoryfreak.com would handle with you. We are freaks for

[1:22:44] inventorying freaks. We will keep an inventory of how many freaks you have.

[1:22:48] We won't let them get like, look, even if they're not in their cell, we will double count to make

[1:22:53] sure, one, that we got all the freaks, two, that we didn't accidentally double count a freak if it

[1:22:58] escapes after we've counted it, and three, we also, for an extra service, will inventory which freaks

[1:23:06] have ding-dongs, which ones don't. We don't get into how they lost them. That's something that

[1:23:10] inventoryfreak.com just doesn't handle, but we can help you inventory the freaks in your castle

[1:23:15] because we are at inventoryfreak.com. We're freaks for inventorying freaks. Now, Dan,

[1:23:20] do you think Squarespace will be able to help me with that?

[1:23:22] I think it would. Just use offer code FLOP for a discount on your next, I don't know,

[1:23:28] freak inventorying enterprise. What about customer service? Is it 24-7?

[1:23:35] Because we would often be doing this inventorying very late at night, often in stormy weather.

[1:23:40] I mean, I don't think we have to go over all of the copy again.

[1:23:46] But I do think we've got a couple of Jumbotrons. Who's ready for a Jumbotron? Who's got it pulled

[1:23:52] up? I've got mine queued up, Dan. Ellie, why don't you go first?

[1:23:55] Sure. This Jumbotron, that's a free one in case Disney wants to throw us some business.

[1:24:06] This Jumbotron is a slightly serious one. This is for Don Draper, and it's from

[1:24:14] Bill. The message is, To Don Draper, the small, gray, fuzzy fellow, not the TV character.

[1:24:20] Don, you were a very cool, literal cat, and your glowering looks of disapproval gave me joy

[1:24:25] whenever I saw them on Facebook. I'll miss you, though we've never met. To Erin, I'm very sorry

[1:24:29] for the loss of your friend. I hold you in the highest esteem. Warm regards, Bill.

[1:24:34] A fitting farewell to a furry friend in this Castlefreak episode of the Flophouse.

[1:24:40] Oh, man. Okay. Now that I'm sad, do you love horror movies?

[1:24:48] Sad at what? My amazing alliteration?

[1:24:50] Yeah, exactly. Can I get to my copy now?

[1:24:55] Do you love horror movies, but seem to always pick the worst of the bunch?

[1:25:00] Don't worry. We've probably already watched it. Spoop Squad is a podcast where we watch

[1:25:06] the worst horror films that streaming services have to offer so that you don't have to. We claw

[1:25:12] our way through terrible horror films to stumble upon the true diamonds in the rough. So join the

[1:25:18] Spoop Squad in the dark as they laugh in death's face on your favorite podcast provider. That's

[1:25:26] Spoop with two Ps. Wait, one in the middle, one in the end, or is there two together?

[1:25:33] Just spell it. Spell it, Stuart.

[1:25:34] I mean, it's S-P-O-O-P.

[1:25:37] Okay, good. That's how I would have suspected.

[1:25:41] Spoop Squad.

[1:25:41] So it sounds like a podcast after our own heart here at the Flophouse.

[1:25:45] Yes. And speaking of horror movies and streaming, maybe we can mention The Last

[1:25:49] Drive-In again just to make sure the message gets through for people.

[1:25:53] Yeah.

[1:25:54] Let's mention it.

[1:25:55] The Last Drive-In. Every Friday night, we do something that's against the religion of

[1:26:02] streaming, which is that we have a live feed event where everybody watches at the same time.

[1:26:07] Yeah, it's really cool.

[1:26:08] So it's 9 Eastern, 6 Pacific every Friday night.

[1:26:12] And you guys did Castle Freak last week with special guest Barbara Crampton.

[1:26:16] With Barbara Crampton.

[1:26:17] Oh, man, that's so cool.

[1:26:19] And yeah, she talked about the castle.

[1:26:22] She talked about living in the castle.

[1:26:25] And of course, she loves Jeffrey.

[1:26:29] Sure, yeah, yeah.

[1:26:30] And yeah, there was no Jonathan Fuller interview, but...

[1:26:35] Were they living in the castle while they were shooting the movie?

[1:26:37] Yes, they were.

[1:26:38] Because is Charlie Band going to pay for a hotel?

