359: Re-Animator (1985)

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Ice ice baby.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Spooky season greetings and salutations and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. What if we get caught? 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_04 0:30

Totally killer, pun intended.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

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, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_04 0:46

Here's your meatball.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

And the classic horror connoisseur, Sean.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

To get your fingers in and then grasping firmly with both hands.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

This week we're talking about a cult classic 1985 horror comedy that was initially inspired by a serialized HP Lovecraft story. Six decades after Mary Shelley's Frankenstein gave birth to the mad scientist trope, Stuart Gordon and a group of filmmakers set out to create a story that would put their own spin on the concept. They aimed to infuse it with dark humor and a lot more blood to fill a void in the horror genre for a new take on Frankenstein. The project initially began as a television plot, but it quickly evolved into something much larger. Producer Brian Yesna saw potential in the project and convinced Gordon to turn the pilot into a feature film and ultimately marked Gordon's directorial debut. Despite the film's roots in HP Lovecraft story, it ultimately diverged significantly from the original text, evolving into something that both parodied and paid homage to the horror genre. This decision didn't deter audiences, and in fact, the film's shock, sensibility, and practical effects garnered a cult following. The film follows a group of medical students caught up in a web of bizarre medical experiments to bring dead tissue back to life. This week, we're talking about Reanimator. Who's seen this one before?

SPEAKER_05 2:03

I for sure have, and I think the last time I watched this was maybe like five or six years ago.

SPEAKER_04 2:07

Yeah, you know, this is a movie that I have seen many times, but yeah, just like you, Mac, it's been a while since I have revisited this one, but this is like one of those super camp horror flicks that only the 80s can produce. When I think of campy horror, this is one that stands out immediately along with movies like Evil Dead and Killer Clowns from Outer Space, Sleepaway Camp Chopping Mall, movies like that. Needless to say, I was pretty fucking stoked to see this one come into our lineup for the show.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yeah, I've seen this a few times in my life. It's not something that I think I've seen, I would say even more than 10 times, but it's one of those that I look back on and think and remember fondly as a campy fun time. And it's actually one that I've been wanting to do for spooky season for a few years now, but it keeps getting pushed back for other priorities. But man, this is one that when I first watched it, I remember being blown away by the quality of its effects. And it's surprisingly one that manages to stand, I think, the test of time pretty well for me. This isn't one that diminishes in quality as I watch it.

SPEAKER_05 3:15

I had to look back. I mean, it's been five or six years, but I have a really strong memory of it, and I was looking forward to, I guess you could say, slash expecting just everything that is so gross and chaotic about this film, because there's a lot of it.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

Yeah, I mean, that's fair. We've all seen this movie at some point, right? I think given what I just said, with this being up there with some of the campiest horror films in history, I would expect this one to be over the top, just a wild ride of fun and gore. You know what I mean? That's all you can really expect from something like this.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

For sure. And you know what? That over-the-top fun is exactly what we get. This movie is campy fun. It's something that I maybe I don't cackle at and laugh out loud with as much as I used to in the first few times I watched it. But this is just a good time, and there's something about how vivid this movie is, how over-the-top it is. It's really, I think, an excellent delivery of the mad scientist trope. And it's a classic trope, it's one that we've seen in several movies we've done. But this, I think, does a really good job of taking this trope and making it entertaining.

SPEAKER_04 4:23

Yeah, for sure. I fun is like the feeling that you get from this movie. I think this is just a fun movie to watch. It's just one of those really fun horror movies that is just so over the top and ridiculous that it just makes it a lot of fun to watch. 80s horror movies are just a very specific vibe, and there is just nothing like them, to be honest with you. There's definitely, although a pretty controversial part of this film that may or may not have needed to be there, but it does add to the over-the-top campiness of this fucking movie.

SPEAKER_05 4:58

It just wastes no time, right? It jumps right into the action, and I love it for that. It's purely a gross over-the-top B movie that keeps you wondering how it's gonna get more absurd minute by minute. And I'll tell you, I didn't enjoy a certain aspect of this film, and of course, I was disappointed by it again. I can't say much right now, so you have to wait for the animal report.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Oh, yeah. See, this movie, like so many other movies of its time, can be a little vicious when it comes to stuff like that. That surprisingly did not bother me this time around. Maybe it's because I'm numb to it, maybe I've just been conditioned to it from having seen this so many times. But I continue to be surprised how effective the gore is because it starts out looking really cheesy and campy. Sure, we talked about that like B movie horror. But man, I look back and it really could have been much worse. Now, there is something that disappointed me. It has nothing to do with the animal report and everything to do with Barbara Crampton. And it's not something against her or what she does, but rather something that is done to her character, and I cannot wait to unpack that in the spoiler zone.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

Absolutely. I'm always stunned that they could make movies so gory, so sick, so twisted and violent. Hell, even unrated films like this, and just find a way to get them into mainstream theaters in this era. You know what I mean? This movie is just so wild, but somehow it just found its way, and I think that's just always stunning. It's just always amazing.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

It's like the Terrifier 2 effect.

SPEAKER_04 6:37

Yeah, no, for sure. But I think my only real disappointment with this film, if I had to really think about it, really just comes from what they chose to edit out of the film. Because I know the director said he he edited stuff out because it felt like it slowed the pacing down too much, but there is at least one segment that was taken out that I believe would have not only added to the film, but made sense of something that we do get in the final cut as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

That's fascinating. And see, this is something that I wish I had looked more into as a franchise. Maybe if I have trouble sleeping tonight, I'll try to pop on the Bride of Reanimator or another sequel in this franchise. This is one that I found to be so entertaining, but it exists in my mind as a singular product. So I have to know, Sean, I don't know if you've seen the others, but does it stay good?

SPEAKER_04 7:26

Yeah, here's the thing. I haven't seen all three. I have seen Bride of Reanimator, the sequel to this movie, and I still think that's a great time. I don't think any of them are as good as this one, though.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Okay, well, that's good to know. Something else that's good to know, especially if you haven't gone into this. We talked a little bit about the gore and how over the top it can be, but rest assured that this movie is in no way scary. There is stuff in here that I think maybe people wouldn't want to see, but I think there is a moment that can be, depending on you and your personal lived experiences, it can be a little triggering. I think it could be a little triggering, but by and large, this movie is just again that wholesome fun.

SPEAKER_05 8:09

I think the scariest moment here is the idea of letting in a rando creepy scientist slash med student into like into your house and letting them rent a room. That's the the most frightening part here that is that somebody would do that.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Just moved right in.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Lesbians do it all the time.

SPEAKER_04 8:25

Just really voluntold himself to just move right in for sure. That was just so awkward. But yeah, I wouldn't say that this film is going to scare you in the sense that horror movies are trying to scare you nowadays. You know what I mean? This is it is gory, it is wild, so it could be hard to watch if you're really squeamish, potentially, right? Because there's some pretty wild moments. But there are also moments that haven't aged super well. But overall, I think it is meant to be this gory, twisted tale that really draws the line only to just cross right over that line.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

For sure. And that's interesting because it's a line that's also been drawn so many times. Obviously, we talked about this taking root in HP Lovecraft's story, and I haven't read that story or any of its follow-up. I've never read it, but the other comparison here, it's supposed to like parody Frankenstein. So, Sean, I'm curious from your perspective. You're a huge fan of Frankenstein, it's one of your favorites. It's also like the rendition of your portrait for her show. Where do you think this stands and where do you think this fits within Frankenstein monsters, creations, and mad scientists?

