SPEAKER_07 0:04

I sauce up with a lot of strangers, okay?

SPEAKER_04 0:11

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hack or Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back! The funeral is about to begin. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack, a total joke, a waste of time, or a slash.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Totally killer, unintended.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with the perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, and I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superflies based guy Mac, Hola Muchachos, the Gore Lover Alexis, hey everyone, the Carol the Creeper Ryan, and the Scream Queen Paris.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Hey sweet!

SPEAKER_04 0:52

This week we're looking at the first entry in a cult classic franchise, an independent sci-fi horror film that was bookended by the likes of Halloween and Alien, and has steadily grown in popularity in the years since. In fact, it's made many appearances in lists ranking the scariest and most iconic horror films of all time, but before we give up the goods, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

We do have some follow-up, Chris. We recently reviewed one of my favorite horror movies, Final Destination 2, and our team was actually split down the middle. Now, Mac wasn't here that week, but Mac, Final Destination 2, hack or slash.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I give the entire franchise a hack. Oh Wow. Okay, this was unexpected.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

That is more brutal than the pileup in that movie. Whole franchise at once?

SPEAKER_01 1:34

The whole franchise, reading more into coincidence, whether it's in a movie or in real life, is just so ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Well, like I said, Mac wasn't here that week, but we wanted to know how you feel. Uh, so we reached out on Twitter and Instagram. Fittingly enough, an ominous 13% hacked this film, while 87% gave it a slash. And that just brings me joy because this is one of my favorite franchises, Mac Be Damned. We had a lot of comments uh reaching out to us. Really, the overall theme of the comments was just the opening scene and how impactful it was. We have a comment from Dan who said that the opening scene was enough for me. We have Tristan telling us that thanks to this film, I now have severe anxiety when driving on the interstate. And actually, this week we also have a voicemail from the hackerslash hotline. This message comes to us from one of our patrons, Gwen. Uh, Chris, roll the tape.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Hey guys, this is Gwen. I'm telling about Final Destination 2. Just listen to that podcast. That was my favorite of all the Final Destination movies that pile up was incredibly terrifying. Very well done. The subsequent tests may be you know a little far-fetched, but I guess that's kind of the point to see how far death will go to reclaim those lines. I guess the concept between the mob coming through the windfield and killing the cat and the PVV type killing the cat. Both of those, you know, they're both in the dynasty, and I've got the fear of driving behind any vehicles that you know carrying any type for ladders or mobs. So this one was obviously a definite flash for me. Tony Todd is so good at being terrifying. Certainly looking forward to the new Candyman once that is finally released. And looking forward to the next podcast too. You guys are great. Love to all. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_05 3:12

Wow, shout out to Gwen. I love that. Also looking forward to Candyman. Um, knock on wood if it freaking ever comes out this year.

SPEAKER_07 3:21

Hey, MC dude did reopen, and I will watch Candyman and scream with my mask on, okay?

SPEAKER_05 3:26

Really?

SPEAKER_07 3:26

We're going to watch a movie with our mask on. I was speaking for myself. Y'all do you?

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Well, I love what Gwen said about seeing how far death will go to reclaim those lives because that really captures the essence of the franchise. And also just imagining death out here like reclaiming my lives, reclaiming my lives.

SPEAKER_07 3:43

I would like to note that uh those 13 people that responded should be careful in case they mess up the order that things are meant to happen in the universe. Um, they're now in a list and should uh take that very seriously, okay?

SPEAKER_04 3:54

To be clear, it's not our list. We have nothing to do with this.

SPEAKER_07 3:56

Yeah, it has nothing to do with me.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Excellent call out nonetheless. Anyway, if you'd like to hear your comments on our next episode, reach out to us on social media or call the hackerslash hotline at 757-606-0128. And that's our follow-up.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

All right, now this week's film is a true testament to what can be achieved with a little bit of help from your friends and family. The premise for this 1979 film came to its creator in a dream. And in the course of over a year, many Friday gear rentals, and several months of post-production, Don Coscarelli weaved together a tale. And that was a tale of a young boy not only coping with the death of his parents and the confrontation of mortality, but also enlisting the aid of his older brother in hopes of vanquishing a sinister man who appears to be raising the dead. This week we're talking about Phantasm. Now, who among you has seen this movie before? Obviously, I haven't seen this movie.

SPEAKER_05 4:47

I look straight at Mac because um I never even heard of this movie.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

I've only seen, like, I think a couple scenes from some of the Phantasm films, but I've actually never watched this movie.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Same, never saw it, never heard of it, uh, had no idea it existed until now.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

I had neither. I mean, this is another one of those classics that I've heard a lot about throughout my life, but never saw into this episode. The only familiarity I had, I don't even know how I got to this point, but I saw a pretty great artwork of the villain himself, knowing there's a cool sphere that whizzes around killing people, and it has like this incredible theme song. Now, it's so great, in fact, that it's been on my creepy work playlist without having ever seen the movie. Have I told you guys about my creepy work playlist?

SPEAKER_03 5:29

I've heard of that.

SPEAKER_04 5:30

Sounds creepy. So, for those unfamiliar, I listen to horror movie soundtracks while I'm working, and it keeps me feeling productive and sometimes also to fall asleep. I understand that this is weird. So on brand, it's truly unbearable. It's it's really me.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

It should come as no surprise to anybody listening. Honestly.

SPEAKER_05 5:48

No surprise, but I'm also questioning your sanity right now a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

The musicians behind these scores are brilliant and deserve to be listened to over and over again. But that being said, since no one here had fully seen the movies, what were you folks expecting?

SPEAKER_05 6:02

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect with this one. I was thinking from the name of some sort of fantasy. Um, I didn't watch the trailer, nor did I read the description before I watched this. So I was just kind of like going into it blind. I was like, I don't know, maybe it's some sort of fantasy. I wasn't even thinking sci-fi, I was just thinking some return to Neverland sort of horror mix sort of thing.

SPEAKER_07 6:27

For me, I think uh I did end up reading a little bit of the description because sometimes I'm just like, I need to know something when I go into these uh 80s films, which is very against my brand. But I was expecting sci-fi and fun. And I I that's like I don't know, I don't even even know how to respond to if I got that or not, but that's definitely what I went in thinking. Like, I'm expecting some weird stuff because of the images that they used to uh advertise this film, and then it just seemed like it was going to be a wild ride.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

I was expecting a wild ride. My memories of Phantasm were just from a couple of the scenes I've seen over the years, like while flipping through channels, and I remember the cool like killer metallic ball things like floating around, and so I was expecting some cool stuff with that. I didn't know that there was like a central character or anything important other than that happening. So that was kind of interesting to see a little bit more of the depth of the of the franchise.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Similarly to Alexis, I really just had the name to go off of for this movie. Uh so I was thinking like phantasm, like maybe ghosts. Uh, I'm getting like images of like magicians, so maybe some kind of magical element. Um, and then I saw that it was horror/slash sci-fi, and I was like, huh, my boyfriend loves sci-fi, so I invited him to watch this with me.

SPEAKER_04 7:41

Indeed. I expected this to uh to be stellar based on how high it's regarded. It's one of those that I've always heard good things about and never a single bad thing. Knowing where we were in terms of quality of movies in the 70s, I felt like even if something in this movie felt slow, I expected it to be compelling enough to really just make up for it. I expected some intense kills, some a really menacing villain, and I have a track record of really appreciating old horror, so I felt like this was going to be an automatic slam dunk for me, if that makes sense. For the first time in a long time though, I was confused. So I watched it again and I was still confused. So I gave it some time, I gave it a few days, I revisited it, I consulted the internet on some things, and still I was confused. Now I've sorted out the big things, don't get me wrong. So I know what we're talking about tonight. I I figured out the big things that got to me, but overall it was a perplexing experience, more so than I think it maybe should have been. But how were you folks feeling?

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Just to be clear, Chris, you watched this three times this week?

SPEAKER_04 8:46

Three times this week. Bless you. It's free on Tubi, so it didn't cost me anything, but my time.

SPEAKER_05 8:52

It's okay, because I felt the same way. Although I felt this is like super suspenseful for me. I was like, oh my gosh, it's like super entertaining from the beginning, um, from the first scene. I was just like, oh wow, this is like great, entertaining. Um, but yes, I was very perplexed would be a very good uh word to describe this.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

I watched this uh just the one time, but while watching it, I was bored. I was very bored. There were long periods of time where nothing was really happening that I could tell, uh, and I was also confused. So that's that's what I got.

SPEAKER_07 9:29

Let me tell you. It makes me so happy when Chris says she's confused because look, I consider myself a very intelligent person. I don't know how I sound on the podcast, but I feel like I'm smart, okay? I'm sure it doesn't come off that way. But like when I don't understand a movie, it just makes me feel like like, am I was I paying attention first? Okay, first and foremost, when you don't understand a movie, were you paying attention? Okay, very important because a lot of times people are not. And I was. And then the next thing I go to is, is it because I'm dumb? And the answer here is no. And then the third thing is, is it because it wasn't a good movie? And I'm not sure. But this is confusing. And and I know that Chris looks deep into things and and finds her uh finds her explanations and solutions to things not making sense, and I did not do that, and I'm glad that she's confused with me. I've never understood a movie less, truly. Oh god, you're back. Thank you. I need you here. Um but then my question is, do you need to watch a movie three times and Google search for it to make sense? And it like, does that does that devalue a movie?

SPEAKER_04 10:36

I think that's the bigger question to be answered as we get through the scoring. However, I will say that I don't I think I'm an anomaly in the sense that there are a lot of people who love this movie and get things from it on their first viewing. So I think I just wasn't the target demographic for this.

SPEAKER_05 10:50

I would totally agree. I mean, I don't know what there was to get, but I feel like it it is what it is. So I wasn't sure there was much to get.

SPEAKER_07 10:58

Wise words. Here's the difference. Alexis is just like, nah, that's it. That's the movie. And I'm like, what is the movie? These are these are the first analysis.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

Um the first Shutter Island, if there ever was one. Basically, in summary, this movie is it be how it be, cause it do. And don't ask, please.

SPEAKER_07 11:18

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

I'm with you, Ryan. I love that order of operations, and I abide by it myself.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

I wish I could say I was disconcerted, but I really felt like I was watching a Doctor Who episode. I don't know if any of our fans are Doctor Who fans as well, Huvians as they like to call themselves, but it definitely felt like the plot of maybe like an older season of Doctor Who. There was just a lot of silliness going around. And a lot of the one plus ones didn't equal two. It was a little bit squiggly, a little bit weird. Some things didn't add up. Did they need to add up? Not really. So I didn't find it necessarily too confusing because I looked at it a little bit simplistically. I like to oversimplify everything in life, as everyone on our team knows. I just like to keep it keep it simple.

SPEAKER_04 12:01

Yeah, he's just a guy stabbing people, man. It's just what he does. It's fine.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

It's what he until somebody tells me different, that's what I'm gonna assume. And they eventually tell you different, and then you assume something different. But it definitely seemed honestly like a sci-fi TV show plotline. And maybe that's where those TV shows got their stories from. I don't know, but it wasn't all that impressive to me. The story wasn't at least a couple of the characters I found interesting. But while watching it like Paris, I got a little bit bored.