[1:26:43] No, he's not.

[1:26:44] When he had the castle.

[1:26:45] Good point.

[1:26:46] They lived in the castle.

[1:26:47] They ate in the castle.

[1:26:48] Yep.

[1:26:49] And Full Moon Productions paid him, the owner of Full Moon Productions, to use his castle.

[1:26:54] I'm sure, right?

[1:26:55] That's how you do it.

[1:26:56] Yeah.

[1:26:58] Getting it on both ends there.

[1:27:00] But we should move on to letters.

[1:27:02] Yep, go on.

[1:27:03] Our next segment in the podcast, where we talk to our listeners.

[1:27:08] We get letters from listeners.

[1:27:09] It's kind of one way, but...

[1:27:10] Sure, yeah.

[1:27:10] Yeah.

[1:27:11] So this...

[1:27:12] Dan, you seem very trepidatious about starting this segment.

[1:27:16] I don't know why.

[1:27:17] No, it's fine.

[1:27:18] I would not waste our guest's time with an overlong song that I'm making up off the top of my head.

[1:27:23] Okay, good.

[1:27:24] So this first letter...

[1:27:25] That might go something like this.

[1:27:26] We're so excited to have Joe Bob on the program today.

[1:27:31] Yes, yes, something we've been waiting for all our lives.

[1:27:35] I'm so sorry.

[1:27:36] Yes, yes, it is.

[1:27:38] Letters are just the icing on the cake of this great day.

[1:27:45] All right, great.

[1:27:46] I didn't even try for rhymes on that one.

[1:27:47] I didn't even try to rhyme anything.

[1:27:48] But that's great.

[1:27:49] That kept it tight.

[1:27:52] So let's start off with this letter from John, first name withheld.

[1:27:56] John Reilly from Castle Freak.

[1:27:58] Who writes...

[1:28:01] There are a few animated movies that are, I think, successful psychological thrillers.

[1:28:06] Perfect Blue, Paprika.

[1:28:09] There are also animated movies that bring the real creeps, Secret of NIMH, Watership Down.

[1:28:15] The former tend to work because they're realistically rendered characters and

[1:28:18] lean into the surrealism that animation allows.

[1:28:21] And the latter anthropomorphize cute animals, making them more relatable.

[1:28:26] And there are, of course, the movies that just make you feel nice and gross and

[1:28:29] unsettled by the nature of their production quality.

[1:28:32] Anything Bakshi, Wizard, American Pop, Mighty Mouse.

[1:28:37] What horror franchise monster could you see working in animation?

[1:28:41] Also, what cartoony animated character or character style would work as horror?

[1:28:46] Is it even possible, or does the nature of cartoon representation

[1:28:50] strip away too much of what horror needs?

[1:28:53] Thanks, and remember, noids do not have sex with doodles.

[1:28:57] Okay, that's good to know.

[1:28:58] Thanks for telling me that last part.

[1:29:01] I mean, it wasn't me.

[1:29:02] Wait, so noids have sex with anybody?

[1:29:06] I was told you should avoid the noid, so.

[1:29:11] Certainly if you're a pizza.

[1:29:13] Yeah, science knows little about noids since we've been avoiding them successfully for so long.

[1:29:18] So animation.

[1:29:19] I mean, I think the first one that comes to me is the idea that, like,

[1:29:23] I feel like the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise would lend itself well to animated stuff.

[1:29:29] Because, like, it's pretty, like, fantastic.

[1:29:33] And also, like, the Targeter kids.

[1:29:36] Right.

[1:29:37] I feel like maybe it might fall into the same category.

[1:29:42] I don't know.

[1:29:42] I mean, on an episode.

[1:29:44] Hellraiser.

[1:29:45] Hellraiser would be terrifying with animation.

[1:29:47] Sure.

[1:29:48] On an episode.

[1:29:48] Oh, wow.

[1:29:49] Hellraiser really would be terrifying with animation.

[1:29:51] Yeah.

[1:29:52] You could take any horror movie, give it to a Japanese guy.

[1:29:54] It's going to be terrifying in animation.

[1:29:56] That's true.

[1:29:56] Yeah, I mean, like, that's the thing.

[1:29:58] Like, have they made an anime?

