The Flop House: Episode #163 - Dracula 3D

Dan McCoy

[0:00] Shocktober continues with Dario Argento's Dracula.

[0:30] Hey everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[0:41] Hey Dan McCoy, I'm Stuart Wellingtown.

Elliott Kalan

[0:44] Hey, Stuart Wellingtown and Daniel McCoy. My name is Elliot Kalin.

Stuart Wellington

[0:51] Threw a little joke in there, because it's Shocktober.

[0:55] Doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense.

[0:57] I'm far away.

Dan McCoy

[0:59] Number one, you're throwing in a joke because it's Shocktober.

[1:01] Normally we are dead serious.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03] Yeah, this is a very sober-minded podcast.

Dan McCoy

[1:05] But number two, town. Town is the spookiest thing.

[1:10] Maybe it's a haunted ghost town.

[1:12] It's where crimes happen.

[1:13] This town, coming like a ghost town.

[1:17] Specials, everybody. Classic. Classic song.

[1:21] You lost me a long time ago.

[1:23] Did I ever have you, Elliot?

[1:25] No.

[1:25] Did I ever really have you?

Elliott Kalan

[1:26] Well, there's only one way to find out. Let me go,

[1:28] and we'll see if I come back.

[1:30] Spoiler alert, I'm not.

[1:31] See you guys later.

Dan McCoy

[1:32] Wait, what if I...

[1:33] Foley effects, foley effects.

[1:35] Distance, distance.

[1:36] What if I stand outside your room with a boombox?

[1:39] With a boombox?

[1:40] With a boombox.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40] What is that?

[1:41] A boombox.

[1:42] A box full of bums.

[1:43] What if I stand outside your room with a DVD copy of Lumumba?

Stuart Wellington

[1:48] That's weird.

[1:48] Usually if I thought Dan would be holding something called a bumbox, I thought it would be butt-related.

[1:53] Nope.

[1:53] But nope.

Elliott Kalan

[1:54] This time it was bums.

[1:54] But the bums have butts.

[1:56] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:56] They're sexy bums.

[1:58] Oh, nice.

Elliott Kalan

[1:59] They were thrown out to the curb.

[2:01] It's a costume you don't see too often at Halloween.

[2:03] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:03] A lady who's like, you know, like stippled on a little, some five o'clock shadow and has a cigar stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[2:10] She's wearing a bikini made out of handkerchiefs, a top hat with the top popped off, and a bindle.

Dan McCoy

[2:15] She's wearing a barrel and nothing else.

[2:19] Sexy bum.

[2:21] Sounds like a sexy barrel costume to me.

[2:24] Sexy barrel.

[2:25] She's eating.

Elliott Kalan

[2:26] I'm going as a sexy barrel.

[2:28] Real, this sexy costume thing is going too far.

Dan McCoy

[2:30] She's dripping those baked beans all the way down.

Stuart Wellington

[2:34] Wait a minute.

[2:36] Wait, baked beans come in a barrel?

[2:38] Is that an innuendo?

[2:39] Is that how they...

Elliott Kalan

[2:40] Because that is maybe the least arousing sex talk.

Dan McCoy

[2:45] Those baked beans go all the way up to her vagina.

Elliott Kalan

[2:50] Okay, let's stop right there.

[2:52] Rewind.

[2:53] Erase this from human history.

[2:55] Dan, what is this thing that people are forcing their ears to be tortured by?

[2:59] Certainly not a food podcast.

[3:01] Okay, well this is a podcast.

[3:02] This is some kind of sexy baked bean podcast.

Dan McCoy

[3:04] As we said, it's called The Flophouse.

[3:06] We watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[3:08] And right now we're knee deep in Shocktober where we watch horror movies.

[3:14] Movies about horrifying things.

[3:17] Horrible things, yep.

[3:18] Yep, terrifying.

[3:18] Horrible bosses.

Elliott Kalan

[3:20] Nope, we didn't watch that.

[3:22] It's Bosstober.

[3:23] The month we watch movies about bosses.

[3:26] Bruce Springsteen.

[3:27] Boss Hog.

[3:28] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[3:29] Things that are embossed.

[3:30] Mighty, mighty boss tones.

[3:31] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[3:32] All of them.

[3:33] Big Boss Man, my favorite wrestler.

[3:36] Wasn't he a police officer?

[3:38] I don't really remember.

[3:39] You're thinking of a...

Dan McCoy

[3:41] Police or Wrestle Guy.

[3:44] Sure.

[3:45] The Funder Taker.

[3:47] Nope.

[3:47] Okay.

[3:48] What?

Elliott Kalan

[3:49] It's the Fun Undertaker.

[3:50] Is that the Undertaker when he does kids parties?

Stuart Wellington

[3:52] That's when he joined NWO.

[3:55] NWA?

[3:56] Wow.

[3:57] I know.

[3:57] What a crossover event.

Elliott Kalan

[3:59] Yeah, the wrestling rap crossover of the century.

[4:03] This is...

[4:03] How are we going to top the rap rock crossover of Walk This Way?

[4:07] We'll get a wrestler.

Stuart Wellington

[4:09] One known for not talking and chokeslamming people.

[4:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[4:15] They're trying to one-up the wrestling 80s lady pop music of Captain Lou Albano hanging

[4:24] out with Cyndi Lauper.

[4:25] Yep.

[4:26] Yeah, exactly.

[4:26] What a weird team up.

[4:28] That joke took a little while, but it was worth it.

Elliott Kalan

[4:31] I'll remind you that Paul Abdul had sex with a cartoon cat.

Stuart Wellington

[4:34] Wait a minute.

[4:35] We didn't see the sex.

Elliott Kalan

[4:36] It was the subtext of the whole thing.

Stuart Wellington

[4:38] I guess they had a lot of chemistry, Dan.

[4:41] Yeah.

[4:42] Speaking of chemistry...

[4:43] I'm not sure if you're correct.

Elliott Kalan

[4:44] Let's see how this speaking of chemistry is the segue for a Dracula movie, Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[4:50] So, we watched Dracula 3D.

Elliott Kalan

[4:52] Speaking of chemistry, you know what doesn't follow the rules of science?

[4:55] Vampires.

[4:56] We did...

[4:57] Well, we watched a movie called Dario Argento's Dracula.

[5:00] 3D.

[5:00] Which was released as Dracula 3D, but we watched it in its 2D form.

[5:04] Although, as I've corrected in the past, it is a 3D movie in that it involves the dimension

[5:09] of time.

[5:10] The third dimension.

[5:12] 3D movies are, in fact, 4D.

Dan McCoy

[5:14] 110 minutes of time, in fact.

[5:16] Readers, if you want to wedgie Elliot, send your hands through the mail to his butt crack.

[5:22] Sounds like a Freddy attack.

Elliott Kalan

[5:24] Please don't send your severed hands to Elliot's butt crack care of Elliot.

[5:29] I would appreciate it if you didn't do that.

[5:31] Also, Dan, do you know how wedgies are given?

[5:33] You don't grab someone's butt crack.

Dan McCoy

[5:36] I'm wedging you, darling.

[5:38] You grab the butt crack and you slam the two sides of the butt together.

[5:42] No.

[5:42] And you go, wait a minute.

[5:44] How do you do that from inside the butt crack?

[5:46] You go, slappity slappity.

Elliott Kalan

[5:48] Dan, I think I'm finally understanding why you went to juvie when you were 14.

[5:53] Well, we saw this movie, Dario Argento's Dracula.

[5:56] And now, Dario Argento, none of us, I think, are particular fans of his.

Stuart Wellington

[6:00] No, you know, if I recall, Stuart once threatened to fight him on this podcast.

[6:05] I very drunkenly threatened to, I think, punch him or get in a fist fight.

[6:10] And so I thought this was a chance.

[6:11] He's an old man, Stuart.

[6:12] Yeah, I mean.

[6:12] Come on.

[6:13] I would totally win, I guess.

[6:15] But here's the thing.

[6:16] This was his chance.

[6:17] This was, I was like.

[6:18] I was about to go to him, hat in hand, ready to eat that hat in front of him.

[6:23] And your own hand.

[6:24] Possibly.

Elliott Kalan

[6:26] So you were ready to turn around and say, Dario Argento, put your hand in my butt, crack and

[6:30] wedgie me, because I was wrong.

[6:33] And you know what?

[6:33] The Goblins is the best band ever.

[6:36] I mean, I will say.

Dan McCoy

[6:38] Goblin is the thing I like the most about Dario Argento.

[6:41] Wait, here's the thing about Dario Argento.

Elliott Kalan

[6:42] I'm not a fan of his movies.

[6:43] But he has a clear knack for vivid imagery and for the use of music.

[6:49] And I'll tell you two things that were missing from this movie.

[6:53] Vivid imagery and any but the cheapest sounding music.

Dan McCoy

[6:57] I know there's a lot of theremin in this movie.

[6:58] Yeah, because when we think theremin, we think vampires.

[7:02] Nothing like a real 50s sci-fi Dracula.

Elliott Kalan

[7:07] Theremin works for two things.

[7:09] Ghosts and aliens.

[7:11] Ghosts and goblins.

[7:12] Now, unless you're making a movie about...

Dan McCoy

[7:13] That game is super hard, by the way.

Elliott Kalan

[7:15] Unless you're making a movie about a ghost alien vampire, in which case I say, sell me a ticket

[7:19] right now, because I want to see it.

[7:22] Don't use the theremin.

Stuart Wellington

[7:23] I think there was an old Buck Rogers episode about a space vampire.

[7:27] I mean, there's been movies about space vampires.

[7:29] There were probably ghosts in that, too.

[7:30] There's that Mario Bava movie.

[7:31] Planet of the Vampires.

[7:32] Yeah.

[7:32] I think there was this Choose Your Own Adventure book I read one time.

[7:35] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:36] And there's Ghosts of Mars is ghosts in space.

[7:39] Ghost aliens.

[7:40] Event Horizon probably had...

[7:41] And there's that movie Vampy the Astronaut.

Dan McCoy

[7:43] And Bidey in space.

Elliott Kalan

[7:46] Bidey in space?

[7:47] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[7:48] Wait, the vampire's name's Bidey?

[7:50] Is he not even Count Bidey?

Elliott Kalan

[7:52] Is he a little kid, like a dog vampire?

Dan McCoy

[7:54] He's not...

[7:55] You know, he's not of the...

[7:58] What do you call it?

[7:59] The nobility.

[7:59] The nobility, yeah.

[8:00] The aristocracy.

[8:01] No.

Elliott Kalan

[8:01] This is your Cockney Peasant vampire in space.

[8:04] Hello, hello.

[8:05] It's me, Bidey.

[8:07] Welcome, a Jupiter.

Dan McCoy

[8:08] How do you do?

[8:10] Shine your shoes, governor.

[8:11] Bite your neck.

[8:12] It's me, Bidey.

[8:13] Bite your neck, man.

[8:14] Michael Caine and Bidey, I guess.

[8:16] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:18] Don't let him bite your neck.

[8:19] Come on.

[8:19] That's a good price for neck biting.

[8:23] Tuppence.

[8:24] Well, well.

[8:25] Tuppence to bite your neck, sir.

[8:26] If it isn't the queen of space.

[8:28] Ma'am, a pleasure to bite you.

Stuart Wellington

[8:31] It's me, Daniel Craig.

[8:33] Yeah.

[8:34] Good work.

Dan McCoy

[8:35] Clive Owen.

[8:36] You joined right in.

[8:38] Stuart, are you okay?

[8:39] You see him as he joined right in.

Elliott Kalan

[8:41] Now, okay, so we don't like Dario Argento, but we're willing to give him a shot.

[8:45] His movies, I'm not a huge fan, but everyone I've seen has at least a moment where I'm like,

[8:49] oh, that's an interesting moment or image or whatever.

[8:52] Yeah, look, and I will say this about, I mean, you know, everyone loves.

[8:55] He co-wrote Once Upon a Time in the West.

Dan McCoy

[8:57] Give him some credit for that.

[8:58] Everyone loves Suspiria.

[9:00] I don't like Suspiria just because I, what I like out of a horror movie is usually having

[9:06] a very clear sense of the rules of the world.

[9:09] To me, that makes it scarier because I know what, like, the confines are.

[9:13] Like, Suspiria is just a bunch of, like, crazy shit that goes on.

[9:16] I mean, I'm fine with a horror movie that's just crazy shit.

[9:19] Yeah, come on.

Elliott Kalan

[9:20] The scariest part of House Sue is when that watermelon starts laughing for no reason behind

[9:25] that guy.

Dan McCoy

[9:25] Yeah, I mean, I guess there's, like, to me there's a difference between a dreamlike sort

[9:29] of off-putting, like, weirdness that you get out of a David Lynch and the sense that,

[9:33] like.

[9:33] You get out of him how?

[9:34] Like, you squeeze it out of him.

[9:37] Like a lemon.

[9:39] But, like.

[9:40] For lynching aid.

[9:41] I don't know, like, the Italian horror just seems to be sort of shoddily put together.

[9:48] Like, they're not interested in anything other than, like, the crazy image.

[9:52] That being said, there are a lot of great crazy images in something like Suspiria.

[9:55] Yeah.

[9:56] And I enjoy the vividness of that.

[9:58] None of that is here.

Elliott Kalan

[9:59] And look, Showtime has labeled the man a master of horror, right?

[10:02] Yeah.

[10:03] How do we fight against him?

[10:03] That holds up in a call to law.

Dan McCoy

[10:05] Mick Garris.

[10:06] Everyone's favorite master of horror.

[10:09] Well, and you speak of vividness.

[10:10] Well, Stephen King's favorite.

Stuart Wellington

[10:11] Yeah.

[10:11] And you're talking about vividness.

