Feardotcom

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss fear.com.

Elliott Kalan

[0:03] But not fear.org, a charitable organization that scares people.

[0:08] That's pretty good.

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse.

Stuart Wellington

[0:35] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:36] Dang, Dan, you made that sound great.

[0:39] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:40] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:41] And I want to interrupt these compliments for a moment because I've got an important message.

[0:46] We're in the middle of this year's Maximum Fun pledge drive.

[0:49] That's when we ask you, our listeners, to help us, The Flophouse, keep this show going another year by pledging cash-a-dollars to Maximum Fun.

[0:57] As part of the Maximum Fun worker-owned cooperative network, we don't have some big fancy company paying us salaries or buying us equipment.

[1:03] That means we get to do and say whatever we think will make the best show or sometimes just whatever pops into our head at the moment.

[1:10] But it also means we rely on your support to make this show possible.

[1:14] There will be more drive talk later in the episode, but for now, why wait for that?

[1:17] Why not go to MaximumFun.org slash join right now today, right now, this moment, and make your pledge of as little as $5 per month to keep this show going.

[1:27] Will you please become a Maximum Fun member?

[1:29] It takes less time to do it than it took me to tell you all this, and I'll take more time telling you about it later in the episode.

[1:36] Dan, what do we do on this podcast?

Dan McCoy

[1:37] Yeah, if you do it now, you get to skip all the other discussions of it later with our permission.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43] And you can't skip it if you don't do it.

[1:45] You can't do it.

[1:45] No, it's illegal.

[1:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:48] Yeah.

[1:49] This is a podcast where we watch movies that were critical or commercial flops, and then we talk about them, see what we think of these pictures.

Elliott Kalan

[1:59] We are the judges and the executioners.

[2:01] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[2:02] And guilty or innocent.

Elliott Kalan

[2:06] Of course, as people who listen to our MaxFun bonus content will know, even if you're innocent, they'll still send you into the pit of the Sharktacons.

[2:12] So, guys, that's one for the bonus content listeners.

[2:15] Dan, but what do we do?

Stuart Wellington

[2:17] Well, I said that part.

[2:19] What's special about our MaxFun episode?

[2:22] Yeah.

[2:23] Yes, exactly.

[2:23] I'm getting there.

[2:25] We have been picking—

[2:25] Not fast enough for us.

Dan McCoy

[2:27] No, put your foot on the gas, Dan.

[2:29] Come on, pedal to the metal.

[2:31] Jesus.

[2:31] We've been each picking a movie to bring to the table.

[2:36] There's three MaxFun Drive episodes for us.

[2:38] There's three Flophouse hosts.

[2:40] It was a no-brainer.

[2:41] We each get to pick one.

Stuart Wellington

[2:43] And considering, I think I suggested it, Dan is basically saying I have no brains, which I am not necessarily arguing with.

Dan McCoy

[2:51] But no, I'm saying I did not have to use my brain to say yes to that idea.

Elliott Kalan

[2:56] I think we can all agree, Stuart, that you have the rudimentary nervous system equivalent to at the very least a sea cucumber or a peacock shrimp.

[3:03] You can feel pain.

[3:04] You can feel pain.

[3:05] You can move your limbs around.

[3:06] You can detect when food is floating by.

[3:09] You certainly can, yeah.

[3:11] Floating by.

[3:12] Right.

[3:13] At the pool bar.

Stuart Wellington

[3:16] You know, floating by food hates to see me coming.

Elliott Kalan

[3:20] Uh-oh.

[3:21] That guy can detect us.

Dan McCoy

[3:24] But this is my turn.

[3:26] I'm in the driver's seat this time around.

[3:27] And I chose fear.com.

[3:30] Stuart, take the wheel.

[3:31] Take the keys away from Dan.

[3:32] No.

[3:33] Dan's not drunk enough.

[3:34] Fear.com.

Elliott Kalan

[3:35] Fear.com.

[3:37] So, Dan, what made you want to –

[3:38] This is from 2002.

[3:39] Am I remembering that correctly?

[3:40] Yeah.

[3:41] Yeah.

[3:41] So, what made you want to choose 2002's fear.com?

Dan McCoy

[3:46] It is a well-known bad movie of the era.

[3:52] It is, like, shortly before we started the podcast, which was 2007.

[3:58] So, we never did this one.

[3:59] Mm-hmm.

[4:00] And I have a real fondness for dumb horror or thrillers from the beginning of the internet era when everyone's like, we're scared of this.

[4:11] It's new.

[4:12] We're scared of it.

[4:13] We don't – like – and, you know, as Elliot suggested in one of the many possible openings to the show, I don't know which one got picked.

[4:21] You know, we were right to be scared of the internet, but not for the reasons that horror movies postulated.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] It was not going to be because ghosts and serial killers would take advantage of this new technology to lure us into their web of death.

[4:32] It is because it is the greatest form of radicalization and misinformation of young people and the elderly that has ever existed.

Stuart Wellington

[4:41] All in service of capitalism, which is grinding us all to dust.

Elliott Kalan

[4:45] Yeah.

[4:46] It's worked out great.

[4:47] I was thinking the other day.

[4:48] I was like, are things – could you say they're net better because of the internet?

[4:52] Well, this show exists only because of the internet.

[4:54] So, that's something.

[4:55] That's a good part.

Stuart Wellington

[4:56] Yeah.

[4:57] Just the general idea of, like, there used to be fucking websites with animated menus that we could go to.

[5:03] Yeah.

[5:04] With scalpels shoving up to the ground.

Dan McCoy

[5:05] Now, there's only social media sites that sell us stuff.

[5:08] Perhaps designed by Parker Bennett, our friend who co-wrote the Super Mario movie and then became a designer of websites.

[5:17] He wrote in recently to tell us perhaps he worked on fear.com.

[5:22] Maybe.

[5:22] Parker, write in.

Elliott Kalan

[5:23] We know you worked on the Master of Disguise website.

Dan McCoy

[5:26] Yeah.

[5:27] I like that stuff.

[5:28] And I also, over the years, have grown fond of this dumb era in horror, this new metal style that I hated at the time.

[5:37] But now I'm like, yeah.

[5:40] Take me back.

[5:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[5:41] Send me to our Rammstein video, please.

[5:43] There's something about the things that you hated as a youth that then become cherished items when you're older.

[5:48] There's so much music that I despised when I was young.

[5:51] And now we're here and I'm like, this is fine.

[5:52] You know what?

[5:53] This takes me back.

[5:54] You know?

Dan McCoy

[5:55] Yeah.

[5:55] And, you know, innkeeping with my places.

[5:58] Innkeeping.

Elliott Kalan

[5:58] Is that what you're doing for a living now, Dan?

[6:00] Is you're an innkeeper?

Stuart Wellington

[6:01] You actually, you joke.

[6:03] I think Dan would be a great innkeeper.

Elliott Kalan

[6:05] Dan would be a.

[6:05] Like a Newhart style.

[6:06] I think he'd be a great Basil Fawlty style irritated innkeeper who does not like dealing with the guests.

[6:12] Dan, what would be the name of your inn where you are annoyed by the guests but you still, people still show up?

[6:17] It's like a little place.

[6:17] It's going to be like a little bed and breakfast, like Newhart.

[6:19] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[6:20] Uh, uh, why would you pit me out like this?

Stuart Wellington

[6:24] Something like, uh, something like the, like a hammer and sickle or the sword and cross or something like that.

[6:30] That's not a pub.

[6:30] Fox and the slaughtered lamb.

Elliott Kalan

[6:32] Like it's not, it's not a medieval pub.

[6:34] Like it's, yeah.

[6:34] We'll figure it out.

[6:35] What you're, it would be like, I imagine it'd be called like the sleepy arms or something like that.

[6:40] Dan and breakfast.

[6:42] The sighing man.

[6:44] The sighing man.

[6:45] There you go.

[6:46] Um.

[6:47] And the image is a green man rolling his eyes.

[6:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[6:50] But, uh, sort of in keeping with my place is arguably.

[6:54] Oh, you're an innkeeper now?

[6:56] Dan, find a different phrase.

[6:58] God damn it.

[7:00] Uh.

[7:01] So Dan, as the host.

[7:02] As, as arguably the most soft hearted member of the flop house.

[7:06] I didn't opt to punish quite in the exit to Eden or 40 days and 40 nights level.

[7:11] I, uh, picked a thing that I thought might be fun to talk about.

Elliott Kalan

[7:14] It was, but I will say, pretty unpleasant to watch.

[7:18] It was, it punished me.

[7:19] Ironically, it didn't punish me as much as a, as a recent horror movie that we have coming up after we're done with the pledge drive.

[7:25] Okay.

[7:26] No spoilies.

[7:27] Interesting.

[7:27] No spoilies.

[7:28] No spoilies.

[7:28] But, uh, the, but I will say that I did, uh, find this movie incredibly unpleasant.

[7:32] So we can, we can talk about it, you know?

Dan McCoy

[7:34] Yeah, that's the point.

[7:35] Anyway, let's go, let's get into it.

[7:36] Okay.

[7:37] Let's get into this thing.

Stuart Wellington

[7:38] So real quick, had either of you guys seen fear.com before we watched it?

[7:42] No, I had not.

[7:43] This is the third time I've seen fear.com.

[7:45] I definitely saw it in the theater.

[7:46] I remember seeing it in the theater.

[7:48] And being kind of like, I do have to point out this era of time, like this is a movie that came out, what, two or three years after the Blair Witch Project?

[7:56] Yes.

[7:57] So I feel like in a post Blair Witch Project world, it's like movie, do you like, you know what people find scary now, right?

[8:04] It's not, not necessarily this.

Elliott Kalan

[8:06] For an early 2000s movie, it feels very 90s to me.

[8:10] Very early 90s.

[8:11] I mean, which makes sense.

[8:11] The early 2000s are like the hangover of the 90s.

[8:13] But, um, it definitely has a, um, has a, uh, a 90s sense of style, I would say.

[8:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[8:21] Well, let's get into it.

[8:22] It starts in a rainy subway station.

[8:25] It's, uh, abandoned.

[8:26] Like, it seems like trains still come through here, but it's filled with so much garbage and stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[8:31] It's one of these cities and Roger Ebert talks about this.

[8:34] Before Bloomberg cleaned up New York.

[8:35] Roger Ebert has a surprisingly positive review in some ways for this movie.

[8:39] But he talks about how the setting of the movie feels like the whole city is falling apart and disgusting.

[8:45] Even people's apartments seem to be, like, grimy and full of broken glass.

[8:49] But, like, the, yeah, the subway station, it seems like, it seems like some, everyone left the city and forgot to tell Udo Kier that there's no one living there anymore.

[8:58] And he's just like, where's this train going to show up?

[9:00] It's nothing but slime and grime in this subway.

Stuart Wellington

[9:02] And that, and that description by Roger Ebert, I think, is actually pretty fitting.

[9:07] But I wish that that was played into more of the idea of, like, well, this world sucks.

[9:12] Yeah.

[9:13] So people are looking for solace or connection or something on the, this new internet.

[9:19] But they, they don't really like, they don't really.

[9:21] No, they just want it to look creepy and spooky.

[9:23] No, the internet.

Dan McCoy

[9:24] Success.

[9:24] It's creepy.

[9:25] It's very dark.

[9:26] It's more.

[9:26] It's very dark.

[9:27] Yeah.

[9:27] Treated as like, oh, people are on this thing.

[9:31] Wow.

[9:32] What a coincidence that they're all on the internet.

[9:36] A coincidence?

[9:37] Well, that's how it's treated.

[9:38] I think it's early enough that people are like, huh, all these people had computers.

[9:43] Weird.

Stuart Wellington

[9:44] Yeah.

[9:44] It's like, I love the, the, the, the early internet pre-smartphone era is such an interesting

[9:50] time because smartphones are when the internet became less cool.

[9:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[9:55] But I think, but it is a, that's true, Dan, you're right that like they, it takes a while

[9:59] for the police officers to realize that maybe the fact that all of their computers were set

[10:03] to the same website might be related to their mysterious murders, these characters.

[10:07] But Udo Kier, he's waiting for a train and what does he see?

Dan McCoy

[10:10] Udo Kier is here.

[10:11] He's doing something, you know, probably not scary.

[10:13] Udo Kier is never up to anything weird.

[10:16] There's a white ball that bounces out of nowhere and a spooky little girl chases that ball onto

[10:20] the tracks and he follows her because he's dumb and is splatted.

Elliott Kalan

[10:26] It's so funny.

[10:27] The police come in there like the, from the look on his face, it looks like he saw something

[10:30] terrifying before he died.

[10:31] And it's like, well, he was hit by a train that qualifies, I think, as being terrifying

[10:35] is seeing a train coming towards you.

Stuart Wellington

[10:37] Yeah.

[10:38] Yeah.

[10:38] Maybe, maybe somebody had like a really scary, like Tasmanian devil bumper sticker on the

[10:44] train.

[10:44] It was super scary.

Elliott Kalan

[10:45] Also that he's hit by a subway train and they're like, the look on his face is that he's terrified.

[10:49] I'm like, I don't know there'd be enough of his face left to see what the expression

[10:52] would be.

[10:53] This was not a particularly rough train accident, you know?

Dan McCoy

[10:56] Yeah.

[10:57] Briefly before we get the cops looking at him, we are introduced to Natasha McElhone who's

[11:03] waking up.