SPEAKER_04 12:30

Hmm. Interesting. Look, I'm gonna be real with you. Th this movie, um it surprises me that Matt got bored, and it was also so far from what I expected to experience that that in itself is my biggest surprise, but and also my biggest disappointment. I'm also just disappointed in myself when it comes down to it for going in with an expectation of liking it instead of just being a blank slate like I usually am. Because I feel like that put me in the wrong headspace to experience this movie objectively for what it is, but here we are. One of the biggest disappointments though was that for as great as the main theme is, and I love the theme song to this movie, the rest of this movie has peaks and valleys and it's audio, and it's honestly kind of a mess. Uh it's it's unpolished, and sometimes that can be charming, right? Especially when you consider the n indie nature of this of this production. But I do think it's one of the many things that hurt this movie.

SPEAKER_07 13:27

Chris, I could not agree with you so much. I thought about you so much during this movie because I know that you're the person, if no one else here, that will care about like the sound design of this movie. And I hated it so much. Like the the sounds of like someone walking in a movie or someone like walking through grass or something like that, those are things that should not stand out to you. And in this movie, all I could pay attention to was like the sound effects, but not not like the sound effects during like a kill or something, just the regular sound effects. And like there's a kissing scene in this movie, and the noises that they that they put behind this kissing scene were the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. Like it was just like wet shoes being slapped together, like it was horrible. Or very realistic.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

That's my favorite.

SPEAKER_07 14:18

That is so specific.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

Macaroni in a pot.

SPEAKER_07 14:21

Yeah, and I'm not even sure if it's accurate, but it sounds good. It makes you feel how I felt when I heard it.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

I want to hear Mac make this sound, but um I don't I don't know what wet shoes slapping together sounds like.

SPEAKER_05 14:32

Sounds great though.

SPEAKER_07 14:33

Whatever you imagine is how bad it was.

SPEAKER_05 14:37

Exactly what I thought. Sounds like uh che with your mouth closed, um, kind of comment.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

I actually can't say that I really noticed the sound very much at all beyond like the music. But I'll say I was disappointed by like the lack of any like significant female characters. Um, there's one scene where we have a few female characters, but it's pretty brief and not you don't really see too much of those characters uh throughout the movie.

SPEAKER_07 15:02

I'm sorry, that that one uh black woman that they just stuck in the middle of the movie as like completely token character in like a very cliche role that didn't do anything for you.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Yeah, no, it didn't. It felt like all the girls were just kind of thrown in here to fill some kind of quota or something. Um, and I would have loved to see like just one female character like go along with these boys for the ride, but it was like very much like a boys' club movie.

SPEAKER_05 15:22

It felt they did fill the titty quota.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Sure did.

SPEAKER_05 15:24

It's so weird. I'm like completely disagreeing with everyone. One, I love the weird sounds. Um, there's one particular where it's a fly, and you guys will probably think this is the most craziest thing. Also, I probably should be checked into a hospital for this. But when I was younger, like I'm pretty sure my parents left a window open or whatever they so I would always hear mosquitoes like buzzing in my ear. Literally, that sound stood out. Amongst other things that I loved about this movie, but I can talk about later. I can see where some of the ones that aren't supposed to be like kind of minute, like they're not, which I kind of like because that's annoying to me. Um are you?

SPEAKER_07 16:01

You're a monster.

SPEAKER_05 16:02

I I feel like I'm gonna be a monster tonight because it's so weird. I kind of enjoyed the spin of not getting into a lot of characters. I'm so used to like being bombarded with so many characters in a movie. Like, oh my god, I know I need to look know about so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so, and how they all fit in. That I was so surprised. And to me, it was a good thing at how simplistic kind of everything was in this movie, and how like those characters you get, you know, you kind of only get like three or four main characters, and it's it's it's pretty simplistic in a sense, um, until you get to the end of this movie, but uh it's real simple until it's suddenly real complicated. Exactly. So it's simple, but not. Um but I think I enjoyed that. I enjoyed how like there wasn't all this extra stuff in a movie that I like needed to filter through. So I I was definitely surprised and um kind of sort of like enjoyed that a little bit. I could see that.

SPEAKER_07 17:05

I'm not I'm not hating on that.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

I'll say I was pleasantly surprised by something. The tall man. This is not something I remember from any of the like clips that I had seen while changing channels back in the day when you like flipped through channels on your TV. So a character in the film that we can talk about later, I just like didn't even remember at all about Phantasm. And while watching it, it's a character that's really cool and obviously integral to the story. So that was that was a kind of a surprise to me because I just remembered like shiny silver spheres that float around and kill people, and that seemed like the only thing you had to worry about. And I'm glad that there was more of an actual like human or humanoid element, uh, you know, to the to the horror in these films.

SPEAKER_07 17:50

Mac, were you scared?

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Of course not.

SPEAKER_07 17:52

I don't even know why I asked that question. So close.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Androids do not experience fear.

SPEAKER_07 17:56

Yeah, I I actually am on your side this time, Mac. I wasn't afraid of this at all. I think I was like more, it was almost like a fun movie to watch. It wasn't scary.

SPEAKER_05 18:07

Yeah, to me, it was like very intriguing more than it was. Yeah, I was just trying to figure out what the fuck was going on in this entire movie that it it took away from the scary element, which I think they could have played on a little bit more, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

Um, there was a moment in the movie that I think was supposed to be very scary, um, but it made me laugh uh very hard. Um, so I was not scared at all during this movie, but I was at times entertained.

SPEAKER_04 18:31

This movie has been ranked in uh in a few places as as one of the scariest films of all time. And I'm gonna be real, I don't get it.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Who said that?

SPEAKER_04 18:40

A lot of people we'll get there later. We'll go over the list in the second half of the episode. But here's the thing, I don't even get it within the context of 70s horror, right? Like where you can just put yourself back and think, okay, where were we where were we in terms of what was going on in the country? Uh, what was the political climate, what was going on in film around that time, and I just don't get it. I also understand, though, that the target demographic of this is so far away from me, and honestly, I think probably the majority of us on this episode. This is a movie that performs exceptionally well with young boys and with people who saw this when they were younger and have grown up to have an incredibly deep nostalgic tie to it. And there's nothing wrong with that. I just think that's partially why it hits differently for me. I often feel like a young boy and it didn't hit for me at all. Nice. I will say though, when we look at this movie and just the plot behind it, it reminded me a lot of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Has anyone heard of that, Mac? Have you seen it?

SPEAKER_01 19:39

I have not, but now I'm gonna look it up so that I can see it.

SPEAKER_04 19:43

So here's the thing: it isn't it has gone down in history for a long time as the worst film ever made. I don't think it deserves that. I mean, Thankskilling is out there, let's be real. But you can also find Johnny Depp playing Ed Wood, the guy who directed that movie. And there's a movie about him making this movie, and you see bits in the movie in it. It's worth a watch, I think. You have aliens raising the dead, and while they may be out for like different purposes, those notes of familiarity made me feel a little bit fonder for this movie in my cold dead heart. But how about you folks?

SPEAKER_07 20:20

Would you say this is at the very least original? I think you'd be crazy if you didn't say it's original in some way. I mean, I've never seen anything like this movie.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

I second that. I have. Oh, what have you seen, Mag?

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Well, I've seen newer sci-fi, so that doesn't speak to the originality of this film.

SPEAKER_05 20:35

Clearly, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Right. But it's got a lot of, you know, traditional like sci-fi elements going on in there, but I don't think it's unoriginal. I think it's got some originality going on.

SPEAKER_05 20:47

Yeah, it definitely does, in my opinion. Like, I don't I don't know, I just haven't seen anything like it. Story-wise, and I think element-wise, like when I think of sci-fi and I think of things now, if I think of sci-fi, I think of aliens. And I think that's the only and I correct me if I'm wrong, that's as far as it goes when we talk about sci-fi in horror. Like, it's just some sort of alien sort of like being. Whether you count this that as that or not, I definitely don't, but I don't know. I'm just like overseeing sci-fi and aliens together. Like, give me something else, like a I mean AI, maybe you consider aliens, but I don't I don't know. I just like to see something else. So I like how this, you know, has put that out there for something different.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

I mean, like the whole young boy sees creepy character in the neighborhood and tries to convince his friends or family that something weird is happening. That wasn't very original for me. Um, and then kind of in the middle, I was starting to get Twin Peaks vibes, if you guys are familiar with that. Um, but then you kind of get the full picture and it becomes very specific and very original. Um, and then at the very end, uh there Like actually, nope, not original. So it was kind of a roller coaster of originality for me.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

Speaking of roller coasters, Paris, uh, I think the ending itself classifies in itself as a roller coaster. I I'm gonna be honest, I really disliked it. Uh it's not the end-end. I think the final moment that we get is pretty solid, but the pre-end I found incredibly frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yeah. Yeah, the the lead up to the ending.

SPEAKER_05 22:21

Do we do we have context for what the pre-end is?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Because I'm like, where do I it's that moment right before it ends.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

The pre-end is like what you expect the climax to be, and then the end end is like the final moment of the movie. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_07 22:33

N end is like the final like moment of action that happens in this movie. Whereas the end would be the general wrapping up of the story.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

It's like hacker math, but for grammar.

SPEAKER_05 22:44

Honestly, if I'm looking back at my notes, I'm like WTF, WTF. In a good way, in my opinion. I was just like, wow, I've never felt like I've been on a roller coaster and had a roller coaster ending in my entire life.

SPEAKER_07 22:57

Okay, so that wasn't what the F. It was Wow the F. That's what that stands for in your life. Wow the F, yes.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Wow, comma. The fuck.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Wow the F is what our listeners are gonna use to describe our terms for the denouement.

SPEAKER_07 23:10

We need a t-shirt that says wow the F. Obviously. Most people remove the the curse word. We've just replaced the first purely innocent word in the phrase. This ending does this thing that I've complained about so many times, and I don't want to say it right now to spoil it, but it does the thing that I hate the most. It does the it's just like it's such a cop-out, and I hate it so much. And and then it, you know, brings us back for like a uh Freddy moment where they ride away and the convertible's striped, and it I just don't like the end. I don't like it at all. I get it, I feel like this you could have seen it coming where the way it goes, but I don't like I am kind of apathetic when it comes to the ending.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I just don't really care because I didn't it it wasn't satisfying. I didn't hate it, it just wasn't satisfying for me.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

I absolutely feel that, Mac. Uh, by the time I also got to the ending, I felt nothing. That's what she said.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

So it's it's kind of like the as you guys described, the pre-end, the the buildup to the final scene of the movie, I enjoy. But once we finally got there, I was like, oh, that's all.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Can I say that I was relieved that the movie ended?