[10:13] And this movie clearly has a relatively low budget.

[10:17] Oh, yeah.

[10:18] And these high-definition cameras do it no justice.

[10:21] No.

Elliott Kalan

[10:22] Everything looks super cheap, super fake.

[10:24] But also, just something you pointed out when we were watching it, Stuart, is, like,

[10:27] you light a low-budget movie with shadow to, like, kind of hide those flaws.

[10:32] But also, like, the cheapest.

[10:34] There are two cheap movie effects that will draw viewers in.

[10:37] Boobs.

[10:38] Yep.

[10:39] The cheapest effect.

[10:40] Mm-hmm.

[10:40] And shadows.

[10:41] All you need to do is not light something or light something in the right way, and it

[10:45] instantly looks more beautiful or more dramatic or scarier.

[10:49] And instead, this is the best, most, like, floodlit, evenly lit Dracula movie I've ever seen.

Dan McCoy

[10:55] Sure.

[10:55] Yeah, well, speaking of...

Elliott Kalan

[10:56] It was like they made a Dracula movie in a supermarket.

Dan McCoy

[10:58] That's how well-lit the crypts and caves of this movie are.

[11:02] Speaking of boobs, like, this movie resembles nothing more than a softcore porn film.

[11:08] And it's even lighting and it's digital cinematography.

Elliott Kalan

[11:13] And bad acting.

[11:15] Everything's wooden.

[11:16] Well...

[11:16] But, yeah, there's a surprisingly small amount of nudity in it.

[11:20] Well, small.

[11:21] I mean, compared to your average modern film, there's a ton of nudity in this movie.

[11:25] Compared to a softcore porn film, though.

[11:27] I mean, it's a movie that has enough nudity that you expect more.

[11:31] Yeah.

[11:31] And not so much nudity.

[11:32] Not so little nudity where you're like, oh, okay, this is a classy movie, but they made

[11:36] a choice to have nudity.

[11:37] It feels like an exploitation movie where they, halfway through, they were like, right, the

[11:41] nudity.

[11:42] Well, we'll put it in later.

[11:43] And they forgot to put it back in.

Dan McCoy

[11:44] Also, the nudity dries up, like, about halfway through the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[11:47] Which...

[11:48] Yeah, we thought there'd be a rich vein of nudity.

[11:50] So we start panning for nudity, and yet it dried up.

[11:53] We gotta go mine somewhere else.

Dan McCoy

[11:54] It reminds me of...

[11:56] Gonna have to go west.

Elliott Kalan

[11:58] Used to be a lot of nudity in this town, but the nudity dried up.

[12:01] Just a ghost town now.

[12:03] People picked up steaks.

Dan McCoy

[12:05] Used to be.

[12:06] You could go down the street and just pick up boobs from the ground.

[12:09] It's a gusher.

[12:11] No, but, like, it reminded...

Elliott Kalan

[12:12] Dip your net in the lake.

[12:14] Come up with butts.

[12:16] Not anymore.

[12:18] We overfished the nudity.

[12:20] Not the left.

Dan McCoy

[12:21] Now you gotta farm-raise the nudity.

[12:24] No, but this reminded me...

Elliott Kalan

[12:25] That's why here at the Nudity Conservation Corps, we're all about sustainable nudity.

[12:30] We only...

[12:31] Look, for every nudity we pluck, we plant two more.

Dan McCoy

[12:36] This reminded me, though, of a rule that I...

[12:39] You know, I discovered when I was a young man...

[12:42] Okay.

[12:42] ...desperate to see naked ladies in the era before the internet.

Elliott Kalan

[12:46] That when you're looking in the TV guide, don't look for nudity, look for sexual situations.

[12:49] Well, no, that's good.

Dan McCoy

[12:51] That's a good rule of thumb.

[12:52] I discovered that one.

[12:54] But also, my rule of thumb was basically, if there's no nudity in the first 20 minutes of a movie, there's generally not gonna be any nudity.

[13:01] Interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[13:02] So that's McCoy's law.

Dan McCoy

[13:04] That's McCoy's law.

Elliott Kalan

[13:05] McCoy's law of film nudity.

[13:06] Write it down.

[13:07] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[13:08] 13-year-olds who, for some reason, don't have the internet.

Elliott Kalan

[13:12] Take that to the bank.

[13:13] But can still download a podcast.

[13:15] Yeah.

[13:16] So what, is it being mailed to them on a CD by their grandma?

Dan McCoy

[13:19] It's on a copy-served CD.

Elliott Kalan

[13:23] Have we even started talking about the movie yet?

[13:26] No.

[13:26] We have...

[13:26] Well, we started talking about how cheap it looks.

[13:28] Well, here, let's just get this.

[13:29] You said who the director was.

[13:30] This is basically Dracula.

[13:32] Well, it's called Dracula.

[13:34] Literally Dracula.

[13:35] It's not a big scoop.

[13:37] Not like, look, they just stole the story from Dracula, called it Dracula, and that is the end of it.

[13:42] It's a...

Stuart Wellington

[13:42] Rip the wool off the eyes, you stupid sheep.

Dan McCoy

[13:46] It's...

[13:46] This is...

[13:47] Wake up, sheeple.

[13:48] Barack Hussein Obama trying to sell this to you is not a Dracula movie by putting Dracula in the title.

[13:55] It's a double reverse psychology.

[13:57] It's the prestige.

[13:58] Double reverse synchology?

[14:00] Yeah.

[14:00] The study of syncs?

[14:01] Yeah.

[14:02] Synchology.

[14:03] It's the study of synchols.

[14:04] Ah, I see.

[14:05] Anyway, what were you saying about this movie that we watched?

Elliott Kalan

[14:09] So, we all know the plot of Dracula.

[14:10] We spent time watching this movie.

[14:11] This is, at times, a fairly straightforward telling of the Dracula story, but then it's clear that they wanted to put more action in it and could not afford certain things.

[14:21] So, like, instead of Harker going to Transylvania, then Dracula coming to England, everyone just goes to Transylvania.

[14:30] There's no English stuff.

[14:31] Instead of, like, the three suitors who are all in love with Lucy and help Van Helsing track down Dracula, those guys don't exist.

[14:40] And there's, it's just, at times, it's a very rushed through telling of Dracula, and at times, it is a surprisingly slow-moving embroidery of the story.

[14:49] You have a lot of scenes that go nowhere for no reason, and only one of them is a lesbian sponge bath.

[14:54] I mean, there are only lesbian undertones.

[14:57] There was no fault.

[14:57] Yeah, I mean, there was no fault.

[14:58] There was no sex broke out or anything.

Dan McCoy

[15:00] Okay, that's true.

[15:01] But it was a woman giving another woman a sponge bath.

[15:04] But it's a pretty...

[15:05] Giving the daughter of the director a sponge bath.

Elliott Kalan

[15:08] The, uh, this is not, and it's not the first time he's had his daughter take her clothes off.

Dan McCoy

[15:12] No, Aji Argento is known for taking her clothes off in movies, more so than, I think, anything else.

[15:18] Wait.

Stuart Wellington

[15:20] More so than her acting abilities?

[15:22] I don't want to...

[15:23] Or that she's the daughter of a famous director?

Dan McCoy

[15:25] I feel like I'm, like, someone telling...

[15:28] I'm telling Stuart that Santa Claus doesn't exist.

[15:31] Yes, Aji Argento is mostly known for being naked in movies.

Elliott Kalan

[15:35] Uh, but there's also...

[15:38] There's a couple scenes where the movie is like, oh yeah, we should be totally crazy, and gets nuts.

[15:43] And so, it's this kind of bland, classic, illustrated, low-budget, are-you-afraid-of-the-dark version of Dracula.

[15:49] But then there's suddenly a scene where Dracula's just ripping people's throats out, and...

[15:53] Knocks a person's head off.

[15:57] And then has someone shoot themselves in the mouth with a, like, slow-moving super bullet.

[16:02] And then later, for some reason...

Dan McCoy

[16:03] Well, it goes into bullet time for, like, a brief time.

[16:05] Enough so you can, like, see the bullet go through his gaping open mouth.

[16:08] And then it goes back to normal time to explode out of the top of his head.

Elliott Kalan

[16:12] And then later, in the best scene in the movie by far, Dracula takes the form of a giant praying mantis to kill...

[16:18] Is it Lucy's dad or Mina's dad?

Stuart Wellington

[16:20] Uh, I think it's Lucy's dad.

[16:22] Lucy's dad.

[16:23] Mr. Kisslinger.

[16:24] Mr. Kisslinger.

Elliott Kalan

[16:25] Henry Kisslinger.

[16:26] Yeah.

[16:27] Well, it's a movie that begins with, like...

[16:28] I'm beginning to believe that my daughter has been bitten by a vampire.

[16:32] Mr. President, we must bomb Transylvania.

Dan McCoy

[16:36] A lot of stuff happens in the fog of vampires.

[16:39] But no, like, yeah, like, yeah, a big praying mantis hand goes through this guy.

Elliott Kalan

[16:44] This guy is sitting outside of someone's door, I guess, guarding it in an armchair.

[16:50] He's falling asleep.

[16:51] And suddenly something scrambles up the stairs.

[16:53] It's an enormous praying mantis, which kills him.

[16:56] CGI praying mantis.

[16:57] And then just leaves, right?

[16:58] Yeah.

[16:58] There's also, there's some really...

[17:00] Well, this is working there.

[17:02] There's some...

[17:02] I mean, if it was a real praying mantis, it would have sex with him and then bite his head off.

[17:05] Yeah.

[17:06] There's a lot of really bad...

Stuart Wellington

[17:08] Which is too bad they didn't include that in the movie.

[17:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[17:10] They take advantage of Dracula being a shapeshifter, which he is.

[17:14] Oh, yeah.

[17:14] He turns into a wolf.

[17:15] He's a cloud of flies.

[17:16] He's a praying mantis.

[17:17] He's a cloud of smoke.

[17:19] And then, so...

[17:21] He's a shoe.

[17:22] He's a shoehorn.

[17:25] He's a horn.

[17:26] He's a horn dog.

[17:27] He's a hot dog.

[17:28] He's a Trader Joe's.

[17:29] He's a DVD copy of Hots.

[17:32] He's a Trader Joe's.

[17:33] And he just eats people as they walk through the doors to find cheap wine.

[17:39] Here's the thing.

[17:40] We don't have to go through the plot of Dracula, do we?

Dan McCoy

[17:43] No, I don't know.

[17:44] Because I want to say this.

[17:44] Jonathan Harker goes to Transylvania, et cetera.

[17:47] Anyone who...

[17:47] He gets bitten.

[17:48] Anyone who is not familiar with the plot of Dracula.

Stuart Wellington

[17:50] Well, there's this great bit where Dracula's an owl, he attacks a girl, he morphs.

[17:54] Yeah, he becomes one of the Guardians of G'Hul.

[17:56] Yep.

[17:56] Here's the thing.

[17:57] Except for in this movie, yes, Jonathan Harker doesn't escape.

Elliott Kalan

[17:59] If you haven't read Dracula...

Stuart Wellington

[18:00] No.

[18:00] Unless you count death and escape, which it is.

[18:03] It's the ultimate escape.

Dan McCoy

[18:05] Wow.

[18:05] This got dark.

[18:07] Parentheses, ultimate escape.

Elliott Kalan

[18:10] Jimmy Buffett talking about dogs.

[18:11] It's the same song, but then you just hear a gunshot at the end, and the singer's body

[18:15] falls.

[18:16] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[18:17] He realizes...

[18:18] Is the P.E.

[18:19] Colossus song a Jimmy Buffett song?

[18:20] He realizes at the end, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:21] It's like it was written by Rupert Brooks, right?

[18:23] From Rupert from Remember When?

[18:25] It's Jimmy Buffett song.

Dan McCoy

[18:27] Okay.

[18:27] But I like the idea that at the end when they realize that it's a husband and wife who have

[18:32] met up each other.

[18:33] That's the whole plot of the P.E.

Elliott Kalan

[18:35] Yeah, they're pretending they're meeting for the first time to make it.

[18:39] Oh.

Dan McCoy

[18:40] They're trying to find an escape from their boring married life, and then they're like,

[18:45] Oh, shit.

[18:46] It's you.

Elliott Kalan

[18:47] My wife and husband.

[18:48] Oh, so you're saying, what, is one of them wearing a fake mustache, the other's wearing

Dan McCoy

[18:51] a wig?

[18:52] How do they not recognize it?

[18:52] No, but it's all about placing a personal ad and responding to a personal ad.

[18:56] Oh, see, I always thought it was an elaborate sex game where they pretended not to know

[19:00] each other.

[19:01] Well, yours is much more common.

[19:02] Yeah, it's like a red shoe diary.

Elliott Kalan

[19:04] I mean, it's a much more healthy relationship thing than putting out personal ads to cheat

[19:07] on your wife.

[19:07] No, I'm not arguing that it's healthy.

Dan McCoy

[19:09] Although at the end of the song, they all laugh, and they're like, ha, ha, ha.

[19:12] Presumably, their relationship is rekindled.

[19:14] But I like this version where the escape is debt.

[19:17] They're like, oh, I tried to have an affair, but I just ended up with you, so I guess we're

[19:22] just going to have to shoot ourselves.

Elliott Kalan

[19:23] Yes, it's the piña colada feudal Japan version.

[19:27] Do you like piña coladas and being reincarnated on the same pedal of the lotus?

[19:33] So I guess we're going to have to be love suicides on the bridge at Yokohama.

[19:38] Anyway, so if you don't know the story of Dracula, go read Dracula.

[19:43] It's a great book.

[19:44] It really holds up for an 1870s, 1880s.

[19:47] Epistolary novel.