[11:04] She's part of the Department of Health.

[11:05] She's going to figure in later.

[11:07] But when we return to the crime scene, Mike Riley, detective with NYPD, played by Stephen

[11:12] Dorff, is investigating.

[11:15] As Elliot says, Kier is frozen in this like horrific death mask and his eyes are bleeding.

[11:21] Yeah.

[11:22] And they're like, what caused this fear dot com?

[11:25] Well, cut to surfing someone, cut to surfing, someone surfing a site.

Elliott Kalan

[11:31] Cut to surfing.

[11:32] Cut to.

[11:33] Cut to.

[11:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[11:35] Endless summer.

[11:36] We cut in footage from the documentary.

[11:40] No, someone's on a site.

[11:41] Stephen Dorff is shooting the tube as part of his detective work.

[11:44] Yeah.

[11:46] No, they're on a site with way too much flash animation for the internet speed of the day.

[11:51] Yeah.

[11:51] And it seemed like –

[11:53] That was the main issue with the movie.

[11:54] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[11:55] I do love that this like haunted website has like still uses flash.

[12:00] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[12:01] It's so – there's a – there's a – there's so – there's a lot of funny – when we –

[12:04] It's like Mozart's ghost.

[12:06] Yeah.

[12:06] It feels so – after we say more of the movie, maybe we can talk about this website.

[12:10] There's so little about it that makes any sense whatsoever.

[12:14] And you have to put so much effort into unlocking this website to get to the scary stuff.

[12:20] And it's always like, do you want to hurt me?

[12:22] And it's like, probably not.

[12:24] Like I don't know.

[12:25] You know, it's – anyway, it's a hilarious website.

[12:27] It's so overwatch.

Dan McCoy

[12:28] Up front, it looks like it sells distressed furniture.

[12:32] But if you click around enough, you can get to some sort of creepy show.

[12:38] And anyway –

[12:38] Not a creep show.

[12:39] No.

[12:40] I don't know if you get only access.

Stuart Wellington

[12:42] Yeah, you have to get a modern – you have to get a modern shutter subscription to have access to creep show.

Dan McCoy

[12:49] Mike is going over the evidence for an old case, a serial killer called The Doctor.

[12:54] And in that scene, we get the entrance of Jeffrey Combs as Stiles, his jaded partner, I guess.

[13:00] Sykes.

Stuart Wellington

[13:01] Sykes, I think.

[13:01] Oh, Sykes.

[13:02] Sykes.

[13:03] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[13:03] Why don't you put Stiles down?

[13:04] You were thinking of Stiles in a while.

Stuart Wellington

[13:06] Because he thinks he's with dick nose or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[13:09] Yeah.

[13:10] But Jeffrey Combs is – I'm just going to say right now.

[13:12] Not a surprise.

[13:12] My favorite part of this whole movie.

[13:14] Yeah.

[13:14] He plays his character as such a scumbag.

[13:17] And it's so funny.

[13:18] I'm like, I wish he was the hero of the movie.

[13:19] It would be – I would love to see this scumbag cop who could not care less having to investigate this murder website.

[13:25] It would be amazing.

Stuart Wellington

[13:25] One of the things about Jeffrey Combs, you know, a little guy I like to call JC.

Elliott Kalan

[13:30] Is that he –

[13:31] You go up to kids and go, hey, I can tell you about someone radical with their initials JC who had an interesting message for the world.

Stuart Wellington

[13:37] Not everyone understood what he was – the message he was bringing.

[13:40] His body was a roadmap of pain.

Elliott Kalan

[13:42] His name is Jeffrey Combs and you may know him as Brunt from the Star Trek universe.

Stuart Wellington

[13:47] Is that Jeffrey Combs is like a – I would say a rare character actor who can really bring it in these small roles.

[13:56] But also if he's tasked to be the lead in a movie, he's also great in that.

[14:01] Yes.

[14:01] Yeah.

[14:01] Like he's good in everything.

[14:03] He's –

[14:03] Yeah.

[14:03] I mean –

[14:03] He's great.

Dan McCoy

[14:04] I – this will, you know, show the depths of my own sickness.

[14:09] After watching this movie, I watched William Malone's next movie, the director of this, called Parasomnia.

[14:16] And Jeffrey Combs also plays a scummy cop in that one, which was a delight.

Stuart Wellington

[14:21] I mean, that makes perfect sense.

[14:22] He's like, this crushed.

[14:24] Let's do this in the next one.

[14:25] Bring it back.

[14:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[14:26] The one thing everyone liked about fear.com.

[14:31] So while he's looking at these files, a man's brought in for processing.

[14:36] He's screaming German and also bleeding from his eyes.

[14:40] And –

Stuart Wellington

[14:40] For a second, I thought he was like speaking some like unspeakable tongue, like Lovecraftian tongue.

[14:45] And I'm like, no, it's just German.

[14:46] And they act as if –

Elliott Kalan

[14:48] But they act as if this is a crazy – they're like, if you can get anyone who understands what he's saying.

[14:52] It's like, well, it's German.

[14:53] Like I can understand these cops don't speak German, but it's a recognizable language.

Dan McCoy

[14:58] I, unlike Stuart, do not speak German.

[15:01] But I was like, oh, German.

[15:04] But Mike asks for someone –

Elliott Kalan

[15:06] He wasn't speaking French like actor French Stewart, who of course only speaks in French.

[15:10] Yeah.

[15:10] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[15:12] Mike wants someone from the Department of Health to check in because eye bleeding seems like – I don't know.

[15:17] Maybe that's a symptom of something.

[15:18] Who knows?

Elliott Kalan

[15:19] It could be.

[15:19] It's not a normal thing for eyes to do.

[15:22] Healthy eyes don't routinely bleed.

Dan McCoy

[15:23] Yeah.

[15:24] And so they go to this German guy's place, which is your like typical post-seven squalid apartment.

[15:31] Yeah.

[15:31] Where they find a –

Stuart Wellington

[15:32] Where it looks like they set up like floodlights just outside the apartment.

[15:36] And they're like, okay, we need more curtains in this thing.

[15:39] Have just water dripping from somewhere.

Dan McCoy

[15:41] Stacks of stuff coming up from the floor.

[15:43] Like nothing's arranged.

Elliott Kalan

[15:45] Every apartment in this movie looks like it was abandoned about three weeks ago.

[15:51] That construction is going on at night outside the apartment.

[15:54] And so it's very brightly lit.

[15:56] And yeah, there's all sorts of water and moisture damage.

Stuart Wellington

[15:59] I mean I'm a big fan of like no normal like recessed overhead lighting.

[16:05] It's all lamps or whatever.

[16:07] I mean you could say that –

Elliott Kalan

[16:08] Yeah, well just as an interior designer.

[16:10] I'm a fan.

[16:11] Yeah.

[16:11] I mean you could say that it's all probably converted loft space and that's one of the reasons it's more industrial.

[16:17] But I like to call these shoes-on apartments that you see a lot in these movies.

[16:22] Yeah.

[16:23] Because I just always imagine like if you lived here, you'd walk around with your shoes off and you just get glass and splinters in your feet all the time.

[16:28] You got to wear shoes.

[16:29] Like I imagine them getting out of the shower with shoes still on and walking around, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[16:33] Yeah, it feels like at a minimum it's going to feel like you're walking around on Rice Krispies, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[16:37] At a minimum.

[16:39] Minimum.

[16:40] And I don't know about you, but that's not a sensation that I find particularly pleasurable.

[16:44] It's like a little bit hard and then it crumbles.

Stuart Wellington

[16:46] Yes, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[16:47] Things shouldn't be like that.

[16:49] To be honest, it reminds me of my house where no matter where my foot lands, it happens to land on the one place where there is a crumb, a piece of rice, or a toy.

[16:58] And so – and I'll look and the floor will be devoid of those items except for the one place that I stepped.

[17:03] There's always something.

[17:04] And the amount of time I step on like little sprigs of broccoli or whatever that my children have dropped on the ground, it's disgusting.

[17:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[17:11] This is a very like Final Destination style setup.

Elliott Kalan

[17:14] Yeah, exactly.

[17:14] Although often it's just rubber bands.

[17:16] Often it's like they'll take the rubber band off a bag of chips and they just left it on the floor and I step on it.

Stuart Wellington

[17:20] And then you hop around on one foot and you're like, owie, owie, a rubber band.

[17:24] Exactly.

[17:24] I go, owie, owie.

Elliott Kalan

[17:25] And I need to use tweezers to remove the rubber band because it's embedded itself in my skin.

[17:28] Yeah.

[17:29] Wow.

[17:29] Yeah.

[17:30] We use barbed wire rubber bands over here to keep the elves out of our snacks.

Stuart Wellington

[17:35] They were – the thing is it was a branded item for the barbed wire movie.

[17:39] It's a tie-in product.

Elliott Kalan

[17:40] When me and Matt Singer went and got the Denny's barbed wire brunch, we had to eat it all.

[17:47] Then you've got to pick the barbed wire out of your teeth because it's in the pancakes.

[17:50] Yeah.

[17:51] They put it in the batter.

[17:53] So many lawsuits.

[17:54] They call it barbed batter.

[17:55] It was – yeah.

[17:56] Anyway, we had to go right away because we knew they were going to shut it down pretty quick.

[17:59] Yeah.

[18:00] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[18:01] In this apartment, they find a smashed computer and there's a naked dead woman in the tub.

Stuart Wellington

[18:09] I'm glad he lists them in order of importance.

Elliott Kalan

[18:12] Well, like they kind of are in the order of importance of fear.com, a movie about a killer website.

[18:17] I know.

[18:19] I thought you were about to say fear.com, a movie about a killer whale.

[18:21] And I'd be like, did I watch the right movie?

Dan McCoy

[18:24] Fear.willie?

[18:27] Natasha McAlone, Terry from the Department of Health shows up.

[18:32] She's –

[18:32] You might know her from Ronan the movie.

[18:35] Yeah.

[18:35] You might know her as Sherlock Holmes' mom from the new Guy Ritchie young Sherlock series.

[18:44] Not the new Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes.

Stuart Wellington

[18:45] For a second, I was like, wait a minute.

[18:47] He directs the whole movie just completely starker.

[18:50] So I don't understand.

[18:51] Guys, we haven't talked about –

[18:51] He makes me feel more comfortable on set.

[18:55] That's how I assume he sounds.

[18:56] So guys, I brought up Ronan and like a man of a dad age.

[19:00] I got to say, Ronan's pretty awesome.

[19:01] Ronan's pretty great.

Elliott Kalan

[19:02] I mean, I've been a fan of Ronan since it came out, since I saw it in the theaters.

[19:05] It's a really good movie.

[19:06] That was the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[19:06] That was when we knew we were dads in the making.

[19:08] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:09] I remember –

[19:10] In the making, you're still –

[19:11] You get to finish that process.

[19:13] You're still in the pupil stage, I guess.

[19:14] Yeah.

[19:15] Of being a dad.

[19:15] I'm a pupil.

Stuart Wellington

[19:17] Yeah, I just –

[19:18] I remember seeing –

[19:19] I probably told this story before, but I was in the theater watching –

[19:23] The tale of seeing Ronan.

[19:24] Seeing Ronan.

[19:25] Well –

[19:25] Gather round, children, Stuart doesn't have.

[19:28] Much like how Ethan Hawke has said that he remembers the experience of seeing every movie he's seen in the theater.

[19:35] Like that whole experience.

[19:36] And he forgets the ones he sees at home.

[19:38] I remember the experience of going to the theater in college to see Ronan with my roommate at the time, Casey Crowe.

[19:44] And they show a beautiful French city.

[19:48] And my roommate goes, nice.

[19:50] And then it says, Nice France.

[19:52] And I'm like –

Dan McCoy

[19:53] And we like cheered in the theater.

[19:55] It's awesome.

[19:58] So they go back to the station.

[20:00] The German guy's died.

[20:02] He's written murderer and 48 on the wall in blood.

[20:07] And there's one part where Mike sees some hazmat suits and is like, should we be wearing one?

[20:12] And Terry says, we're probably already infected.

[20:15] And he yells at her, what is it with you people?

[20:18] You let this shit run wild.

[20:20] And I'm like, what?

[20:21] It's very funny to me that he's blaming her for a possible virus outbreak.

Stuart Wellington

[20:26] But also, if they are infected, shouldn't they quarantine at this point?

Dan McCoy

[20:31] It's pretty loosey-goosey in Fear.com world.

Elliott Kalan

[20:34] Over in Horror City, like, they're just ready for this kind of stuff to happen.

[20:37] They're okay with it.

[20:38] Now, I know my brother's probably listening to this and he goes, 48.

[20:42] Does this mean that Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom is the killer in this movie?

[20:46] Probably.

[20:46] That's what he's implying.

[20:47] You're going to be disappointed, David.

[20:49] I'm sorry to tell you.

[20:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:51] But they discover from the test results it's not a virus.

[20:55] What is it?

[20:56] Let's leave that cliffhanger going and toss back to my friend Elliot Kalin for some MaxFunDrive talk.

Elliott Kalan

[21:02] That's right.

[21:03] Let's leave you wondering if it's a virus.

[21:05] It's not.

[21:05] It's a killer website.

[21:06] And I'll talk about another killer website, but killer in a cool way, not in a it will kill you way.

[21:13] And that's MaximumFun.org slash join.