SPEAKER_04 24:17

That's one way of looking at it. And another, it's it's gonna be also telling to see how all of this translates to the scores for this movie. I have a prediction as to how it'll shake out, but we'll see. Who knows? Mac may surprise us all. Now, let's go ahead and start making our way there. Alexis, best of luck to you. You're a consummate professional. Uh, this movie is challenging, but what do you have for the body count?

SPEAKER_05 24:42

I try to give our audience facts, facts on facts on facts. This movie had me so messed up. This movie. Chris and I might have fought over the body count on this.

SPEAKER_04 24:52

Well, we didn't fight at all. It was us commiserating and how confusing it is.

SPEAKER_05 24:57

Yes, we were in heavy debate on who counted as what. Um, so I'm just gonna throw out the median number and say five. Honestly, it's confusing. Yeah, it's you know, what do you count as technical? What do you kind of I mean, and we'll talk about that in the spoiler section, but it's just this movie is so crazy and the body count is also crazy too, because I for once in my life do not have I do not feel confident in giving our like listeners this number, but I'm just gonna throw out five and uh you know if you come back and say I'm wrong, I'll give it to you.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

It's a totally abstract five. I mean, like there are five instances maybe of violence, but who's to say? Aren't we all dead? Really?

SPEAKER_05 25:37

We're all dead on the inside, I can tell you that for sure.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

All right, now let's see. Out of this abstract count, Ryan, were any of them animals?

SPEAKER_07 25:45

Uh, I'm very thankful that I didn't have to track some uh arbitrary animal death. So we're all good on the animal report this week.

SPEAKER_04 25:53

Excellent. Let's go ahead and get cooking then. Phantasm from 1979. Was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_03 26:00

I'd like to go first. May I?

SPEAKER_04 26:02

No contest. You may. The gentleman from Florida is recognized.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Reclaiming my time.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Florida man, go first.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

So sometimes a movie is terrible to the point of comedy, um, but this film was sadly incapable of even like scratching that itch. Uh, this movie sucked so much ass that yet again I was left wondering, is this the worst movie I've had to watch for the podcast? And why was this movie chosen? And does anyone like this movie? Uh, I understand that the goal of this podcast is to review every horror movie ever made, but couldn't we have waited until we were all dead to add this one to the list? Uh at first I thought maybe I was just being overly critical of a film from the 70s, and then I remembered Suspiria was made in the 70s, Carrie was made in the 70s, and so many other solid or even just decent horror films were made around that time. Alien was a better movie than this, and I gave that a hack. The original Hills Have Eyes was a better movie than this, and I gave that a hack too. To be fair, some moments of this film utilize music in a kind of good way, and by that I mean the music was the most interesting part of those moments, and some shots were beautifully lit. Uh also the opening scene may have served as inspiration for an iconic moment from Basic Instinct, but overall this movie failed at almost everything. It struggled with the most basic elements of storytelling, and the editing was so sloppy that I'd like to travel back in time 40 years just to fire who was ever responsible. It also felt like halfway through making the movie they realized how bad it was going to be, and then decided to sort of lean into that so that they could later say that it was bad on purpose. Beyond that, this was by definition a hack. This was a total joke, but not the fun kind, and an absolute waste of my time. And I highly discourage all of our listeners from watching this rotted piece of shit.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

Wow. Yeah, that was the most uh critical hack I think I've ever heard in my lifetime of this show. Wow, yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

This is the current reigning worst movie we've ever watched.

SPEAKER_04 27:49

Oh, in in your opinion, respectfully, because there are a lot of people who love this movie. And if you're if they're listening to this show, we love you and value your opinion too.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

And I want to hear from you to understand.

SPEAKER_05 28:00

Well, I will go ahead and tell you that I'm giving this a slash. Yes. Because um I will fight you to death. I will say I freaking hate topsy turvy kind of freaking music in movies. Um, Killer Clowns from Outer Space, kind of getting vibes from this, but you know where I got the most vibes from this is Stranger Things. Yeah, I'm obsessed with the soundtrack that I could freaking forget about everything in this movie and forget that I don't know what the ending like means and be freaking okay with it because I'm obsessed with this soundtrack. I like how I don't really have to think too much in it to understand. I like how there's like a ending where it's like, oh wow, this is churning, it's different. Um visually, I loved it. I love these, you know. I guess once you go in the series, which I will um tell you tonight, I might be a little bit tired, but tomorrow I will definitely be watching number two. Um, I want to see how these fears come to life. I want to see how this person like kills. I want to see more of Tallman, like this old cranky man, Bola. I'm like, I'm not sure what the heck you're saying when you say that. Um, but I don't know. I feel like this um maybe this might be not be the strongest movie in the whole franchise. I don't know. I will um come back to you guys on that, but I don't know. I I I feel this is not a total joke waste of time. I I really feel like this was like not Oscar-worthy, but I I I feel like I don't know. I don't know. It was It was totally killer. It was totally killer and no pun intended. It was definitely suspenseful. It literally kept me guessing because I had not read anything about this movie. I had not seen a trailer, so I was literally so interested on what the hell this old man was doing in this um a mausoleum, which I only knew that from my chemical romance. So um, so I'm sorry, I I had to go on an extended Yeah, I think we're reset back to zero now.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

You both weighed each other out evenly.

SPEAKER_05 30:09

I'm running back to zero, it's a slash. All right, reset, everyone else can go now.

SPEAKER_04 30:13

That's great, that's great. That was like a very strong slash to counteract a very strong hack. Okay, well, there we go. We're fighting after this.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

That's what we're here for.

SPEAKER_07 30:22

Sure. So I'm gonna roll in here, okay. Um I have I have feelings about this movie, okay? So I have notoriously hated uh all the movies near the 80s, both right before and after. Um it's kind of complicated here. I I tried to think of this movie after I watched it and kind of think about it like you're watching a Willy Wonka movie, right? Like things change in in the world of Willy Wonka, and things can happen that wouldn't normally happen, and you don't question them when it's Willy Wonka, you know, you don't question his powers, you don't question why he has wallpaper that you can lick and it tastes like fruit. Okay. So I tried to kind of go there with this movie and and give it a chance. Give it a chance to be science fiction, give it a chance to maybe not make sense, you know? Um, and this movie, can I just briefly say, this movie is not worse than the original Hill Side Eyes, okay? It is not. The original Hillside Eyes was horrible. This is not that, okay. For my listeners here, I just want y'all to know, don't listen to Paris, okay? But with that being said, um, there's a couple things in this movie that really bothered me. I felt like there were a lot of bits of story thrown at me, and then that's it. They would just be like, hey, the sun's blue, and like just walk away from that and never mention it again. And that's obviously just an example. And I was just like, but why is the sun blue? Did someone make the sun blue? Is there an explanation? And I felt like that kept happening. Like, we got a bunch of details about like dead parents and then like a dead friend, and then all these different things. And I'm like, well, what do these have to do with anything? And why is this person doing this? And when did they do this? And how are they doing this? Doesn't matter. Yeah, okay. So Alexis's view is that you don't think about it, you just accept it. Um, I have a hard time with that. I I think I usually need to understand things, and that's usually how I how I react. I will say you're not wrong about the the Stranger Things vibes, especially towards the end. Like they they really, it's almost like they knew Stranger Things would happen one day, and they're like, oh, people will love this in 2020. We'll just lean into it. But it's a hack.

SPEAKER_05 32:32

Damn, I really thought you were about to get a slash.

SPEAKER_07 32:34

Yeah, I can't deal with how confusing this movie is. I cannot, like, the amount of not understanding what was happening in this movie, it just it I can't deal with it. But there are some very interesting things. It to me is not a total waste of time. Um, but if you're like sitting down, like we're gonna watch a great movie tonight, this ain't it. If you want to watch something for fun and like just see something different, this is it. It's cool, but it's not great, so it's a hack.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Man, we have been on every hill and valley.

SPEAKER_07 33:02

This is six flags.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Legitimately, this has been a roller coaster hearing your opinions on this. And I gotta respect that you guys have some really strong opinions because I, after watching it, just didn't really have that strong of an opinion about this movie. So, Paris, I feel that passion. Alexis, I feel the passion. Ryan, I feel going back and forth about this movie. I used to watch hours of the sci-fi channel back in the day when I was a teenager and we had cable TV. I love sci-fi. I love the storylines, I've seen them 10,000 times. Nobody's original, right? At this point, there's nothing new under the sun, and that's fine because I still love sci-fi and I still love the suspension of disbelief. That's that's kind of my thing. So when watching this movie and seeing a bunch of characters that I don't care about, that's that's fine. But then we get to the tall man, and the tall man is awesome. True, and that's when the the sci-fi part comes out and is really cool. There's some special effects in here which are just really fun. There's some ridiculous stuff in this movie, of course, right?

SPEAKER_07 34:06

The mustard.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

That's actually one of the things I liked. But the tall man really saved this movie for me, and probably like the whole franchise, I'm sure, because you couldn't continue to have it without this character. But the concept, yeah, it's not that super duper new or original in the pages of sci-fi novels and books. But that character was so much fun. And I love I love the concept, I love what's going on behind the scenes. The story that presents it, not super interesting. A lot of the characters I literally hated and hoped would die by the end of this film. Alexis is giving me a look though, and maybe it's the peach whiskey, but I'm gonna give it a slash. My love for sci-fi has to win out.

SPEAKER_05 34:50

Okay, they just fist bumped.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Oh god.

SPEAKER_05 34:54

I really just got him drunk tonight, guys. Just OI slash.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Every night.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

I knew when Mac sent a text to the group text that Alexis was making a drink, that she was buying his vote. Here you go.

SPEAKER_07 35:07

Peach whiskey for the win. Chris, be honest. Is this what you anticipated?

SPEAKER_04 35:13

Yes, it is. And that's the thing, because Mac wasn't offended enough to push him over into the into the hack side. That's really all it was. Always but the benefit of the doubt.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

That's that's truly like I I didn't care enough negatively about it. If there had been something that was like truly heinous, that would have really made me hate this film. But because I was in the middle, the fact that it's sci-fi, the fact that the cool sci-fi stuff that's going on is like up my alley, that you know, that keeps it in the part where I cannot feel as strongly about this as Paris did, that it would be a hack. So I I can't go that direction. I can't say this is terrifier level horribleness for me. And I know some people here like that. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

So far, Phantasm from 1979 has two hacks and two slashes. So look, this movie was oh boy, it was a ride. Uh, it wasn't like anything I expected, but at the end of it, I'll admit I still had quite a bit of fun. And I had fun with the experience it gives. It have I have fun with the fact that we're all just discussing it this way now. Like, how can anything that sparks that much discourse be bad when it comes to like a 70s movie? Looking down my list of notes, uh, there are a lot of negative hits, uh, and there are some bright spots. So, for example, it's beautifully shot. Parish, you mentioned the beautiful lighting. It has a hell of a main villain. And it has a really strong classic theme behind it, which is our struggle to cope with mourning and loss and losing loved ones. Beyond that, though, there's too much that I dislike for me to consider it a movie that I actually enjoyed and would look forward to watching with other people. Uh, I think it's a movie that you respect it for its place in the horror hall of fame, don't get me wrong, but I don't I definitely don't warrant it to be a central viewing for me, unless you're like really into 70s horror independent film or the sci-fi horror blend like Alexis and Mac are. Quite frankly, the trailer for the 4K restoration of this movie is a better watch than the movie itself, so it gets a hack from me.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Woo! Ouch.