Dan McCoy

[19:49] It's not totally epistolary.

[19:50] I think it is.

[19:51] It's not just letters.

[19:53] It's diary entries.

[19:54] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[19:54] Not totally epistolary.

[19:55] But it's not.

[19:56] I mean, there's no like.

Elliott Kalan

[19:57] There's no omniscient third person narrator.

[20:00] But part of it is told through newspaper articles, right?

[20:02] When the ship washes up.

[20:03] Yes, that's true.

[20:04] The ship full of dead men.

[20:06] And a black dog is seen escaping from the ship.

Stuart Wellington

[20:09] That would have been great to have that in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[20:11] Yeah, it's a great scene.

[20:12] But Dracula doesn't go anywhere.

Stuart Wellington

[20:13] No room for that.

[20:14] He couldn't have like gone away on a cruise.

[20:16] No.

[20:17] Like a carnival cruise.

[20:19] Like a Norwegian cruise line, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[20:21] Like one of those poop cruises.

[20:23] It's a poop cruise.

[20:25] It's a specialized cruise.

[20:27] For people and to poop.

[20:29] But now I imagine a Dracula going, if they could see me now, those friends of mine, on a carnival cruise.

[20:35] Ha ha ha ha.

[20:37] But he can only go out at night.

[20:38] One carnival cruise.

[20:39] Two carnival.

[20:40] One pool.

[20:42] Two pools.

[20:43] Ah, ah, ah.

[20:46] Shuffle board.

[20:48] You say it's a midnight buffet.

[20:50] I call it breakfast.

[20:54] Dracula.

Stuart Wellington

[20:55] Welcome aboard the SS Dracool.

[20:58] It's my own cruise line.

[21:01] This Eagles cover band.

[21:02] What beautiful music they make.

[21:04] What beautiful music they make.

Stuart Wellington

[21:04] Ha ha ha ha.

Elliott Kalan

[21:07] Gets up and does some karaoke.

[21:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[21:10] Welcome to the Hotel California.

Dan McCoy

[21:14] One night in Bangkok makes.

[21:16] Ha ha ha.

[21:17] That's what I assume Dracula sings.

Elliott Kalan

[21:19] Ha ha ha.

[21:19] Yeah, of course.

[21:20] Ha ha ha.

[21:21] Bunch of songs from chess.

[21:22] Yeah.

[21:23] So anyway, Dracula.

[21:27] This movie takes a lot of liberties as it goes towards the end as the hero of the Dracula

[21:33] story, Abraham Van Helsing, the vampire hunter, here played by Rutger Howard, his sleepiest,

[21:38] appears and Rutger Howard is a-

[21:41] Slowest.

[21:41] I feel like he's taking five seconds between every word.

[21:45] But at the same time, he is a one man army corps.

[21:47] He's just taking out vampires left and right with his magic fists and knives.

[21:52] He's just- It's like there was a clause, I think you said, in Rutger Howard's contract,

[21:58] that was like, I have to kill all the vampires instantly.

[22:00] I can never be in real danger.

[22:02] One hit is it, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[22:04] Every vampire or goon who attacks him is immediately dispatched.

[22:08] Like, my favorite's when the one goon attacks him and he basically just turns the guy onto

[22:13] a spike through the eye.

[22:14] Ha ha ha.

Elliott Kalan

[22:15] Now, here's the thing also.

[22:16] Dracula seems to run the town.

[22:18] This is Transylvania, but it's a town with a population of about eight.

[22:22] And now, Dracula seems to run the town like Ben Gazzara in Roadhouse.

[22:26] He's just like a local crime lord.

[22:27] So there's a scene where his lieutenants get together and they're like, we gotta stop listening

[22:32] to Dracula.

[22:32] And Dracula shows up and kills them all.

[22:34] And it's like the most-

Stuart Wellington

[22:35] First he shows up as a cloud of flies, which elicits no reaction from these guys.

Dan McCoy

[22:41] I'm like, stand around looking at them like, oh, a bunch of flies.

[22:45] Oh, they're turning into Dracula.

Elliott Kalan

[22:47] Oh, hey boss.

[22:48] What's going on?

[22:48] We were just talking about you.

[22:50] I was never sure if they knew he was a vampire or not.

Stuart Wellington

[22:53] I mean, he's something, right?

[22:55] He's a cloud of flies.

Elliott Kalan

[22:56] I mean, before the cloud of flies scenario takes place.

[22:59] He's a lord of the flies.

[23:00] There's also a priest in-

[23:01] You will.

Dan McCoy

[23:02] I guess so.

[23:03] I guess kind of like Satan, right?

[23:05] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:06] Mm-hmm.

[23:06] Think about it.

[23:08] Uh, okay.

[23:09] Are you thinking about it?

[23:09] About the book Lord of the Flies?

[23:11] Think about it harder.

Elliott Kalan

[23:11] It's a good book.

[23:12] I don't know why.

[23:13] It's pretty spooky.

[23:14] That's an intense book.

[23:16] The end, the climax that where they're chasing him through the jungle, and it only ends because

[23:20] that adult shows up and is like, what the hell was going on right there?

[23:22] It's descended into chaos, yeah.

[23:23] Yeah.

[23:24] It's like there's a real moral in that book.

[23:25] Yeah.

[23:26] Anyway, so-

[23:26] Read Lord of the Flies, guys.

[23:28] Look, let's just recommend books for the rest of the podcast.

[23:30] Dracula's great.

[23:31] Lord of the Flies is great.

[23:32] You don't want a scary story?

[23:34] How about like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

Dan McCoy

[23:36] I don't know.

[23:36] I'm reading Three Musketeers right now.

[23:39] I never read the original.

[23:40] Great stuff.

[23:41] Is that based on the candy bar?

[23:45] You ate the bar.

[23:46] Now read the book.

[23:47] I'm reading it a long time.

[23:49] I just haven't had a chance to finish it as quickly.

Elliott Kalan

[23:51] I feel like at least a year ago, we were on a train, and you were like, oh yeah, I'm reading

[23:55] Three Musketeers.

Dan McCoy

[23:56] Yeah, I was reading Les Miserables at the time.

[23:58] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[23:58] I'm getting my French books mixed up.

[24:00] You're going to move on to Mounds next, or Payday?

[24:04] Almond Joy.

[24:05] Oh, no kidding.

[24:06] Now, back to the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[24:08] Twix is two stories in one.

[24:10] It's a real he said, she said tale.

[24:12] It's a real gone girl.

[24:13] Anyway, so, actually, there you go.

[24:16] That'd be the tie on Twix, the gone girl of candy bars.

[24:19] Now, Dracula.

[24:20] Let's just say Van Helsing comes in, he is kicking ass and chewing bubblegum.

[24:24] There is no threat.

[24:25] What if they invented it?

[24:26] There is no threat strong enough to stop this slow-moving elderly man.

[24:31] Dracula hypnotizes Mina Harker, and they steal from Francis Ford Coppola's Bran Stoker's

[24:38] Dracula the idea that Dracula is drawn to Mina because she looks just like his lost love, which

[24:44] is not in the book, right?

[24:45] I don't remember it being in the book.

[24:46] I don't think so.

[24:47] It's not in any of the other adaptations that I can remember.

[24:50] Like, the Bela Lugosi Dracula takes a lot of liberties because it's based on the stage

[24:54] play, which took a lot of liberties.

[24:55] Yeah.

[24:55] There's nothing like it in that.

Dan McCoy

[24:57] Yeah, and we were talking-

Elliott Kalan

[24:58] Or the Terrence Fisher Dracula.

Dan McCoy

[24:59] During the movie, none of us are a fan of the Dracula as romantic hero lineage of the

[25:05] vampire story.

Elliott Kalan

[25:06] I think there's something in it if you don't lose sight of the fact-

[25:10] That he's evil?

[25:11] That he's evil.

[25:12] And what's seductive about him is a life without rules to follow.

[25:16] Like, the only rules are don't get in the sun and don't get a stake through your heart,

[25:20] but otherwise, morals don't apply to you, God's law doesn't apply to you.

[25:23] There's a romantic notion in that in the idea of the romantic movement, like romantic poets

[25:29] and things like that.

[25:30] There can be an appeal to him.

[25:32] Yes.

[25:32] And there's likely the appeal of sin.

[25:34] He should not be a sympathetic lover.

[25:36] Correct.

Stuart Wellington

[25:36] And there's like an Eastern European old world charm to it as well.

Elliott Kalan

[25:40] Yeah, very much so.

[25:41] There's this idea that he is- there's something intriguing about a man who comes from a different

[25:45] era, a different place, where the savage bloodlust of men rises to the surface and people live,

[25:52] you know, in more terms of state of nature.

Stuart Wellington

[25:55] As opposed to like the button-down industrial age.

Elliott Kalan

[25:58] Exactly.

[25:58] Your Victorian, you know, prudish realm.

[26:01] Chimney sweeps and-

[26:02] Your Mary Poppinses and so forth.

Dan McCoy

[26:04] I mean, men were men and women were brides of Dracula.

Elliott Kalan

[26:07] Well, like three women, except in this movie it's just one, because again, low budget.

[26:11] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[26:12] Only one heaving bosom.

[26:14] But busty number three.

[26:15] Yeah.

[26:15] All right, guys?

Elliott Kalan

[26:16] She's the major source for the nudity.

[26:19] Yeah.

[26:19] Plenty to spare.

[26:20] There's enough boobs to go around.

Stuart Wellington

[26:21] That's a great scene where she seduces Jonathan Harker, gets totes naked, starts biting him, and then

[26:28] Dracula jumps in.

[26:30] And he's like, mine!

[26:31] And then he like force pushes her across the roof.

Elliott Kalan

[26:34] It is just an extreme version of a scene in the story.

[26:39] No, it actually happens in the book.

[26:41] But yeah, it is done.

[26:42] It's like they're going to have a Jedi battle all of a sudden, Dracula and his bride.

[26:45] It's like, yeah.

[26:45] Which would have made this a more fun movie.

[26:47] Anyway, we get to the end.

[26:49] Mina is under a spell.

[26:50] Dracula's totally going to vampirize her.

[26:53] And Van Helsing has made some silver bullets that he's going to use to kill Dracula.

[26:59] This is the first time a vampire has gotten the jump on Van Helsing as Dracula punches him

[27:04] in the face over and over again.

[27:05] He's wasted everybody.

[27:06] And this is one of the things that I don't like about a lot of vampire movies where Dracula,

[27:09] okay, he can shapeshift.

[27:11] He can bite people.

[27:12] He has claws.

[27:14] He's basically, he's a monster.

[27:15] And yet, whenever he fights the hero, it always turns into like fisticuffs.

Dan McCoy

[27:19] Yes, this is the most boring climax in the world.

[27:22] It is literally Dracula.

[27:24] I don't know, last year at Marienbad.

Elliott Kalan

[27:27] I think Le Clis is not exactly the most exciting film.

Dan McCoy

[27:30] For a movie about a vampire.

[27:32] Okay, yes.

[27:33] For a Dracula movie.

[27:34] This is literally just Dracula punching an old man.

Elliott Kalan

[27:39] While a woman watches.

[27:41] While a woman watches.

[27:42] And then eventually.

[27:42] And slowly pulls a gun.

[27:43] Eventually it's like, oh, there's a gun at my feet.

[27:45] I guess I'll shoot Dracula with it.

[27:47] But yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[27:48] After urging Dracula to totally kill Van Helsing.

Elliott Kalan

[27:52] And Dracula gets shot and he's like, you're sending me such mixed messages.

Stuart Wellington

[27:56] Do you think she was urging Dracula to attack Van Helsing because she knew that Van Helsing just roasts these wimps?

Elliott Kalan

[28:02] No, I think she was under his spell.

Dan McCoy

[28:04] Yeah, but for Dracula who earlier.

[28:06] He put a screaming Jayhawken spell on her.

[28:08] Earlier this Dracula knocked a guy's head off.

Elliott Kalan

[28:12] Maybe Rucker Howard would like, side his head on or something.

Stuart Wellington

[28:15] Now, speaking of that scene, it did my favorite thing, which is, he's about to swing and then it cuts to a shot of the guy screaming going, ah.

[28:25] And then it just cuts to a shot of Dracula swiping his head off.

[28:30] And then it cuts to a shot of the head bouncing off the wall.

[28:34] Now, that's how you make a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[28:35] One thing that never helps a scene is a close-up of someone screaming.

[28:41] Like, whether it's a comedy and like someone is falling down, like someone's slide.

[28:47] I think this happens in the movie Deeds.

[28:49] He's like sliding down a banister and it cuts to his face going, ah.

[28:53] And then it shows him he had a potted plant or something or a vase.

[28:56] It's like, well, it's a lot less funny that you slowed things down to show him yelling in the middle.

[29:01] If someone's about to die and you cut to them going, ah, and then cut back to them dying.

[29:06] Well, I mean, it's in an action.

[29:07] Where's the shot?

[29:08] It's unlike.

Stuart Wellington

[29:08] What's supposed to be a serious action scene, it definitely makes it funnier.

Elliott Kalan

[29:12] It makes a comedy less funny and a horror movie more funny.

Dan McCoy

[29:15] It's unlike slowing down a bullet so you see it through a guy's mouth before it blows his head off.

[29:20] Now, that was scarifying.

[29:22] Now, here's the thing.

[29:23] There's nothing scary about this movie.

[29:24] Is that what you were going to say?

Elliott Kalan

[29:25] This is the least scary vampire movie ever, and that includes Dracula Dead and Loving It.

[29:30] Vampire in Brooklyn.

[29:31] Transylvania 65,000.

[29:33] Once Bitten.

[29:33] What's that George Hamilton vampire movie?