SPEAKER_04 9:32

You know, I think it's a really fun take on this kind of trope or this kind of you know thing that we're doing. I think when you think of Frankenstein, obviously that one is a little bit more serious, and this one is definitely a little bit more fun and campy and silly and over the top. And I think that this movie did a really great job at doing something a little bit different. You talked about I have read the short story from HP Lovecraft. I have all of his short stories, but it's been so long since I've actually revisited any of his work. But I do know when you talk about the movie, I do know that there are people that say that this is like super loosely adapted from HP Lovecraft's short story, Herbert West Reanimator, I think it's called. But to me, from what I remember, it's actually one of the closest adaptations, I would say, because the short story that HP Lovecraft wrote was broken up into I think six different vignettes. And this film is primarily based on, I think primarily just one of those vignettes, and I think it was called The Plague Doctor. And the sequel, Bride of Reanimator, I think, is based more on one of the other ones called The Horror from the Shadows. But either way, I feel like this was and is an original take on science playing God, on zombies, if you will. It really plays into something a little bit different than what Frankenstein did, because this is actually one of the first films to depict zombies made from science, which is really cool to see, right? I think that is really cool. There is some controversy with this film and its intro score, though, which is awfully similar to Alfred Hitchcock's psycho. So plagiarism or not, I'll leave that for you all to decide. But we are dancing on the line of some vanilla ice shit here.

SPEAKER_05 11:25

It's the ding that makes it different. It's just the one ding, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Ice, ice baby. This is where I struggle because this movie is fun enough to be very singular in my mind, but even when it opens up, you're right, that that theme music really is reminiscent of Psycho.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

It is.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

And that's one that even when I I posted something on our Instagram account announcing this live recording, and when I selected the song, I had to do a double take because I was like, wait, what the fucking song is? I'm not listening to Psycho. And it's just one of those weird feelings. I think obviously, in addition to being this parallel with Frankenstein, we think about mad scientists, there is the idea when we talk about playing God, of what would you say, how far would you go to bring back the ones you love? And that isn't, I think, the most central part of the story by any means, but I think we start moving in that direction at a certain point.

SPEAKER_04 12:21

We explore it.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

We absolutely do. And what I found this movie reminded me of more this time watching it than previous times is Pet Cemetery. Now, obviously, the movie Pet Cemetery came out in 1989, but the novel came out in 1983.

SPEAKER_05 12:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

So I think that was an interesting comparison.

SPEAKER_05 12:38

Yeah, it really has links to a lot of other properties. I think it's 100% inspired by classic B movies, right? But we've got that 80s grossness and the 80s gore. Sure, it's based on Lovecraft, sure, it's based on Frankenstein, it's got all these other inspirations here, but there's something pretty singular about the feeling of this movie, and so I don't think anyone's crazy for thinking it's got its own vibe here.

SPEAKER_04 12:59

Yeah, absolutely. I will say though, the ending to this movie is fucking something. Let me tell you. The ending to this movie is something. There is a lot happening in the third act of this movie, and it gets fucking wild. It gets really fucking bonkers.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

It gets wild, it gets weird, and there's a lot that I like. There's a little bit that I don't like.

SPEAKER_04 13:22

I already know.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

There's a lot that I can take and leave. There absolutely is, but I think by and large, it still manages to be an entertaining ending.

SPEAKER_05 13:30

Yeah, it's just a phenomenal climax, honestly. And then at the very end, we do get the sudden kind of drop-off into sequel baiting. Yeah. Which is weird and feels very out of place for the climax that we just got.

SPEAKER_04 13:42

Yeah, I was just gonna say it clearly opens it up for a sequel, which we obviously do get, by the way. But man, I feel like this is just an ending that you're either going to love or you're going to hate. And that might be said about the entire film. I don't know, but it's probably not for everybody, but it should be for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

It should be. And I wish there were some things that were done differently, and that's where I struggle with this movie. Now, I can't wait to see how our actual ratings shake out. But before we start tearing this movie apart, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_04 14:13

Oh, this was an extremely gory film for its time. And hell, it's a pretty gory film even now, if we're really being honest. I think they use something like 24 fucking gallons of fake blood throughout the filming process, which is a feat in and of itself. We love that. We love the dedication to the gore. And when you have that much blood mixed with some pretty awesome practical effects and makeup, utilizing some like real steer meat byproducts as well as like ground beef and stuff to create some brains, uh just amazing stuff that they did there. Man, this can't be anything other than a high gore score. It's over the top and campy for sure, but it's getting a high gore score nonetheless.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

And what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_05 14:57

Oh, it's double plus on good. It is pretty bad. I'll say that.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Yeah. Let's go ahead and go into our ratings. Reanimator from 1985. Was it a hacker or a slash?

SPEAKER_05 15:09

Reanimator is a gory, gross 80s B movie with the man of many Star Trek faces himself, Jeffrey Combs. He played memorable and major characters in my beloved Star Trek's Deep Space Nine and Enterprise. He also cameoed in Voyager, and I just love how he nails eccentric over-the-top characters. And Herbert West is no exception. The film doesn't need to go too deep, it's pulp entertainment. This is the pages of a horror comic book come to life in the imagination of a young adult reading under the covers at night with a flashlight. The core is gross, the characters are gross, and it's a tight 90-minute ride into insanity. Overall, Reanimator is a slash.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

Finally, we have a Camp Horror film that actually delivers and lives up to that title. It really deserves to be in the classification of Camp Horror 100%. This movie is right up there with the original Evil Dead movies, in my opinion. If you're looking for something in that realm, something super gory, super over the top and campy that you can just have fun with, then this is for sure your movie. Reanimator is one of the strangest horror movies. It's right up there with another Stuart Gordon film and another HP Lovecraft adaptation from beyond. That movie is balls to the wall, just fucking wild. It's funny that this is one of the best film adaptations of Lovecraft's work, and yet this was his least favorite story, though. I think that's really interesting. But overall, I love how this movie plays into the whole mad scientist Frankenstein bit, and let's face it, it is almost a parody on Frankenstein in a way. And overall, this movie is just a whole lot of fun, and despite its flaws, it has become an 80s cult classic that has and continues to stand the test of time. I think this movie is a must-watch for any horror fan, and this is a movie I would reanimate over and over again. And you know, the cinematographer for this film, Mac Alberg, I believe it is, said that David Bowie once told him that Reanimator was one of his favorite films. And if Ziggy fucking Stardust says that it's a slash, then it's a fucking slash.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

You know, how could you really say it any better than that? I absolutely should have just gone first to let us end on Ziggy Stardust. Look, I'm not gonna disagree here. This movie is a good time. It's fun, it's campy, it has great performances to deliver on the movie's promise. And it's Barbara Crampton. I mean, what the hell? Iconic Scream Queen in her own right. I enjoy this movie so much. I've held on to this iPad keyboard I haven't needed in a couple years just because I love my two Reanimator stickers that are on it. I should probably actually look at like doing a giveaway or something with this thing. But listen, this movie looks incredible, it feels incredible, it has a quality cast, and it stands the test of time. This movie is undeniably a slash. And with that, Reanimator has earned a universal slash. But there's a lot more to discuss when we return from break. And if you've already seen this movie before, what would you rate it? Please let us know. You can join the conversation for free in our Discord server. You can find the link to join and join the specific conversation about this movie in our show notes. And also in our show notes, we have a link to where you can find this movie streaming if you haven't seen it yet. Now, when we return from break, we'll dive deep into the spoilers on territory and dissect all those things we promised, like the brutality of the animal report and exactly what disappointed me so much about this movie. But we'll see you in a day.