SPEAKER_07 37:22

Damn.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

But I can understand it.

SPEAKER_07 37:23

If you could see the amount of uh bickering and bartering back and forth we do while Chris is making her decision and we're all making bets, I was like she's not looking at us. I was wrong. Yeah, I was wrong. I thought she was going into that slash real quick.

SPEAKER_05 37:38

Yeah, we all thought slash over here. Yeah, yay.

SPEAKER_07 37:41

As as designed. Shout out to Hack Territory. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

See, the only surprise for me tonight is Alexis. Everything else I saw coming. But Alexis, I'm surprised.

SPEAKER_07 37:49

Why would you be surprised? Very Alexis. Yeah, she loves a fun, a fun watch.

SPEAKER_03 37:54

I just didn't have fun. That's why.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

I don't have to think about it. There's some good synths. Fuck yeah, man. That's Alexis.

SPEAKER_05 38:00

Little Brown and Little to the Ground.

SPEAKER_07 38:06

Can I mention? I think that your opinion of this movie will be greatly impacted by your mood when you start watching it. If you're in a good mood, you're gonna watch this and enjoy it.

SPEAKER_05 38:15

FYI, I was in a fucking horrible mood. I had just argued with my boyfriend and went upstairs. I was like, I'm gonna fucking watch my podcast movie. Bye. Cause you want to watch some other shit.

SPEAKER_07 38:26

Okay, okay. But horror makes you happy, so you're different. But most people, like Paris, I feel like if you were like in a chill fun, had a few drinks mood, you would enjoy this a little more.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

Uh see, my man and I were in a chill, fun, have a few drinks mood, and I was like, actually, at first he was kind of bagging on it. I was like, babe, we have to give it a chance. We have to like let it be what it is, and like really decide. And I was just I was disappointed. Well, never mind then. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 38:48

I think I would have had more fun watching it with someone else than watching it by myself three times in an effort to understand what the fuck was going on.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Three times? I couldn't imagine.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

See, sometimes you just gotta let it be. Some days you just gotta let it be. Well, here's the thing, because I pay attention, but I will not excuse sloppy editing, and that's really what it comes down to. So with that being said, Phantasm from 1979 has just squeaked out on the hack side with three hacks and two slashes. Now, we mentioned this earlier. This movie's available for free on Tubi. I believe most of the movies in the franchise are, so go check it out and then join us in the second half so we can figure out why Alexis loves it, why Mac uh tolerates it enough to let it go, and what really got to Paris. See you in a bit.

SPEAKER_05 39:39

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SPEAKER_04 40:42

Welcome back, folks. You are now entering the spoiler zone for Phantasm. The 1979 sci-fi cult classic has earned three hacks and two slashes. Now we have a lot to unpack here. Before we get into the specifics of just how brutally Paris hacked this movie, uh, we need to get into the gore. So, Alexis, what do you have for the gore score?

SPEAKER_05 41:01

Besides one scene, if I could take that one scene out, which I thought was super gory, I would definitely say this is like low on our gore score. There's just like one scene in particular, which I mean clearly is gory, but um, I guess we're past the spoiler section, so we can definitely still we can definitely talk about that. This is a tongue twister, so a spiked sphere killing machine. Did we guy did we like that? Yay or nay? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Yeah, that was actually my favorite kill. It was the only kill. The only kill that counts in my heart.

SPEAKER_05 41:35

I hated it.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Why okay was it the sphere or was it the?

SPEAKER_07 41:41

It was the combination of one, it came out of nowhere and had no relation to anything else in this movie. Yep. Uh two, it just randomly started flying at people. And uh the the way that it ended up on our boy's face, I I don't, I didn't, it was just like a weird, you know, it was just like 80s effects or 70s effects in this case, where it was just like good for 70s effects. It was literally a hose with some catch-up shooting.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

Bad editing.

SPEAKER_04 42:10

It literally was. So they started it with the ball with the sphere attached to his head, and then they just played it in reverse.

SPEAKER_05 42:18

I mean, I guess because this movie is so like out of this world that I was literally like not grounded in the specificity of it being real or not, like in terms of the gore. So, yeah, that blood, bright ass red shooting out of an orb, literally more blood than you probably have in your freaking body. Like it just splurting out, yeah. No, I love that scene. That bloody P was pretty accurate, though. Yes, I did not know that was in reverse. To me, I'm I I don't know. Maybe I did not watch this with the eye everyone else did, or maybe I did and just like totally threw that shit to the side.

SPEAKER_07 42:53

I think I think you did exactly what they wanted you to do, which was just an enjoy a movie.

SPEAKER_04 42:57

Oh, imagine that. Just sit there and take it.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

I have watched some sci-fi channel made for TV things that had way worse effects than this. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 43:07

Sharpado one through a million. The chupacabra, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Ouch. But the scene was cool though. The idea of this like floating, flying metallic sphere, this killer shiny ball thing like flying around. You don't know what's gonna happen. Is it gonna like knock you upside the head or something? And then like boom, like it stabs you in the face. Like that's that's pretty hardcore. And I think if you continue to watch the sequels, you'll earn more of a respect for these floating flying spheres because they are kind of cool. I wish they had kind of gone into that in the first film. Maybe they hadn't developed like that story yet, but they but they are kind of neat. But I mean, come on, just like boom, right in the head, and then blood spurting out, even if it looks fake. It had to catch your attention, you know, from the rest of this film for at least a second.

SPEAKER_05 43:54

Yeah, no, it definitely did, and that's what I've heard. Like they're they're a little bit more involved and a little bit. Bit more prominent in the uh future films of this franchise. So I I I wish I did get more than one. Like to me, it was just so low. And I was like, okay, this person stabbed. Who knows what happened to the other people because they mysteriously vanished, or in a dream sequence at this point, who Ethan knows? I just that's why I couldn't count the bodies.

SPEAKER_07 44:27

Can we talk about the first death? I just I just need to have a moment. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 44:31

Tommy was my favorite death, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 44:33

Really? Okay.

SPEAKER_04 44:35

One out of three. Like low choices here.

SPEAKER_07 44:40

I just need to like go through this scene, okay? Because you guys know I'm I'm I'm about the commentary. I didn't I watched this by myself, so I didn't have anyone to commentate with. We got a very awkward sex scene, okay? Everyone's legs were straight, and yet she was completely 90 degrees in relation to him as far as the upper bodies were concerned, okay? So we have a person sitting on top of a person facing them, and yet their legs are straight back on the ground together. Okay. Uh, so she's like broken back, right? One titty out for for no reason. Okay. Some strange, just like the whole sex scene was strange, and then we just get a stab, which I will say, I guess it would be my favorite death, also, since there's only a 33% chance of me picking that.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Let's defend it for a second because maybe it maybe it adds up. Maybe that's her good one. Maybe she only wants to show off like the best one. Later they're both out, and there's like an several extreme titty close-ups. By that point, you know, you're comfortable with each other.

SPEAKER_07 45:39

But they weren't even hurt. It was also a different person.

SPEAKER_04 45:41

Yeah, she's literally not even a person. But that's that's why. That's why her legs are all bent out of shape because it's actually the tall man. But here's my thing: it's a great death only because he deserved it from banging on the bones of God knows who. Uh look, I'm not, I'm not religious at all. Not even the slightest. I'm sorry, did you say banging on the bones? Banging on the bones of someone else, and he was wearing a gigantic crucifix, and he just looked like a piece of trash, honestly. I think he had it coming.

SPEAKER_07 46:09

Please don't talk about Tommy like that ever again in your life. Okay, he did not deserve that.

SPEAKER_05 46:13

Totally uh Tommy literally was a sleaze ball you took home after like one uh one night out at the bar. Who has cemetery sex?

SPEAKER_03 46:23

Um, hi Chris.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

Harris, no.

SPEAKER_03 46:25

I'm not opposed, and I find no problem with having sex in a cemetery. I bet the ghosts are bored and would love the entertainment. That's my stance, and I said what I said.

SPEAKER_07 46:34

No. I mean, I do feel like this is a very like this is like a very 80s movie thing, you know. Like, we're gonna sneak to the cemetery and like and I'm gonna ride my my dirt bike through the cemetery. Like, she's just doing things in cemeteries is very 80s, I feel like.

SPEAKER_05 46:49

But to me, it was um bucket list, but okay. Would it's on your bucket list?

SPEAKER_01 46:54

It was.

SPEAKER_05 46:55

Oh hello, Mac knows.

SPEAKER_04 46:58

Um I really hope I outlive all of you.

SPEAKER_07 47:02

Yeah, you guys are crazy. You guys are trying to die. This is just like the Zoom seance that you guys wanted to do. Every like you guys are consistently trying to test fate. Okay, I don't like it.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

So come on, it's just a cemetery. There's bones buried in the ground, they're not coming back, they're not gonna do anything to you. It is gross though, because you're out in public and people could like see you, and that's nasty.

SPEAKER_07 47:23

Yeah, and like also people go there to mourn their family members.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Well, of course. You go there in like the dead of night, there's nobody that's gonna see you except the ghost. I think you should be in a room where the only person who can see you is God. That's uh in missionary position with a sheet between you and your partner.

unknown 47:38

I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 47:38

I'm a literature grass, so this would never freaking happen. Although it is on my bucket list. Things have escalated.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

This could happen if you had some grass. That's called a fuck it list.

SPEAKER_07 47:47

Okay, so anyway, all I'm trying to say is uh the first scene, it and I do enjoy it as an opening scene in this movie because it sets you up to just be like, okay, things are gonna happen. But also there's just so many, so many small details in the scene and through this whole movie where you can just look at it and you're just like, What? What's happening?

SPEAKER_01 48:05

So did did this make you question things more, or did the finger bugs make you question things more?

SPEAKER_05 48:10

Oh yeah, the finger bugs because like it was a big fly.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Yeah, like you chop your finger off and it's like alive still, and then it turns into a large fly.

SPEAKER_07 48:20

Yeah. I did really like the the mustard blood. That was actually I actually enjoyed that if we're gonna have this like uh otherworldly thing, it has like a different color blood. I like that.

SPEAKER_05 48:30

Yeah, yeah, I do too.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

I think the the idea of it, it's kind of gore.

SPEAKER_05 48:34

But can we yeah, it is gore, but Jody's expression when he saw that was like very nonchalant. He's like, oh, oh, oh, damn, like worrying a wiggling finger.

SPEAKER_07 48:44

Like, no, another one?

SPEAKER_05 48:46

Yeah, can I get some chili on that dog? Are we DJ Khaled in this house? Another one. Uh but no, seriously, like he literally had no reaction. That was like one of my WTF was like, Clearly, this is like some crazy thing he's seen before. Like, whatever. It's a guy named Jody. So uh you can't expect much from him, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

I mean, nobody likes a Jody.