[29:36] That's Once Bitten.

[29:36] Once Bitten.

[29:37] No, wait.

[29:37] No, Once Bitten is the one with Jim Carrey.

Dan McCoy

[29:39] No, it's, uh, hold on.

[29:41] Oh, shit.

[29:41] Let's just call it Dracula the Gay Blade.

Elliott Kalan

[29:44] What is it called?

[29:45] This movie is less scary than, like, the Megadeth song Prince of Darkness, which is a pretty goofy song.

[29:51] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[29:52] It's the, uh, it's not a scary movie.

[29:55] And I'll tell you what.

[29:55] It is less scary than a box of Count Chocula.

Elliott Kalan

[30:00] Yeah, that's actually true.

[30:01] Love and First Bite.

Stuart Wellington

[30:02] Love and First Bite.

[30:03] It's a George Hamilton movie.

Elliott Kalan

[30:04] There are probably kids who are a little scared of Count Chocula.

[30:06] I'll tell you what.

[30:07] When I was a kid, I remember very vividly, Child's Play came out on VHS.

[30:11] And there was a big cardboard stand-up of Chucky in the local video store, Videotown.

[30:17] And it scared the hell out of me.

[30:19] Yeah.

[30:19] I hadn't seen the movie.

[30:20] Didn't know much about it.

[30:21] Just seeing this evil doll was so scary.

[30:23] And this movie, I feel like if that same kid had watched this movie, he'd be like, what's, I don't understand.

[30:29] What's scary about this?

[30:30] This is not as scary as a cardboard stand-up of a doll.

Stuart Wellington

[30:32] I think if that kid watched this movie, he would just keep rewinding the beginning nude scenes.

[30:36] To see the boobs, yeah, probably.

Dan McCoy

[30:38] Yeah, speaking of that.

[30:41] What?

[30:42] What, boobs, Child's Play?

[30:43] I don't know, Videotown?

[30:44] There was a really great sex scene early on that's super well lit.

[30:47] That's what I was going to say.

[30:48] There was no sex tarp in this movie, but they did put down a blanket.

Elliott Kalan

[30:51] They did put down a cape or a blanket.

[30:52] In this super well lit barn?

[30:54] They go into a barn that is lit about as well as your average family restaurant.

Stuart Wellington

[30:59] Yeah.

[30:59] Every scene characters, in this movie, every scene characters are bringing like a candle

[31:04] into a room that's already super well lit.

Dan McCoy

[31:06] But it was like a seduction cinema vampire, sexy vampire, soft core cinemax.

Elliott Kalan

[31:11] With a man making the longest thrusts I've ever seen in a movie.

Stuart Wellington

[31:15] He is an awesome dude, apparently.

Elliott Kalan

[31:18] This is, and uh.

Stuart Wellington

[31:19] It's too bad, of course he has to die early on because he has already been blessed with

[31:23] what is, I'm assuming, an incredibly long penis.

[31:26] It's so long he needs to stand back a little.

[31:29] Exactly.

[31:29] I mean, it's less enjoyable for everybody.

Elliott Kalan

[31:31] That's the thing.

[31:32] Now he, uh.

[31:33] This is the guy who, in the very beginning, he has sex with his girlfriend in a barn and

[31:37] then says like, eh, I'm leaving.

[31:39] You can walk home through the dark woods yourself.

[31:41] Just wear this cross.

[31:42] It'll protect you.

[31:42] And she goes, you can take that.

[31:44] And she leaves.

[31:45] And then he hangs the cross up in a tree and goes home.

[31:48] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[31:48] Was that the lady who gets killed by one of the owls of gold?

[31:51] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[31:51] She's attacked by an owl while Renfield watches.

[31:54] And, or no, it's not Renfield.

[31:55] It's the guy who looks like a cross between J.K. Simmons and, uh.

[31:58] Vincent D'Onofrio.

[31:58] And Vincent D'Onofrio.

[31:59] Eastern European dub a little bit.

[32:01] Uh, and she becomes the, she becomes the bride of Dracula.

[32:04] Yeah.

[32:04] But here's, uh, uh, there's, let me mention one thing I wanted to before.

[32:07] There's a Renfield in this.

[32:09] He is maybe the sloppiest, dumpiest Renfield I've ever seen.

[32:13] And Renfield's supposed to be a sloppy, gross guy.

[32:15] He eats bugs.

[32:16] He's crazy, foaming at the mouth, obsessed with the master.

[32:19] But Renfield has always been one of my favorite aspects of the Dracula story because he's like,

[32:24] not really scary in terms of being dangerous.

[32:27] He's scary in terms of being a madman who has lost all control.

[32:30] And is totally within the will of another.

[32:33] And it's like.

Dan McCoy

[32:33] He's an interesting character because he's like the guy who's in thrall to Dracula.

[32:37] Yes.

[32:37] Like he doesn't have like the same sort of sexual thrall, but he's got the same kind of like.

[32:40] But he wants to be.

Elliott Kalan

[32:41] Well, it's like Austin Powers.

[32:42] Women want him and men want to be him.

[32:44] Exactly.

[32:44] That's Dracula.

Dan McCoy

[32:45] Dracula Powers.

[32:46] The swinging 60s vampire spy.

[32:47] There is like a weird kind of like sexual element to it.

[32:49] But it's like, it's like this sort of like twisted, like he kind of doesn't understand

[32:53] the thrall he's in.

Elliott Kalan

[32:54] Yeah.

[32:55] But at the end, he's not necessary for the plot.

[32:57] Yeah.

[32:58] In almost any version of the story.

[33:00] He's like this added random chaos element who's just there mainly for atmosphere in a lot

[33:04] of ways.

[33:05] And to show you how creepy Dracula is.

[33:08] Like scenes.

[33:09] You don't need Dracula in a scene because Renfield is there and you're like, this guy's nuts.

[33:13] If the master is worse than this guy.

[33:16] Oh boy.

[33:17] Wouldn't want to be walking down a dark alley and meet this Dracool fella.

[33:22] But the Renfield in this is like.

[33:23] It's a pretty handy version of Dracula.

[33:25] Yeah.

[33:26] The Dracula in this.

[33:27] Oh, the Renfield in this reminded me.

[33:29] If you guys remember the character of Barf, the chef on You Can't Do That on Television.

[33:33] Like that's what this version of Renfield was.

Dan McCoy

[33:36] And then Barf the dog from Spaceballs.

Elliott Kalan

[33:38] No, he does not have the dignity of.

[33:39] Oh, he's a mog dude.

[33:40] Oh yeah, that's right.

[33:40] He does not have the dignity of the mog from Spaceballs.

[33:43] He is the cook from You Can't Do That on Television who serves vomit to children.

[33:48] Well, but also this Renfield seems to be like blissed out in ecstasy the whole time.

[33:51] He's always wandering around like just touching walls and looking at people.

[33:55] Cutting his arms so that brides can suck his blood out.

[33:58] He is.

[33:59] Cutting his arms so CGI blood squirts out.

Dan McCoy

[34:02] When you think about it, he's got it pretty good.

Stuart Wellington

[34:04] He is the least impressive Renfield.

[34:06] He goes to jail for a little while.

[34:08] He gets out of jail.

Elliott Kalan

[34:09] Yeah, Dracula lets him out.

[34:10] But you're kind of wondering like.

Stuart Wellington

[34:11] He's living life.

[34:12] He chops Long Dick's head in half with a fucking shovel.

Elliott Kalan

[34:15] But you're wondering why did Dracula let this guy out of jail?

[34:18] Because he doesn't seem to help him very much.

[34:20] He's just like, would you want.

[34:22] Look, you're a suave count.

[34:24] Okay, maybe you look like a Russian Craig T. Nelson in this version.

[34:27] You're not the skabookiest, most charismatic Dracula.

[34:29] You live in a castle, hot and cold running babes.

[34:33] Why do you need this dumpy guy who looks like an out of work butcher walking around?

[34:36] Real talk.

[34:37] It's like this is the guy.

[34:38] He should be in a Bucharest community theater production of Marty, not playing Renfield.

Stuart Wellington

[34:44] The thing about Renfield is I like the idea that Dracula takes a human servant to do his bidding.

[34:50] And he kind of uses him up and he slowly drives the guy crazy.

[34:53] And eventually he just discards him.

[34:55] Yeah.

[34:56] And this guy has been a turd the entire time.

Elliott Kalan

[35:00] Well, but it's written on Renfield, discard to receive three mana of your choice.

[35:04] Oh, wow.

[35:05] It's pretty valuable.

[35:05] That's not bad.

[35:07] I mean, it's not like your most powerful card, but if you're building a deck, you want it in there.

Dan McCoy

[35:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[35:12] Magic.

[35:13] The Dracula.

[35:14] So, let's go.

Elliott Kalan

[35:16] There was one other thing I want to say and I forgot what it was.

[35:17] Basically, this movie's not scary.

[35:19] We barely talked about the guy who played Dracula.

[35:22] He is terrible.

[35:22] That's how little impression he made on us.

[35:24] Dracula is, I'm just going to say.

Dan McCoy

[35:26] He might be the worst Dracula I've ever seen.

Elliott Kalan

[35:28] Oh, by far.

[35:29] And this is counting the George Hamilton, the Leslie Nielsen versions, Blackula, which is not a good movie.

[35:36] Dracula from Monster Squad.

[35:38] That's a pretty good Dracula.

[35:39] That's a pretty good Dracula.

[35:40] I mean, he's taken down by a bunch of kids, which is lame.

[35:42] But Dracula is one of the most.

[35:44] He calls a little girl a bitch.

[35:46] That's pretty evil.

[35:47] Yeah, that's awesome.

[35:48] He's one of the most enduring characters in literature.

[35:50] He's one of the most charismatic characters, I would say, in literature.

[35:54] Considering he doesn't appear that much in the book named after him.

[35:57] He's off stage for most of it.

Stuart Wellington

[36:00] Didn't Rucker Hauer play Dracula in Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

[36:04] Did he play it?

Dan McCoy

[36:05] No.

[36:05] He played, I think, the master was his official.

Stuart Wellington

[36:09] Oh, we know what that's subtext for.

[36:11] All right.

Dan McCoy

[36:12] I mean, he was a vampire.

Stuart Wellington

[36:13] That must have been why he had a tough time killing Dracula in this one.

[36:16] Yeah, because he's like, oh, it's me.

Elliott Kalan

[36:17] I'm looking at a mirror.

[36:19] We're not so different, you and I.

[36:20] Why couldn't they have gotten Udo Kier to reprise this role of Dracula from Blood for Dracula?

[36:26] But anyway, here's the important thing.

[36:28] They take one of the most interesting characters in film or literature and they just kind of throw him away.

[36:35] It's like in the Dracula movie, Dracula was the last thing they worried about.

[36:39] They're like, let's just get some dude.

[36:40] We'll turn him into a bunch of flies or wolves or whatever.

[36:43] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:43] But let's go to final judgments.

[36:45] Is this movie, oh, hold on.

[36:47] I almost forgot our Shocktober categories.

[36:51] Yeah.

[36:51] Somebody forget them.

Elliott Kalan

[36:52] Is it bitally scaring?

[36:54] Is it shockily stupefying?

[36:56] No.

[36:56] Or is it eerily good Vlad?

Dan McCoy

[36:58] Was this movie totally...

[37:00] Good Vlad?

[37:00] Yeah, good Vlad.

[37:02] Totally scarifying, totally snorifying, or frighteningly funny?

[37:09] Yeah, Stuart, you want to take this one?

[37:10] I'm just watching Dan try to sneeze.

Elliott Kalan

[37:13] I don't know what's going on with Dan.

[37:14] Making a face.

[37:14] Trying not to sneeze.

Stuart Wellington

[37:16] Okay, success.

[37:17] Dan's head explodes.

[37:20] Scanners!

[37:22] Ellie, why'd you do that?

[37:23] So we are going to say, we, the collective we.

[37:27] I'm going to say, this is almost a good, bad movie.

[37:30] It's really stupid.

[37:32] Well, that's not one of the options in October.

Dan McCoy

[37:33] Wait, frighteningly funny, would that be?

Stuart Wellington

[37:35] Yeah, I'd say frighteningly funny.

[37:37] It's a good one to watch with some pals, and pop some corn, see some boobs.

Elliott Kalan

[37:41] I would say it's a good one to watch with pals if you ride the fast forward button a little.

[37:45] It's at times totally snorifying, but then you see a big praying mantis stab a guy with

[37:50] its claws.

Stuart Wellington

[37:50] It does have the slowest, stupidest climax.

[37:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[37:54] Yes, but the climax was more fun than a lot of the, like, sitting around watching characters

[37:59] talk about nothing, you know?

[38:00] Sure.

[38:01] Yeah, it goes back and forth.

[38:02] There's a lot of scenes with Lucy and her dad.

Dan McCoy

[38:03] Like, you know, a couple episodes of Seinfeld or something.

Elliott Kalan

[38:06] Now, what if Seinfeld was about Dracula?

Dan McCoy

[38:11] But yeah, it's back and forth between snorifying and praying.

[38:13] What if Seinfeld was about Dracula?

Elliott Kalan

[38:15] Come on, do a bit.

[38:16] One thing we realized while we were watching this movie, though, or at least I realized,

[38:20] Woody Allen wasted a huge opportunity by not doing a vampire movie.

[38:24] I can see an amazing Woody Allen 70s movie where he is like a nebbish who goes to do some

[38:30] work for a, like, he's an accountant who goes to work for a vampire.

[38:33] He's constantly...

Dan McCoy

[38:33] And the sexy, like, nude vampire-ist tries to bite his...

Elliott Kalan

[38:37] He's always trying to get the sexy vampire right into bed.

[38:41] And he, but he's a nervous guy.