SPEAKER_05 18:46

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SPEAKER_01 19:49

Welcome back, folks. You are now entering the spoiler zone for Reanimator from 1985, which has earned a universal slash. Now we have a lot to unpack here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings, let's go through those kills.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

Let's go through them because we have a nice teen kills in this one, and some really fun ones, if I may say so myself. We get some really creative kills with some really interesting methods. So I gotta ask, which kills reanimated you?

SPEAKER_05 20:19

I think Dr. Hill's killed.

SPEAKER_04 20:21

The original kill.

SPEAKER_05 20:22

The second one was great as well.

SPEAKER_04 20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:24

But I think the first one was just so violent and over the top, and the kind of thing you expect from the 1980s, and just very satisfying. That's just brutal.

SPEAKER_04 20:34

Dude, a decapitation with a shovel, man. But you're right. The second kill of the head, the reanimated head of Dr. Hill was also just really great. I really couldn't tell which one I liked more. Did I like the shovel decapitation more, or did I like having his head get squished and having his head splattered against the wall and seeing the brains fall out, you know?

SPEAKER_05 20:56

It's just a good time for the whole family.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

It absolutely is, but what's so great about that, and I I guess really the premise of this movie overall, when you really fucking hate a character, you really want him to go out in a satisfying way. And not only did this motherfucker go out in a satisfying way once, he went out satisfyingly twice. My favorite kill. Dr. Gruber is such a great tone setter to open up the movie, and it looks vicious, it looks violent. To also have this hilarity of them walking in on West and he's just caught red-handed with the reagent serum. But to have this man screaming in agony, then his eyes just like expand, it's so fucking gross looking, and yet you cannot look away from it.

SPEAKER_04 21:41

I know, and it's such a wild way to open them film, you know what I mean? I feel I don't know why it always shocks me, but every time I put this movie on and that opening scene happens, I'm just like, holy shit, we're already going. We're already going like first fucking scene.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Again, balls to the wall, balls to the

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Fucking wall.

SPEAKER_05 22:00

It's very dead alive that moment. Yeah. I feel like if people like Dead Alive, this is like their I don't know, Pixar movie version for them.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

For sure. Actually, speaking of balls to the wall, can we get an RIP to the cat who went to the wall as well? Actually, a lot of things went to walls in this movie.

SPEAKER_06 22:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

We had the cat and then his brain matter. We also had Megan's dad.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

Yeah, we had Megan's dad, and Megan's dad was also that's Dean Halsey, right? So Dean Halsey also had the double kill, right? You've got Dean Halsey's initial kill where he's getting his fucking fingers bitten off and then beaten to death. That's pretty good. But then you also get the reanimated Halsey getting torn into pieces limb by limb by other reanimate deads. Just so great. I love that we get the double tap in this movie. We get so much of the double tap action, which is just super fun. But you know, speaking of like getting thrown into walls, that scene where they have Halsey in like the psych ward room or whatever, I guess those walls were super flimsy, so like he had to stop running into them as he was like acting those scenes out, which is hilarious. But there's a scene where he throws like one of the nurses or some one of the workers into the wall, and you can see the wall fucking jiggle a little bit. It just adds, again, some charm to the film.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Man, this fucking movie's got more charm than a Pandora bracelet.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

Fucking that's great. A fucking Pandora bracelet. We love that. Man, well, we can't go on from kills without talking about Melvin the Reanimated getting impaled with that electric bone saw because that one was also a pretty fucking cool kill.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Holy shit. West went hard.

SPEAKER_04 23:41

Seriously.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

I thought when I first saw this movie for the very first time, I thought he was just gonna be very precise and just cut into the brain to try to, I don't know, maybe carve out someone like where the injection site was, do something very specific to quickly de-escalate and diffuse the situation. And then when he grabbed him, I thought, okay, maybe he's gonna slit his throat. I don't fucking know. But what I surely never expected was his whole fucking fist to go through his chest.

SPEAKER_04 24:10

Right? I was like, are you gonna just go into the brain and stop him? Or no, we're just going straight through the chest.

SPEAKER_05 24:16

That moment there, I think we all have that same thought of what is he going to do? Because if he's reanimating the tissue, like we find out later, even without the brain, apparently this stuff can keep on moving. So that's not gonna do it. When he goes all the way through, it's like when those magicians do that. We've got some of them now who do it like on Instagram reels and they show off their video magic. But it's like, I want to know special effects-wise, like, how do you achieve something that good looking where somebody's hand is punching through the abdomen of somebody else? That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 24:46

Yeah, for sure. It is absolutely fantastic, and that is why the practical effects in this movie are the fucking thing that makes this fucking movie because man, how impressive are the practical effects for its time. Just think about it. You have these more serious moments when we're watching the medical lessons on the cadavers, right? And that is some really good practical effects and some really good gore. But then you also have these wild and fun moments where we just see some crazy kills and some great use of these practical effects and what they could do for the time. Not to mention the decapitated, reanimated talking head. We're just thinking about all of this stuff, and it is just so good. The practical effects just had such a profound impact on this film.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Oh, yeah. But you know what? I would argue that some of those effects were a little bit too practical for that animal report.

SPEAKER_05 25:39

Oh, Sean, when you told me the worst news ever, I was so upset. And I was filled with so many questions as to just why.

SPEAKER_04 25:46

Yeah, they used a real dead fucking cat for the scene with Rufus in the fridge. That's a real dead cat.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

What a way to ruin a fridge, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

I really just want to know what their thought process was. This poor fucking dead cat. Where did they find this dead cat, man? Are they just like knocking on vets and they're like, hey, did somebody's cat die today? Maybe. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_05 26:08

Oh my did they like find it in the street?

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Was it taxidermy?

SPEAKER_04 26:12

Yeah, they just found it. It was an alley cat that just died.

SPEAKER_05 26:15

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 26:17

So absolutely upsetting. If you're good, if you're gonna kill an animal in a movie, at least make it clear that it's a prop. I don't care how fake it looks. I want to know for a fact.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Give a little made in China tag sticking out from it.

SPEAKER_05 26:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

And maybe they'll add some of that charm for Sean.

SPEAKER_04 26:32

That would actually be freaking hilarious. But speaking of props, right? I read that an actual screen-used prop of Dr. Hill's decapitated head was the top prize in Fangoria magazine's reanimator Get a Head makeup contest, which man, back then, can you imagine winning that contest and getting a prop of the reanimated Dr. Hill head? That would be so fucking cool to have in my office.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah, you know what though? You fucking won a guitar ones. I feel like you should just start doing all these giveaways and just see what else you can get.

SPEAKER_04 27:03

I should start scooping them up.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Yeah, man. You made Sarah Michelle Geller a fucking sandwich once. I feel like you're just full of good luck. Wow. Yeah, Mac, you missed that on the rewind for I know what you did last summer.

SPEAKER_05 27:13

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 27:14

Yeah. Fun times, you know, when your family owns a deli in Los Angeles, you see a lot of interesting characters come through.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

You absolutely do. But what else was an interesting character in and of itself was that reagent serum. I love how vibrant this is. And it is the perfect, just honestly over the top level of saturation to make this feel like the 50s era sci-fi shit that I would absolutely fall in love with. For it to be so vibrant and so green, and follow me here on this thought. You remember the movie Pleasantville?