[1:30:00] version of Uzumaki by Junji Ito, because that's the scariest drawings I've ever seen.

[1:30:07] Yeah.

[1:30:08] It's not necessarily straight horror, I guess, but like, it reminds me of the aliens cartoon

[1:30:15] show that they made but never broadcast in the 90s, that was like a pretty straightforward

[1:30:20] adaptation of Aliens, but for kids, with Space Marines shooting Xenomorphs.

[1:30:25] You know, but for kids.

[1:30:26] Yeah.

[1:30:27] But for kids.

[1:30:28] I never saw this on a, wow.

[1:30:31] If you look online, you can find, I think, the animation demo reel for it, but like,

[1:30:35] they released these aliens toys to go with this TV show, and then somebody realized this

[1:30:39] is a crazy show to put out for kids, where it's like aliens bursting out of people's

[1:30:44] chests and things.

[1:30:45] Was it based on the success of the Animaniacs, which had the Goodfellas parody, good feathers

[1:30:50] with birds?

[1:30:51] You know, for kids?

[1:30:53] Yeah, I have to assume so, yeah.

[1:30:55] I think on an episode that's so H.P. Lovecraft centered, I think that a cosmic horror sort

[1:31:05] of thing could work better in animation, maybe, than live action, because so much of it is

[1:31:11] based on just sort of as fantastic and unreal as you can get, but also, to move to the second

[1:31:18] question, though, about whether something cartoony can be scary, I feel like there have

[1:31:22] been like a couple of video games, right, that are influenced by old, kind of Fleischer

[1:31:27] brother looks, like Cuphead, and what's the, there's the one that's like more of a first

[1:31:32] person thing.

[1:31:33] I don't know that one, but yeah, Cuphead's pretty terrifying.

[1:31:37] Bubble Bobble?

[1:31:38] It's just like the-

[1:31:39] You talking about Kirby?

[1:31:40] No, but they like trade on-

[1:31:42] Excitebike?

[1:31:43] No.

[1:31:44] Skate or Die?

[1:31:45] I'm talking about River City Ransom, but it trades on-

[1:31:49] Was it, wait, Toe Jam and Earl, is that the one you're talking about?

[1:31:53] Sam and Max Hit the Road is what I meant, but it's-

[1:31:55] Oh, yeah, Battletoads, sure, Battletoads, that's what you mean.

[1:31:58] It's got that, like those Fleischer brothers things are so unpredictable and strange, like-

[1:32:06] Now, Dan, when you say Fleischer brothers, you mean Fleischer brothers, right?

[1:32:10] Yeah, I do mean that.

[1:32:14] You don't mean that, these are cartoon brothers I haven't heard of who are made out of human

[1:32:19] flesh, which is not that scary because everyone is.

[1:32:20] You got a point there, Alan.

[1:32:22] You mean the Fleischer brothers who did like Betty Boop and Popeye and Coco the Clown?

[1:32:27] Yes.

[1:32:28] Okay.

[1:32:29] Yes.

[1:32:30] They were, you know, they were cartoon pioneers and just sort of figuring out what could be

[1:32:36] done in cartoons, and because they were figuring out what could be done in cartoons and realized

[1:32:40] that anything could be done in cartoons, they did deeply weird things.

[1:32:45] And I think that that stuff has like an inherent creepiness just because they're manipulating

[1:32:51] the world in such a strange way, but it also has the creepiness of just old stuff.

[1:32:57] Like I feel like old stuff kind of inherently at this point kind of-

[1:33:01] Well, it's like, have you ever looked up pictures of old Halloween costumes from like the 1890s

[1:33:05] and 19-teens?

[1:33:06] What?

[1:33:07] They're terrifying.

[1:33:08] Yeah.

[1:33:09] They're so scary.

[1:33:11] Archie is now attacking our special guest with love.

[1:33:15] I mean, wait, I can only assume that those Halloween costumes were like a plastic bag

[1:33:22] with the word He-Man written on the chest and then a mask of He-Man's face.

[1:33:28] Yes, exactly.

[1:33:29] That's the kind of Halloween costume they had at the turn of the century.

[1:33:32] Yep.

[1:33:33] Sure.