[21:16] Now, earlier in the episode, I mentioned this is the MaxFunDrive.

[21:19] So let me break down in more detail what that means.

[21:22] MaximumFun is a network of affiliated shows based around a simple idea.

[21:25] Artists own the shows that they create.

[21:28] What that means is that we have no bosses, which is great.

[21:31] We'll never have to promote a product we don't like.

[21:33] And trust me, we turn down a lot of products that we're not comfortable promoting.

[21:36] We never have to moderate our opinions, even when those opinions might get us into trouble in, say, our non-podcasting lives,

[21:42] where increasingly we have to find ways to work with people whose work we have criticized on this podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[21:48] I think we is your restriction of this.

[21:51] It's the royal we.

Elliott Kalan

[21:52] The royal we.

[21:53] Thanks to this model, we, not the royal we, can bring you the dumb, goofy, meaningful show that you love listening to and that we love creating.

[22:01] But this also means that we are entirely supported by our members.

[22:05] We simply cannot do this show without your support.

[22:08] So once a year, we get together.

[22:10] We hold out the hat.

[22:11] We pass it around.

[22:13] And encourage you to be receiving a hat in the mail to put money into.

[22:16] Not really.

[22:16] It's over the internet.

[22:17] And we encourage you to become a member by going to MaximumFun.org slash join.

[22:21] And pledging to support MaximumFun for as little as $5 a month.

[22:26] $5 a month gets you – that's the cost of one comic book these days.

[22:29] $5 a month gets you access to all of our bonus content.

[22:32] So the show you love, if you want more of it, you get more of it right away.

[22:36] That's an easy way to get hours more immediately.

[22:39] And I'm going to tell you more about that bonus content and what it's about later in the show.

[22:43] But first, I want to mention that if you so choose, you can give us more than $5 a month.

[22:47] At $10 a month, you get all of our bonus content and access to an ad-free feed of the show.

[22:54] That's right.

[22:54] For only $5 more per month than that original $5, you get no more ads on our show.

[23:00] You get access to a feed with no ads.

[23:02] So you don't have to hit that skip button anymore.

[23:04] You can just sit back, do whatever you want with your hands while you listen to the show.

[23:09] If you're already a member, you can upgrade your membership to a higher tier or you can boost your membership,

[23:14] which means basically just throwing an extra little bit of money into that virtual hat I was talking about.

[23:18] You can see all the different options at MaximumFun.org slash join.

[23:22] But the important thing to remember, this is the most important thing as you go to MaximumFun.org slash join to become a member or upgrade or boost your membership,

[23:30] is that there is a direct connection between you being a member and pledging your support and us continuing to make this show the same way we've been making it all these years.

[23:40] Now, is that a promise or a threat?

[23:42] You make the call.

[23:43] But from my point of view, it means so much to me that Dan, Stu, and myself have a space where we can put out a show we enjoy doing, that we care about,

[23:51] where we don't have to answer to literally anybody else.

[23:54] Being part of the Maximum Fun Network gives us that freedom.

[23:57] And if you like this show, then you're enjoying the results.

[24:00] For all you listeners who are already members, thank you from the bottom of my heart for making it possible for us to make the kind of show you want to hear.

[24:06] And for all those listeners who are not yet members, thank you for becoming a member or at least considering becoming a member.

[24:12] So will you please become a MaximumFun member?

[24:14] All you have to do is head to MaximumFun.org slash join, put in your information, pick what shows you want to support.

[24:20] For as little as $5 a month, you'll get all the bonus content that I will tell you about later in the show.

[24:23] For $10 a month, you get access to our ad-free feed.

[24:26] You can be done in less than a minute, and you will noticeably improve our lives and yours.

[24:32] So go do it right now.

[24:34] Do it.

[24:35] Dan, what's going on on Fear.com?

Dan McCoy

[24:37] On Fear.com, some creepy weirdo is videotaping a lady in a cafe.

[24:43] And when she notices, he's like, sorry, you're just a perfect leading lady for this film I'm making.

[24:50] And gives his card, and somehow she seems actually interested and doesn't immediately just drop it and run far away from this thing that's happening.

Elliott Kalan

[25:00] Why would you – there's no reason for her to drop it unless, say, this guy has a really weird, creepy, strange American accent that doesn't sound quite right, right?

Dan McCoy

[25:08] Well, there's that, sure.

[25:10] And also just the fact that he's a guy with a video – a VHS, like a recorder, videotaping a woman in public.

Stuart Wellington

[25:18] A guy who most likely, I'm assuming, is licking his lips a lot.

[25:22] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:24] Which is not his fault if he has dry lips, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[25:28] This was 2002, a time when there were limited chapstick options.

[25:33] Yeah.

[25:34] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[25:35] Is he the bad guy or just some innocent bystander?

[25:37] Who knows?

Elliott Kalan

[25:38] No way of telling.

[25:39] Well, the movie is called Fear.com.

[25:41] It has videos of people being hurt.

[25:43] So probably the guy with the video camera is not good.

[25:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:47] Meanwhile, Terry and Mike are on the case.

[25:49] They're watching a videotape that the German victims had made of themselves.

[25:53] We see them sort of frolicking in the park, getting naked back home.

[25:57] And then seeing something –

[25:58] Got some real Strange Days vibes.

[25:59] Yeah.

[26:01] They see something on the computer that freaks them out.

[26:03] And then there's taped flashes of them looking sicker over time, descending into madness.

[26:08] What's going on?

[26:10] The cafe lady goes to the theater and is not dissuaded by the big, empty, scary place filled with flickering lights.

[26:18] And she's –

Elliott Kalan

[26:18] Because that's just what life is like in Horror City.

[26:21] Yeah.

[26:21] That's just what you have to deal with.

[26:22] That kind of stuff.

Dan McCoy

[26:23] This is how I get a big role.

[26:24] This is how I make my big break.

[26:25] Yeah.

[26:27] She's grabbed by this mysterious man who like straps her like – he's like the German industrial music starts playing.

[26:36] Yeah.

[26:36] Rammstein.

Stuart Wellington

[26:37] And he like – yeah, he straps her in.

[26:39] There's like, I don't know, a bunch of TV monitors and camcorders, like a million camcorders, which is crazy.

[26:46] Yeah.

[26:46] This guy's a real sliver.

[26:47] Can't really live stream that, right, with a bunch of camcorders.

[26:51] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[26:51] I mean, maybe if he's got some kind of way to mix the – to edit the video on the fly like a sitcom director.

[26:57] Oh, yeah.

[26:57] As he's broadcasting the stream or something like that.

Dan McCoy

[27:00] He's got someone in the back calling out, camera one, camera five, camera two.

Elliott Kalan

[27:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[27:06] Just like the Oscars.

[27:07] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[27:08] Yeah, he's got Gil Cates back there doing all this.

Dan McCoy

[27:10] Yeah.

[27:12] Terry reports to her weird supervisor who asked to be updated on the case and his –

[27:16] Who is?

[27:17] This guy is –

Elliott Kalan

[27:18] This guy is –

[27:20] Like, I'm not sure if they were trying to – they're like, we need a red herring to see if there's – because it's so obvious who the bad guy is.

[27:26] But it is like they went for the strangest possible performance that they could have.

[27:32] Like the most –

Dan McCoy

[27:33] Other than Terry, everyone in this movie is weird and diseased.

[27:37] That's true.

[27:38] In some way.

Stuart Wellington

[27:39] We specifically are talking about this guy later and she's like, no, there's no way he's done anything illegal ever in his life.

[27:44] I'm like, that's impossible.

Elliott Kalan

[27:46] There's no way.

[27:47] He seems like such a –

Stuart Wellington

[27:48] He is a Dorian Gray painting walking around.

Elliott Kalan

[27:52] He is doing bureaucrat working for the German government in an Indiana Jones movie type performing.

[27:58] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[27:59] And his computer is mysteriously missing.

[28:02] Uh-oh.

[28:02] Oh.

[28:03] Cut to him in an abandoned train yard just hanging out.

[28:07] No explanation for why he's there.

[28:08] Yeah.

[28:09] Right?

[28:09] He sees that weird white ball girl.

[28:13] Uh-oh.

[28:14] His nose starts bleeding.

[28:15] He's startled by the girl and he drops his cigarette which starts a fire in his car.

[28:19] And the car starts driving on its own and slams him into a wall.

[28:23] It's a real final destination.

[28:25] Yeah.

[28:27] And the timing is good.

Elliott Kalan

[28:29] And as we later learn, he was afraid of car crashes.

[28:31] Yeah.

[28:32] Terry's –

[28:33] Like most people.

Stuart Wellington

[28:35] Most people are like, bring it on, dude.

[28:37] It means I'm going to get laid.

[28:38] That's what David Cronenberg says.

Dan McCoy

[28:41] Yeah.

[28:42] Stick something in a gash.

Elliott Kalan

[28:44] That would be very ironic for someone to watch Crash an impressionable age and then that

[28:48] becomes their kink.

[28:50] Yeah.

[28:50] And now they have to make – now it's like that Anaconda movie.

[28:52] Now they want to make their version of Crash.

[28:54] So they go into the jungle with their best friend Jack Black.

[28:57] Uh-oh.

[28:58] Trouble comes along.

Stuart Wellington

[29:00] Jack Black has been in a – I would say a disturbing lack of erotic thrillers.

[29:06] Now you're disturbed by it.

[29:08] Four sex on legs Jack Black.

[29:09] I think it's fucked up that he's not in a bunch of erotic thrillers.

Elliott Kalan

[29:12] I mean, I would – to be honest, I think he would be great in one of them.

[29:15] He would be great.

[29:16] Yeah.

[29:17] I mean, the fact – Jack Black does sound like the name of an actor who would be in a movie like that.

[29:22] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[29:23] And he has that like devilish look in his eye where you're like, I don't trust this guy.

[29:27] I mean –

Elliott Kalan

[29:27] I totally buy him as a guy – he is a low-rent detective who gets hired for the wrong case,

[29:32] gets pulled into a web of deceit.

[29:35] You know, I can totally see it happening.

[29:36] And seduction.

[29:37] And seduction.

[29:37] Yeah, of course.

[29:38] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:39] That's what I'm saying.

[29:40] He could do more rom-coms.

[29:42] He's in like one, I think.

[29:43] Was he in The Holiday?

[29:44] Was he in the other ones?

[29:45] Yeah.

[29:46] Shadow House is not really a rom-com, right?

[29:47] Yeah.

[29:48] Shadow House is kind of a rom-com, I guess.

[29:50] The Holiday is – yeah, that's huge.

Elliott Kalan

[29:52] Yeah, Sleepless in Seattle 2, this guy's still sleeping.

[29:56] I mean the opposite, right?

[29:57] Yeah.

[29:57] Wait.

[29:58] No, no.

[29:58] That was the twist.

[29:59] This guy needs some sleep desperately.

[30:00] The twist for the second one was that he's sleeping too much.

[30:04] While you were sleeping too wide awake.

[30:06] Again, the twist was that he's not sleeping in the second one.

[30:08] Yeah, yeah.

[30:10] Eyes wide shut, can't see nothing.

[30:12] That was the sequel he did.

Dan McCoy

[30:14] Direct to video.

[30:15] Yeah.

[30:16] Basic Instinct 3, very complicated instinct.

Elliott Kalan

[30:20] Exactly.

[30:21] Because you want to twist it.

[30:22] You want to tweak it for the sequel.

[30:24] Exactly.

[30:24] You want to reverse it.

[30:25] Yeah, we saw this.

[30:26] What's the opposite?

Stuart Wellington

[30:27] See, Elliot's been working with all these high-powered executives.

[30:30] He knows what entertainment people want.

[30:32] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[30:32] Cane Cup 2, mini gorillas.

[30:33] And it's just like there's lots of little gorillas.

Stuart Wellington

[30:36] There's one big gorilla in the first one, but then there's a lot of tiny ones.

[30:39] Like a bunch of them, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[30:39] A lot of tiny ones.

[30:40] They're getting in all your stuff.

[30:41] Yeah, exactly.

[30:42] And they're mischievous little devils.

[30:44] Small gorillas.

Stuart Wellington

[30:44] They can like form into one big one and then fall down and split into a bunch, like in

[30:48] that scene in The Gate.

[30:49] Exactly.

[30:50] Exactly, yeah.

[30:50] The Gate 2, no gate.

[30:53] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[30:54] That's already.

[30:55] Gate closed.

[30:56] Gate closed, yeah.

[30:58] Gate 2, just a wall.

Stuart Wellington

[30:59] I think having the sequel just be like, no, the thing is like Anaconda 2, no Anaconda.

[31:05] That's not sad.

[31:06] That's not like that, yeah.

[31:07] You can't do that.

Elliott Kalan

[31:08] That's not.

[31:09] That's against the rules, counselors.

[31:10] You can't do it.

[31:10] Who says you can't do it?

[31:11] What?

[31:11] Movie law?

[31:12] I don't understand.

[31:14] You're going to take me to title jail?

[31:18] Shawshank Redemption 2, no redemption.

Dan McCoy

[31:22] So the audience has surely forgotten right now that Terry's supervisor just got.

[31:25] Don't call me Shirley, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[31:27] Terry's supervisor just crashed into a wall.

[31:32] So Terry is at the autopsy of the German woman and the supervisor's body arrives and he's got the same scared death mask, bloody eyes.

[31:43] So she goes with Mike to see his widow and they take his computer to check it out.