SPEAKER_06 27:51

Mm-hmm. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Pleasantville, you know, they go into the past and error, this alternate world, whatever, and everything's in black and white. But the more aware they come or they become, or the more impure they become, everything starts to turn to color. This serum, this reagent, is so green, it makes everything else subconsciously feel black and white to me because of how vibrant it is. But I absolutely fucking love it.

SPEAKER_05 28:16

Oh, that you know what? Your eyes and my eyes were thinking the same thing because that green stuff is amazing, right? But the intro credits are a perfect match to it. They're just fun and bright and neon and fantastic. And I think you're gonna have these neon green vials of reanimation juice sparingly used, honestly. They didn't overdo it, which was really smart because it is bright and it is neon. But we start the movie off with those credits rolling through with such bright colors. It's kind of a surprise to see at the beginning of a film like this.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

I guess something that I'm really curious about is how that was achieved. Some level in post doing that, sure, but there has to be some method they had to making it look the green liquid.

SPEAKER_04 28:55

I'm pretty sure we'd have to fact check it, but I'm pretty sure it's just glow stick liquid.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Oh shit, why does that feel so obvious now in retrospect?

SPEAKER_04 29:02

Not me, you know. No one's really using glow stick liquid in movies, so you know they're pioneers.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

You know what? Fuck it. Maybe I'm gonna go get some glow sticks and cut them open and put them in a fucking glass vial.

SPEAKER_04 29:13

Yeah, I mean, why not? What a great Halloween prop.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Wow, I'm so disappointed in myself. I should have thought about that. This is why I wouldn't work in the prop department. This is why I'd be a producer, I could be a director.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

Oh, it would be so fun.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Maybe cinematographer, but never the props. I'm not creative enough for that shit.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

If only I got into working with latex and all that shit at a young age, and then I could probably be doing this, but I chose the wrong path, friends. Damn it.

SPEAKER_05 29:38

I think these days the glow stick stuff is actually mostly non-toxic, which is good. Like it's gonna you're gonna poop your pants for sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

But I think if Oh, so I could drink the reagent, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_05 29:49

I don't recommend it, but I think like Yeah, please don't drink glow stick liquid, friends. That's not good. But I think in some cases, some of the glow sticks won't kill you.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

You got these fuckers out here eating Tide Pot.

SPEAKER_04 30:00

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You put this on social media, and the next thing you know, people are dumping fucking glow stick liquid in their bodies or trying to reanimate fucking things. Who the fuck knows? It's gonna get wild out there.

SPEAKER_05 30:12

Let's just say warning. If you drink glow stick liquid, you'll die. But from what I've heard, is in in some cases you won't. In some cases.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Okay, I'm now I'm looking up green Halloween drinks.

SPEAKER_05 30:22

Oh my.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Monster under the bed martini, poisoned apple cocktail. None of it's bright enough. I feel like you need some bioluminescence in there, you know?

SPEAKER_04 30:30

Yeah, what do you put in there that makes it glow?

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Which is brewed martini. It looks like it's glowing a little bit, but none of it seems like it should be glowing.

SPEAKER_05 30:38

I have seen a martini that has glow sticks in it.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Hmm. Actually, I got a bunch of recipes served up to me on some fucking algorithm thing where it's like they're taking edible glitter, glow-in-the-dark cotton candy, and making some cool fucking drinks.

SPEAKER_05 30:55

That sounds awesome. I'd be excited to try something like that.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Batguts martini. Okay, I'm gonna add a link in the show notes for this.

SPEAKER_05 31:02

We did get to have brain-shaped jello shooters when we were here for the Halloween ends party.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Oh gosh, that was so good.

SPEAKER_05 31:10

And the whipped cream mixed in with the other stuff made them look like fleshy toned, and uh that was extra gross.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:18

Oh no. You missed out, Sean. I'm telling you, they were pretty gnarly, but they were good.

SPEAKER_04 31:21

I'll take your word for it for sure. Man, but there are so many just really great scenes in this film, and I'm just thinking of kind of the funny one, but also has some really great Easter egg kind of thing. So there's the scene where Dan and Megan are kissing at the lockers, and they're just like kind of like canoodling, you know, if you will, and she's like, no, no, and then it cuts to them getting it on in Dan's room or or close to getting it on. She's like, Yes, yes. I just like that cut transition from no no to yes, yes was just hilarious. But one of the more subtle touches to this scene, specifically when they are in Dan's bedroom, you can see a poster above his bed, which is uh one of the it's a poster of one of the tours for the band Talking Heads, which I think is fucking hilarious because one, it's a great band from the 80s, and two, it was just a great foreshadowing for what's to come with the reanimated talking head of Dr. Carl Hill.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Oh my gosh, that's such a great note. I love that. I could have done without the yes, yes, sex scene, but you know what? It was brief enough for to work for an 80s movie, so fuck it, literally and figuratively.

SPEAKER_05 32:30

Oh my. I want to talk about Dr. Hill again, uh, because my favorite scene was Dr. Hill blackmailing Herbert while marveling over his work and not watching what he's doing. Did he not think perhaps this man is dangerous? And I'm just gonna stick my eyeball into this microscope and not pay attention to what he's doing. He hasn't made a sound in a little bit. Hmm, I guess everything's gonna be fine. Come on, bro, I thought you had the big brains here.

SPEAKER_04 32:52

Maybe he was just so taken aback that he was like seemingly super interested in this work after basically just hating on him for the whole first part of the movie. I don't know. Caught him off guard.

SPEAKER_05 33:04

And what's great about it is you've also got Jeffrey Combs, right, acting. He's playing Herbert, but at the same time, Herbert is also acting as if he's scared of this blackmail. And it's just so meta. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, there's a lot of layers there. See, honestly, Herbert West takes the cake in any scene he's in, he's an absolute showstopper. One of my favorite scenes, obviously, is the opening because I feel like, again, what a great tone setter. But another one is just thinking about how physical these actors had to get with absolutely wild animatronics, or thinking about some of the corpses whenever they're in the morgue.

SPEAKER_06 33:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

But my absolute favorite scene is when Kane wakes up in the middle of the night to the beastly yowls of Rufus the Resurrected, and then they're having to chase down this cat that we almost never see. We get very few flashes of it, but it feels so intense, it feels so real, but also fucking hilarious. And I'm just imagining these two grown men acting so seriously with nothing around them, and it's honestly if I know a lot of my friends who fucking if they see a roach or they see a spider, yeah, and all of a sudden this is this moment from this movie.

SPEAKER_05 34:16

It's so true. Yeah, it's giving Ash fighting his own hand.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

Okay, but looking into this moment, obviously we talked about Rufus, the real dead cat that was in the fridge, but even the animatronic or the puppet of Rufus, yeah, dead Rufus, resurrected, reanimated Rufus, incredible.

SPEAKER_04 34:35

It's so good.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Incredible, looks terrible, but so good.