[1:33:34] But yeah, I mean, I think you actually had a good point because I feel like we've talked

[1:33:39] about special effects and particularly like very noticeable special effects when it comes

[1:33:45] to like digital effects, that like true cosmic horror and something that would be very different

[1:33:54] than like it would be hard to produce in a way that looks like physical and real might

[1:33:59] be better in an animated setting.

[1:34:02] Yeah.

[1:34:03] I don't know.

[1:34:04] Well, it's like how the – as you guys know, I'm a big fan of In the Mouth of Madness,

[1:34:09] but at the end, there's that scene where Sam Neill is running from those monsters and

[1:34:13] they are scarier for being out of focus because when you look at – when you do as I do and

[1:34:17] you watch the behind-the-scenes footage of how they made the monsters, they stop being

[1:34:20] scary because they're just kind of like big drippy puppets basically.

[1:34:24] And so I wonder if you're right that it has to – if something that was very alien

[1:34:29] and more strange than outwardly scary might work better that way in animation.

[1:34:33] I don't know.

[1:34:34] Cool.

[1:34:36] The other thing is if you guys remember the – in the Twilight Zone, the movie in the

[1:34:41] Joe Dante section, when she gets trapped in the cartoon and there's just like blood

[1:34:47] dripping everywhere, it's like, oh, that's a pretty scary old Looney Tunes style moment.

[1:34:53] Yeah.

[1:34:54] Moving on, this next letter is from your dad, Tom, last name withheld.

[1:35:03] It says, I became a dad about seven months ago.

[1:35:06] Wait, is it my dad?

[1:35:07] Because my dad's not named Tom.

[1:35:09] Is it Tom Noonan?

[1:35:10] Yeah.

[1:35:11] Sort of all –

[1:35:12] Oh, my dad is Tom Noonan.

[1:35:13] Oh, okay.

[1:35:14] Never mind.

[1:35:15] Yeah.

[1:35:16] In a way, all of our dads.

[1:35:17] I became a dad about seven months ago and I spent a lot of that time thinking about

[1:35:22] how woefully unprepared I am for this new phase of my life.

[1:35:26] I find myself looking back through my memories for key moments that stand out.

[1:35:30] I'm trying to find a shining star of a dad to guide me.

[1:35:33] But the image of fatherhood that keeps jumping out to me is Michael Keaton teaching his unborn

[1:35:37] son to shave in the commercials for My Life, a movie I've never seen.

[1:35:45] I remember so well watching the commercials for that and being like, there's no way

[1:35:48] this is an entertaining movie.

[1:35:50] So, Tom asks, Elliot, what's the best piece of parenting advice you got from a movie?

[1:35:58] How much lamer is Elliot since becoming a dad and would you drop him as a friend if

[1:36:02] not for the crucial part he plays in your Squarespace ads?

[1:36:07] I feel like Elliot is exactly as lame as he was before.

[1:36:10] Oh, yeah.

[1:36:11] No, that was exactly what I was going to say, too.

[1:36:12] He was always lame.

[1:36:14] Don't say that because Jonah Ray thinks that I'm lame just because I'm a dad.

[1:36:19] I don't want him to know that I was always lame.

[1:36:20] No, no.

[1:36:21] I just blame it on my children.

[1:36:22] I feel like the great thing about you, Elliot, is you just sort of grew into it.

[1:36:26] You were always kind of like a very straight-laced elderly man and then you became a dad and

[1:36:34] all the pieces fell into place.

[1:36:37] This is the role I was rehearsing for my entire life.

[1:36:41] All those years that I spent boring my friends by stopping and reading all the historical

[1:36:45] plaques on statues was just so that I could bore my children with that.

[1:36:51] I've got two answers to this question.

[1:36:53] Number one, Tom, all the movies that are really sappy and not very good about businessmen

[1:36:58] who have to spend less time at work and more time with their families, that's essentially

[1:37:02] true.

[1:37:03] Even though those movies are not good, that's something where it's like, oh, I should spend

[1:37:06] less time at work and more time – like now, less time recording this podcast when I literally

[1:37:10] could be upstairs eating dinner with my son, but instead I'm here.

[1:37:14] Thanks, Dan.

[1:37:15] I mean, it's putting food in your son's mouth by getting you paid, but whatever.

[1:37:21] I could literally be putting food in my son's mouth like a mother bird, chewing it up and

[1:37:26] regurgitating it.