[31:48] And we go back to the weirdo with the camera.

Elliott Kalan

[31:50] His widow's like he was always using the computer.

Dan McCoy

[31:53] Yeah.

[31:54] It's very unusual.

[31:55] This is 2002.

Elliott Kalan

[31:57] E-commerce is in its infancy.

Dan McCoy

[31:59] Yeah.

[32:00] We go back to the weirdo with the camera and we finally get a look at his face.

[32:04] And that's when I'm like, oh, that's Stephen Ray.

[32:05] So he's, you know, he's waxing poetic about shooting this snuff movie that he's going to do with the cafe lady.

Elliott Kalan

[32:15] It's such kind of serial killer movie, movie serial killer path.

[32:21] I believe death should be intimate.

[32:24] It should not have a distance.

[32:26] By bringing death to the masses, we perform a service.

[32:28] It's not crazy enough.

Stuart Wellington

[32:29] It feels like you're like, I feel like you're just doing a monologue, buddy.

[32:33] Like, it's not crazy enough where you're like, oh, I'm dealing with a genuine, like, wild person who's like, you know, like, you know, like, you want him to.

Dan McCoy

[32:41] Tap into your dark instincts, Stuart, to give us a monologue.

[32:44] Yeah, yeah.

[32:44] Give us one, Stuart.

[32:45] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[32:46] I mean, like, you want it to be something like, yeah, I need to slice open your skin to reveal the secret alien civilization that lives inside of you.

[32:53] Like, that's what it's like.

[32:54] Call him the cops on this guy.

Elliott Kalan

[32:55] This is one of these things.

[32:56] I guess this is an ancillary to my, or a corollary to my distaste for movie hitmen, where hitmen in the movies are always depicted as kind of suave, smooth operators when in reality hitmen are fuck-ups.

[33:08] Like, you're not doing that job unless your life has fallen apart.

[33:11] But the serial killers in real life are, again, losers.

[33:16] Like, there are people with mental issues that cause a kind of a sexual perversion that involves pain or murder or something like that.

[33:24] Whereas in the movies, they always have elaborate philosophies that they are trying to communicate through death.

[33:30] And it's the kind of one of these things where, again, the movies are creating a glamour around something that there is no glamour around.

[33:36] It's just sort of squalid.

[33:37] Yeah.

[33:37] There are no serial killers who are like, I'm trying to reveal the truth about our fetid world.

[33:43] Like, it's always something.

Stuart Wellington

[33:44] I think part of it is to try and, like, trying to take something that's horrible and try to make it, like, add something, like, some meaning to it, I guess, where it's like, oh, no, these crimes weren't committed by some, like, lame-o piece of shit monster.

[33:59] I will.

[33:59] It's by, like, a monster that has some kind of higher calling.

[34:02] I will say that.

Elliott Kalan

[34:03] But the flip side of that is that then serial killers come off as super geniuses.

[34:07] Like, once you get to a certain level of genius, you have to kill, which is not true.

Dan McCoy

[34:11] Well, that's the part that bothers me.

[34:12] The fact that they're, like, depicted as these super geniuses.

[34:15] The stuff about their, like, monologues or whatever, I can accept that as, like, oh, these guys are trying to rationalize their baser instincts and, like, turn them in.

[34:25] Like, pretend that it means more.

[34:27] Whereas, like, it really genuinely, I'm like, these are not, like, Moriarty-style, like, super crime.

Elliott Kalan

[34:34] No, there's only one super genius, and that's Wile E. Coyote, who is not a serial killer.

[34:38] He's just looking for some food.

[34:39] But there's two kinds of serial killers, I guess.

[34:40] There's the super genius Moriarty ones, the Hannibal Lectors.

[34:43] And then there's the ones who are like, punish me, mommy.

[34:46] Mommy, do you love me?

[34:47] Like, the child brain serial killers are in movies, too.

[34:50] When in real life, serial killers are neither of those things.

[34:52] They're just, they're messed up people who do terrible things, you know.

[34:55] But there's, they're not fun, I guess is what I'm saying, you know.

Dan McCoy

[34:58] But in the investigation, Mike and Terry finally realize.

Stuart Wellington

[35:02] They don't have, you know, they don't have, like, you know, they don't have the juice, you know.

[35:06] They don't have a Q factor or whatever.

[35:08] They don't have a lot of riz.

[35:10] John Wayne Gacy had limited riz.

Elliott Kalan

[35:12] Let's just say that, you know.

Dan McCoy

[35:13] They're not, like, throwing confetti around their crime scenes or something, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[35:16] Well, except for, except for.

[35:18] Making it a party.

[35:19] Why am I forgetting the name of the comedian who would throw confetti all over the place?

[35:23] Rip Taylor.

[35:24] Yeah, when Rip Taylor was killing people, they called him the Ripper.

[35:26] I mean, he did throw confetti.

[35:27] The victims had been, their guts had been ripped out and their abdomens filled with confetti.

[35:32] Damn it, Rip Taylor's got another one.

Stuart Wellington

[35:34] Yeah, yeah, and their knees have been slapped off.

Elliott Kalan

[35:38] This one, Rip Taylor's been here.

[35:40] His sides have literally split and his knees have been slapped into dust.

Dan McCoy

[35:44] They've busted guts.

[35:44] I have to tell you, the first time I saw Rip Taylor do his, like, thing on something, I'm like, what is this?

[35:50] But I laughed so hard.

[35:51] Yeah.

[35:52] I'm like, what is this guy?

[35:53] I love it.

Stuart Wellington

[35:55] He's just telling terrible jokes and throwing confetti at people.

[35:58] And he seems so happy about it.

[35:59] This is horrifying to hear because this could have been the end of Dan.

[36:02] Luckily, he survived his encounter with Rip Taylor.

[36:04] With Rip Taylor, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[36:05] He escaped.

[36:06] He was one of the lucky ones that escaped.

[36:07] Rip Taylor let him out of his car.

[36:09] And he just went home covered in confetti.

[36:11] And his mother saw that and was horrified and said, what happened to you?

[36:15] Oh, yeah, this guy gave me a ride in his car and he threw a lot of confetti.

[36:17] He was so funny.

[36:18] He's so funny.

[36:18] And she was like, just fell to her knees and prayed for thanks to the Lord that Dan had been spared.

Stuart Wellington

[36:23] Yeah, I'm looking for an it parody that's called Rip.

Elliott Kalan

[36:27] So a kid sees Rip Taylor in a sewer drain and he's throwing confetti out.

[36:31] Come on, kid.

[36:32] Come on over.

[36:33] Yeah, I would love to see that.

[36:35] The town of Derry has a legend about Rip.

[36:40] Except the thing is at the end, they've got to do like a joke telling contest, right?

[36:43] And they're going to lose because Rip Taylor is hilarious.

[36:45] Yeah, he's a funny guy.

[36:47] Look him up.

Dan McCoy

[36:50] So Mike and Terry have realized, oh, they all have Burt computers.

[36:55] So they call this forensic programmer named Denise.

[36:59] Okay.

[36:59] And alone that night, she finds a site on their computers.

[37:02] Is it fear.com?

[37:03] No, my friends.

[37:03] It is fear.com.com.

[37:05] Because the makers of the film were not able to secure fear.com, the site, for their movie.

Stuart Wellington

[37:13] Guys, you could not write a funnier joke than this.

Dan McCoy

[37:17] It's really funny.

[37:18] I mean, once you notice it, it is really funny.

[37:20] I have to give it to them on a certain level because your brain just sees fear.com.com

[37:25] and reads it as fear.com unless you like are really looking at what's going on.

Elliott Kalan

[37:30] I don't think they let the camera linger on the URL for exactly that reason.

[37:37] But this fear.com, so it's like a lot of flash animations.

[37:40] But then there's also a fairly primitive chat GBT type function where you can type it.

[37:45] The computer is communicating with you and you're typing into a text box.

Stuart Wellington

[37:48] You're communicating with the ghost and the machine.

[37:50] In this case, we're going to find out it's a real ghost.

[37:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[37:53] We see her log on.

[37:55] There's a bunch of creepy shit on it that freaks her out.

[37:57] And this woman appears and says,

[38:00] Hello, Denise.

[38:00] Do you want to play with me?

[38:01] Do you want to hurt me?

[38:03] And then we get like a flash of a bunch of random scary stuff zipping into Denise's eyes,

[38:07] into her brain.

[38:09] She's got the fear.com.com download.

Stuart Wellington

[38:11] That's how I feel every morning when I wake up and look at my phone.

Dan McCoy

[38:16] Meanwhile, around here, Terry realizes from the time code on the German's computer that he died 48 hours after seeing whatever was scaring them on the computer.

[38:25] And that's what the 48 means.

[38:26] Guys, can I interrupt real quick?

Stuart Wellington

[38:28] I think there is a well above zero chance that people involved in making this film saw Ringu or The Ring because it came out in Japan in 1998, which is a couple of years before this,

[38:40] which explains why a number of the ideas, probably the ideas that might work the best, are cribbed from The Ring, right?

Elliott Kalan

[38:47] I mean, you mean the story, not to spoil it too much since Dan's giving the summary,

[38:51] but the story of a dead girl's ghost that is using electronics to trap whoever encounters it into dying in a certain amount of time unless they accomplish a very specific task,

[39:04] that that might have something in common with Ringu?

[39:07] I think so.

Stuart Wellington

[39:09] I think so, yeah.

[39:10] This is a safe space.

[39:11] I'm just throwing this idea out there.

[39:13] If I'm way off, you guys, please tell me.

Elliott Kalan

[39:15] If anyone who is involved in the making of fear.com is listening, please let us know if you were influenced by Ringu.

Dan McCoy

[39:21] We're going to do some movie detective work here.

[39:23] If anything, I wish some of the effects.

[39:26] The American Ring also came out this same year as fear.com a couple months later.

[39:31] So on top of the existence of the Japanese one, they probably knew that the Ring was in production.

[39:38] Yes, I'm sure.

[39:38] And it was like, we got to get this out.

[39:39] We got to rush into production.

[39:40] It is great.

Elliott Kalan

[39:41] It is genuinely great.

[39:42] The American Ring, I think, is really good.

[39:44] Yeah, yeah.

[39:44] Yeah.

[39:44] Now, how would you guys think this movie was different?

[39:47] According to Wikipedia, this was originally developed as an erotic horror film intended for Zalman King to direct.

[39:53] How do you think this movie would have been different as a Zalman King film?

[39:56] A lot more fluttering curtains?

[39:57] It was going to be called Sex.com.

Stuart Wellington

[40:01] Yeah, yeah.

[40:02] There would certainly be more candles in the bedrooms.

[40:06] Yeah.

[40:06] There would be more red shoe diaries involved.

[40:08] Saxophone music.

[40:10] Yeah, there'd be a lot more all that stuff.

[40:11] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[40:13] Pardon me while I burp a little bit.

Stuart Wellington

[40:16] I feel like there might have been a role for George Hamilton in it.

[40:19] Whoa.

Dan McCoy

[40:20] George Hamilton.

[40:21] Yeah.

[40:22] Interesting.

[40:24] So, Denise shows up and lets them know that the victims were all connected to fear.com.com.

[40:29] And Mike's like, but he wouldn't use the same site twice because apparently the doctor's MO was to put on live stream death shows.

[40:37] He's made the connection to the doctor.

[40:39] Meanwhile, Denise is acting hilariously weird because she has been infected with the fear.com.com mind virus.

[40:47] And Terry takes Mike to find the author of the book that Udo Kier died while clutching, who is this drunk guy in a black fedora, the uniform of the male weirdo.

Stuart Wellington

[40:59] I kind of love this scene of a guy who's like, yeah, he just lives in this bar, I guess.

[41:05] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:06] What I do like this, though, is also they're going – this is the scene where you go to the expert who tells you, oh, no, you found something terrifying.

[41:13] But he is like, I don't believe in any of that stuff anymore.

[41:16] Like, he's the expert who is like also dismissive of the things he's telling them, which I think is a funny twist on that.

Dan McCoy

[41:22] No, yeah.

[41:23] He's like, oh, everything I put in that book was bullshit.

[41:25] I just needed to write a book.

Stuart Wellington

[41:27] But –

[41:27] And it would have been funny if like while they're talking to him, Jeffrey Combs comes out of the bathroom and he was like, yeah, I was just hanging out with him because they're both the same level of scummy.

Elliott Kalan

[41:36] They are.

[41:37] That's true.

[41:38] Neither of these guys owns a functioning razor.

[41:40] It works sometimes but not all the time.

[41:42] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[41:43] But the general idea was that having all these computers linked could create a neural network that could receive and spit out psychic energy.

[41:51] How?

[41:52] Who knows?

[41:53] But Urukir's character believed in it and came to believe he knew where the sort of like locus of it, the site that could do these things was.

[42:01] Meanwhile, Denise, our forensic whatever, isn't doing so hot.

[42:07] She's seeing cockroaches everywhere.

[42:09] Her apartment has turned into a Joe's apartment and –

Elliott Kalan

[42:12] No.

[42:13] Her fear is specifically Joe's apartment.

[42:15] Yeah.

[42:16] Seeing it again.

[42:17] No.

[42:18] This is one of those – there are cockroaches everywhere and I'd be like – this is obviously, you know, the thing that she's afraid of that Fear.com is bringing out of her.

[42:25] It's also like, well, maybe you shouldn't live in squalor.