SPEAKER_05 49:08

No one likes a guy named Jody. Jody with an I, who's a woman. I'll totally go for it. Jody with a Y. Jody Sweden from Fool House. Yeah. Jody with a Y. Man, trash, trash, total trash. Why do we hate Jody? Oh, yeah, I got ghosted.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

So far, we have two votes for Tommy as the favorite kill, and then we have the sphere zooming down the hallway into the caretaker. Mac, that was yours, right?

SPEAKER_03 49:31

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 49:32

Harris, who is your favorite kill?

SPEAKER_03 49:33

So, with regard to the opening kill, that that really tickled something in me that I think we all know by now that I love uh a woman straddling a man and then stabbing him. Like I said, very basic instinct. Um, so if that scene served to inspire that movie, which I love, then I enjoy that. But it sets such a different tone. Um, because moving forward, it's like, oh, actually, yeah, there's not like a cool female villain. It's just a creepy old dude with a bob who pretends to be a woman. I don't know. Um, whatever that magic and sorcery was. But the moment with the sphere was actually the part that I laughed so hard at um because it was just such like a a departure from everything else the movie had been thus far. It was like such a high peak in gore, and it was so sudden, and it looked cheesy as fuck. Like the effects were super bad, and there was so much blood, and then the guy peed himself that I was just like, okay, so all of a sudden we're doing the most. Um, so I was like, I I'm gonna give it to the sphere because really it was the only like true moment of like gore that was like mildly satisfying. So that's where we land in that.

SPEAKER_04 50:39

So for as much as uh Paris and Alexis disagree on this movie, they can at least agree on the sphere.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

It seems that way.

SPEAKER_04 50:46

It really does.

SPEAKER_05 50:46

It does. We clearly like that.

SPEAKER_04 50:48

It was the only blood.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

If you're gonna blow your wad of cash on something, it might as well be a sphere that stabs you in the head. I agree though. More sphere kills. That shouldn't have just been one like random one-off.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

Exactly, exactly. I do think the sphere deserved better than to get blown to bits by Jody.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

Jody, always Jody. What can you do with Jody's?

SPEAKER_04 51:05

I think the gore left a lot to be desired. Uh, I think when you got it, it was cool. The, I don't know, Ryan, you described that blood as mustard. That looked more like a yellow pudding to me.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Ew. Custard.

SPEAKER_04 51:18

Let's talk about this finger that all of a sudden morphs into a fly that is perfectly still and then is strong enough to throw a grown man around and have him really struggle. But he also could not just fly in the box and make the box fly around the house.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

That's one of those Florida flies when you're out at the beach and that thing lands on your forehead and bites you. It's a horse fly.

SPEAKER_05 51:39

Yeah, it's a horse fly if there ever was one, and y'all have seen this.

SPEAKER_07 51:43

Okay, this is one of those parts that popped up, and it was like this piece of the story that just doesn't relate to anything else. Again, this is I feel the same way about everything in this movie. It's just like, what is this thing? It's like a stuffed animal. Why is it so strong? How did the finger turn into this? Why, like, why are they throwing it around the kitchen and then it goes into the dish disposal and supposedly dead, and then it's like crawling.

SPEAKER_05 52:08

And what if they were stupid and they were put the dish disposal?

SPEAKER_07 52:11

They had it on it's just I'm not saying that you would kill it, you know, whatever, but I'm just saying, like, what does it relate to?

SPEAKER_05 52:18

They weren't thorough, they didn't have the fly slaughter.

SPEAKER_07 52:21

Yeah, they could have just put the little black lid.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

This was the bird scene from Nightmare on Elm Street, too.

SPEAKER_05 52:26

Yeah, I and I see what you mean. And I think I saw Mac like nod his head. So I think we could both agree that that maybe it was like a one of those side pieces that like go on to his story but don't need it. But honestly, like I didn't hate it because I don't know. I just I I thought that was pretty cool, in my opinion. It was just like, and I think because I know that there's other films in the series, and I know that to me this movie is just a slice of the pie. So I knew I wasn't going to get a lot of the answers, or I mean, I don't know. I'm gonna probably watch number two and then be like, okay, literally none of your questions get solved. But like I feel like that's the way I saw this movie as like I wouldn't get all my answers in one movie, which I was totally okay about when I know there's like a series of them.

SPEAKER_04 53:11

So here's the thing that is the gift of watching the movie in 2020 after you know all those movies came out, but this shit came out in 1979, and it was one dude and having his friends and family help, and that was it.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Imagine watching Suspiria, the OG version, and coming away from that thinking, like, what the heck did I just watch? And I feel like it's it's gotta be like the zeitgeist to go for that feeling to try to make your viewer think, like, what the heck did I just watch? And I I think that maybe it was effective back then because everyone was used to very predictable movies and they wanted to really make people question their own sanity and stuff, or maybe the sanity of the filmmaker in some cases. But I think it would have been more successful had they grounded it in some sort of reality. Oh, it like good sci-fi always fares better with people when it's like a little bit more grounded. So, like if the finger had turned into like a large maggot and then turned into a fly, people would have been like, oh, it's like a maggot because he's like decomposing or something because he's you know a mortician, maybe he's undead, I don't know. Like it would have made more sense to people. They would have like done the linkage in their mind rather than just his finger squirts custard and turned into a large fly that is really hard to kill in a really hilarious, silly way.

SPEAKER_04 54:29

Finger squirt custard is a phrase I never needed to hear in my life.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

That's a new band name right there. Free, free for the taking.

SPEAKER_04 54:36

Ugh. Okay, look, as jacked up as I think that finger situation and the fly situation is. I will say one of the bright spots for me in in terms of like a scene and and feeling atmosphere and tension was Michael's first creep around the funeral home. He snooped around, he ran into the caretaker, hell broke loose with that regard. Also, he bit down exceptionally hard, harder than I think most people would bite. He drew a lot of blood there before the sphere ever got to him. Um and then he has once he sees the tall man at the end of the hall, he just says, um like he has this like, oh crap, I just got busted by a creepy adult feeling. And the slow walk towards each other was confusing at first until you realize like he has nowhere to go. He has to go forward and then book it one direction or the other. I think that was when I felt the most tension in the entire movie.

SPEAKER_05 55:29

I mean, I I get that definitely, especially he went and saw the fortune tellers, so I think he's just like in his head, like, I need to face this, I need to face this. And I think it's really weird that I um which surprised me is that I got this and kind of unexpecting, but I really liked was I got this character that I was able to like enjoy, and that wasn't a obnoxious, don't go there, don't do that. I mean, he did the those things. I'm like, oh, you weren't supposed to leave, you weren't supposed to do that. But like to me, it wasn't like an obnoxious character that had dose things, and I root was clearly rooting for him, and also was, you know, grounded and went and did these things that weren't like necessarily out of character. Like I just thought, you know, I'm like, okay, cool, this is probably what I would do. Um, I I'd be scared at first, I'd be this, and then I'd eventually get to something somewhere where I'm like, okay, well, clearly this guy is in my dreams, he's here's here, he's there. Like, I need to face him. And so I appreciated that. Whether they were doing the dance in the mausoleum, the heart mausoleum, whether, you know, whatever that may be. You know, I appreciate that. You truly love this movie. Um, I think I do more than I thought I did. Yeah. I just don't even want to watch the second one, and then I'm gonna come back and be like, this shit was trash. This might be your favorite movie.

SPEAKER_04 56:47

Our hate for this movie is fueling more love for her.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

It is, yeah. So true.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

No, I I like the fact that young Justin Bieber became courageous throughout this film. Because all too often we get teens and preteens that are nothing but scared through entire horror movies, and it's so annoying because you're like, oh my god, I get it. You're scared because you're, you know, you don't know what's gonna happen or whatever. But it's kind of cool that, you know, he's like, let me add them. Let me try to do something, let's go back in there, let's get them.

SPEAKER_05 57:16

Him and Jody, yeah. Exactly. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

So I think my least favorite part was that section where they're in the cars and going back and forth, because it seemed really kind of wild and silly and like didn't add up why they were going back, like just go together. I don't understand why the girls have to go with him, and then why do they have to die? Like, this doesn't make any sense. I think it would have been much better. Obviously, this kid like has some fire within him, bring him with you, and then you know, if the girls are safe at home or whatever they're doing, like just let them stay there. Why endanger them now? Packaging them all into one car. That just that part like didn't add up.

SPEAKER_04 57:55

Mac, no questions. No questions, they must take him.

SPEAKER_05 57:58

And apparently, no, they did split up one too many times in this movie. I was like, especially I'm like, okay, we went through this whole movie, and at the end, I'm like, damn, they're still splitting up. Like, don't we know horror movies by now?

SPEAKER_07 58:10

Well, I think that Jody literally left him like four times, and every single time I was like, Okay, well, clearly Tall Man is coming for him, so why do you keep leaving him? Every time you go somewhere, there's nobody there, and no, we don't even see the rest of that part of the movie, you know? Like every single scene that Jody left was just a dead end because nothing happened to him because nobody cares about him. Um, but I, you know, are we are we talking favorites or least favorites?

SPEAKER_01 58:36

Because I can just talk about things that I well, it sounds like you guys have nothing but least favorites, so exactly.

SPEAKER_05 58:41

We'd love to hear that. It's clearly that's more, you know.

SPEAKER_07 58:44

I will say I really enjoyed the tall man, and I enjoyed the one little tiny scene that we got of the uh internal view from the silver spiky ball. We got that red scene where it was like, you know, kind of like an infrared look or something like that. Those were cool. I I I enjoyed those things. But I have to be honest, there's just so much I can complain about, like like exactly what you were saying, like exactly what Mac was saying. There's this thing that happens in this movie where Jody drives somewhere and then he's followed on foot and and they everyone gets there at the same time. And like there's just so much, like the the logistics of this movie don't make sense. And then they're like getting in the cars and you don't understand where they're going, and yet they're always by the cemetery, like they're always right there. It's just stuff like that, just kind of like because it's right in town. Yeah, but then like then, you know, flaw happening. You're trying to say I have flaws? Yeah. Yeah, it's just stuff like that that like t that d detaches me from like any amount of investment, investment into the characters in the story.

SPEAKER_03 59:48

By the end of the movie, my boyfriend and I definitely concluded that they live across the street from the graveyard. Uh that's the only way any of it makes sense.