[1:37:27] If I was going to pick a specific scene, I would have to go to the classic parenting

[1:37:36] movie Son of Godzilla where Godzilla is teaching Minya how to breathe fire and all Minya can

[1:37:42] do is blow smoke rings until Godzilla steps on Minya's tail and Minya breathes fire

[1:37:49] for the first time.

[1:37:50] I don't recommend the physical abuse aspect of that.

[1:37:53] That's problematic and it's not something I stand by, but the lesson I take from this

[1:37:57] is that Godzilla is kind of letting his son try and fail to accomplish something and then

[1:38:02] he finds the right way to motivate his son to succeed on his own and in this case, it's

[1:38:07] stepping on his tail.

[1:38:08] Again, I don't recommend you step on your own child's tail should they have one.

[1:38:12] What if they're like a lizard and it just comes off?

[1:38:18] That might help them fit in more at school if they didn't have that tail anymore.

[1:38:21] I mean, they grow back.

[1:38:22] It doesn't just fall off.

[1:38:23] I guess that's true.

[1:38:24] That's all good points.

[1:38:29] My own son, he's just started learning how to read on his own and for a while, I was

[1:38:32] trying to force him to read books.

[1:38:33] I'm like, you know how to do this.

[1:38:35] Read this word for me and he didn't want to and instead, I just had to give him the motivation

[1:38:39] of not reading him the one book that he wanted to read that I was really tired of reading

[1:38:43] him.

[1:38:44] He found that motivation and he did it.

[1:38:55] Also, that scene ends with Godzilla rubbing Minya on the head in a way that's super adorable.

[1:39:02] I don't know what it is.

[1:39:03] When you're a dad, you just want to rub your kids on the head.

[1:39:05] I don't get what that's about, but it's a feeling I never had before, but I have it

[1:39:09] now.

[1:39:10] Yeah.

[1:39:11] So, Son of Godzilla.

[1:39:12] It's like the Dr. Spock of movies.

[1:39:13] All right.

[1:39:14] We've got one last quick email that's no question, but it's interesting.

[1:39:19] This is from Joe, last name withheld.

[1:39:20] I'm Joe Lansdale.

[1:39:21] Who says, oh, hoi hoi, Flopperinos, Joe here with a little bit of extra info on The Meg.

[1:39:29] After listening to episode 275, The Meg, I felt the need to share something the movie

[1:39:34] didn't have time to get to.

[1:39:35] In short, if it weren't for Osama Bin Laden, the fictional world would never have gotten

[1:39:41] attacked by The Meg in the first place.

[1:39:44] Further details.

[1:39:45] For some reason, I've taken the time to read not only the first novel in The Meg series,

[1:39:49] but I just finished the second book, The Trench, and hoo boy, shit got weird.

[1:39:54] While the first book and the first movie are wildly different from each other, the second

[1:39:58] book goes down an even stranger path.

[1:40:00] The accident Jonas Statham was involved in when he couldn't save the lives of the men at the beginning of the Meg was part of a resources race to find special materials at the bottom of the Mariana Trench that was funded by a group led by public enemy number one, Osama Bin Laden.

[1:40:18] It's a major point of book two that goes kind of ignored as they're too busy trying to contain the once-captured Meg that has escaped and is now on the loose.

[1:40:27] I could go on.

[1:40:28] Wait, captured? I thought they killed the Meg.

[1:40:30] I don't know.

[1:40:31] It's a difference in book to movie, dude.

[1:40:33] When does that happen? Never.

[1:40:35] I could go on, but I will spare you – oh, and Stu – oh, sorry. I'll spare you more details until I finish the book, the third, Meg Hell's Aquarium.

[1:40:45] Oh, and Stu, spoiler alert. The Meg totally fights a crocosaurus thingy from Jurassic Park World of the Fallen Kingdom.

[1:40:54] Whatever.

[1:40:56] Dan, you're the one reading the letter.

[1:40:58] Well, I feel like it falls apart at a certain point.

[1:41:01] That sounds exciting, and I'm glad that crocosaurus battle makes you think of me.

[1:41:07] Thank you very much, Joe, last name without.

[1:41:10] All right. So I guess those are letters.