[42:28] Like if you don't want cockroaches, maybe your apartment should look like –

[42:30] That's the thing.

[42:32] It's a switch dump.

Stuart Wellington

[42:33] Watch fucking Creepshow.

[42:34] Like even if you clean everything, you can still get murdered by bugs.

Elliott Kalan

[42:39] I mean you're still going to get bugs even in a clean house because humans create spaces that are particularly welcoming for other vermin.

[42:46] Humans being the alpha vermin species and the others being beta vermins.

Stuart Wellington

[42:50] But the idea that she's like –

[42:51] Wasn't that a Spider-Man villain or something?

[42:54] Alpha vermin?

[42:54] He just had a villain called vermin.

[42:55] Just vermin.

Elliott Kalan

[42:56] Alpha vermin is my own term.

[42:59] But the idea that she's like, how are these bugs getting in here?

[43:02] It's like, I don't know.

[43:03] Everyone's windows are shattered and there's crap all over the floors and like wet wood everywhere.

[43:09] Of course you're going to get these.

[43:10] But anyway, you live in Seventown.

[43:12] You're going to get this stuff.

[43:13] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:13] But she's so freaked out by this.

[43:15] She jumps out the window.

[43:17] Denise doesn't fit the 48 hours pattern though, which leads Terry to make some leaps that are like huge logic leaps.

Elliott Kalan

[43:24] Not as big as a leap as the leap that Denise took out the window.

[43:27] No, no, no.

Dan McCoy

[43:28] Not that big.

[43:29] But she says maybe dying was better than whatever scared her.

[43:32] And she reveals that her supervisor was terrified of car crashes and the German girl was scared of drowning.

[43:38] And she died in water.

[43:39] I'm scared of both those things.

[43:40] Died in a bathtub.

[43:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[43:41] Mike points out that doesn't make sense.

[43:44] What was the guy who died in prison frightened of dying in prison?

[43:47] I guess prisons.

[43:48] Probably.

[43:49] Yeah.

[43:51] And Terry's like just promise.

Elliott Kalan

[43:52] Was Udo Kier afraid of trains?

Dan McCoy

[43:54] Yeah, probably.

[43:55] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[43:55] Because he put himself in the train station.

[43:57] He didn't have to be there, you know.

Dan McCoy

[43:59] I think everyone's so discombobulated by their like fear brain.

[44:04] Maybe he's running from some other fear.

Elliott Kalan

[44:06] I mean, one of the most disappointing things about this movie was realizing fairly early in that Udo Kier would not have a larger role.

[44:11] No.

[44:12] Yeah.

[44:13] Just one and done, you know.

Dan McCoy

[44:15] Terry says to Mike, just promise me you won't visit that site.

[44:18] And then Mike hugs her and cradles her head.

[44:21] And I'm like, did they just met?

[44:23] Like what kind of relationship did they have?

[44:24] Right.

[44:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:25] This was one of the weird things about this movie.

[44:27] This movie is really weird in many ways.

[44:29] But one of the weirdest things was Terry and Mike, they seem to treat every moment they're with together as if it's a potential date.

[44:38] The minute they're first introduced as like you're going to be working together on this case, they're already acting like this is a potential romantic situation.

[44:45] When you meet Stephen Dorff, you know, like immediately.

[44:48] I mean, even in Brideheart, the brides didn't run off with him.

Stuart Wellington

[44:50] Yeah.

[44:50] It's like huge like work wife, work husband energy, right?

Elliott Kalan

[44:54] Yes, for people who have just met.

Dan McCoy

[44:56] Yeah.

[44:56] But so cut to Mike watching Terry sleep.

[44:59] And then he goes off with one of the computers and immediately logs on to fear.com.com.

[45:04] He ignores her wishes immediately.

[45:06] She can't tell me what to do.

[45:08] I'm my own man.

Stuart Wellington

[45:09] Her desperate plea, please don't visit that site, is the same feeling I experienced when my dad was talking to me on the phone and he made a reference to fans only.

[45:19] And I'm like, dear God, Dad, please, I beg of you.

[45:22] Don't follow this rabbit hole down.

Elliott Kalan

[45:24] Do not go down this.

[45:25] But I'm a fan.

[45:26] No.

[45:28] I'm a fan of onlys.

[45:30] So, Dan, here's the thing.

[45:33] I can understand if Mike was like, well, I'm a cop.

[45:35] I'm investigating a case that seems to be linked to this site.

[45:37] I've got to look at the site.

[45:38] He doesn't make that argument.

[45:39] He just tells her sure and then goes and looks at it anyway.

[45:42] Just out of curiosity, I guess.

[45:43] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:44] But, I mean, I guess good thing he does because when he logs on, he recognizes the mysterious woman right away as Jeannie, one of the doctor's first victims.

[45:54] And she tells me.

Stuart Wellington

[45:55] Dan, did he use protection?

[45:56] Did he use a VPN?

[45:58] No.

[46:00] So that the ghost can't kill him?

Dan McCoy

[46:01] We're not sponsored by one right now.

[46:03] Okay.

[46:03] You don't have to.

[46:05] She says, find me.

[46:07] You have 48 hours.

[46:08] And he types in, what do I win?

[46:10] And she says, me.

[46:11] And he asks, what if I lose?

[46:14] And she says, you die.

[46:16] So Mike plays the game, I guess.

[46:19] He gets a brain download of ring style creepy images.

[46:24] Everything looks like it's in a funhouse mirror now.

[46:26] He starts getting visions of the white ball, including a part where the ball tries to chase him into the elevator.

[46:33] Where there's this creepy, glamorous lady putting on lipstick.

[46:36] And she drops her glove and turns into a monster.

[46:40] And that freaks his being a bit.

[46:41] And he's taken away.

[46:43] His being is pretty freaked.

[46:44] Yeah.

[46:44] He's taken away by paramedics.

[46:46] And while he's being loaded into the ambulance, he tells Terry that the woman is Jeannie Richardson.

[46:50] And she's not just psychic energy, but she can live in objects.

[46:54] And Terry's like, what?

[46:56] Love it.

[46:57] And he's like, there's like 45 hours left.

[47:01] You got a safe mind.

[47:02] Yes.

[47:04] So to get answers, she does the one thing you're never supposed to do.

[47:09] Log on to fear.com.com.

[47:11] Gotta go.

[47:11] Gotta do it.

[47:12] And she sees some like stuff happening.

[47:16] It's a funny little game, guys.

[47:17] Yeah.

[47:18] She gets the-

[47:19] The only way to win is not to play.

[47:21] Yeah.

[47:21] She gets the fear download.

[47:22] There's a naked lady crawling down the hall, vomiting blood.

[47:26] All sorts of imagery.

Stuart Wellington

[47:27] Now, the director was talking about making this movie.

[47:31] And he said that, you know, the script didn't really make much sense.

[47:34] So he just wanted to make a bunch of cool looking imagery.

[47:36] And I would argue he's kind of successful.

[47:38] I think he, I mean, if this was the script he was handed to work with, that was probably the right call.

[47:44] Yeah.

[47:44] If he was like, I'm just going to be, it's going to be nonstop bean freaking.

[47:47] Yeah.

[47:47] He does it.

Elliott Kalan

[47:48] I'm just going to put, I'm just going to put some strange stuff on screen.

[47:52] And I mean, by the end of the movie, it is a visual phantasmagoria.

[47:56] We'll get to that point where the visuals are fully just leading the way and the story has fallen into nothingness, you know.

Dan McCoy

[48:03] Terry wakes up the next morning.

[48:04] She's got this internet hangover.

[48:06] Terry Zweigoff?

[48:07] Yeah.

[48:08] Yes.

[48:09] Late into the summary, you're confused about who I'm talking about.

Elliott Kalan

[48:13] I thought you were talking about Terry Zweigoff this whole time.

[48:15] I'm like, why isn't he directing Crumb?

[48:17] What's going on?

Dan McCoy

[48:17] Yeah, yeah.

[48:18] She asked Sykes if she can look at the doctor files.

[48:22] Bill Sykes?

Elliott Kalan

[48:23] The fictional character?

[48:23] Yeah, from Oliver Twist.

[48:26] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[48:27] The villain, Bill Sykes.

[48:29] You know what it really is?

Elliott Kalan

[48:30] I'm overdoing the names now because when Stuart talked about fans only, I was just a little too slow to mention Jerry only from the Misfits.

[48:37] And I'm like, oh man, I didn't mention a name fast enough.

Stuart Wellington

[48:39] My dad's a huge fan of Jerry only.

Elliott Kalan

[48:41] That's what I figured, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:42] It's like, what if a skeleton was ripped?

[48:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[48:48] But Terry's asking Sykes if she can look at the doctor files.

[48:52] And he's like, his objection is the feds are covering it now, not that she's part of the fucking Department of Health.

[48:58] No, she has no reason for a long time.

[49:02] Like, they've just been bunny cops for a while.

Elliott Kalan

[49:05] Once they know it's not a disease that's doing this, she has no jurisdiction.

[49:08] She should not be involved.

Dan McCoy

[49:10] Well, see ya.

[49:12] She sees some old photos of Jeannie.

[49:14] She starts nose bleeding all over the files and then the files themselves start bleeding.

[49:19] And she goes to visit Jeannie's mom.

[49:22] And there's kind of a funny bit where she sees the little girl bouncing a ball in a photo album like it's a living photo.

[49:29] Hell yeah.

[49:30] She learns that Jeannie was a hemophiliac, which I guess is why all the bleeding happens with everybody.

[49:36] And the mom also identifies an address where Jeannie used to play.

[49:40] So Terry goes to check that out.

Stuart Wellington

[49:42] And her being hemophiliac made Jeannie's greatest fear being sliced apart by knives something that normal people are not frightened of.

[49:49] Right.

Elliott Kalan

[49:49] I mean, it is funny that most of the fears in this are things that anyone would be afraid of.

[49:54] But that's the point of the – I mean, if you made fear.com and the fears were not common fears –

[49:58] Yeah, it was like, I'm frightened of food that's too moist.

[50:01] Exactly.

[50:02] I hate lots of little holes.

[50:04] Okay, well, how do we turn that into a scary scene for a general audience?

Dan McCoy

[50:10] So on her trip, she finds an old, blind, unhoused lady who seems to be expecting her and says, where is she?

[50:18] And the old lady points to a pool of murky water and Terry's like, cool, cool, no problem.

Stuart Wellington

[50:23] She like ran into a Dark Souls NPC.

Dan McCoy

[50:26] Immediately.

Stuart Wellington

[50:27] That's certainly how it feels.

Dan McCoy

[50:28] Immediately Terry's like, yeah, sure, I'll dive into that and goes for a night swim in this gross runoff water where she finds the corpse of Jeannie.

[50:37] And at Mike's hospital where she's going to visit –

Elliott Kalan

[50:40] Do you think that woman was just like – she was like, now the curse has been lifted.

[50:43] I no longer have to be sentinel over this corpse.

[50:46] And she went off on her own.

Stuart Wellington

[50:49] Terry gets a call from Jeannie who says –

[50:51] Who's at Mike's hospital?

[50:52] Yeah.

[50:53] Where you can get Mike's heart lemonade and Mike's hot honey.

Dan McCoy

[50:57] That's mostly what's in the IVs, yeah.

[50:59] Terry gets a call from Jeannie who says, time is running out.

[51:01] Find me.

[51:02] And it's like, what?

[51:04] She didn't find you.

[51:05] But Terry starts to hallucinate, goes to the hospital's horror basement, wanders around talking to Jeannie, saying stuff like, I did find your body.

[51:13] But the ghost just keeps saying like, find me.

Elliott Kalan

[51:16] Let's hang some more plastic sheets.

[51:19] I think a better movie, a more sophisticated version of this movie would have shown that like the woman she sees at the dark pool and stuff like that, that you would start to question, are these things really existing?

[51:30] Or is she hallucinating?

[51:31] Is she entered some kind of strange psychic space where she's seeing these things?

[51:35] But the movie has been so sinister and creepy looking all the way up to here that it just seems like more stuff in Horror Town.

[51:42] Oh, yeah, Horror Town, there's always some blind women just keeping watch over pools of corpse water.

[51:49] You're going to get that in Horror Town.

[51:51] They don't have good drainage.

Stuart Wellington

[51:52] Oh, yeah.

[51:52] Go talk to the blind sentinel down there.

Elliott Kalan

[51:55] Oh, no.

[51:56] You can't get to the corpse pool from here.

[51:59] You got to take a ride at the blind sentinel.

[52:01] That's going to get you there.

[52:03] Yeah, yeah.

[52:03] Okay, thanks, man at a gas station.

[52:06] Yeah, yeah, I'm a cannibal.

[52:07] Okay, cool.

Stuart Wellington

[52:08] Not me?

[52:09] No, I died 10 years ago.

[52:10] No, no, no.

Elliott Kalan

[52:11] You're going to come back and I'm not going to be here, so pay for that gas now.

Dan McCoy

[52:17] Unlike usual when I allow you to run a tab.

[52:22] You used to be able to do that until Donald Trump.

Stuart Wellington

[52:25] Yeah, until Donald Trump ruined it.

Elliott Kalan

[52:28] Around here, we trust our neighbors.

[52:30] We trust them to skin us.

[52:32] Okay, can I leave now?

Stuart Wellington

[52:33] No, no.

[52:36] I have more folksy wisdom to give you.