[38:42] Eventually he gets bit and he's like this nervous, nebbishy vampire who, like, slathers

[38:47] sunscreen all over his body or things like that.

[38:50] There's a lot of funny jokes in there.

[38:51] Woody, why did you have to make, you know, interiors when you could have made this Dracula

[38:56] movie?

[38:57] Count Dorkula.

[38:58] Sleeper's pretty good.

[38:59] Sleeper's all right.

Stuart Wellington

[38:59] Yeah, but I feel like those would have been the two scripts he had, either Count Dorkula

[39:03] or Sleeper.

Elliott Kalan

[39:06] Yeah.

[39:06] And don't...

[39:07] Do not tell me they might...

[39:09] He might as well just made Fearless Vampire Killers.

[39:11] That is not a funny movie.

[39:13] No.

Dan McCoy

[39:14] It's an interesting movie.

[39:15] It's interesting.

[39:15] That is interesting.

[39:16] Yeah.

[39:17] But that's what I'll say about that.

[39:19] So, before we move on to our letters...

[39:24] Okay.

[39:25] We've got a few matters of business to take care of.

[39:28] Housekeeping, if you will.

[39:29] Yeah.

[39:30] Number one, I'd like to say...

Elliott Kalan

[39:32] House cat...

[39:33] Flop housekeeping.

[39:34] Wait, what?

[39:34] I was going to say house cat keeping.

[39:36] That would be weird.

[39:37] Then I changed it to flop housekeeping.

[39:37] Okay, that's better.

Dan McCoy

[39:38] The Flophouse is honored to be part of the opening night of New York Podfest 2015.

[39:44] Ooh.

[39:45] Wow.

[39:46] On January 9th at the Bell House in Brooklyn, New York.

[39:50] The festival will kick off with the Risk Podcast, which is also from the Maximum Fun Network,

[39:56] hosted by Kevin Allison of the state.

[39:58] That will be at 8 p.m.

[39:59] And then the Flophouse, that's us, goes up at 10 p.m.

[40:02] Hey, you mentioned your name.

[40:03] 10 p.m.

[40:04] Friday, January 9th at the Bell House.

[40:07] And tickets for our show are 10 bucks.

[40:10] 10 bucks?

[40:11] You've got to make your own money out of metal?

[40:12] 10 bucks.

[40:13] Thank you.

[40:14] And if you want to make it a whole night and see Risk, that'll cost you another 12 bucks?

Stuart Wellington

[40:19] We don't go on till 10, so you have plenty of time to get out of work, have a couple of

[40:23] beers, get shit-faced, and then get mad at us for fucking up stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[40:27] Now, here's the thing I'm going to say about this.

[40:29] Most Flophouse live shows, in fact, all of them, have involved us seeing a movie and we

[40:33] riff on it before a live crowd.

[40:35] That's not what we're doing.

[40:36] For the first time ever, we will be recording an episode of the Flophouse in front of a live

[40:41] audience.

Dan McCoy

[40:41] Doing the same bullshit that you're listening to right now, but in front of people.

Elliott Kalan

[40:45] You'll see our dumb faces while we do it.

Stuart Wellington

[40:46] And if you're a listener at home, you're going to hear it sometime because we're going to

[40:50] record it and put it up on the air.

Elliott Kalan

[40:51] Don't, don't, no, no.

[40:52] And you're going to be like, oh man, I wish I was there.

[40:55] Don't tell them that they've got to buy a ticket.

Stuart Wellington

[40:57] Oh, yeah.

[40:58] You've got to buy a ticket, too.

[40:59] Just buy a ticket anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[41:00] If you don't, if you listen to it at home, you're not going to get a chance to ask a

[41:03] question live of the Flophouse hosts.

[41:05] You can interact with us live.

[41:08] From New York.

[41:10] It's the Flophouse.

[41:12] Starring me, the late Don Pardo.

Stuart Wellington

[41:14] As a ga ga ga ghost.

[41:17] Wait, it's a bad taste.

[41:18] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:18] Musical guest?

[41:19] Also me.

[41:20] Playing the harp of an angel.

[41:22] Because I'm dead now.

Stuart Wellington

[41:24] Terrible.

[41:25] Or playing some skeletons.

[41:27] Like a xylem phone.

[41:28] Like a xylem phone.

Elliott Kalan

[41:30] It's like that one Disney cartoon.

[41:32] So, Dan.

[41:33] The Skeleton Dance by Abba Iwerks.

[41:37] So, Dan.

[41:38] Yeah.

[41:38] How do you get tickets to this amazing event?

[41:40] This live recording of the Flophouse.

Stuart Wellington

[41:41] Do you put ten tin bucks in an envelope and mail it somewhere?

Elliott Kalan

[41:46] Yeah, the tin tin bucks?

[41:48] No.

[41:48] They have Snowy's face on them?

Dan McCoy

[41:50] What do you do?

[41:51] Why don't you just go to our website, flophousepodcast.com, and I'll throw up a link there for you to get

[41:58] tickets.

Stuart Wellington

[41:59] I feel like ten tin bucks can only be redeemed for Nutella.

Dan McCoy

[42:04] And whatever the gel is he puts in his hair.

[42:07] Probably Nutella.

[42:08] Next little bit of housekeeping.

[42:10] This episode's coming out.

[42:12] Right?

[42:12] House cake.

Elliott Kalan

[42:13] So, but remember, let's just sum it up again.

[42:15] January 9th, Flophouse Podcast Live at the New York Podfest at the Bell House.

[42:20] Buy tickets online.

[42:21] I think it's gonna sell a lot of tickets.

[42:23] For ten bucks.

[42:25] Ten at ten.

[42:26] Leno at ten-o.

[42:27] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[42:28] But, so this episode's coming out right in the middle of MaxFun Week, a week-long celebration

[42:34] of Maximum Fun Podcast with lots of ways for fans to get involved.

[42:39] So head over to MaxFunFun.org to learn more about that.

[42:42] And as part of that, Mr. Stuart Wellington and I will be taking part in a Reddit AMA on Sunday

[42:48] the 19th.

[42:49] What does AMA stand for?

[42:50] Ask Me Anything.

[42:52] But there's two of us.

[42:53] Yeah.

[42:53] Should it be AUA?

Elliott Kalan

[42:55] Yeah.

[42:55] Ask Us Anything.

[42:56] Yeah.

[42:57] Unfortunately, I can't make it because I've got a life.

[42:59] No, but continue.

Dan McCoy

[43:01] Yeah.

[43:02] It'll be on Sunday the 19th at 6.30 p.m.

[43:04] That's Eastern Time.

[43:06] What?

[43:07] 3.30 Pacific.

[43:09] So check that out.

[43:09] 11.30 p.m. London Time.

Elliott Kalan

[43:12] And Ask Us Anything.

[43:13] In Japan, you're asleep.

[43:14] Don't even get involved.

Dan McCoy

[43:15] And that's the day after this podcast airs, yeah?

[43:18] Yes.

[43:19] And while we're on the subject, we'd like to reiterate how glad we are to now be on the

[43:23] MaxFun Network with a lot of great shows.

[43:25] I've said before, Jordan Jesse Goh.

[43:27] Judge John Hodgman.

[43:28] Was one of the things that inspired me to start producing a podcast guest.

[43:31] Judge John Hodgman, our friend and colleague, has his show with the MaxFun Network.

[43:39] If you like our show, check out My Brother, My Brother and Me, which I feel has a lot of

[43:43] kinship with the sort of show we do here.

[43:46] There are a ton of great shows to check out.

[43:47] They talk about movies and stuff?

[43:50] There's three dudes who...

[43:52] They talk about like Ninja Turtles?

[43:53] Oh, there's dudes.

[43:54] Okay.

[43:54] There's three dudes who like theoretically are doing a show about one thing, but it's mostly

[43:58] about just nonsense.

[44:00] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[44:00] So three dudes makes sense, but like Three Ninjas, for instance.

[44:04] If you like this podcast, don't necessarily go watch Three Ninjas.

Stuart Wellington

[44:06] Well, what about Three Ninjas Strike Back?

[44:09] Kick the Kick Back.

Elliott Kalan

[44:10] What about...

[44:11] God damn it.

[44:11] The Kick Back.

[44:12] If the Empire Strikes Back, the Three Ninjas Kick Back.

[44:15] It'd be weird if it was the Empire Kicks Back.

Stuart Wellington

[44:17] Would they like Sidekicks, though?

[44:19] Starring...

[44:20] Who wouldn't?

[44:20] Who wouldn't like Sidekicks?

[44:21] Hold on.

[44:21] Jonathan Brandis?

Elliott Kalan

[44:22] Chuck Norris?

[44:23] Mr. Miyagi, right?

[44:24] He's in that?

[44:24] It's just a nonsense question.

[44:25] Probably in it.

[44:26] Probably in it.

Elliott Kalan

[44:26] Mr. Miyagi?

[44:26] It's either Mr. Miyagi or Dax Shepard.

[44:28] I don't remember.

[44:29] Joel Grey, maybe?

Dan McCoy

[44:33] I know...

[44:34] Rick Lancaster?

[44:35] Is he in that?

[44:35] I know, Elliot.

[44:36] You've got a plug.

Elliott Kalan

[44:37] So why don't you do that before I do my last little bit here?

[44:39] Okay, I'd like to plug a non-flophouse thing, but it is kind of related in a way, but not

[44:44] really.

[44:45] I wrote an essay for a book called Never Can Say Goodbye, Writers on Their Unshakable Love

[44:50] for New York, edited by Sari Botten.

[44:52] And it's out in bookstores now, where you can order it online.

[44:55] It's from Simon & Schuster.

[44:56] And it's ostensibly writers writing about New York and their feelings about it.

[45:01] But my essay, it's called City of Mundane Fantasy, and it is about the things I imagined

[45:06] being a grown-up in New York would be like from the movies I watched as a kid.

[45:10] So basically like Muppets Take Manhattan, Gremlins 2, Ghostbusters, like what watching

[45:15] these as a kid made me think living life in New York as a grown-up would be, and the

[45:20] reality when I got there.

[45:21] And I'm very proud of it, and I hope everyone can buy a copy and enjoy it.

[45:25] It's called Never Can Say Goodbye, Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York.

[45:30] Yeah.

[45:30] There are a lot of other big names who wrote in it.

[45:32] Bigger names than me.

[45:33] That's why my name is not on the cover.

Dan McCoy

[45:35] But you won't mention them because this is our podcast.

[45:38] Because fuck those guys.

[45:39] Fuck it.

[45:39] Fuck those guys.

[45:40] Roasted.

Dan McCoy

[45:42] But last little bit of housekeeping.

[45:44] We have a winner for our contest seeking the new song of the autumn.

[45:49] It's called Rocket Crocodile and the World's Tomorrow.

[45:53] We'll be playing it as our outro music at the end of this very show.

[45:58] Congratulations.

[45:59] Yeah.

[45:59] Congratulations to the winner, Jason McIsaac.

[46:03] There were a lot.

[46:03] McIsaac.

[46:04] Sorry.

[46:04] I fucking wrote a fucking typo into this.

[46:07] Congratulations to the winner, Jason McIsaac.

Elliott Kalan

[46:10] So your inability to pronounce things has now spread to your writing as well.

[46:13] Yeah, my typing fingers.

Dan McCoy

[46:15] No, congratulations, Jason McIsaac, for taking our ramblings.

Elliott Kalan

[46:17] I wondered why you wrote me a top ten list the other day.

[46:21] Yeah.

[46:21] It's especially weird because The Daily Show doesn't do top ten lists.

Stuart Wellington

[46:24] Sure.

[46:24] But they do do lists of precious metals.

[46:27] Do do.

[46:28] Wait.

[46:29] Hilarious.

[46:30] You got me.

[46:32] Roasted.

[46:32] Wait.

[46:33] Is tin even a precious metal?

Elliott Kalan

[46:34] Not that precious, but I guess you could buy it and sell it.

[46:37] You know, it's useful.

[46:38] I mean, it's precious in that Wes Anderson's.

[46:40] It's precious in that it's based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

[46:49] Continue, Dan.

[46:50] I love that laugh.

[46:51] I love that laugh.

[46:55] So who is the contest winner, Dan?

Stuart Wellington

[46:59] He said who twice, he's an owl.

Elliott Kalan

[47:02] That's how it works.

[47:03] That's how it works.

[47:05] Dan is officially.

Stuart Wellington

[47:06] I'll be, I'll write up this contract real quick.

Elliott Kalan

[47:09] Government, update your files on Dan McCoy.

[47:12] So it says species colon owl.

[47:15] I'm now owl magical.

[47:17] He is now homo owlensis.

[47:19] The man owl.

Dan McCoy

[47:20] Yeah, Jason McIsaac, for taking our ramblings.

[47:23] Thank you for turning them into a catchy pop song.

[47:27] He is doing a great job.

[47:28] Very they might be giants-y.

[47:30] I thought it was kind of, it had like a flaming lips-y.

[47:33] Yeah, it felt more flaming lips-y to me.

[47:34] Okay, I don't like that shit.

Elliott Kalan

[47:35] The flaming's lips.

Dan McCoy

[47:37] I mean, I don't know.

[47:38] Check him out.

[47:39] He's at Stupid Chewbacca on Twitter, if you want to follow him.

[47:43] And there'll be a t-shirt coming his way.

[47:45] And he's given us a few choices of films to talk about.

[47:48] Awesome.

[47:49] On a future episode.

[47:50] So look for that soon.

Stuart Wellington

[47:52] And all the other entries were really great.

[47:55] I was really, really...

[47:56] Yeah, no, it was a lot of fun.

[47:57] I was a little partial to the Castle Freak one.