SPEAKER_07 59:55

Yeah, they just drive there sometimes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:57

Yeah, but no one has anything to say when Michael Myers goes from A to B in two seconds. But all right.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:02

Because he's the bad guy. Bad guys are supposed to travel with unexplained uh capabilities, okay?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:07

But good guys can't. Also, they definitely showed him stealing a car and driving. Yeah. All the time. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

I do want to know how the door locking mechanism worked, like jamming something in the door and then like pulling it close. Like, does that Oh, with the screwdriver? Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:23

The girls in the car clearly unlocked their own door when there was a tiny kid. Yeah, I didn't know that. I was so confused. Oh my god, I can't figure out how the door locks. Is it unlocked? Is that how it locks?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

How to defend from ewoks, unlock the door.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:37

That's what exactly I thought these things were.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

Yeah, very ewok vibes.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:40

I mean, they're definitely jaws, first off. They're not ewoks. Ewoks are the fuzzied bears.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

That's true. Oh, that's what that's definitely what I meant. But they growl like ewoks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:50

Yeah. It's like the Jawas and Ewoks had little weird science babies.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:55

What really got me was like the fourth or fifth time they split up when Jody says, Hey, you go to the house and get some ammo, and then I'm actually gonna go back to the scene without that ammo.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:04

It makes no sense. Also, you go stay in the house right now. I'm gonna go up to where we're gonna uh get him into a hole, but didn't have a plan for trapping him. There was no plan. There was no plan to bring him up there, to lure him up there.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:16

It was just There was a plan.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:18

No, no, no. They just said, I'm gonna go move them signs. That was it.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:22

Camouflage it and then take him up there.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:24

Yeah, I know, but he didn't take him up there, you know? He sent the boy home.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

It was a bad plan and really bad execution.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:31

Alexis, just sit back and take it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:33

Just do it. Don't ask questions. Sit back and enjoy it.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:36

I guess I think because I was entertained throughout it, because I think the suspense got me, and I was just so like um kind of fixed on what was going on. And I think I'm more into the details in a in a different perspective that I'm like not where did this time go from the time they were walking to driving? But I think it was more like, where where is Tallman from? What is this? Like, where are these slaves? What is this planet? Like, okay, they have to shrink them in order to for them to live on the planet. I was like, that's interesting. And I my my mind was more wrapped around that and the logistics of all of that than it was clearly the the the whole timeline of the movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:18

Wait, so I just want to clarify your your mind was so wrapped around the stuff that you didn't get and you kept wanting it the whole time, so you weren't paying attention to the little things that were bad with the movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

Got to agree there. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:32

Like, do you feel satisfied? Do you feel like you got those things? Because the reason I'm focused on those other things is because I didn't get the explanation. I didn't okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:40

It's weird because you can we can review like something newer, and I probably would be like, you know what? It's missing this because I feel like that's what I expect for movies now. But I mean, like, I wasn't expecting much from this. Like, I would I was just kind of like this what it is what it is, but I can see that.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:57

I can see that. I can see where where you'd come from there.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:00

I was not expecting like the alien world alternate dimension wherever they went to between the two like stanchions. That was cool. That was one of my favorite parts because that like I was, you know, kind of watching this, being like, I don't know what's happening, whatever. Like, I get the idea behind this, but there's not really a reason. And then we like dip into that other world. I was like, Whoa, you guys just leveled up in my book because this is what I'm into is this kind of thing right here. This is really cool. Give me, give me some more, explain a little bit more.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:28

Two things. First, to be clear, that was the beyond section of Bed Bath and Beyond right there. Oh my gosh. Second, the amount of mental gymnastics Mike had to have gone through to fall suspended and just see what was happening, but then also come to the exact conclusion that he did was sloppy. And it was also jumping to a conclusion even more drastically than Lady Gaga jumped during the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:55

Yeah, I totally agree. It's just like bouncing around to all this stuff, and like they would just look at the camera and be like, oh, oh, oh, oh, it's because he's an alien and he is killing all these people. And you'd be like, but you've never seen him kill a person.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:10

Yeah, and it was very like obviously, it's that.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:13

Yeah, they were like, Well, obviously, these are people here. They're like the black trash cans, for lack of a better term. They're like, Oh, obviously they're all here to like, you know, launch, basically is what they said. And I was like, No, not obvious. Nobody understands.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

They put together some of the pieces because they saw their dead friend turned into this small Star Wars character thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

And then they looked inside and saw other squished down bodies in there.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:39

Exactly. But granted, I feel like maybe Ryan, if you had seen half of what like Mike was seeing, maybe you would make that conclusion too. But they didn't do a good job referencing that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

We saw what he saw. Did you see it, Alexis? Did you see it?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:55

No, like when he looked in, like he didn't see, like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_07 1:04:58

Yeah, I know, but I'm just saying, like, there's a specific part where they're like, and and I'm probably gonna misquote with this, but they were like, oh, maybe they're uh shrinking them because of the gravity. No, I love that. I loved it though.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:10

It was so ridiculous that it was like kind of believable. Because I think because everything is so suspended, like it's just like what is real? Like, we don't know who Tallman is, like, we don't know, like it was just so crazy.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:23

It's like if you've ever had like a a friend that you really love and like care about and you spend a lot of time with, but then every once in a while they just say stuff like and and you just have to look at them and be like, are am I friends with you? Is that how you think the world works? It's clearly us.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:39

Clearly Mag and I. So here's the thing though, when you look at that exact situation, you would then have to believe that this movie and suspend your disbelief, but this movie would have to take place in a world where they're aware of other planets with these gravity issues, and this is commonplace, in which case, why would they be surprised about what the fuck they just saw?

SPEAKER_05 1:06:00

I think Mike was just making an elementary issue. Like like, oh look, they're shrunken because of the gravity. Like, I just didn't I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:08

He's a teenager in the 70s. He's read a million comic books.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:12

Not they're shrunken because they're very far away. And I I I'm looking at them at a distance, not that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:19

He did have that giant like NASA moon poster on his wall. So like maybe he was a space kid. I'm I'm truly reaching here to try and understand.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:27

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:29

Every kid should be a space kid.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:31

He did like craft like a little like bomby thingy kind of, right? Like to get out the door. Or like a little like he crafted a way to get out the door.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

Yeah, that hammer and that shotgun bullet shell.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:41

I don't know what happened. Oh, he made a legit bomb. Still doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:45

I do have a scene that I did enjoy. It was towards the beginning, um, and I think it's obvious. It was the scene where he goes to visit the psychic. Multi-generational psychic women, yes please. What is their story? Give me that movie.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:58

Also, the laughing afterwards was beautiful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

They're just like fucking with it.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:03

That grandmother was adorable.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:05

That grandmother looked like Ozzie Osborne with that shawl on her head.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:08

You're not sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:09

And those little glasses. I really like how all that scene looked, and I wish we got to spend more time in that space. But I did also really enjoy the mausoleum, like the set design of it. Anytime we were back in there, I was like, okay, this is that's what gave me the most twin peak vibes because that felt like very much a twin peak set. Um, so I I liked that as a place. And at first I was like, oh, this is good set design. And I was like, or is this just a cool looking mausoleum that they filmed in? Because now I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

I I do think the mausoleum was the coolest looking part of the film. And that could be by design or could be by by happenstance, but it's so stark the contrast, all the like the black and white and everything. And of course, when there's blood spurting out, it's bright red. But like the hallways, hallways are always going to be a little bit stressful. I don't know why that is. Anytime there's a hallway and one person's on one end and one person's on the other, there's some stress involved. Do this in your real life. When you walk down, like let's say you take the the the corner of a hallway and somebody's at the very other end of it, stand still and just look at their their eyeballs and see what they do because they're gonna get stressed.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:11

Hallways are stressful because I go left and everyone else goes right, and so I run into everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

This is America, okay? We go on the right side of the hallway.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:19

I know, but I get I get stressed and think, what if they don't go to the right? So then I gotta go left and then they go right and I'm on the left and then we're gonna go. I salsa with a lot of strangers, okay?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:29

I loved, I got so many like um nightmare in Elm Street vibes from like when Tommy and was over um Mike's bed. Oh yeah. Yes, and then you have like the zombie hands coming up from the bed. Because I feel like I've definitely like either seen this in movies or even my own. I mean, clearly I don't have dreams like that, but like we've all had those like weird, like crazy like nightmares where like you're like, is this real or is this not? Like I wake up sometimes and I'm like breathing heavy. I'm like, I know this isn't real, but for a moment in life I actually did. So like I just I felt like I was in that scene and I could feel like kind of what he was feeling getting a little like uh a little in-depth in this, but no, I like that, and I like visually too, like what it looked to just like over him. It was just like a pretty scene, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:16

Oh, tall man definitely held this movie together, like by by the the skin of his teeth, whatever there was to hold together, tall man did it, okay? I know that I can see you staring at me, Paris, and I'm not saying that the movie is held together well, I'm not saying it's machine washable, but it was slightly held together by tall man. He did you can wash him in the sink, okay?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:35

So there was like a like a thin layer of skin on the custard that held it all together? Yeah. Oh, a thin layer.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:41

For me, Tallman like did nothing. I like uh was his name Tallman? Because like I didn't notice that he was like notably tall. He was just like skinny. He was just like a creepy old dude with a bob that like could teleport, I guess, but like did he have any real powers?

SPEAKER_07 1:09:53

He is the power.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:54

I wasn't really threatened by him, he was just kind of there. He's strong.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:58

Oh yeah. Did you see him pick up that casket that was clearly made out of styrofoam?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:01

Come on, man. He was real strong. He shape shifts into women work, and honestly, he is the power of the patriarchy. That's what it comes down to.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

Okay, I feel that. Now I'm threatened. Really, he should represent all the fears of neckbeards.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:15

That is also true.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

He is a creepy old guy that you don't realize is on the other side of it, and you think it's a beautiful woman. Says Mac with a full neck beard. No, it's not a neck beard, it's a full beard. From this angle.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:28

What is a neck beard?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

A neck beard is it's a reference to people that can't really grow a beard, so they grow as much hair on their necks, you know, and that's their beard. It's just they just have hairy necks.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:38

If you can't grow a beard, you just be babyface.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:40

It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:41

You know what? Grow whatever hair you can. Live your own life.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:44

For as much as I was disappointed by the audio in this movie, I actually was really encouraged by and impressed with all the lighting and the cinematography itself. I think for one guy doing this whole thing, that was the most impressive. So a couple shots that really stood out to me. The headlights appearing in the distance as Jody is reloading his gun, beautifully frame shot. Uh, Reggie's overturned ice cream truck being lit from behind. Also beautiful, but then the most beautiful. Michael sparking the lighter in the darkness, only to be immediately jumped by the Jawa.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:16

I did really enjoy that. And I'm totally on board with you. Um, my only problem is that the uh, oh, I think I have a lighter, and then lighting it up was just so predictable. It was like, oh, I have a lighter, hold on, and then you know, like you know something's coming. But I have to totally agree. I I as much as I've talked trash and I have issues with the sound, I really, really did enjoy watching this movie and just like the mausoleum and everything, it it really is like it's like a specific thing from its time period that you could never have again. And they shot a lot of these things really well, and um, you know, stuff, some stuff drive me drove me crazy, but you cannot discount the the videography in this movie, I believe.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:58

Absolutely. And while the cinematography was like far and away the best part of the movie for me, I think the worst part was honestly all that cemetery sex. And look, I know we've been there, we talked about it. Uh, but just to be clear, cemetery sex is weird. Spying on your brother having cemetery sex is weird. Yeah. And in summary, this family is weird.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:17