[1:41:14] Those were letters. The next part of this podcast, we recommend a movie other than Castle Freak that you think people would like to watch.

[1:41:21] This is going to be so hard for you, Stuart, because Castle Freak is the movie that you recommend.

[1:41:25] That's true.

[1:41:26] And now it's off limits to you.

[1:41:27] You know, I'm going to start this.

[1:41:29] Okay.

[1:41:30] I'm going to – in the idea of recommending a horror movie that deals with tragedy and loss and trauma that also happens to feature Barbara Crampton, I'm going to recommend – wait, wait – 1986's Chopping Mall.

[1:41:50] A movie that deals with the loss of freedom that we'll have when our shopping malls are staffed with robot policemen.

[1:42:02] This is a great, I don't know, older, kind of like a trashy horror movie.

[1:42:10] It's got a great little performance by Dick Miller from Gremlins who recently passed away.

[1:42:16] And it has probably my favorite – well, in my top five favorite horror movie scores of all time.

[1:42:23] It's got a –

[1:42:24] And one of the most misleading titles.

[1:42:26] Yeah, yeah. You would expect there to be more –

[1:42:28] There's no chopping, right?

[1:42:29] No, it's mainly just robot attacks.

[1:42:31] And the mall has like a greasy spoon diner that has like a chef who for some reason is wearing all white clothes, which is perfect to show off all these food stains all over it.

[1:42:44] Let's just say it's a great movie about a bunch of horny teenagers who get in a battle with a bunch of robots.

[1:42:52] I feel like that Chopping Mall also represents a real path not taken for director Jim Wynarski.

[1:42:58] At a certain point, he swerved off the road of low-budget horror and science fiction and swerved it to mainly a boobs-based filmography.

[1:43:06] So I kind of wish he had followed the Chopping Mall muse a little bit farther.

[1:43:10] I don't know what you're talking about.

[1:43:11] I do know about a career of one Harold Blueberry, but –

[1:43:16] Wait, is that his –

[1:43:18] Yeah, that's one of his –

[1:43:20] I think Jim Wynarski was always boobs-based.

[1:43:24] So you're saying he was denying himself with Chopping Mall.

[1:43:28] I mean Chopping Mall is pretty boobs-based to be honest.

[1:43:31] I mean I recommended it, so it probably is.

[1:43:35] I'll recommend a movie that – I haven't seen a lot recently, but I'll recommend a movie that I'm presenting at the Alamo on April the 23rd.

[1:43:44] That's a little plug.

[1:43:45] Yeah, sure. Why not?

[1:43:46] It's a Terror Tuesday.

[1:43:47] It's a movie called Terror Vision.

[1:43:50] I won't say too much because I don't want to cannibalize what I might say later on, but it's about –

[1:43:56] So this is less for the audience's benefit and more so you don't have to do more work.

[1:44:01] Yeah, sure.

[1:44:02] No, no, but I get it, Dan, because this will be listened to by thousands of people, whereas the screening will, I guess, be tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people.

[1:44:11] I just assume that –

[1:44:12] Save it for them.

[1:44:13] I assume that anyone who's coming probably knows who I am from this stupid podcast, so I don't want to repeat myself too much.

[1:44:20] It's about a big old –

[1:44:22] I think you misunderstood the point I was making, but –

[1:44:24] No, I get it. I get the point. I thought about it.

[1:44:26] When was this movie from, Dan?

[1:44:28] From the 80s.

[1:44:30] It's about a big old alien monster who comes down to – because of a cable TV dish and terrorizes folks.

[1:44:38] It's got a lot of 80s actors like Mary Warnov and John Greese and Diane Franklin.

[1:44:44] And someone online described it as if someone heard of the idea of an 80s horror cult comedy and tried to make that movie, they might make this movie.

[1:44:57] It's a lot sillier than it is scary, but if you like, I don't know, horror comedies at all or goofy horror or big makeup effects, this will be right up your alley.

[1:45:09] Yeah, but I love Dan's.

[1:45:10] It's less than 90 minutes.

[1:45:11] It's less than 90 minutes.

[1:45:12] Those are not your favorite things.

[1:45:13] No, they are my favorite things in the world. That's why I recommended this to be shown.

[1:45:17] Have you guys ever done Howling 7?

[1:45:21] No.