[52:38] More folksy horror sayings.

Dan McCoy

[52:41] After this horrific odyssey, Terry passes out and then she wakes up and goes, oh, my God, what time is it?

[52:47] Which, you know, I get because of the deadline, but it's very funny.

[52:50] 48 hours, yeah.

[52:52] And Mike's at her apartment.

[52:53] I overslept and missed my death.

[52:55] Oh, no.

[52:56] Mike's at her apartment asking, why did you log on?

[53:00] Which is hypocritical.

[53:01] And they go to...

[53:03] Yeah.

[53:03] The gender roles in this movie are fucked up.

[53:06] They go to the morgue to look at Jeannie's corpse.

[53:11] Like, why didn't this end the curse?

[53:13] And the examiner mentions that the body had a previous autopsy, like, before her death.

[53:19] And Mike's like, oh, he cut her open while she was still alive.

Elliott Kalan

[53:21] Which I don't think you can call an autopsy.

[53:23] No.

[53:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[53:24] And inside the body, they find this lipstick container with a message, a note inside that says, the guilty must be punished.

[53:32] And Terry says, she didn't want a burial.

[53:34] She wanted revenge.

[53:35] And I'm like, what are the rules that say...

[53:38] Like, she can say, find me.

[53:39] She can say, find me, but she can't specify.

[53:42] That, like, the specifics of what she needs have to be delivered via gut lipstick note.

[53:46] Yeah.

[53:47] This is just...

Elliott Kalan

[53:48] I have a theory that...

[53:49] There's no problem with communication.

[53:50] Yeah.

[53:51] I have a theory that in these types of stories, death is a form of extreme forgetting.

[53:56] First, you forget how to be alive.

[53:57] And then as you pass farther and farther into death stages, you forget how to communicate, how to be clear.

[54:04] And so that's why ghosts are always like, do the thing.

[54:07] And it's like, if you just told me what the thing was you wanted me to do, we could be done with this.

[54:11] The guilty must be punished.

[54:13] Just tell me who killed you and where they are, and I'll deal with it.

Dan McCoy

[54:16] That's a cool idea that I wish one of these movies would actually...

Elliott Kalan

[54:20] That's something maybe I'll be able to get a chance to use at some point.

[54:22] I think the idea that, like, a ghost is kind of losing its memory of what's going on.

[54:27] It doesn't lose the intensity of desire or the motivation, you know.

[54:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[54:30] But now the ghost, through this clue, is finally being very helpful because the lipstick note has a specific address.

Elliott Kalan

[54:37] So they go there.

[54:38] Do you think...

[54:39] Things haven't changed.

[54:40] Do you think that she was being caught up by a serial killer and then he left to answer the phone and she hurriedly wrote this note and tucked it into her gut for it to be found in the future?

[54:48] Yeah.

[54:49] I mean, good thinking, I guess.

[54:51] There's a...

[54:52] In Roger Abrecht's review, he talks about how the website seems to be this ghost revenge, but it also seems to be operated and run by the serial killer who the ghost wants revenge on.

[55:01] Yes.

[55:02] Which is a plot hole I feel like the movie does not square particularly.

Dan McCoy

[55:05] Yeah.

[55:06] But they go there.

[55:08] Mike, of course, is nearing the end of his 48 hours, so he's getting weirder.

Stuart Wellington

[55:11] I do like that before they go there, they call up Jeffrey Combs and he's playing cards in a bar and he's got a fucking straight flush in his hand.

Dan McCoy

[55:19] Well, they actually, like, when they go to the address, they find a picture of an old nuclear cooling tower.

[55:26] Yes, that's right.

[55:26] Which matches one of her fear visions.

[55:29] And she's like, oh, that must be where they are, which is so wild.

[55:31] They're like, oh, his lair is this nuclear cooling tower.

Elliott Kalan

[55:35] This is also supposed to be taking place in New York City.

[55:38] This movie.

[55:39] It doesn't look like New York at all.

[55:41] But the fact they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, one of New York's old abandoned nuclear cooling towers.

[55:45] We'll go into one of those.

[55:46] It's like, you might as well just put a pyramid in the city.

[55:48] Yeah.

[55:49] You know, like, they don't have those.

Dan McCoy

[55:50] As Stuart says, yeah, they call Sykes for a backup.

[55:53] And when they get there...

[55:54] But he's a criminal.

[55:56] When they get there and Mike puts the gun on a doctor and they have a standoff, the doctor reveals that Sykes has already...

[56:01] Already arrived and he's had time to cut him up.

Stuart Wellington

[56:03] Put him up at the wall.

[56:04] I will say nothing about Jeffrey Combs' character would indicate to me that he would be early.

[56:10] No, not at all.

[56:12] Or that he wouldn't just shoot first.

[56:14] That is not on them.

[56:16] They must have assumed he would show up later.

Elliott Kalan

[56:18] They're like, Sykes isn't going to get here for a while.

[56:20] Let's take the scenic route.

[56:22] Set the directions to avoid freeways.

[56:25] Like, let's just get there slow and steady.

[56:27] Surface roads.

[56:27] We can run a couple errands before we get there.

[56:30] Because Sykes is going to be...

[56:31] He's going to be way, way past the time.

[56:33] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[56:34] Yeah.

[56:34] Just like cleaning all the empty cans and bottles out of his car will take forever.

Dan McCoy

[56:41] Terry distracts the doctor by holding up Jeannie's lipstick just long enough for Mike to shoot him in the leg.

[56:47] And the doctor shoots Mike back with what looks like a Luger.

[56:50] And then there's a...

[56:51] It's definitely a Luger.

[56:52] You're the gun of villains.

[56:54] There's a cut to the doctor's live stream.

[56:56] There's a reason for that.

[56:57] Yes.

[56:58] His live stream...

[56:59] Villains and Han Solo.

[57:00] Uh-huh.

[57:01] Subscriber count is immediately climbing upon this.

[57:04] And I'm like, how?

[57:05] How?

[57:05] Like, people are like...

[57:07] You get shot.

[57:08] Hey, hey, hey.

[57:08] Guys, you got to see this.

[57:12] You know, there's more fighting.

[57:13] The doctor stabs her with a syringe.

[57:16] The nude victim wanders off, which is convenient.

[57:19] Because then the strap thing is free for him to strap Terry in there.

[57:24] Yeah.

[57:25] But Mike logs on to fear.com as he's dying.

[57:29] Fear.com.com.

[57:30] And he downloads Jeannie into the doctor's brain.

[57:33] Mm-hmm.

[57:33] And then inside his mind, he's confronted with all these decaying corpse ghosts of his victims who judge him guilty for the crime of fear.com.com.

[57:42] And he gets ripped apart like a bag of cockroaches and ash.

[57:47] And sadly, Mike doesn't get to enjoy his heroism because he's dead.

[57:52] And then...

[57:53] Theultimatefear.com.

[57:55] Cut to Terry's apartment.

[57:56] Sometimes later, she answers a ringing phone only to get ghostly static.

[58:00] And she pets her cat for comfort.

[58:02] We haven't talked enough about this cat character who I loved.

Stuart Wellington

[58:05] Character?

[58:06] Yeah, there's a cat.

[58:06] Favorite character is that cat actor.

Elliott Kalan

[58:09] And what's the name of this character?

Stuart Wellington

[58:12] Like, Mr. Fitzroy or something.

[58:14] What a great name.

[58:17] You're right.

Elliott Kalan

[58:18] Yeah.

[58:19] And that's fear.com, guys.

[58:21] You know what I learned watching this movie?

[58:23] I think there's a thing I don't like in movies.

[58:25] And it is seeing nude women attached to harnesses where they are then attacked with scalpels.

[58:30] Call me a prude.

[58:31] It's not something I'm into.

Stuart Wellington

[58:33] Yeah, I feel like we...

[58:35] You know, this movie and the movie we're going to be talking about too soon for my liking.

[58:42] Kind of...

[58:42] Both came out in 2002.

[58:44] And both featured way more nudity than the majority of movies that we cover.

[58:49] And there was a time where a young steward would have been like, hooray, nudity.

[58:52] But I'm like, this is horrible.

[58:53] I hate this.

[58:54] Yeah, context matters.

Elliott Kalan

[58:56] Yeah, context matters.

[58:57] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[58:59] Well, let's give our final judgment.

Elliott Kalan

[59:01] Nudity is one of the things where context really matters.

[59:04] It does.

[59:05] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[59:06] And just to be...

[59:07] I'm an equal opportunity nudity enjoyer.

[59:09] Give me all nudity.

[59:11] As long as it's within the right context.

Dan McCoy

[59:16] So, fear.com.

[59:18] Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like?

[59:23] Elliot, earlier you mentioned Ebert's review for this picture.

[59:29] And coincidentally, I have a quote here that I pulled from the review that I wanted to read.

[59:35] Which is him saying, do I recommend the film?

[59:38] Not for the majority of film goers.

[59:40] Who will listen to the dialogue and will expect a plot.

[59:44] And will be angered by the film's sins against logic.

[59:47] But that was in the context of him saying like...

[59:50] And yet this movie has something.

[59:51] It has like a visual flair that makes it interesting.

[59:55] Particularly, as you said, in the last section of the movie where it just turns into almost a non-narrative phantasmagoria of images.

[1:00:06] And I don't know whether I've been Stockholm Syndrome-ed into it or what.

[1:00:11] I've now seen this movie, like I said, too many times for someone to have seen fear.com.

[1:00:17] But I think I kind of like this movie.

[1:00:20] You don't...

[1:00:21] It doesn't make any sense.

[1:00:22] If you walk into it being aware that it's not going to hang together.

[1:00:27] And like a lot of it is silly.

[1:00:30] And a lot of it is dumb.

[1:00:32] There is something to enjoy here.

[1:00:34] There's something in the look and feel of it that I like.

[1:00:40] But I agree with Ebert that I could not recommend it for the majority of viewers.

[1:00:45] Only for weirdos.

[1:00:46] I love to hear Roger Ebert like doing a thing where he's like, you know what?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:52] Normals, stay away.

[1:00:54] Sickos, this is for you.

[1:00:56] Bad movie freaks, enjoyed.

[1:00:59] Soup's on.

[1:01:00] I'm going to say, yeah, I feel like I...

[1:01:03] I mean, I think this is a weird thing to say, but I think time has been kinder on this movie.

[1:01:09] I remember seeing it originally and being like, this is dog shit, I hate it.

[1:01:12] But watching it again recently, I do have a greater affection for that era of like weird cyber cinema.

[1:01:21] And yeah, it doesn't make sense.

[1:01:24] It's not like good, but there's things that I enjoy about it.

[1:01:30] So I'm going to say this is like almost a movie I kind of like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:34] I'm going to call it a bad, bad movie.

[1:01:37] Fair.

[1:01:37] But more out of...

[1:01:38] I think it's a personal taste thing.

[1:01:40] It's that like there is something very nostalgic and comforting in a weird way about the like

[1:01:46] nu metal visuals.

[1:01:48] And like I think the movie excels in many ways on a visual level where it's creating like

[1:01:52] a nightmare world in every form.

[1:01:54] And the few times when you see Terry's apartment, which just looks like a normal apartment,

[1:01:58] it's kind of disappointing, you know, that it's like, oh, she just has a regular bed with

[1:02:01] blankets on it or whatever and a cat.

[1:02:03] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:03] Where's the gothic candelabra?

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:05] Exactly.

[1:02:06] Her bedroom should be full of doves from the open windows that are constantly blowing ragged

[1:02:12] curtains into the room.

[1:02:13] But I...

[1:02:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:14] Why is her last name like not, you know, Kenty or something?

[1:02:17] Yeah.

[1:02:18] But I found the...

[1:02:19] But I found the...

[1:02:20] The story is so unpleasant to me.

[1:02:22] And the overall feel to me was so unpleasant.

[1:02:24] And I do not like torture movies.

[1:02:26] And I don't like movies where there's like this sicko is gonna cut up this nude woman.

[1:02:32] Like I just...

[1:02:33] I don't...

[1:02:33] It's just something I don't like.

[1:02:34] And so I'm gonna give it a bad, bad movie because it is not a well done movie.

[1:02:39] And the plot is dumb.

[1:02:42] But I could see if you guys...

[1:02:43] I could see like these guys are saying, if you enjoy this type of movie, then you might

[1:02:47] enjoy it.

[1:02:47] And there's some really cool visuals in it.

[1:02:49] There are some really cool like weird visuals in it.

[1:02:52] And so...

[1:02:52] Yeah.

[1:02:52] The movie is kind of at odds with itself where there are visual ideas in it that are more...

[1:02:58] That are deserve a better movie to be in, you know.

[1:03:02] Yeah.

[1:03:02] But there's a ceiling to how much I can enjoy a movie where a woman is nude on a metal

[1:03:08] cross and is being cut up by a guy who's talking about, what we have to do is make death a

[1:03:14] part of our understanding.

[1:03:16] That kind of stuff.

[1:03:16] It just...

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:16] I will defend the movie and say there's not actually that much cutting though.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:22] No, that's true.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:23] It's more implied cutting than I've thought.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:25] I will say...

[1:03:25] I mean, there's a lot of cutting in the editing, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:03:28] It's cut like a Liam Neeson, late Liam Neeson action sequence.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:32] Where they're trying to hide the limitations of certain things, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:35] And I mentioned the director's follow-up to this movie.