[48:01] If only because it reminded me that my voice sounds awesome all the time.

Dan McCoy

[48:06] Yeah.

[48:06] And I liked the one about me liking movies on planes, which came in a little too late to

[48:11] being part of the official voting.

[48:12] But a lot of fun.

Elliott Kalan

[48:13] I liked the Rocket Crocodile one, because it was my voice.

Dan McCoy

[48:15] Yeah.

[48:16] And it won.

Elliott Kalan

[48:16] You sound like Kermit when you're auto-tuned, though.

[48:19] Great.

[48:20] Yeah.

[48:21] That would be fantastic.

[48:21] I would love my voice.

[48:22] It's not an insult.

[48:23] Yeah.

[48:23] As opposed to...

[48:24] I always saw you more as like a gonzo.

[48:27] I mean, personality-wise, yes.

[48:29] Gonzo all the way.

[48:30] And he was my favorite as a kid.

[48:32] But voice-wise, I'm more like a mosquito trapped inside your ear that you can't get rid of.

[48:36] Sort of a scooter.

[48:38] Anyway.

[48:39] Whoa, roasting.

[48:40] Let's not say things we can't say back.

[48:43] You know who you are?

[48:44] You're the most boring, blandest Muppet pre-The Muppets movie.

[48:47] Pre-Walter.

[48:48] Pre-Walter.

[48:50] Although, you know what?

[48:50] As a kid, I thought of myself as a gonzo, but I was probably Kermit.

Dan McCoy

[48:54] So let's get on to letters from listeners.

[48:57] I was really a Dr. Teeth.

[49:01] I think of myself as more of a zoot.

Elliott Kalan

[49:06] Letters.

[49:07] I was really more of a fraggle.

[49:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[49:10] A dozer.

[49:13] So, moving on.

Stuart Wellington

[49:14] I thought they were dozers.

Elliott Kalan

[49:15] I thought they were dozers.

[49:16] More of a Skeksis.

[49:17] Mm-hmm.

[49:18] Again, my favorites.

[49:19] In Dark Crystal, Skeksis were the heroes as far as I'm concerned.

[49:22] So.

[49:22] I always preferred the more lizard-y characters to the mammal characters.

Stuart Wellington

[49:25] Sure.

[49:26] Just like I preferred the German dog in Call the Wild.

[49:29] In Call the Wild.

Dan McCoy

[49:30] So, we get letters from listeners.

[49:33] Oh, cool.

[49:33] And these are some of them.

[49:34] And we never get songs.

Elliott Kalan

[49:35] Ba-ba-bum.

[49:36] Ba-ba-da-bum-ba-bum.

[49:38] These are the letters of the Flophouse files.

[49:40] The names have not been changed because no one is innocent.

[49:43] Mm-hmm.

[49:43] Watch now as we answer these letters.

[49:46] Ba-ba-ba.

[49:47] Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

[49:49] Paper thru-sling.

[49:50] It's letter time.

[49:51] It's letter time at the Flophouse.

[49:53] Letter time for you and for me.

[49:56] What's that time again?

[49:57] It's letter time.

[49:59] Time for letters.

[50:00] Letters, can't you see?

[50:02] It's the time for letters.

[50:04] The time for bettors.

[50:06] The time to unleash those fetters.

[50:09] For the letters.

[50:11] It all becomes the same song, eventually.

Dan McCoy

[50:13] No regretters.

[50:15] A thousand monkeys and a thousand typewriters do a thousand letter songs.

[50:18] They eventually all become the same letters.

[50:20] Letters and fetters.

[50:22] Yeah.

[50:22] So this goes.

[50:23] Let's get those letters tonight.

[50:26] This letter goes like this.

[50:27] Hi, Floppers.

[50:28] In honor of Elliot's new baby, I've composed a series of questions for each of you relating to babies.

[50:35] Elliot.

[50:36] Would you consider your new baby more of a baby Herman, the titular baby from Baby's Day Out,

[50:40] or the zombie baby from Dead Alive?

Elliott Kalan

[50:43] Uh, he's just a normal baby.

[50:46] I'm going to let him make his own choices in the world.

[50:48] All right.

[50:49] Fair enough.

[50:49] As long as he's not a baby Huey.

[50:51] Stuart.

Dan McCoy

[50:52] In a hypothetical situation where you live in a post-apocalyptic world with an awesome 80s soundtrack.

[50:58] That's kind of his life already.

[50:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[51:00] And you could only have one sexy girlfriend named Baby.

[51:02] Who would you pick?

[51:04] Baby from Dirty Dancing?

[51:05] Baby from Sucker Punch?

[51:07] Or Baby from The Devil's Rejects?

Elliott Kalan

[51:09] What about Baby from Baby Legend of the Lost Dinosaur?

Stuart Wellington

[51:13] That would be great.

[51:14] Although, I don't know if you could fit that baby dinosaur into some fishnets.

[51:19] No.

[51:19] In like a spiked collar.

[51:21] But that might deflect the bullets that the poachers are going to shoot at her.

[51:26] So answer the question.

[51:28] I would say Baby from Dirty Dancing.

[51:30] I mean, I was always a pre-nose job Jennifer Grey guy.

[51:33] She's got a certain charm.

[51:35] Oh, yeah.

[51:35] It's right in the nose.

Elliott Kalan

[51:36] That's why she's the star of a major motion picture.

[51:38] The nose nose.

Stuart Wellington

[51:39] I think.

[51:39] And she was one of my, probably my favorite part of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Elliott Kalan

[51:44] Yeah.

[51:45] Really?

[51:45] Okay.

[51:45] Yeah, she's good in it.

[51:46] You know, you could also do, if it's pre-nose job, you put a scarf around her mouth and a fedora

[51:52] hat on.

[51:52] It's like you're having sex with Lady the Shadow.

Stuart Wellington

[51:55] It has to be Lady the Shadow.

[51:57] I can't just be having sex with the Shadow.

Elliott Kalan

[51:59] That would be weird.

[52:00] It's Lamontina Cranston.

[52:02] Lamont Cranston's sister.

[52:03] So, okay, last.

[52:05] Okay, pretend you're the Shadow.

[52:07] Not La Martha.

[52:08] Wait.

[52:09] Wait, wait.

[52:09] What's his last name?

[52:11] Cranston.

[52:12] Just like Bryan Cranston, his son.

[52:14] Okay.

[52:14] A lot of people don't know that Bryan Cranston's the son of the Shadow.

[52:16] Did he inherit the psychic powers?

[52:19] Yes, that's how he's convinced everyone he's a good actor when in fact he's a bad actor.

[52:23] Whoa.

Stuart Wellington

[52:24] He's one of the 15 actors.

[52:25] He's one of the things you thought were great but are actually terrible.

[52:28] Well, who are the others?

[52:29] That's some kind of BuzzFeed article.

[52:31] Oh, yeah.

[52:31] Roasted BuzzFeed.

[52:33] You've burned.

Dan McCoy

[52:33] You've been burned.

[52:34] Not really.

[52:35] All right.

[52:35] Bryan Cranston's really good.

[52:36] Anyway.

[52:36] Last question.

[52:37] Dan, if you were in charge of the remake of Bringing Up Baby, who would you cast in the

[52:41] Cary Grant and Catherine Hepburn parts?

[52:43] Also, what would you do to modernize the script?

[52:47] Explosions?

[52:48] CGI and boobs would be expected.

[52:50] That's from Flapjack Riley.

[52:53] Wait.

[52:54] Is he like a pilot in a 30s movie?

[52:56] I think it's a lady.

[52:57] But I...

[52:58] She?

[52:58] There could be pilots in 30s movies with ladies.

[53:00] Yeah, dude.

[53:00] Okay.

[53:01] I'm sorry.

[53:01] Just look at Amelia Earhart.

Stuart Wellington

[53:03] Although modernizing a movie I don't feel involves boobs.

[53:06] Here's the...

[53:07] Boobs are like the titular baby, kind of a dinosaur now.

[53:11] I think...

[53:11] No, the baby is a cheetah.

Elliott Kalan

[53:13] In the seduction...

[53:14] Yeah.

[53:15] He's a...

[53:15] She's a leopard.

[53:16] Leopard.

[53:16] In seduction cinema, it would be Bringing Up Booby would be the like porn parody.

Dan McCoy

[53:21] Okay.

[53:21] I would not remake Bringing Up Baby because I don't care for it.

[53:25] We've talked about this before.

[53:26] To me...

[53:27] Overrated.

[53:28] Yeah.

[53:28] It's an overrated film.

[53:30] The best Cary Grant...

[53:31] You'd remake your favorite Howard Hawks movie.

[53:32] Monkey business.

[53:33] No, I...

[53:34] My favorite screwball, Howard Hawks, Cary Grant...

[53:38] Howard Hawks made screwballs?

[53:40] As a ghost.

[53:42] His Girl Friday.

[53:43] His Girl Friday, to me, is...

[53:45] His Girl Friday is almost perfect.

[53:46] Amazing.

[53:47] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[53:47] So you should remake that almost perfect movie.

Elliott Kalan

[53:49] I mean, they've remade his...

[53:51] Well, no, you know...

Dan McCoy

[53:51] They remade Bringing Up Baby as Who's That Girl with Griffin Dunn and Madonna.

Elliott Kalan

[53:56] And What's Up Doc is pretty much a remake of Bringing Up Baby.

Dan McCoy

[53:59] But if I'm forced to recast Bringing Up Baby,

[54:02] I don't know, Cary Grant will be George Clooney and Catherine Hepburn will be Christian Shaw.

[54:09] Let's do that.

Elliott Kalan

[54:11] Christian Shaw would be great.

[54:12] But I can see...

[54:12] If there was a major motion picture, I could easily see it being Emma Stone in the Catherine

[54:16] Hepburn role.

[54:17] And the Cary Grant role, it'd probably be like Shia LaBeouf or whatever.

[54:22] Someone terrible.

[54:22] And the Leopard will be a sassy robot.

[54:25] Yeah.

[54:26] Or those are like...

[54:26] That is future.

[54:28] Yeah.

[54:28] Bringing Up Space Baby.

[54:30] But what if it was Tom Hardy in the Cary Grant role?

[54:32] He can do comedy, right?

[54:33] And he's kind of short.

Dan McCoy

[54:34] No, I saw this being Warren.

[54:36] I don't think he can.

[54:37] I mean, he's kind of funny in Bronson at times.

[54:38] All right.

[54:40] So this next letter goes like this.

[54:43] I'm honestly confused.

[54:45] Is David Mamet a very good or great playwright and screenwriter, but the worst director in

[54:49] the world?

[54:50] Or is the worst director Spike Lee and David Mamet just can't get people to talk, move, or

[54:54] ape human behavior in any way?

[54:56] Regardless, he married Rebecca Pigeon, and that makes him a genius.

[54:59] Love Trevor, middle name with help, Grimshaw.

[55:02] Now, come on.

[55:02] Spike Lee made Do the Right Thing.

[55:04] He's made some very great movies.

[55:06] Which is an amazing movie.

Elliott Kalan

[55:06] Do the Right Thing is a great movie.

[55:08] She's Gotta Have It is a really good movie.

[55:09] He's made a number of really good movies.

Dan McCoy

[55:11] Inside Man is a lot of fun.

[55:12] Inside Man is a really good movie.

[55:13] I mean, He Got Game is a good movie.

[55:15] She Hate Me is a terrible movie.

[55:18] He's done a lot of good work.

[55:19] So let's lay off Spike Lee.

Elliott Kalan

[55:21] It's not all the miracle at St. Anna.

Stuart Wellington

[55:22] So it's time to trash David Mamet.

Elliott Kalan

[55:25] I mean, David Mamet, I like a lot of his stuff, too.

Stuart Wellington

[55:27] Tear him apart.

[55:28] Tear him a new one, Ellie.

Elliott Kalan

[55:30] There's plenty of it.

Dan McCoy

[55:30] I like The Spanish Prisoner.

[55:32] He's made a lot of great movies.

[55:33] House of Games.

[55:33] He does have a very strange theory of acting where he wants everyone to.

[55:37] He wants the least amount of acting possible.

[55:38] Yeah, like the most affectless.

Elliott Kalan

[55:41] And the thing is like.

[55:41] Except it becomes an effect eventually.

[55:44] Yeah.

[55:44] You become so monotone that it becomes a flat distancing effect.

[55:49] Right.

Dan McCoy

[55:50] And also, I feel like his theory of what makes good acting in that way is dismantled by people

[55:56] who actually are good actors.

[55:59] Like Joe Mantegna, when he's in those movies, is not listening to what David Mamet has to

[56:03] say about that.

[56:04] He's just doing his Joe Mantegna thing.

[56:06] Yeah.

[56:06] He's Fat Tony all the way.

[56:07] You know.

Elliott Kalan

[56:08] And he's like, David Mamet wrote The Verdict, right?

Dan McCoy

[56:12] Like that's a really good movie.

[56:13] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[56:14] He's, but he's.

Dan McCoy

[56:15] I mean, he is a genius for marrying Rebecca Pigeon.

[56:17] How so?

[56:18] I find her very attractive.

Elliott Kalan

[56:19] Yeah, but I mean, otherwise.

[56:21] So she's got to put this not good actress in all his movies?

Stuart Wellington

[56:24] Yeah.

[56:25] Does it make you a genius for appreciating somebody's beauty?

Elliott Kalan

[56:29] I would say that David Mamet is a crazy person.

[56:31] Yeah.

[56:31] It's one of the reasons his.

[56:32] Yeah.

[56:32] He's become even crazier lately.

[56:33] But like, John Carpenter's made his share of crap, but he's also made his share of great

[56:38] movies.

[56:38] You know, no one's 100% except maybe.

[56:42] Stuart Gordon maybe.