[1:45:22] Howling 7?

[1:45:23] No.

[1:45:24] The movie that killed the Howling franchise?

[1:45:26] Is that the one at the Freak Show or is that a different one?

[1:45:28] No.

[1:45:29] This is the one that's filmed in Pioneertown, California, which is an old abandoned B-movie western town that had been occupied by bikers.

[1:45:41] One of those bikers got the rights to the Howling franchise and used footage from Howling 4, 5, and 6 and some community theater actors from Palm Springs and the country western bar called Pappy and Harriet's, which is a fixture in Pioneertown, California.

[1:46:07] It is a werewolf musical with line dancing and various country western songs that you probably never want to hear again after you hear them one time.

[1:46:23] Are they sung with a werewolf voice?

[1:46:26] It alternates between werewolf killings at the Pioneertown Hotel, in which you never see the werewolf, but after the werewolf is gone, the community theater actors from nearby Palm Springs come on and talk about how horrible it was.

[1:46:52] So it's like a radio werewolf show.

[1:46:55] It's one of those train wrecks that once you see it, you'll want to watch it again immediately because it's just a train wreck.

[1:47:06] Using all the local alcoholics from the various bars in Pioneertown.

[1:47:12] New Line was so embarrassed when they first, they didn't really release it in theaters and they barely released it on video.

[1:47:22] It instantly developed such a bad reputation that they changed the title to The Howling New Moon Rising so that no one would know it was The Howling 7.

[1:47:35] I would recommend, if you guys haven't seen it, it would make an excellent episode.

[1:47:41] I think that maybe we need to put this on the docket for maybe Small Timber or something because it doesn't seem big enough for...

[1:47:47] Wow, a whopping 1.8 star rating on IMDb out of 10.

[1:47:54] I wonder how easy it is to get the rights to a film franchise.

[1:47:58] A while back we did this sequel to Easy Rider that someone did because they got the rights somehow to the Easy Rider franchise.

[1:48:05] It makes me wonder if I should be trying harder to get the rights to film franchises.

[1:48:09] It doesn't seem that hard.

[1:48:10] I think The Howling people, who I think were in Australia, I sort of remember that.

[1:48:16] I think The Howling people just had a rate card.

[1:48:19] If you want it, take it.

[1:48:22] Let's get the Munchies franchise, guys.

[1:48:26] Yeah, sure.

[1:48:28] Okay, we've got to get Munchies, Critters, Ghoulies.

[1:48:31] Finally have them all in the same movie.

[1:48:33] It'll be the Avengers of little things.

[1:48:36] The puppet master will show up.

[1:48:38] Yeah, and Dollman goes after him.

[1:48:40] Yeah, that's perfect.

[1:48:42] They have to stop Dollman from destroying the universe.

[1:48:45] Yeah, Dollman is the bad guy in this one.

[1:48:48] So, Joe Bob, do you want that to be your recommendation or do you have a solid recommendation?

[1:48:52] Howling 7.

[1:48:53] You can't go wrong with Howling 7.

[1:48:56] Similarly, I'll recommend a movie that I watched recently after having seen it as a baby and not having seen it as an adult.

[1:49:06] My parents would tell me this was the first movie that they took me to in the theaters when I was a baby, and I finally got to see it.

[1:49:13] Similarly, it's a movie about the scariest thing of all, aging beyond your time and having nothing but your memories.

[1:49:20] That's right.

[1:49:21] It's Atlantic City, directed by Louis Mall starring Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon.

[1:49:26] Sounds horrifying.

[1:49:29] Susan Sarandon is in the chilling tale of a woman training to be a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City, whereas Burt Lancaster is an aging, former, very low-level mobster.

[1:49:41] The two of them find each other in each other's lives and basically get involved in a low-level crime, and there are consequences to pay for it.

[1:49:51] It doesn't work out exactly the way that I expected and in a way that I really liked a lot.

[1:49:56] It's written by the playwright John Guare, who—

[1:50:00] Most people know from Six Degrees of Separation.

[1:50:01] I know from a speech he gave to my class at NYU that I found he had very bad advice in

[1:50:06] it and I found it a little insulting, but I really liked it a lot.

[1:50:11] Atlantic City.

[1:50:12] Cool.

[1:50:13] Right.