[1:03:38] It's even more a movie that like I could not in good conscience recommend it because like

[1:03:43] there are some deeply like problematic elements.

[1:03:47] Like the hero is a guy who's like, oh, I've fallen in love with this girl at the hospital

[1:03:51] who's asleep all the time and I'm going to kidnap her to protect her.

[1:03:55] I'm like, no, you're the villain.

[1:03:57] But it is also like it gets even weirder in a way that like, I don't know, if this is the kind of thing you're into, it might be a good bad movie to watch.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:08] Yeah, all the maniacs out there, here's another thing for you to eat.

[1:04:11] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:13] But...

[1:04:13] Throw this down your gorg.

[1:04:15] That's probably whose point of view I approve of.

[1:04:18] Yeah.

[1:04:19] Let me say.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:21] But Dan likes to feel bad sometimes.

[1:04:23] He likes to feel a little naughty and nasty sometimes.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:26] Yeah.

[1:04:27] Didn't say that.

[1:04:28] But Elliot, I believe maybe you've got some more chatter to talk about.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:32] Speaking about enjoying feeling naughty and nasty, I know what you're thinking.

[1:04:35] Isn't it time for another MaxFun Pledge Drive info segment?

[1:04:38] Yes, it is time for one of those.

[1:04:40] So here it is.

[1:04:41] Now, as I've already told you, we need your support to keep our show alive.

[1:04:44] And I've told you how important it is to us that your support allows us to stay independent and dumb.

[1:04:49] We can go out there and recommend fear.com to the maniacs and the sickos in the audience because we don't have anyone telling us we're not allowed to do that.

[1:04:57] And I mentioned how all you have to do to become a member is go to maximumfund.org slash join.

[1:05:02] But I also mentioned a thing called bonus content.

[1:05:04] You may be wondering exactly what the hell am I talking about.

[1:05:07] Let me explain.

[1:05:08] Every year, every Maximum Fun show produces extra bonus content that is exclusively for MaxFun members.

[1:05:15] Nobody else gets to hear it at all.

[1:05:17] Members only.

[1:05:19] If you ever saw someone with a jacket that said members only, they were talking about MaxFun bonus content.

[1:05:24] That is hundreds of hours of bonus content across all the MaxFun shows that you get access to for a measly $5 a month.

[1:05:31] Since we've been doing this for years, the Flophouse alone has something like, I don't know, a couple dozen hours of bonus content.

[1:05:37] Every year, we get more ambitious with what we do.

[1:05:39] We've done extra episodes devoted to movies we wouldn't normally cover.

[1:05:42] We've done audio commentaries for movies.

[1:05:44] We've done multi-episode role-playing game storylines.

[1:05:47] Dan released an entire original fully produced radio play.

[1:05:52] We did six episodes of a role-playing game called Slop Tales where we are working at a seaside restaurant.

[1:05:59] And I legitimately think it is the funniest thing that we have ever done.

[1:06:02] I listen to it with my kids in the car a lot.

[1:06:05] It's very popular in my family.

[1:06:06] Slop Tales is a joy.

[1:06:09] As is Flyscraper, the audio play that Dan did.

[1:06:11] As is our other role-playing stuff.

[1:06:13] As is our Cats audio commentary, et cetera, et cetera.

[1:06:15] As the three extra episodes we did devoted to – which director was it?

[1:06:20] Graydon Clark.

[1:06:22] Graydon Clark, director of Joysticks.

[1:06:23] Yeah.

[1:06:24] So this year we're going back to basics by giving you extra episodes of the show all centered around the Transformers movies.

[1:06:32] That's right.

[1:06:32] We're giving you extra episodes about Transformers movies.

[1:06:34] We have committed ourselves to doing the original 1986 Transformers the movie.

[1:06:38] That episode should be in the bonus feed right now as you're listening to this.

[1:06:42] And we're going to do one on the first Michael Bay Transformers movie.

[1:06:44] And we're going to do one on the recent animated prequel, Transformers 1.

[1:06:48] That's three new episodes of the show you can only listen to if you become a member.

[1:06:52] We've already released that Transformers the movie episode right now.

[1:06:55] So like I said, if you go to MaximumFun.org slash join right now and join, you can listen to it right away and hear me talk about how much I love the song Dare to be Stupid by Weird Al, which is a big part of that movie.

[1:07:04] But the more new members who join this year, the more Transformers movies we will subject ourselves to.

[1:07:10] If we hit 1,600 new and upgrading members, we will record two more episodes covering Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, and Transformers, Dark of the Moon.

[1:07:21] But if we hit 2,000 new or upgrading members, we will damn ourselves to recording four more episodes beyond that covering Age of Extinction, The Last Knight, Bumblebee, and Rise of the Beast.

[1:07:33] So you're already getting three bonus episodes if you join at all.

[1:07:37] If you're a member, you get three bonus episodes for $5 a month.

[1:07:40] But at 1,600 joins and upgrades, you will get five bonus episodes.

[1:07:45] And if 2,000 of you join or upgrade, you will get nine bonus episodes.

[1:07:49] Why would we do this to ourselves?

[1:07:51] Why?

[1:07:52] Because your support is just that important to us.

[1:07:55] So that's a lot of new episodes of the show that you will only get if you become a member at MaximumFun.org slash join.

[1:08:01] All you need to do is become a member or upgrade your membership to force us to produce an avalanche of new episodes of the show.

[1:08:07] And you get to listen to all of them, like I said, for only $5 per month.

[1:08:11] And if you pledge $10 per month, you get all that bonus content and access to our ad-free feed for a regular show.

[1:08:17] So your member dollars will directly translate into less time spent listening to ads and more time spent listening to us talking about how Grimlock of the Dinobots is a halfway decent idea.

[1:08:28] I wish he wasn't so dumb.

[1:08:29] And why Walter Magnus is a total loser and the worst of all the leaders of the Autobots.

[1:08:33] So will you please become a MaxFun member and give yourself access to hundreds of hours of bonus content?

[1:08:39] It's so easy to do.

[1:08:40] You just visit MaximumFun.org slash join.

[1:08:43] Pick which shows you want to support at just $5 a month or more.

[1:08:46] Just a few clicks and you're done.

[1:08:48] And you get to hear us talk about robots that turn into cars and dinosaurs and shit forever.

[1:08:54] Yeah, it was the train of shit.

[1:08:57] Yeah, that was Fisatron.

[1:08:59] Yeah, Fisatron was the most of it.

[1:09:00] That's kind of my description of Devastator, honestly.

[1:09:03] Fisatron was the Autobot and CopraBot was the Decepticon.

[1:09:07] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:07] I mean, that is like, they all run away.

[1:09:10] They're like, oh, gross.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:12] It works every time.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:15] Hey, let's, speaking of our wonderful listeners, let's answer a few questions from listeners.

[1:09:22] Sure.

[1:09:22] Yeah, why not?

[1:09:23] We're opening the old mailbag and the first.

[1:09:26] That was us unzipping the mailbag.

[1:09:28] Oh, thank God you.

[1:09:29] What?

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:30] We're scooping out mail and stuffing it into our gobs.

[1:09:34] Yeah, domp, domp, domp.

[1:09:35] That's us eating the mail.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:37] Oh, I was going to read that letter.

[1:09:38] Well, this other letter is from Samantha, parentheses, Sammy, last name withheld.

[1:09:45] Who writes?

[1:09:46] Hagar.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:48] Samantha Hagar?

[1:09:49] Sure, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:50] I have two questions.

[1:09:52] First is for all three of you.

[1:09:53] Recently, I've started rewatching Once Upon a Time.

[1:09:56] As a Disney adult, there are obvious reasons why I love the show, but sometimes it's so cheesy, it's painful to watch.

[1:10:02] This made me wonder, if the Flophouse decided to cover bad TV instead of movies, what show or season of a show would you like to cover?

[1:10:10] Second question is directed toward Elliot.

[1:10:13] I have a three-year-old son who has always liked Spidey and his amazing friends, but recently he's been really into flipping through my Marvel encyclopedias and asking about all the heroes and villains he sees.

[1:10:26] He has some Spidey picture books.

[1:10:29] I don't think he's ready for comic books.

[1:10:31] So are there any Marvel children's chapter books that I could read to him to keep his interest growing?

[1:10:39] That's Sammy, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:42] I'll answer the first question first.

[1:10:44] I don't know if you guys feel the same way, and this is a show that would not be of interest to most other people, but when you say, if you covered a season of a bad show, what show would you want it to be?

[1:10:52] There's just one show that comes to mind.

[1:10:54] Dan, you might be thinking of the same show.

[1:10:55] It's called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

[1:10:57] It's behind the scenes of a late-night comedy variety show, and it is so fucking dumb.

[1:11:02] And it is Aaron Sorkin at his worst, and all these talented performers being forced to do the dumbest things.

[1:11:08] And it's both not funny and incredibly inaccurate as to how television shows work.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:12] It's so funny.

[1:11:13] It has that thing that a lot of the best bad movies do, where it's like, okay, well, this is a simulacrum of a good thing.

[1:11:24] It has the elements there.

[1:11:26] It has talented people.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:28] If you looked at it with the sound turned off, you'd be like, this is probably a good show.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:32] Yeah.

[1:11:33] It is profoundly watchable because it is a bunch of good people trying to do a show that is ill-conceived.

[1:11:43] And not to do too much more MaxFunDrive promotion, but we do have an episode of bonus content where we talk about an episode of Studio 60.

[1:11:56] You can imagine what that show would be like.

[1:11:59] Yeah.

[1:11:59] You did all of it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:00] But I would want to do the whole season.

[1:12:01] Yeah.

[1:12:01] I don't know the exact season, but I feel like a current show that I would want to cover is The Rookie.

[1:12:10] Every time my wife is watching it, I'll be like painting something and looking up, and it's the craziest shit I've ever seen in my life.

[1:12:17] There's an episode that features an unexpected home birth that I've rewound and watched like 10 times.

[1:12:24] Is that the Nathan Fillion one?

[1:12:25] The Nathan Fillion one, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:27] I watched the first couple of seasons of that because I like him so much.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:30] But it gets so bizonkers.

[1:12:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:36] It's a silly show.

[1:12:37] It's hard.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:38] And to answer your second question, if we're ready for that, there are Marvel chapter books.

[1:12:43] I know there's a series called The Mighty Marvel Chapter Books, but I'm not familiar with them.

[1:12:49] But there are three Spider-Man graphic novels that are really good for kids that are by Mike Mahak.

[1:12:55] And I know you can get them as a set, but there's three of them.

[1:12:57] They're called Animals Assemble, Quantum Quest, and Cosmic Chaos.

[1:13:01] And I know we have the Animals one for my younger son, and my young niece, who is a big Spider-Man fan, really likes those books also.

[1:13:09] And so I think those are good entry Spider-Man graphic novel comics for little kids.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:14] I was a big fan.

[1:13:15] I feel like for little kids, I'd be a big fan of Spider-Man, the torment story.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:18] Just because Todd McFarland's art is so sick.

[1:13:21] Yeah, so it's so extreme, and the writing is great.

[1:13:25] But I would recommend those.

[1:13:27] I think they're available in a box set called Spider-Man, A Mighty Marvel Team-Up.

[1:13:30] And it's three books, but I think you can get them separately, too.

[1:13:33] It's fine.

[1:13:33] You don't have to buy them all together.

[1:13:35] And they're readily available.

[1:13:36] So I would recommend those, the Mike Mahak Spider-Man graphic novels.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:42] And this other letter comes from Eli Lasting withheld.

[1:13:46] Who?

[1:13:46] Who writes.

[1:13:48] Wow.

[1:13:48] I was greatly enjoying your Mercy episode and browsing the movie's IMDb page when I realized I had perpetrated my own injustice.

[1:13:57] I thought the villain was played by David Dinman, who I will always remember as Skip on Buffy because I'm old.

[1:14:04] When I realized it was another actor, I felt terrible.

[1:14:08] I hope no one else commits this calumny.

[1:14:11] And I'm sure glad that Mercy Court isn't real.

[1:14:14] Even though I never shared that incorrect casting with anyone.

[1:14:19] Yeah.

[1:14:19] I still feel like I've wronged Mr. Dinman.

[1:14:22] I'm sorry.

[1:14:23] I'm sorry.

[1:14:23] And if anyone else made that mistake, please be sorry, too.

[1:14:27] Eli Lasting withheld.

[1:14:28] And I just, you know, some of these letters are questions and some of them are sort of like you put a message up.

[1:14:34] Apologies for thought crimes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:34] You know, I initially, when that actor first showed up, maybe I'd been like my eyes were blurry or something.

[1:14:42] And I also thought it might have been David Dinman.

[1:14:44] But I, you know, there's a, you know, he's played a number of villains over the years.

[1:14:49] But there's, his recent performance in Rebel Ridge taught me to not always trust my initial impression of David Dinman.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:56] And also, as a public figure, you know that your words carry weight.

[1:15:00] So you're not just going to go half cocked just assuming that one actor is another actor.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:04] I didn't pause the movie and run over to, what's the social media platform that I should be making fun of?

[1:15:11] I don't know.

[1:15:11] All of them?

[1:15:12] Blue Sky?

[1:15:12] They're all that.

[1:15:13] Threads?

[1:15:13] I didn't go over to Threads and write a scathing takedown of David Dinman and his performance.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:21] Let's recommend some movies.