[56:44] Yes.

[56:45] Yes.

[56:45] Except Stuart Gordon.

[56:46] Yeah.

[56:47] Maybe, maybe John Vigo, who made only one feature length film and a couple shorts.

[56:51] Like.

[56:51] Yeah.

[56:52] It's.

[56:52] Almost no directors or writers are 100%.

Dan McCoy

[56:55] Yeah.

[56:56] It's hard to make a good thing.

[56:58] Just one good thing.

[57:00] So if someone makes one good thing, we should appreciate them for that, I feel like.

Elliott Kalan

[57:03] And after watching Dario Argento's Dracula, I think we got a pretty good case that neither

[57:06] Spike Lee nor David Mamet are the worst director.

[57:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[57:09] But moving on.

[57:11] Adam Lastname with Weld writes, greetings from the UK, or perhaps by the time you read

[57:16] this, the K.

[57:17] I think that's how it will work.

[57:18] No, don't worry.

[57:19] Scotland decided not to secede.

[57:21] After a long night of drinking warm beer and wearing a bowler hat, I decided to listen

[57:26] to my favorite podcast.

[57:28] 17 minutes in, Elliot says something very similar to a line I had read in The Big Sleep just

[57:32] hours before.

[57:33] It set off a train of thought that eventually led to this question.

[57:36] Did Raymond Chandler rip me off?

[57:37] Yes.

[57:38] Are there any characters from other media that you love so much, no actor would ever be able

[57:45] to portray them well enough for your standards?

[57:47] Yeah.

[57:47] You were having Lincoln, dude.

[57:48] Also.

[57:48] Have you ever thought there was a character like that and been proven wrong?

[57:51] Love the podcast.

[57:52] You guys are my favorite bi-weekly event.

[57:54] That's Adam's last name withheld.

[57:57] So you say Abel and him.

Elliott Kalan

[57:58] I mean, he's not a character.

Dan McCoy

[58:00] Oh, he's a character.

Elliott Kalan

[58:01] Oh, boy.

[58:03] What with the rail splitting and the emancipation.

[58:06] I mean, that's...

[58:07] That guy's zany.

[58:09] I definitely have such a strong image of Abraham Lincoln in my head that I think no performance

[58:15] is ever going to be quite what I'm looking for.

[58:17] But when it comes to like fictional characters, I don't know.

[58:19] There's probably like superhero characters or something.

[58:22] If they ever made a movie of The Man Who Was Thursday, which is one of my favorite books

[58:28] of all time, I think it'd be hard pressed for them to find the right people for that.

[58:32] Now that Orson Welles is dead, because Orson Welles would have been perfect for the role

[58:35] of Sunday.

[58:37] The mastermind criminal who is larger than life and just his very face frightens people

[58:43] with its, you know, with just the power inherent in it.

[58:47] It would be hard to find someone who can do that.

[58:48] But I don't see them ever making a movie of that, even though it'd be great.

Dan McCoy

[58:51] I don't know that I have that sort of attachment to a particular character.

[58:55] Like, for instance, my, like the fictional character I feel like I might have the most

[59:01] attachment to is Sherlock Holmes.

[59:04] But I actually have like, I mean, you know, I've enjoyed Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes

[59:08] very much more recently.

[59:10] I've enjoyed Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes.

[59:13] I don't have a, like I haven't gotten angry.

[59:17] I mean, I have gotten angry at portrayals of Sherlock Holmes, but there are also good ones

[59:21] out there.

[59:23] I have a lot of fondness for like the Lewis Carroll's Alice books, but it's not like I've

[59:28] got a particular fondness for the character of Alice because there's not really a character

[59:32] there.

[59:33] It's more that I'm mad at movies and shows trying to like capture that quality.

Elliott Kalan

[59:39] Well, in that place, the character is the world that it takes place in.

[59:43] Like even the Cheshire Cat, who's like a popular character, like he doesn't have, doesn't do

[59:47] that much.

[59:48] He doesn't have much of a, he has one characteristic basically.

[59:51] Yeah, like Boba Fett.

[59:52] But nothing for me has like.

Dan McCoy

[59:53] Yeah, like Boba Fett, exactly.

[59:54] No adaptation has captured those books, but it's not a question of the character per se.

[59:59] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:00] I think in my, well, Stuart, you answered and then I was going to say something about

[1:00:03] the reverse.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:04] Oh, I actually think it's funny.

[1:00:05] Like I would say the character or like relationship that I feel very close to is Jack Aubrey and

[1:00:13] Steven Maturin in the Patrick O'Brien novels.

[1:00:15] But I actually think the movie did a good enough job that it, I mean, I kind of, I guess I kind

[1:00:21] of went in there not, like not holding it as a sacred cow and I thought it did well enough

[1:00:26] that I don't really care.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:27] I'll think of one, Stuart.

[1:00:28] Game of Thrones.

[1:00:30] Oh, yeah.

[1:00:30] I think your connection to that will make it very hard for any portrayal.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:34] But that's the entire thing.

[1:00:36] Like it's something I know that there's nothing this TV show can do to make me like it.

[1:00:42] Like I've read those books way too many times and it's, I don't need a Cliff Notes version.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:47] I'll tell you one where it's kind of the reverse is the, is the thin man.

[1:00:51] Speaking of not Raymond Chandler, but Raymond Chandler like Dashiell Hammond.

[1:00:54] Yeah.

[1:00:54] That I saw the movie before I ever read the book.

[1:00:57] I love the movie so much.

[1:00:58] Nick Charles is maybe my favorite, particularly that, that performance of him, my favorite fictional

[1:01:04] character ever.

[1:01:05] And I read the book and the book was too different to character and I couldn't accept it.

[1:01:10] It was like, to me, this is that William Powell is Nick Charles and the version of the book

[1:01:14] is much nastier.

[1:01:15] Him and his wife are mean to each other.

[1:01:18] They're really much drinkier and it was, I couldn't handle it.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:22] Drinkier than the movie?

[1:01:23] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:23] Because in the movie they're like, like, they're like pretty, he's a fun drunk.

[1:01:26] Yeah, fun drunk.

[1:01:27] And in the book they're always drinking but in a way that makes them like snipe at each

[1:01:30] other, you know.

[1:01:30] It feels much more like a crutch.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:33] More like an Andy Capp sort of fellow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:35] Yeah, exactly.

[1:01:36] Yeah.

[1:01:37] There's always a-

[1:01:37] Nora's always kicking him out, hitting him with a rolling pin.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:39] There's a rolling pin always hovering just behind his head.

[1:01:42] Sure.

[1:01:43] It's like a guillotine.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:44] But like, if there was ever like a movie version of like Peanuts or something like that, I could

[1:01:48] see being unhappy with it.

[1:01:50] You know, I mean, there's the TV specials, but, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:53] But last letter, this is a handwritten note.

[1:01:57] It says, I have your wife.

[1:01:59] It goes like this.

[1:02:01] Dear Peaches, I wanted to thank you for the many hours of delightful entertainment.

[1:02:06] Please find enclosed a hat for Dan, a beer cozy for Stuart, and a tiny hat for Elliot or

[1:02:13] his newborn son.

[1:02:15] If you guys have any other knitted miscellany, ding dong, cozies, et cetera, let me know.

[1:02:21] If you guys need any more, sorry, knitted miscellany.

[1:02:25] Pervon Pervozoids.

[1:02:26] Kitty last name withheld.

[1:02:28] P.S.

[1:02:28] I'm watching Great Bikini Off-Road Adventure at the moment.

[1:02:31] It's everything you said it would be.

[1:02:34] I don't know what a girl would get out of that movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:37] I think, of all people, Kitty would get something.

[1:02:41] Kitty is a regular commenter on the Facebook page.

[1:02:45] And is delightfully sexed.

[1:02:47] Brings a lot of life and pervosity to it.

[1:02:50] Thank you very much for the hats.

[1:02:51] Yeah, we were saying.

[1:02:53] And my beer hat.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:54] Your knitted materials.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:56] It's a hat for my beer's bottom.

[1:02:57] Sammy looks super cute in your hat.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:59] Yeah.

[1:03:00] I have to report with sadness that my wife looks much cuter in the hat that you knitted

[1:03:05] than I do.

[1:03:06] But that's probably just true in life.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:10] Shouldn't that make you happy that your wife looks cuter than you?

[1:03:13] Yeah, I know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:14] I'll take it.

[1:03:14] I hate to break it to you then.

[1:03:16] What?

[1:03:16] Your wife is cuter than you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:18] Yeah.

[1:03:18] I'm assuming she looks better in most articles of clothing than you do.

[1:03:21] In pretty much anything.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:23] I mean.

[1:03:23] Or nothing at all.

[1:03:25] You're a gentleman.

[1:03:25] Wow.

[1:03:26] I thought you were a gentleman.

[1:03:28] I thought you said that.

[1:03:29] I'm giving you a taste of your medicine.

[1:03:30] Poisted by his own.

[1:03:31] I don't care.

[1:03:32] Perv tart.

[1:03:33] I really genuinely don't care.

[1:03:36] I appreciate your appreciation.

[1:03:38] Anyway.

[1:03:38] The way you say I don't care makes it weird.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:40] Now you made me feel really gross.

[1:03:42] No, it's fine.

[1:03:43] This was supposed to be.

[1:03:44] You were supposed to be mad.

[1:03:45] Not mad.

[1:03:46] And then you said you were too open.

[1:03:47] I'm glad that you feel that way.

[1:03:49] No, I don't.

[1:03:50] Okay.

[1:03:51] Let's stop.

[1:03:51] Thanks, everybody.

[1:03:52] Stop.

[1:03:52] I don't like it.

[1:03:53] Good work.

[1:03:54] This became like the scene in Computer Chess where that swinger couple tries to get the

[1:03:59] one chess player to have sex with them.

[1:04:00] And I don't like that.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:02] But now that the letters section has been put to bed, if you will, now we move on.

[1:04:09] Now that we tucked it into an envelope.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:10] He stared right at you when he said put to bed, too.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:13] Wake.

[1:04:14] Because I put a baby to bed.

[1:04:16] Wake.

[1:04:16] Now that we've tucked the letters into their matchbox bed and blown out the birthday candle

[1:04:21] they use as a light.

[1:04:23] The letters are a mouse, I guess, in this scenario.

[1:04:25] Five head.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:25] It's time for us to recommend a movie that we actually liked.

[1:04:30] And it being Shocktober, if we can, horror or scary movies might be the order of the day.

[1:04:38] Well, here's one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:38] I'm going to recommend a movie called Scary Movie.

[1:04:41] It is a scary movie.

[1:04:42] No, it's not.

[1:04:43] No kidding.

[1:04:44] I've seen that.

[1:04:44] No, that's not what I'm going to recommend.

[1:04:46] Who wants to go first?

[1:04:48] You started talking.

[1:04:49] Okay.

[1:04:50] Well, I think I'll do you one better.

[1:04:51] Not just a horror movie, but a vampire movie.

[1:04:53] Since the movie we watched today was about Dawson Wampierd.

[1:04:56] Is it a vampire in Brooklyn?

[1:04:56] It is not a vampire in Brooklyn.

[1:04:58] Neither is it a tree grows in Brooklyn.

[1:05:00] Or a vampire tree grows in Brooklyn.

[1:05:02] Is it innocent blood?

[1:05:03] No.

[1:05:05] Is it?

[1:05:05] Keep asking.

[1:05:06] Keep guessing.

[1:05:06] Embrace of the vampire.

[1:05:07] It is not that.

[1:05:08] It's not Vampire's Kiss.

[1:05:10] It's none of those things.

[1:05:12] It's not a movie about a Chinese vampire who hops around and counts rice.

[1:05:16] Sure, a guiam-shi vampire.

[1:05:18] Instead, I want to recommend a movie called Shadow of the Vampire, which people may have

[1:05:22] seen with John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe.

[1:05:25] And it's the movie in which John Malkovich plays F.W. Murnau, making...

[1:05:30] Yeah, it's Murnau, right?

[1:05:32] Yeah.

[1:05:32] Who made Nosferatu?

[1:05:33] Yeah.

[1:05:34] Making Nosferatu.

[1:05:36] And they have hired Willem Dafoe, who is an actual vampire, to play Count Orlok, the

[1:05:41] vampire in the film.

[1:05:43] And it's a surprisingly creepy movie that is also a surprisingly funny but also sad look

[1:05:50] at, like, behind the scenes of a movie and also how depressing it would be to be a vampire

[1:05:55] shut up in a castle.

[1:05:57] Like, I'm not a fan of the vampire as, like, tragic, romantic hero, but there is something

[1:06:03] about the tragedy of outliving everyone and being an outcast that is genuinely sad.

[1:06:08] It's a curse.

[1:06:09] Yeah.

[1:06:09] It's not just the gift of eternal life.

[1:06:11] It's also a curse.

[1:06:12] And this is a movie that I remember when I first saw it in the theaters, which, jeez, 14 years

Dan McCoy

[1:06:16] ago.

[1:06:16] I never know if that was that long ago.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:17] The, uh, it was, I was surprised at how far it went with its premise and kind of that it

[1:06:23] wasn't afraid to follow that story where it most plausibly would lead in terms of a man

[1:06:29] who is so obsessed with making a movie that he doesn't mind that his star is eating people

[1:06:33] and a star who is a vampire and is driven to feast on the people that he's working with.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:38] So 14 years ago, would you even have been able to get in that movie?

[1:06:42] Yes, I was.

[1:06:43] Did you have to take off your beanie with a propeller on it?

[1:06:45] I was 18, 19 years old.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:47] Yeah.

[1:06:47] I had to stand on my friend's shoulders and move in a trench coat around us.

[1:06:50] I was in college, Stuart.