SPEAKER_04 34:39

It's just the moment where he's jumping out and he just looks so deranged, it's so amazing. Uh, it's so good. There is something about that scene that's just the swinging, hanging light, only bringing light every so often. It's just something there's just something hilariously horrifying about the whole scenario and the way that cat looked as it pounced at Dan. It was just so funny. What a great call out. I'm still sad about the cat. Yeah, still sad about it. But the scene where we're getting the lesson on how to get into the brain, what a cool shot that was as we're just cutting, cutting enough to peel the scalp and like the fucking skin off of that fucking head and then drilling into the skull and pulling the brain out. And I already talked about it earlier, and you know, we're talking about the gore and stuff, but like the way they made that brain with actual animal byproducts mixed with like ground beef and stuff like that and the fake blood, it just was such a great touch. And man, what a what a great moment for the film.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

You know what I couldn't stop thinking about during that scene? The last time we did a saw movie, it was the jigsaw autopsy. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 35:46

Yes. That was gnarly. That the entire thing. Just why do they go so hard when it comes to peeling back people's scalps? Do we need that?

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Because what a fucking weird concept, Mac. Listen, you can't do that and go soft.

SPEAKER_04 35:58

There's those serious moments, but there's also the really campy moments that can't go unnoticed, right? We have that one shot where like the tongue is going into the ear. You know what I mean? And obviously, what follows is absolutely deranged and perverted, but dang, the just the tongue in the ear. Obviously, you think of like nightmare in Elm Street, right? You think of the whole tongue coming through the phone and all that, but man, what a campy moment that was.

SPEAKER_05 36:22

Yeah, it was gross.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

For sure. Also, other things that are in poor taste, but are also funny. The finding the dead cat in the first place, they're looking for Rufus all over this home. She thinks to go into West's room, opens up the fridge that's already slightly ajar. If this motherfucker had just closed the fridge, they probably never would have known.

SPEAKER_06 36:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

But then he has the nerve to just gaslight them. He's like, What do you want me to say? What do you want me to write a note? Cat's dead, details later. Fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 36:54

Oh, so defensive.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

He plays it so straight.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

He does. Oh man, it's so good. Even the moment where they are reanimating the John Doe in the morgue, and he's recording the whole thing for documentation purposes for science, right? And West is telling him what to say, like the recorder is not picking up the shit that he's saying already. It's just so hilarious. He's like, say this, say this. It's like, dude, here's the fucking camcorder, dude. You fucking do it.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Yeah, for sure. Oh, okay. The time is now 10 33 p.m. Administering 15ccs of reagent.

SPEAKER_06 37:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Dude, this is not how microphones work. You didn't need to do this. I think he just wanted a fucking conspirator. Some plausible deniability, but shit.

SPEAKER_05 37:40

It was really a a good moment of like back and forth humor. You know, like the play between them was awesome. The physical comedy here is awesome, but like every time they get those back and forth moments, it's really strong.

SPEAKER_04 37:50

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 37:52

I think we've said that Herbert is probably the most interesting character to listen to and watch on screen. The other ones weren't massively disappointing, though. I'm really surprised that other characters weren't completely two-dimensional and boring. Even if they're two-dimensional, like they still worked. Dr. Hill was so fantastic in this film. You really loved to hate Dr. Hill. And honestly, like Dan wasn't bad as a little sidekick, someone who's been twisted into this moment. It it still worked. Yeah. They're both playing the straight man, but somehow Herbert is just so over the top. So I think that balance between them was effective. But I don't think anyone was necessarily horrible. I think they all kind of played a character from a comic book.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Yeah. And see, this is where I think I love the characters in this movie. You watch this, and Herbert West is a man totally focused on his work. He's a mad scientist, right? He is probably chaotic good or chaotic neutral. Whereas someone like Dr. Hill feels like a lawful evil, if that makes sense. I look at this movie and everything that happens is West's fault. And yet I never see him or consider him to be the actual villain of the movie. The villain of the movie for me is fucking Dr. Hill.

SPEAKER_04 39:11

Dr. Hill, ultra creeper, mega fucking creeper. Man, I just think he was just giving off the creepiest vibes. If you haven't seen the movie, if this is your first time watching this film, you know what I mean? Just watching everything get up to the third act of the film, you're just like, why is this guy so creepy? Why is he like giving off this like pedophile kind of vibe throughout the movie? That aside, I do think Dr. Carl Hill reanimated was able to just play something really great. You look at the way that he was able to do, and obviously the special effects team and the and the practical effects and all the stuff that that made that possible, but just being able to give off the whole like my body's over here and my fucking head's over here, and we're just like having a grand old time, I think that was just great. I just couldn't imagine this movie as creepy as David Gale was in this film. I just have to give it up. I do remember reading somewhere that the role of Dr. Carl Hill was originally written and intended for Christopher Lee, which I think he turned the role down, I believe, but I think that would have been interesting because while I think Christopher Lee would have been great in this movie, I don't want to discredit David Gale because I think he did a great job in the film as well. But man, can you imagine Christopher Lee in this role?

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Well, there are moments that you look at him and you think, wow, Christopher Lee would be great here.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

Yeah, a hundred percent. I definitely could see it. But I also think that there's some other really great work in some of the lesser known actors, right? We do have the actors that played like the reanimated corpses in the movie. And from what I understand, they all worked out together at the YMCA to coordinate how they were gonna move like zombies, so they were all like on the same page, which you gotta love some of the lesser roles still being dedicated to the craft.

SPEAKER_05 41:07

Yeah, that's pretty awesome. You know, things like that these days, you would have a choreographer take care of that for you. You wouldn't have to worry about it, you would pay for that. And for them back then, with I'm sure this wasn't like a massive budget, right? So I'm like that level of dedication is impressive because that scene seems like pure chaos, but truly to portray pure chaos, you have to work on that. You have to put in some effort.

SPEAKER_04 41:29

You absolutely do. And then the actress that played the girl that's like getting resuscitated by Dan, that girl was apparently a dildo enthusiast and was known on this film for hiding random dildos with the fake corpses in the morgue set. I wonder if she likes baddragon.com.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Yeah, wanderingbard.com. I don't like it.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

Maybe we gotta get her on the show and ask the real questions here.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Oh, there's the hacker slash after dark content.

SPEAKER_05 41:58

Oh my. I just imagined that that was like the job title. Oh, what's what do you do? I'm an enthusiast, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Okay, think about the job title you put on anybody in a documentary. Jane Doe, dildo enthusiast.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

Part-time actor, full-time dildo enthusiast.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

And my name is Chris. I'm your friend in the neighborhood slasher enthusiast, and I'm joined by Jane, a resident dildo enthusiast.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

Oh, we're done here. Yeah, yeah. Here's a fun fact. Did you know that the first dude that got reanimated at the morgue who ends up killing Dean Halsey is actually, I believe, Peter Kent is his name, who was Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunt double in 14 films. Everything from the Terminator to fucking jingle all the way, folks. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Why does he need a stunt double? Not jingle all the way.

SPEAKER_04 42:46

Hey man, there was a lot of action in that movie, okay? That was an action-packed family fun film.

SPEAKER_05 42:52

Wow. They did fly on a line at some point, right? Like that happened. Yeah. So I guess there was some action there.

SPEAKER_04 42:58

Yeah, there's flying and fighting and all kinds of random shit. Falling around. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Flying and fighting and bears. Oh my. Obviously, we talked a lot about the characters in this movie and the work that they put in. Barbara Crampton is an icon and a legend. The absolute worst part of this movie is Dr. Hill's body sexually assaulting her and groping her naked body on the table.

SPEAKER_05 43:25

I knew it.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

It does not belong here at all.

SPEAKER_05 43:28

And the combination of the body group, plus the decapitated head having its way with her, like actually making contact with her body. That was disturbing. And then you think, oh gosh, like someone's got to stop this. And they wait until the very last second when he's about to force Canalingus on her. And that was like bad choice. You know what I mean? Come on. You could have gone so many other ways with this.