And Reggie's hair is weird.

unknown 1:12:18

Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:19

Chris, I love that you mentioned that Don Coscarelli ha wore so many hats in making this film. Let's say that. I think the cinematography is really where he should have stayed and I don't know, found some resources to get help because if he was responsible for the editing, that was truly the worst part of this movie for me. Um, basic, like really, because in editing, that's where you kind of just get a fundamental sequence of events that explains what's happening and moves the story along. Um, and there were two moments that like really like flopped on that for me. One of them was a potentially good scene where Mike is stuck under that car. I was scared at that point. I was like, ooh, that's actually something I haven't seen before, like being crushed under a car. Um but then he sees Jody's feet, he hits them with a hammer, and then immediately it cuts to him crawling out of the car because he's no longer pinned. So there was like a gap in between there of like, what how did we lift the car? Like, what's that didn't sit well with me. Um, and then at the very end, our tall man breaks through the window and scares Mike. And I was like, okay, now he's in the house, now it's a now it's a confrontation. We cut away to Jody for literally two seconds and then cut back to Mike, who's now just wandering in a hallway, tall man's nowhere to be found. It was just really these choppy, hard edits that made it really hard for me to give a shit about this movie. Um, so for me, the editing is really what was the Achilles heel here.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:43

If I can be Alexis here for a moment, I think the intention, and I agree with you about how you feel about it, but I can uh separate myself. Like, so the car scene, I think the intention is to like help drive that like what's real, what's not. Is he going crazy? Is he seeing things? Like what's really happening? It kind of along the same lines as like the dream stuff, like, because it it does just like cut immediately to like everything's fine, and he's talking to Jody again. And I think they are trying to do something there. I'm not saying I like what they did, but I do think that was that was kind of the point in a lot of these scenes that I didn't like. They were trying to make an effort.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:23

I don't know, maybe I'm thinking really deep into this, and I will back this movie up. My thing is do you remember your dreams completely, 100% when you wake up, or are they choppy?

SPEAKER_07 1:14:36

I don't know. I remember a lot of dreams, but of course we all forget some.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:38

Yeah, they're all choppy. So that's how I thought of this. If like once I saw the end, I was like, oh, maybe that makes sense that this is a little bit choppy because like when I'm remembering my dream, and to me, like once I saw the end, I was like, oh, WTF, this is a dream, is it? Like, and then I'm like, oh okay, maybe this makes sense because it I feel like yeah, you're you're kind of missing the full picture and like a like a huge like the circle, like the whole circle is incomplete in this movie, and there are bits and pieces that you kind of have to put together for yourself. But I feel like in your dreams, like typically at least mine, like I wake up, I'm like, how the fuck did I get there? But I did.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:16

Like here's my thing about dreams. Oh god. And uh, I'm not trying to like necessarily say this is all this movie, but like has you know, when you like see somebody that you work with and you're like talking to them, you're at work talking to them, and they're like, Oh man, I had this crazy dream last night, and you're like, cool, no one's literally ever cared about another person's dream unless you're literally uh a person, a partner of someone. You only care about your significant other's dreams, no one else's, even in that case. And still, exactly. You still don't really care. So, like when I watch a movie, and then at the end it's like, and uh they're waking up from a dream, we don't really know what was real. I'm like, I don't want to hear about a dream, and I definitely don't want to watch a movie where the whole thing is a dream. And that's why I hate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:03

You're no dream warrior.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:06

Like, I don't want to sit here and try to figure out what's real, okay?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:09

I would love to add to that counterpoint, Ryan. Um, Alexis, I like that interpretation of it, but for me, it felt like they had a movie that not only were they like making it up as they went along, um, but they kind of got to the end and they were like, Well, this is editing is really shitty because we didn't have a lot of resources. So maybe we throw a dream narrative into it and then kind of use it as an excuse so that retroactively the shitty editing can be, you know, justified. That's how it read to me.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:34

The dream and the choppiness also could have worked had there not been moments that was shot like a news segment for your local news where you have Jody or someone speaking with B-roll added on top of it of the plot advancing. God yes. You don't dream like that. You don't dream like the six o'clock news, bruh. Are you about to tell me how I dream? I'm saying if you do, you should be doing a different career. Call somebody.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:58

Okay, we've been talking about some best stuff, some worst stuff. And I've mentioned Reggie's hair. What exactly was Reggie in this film? What happened? That's a great question. What was the guitar playing scene? Why did that occur?

SPEAKER_07 1:17:12

He was trying to be like his friend.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:13

That's how they let us know it was a bad movie.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:15

That's more of the stuff where it's like these random details. Like they were like Jody, like, oh yeah, it must be hard for you to come back when with all that stuff that happened. I'm like, what stuff? What is that? What does that matter? And then that weird scene, but then he had this like weird, like slicked back, like, but also very bald, so like slicked back, but they pulled the hair back too far, you know? Like it was just this weird vibe coming from him. He was so strange.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:37

Yeah. Was he the friend? Was he a like a cousin?

SPEAKER_07 1:17:41

I can't tell. He was a part of the trio.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:43

He was the ice cream man.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:45

Yeah, it was they were a trio with Tommy.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:47

Yeah, it was really weird.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:48

It was weird, and I also oddly enough, thought there was gonna be a kiss scene at the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:54

Why it wasn't there? Definitely felt that weirdness.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:57

It was a weird moment in front of the fireplace.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:59

They didn't even have one of those like cool like 80s manly handshakes where you like grab the forearm and not just the hand. Like that. I feel like they needed that level of of like romance going on. They needed that brother, we killed him, or we got him, or whatever it is. You know what I mean? Like, but we didn't even get that. Yeah, we just got the longing stare into the eyes.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:17

I would like to note the song was not that bad for like uh people playing instruments in a movie. We've seen some real bad ones, and this wasn't that bad.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:25

And by that you mean it wasn't that long.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:27

Uh yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:28

That being said, at least Reggie provided some sort of like almost comic relief for me, because maybe it wasn't on purpose, but I found his haircut, although ridiculous, to actually be kind of funny. I just like considered his care to be to be comic relief. He was like Jar Jar Binks, uh, but in a way that you don't necessarily completely hate, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:48

Yeah, he it was it was weird. And then like the ice cream truck thing, it was just like and then like also uh when they see them, when they see him in the city and he's like opening his truck and it's like smoky, it's like such an intentional scene. Like, oh, we're gonna have tall man walk in front of the ice ice cream truck and it'll be smoky, it'll be real spooky. And but like also nobody like addressed that he was there.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:14

That's true.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:15

Mike pretended like he didn't see him at all. It wasn't he wasn't even a part of it, even though he's this close to his family. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:19

He's just walking into town and get some peanut butter, you know? He gets hungry too.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:22

Mac, I actually feel you with Reggie kind of being uh sort of a standout in this, like, even though his hair was 20 years older than everyone else in the movie, there was a scene where they finally enter, like the I don't know, the space room, whatever you want to call it. Um, and he's literally the only one reacting, like, what the fuck is this? The other two are just kind of like, Okay, we're here, now what's next? Completely unfazed. And Reggie's in the background, like, holy shit, what is this? And I was like, Thank you, Reggie, for emoting while you're being filmed. So, shout outs to him.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:50

Also, pretty intense, him like trying to grip the like straight floor or trying to get out of this room.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:57

Oh, that wind sequence.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:59

The wind tunnel scene. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:02

All those leaves.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:03

There's so much hair blowing.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:05

For as lackluster as a lot of the characters in this movie were, Reggie was the only one I actually felt for when he died. It's like he he got the girls out of the house. That was like throwaway line. He works to close the gate. He was doing so much despite being late to the party of like what's going on here. And then his last move is he's exited that the funeral home and he's just trying to help one more person. And it's just a bummer that he he went out the way he did. But plot twist he didn't. So who's to fucking say?

SPEAKER_07 1:20:36

So all your emotions were for nothing. At some point, like, because of how little Jody did, I for one for a second was like, is he like in on this somehow? Like, is he setting up his little brother? That could have been a cool, a cool angle for them to go for because he did nothing. He just was just abandoning him all the time. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_05 1:20:53

He um pushed those heavy rocks down. Okay, that's a lot with the rocky fist bump at the end.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:00

Oh god.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:01

I really was at that point, how the fuck do those rocks get there? Oh, and then they're there.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:06

So this movie was originally gonna be like three hours long before they had a lot of the character development cut out of it, which hey, I'm not saying I want a three-hour version of this movie, but I for sure want a different version of this movie, so I wouldn't mind some of that character development. Specifically, two pieces uh I have questions about and I want answered with those with that footage. One, I want to know why Jody's shirt that he's wearing underneath that cool guy jacket has splotches of white and yellow as if it looks like it's been pissed on. Second, I want to know what kind of guy Michael is that he has cheetah linens.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:40

Oh, I did see that. I was like, interesting. Why is his pillowcase also cheetah? I did not notice product placement.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:48

I did notice all the dosaki's ads.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:50

It definitely was laundry day for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:52

This entire movie is laundry day with someone coming over.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:55

I really like enjoyed Mike of whether Cheetah print sheets or not. Like, I mean, I I really I I saw like someone, like what like I said, once he saw the fortune teller, I feel like you see this news side of him, and it's like not someone who's scared, but someone who's like, okay, I'm literally gonna have to stand up, and clearly no one's believing me, so I'm gonna have to do something about this. But it wasn't in such a cheesy way like we've seen in other movies. It's like, I'm gonna be the, you know, I'm gonna be the protagonist, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you I'm the protagonist in this. This was just like, hey, I'm just literally gonna do what I have to do to like save my brother, like save somewhat sort of family. Like I do have, and I feel like going back to a dream sequence, I feel like you do have those moments in your dreams where you're like, all right, I I have to not be the victim anymore, and I actually have to be like the hero in this. And I I I I liked him. I thought he was kind of quirky, like he was cool, loved his hair, like loved it all. Like, I I have to be careful. I'm not sure how old he is, so I can't be saying love that all that much.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:59

He's much older now, I can assure you. Yeah, now he's about 50, so you're good.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:04

They should have killed him off in this film, though.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:06

Yeah, that would be sick, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:08

He's obviously the one that cares, that's trying, that's like trying to get everyone riled up. They should have killed him off to make the people around him actually care about what was going on.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:16

I I actually would like that. It would be a lot more drama to this movie for sure.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:20

Yeah, no one cares that Jody died.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:23

Many characters from this movie come back in future movies, so it's like, I don't even feel anything about anyone in this movie.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:28

I will say, I do feel like and I understand where Alexis is coming from. I would watch more of the series if it gets better, right? Like, I but I can't judge You don't know till you watch it. Yeah, and I can't judge a movie based on it being a prequel and be like, well, well, it has good potential. Like, but I I will say, like, whatever is supposed to have happened that I don't understand that happened, it seems like it could be something cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:51

Like, you know, like so the plot is interesting enough, but not interesting enough to give it a slash.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:57

Interesting enough, but too troublesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:00

It had too many issues. It's interesting enough for someone else to do it better later, is what is what Ryan's saying.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:06

Yeah, but maybe they do, you know? Like maybe when they have more money from the first one, the second one gets better.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:12

Well, it's interesting because you don't have to pretty much go that far because the newest one is what, 2016? So yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:19

Well, uh, I can confirm that I'm not gonna re-watch this movie. Um I feel like Mackenzie would, no?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:26

You're assuming a lot.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:27

I know. I like to predict.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:29

Okay, so we're we're recording this, right? I saw this movie a month ago and I remember it completely.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:36

Because this movie, like, once you watch it, I feel like you're not gonna think back to be like, what happened in Phantasm?