[1:06:52] But, uh, Shadow of the Vampire.

[1:06:53] Real Doogie Howser over here, I guess.

[1:06:55] It's a movie that, uh, has kind of, uh, fallen by the wayside and I'd like to recommend

[1:07:00] it.

[1:07:00] I think it's a good vampire movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:02] Uh, I would like to recommend a movie that I rewatched recently, uh, by a unknown filmmaker

[1:07:11] by the name of Steven Spielberg.

[1:07:14] And it is called Duel.

[1:07:17] Um, one of his very earliest, uh, movies.

[1:07:21] It was made for television, but released, uh, theatrical, theatrically in a slightly longer

[1:07:26] version.

[1:07:27] Um, it's a Richard Matheson scripted film about a mild-mannered man, uh, played by Dennis

[1:07:36] Weaver, who is, um, driving along a abandoned, uh, desert road and gets into a battle with

[1:07:47] a unseen truck driver of a very scary, rusty, smoky truck that tries to kill him, basically,

[1:07:57] over the course of, uh, his trip.

[1:07:59] And what really struck me rewatching it recently is how even like that early in Spielberg's

[1:08:05] career, like really like one of the very first feature length things he did.

[1:08:10] I think he had one earlier thing that was a feature length for television, uh, movie, just

[1:08:17] how skilled he was, particularly in the, um, sound design of the movie.

[1:08:22] There was, uh, the sound design of this film with like what's going on inside the car, what's

[1:08:29] going on outside the car, the kind of, um, what's on the radio in the car in a way that

[1:08:34] kind of provides a counterpoint to the tension of the film.

[1:08:40] Um, the fact that the movie takes about half an hour before the music ever kicks in, um,

[1:08:48] and then when it kicks in, that actually means something that the score is happening.

[1:08:52] Like it's, it's, it's a pretty amazing film on that technical level.

[1:08:56] And it also does some amazing things just like, this is a film that basically just has one

[1:09:02] guy in it as the focus of it in a limited, um, location inside this car.

[1:09:09] Um, and you've got him interacting with people at different times in the movie and you've

[1:09:15] got some voiceover, but mostly it's just like a very limited, uh, amount of resources that

[1:09:23] Spielberg has to work with.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:25] Yeah.

[1:09:25] Restricted point of view.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:26] Yeah.

[1:09:26] But it, it provides so much tension over the course of the film.

[1:09:31] It just, uh, it's an amazing, uh, I wouldn't say debut cause it wasn't really his debut,

[1:09:37] but like it's a dry run for the sort of thing that happens in Jaws.

[1:09:41] And as Spielberg later said in his career, like it's a lot harder eliciting fear from

[1:09:47] a truck than it is from a shark.

[1:09:50] And, uh, it's impressive what he was able to do with all that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:53] Uh, Mick Garris and Stephen King.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:56] Yeah.

[1:09:57] Would say otherwise.

[1:09:58] I guess just Stephen King.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:59] A little film called Maximum Overdrive.

[1:10:00] It's a little film called Max Fun Overdrive.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:03] With a, with a green goblin of a truck.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:05] And a soda machine that shoots a guy in the balls with a soda can.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:10] But I recommend...

[1:10:10] Played straight.

[1:10:11] Not to laughs at all.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:12] Not a funny scene.

[1:10:14] Think about it.

[1:10:14] If that happened to you, you would not be laughing.

[1:10:16] Oh no.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:16] You would be in serious pain.

[1:10:17] You'd have liquefied testicles.

[1:10:20] Yeah.

[1:10:20] Right?

[1:10:21] Uh, I don't know that...

[1:10:22] You'd never be liquefied.

[1:10:23] Yeah, I didn't really know that.

[1:10:23] It would hit you that hard.

[1:10:24] Okay, so...

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:26] So thanks, Dan, for selling us on Steven Spielberg.

[1:10:28] Well, but Duel is a pretty little scene movie.

[1:10:30] I guess, yeah.

[1:10:31] Even now.

[1:10:31] It's more, more known than it is seen.

[1:10:33] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:35] So, to continue this theme of cars...

[1:10:39] And...

[1:10:40] I don't...

[1:10:40] That was just me.

[1:10:42] My movie, I guess they drive a car to get to the castle.

[1:10:45] That's the thing.

[1:10:46] Uh, and Rucker Hauer movies.

[1:10:51] Uh...

[1:10:51] I'm going to recommend...

[1:10:52] What?

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:54] I don't know why you need to stretch so hard for your Segway theme.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:59] I'm going to recommend a movie called Castle Break.

[1:11:01] Which is neither Cars nor Rucker Hauer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:03] Speaking of...

[1:11:04] There's tons of cars in Castle Freak, bro.

[1:11:06] That's what it's known for.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:07] You might say that Rucker Hauer's spirit hovers over the film.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:11] I'm going to recommend a movie from 1986 called The Hitcher.

[1:11:15] Ah.

[1:11:16] Yeah.

[1:11:17] Starring C. Thomas Howell.

[1:11:19] Soul Man himself.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:21] That's right.

[1:11:22] You might know him from Soul Man.

[1:11:24] Society himself, C. Thomas Howell.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:27] And he is...

[1:11:29] Son of Mr. Howell, the millionaire.

[1:11:32] He died on that deserted island.

[1:11:34] Tragic.

[1:11:35] And this is also a somewhat...

[1:11:36] Oh, wait.

[1:11:37] You got some more jokes?

[1:11:39] The real-life subject of the film, The Howling.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:45] Guy who turns into C. Thomas Howell.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:49] At night, he's bitten by a C. Thomas Howell.

[1:11:51] And when the moon is full, he turns into C. Thomas Howell.

[1:11:54] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:55] Go on, Stuart.

[1:11:56] The Howling for My Sister is in Blackface.

[1:12:00] The only thing I remember about that movie is...

[1:12:05] There was an ad for it where there's a joke about how he's in blackface, but he has a white penis.

[1:12:13] And some guy sees him peeing in a urinal.

[1:12:15] And he explains that sometimes it happens like that.

[1:12:19] And even as a kid, I'm like, this is a bad taste.

[1:12:23] I'm not going to watch that movie.

[1:12:25] I'm uncomfortable.

[1:12:25] You're like, James Earl Jones, why are you in this?

[1:12:28] And so the premise of the movie is a young man is driving a car, I believe across Route 66.

[1:12:37] And he runs a foul from a mysterious stranger.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:43] Yeah, he runs a foul restaurant.

[1:12:46] It's called Rutgers Chick-A-Shack.

[1:12:49] Oh, C. Thomas Howell's Chick-A-Shack.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:50] So he runs a foul of a hitchhiker, played by Rucker Hauer.

[1:12:56] And I almost said Rucker Howell.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:59] Let me finish this recommendation quick.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:01] Rucker Howell.

[1:13:02] Where you quickly realize there's something off with this hitchhiker.

[1:13:07] And the hitchhiker attempts to kill him.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:09] Yeah, you realize it's Rucker Hauer, which means he's crazy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:12] And he's super intense the entire movie.

[1:13:14] And the entire movie is basically one long chase.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:17] And he had a young Jennifer Jason Leigh in the mix.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:19] Young Jennifer Jason Leigh in the mix.

[1:13:22] And it's a very intense movie.

[1:13:25] And it's a movie about a normal guy being pushed too far.

[1:13:29] To the edge.

[1:13:30] And it's very gory.

[1:13:32] And it's a very tense movie without a lot of characters.

[1:13:35] And I think it's great.

[1:13:37] And it's much better than the remake where Sean Bean played the hitcher role.

[1:13:43] And I think he shoots a helicopter out of the sky with a pistol.

[1:13:48] So don't watch that.

[1:13:49] Watch the original.

[1:13:51] And the movie was directed by a guy.

[1:13:52] It was like his second movie.

[1:13:54] And he went on to do basically.

[1:13:55] He went on to be a working director.

[1:13:58] But they're all Tom Selleck starring TV movies.

[1:14:03] And I just remember the hitchhiker.

[1:14:05] Work is work.

[1:14:05] All the Jesse Stone movies.

[1:14:08] Nice.

[1:14:10] I guess he's a cop or something.

[1:14:12] I don't know.

[1:14:12] He's not the Hulk.

[1:14:13] Just the box art.

[1:14:14] All the Quigley Down Under movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:16] He did not draw Quigley Down Under.

[1:14:17] The Quigley series.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:19] Now, Quigley Down Under.

[1:14:21] There was Quigley in Egypt.

[1:14:23] Quigley at the center of the earth.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:25] Yeah, Quigley in the mummy's tomb.

[1:14:27] Quigley goes to the moon.

[1:14:29] Quigley in the time of the dinosaurs.

[1:14:32] Quigley under the rainbow.

[1:14:34] Yeah, Quigley meets Mr. Baseball.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:37] It was a Tom Selleck sort of horse.

[1:14:39] Yeah.

[1:14:40] A lot of digital.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:41] Yeah, three men and a Quigley.

[1:14:49] Quigley eats the moon.

[1:14:52] What?

[1:14:53] I don't know where you're going.

[1:14:54] You're going to say the moon again.

[1:14:55] You're going to say.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:57] I was going to say the moon again.

[1:15:01] Doesn't make any sense.

[1:15:02] Well, it's made of cheese, I guess.

[1:15:04] And Quigley's like cheese.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:06] That's his character.

[1:15:07] He loves cheese.

[1:15:08] Hold on, let me.

[1:15:09] The talent of Mr. Quigley.

[1:15:11] There you go.

[1:15:11] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:11] You're going to say Magnum PQ.

[1:15:13] The Q standing for Quigley, of course.

[1:15:15] Yeah, private Quigley.

[1:15:16] Magnum PDQ buck.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:19] Well, guys.

[1:15:22] Another Shocktober limps to a weird end.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:27] Yeah, I mean, it's not a real thing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:28] A person once told me that at the beginning of every October, she prays that she'll see a ghost.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:35] I can't remember who said that.

[1:15:37] Well, that was rude.

[1:15:37] But every Shocktober, I begin the month by praying I'm going to see an actual good horror movie on the flop house.

[1:15:42] Has it happened?

[1:15:43] Has it happened, yeah.

[1:15:44] No, never.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:46] Hardly ever.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:48] What?

[1:15:48] Never?

[1:15:49] No, never.

[1:15:50] Well, hardly ever.

[1:15:52] There's hardly ever a good horror movie on the flop house.

[1:15:57] We'll give three.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:58] Sorry?

[1:15:59] Well, maybe next year.

[1:16:00] Maybe next year, guys.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:02] Okay, so stay tuned for the Song of the Autumn.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:04] Put a fucking, put a tooth under your pillow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:08] Does it have to be one of mine?

[1:16:09] Because I need mine.

[1:16:10] Can I get someone else's teeth?

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:12] Maybe we'll be rewarded with a good.

[1:16:13] That's why you got a baby, right?

[1:16:15] That's basically a tooth factory.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:16] Yeah, and in his mouth, no teeth.

[1:16:17] Thanks for nothing.

[1:16:20] Every day I look in there and I start tapping around looking for teeth.

[1:16:24] Nothing.

[1:16:25] I'm putting a lot of money into this kid.

[1:16:27] I'm getting no teeth out.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:29] Well, on that very weird note.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:32] On that very weird note, let me just say, do not mail us your teeth.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:35] Stay tuned for the new Song of the Autumn.

[1:16:38] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:16:40] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:16:42] I am proud to be Elliot Kalin.

[1:16:43] Good night, everyone.

[1:16:46] So sad sounding.

[1:16:50] Let's move on to recommendations.

[1:16:58] Movies that you may have seen recently.

[1:17:00] Can we recommend movies we haven't seen?

[1:17:02] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:03] In which case, I'd like to recommend it's called Rocket Crocodile in the World of Tomorrow.

[1:17:07] It's a movie that doesn't exist and I'm making it up as I go along.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:11] I think I've seen this movie.

[1:17:12] In my dreams.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:14] I'm giving it five out of five.

[1:17:16] Amazing.

[1:17:18] It involves a crocodile astronaut, falls through a time machine warp, and becomes a rock star

[1:17:24] in the world of the future.

[1:17:26] Which also has dinosaurs.

[1:17:28] And Gina Gershon is nude in like every scene.

[1:17:32] Rocket Crocodile in the World of Tomorrow.

Stuart Wellington

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:44] Amazing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:46] You're thinking of The Devil Wears Nada.

[1:17:48] I thought I was thinking of The Invisible Maniac again.

[1:17:53] I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but he kills a guy with a submarine sandwich.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:57] Rawr rawr!

[1:17:59] Oh, that's a house cat.

[1:18:02] I'm just going to sign off.

[1:18:03] No, no, I got a recommendation to make.

[1:18:04] A real one?

[1:18:06] Sure.

[1:18:06] It's called Rocket Crocodile Goes to the Past.

Stuart Wellington

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:18] Amazing.

[1:18:20] Rocket Crocodile has to go to the 50s to get his parents together.

[1:18:23] Because otherwise he won't be born.

[1:18:27] He has to stop the clothing bandit who's stealing clothing from all the beautiful women in the world.

[1:18:31] I thought I was thinking of him because I don't mean anything.

[1:18:35] Soundtrack by Talking Heads and Danzig.

[1:18:38] Clan Danzig and David Byrne finally working together.

[1:18:41] Did I mention that Rocket Crocodile's sidekick is a wisecracking zebra?

[1:18:44] No.

[1:18:46] And he's a girl.

[1:18:47] Rocket Crocodile in the world of tomorrow.

Stuart Wellington

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:58] Amazing.

[1:18:59] Amazing.

[1:19:05] Thank you.

The Flop House: Episode #163 - Dracula 3D

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