SPEAKER_04 43:54

I'm telling you, I I get it. It didn't age well by any means. This is something that I feel like you. You're not gonna see in a lot of horror movies nowadays. There are things that cross the line nowadays, but this one is definitely one that's pretty wild and out there. And could they have done something differently and this movie still been just as effective? Probably. But this is what we have. And I will say that Barbara, who plays Megan in this movie, aside from how gross and ridiculous this scene is, she did say that she was like completely fine with all of this. Like she was very open to the nudity as long as it was like part of the story. You know what I mean? And so at least we can sleep at night knowing that she was on board and she wasn't like forced into it.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

For sure. And you know, I can absolutely appreciate that about her and where she stands on this. But I think for me, it's like there are things that we can think of that cross the line nowadays, but this is something that just crossed the line back then too, and nobody said or did anything about it. And that's where it's like, okay, well, everybody thinks it's in good taste and the minority voice there. It is what it is. But I'm also blown away that there's stuff that's cut from this movie that would have added to it, and yet this is what stayed in the movie. Because again, right, it's the 80s, we know that people are gonna be nude, and I don't have anything against necessarily the nudity in the film. I think you can go in the direction that they wanted to go in, but just not show as much as they did.

SPEAKER_06 45:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Sure, okay, lay her on the table and get ready to reanimate her, whatever the fuck you want to do, but I think they just went well, it's a step too far. I'm glad she's on board though.

SPEAKER_04 45:32

Yeah, I get it. Wait until we get from beyond on this show, and then we're gonna go to a whole different level, man. That movie is just filled with some outrageous shit, and I can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts on that movie. And and we'll get it in the lineup at some point. Don't worry, we will get it in somehow. But you know, you talked about cutting stuff out of the film, right? And I think the worst part of this movie for me was choosing to edit out some of those things, not the stuff that you're talking about, Chris. And I get it. Look, the original cut was like two and a half hours long, so I get it. We can't have a two and a half hour long movie of this caliber, it just wouldn't work. But there was this subplot that revealed that Dr. Carl Hill had the ability to control minds. And even though they cut most of this stuff out of the film, they still left in one significant part where he has this unexplained control or hold over the reanimated Dean Halsey and all the other reanimated corpses when we're in those final moments of the film. And so when you cut the stuff out that kind of explains that, but then they still give you this, it just feels a little bit off. And I think that they should have found a way to, if they were gonna continue to explore that part of the movie, that they should have found a way to keep that in the film, my opinion.

SPEAKER_05 46:49

I think the cut that we got, it kind of explains it like a little bit, where he mentions that whole thing about lobotomizing them. So I'm like, wow, he worked really quickly in lobotomizing like 15 reanimated corpses. That's surprising. So it's loose, but it's at least kind of still there. Yeah. And uh, you know, Chris, I'm with you on that part. I struggled between that part of the movie and the dead cat thing. They were kind of neck and neck.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Literally, it's my notes.

SPEAKER_05 47:14

Yeah, so I think since you've really brought that into the light, I'm gonna mention the dead cat thing again as my what I consider the worst part of the movie. In reality, if there's something that doesn't need to be shown, like why show it? And I think your example is a good way to do that, especially if you ever have to cut something out of a film. And this was not something you can cut out. It was too important to the story, like it's how things really got kickstarted here. I just wish they hadn't done as much as they did, especially using a real cat corpse. Like that is come on, get a prop. It's gotta be cheaper and easier and more ethical and less gross. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Actually, maybe it was cheaper to get the real dead cat because then no one had to make the fake dead cat.

SPEAKER_05 47:56

They already had one because they had to animate it.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Parts of a fake dead cat.

SPEAKER_05 48:00

That's true. Oh man. I feel like there was a movie we watched with with another cat being hurt with fire or lava or something like that on the floor. I can't think of the name of the movie, right? The collector.

SPEAKER_06 48:12

Or the sticky shit. It's terrible and then the window till.

SPEAKER_05 48:16

Oh man. Horrifying. We've had similar experiences, of course, with dogs and other animals here, and almost every time I can think of an easy way to just not have it in the film. And I think here, same thing. You didn't really need it. It's just I think knowing the extra info behind it is what makes it so much worse.

SPEAKER_04 48:35

Whether we needed some of this stuff or not, I'm definitely gonna be re-watching this one again. I also wish I could see what this film would look and feel like if it was shot in black and white on a 16 millimeter film, like Stuart Gordon said, he thought about doing, which I think would be really interesting. It would add something different to the way this film feels. Can you imagine? I can.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

I kind of want to go through with the power of technology. I want to recolor this movie to black and white and only keep the green.

SPEAKER_04 49:04

Yes. Oh man, that would be good. Super fucking good.

SPEAKER_05 49:09

I had that same thought when you started talking about it, Sean. And as soon as Chris said it, I was just like, yes. That's what we need. We need somebody to go through and make that kind of an edit. But I think I've got to be in a particular mood to watch this film again. But I could see myself doing it, especially gearing up for the sequel when we eventually get to that.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Yeah, this is something that I have continued to watch again. I talked about what the worst parts are for me. This is something where when we get to that point, I just try not to look at it, try to look away from it since I know it's coming. But it still does not affect me to the extent that The Evil Dead affected me with its gratuitous nonsense. This is something that I'm going to continue watching. I love how fun this movie is, and I actually can't wait to explore the rest of the franchise moving forward. But for now, there you have it, folks. Reanimator from 1985 has under Universal Slash. Now we've certainly had a robust discussion here, but our conversation on this movie doesn't end here by any means.

SPEAKER_04 50:07

Yeah, if you want to hear some really off-the-wall conversation, you know, unhinged shit that we really get into when we go further on these episodes and just talk about some topics that are just wild, consider becoming one of our patrons to check out the B side of this episode where we discuss what it would be like to sit in on a lecture from some of horror's favorite icon. You can visit patreon.com slash hackerslash to enjoy more of the show with early access, extended episodes, bonus content, and live shows.

SPEAKER_05 50:38

If you like what you heard, no need to shoot green juice into our brains. Just leave us a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. That helps us continue to deliver great content for all of you horror fiends out there.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, a good doctor knows when to stop.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

She just needs a little more time for the drugs to kick in.

SPEAKER_05 51:05

Okay, so this miscatonic university here's got me thinking: if we were back at school, back at university, in college, whatever, technical school, whatever you want to go to, and your professors were characters from horror movies, who would you want to be lectured by?

SPEAKER_04 51:20

Oh man, there's so many great options here. There's so many good options. The first one that comes to mind, obviously, Hannibal Lecter. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

I'm glad we're aligned on this. If the first answer wasn't unanimously Hannibal Lecter, that would have been problematic.

SPEAKER_04 51:35

It seems like an easy choice.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

But would you take the classic like psychology course? Or would you take a culinary course?

SPEAKER_04 51:44

Oh, I feel like that's an interesting one. I feel like, you know, it wouldn't hurt to just know how to disassemble a body, you know? Never hurts.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

A little dismemberment.

SPEAKER_04 51:53

You know, perfectly remove certain organs and things that you may need. It comes in handy sometimes.