SPEAKER_07 1:24:42

You don't think you'll like pick up one more?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:44

I think I could watch movies after this. Okay, but I don't think I would need to re-watch this film. I'm sitting here re-watching scenes in my mind as we're talking in excruciating detail.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:55

I'm watching this movie right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:56

Because there's only like five things that happen. Right though. That's what that's what I'm saying, though. I don't think you need to re-watch it if you've seen it. If you're doing like a binge fest, sure, like re-watch it. But I don't think if you've watched it once, you don't need to be like, I don't remember Phantasm at all. Maybe I should go. You're like, all right, there's the creepy guy, there's the killer balls, there's a yellow goo that comes out of the finger when he cuts it off, there's the munchkins, you know, from the alien planet or whatever, and none of it makes sense, but somehow it all works kind of. Somehow is all oddly sexual. Yes, everyone in this movie is horny. I don't know why, but they're all very horny. And, you know, somebody died because they hooked up with the tall man. Whatever, that happened. That's the film, and now I can watch the sequels.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:37

C Mac, for me, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and this was so unpleasant for me that I will never watch this again. I will never watch any of the sequels to this because it would have to be an entirely different movie, and you'd have to trick me uh to get me to do so.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:51

So, this is like a really bad date that you've gone on? Yeah, like I'm ghosting this franchise. You're not even gonna give them another shot when they've cleaned up their act.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:59

No, absolutely not. No. Capricorns are unforgiving. There's billions of people on this planet. I'm not gonna waste my time on you.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:05

Have you ever thought about how many movies exist in the world because no one stops making them and none of them ever disappear?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:11

Somebody should stop making them.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:12

Some of them should.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:14

We'll say, I think for as much as I dislike this movie, it does have some level of rewatchability because I did pick up on a little bit more every time. Uh, only two quotes, actually, that I actually thought were worth that third watch. It was ridiculous. It was Jody saying, I just don't get off on funerals, man. They give me the creeps. So the way we say we dislike something in this world is by saying you don't get sexual pleasure from it. That is the way you're it's said. And then one moment I did enjoy from re-watching it, and it kind of made me smile every time, was this is kind of spooky, isn't it? No, it's exciting. And that felt like a good summary of a lot of my relationships with people who don't like horror.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:57

I did remember that quote being notable.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:00

I don't necessarily I mean, I think this is a straightforward movie, so I don't think I necessarily need to like re-watch this again. But like if I was re-watching the entire series, I definitely would put this in the lineup for sure. But we know you love a sequential watch. Yes, but I always say that, and now I'm like five five franchises behind. So uh Final Destination, this, I'm like, yeah, I'm too deep. Don't worry, Halloween's coming up. Watching movies all night.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:28

Well, some of you think that this should not be worth a watch, and and somehow I, despite hacking it, I do think it's worth a rewatch. I do think there's a lot more that you can pick up on and learn. But with that being said, let's learn some more from fact or fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:42

Let's. Star Wars Force Awakens character, Captain Phasma, is named after this movie.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:48

You love stuff like this, so I'm gonna say fact.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:51

If you don't remember, Captain Phasma has like the shiny armor.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:54

I'm just gonna go fiction literally for no reason.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:57

I'm gonna say fact because I feel like the Demographic of people who like this movie is a Venn is like a close Venn diagram with the people who make Star Wars movies.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:06

Very let me also specify that I have I love Star Wars so much that I have a Star Wars tattoo and yet I dislike this movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:13

Yeah, I would say that Venn diagram is kind of off, but this is a fact. So JJ Abrams sees the armor for Captain Phasma and is like, oh, it reminds me of those shiny killer balls in Phantasm, which apparently JJ Abrams was a huge fan of.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:29

The shiny balls?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:30

The shiny balls. No, the movie, the you know Phantasm. And the shiny balls. Who isn't a fan of shiny balls? Let's move on. This film was originally rated X.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:39

What's X? Did X porn exist? Yeah. So it's porn. Fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:44

Uh, to put in today's uh view, it's NC17.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:47

Yeah, it's porn. Um, okay. Uh no. Fiction. Unless it has deleted scenes, I would be interested in saying hello.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:56

I mean, Chris did say that there was a lot that was like cut out that was quote unquote character development, and I can only imagine that was more extreme close-up footage of titties. So I'm gonna say this is a fact. This is a fact.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:08

Thanks, in a good part, to the killer metallic ball. That scene right there was one of several that helped this thing get an X rating, but an LA Times critic, Charles Champlin, intervened on the film's behalf and the rating was changed. Because obviously it's barely in our movie.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:26

Okay, s because okay, so it's not about the sex, it's about the gore. It's about the P.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:31

It's one of the three.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:32

But in the times.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:34

Part of what can make a rating go up could be like language, it can be gore, it can be sex, there's all sorts of things that can push that rating up. But back then, I guess they thought it was too extreme. If kids were to watch this now, they would probably think this is like, you know, Peppa Pig or something.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:48

We all went instantly to, oh, they had too much cemetery sex. It went X-rated.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:54

And moving right along, the actors portraying the dwarves in the film were unionized and nearly went on strike for better pay.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:00

I'm performing terribly tonight, so I'm gonna go for fiction just so I can be wrong again.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:04

I'm gonna say fiction too. I doubt the union knew that this happened at all. Um, and those are probably somebody's kids.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:10

Paris, right on the nose. This is fiction. Oh my god, really? Dwarves were played by children, specifically neighbor children.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:18

Growly children.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:19

See that tracks though, because in the 70s, they would have definitely exploited little people and shown them if they were actually a part of the film.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:27

Top performances go to those children in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:30

Fun fact though, the design for them was out way before the whole, like, you know, Ewok thing happened.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:36

So Jawa thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:38

Either way, Ewok or Jawa, however you look at them in this film, that's that happened second. I know, but they're both they're both kind of little short and in Star Wars. They make weird sounds and they're in Star Wars.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:51

Very different. I am I am channeling the outrage of all the comments I know we're gonna get of you being the sci-fi guy, calling them fucking Ewoks.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:00

Look at they growl at you. I don't know if Jawas growl at you. I know they make all sorts of weird noises and they were hoods and stuff, but they don't growl. Ewoks growl.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:07

Alright, Patreon content. We take Mac back through the Star Wars universe.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:11

I have seen those films plenty of times. They're still not as good as Star Trek. Anyway, the budget for this film is estimated to be somewhere around like $300,000, but it made nearly $12 million at the box office.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:22

Fiction. Fiction on the fact that you make up numbers. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:25

Fiction on the fact that this movie should not have made any money, and I refuse to believe it did. Well, refuse all you want. It's a fact.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:32

I'm surprised they spent $300,000.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:34

Yeah, where? Movies are expensive to make.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:37

I know, but this one seems like they cut the corners.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:40

If you made a documentary about people like literally like eating shoe leather, it would be like a million dollars today.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:44

Yeah, well, not if you, you know, do it yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:47

Even if you did it yourself, the budget for making a like an indie film or documentary is so high that you can't just like take your phone out and just go make a movie and have it be any like decent kind of film.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:57

I mean hosts.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:58

But this wasn't a decent kind of film.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:00

Okay, first off, don't tell me what I can and can't do. Okay, you're not my real dad. And also, I feel like things were different in 1979. I feel like you could make a film for a few thousand dollars. And it might look like this, aside from the marble mausoleum.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:14

I feel like the Hills have Isa isn't this much either.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:17

Well, let's talk about making films. Because we've already talked about the fact that this film was made with the help of friends and family in some ways and neighbors, apparently. Don Cascarelli used his own parents as extras in this film.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:27

Ah, the grandma. God, too bad I don't know what he looks like. I'm going fact. Fact.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:32

I'm thinking the tall man was probably his dad. Fact. Alright, so this is a fact because uh he did use his own parents, but he also used Reggie's parents in this film. And so if you remember at the like the wake scene, and there's like some other people in there, well, you gotta fill those pews somehow. So they use their own parents.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:48

So you know, this really does actually I had this feeling, and I was like, they just put uh Reggie in the town with ice cream chuck for fun, like because they needed a human in town, and it is that. That's exactly what happened. They didn't want to pay anyone else, they were already paying him. So they just put him in every scene they could to fill space and pay family members, evidently.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:07

Another fun fact, Reggie is actually friends with Don. Don Cascarelli and Reggie Bannister were friends in real life, so it's kind of interesting that he ended up uh being a star in one of his films and then continuing into the franchise maybe question mark.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:19

It's also really interesting because while he used his parents as extras, his mom actually did a lot of the special effects artwork uh for the movie, including that fucking terrible fly.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:31

Well, if a mom did it, now I feel bad. Hey, wait, that's like having your parents do your volcano project for the science fair.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:37

She did do a good job in most other things, though. And there you have it, folks, Phantasm from 1979, despite ranking so well in other places, has earned three hacks and two slashes. Real quick, I just want to let you know where this movie ranked. Entertainment Weekly ranked this as the 17th scariest film of all time.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:55

What?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:56

The film was rated number 25 on Bravo's list of the 100 scariest movie moments. It placed number 75 in Time Out London's 100 best horror films. Joe Bob Briggs himself from the last drive-in listed it at number 20 in his 25 scariest DVDs ever list. And Yu Gio placed the film at number seven out of 11 in its top terrifying supernatural moments list. I don't know where any of that's coming from, but it did it.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:26

Um everyone in Hollywood does cocaine, and none of that matters. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:29

Once again, despite all the fame, despite how well it's done for everybody else, it did earn three hacks with us. So, majority rules, this movie is a hack, even though Alexis and Mac will defend it well. And while we cer certainly have had an invigorating conversation here, it doesn't end here by any means. We want to know what you think. Now keep in mind there are a number of ways to reach out to us, starting with our website, hackerslash.com, and our social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:56

You can also hit us up at the Hackerslash Hotline. You can text us, call us, leave us a voicemail, or an audio message. Our number is 757-606-0128.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:04

Or you can send us an email from the comfort of your own mausoleum to feedback at hackerslash.com.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:09

And if you've enjoyed listening to our podcast, consider becoming one of our patrons. You can visit patreon.com/slash hacker slash and earn cool perks for as low as one dollar a month, including some exciting new content coming in October. That's called a teaser.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:22

We'll see you next time. Bye.