[1:50:14] Four solid recommendations, all terrifying.

[1:50:19] Terrifying tales of the macabre and also legalized gambling.

[1:50:24] So that's great.

[1:50:27] I feel like we've kept our special guest longer than we anticipated.

[1:50:30] Way longer.

[1:50:31] So apologies to him, but thanks very much for being here.

[1:50:37] We enjoyed it so much.

[1:50:38] Do you have any final words?

[1:50:42] I would just say, in reference to Atlantic City, I just came back from Atlantic City

[1:50:47] and you didn't note that that movie, which was made in 1978, was the ghetto Atlantic

[1:50:53] City.

[1:50:54] The Atlantic City where everything had fallen into disrepair.

[1:50:56] Oh, okay.

[1:50:57] It was back when it was.

[1:50:58] Well, you should do the remake right now.

[1:51:02] What's it like?

[1:51:03] I haven't been there in a few years, but it's bad.

[1:51:05] Oh, half the casinos have closed.

[1:51:08] I went to a horror con that was in the old Showboat Casino because there's nothing in

[1:51:13] the old Showboat Casino.

[1:51:17] You know, Burt Lancaster, he has a great line in the movie where he says something like

[1:51:24] he's looking at the Atlantic Ocean and he says, yeah, the Atlantic, yeah, it used to

[1:51:30] be great in the old days, the Atlantic Ocean.

[1:51:37] I watch it and so much the movie is then being like, ah, you should have been here for the

[1:51:41] old Atlantic City.

[1:51:42] It used to be better.

[1:51:43] And then I saw there's an Anthony Bourdain episode where he's in Atlantic City, shot,

[1:51:47] you know, 30 some odd years after this movie.

[1:51:49] And they're all saying the same thing.

[1:51:50] They're like, oh, you should have been here for the old Atlantic City.

[1:51:53] Like nobody.

[1:51:54] Atlantic City, it's hard for me to believe there ever was a time it was not run down

[1:51:57] that anyone ever looked at Atlantic City and said, I should base a board game crazy to

[1:52:03] me.

[1:52:04] Oh, okay.

[1:52:05] Guys, it's been really fun.

[1:52:08] Before we go, we should say, as we always do, check out maximumfund.org, our network,

[1:52:13] our podcasting network, not ours, but the one we're part of, for other great shows.

[1:52:18] Tweet about us, write reviews on iTunes, preferably good ones.

[1:52:21] If you have bad things to say, why not just not take the effort?

[1:52:24] Yeah.

[1:52:25] Check out The Last Drive-In on Shudder on Friday nights as a card-carrying Shudder subscriber.

[1:52:33] We also still have our marathons up that we did last summer.

[1:52:36] Oh, that's awesome.

[1:52:37] Thanksgiving and Christmas.

[1:52:38] Right.

[1:52:39] Yeah, it's of the many streaming services I have, that's probably my favorite.

[1:52:46] And also the one my wife uses the least.

[1:52:48] Yeah, it's been a real pleasure.

[1:52:53] So we should sign off.

[1:52:55] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:52:57] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:52:59] I'm Elliot Kalen, glad to have finally lived one of my dreams of talking about a dumb movie

[1:53:05] with Joe Bob Briggs.

[1:53:06] Very excited.

[1:53:07] Thanks, guys.

[1:53:09] All right, everyone.

[1:53:10] Bye.

[1:53:11] I think my favorite was when Stuart realized that Nicholas Cage, who is also a running

[1:53:21] reference in the show, was the original castle freak and that he is a freak for buying castles.

[1:53:25] That was me.

[1:53:26] Stop giving away my best material.

[1:53:29] I mean, I didn't say it, but when Dan said it and then I realized it when his words hit

[1:53:35] my ears.

[1:53:36] That's what you mean, right, Elliot?

[1:53:37] Yeah, yeah.

[1:53:38] That's what I meant.

[1:53:39] That's what I meant.

[1:53:41] Let's Dan.

[1:53:42] I'm Dan.

[1:53:43] I'm sorry.

[1:53:44] I was I guess I was just got because of all the jokes you do on Twitter.

[1:53:45] I didn't think you were capable of writing Maximumfund.org comedy and culture artists

[1:53:53] don't audience supporting.

Ep. #282 - Castle Freak

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