SPEAKER_05 51:59

I think it would be fun to take biology from the androids. What is that movie? Aliens. That bishop knows what's up, right? The later androids we get in the non-horror movies, the action movies, you know, Prometheus and whatnot, that android would be the worst teacher for biology. We'd have frogs with wings and stuff. This is true.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Oh my gosh. What about from the fly?

SPEAKER_05 52:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

A Brundle fly.

SPEAKER_05 52:22

Even better.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

A little biology course.

SPEAKER_05 52:24

Absolutely. That's I'm horrible at biology, but I feel like I would attend. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that would be a great option. I think I would also take like a cinema course from maybe Billy Loomis's Ghostface. No, Kirby.

SPEAKER_03 52:38

I was just about to say we need like a horror cinema course, you know, from Ghostface. I don't know which ghost face though.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Yeah, but then I remember that we can just do survivors because uh Taffy in the chat says psychology with Dr. Loomis, which is actually an obvious answer. I can't believe I didn't say first. But I think horror cinema from Ghostface, yes, but also some of the ghost faces had really terrible takes. So I do think I want Kirby.

SPEAKER_04 53:05

Okay. I mean, that's fair. That's fair. I am shocked he didn't say Dr. Loomis first, now that I think about it.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

I'm sorry. Punk Hazard saying leatherface for my agriculture course is absurd.

unknown 53:16

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

What the hell? That's off the walls for sure.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Scooby-Doom says morality and ethics from John Kramer. Or about like a civil engineering course from John Kramer.

SPEAKER_05 53:26

That's true. Or mechanical engineering. Yeah. Yeah. Both would be compelling courses to take. I don't know if you've seen Under the Skin, but I feel like if you're going to take women's studies, you need Scarlett Johansson playing the female as your as your professor. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 53:42

It would also be interesting to take a course from Jigsaw. I feel like just really understanding how you put all these contraptions together would be a great course to take. I want to know.

SPEAKER_05 53:52

Or uh maybe something like uh political science from one of the characters from The Purge. Really, any of them would be an interesting take. Not the poly psy from the purge. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 54:04

That's wild. Oh, yeah, there we go. The faculty. Great shout out, Nathan. Love that.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

Introduction to Paranormal Phenomena by Elise Rainier from Insidious.

SPEAKER_03 54:15

Oh, very perfect.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

Max making and identity concealment in modern society. Instructor? Michael Myers.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

Nice. That's fantastic. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Silent course. Lots of written material and some textbook work.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

Oh, I would definitely take a course on cults and being a cult leader. I'm not sure which movie, but absolutely give me some cult work.

SPEAKER_05 54:39

Yeah. Jack Torrance, maybe you would uh lead a writing course.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

Oh my gosh. Chell hath no fury says Buster Rhymes for Intro to Broadcast Journalism. Incredible choice. Or for entertainment business.

SPEAKER_04 54:53

Oh man, these are all fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

There's got to be like a home security, like defense. Oh, you think about Harry Potter defense against the dark arts.

SPEAKER_04 55:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

But defense against the whatever the fuck.

SPEAKER_04 55:04

That's gotta just be from some really strong final girls. You know what I mean? How can we get some of them to give us a lecture on how to survive?

SPEAKER_01 55:10

Absolutely. There's also got to be something there with witches, I feel like. So if we think about like a women's study or women's studies, there could be like the history of witchcraft. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 55:20

Anthropology, yes. The anthropology, history of religion and witchcraft.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:26

Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 55:27

We could get Herbert West from this movie, The Ethics of Experimentation.

SPEAKER_04 55:31

Oh my gosh. I mean shit. Herbert West or Dr. Frankenstein would be a fantastic choice for this topic.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

I love that.

SPEAKER_05 55:37

Both good options.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

Oh my gosh, yeah. Give me like a hospitality and tourism with Norman Bates from Taffy. Love that.

SPEAKER_05 55:44

I would also love to take perhaps uh something around urban legends or myths from Candyman.

SPEAKER_04 55:49

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

Oh my gosh. Art the Clown for Improv.

SPEAKER_04 55:52

For oh amazing. For improv, yeah. Dude, the Candyman, I feel like you can definitely get some kind of agricultural course on beekeeping, like how to beekeep. Because that guy's pro.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

What about uh like a film editing course from Samara from the ring?

SPEAKER_04 56:08

Oh man, absolutely perfect. These are the real tough questions that we gotta know the answers to.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Disaster management and crisis leadership who would be good for that.

SPEAKER_05 56:17

Oh, we're throwing hosts in the mix. Perhaps something like demonology from Father Marin.

SPEAKER_04 56:22

Oh, yes. Classic. Classic.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

Actually, no, I want demonology from that one shitty guy in paranormal activity who basically said your problem's too big for me. I want it from that guy.

SPEAKER_04 56:34

Oh yeah, that fucking guy. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

Mm-hmm. I would also take the history of driving moccasins from Mac if we could have.

SPEAKER_05 56:42

Oh my. Is there something perhaps where we can get a leadership course from Damien?

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 56:49

There you are.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

Or Human Anatomy for Dummer for Dummies by Leatherface. Oh no, like a home egg class from Leatherface. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_04 56:58

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

We got the cooking, we got the sewing, we got the makeup and everything. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 57:04

That's true. I'd take an acting course from Pearl.

SPEAKER_01 57:07

Mmm. Yeah. I'm good at theater, Mom. Pearl with her teacher's assistant being uh the histrionic aunt from sleepaway camp.

SPEAKER_04 57:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

Just extreme. Absolutely extreme.

SPEAKER_04 57:19

Are we taking yeah, are we take you're taking the that class from Pearl, or are we taking like a sex ed class with Maxine? You know what I mean? Oh.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

You know what? Both. Why not both? That's Pearl Dance class from old Pearl.

SPEAKER_06 57:32

Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Gender studies. Nathan says sex ed.

SPEAKER_04 57:39

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Absolutely incredible. These are great ideas.

SPEAKER_04 57:43

There's so many. There's so many.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

Yeah. See, this is the fucking kind of university that I would go in depth for. University is such a scam.

SPEAKER_04 57:51

I feel like we can start like an online university and just bring these horror characters to life to teach these off-the-wall classes.

SPEAKER_01 57:59

Listen, every podcast fucking does some shit for revenue by offering a course. Maybe this is our course.

SPEAKER_03 58:06

Yes. Oh man. So good. So good.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Patrick Bateman would be a great guidance counselor. Oh my gosh. Or Kevin Bacon's character from Day Slash Them. Terrible.

SPEAKER_05 58:18

Oh, terrible. Absolutely terrible. What about event planning from Chef Slovak from the menu? Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

I haven't seen that. Music studies with the Phantom of the Phantom of the Opera? Absolutely, Taffy. Holy shit. Barbary with Sweeney Todd.

SPEAKER_04 58:34

Yes. We love that too. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 58:37

I feel like there's gotta be some kind of like landscaping elective that Edward Scissor Hands could do.

SPEAKER_04 58:43

Easily. Yeah. Oh, landscaping for sure.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 58:48

There was also the guy with the scythe in the movie we watched. What was that called? It was Hellsomething. It was a big oh goodness, I can't remember. It was a fake horror movie character inside of a horror movie where the kids go to the Oh yeah, it was Behind the Mask, The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Different one. Different one. What was it called? Uh they are invited to a big gathering at a convention slash like.

SPEAKER_01 59:09

You're talking about a birthday episode. No, no, no. Bloodfest. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 59:12

I gotta look at this Bloodfest.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

There's Hellfest and there's Bloodfest, but Bloodfest is the one where it's like a convention, but everybody starts killing each other. Hellfest was there's one killer in a Halloween themed theme park.