[1:15:24] Movies that we saw recently.

[1:15:28] We've never done it before.

[1:15:29] Let's start.

[1:15:30] Yeah.

[1:15:31] We've enjoyed.

[1:15:32] I'm going to recommend a movie that, are you about to free Garbine?

[1:15:37] Maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:37] I love it when Dan says, I'm about to recommend it and then laughs to himself as if,

[1:15:41] he's thinking, these assholes have no idea what I'm about to do.

[1:15:44] I'm going to fucking do it to him.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:46] Yeah.

[1:15:47] I've mentioned my bad movie watching crew.

[1:15:51] You going to give him a little shout out here?

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:53] You going to give him a little shout out?

[1:15:54] Yeah, I don't know.

[1:15:55] They all have cool nicknames.

[1:15:56] We call, because of a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:58] Of course, there's Dewey, Snotball, and The Beast.

[1:16:02] Don't get on The Beast's bad side.

[1:16:04] Oh, no.

[1:16:04] But he's a big hearted guy.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:06] It's because of a movie that I didn't see.

[1:16:09] Like, I missed a movie one week and I came back and all of a sudden everyone was calling

[1:16:12] the group Buttercreamers.

[1:16:15] I don't know why, but I guess shout out to the Buttercreamers out there.

[1:16:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:16:20] But one of the members, Phil, his selection was not a bad movie, a movie that we all ended

[1:16:29] up enjoying quite a bit.

[1:16:31] Everyone in the chat had a great time watching it.

[1:16:34] It is Gumby the Movie from 1995.

[1:16:39] And what is great about Gumby the Movie?

[1:16:42] Well, there's many things, but one of the great things about Gumby the Movie is, like, despite

[1:16:45] being made in 1995, this is not some hip modern update of Gumby from, you know, what, like, I

[1:16:53] know that 1995 is not modern anymore, but, like, what, the 60s or whenever the original

[1:16:58] Gumby, like, early 70s maybe?

[1:17:00] It is still Art Clokey, the creator of Gumby, doing this, like, him and, I don't know, maybe

[1:17:10] some other people, but mostly him, I think, doing the voices, these, like, flat voices of,

[1:17:14] like, oh, no, Gumby.

[1:17:16] Oh, holy Toledo.

[1:17:19] And it is bigger in the sense that it is longer and more stuff happens, but it is not like,

[1:17:27] oh, we got to make this the Gumby event movie.

[1:17:30] It is just a long Gumby with everything that suggests, which is a bunch of shit happening

[1:17:36] that doesn't make sense.

[1:17:37] The narrative goes all over the place like a stream of consciousness clay dream, and it

[1:17:47] has a couple of rock songs, both about Gumby and who Gumby is and what his deal is.

[1:17:52] Oh, yeah.

[1:17:53] And it is just really fun.

[1:17:56] If you want something that just is bright and silly and weird stuff is constantly happening

[1:18:02] and it flows into each other, Gumby is a fever dream of children's entertainment made back

[1:18:09] from the time when, like, you know, I feel like children's entertainment these days, like,

[1:18:13] everyone has an idea of what it has to be, you know?

[1:18:16] People are like, we figured it out.

[1:18:18] It has to be this kind of thing.

[1:18:20] Whereas in the old days, you could just give, like, a weirdo some clay and you'd make it

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:23] a thing.

[1:18:24] I mean, Art Clokey is, I think, because Gumby is not as cool as the Muppets, I think he

[1:18:29] doesn't get the same credit as Jim Henson, but, like, they're cut out of similar cloth in

[1:18:32] a lot of ways where it's just like, I'm going to do what I want.

[1:18:34] Clay.

[1:18:35] With this.

[1:18:35] Yeah, clay.

[1:18:36] It's clay.

[1:18:37] I mean, Jim Henson's made a felt, of course.

[1:18:39] But, and there was a couple years ago, I had a meeting about these people wanted to remake,

[1:18:46] wanted to reboot Gumby.

[1:18:47] And I watched some old Gumby cartoons.

[1:18:49] And they are so fun because, like you're saying, it's just stream of consciousness almost.

[1:18:54] Yeah.

[1:18:55] There's one where Gumby and Pokey are running, like, a lemonade stand and they're just selling

[1:18:59] lemonade to people.

[1:19:00] And then a continental soldier from the Revolutionary War comes by for some lemonade.

[1:19:04] And they go and join him and they fight alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War.

[1:19:08] And it's like, wait, so hold on a second.

[1:19:10] What century is this story taking place?

[1:19:12] There's no time machine or anything.

[1:19:13] They just walk over to the Revolutionary War.

[1:19:15] Like, it's a, yeah.

[1:19:17] I haven't seen the Gumby movie, but I bet it's fun.

[1:19:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:21] Do you have another Gumby-related thing?

[1:19:23] No, no, no.

[1:19:23] I'm tossing.

[1:19:24] Okay, so because this is the Max Fun Drive, I'm pulling out all the stops, baby, and I'm

[1:19:28] making two recommendations.

[1:19:29] The first is the thing that I probably watched the most in the last couple weeks and gotten

[1:19:34] the most pleasure out of.

[1:19:36] It's a very short film.

[1:19:37] It's available on YouTube.

[1:19:39] I am recommending this as a huge fan of the band Queensryche.

[1:19:43] So I'm recommending this to other fans of the band Queensryche or anybody who likes dorky

[1:19:49] rock stars in general, especially like dorky aging rock stars.

[1:19:53] Go over to YouTube and look up GT space EPK to watch the electronic press kit for the form,

[1:20:02] or I guess current or former lead singer of Queensryche, Jeff Tate.

[1:20:06] It's very special.

[1:20:07] You will get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

[1:20:10] And then I'm also going to recommend a new movie.

[1:20:12] I don't know if it's actually been fully released yet, but I saw an early screening of Mother Mary,

[1:20:17] the David Lowery movie starring Anne Hathaway and Michaela Cole.

[1:20:23] It is David Lowery has kind of had a career of making like an artsy fartsy movie for himself and then a Disney movie.

[1:20:33] And then, you know, back and forth a little bit.

[1:20:35] And this is in the – this is – to me, it feels very much like the two halves of his creative brain kind of having a conversation with itself.

[1:20:44] It is on the surface about a pop diva who is going through a crisis and turns to an old friend and former costume designer,

[1:20:54] played by Michaela Cole, to help her with her project and kind of reestablish her identity.

[1:21:02] And it goes in very strange directions.

[1:21:05] And I found it to be really beautiful.

[1:21:07] It's very – has like really big theater kid energy.

[1:21:11] And there's some really interesting staging.

[1:21:13] It feels like it's clearly inspired by theater and large stage productions.

[1:21:19] And I think it's really beautiful.

[1:21:21] And it has these big emotions, yet it's also kind of small.

[1:21:25] And it's – the sets are gorgeous.

[1:21:28] And the costumes are great.

[1:21:29] And, of course, Anne Hathaway and Michaela Cole are incredible.

[1:21:33] And it's so fun to watch them together.

[1:21:35] So Mother Mary.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:37] I am going to recommend an old movie.

[1:21:40] Old.

[1:21:42] Get ready.

[1:21:43] Get ready.

[1:21:44] So this – fear.com is a real spooky movie around a ghost.

[1:21:48] So I decided I'm going to recommend a ghost movie I saw recently.

[1:21:50] And that's The Ghost Goes West.

[1:21:52] This is a 1935 movie directed by René Clare, who I'm sure you guys know best as the director of Anous La Liberté,

[1:21:58] La Million, I Married a Witch.

[1:21:59] Et cetera, et cetera.

[1:22:00] But this is a movie starring Robert Donut and Gene Parker, who I kept thinking was Gene Arthur.

[1:22:06] She's very similar to Gene Arthur.

[1:22:07] But – and Eugene Pellett's in it.

[1:22:09] One of the great croaky-voiced in real life a right-wing nut actor, I suppose.

[1:22:15] And it is about Robert Donut.

[1:22:18] Robert Donut is – he plays both a modern Scottish guy who has to sell his family castle because he's out of money and also his ancestor, a Scottish Highlander who was – who died in a moment of cowardice and now is a ghost haunting the castle until he can find the last surviving member of the clan that his clan hated and get them to admit how great his clan is.

[1:22:40] And Robert Donut has to sell the castle to a rich family and he's falling in love with the daughter of the rich family.

[1:22:47] And they move it to Florida and the ghost comes with it.

[1:22:50] And it's a really silly movie.

[1:22:52] I thought it was really funny.

[1:22:54] And Robert Donut is so charming in it.

[1:22:56] And it's much more of a romantic comedy than it is – full of misunderstandings than it is a ghost movie.

[1:23:01] But there's good ghost stuff in it too.

[1:23:03] And it's just like the kind of light, really silly, like fun, but in a way heartfelt romantic comedies that they used to just seem to churn out in the 30s and which they don't really remember how to make anymore.

[1:23:18] And I really enjoyed it.

[1:23:19] So that's The Ghost Goes West.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:23] Well, that is this episode of the podcast.

[1:23:28] But wait, hold on.

[1:23:31] Hold on.

[1:23:31] Before we go, Elliot, what's up?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:36] What's going on?

[1:23:37] Hey, yay, yay.

[1:23:39] So before we go, thank you, Dan.

[1:23:40] I want to remind you one more time to go to MaximumFun.org slash join and become a Maximum Fun member.

[1:23:46] By doing so, you're keeping this show alive.

[1:23:48] By doing so, you get access to all of the hours of our exclusive bonus content and our ad free feed.

[1:23:53] If you join or upgrade at the $10 per month level.

[1:23:55] But by doing so even more, you're also telling the world that you don't want to live in a media landscape of mediocre corporate owned AI IP slop.

[1:24:03] You're telling the world that you want to live in a media landscape of original, artist owned, personal and authentic slop.

[1:24:08] So would you please go to MaximumFun.org slash join and join or upgrade your membership.

[1:24:13] And while you do that, the only thing left for me to say is thank you.

[1:24:16] Thank you for joining and supporting us.

[1:24:18] Thank you for all the members who have supported our show over the years and continue to support our show.

[1:24:22] It means so much to us that we get to make this podcast and that you enjoy it and that you're able to show that with money.

[1:24:29] The ultimate sign of love and appreciation in this crooked fallen world that we live in.

[1:24:34] We really do appreciate it.

[1:24:36] That being said, from the bottom of our hearts.

[1:24:38] Also, if you want some of that heart bottom appreciation, please go to MaximumFun.org slash join and become a MaximumFun member today.

[1:24:46] It means a lot to us that this show means a lot to you.

[1:24:49] And this is the agreement that we've made that you will help us keep it going.

[1:24:52] So thank you.

[1:24:53] We appreciate that very much.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:54] I appreciate a heart bottom.

[1:24:57] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:58] Oh boy.

[1:24:59] Heart bottom girls, you make the Dan McCoy go round.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:03] As long as we're tossing thank yous around.

[1:25:06] Thank you to our producer.

[1:25:07] Join your heart and ride.

[1:25:08] Anyway, yeah.

[1:25:09] Thank you to our producer, Alex Smith.

[1:25:11] He goes by the name Howell Dottie.

[1:25:13] You can find his Twitch streams and music and podcasts on the internet.

[1:25:19] Look him up.

[1:25:20] He does great work.

[1:25:22] But for this episode of The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:25] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:25:27] And I've been Elliot saying one last time.

[1:25:29] Elliot Kalen, that is.

[1:25:30] Saying one last time.

[1:25:31] Please, if you could, go to MaximumFun.org slash join and join us and become a member to support this show.

[1:25:37] And keep it chugging along.

[1:25:38] Thank you.

[1:25:40] Bye.

[1:25:41] See ya.

[1:25:43] See ya.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:49] I love going to concerts with my boy Al Smith.

[1:25:53] Al Smith, former governor of New York.

[1:25:55] Kind of.

[1:25:56] He's a musician based out of Louisville.

[1:25:59] We saw ACDC together or Akadaka for our Australian listeners.

[1:26:03] We saw Def Leppard together.

[1:26:05] That fucking ruled.

[1:26:07] We saw Nick Cave together.

[1:26:09] I feel like we've seen a million other bands together.

[1:26:11] Nick Cage?

[1:26:12] Yeah, we saw Nick Cage together.

[1:26:14] Nick Cage and the Bad Seeds.

[1:26:17] Just put me in this mercy seat.

[1:26:20] Yeah.

[1:26:21] Red right hand.

[1:26:24] Name a second one.

[1:26:25] What color his left hand is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:26] Yeah.

[1:26:27] Name a second one, Elliot.

[1:26:29] He's got, what's the one where it's like, I mean, I'm trying to think of his other murder songs.

[1:26:33] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:34] I think there's that one that goes, bop, doop, doop, doop.

[1:26:38] Yeah.

[1:26:38] Or there's that Nick Cave song.

[1:26:41] Hey, soul sister.

[1:26:43] Hey there, mister, mister.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:45] You remember that Nick Cave song that goes, hey, yeah, yeah, what's going on?

[1:26:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:52] I love that that song's called What's Up, not What's Going On.

[1:26:56] I know.

[1:26:56] Well, there's another song called What's Going On.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:58] There's a song called What's Going On.

[1:27:01] Maximum Fun.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:02] A worker-owned network.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:03] Of artist-owned shows.

[1:27:05] Supported.

[1:27:06] Directly.

[1:27:07] By you.

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