SPEAKER_05 59:23

Yeah, yeah, it was Bloodfest. Yeah, Bloodfest, they had the fake horror movie icon. And I feel like he had a scyther, and that would be good for landscaping. Something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Oh my gosh, I know who you're talking about. Yeah, okay. It was like the parallel of Jason Voorhees.

SPEAKER_05 59:38

The Arborist.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:40

His name was the Arborist because he cut down trees. Okay, so there we go. So take uh what would they call that? Arbory?

SPEAKER_01 59:48

Oh my gosh. What about a veterinary medicine class from someone from fucking Pet Cemetery?

SPEAKER_04 59:54

Easily.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

The dad from Pet Cemetery.

SPEAKER_04 59:57

Oh yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 59:58

That's EMology class, human seven feed. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

No. I got to say that had to come out for sure. What about musical theater with Dr. Frankenfurter from the Rocky Horror Picture Show? You know, I feel like that's a great one.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

The Phantom and Dr. Frankenfurter are teaming up for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:15

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Anatomy Doctor Giggles, incredible. Jennifer Tilley has to get in here somewhere from the Bride of Chucky. I don't know what the fuck she would teach.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:25

I mean doll making? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

No, maybe just like scam today before today scams you 101. Pharmacology with the grave robber from repo.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:33

Oh lord. What do we call this university? I feel like this university has to have a really good, really good name that hooks you.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

Damn. Not this being the actual real monsters university.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:44

Slash you. Nice. That's perfection. That's good. That is good.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

Human anatomy with Jennifer Check. Yeah. Okay. Give me Jennifer Check teaching any course on being a succubus, and we're there.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:58

Not the succubi of it all. Like Ash could teach something from Evil Dead. Yeah, there's gotta be something there for Ash, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:05

Like, oh, history? Some kind of history lesson. You know, he he travels around. He's seen some shit, you know. Maybe just, you know, specifically focusing on the dark ages. Shop smart.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:17

I feel like the mom from Evil Dead Rise could do some kind of like contortions class.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:23

A yoga class.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

There you go. Sure. That's a simpler way to say that.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

The two things are the same.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:31

Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:33

Sam Ash would be a cool janitor. Yeah, that's true. Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

I'm excited to see what the other ideas these folks have in the chat. Arts and crafts with art. I feel like Michael Myers could actually do a really good arts and crafts one. He's always decorating a bitch with some fucking cheats or something. Statistics with the game makers from Cabin in the Woods. Oh, child, that is amazing.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:54

That's a good one. How about uh some sort of physical fitness course with Jason? You know, whether it's swimming or hiking, a diving course with Jason. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Okay, actually, again, another course that Michael Myers could do, a fucking driver's ed course, apparently.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:11

Apparently, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:12

Master driver. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:13

Who would have known?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

What about pen some kind of like penmanship or calligraphy course? I feel like just about any killer is good for that. Maybe Ben and Ben's son will from I know what you did last summer. They always have great handwriting on those cards.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:28

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Nice, clean, concise.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:33

We don't have really anyone to cover the basics, you know. Who's going to be teaching like math? That's what I want to figure out. I think Jigsaw. I guess we covered statistics. Okay, Jigsaw could do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:43

Because we've got writing covered, so we have some language stuff down. We've got okay, we've got math, whether it's from Jigsaw or the dudes from Cabins in Cabin in the Woods. We've got history, we said, covered. We have science, multiple science courses.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

Shout out to Punk Hazard, who just said history would be great for the crypt keeper, which I agree with.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:59

Perfect. Absolutely. A hundred percent. What am I missing out on from most general electives? I feel like there's something I'm missing. English.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

Sorry, you know. The history of kink with the cenobites.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:14

The history of kink. Oh lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:16

Okay, what are the required college courses? Let's see. Gen ed's, natural sciences, mathematics, foreign languages, English, humanities, social sciences, visual and performing arts.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:30

Okay. Well, we covered some of that kind of.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:35

Yeah. We got psychology. I mean, somebody could throw in a sociology somewhere in there. Very easy. Who's got foreign languages though?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:41

We haven't covered that. I was thinking that. Yeah, I'm trying to think of who would be who that would be. Can we just do like Pazuzu, you know? Because he's be throwing out all kinds of languages.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:51

That's perfect. Uh, we've also got communications from the killer in your favorite uh your favorite Christmas movie, Chris.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

Black Christmas. Billy.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:00

Black Christmas. Billy. Billy's got communications down.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

Okay, I'm sorry. Chell in response to the question about foreign language La Yorona. Uh Allie in the chat asks, Jim, we need sports from someone.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

We do.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

Maybe that could be Jason, because you know, Camp Crystal Lake had archery, other things. I'm assuming there's athletics there. He's also an outdoorsman.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:23

Yeah, you know. He can fill in, I'm sure. I feel like Freddie needs some kind of class here. I don't know if it's just just the study of dreams or whatever the fuck that's called, but there's got to be something for Freddie. Early childhood education. There you go. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

No, stop. No, it's terrible. No. Take it back, burn it with fire.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:46

Absolutely fantastic. Well.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

Oh my gosh, Angela Baker for the sports question. Okay. Sleep away camp.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:55

Yeah. That's a good one for sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:58

Perhaps we can take some rudimentary law courses from what's this? I I forget the character's name, but the devil's advocate. We could take them from the devil, you know. So that would be sure. That would be the best. Good old Pacino.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:10

Is that a horror movie?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:11

Sorry, John Milton. John Milton.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

Is that a horror movie? Is that like a thriller, a crime thriller?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:16

It's adjacent. It's adjacent. Oh, you know it. Yeah, it's in it's kind of there. It's not really horror, I guess. I cheated a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:23

Yeah, it's one of those Ryan horror movies or those Binks horror movies, where they're not really horror movies, but they're close enough.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:30

Oh, music class has gotta be the red face demon, man. It's gotta be. That guy is just on it firing on all cylinders.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

Um what would the nun teach? World religion? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:39

Yeah, that's a good one. We said defense against the dark arts, but you know, the girls from the craft have to teach us something.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:45

Sure, yeah. That's a good one for the witchcraft one.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:49

Yeah. Although I definitely want to take some sort of motorsport class from the lost boys.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:54

Oh, that'd be great. Yeah. Interpersonal relationships, motorcycle maintenance. But the real question is, would I be forgiven for my student debt for this university?

SPEAKER_05 1:06:04

There's only one way out. It's the same as the way in real life.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:08

You know. Sadly enough. Oh my gosh, sorry. What the fuck? Do I dare even utter this out loud? I think so.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:15

I just saw it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:16

Courtesy of Nathan. I can't say it with a straight face. Intro to parenting.

unknown 1:06:21

I can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:23

Intro to parenting with the titty woman from barbarian.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:26

With the titty woman from Barbarian.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

Oh my god, but did you see how awful? And how by awful, I mean actually how cool the vinyl is for barbarian.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:36

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:36

It has like a milk bottle on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:39

Man.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

That makes me think of that Family Guy episode where Stewie is sucking on Peter Griffin's breast, like trying to breastfeed, and then pulls a hair out and is horrified. Fuck.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:53

Oh no. That's disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

We should stop here then.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:57

We forgot one. Bas basket weaving from basket case.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:00

Holy shit.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:03

Basket weaving is important for survival.