V/H/S: 10/31/98

We close out our bonus episodes on V/H/S 1, with our discussion on 10/31/98 and a ranking of all the segments. I hope you have enjoyed our bonus episodes this year and look for our commentary track covering Halloween 3 on Halloween!

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Music produced by Joey Prosser. X @mrjoeyprosser

Chapters

• 0:00 Bonus Intro And Pick
• 0:55 Why This Segment Just Works
• 1:32 Dumb Party Boys, MapQuest Nostalgia
• 2:36 How Far Would You Go Inside
• 4:15 Mirror Ghosts And Classic Scares
• 5:45 Radio Silence Origins And Credits
• 8:20 Alternate Ending And Chekhov’s Train
• 9:23 Tape 56 Wraparound Breakdown
• 12:40 Costumes, Setup, And The Wrong House
• 15:20 First Haunt Beats And Rising Tension
• 18:30 The Attic Chant And Exorcism Twist
• 21:40 House Turns Against Them

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of We Recommend a movie podcast where every week we recommend a movie for you to watch and then come back here and listen to us discuss. I'm Jesse. I'm Jason. Cast You Down. Alright, oh Lord! Cast You Down. Because this week we recommend VHS 1030 segment 103198. Yay! This one's fun. This one's so fucking fun. It's fucking great. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

And all the fans. All the guys are kind of dressed as heroes a little bit. He's a kind of bear. Oh, one was a unibomber. My bad. Yeah, that's a hero. Hero to some, maybe not to all.

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 0:48

Uh so this one rolls. It's just like guys go house, houses haunted. Uh there's some bad CG, but I don't care. Yeah.

unknown: 0:57

It's fun.

SPEAKER_01: 0:58

The hands coming out of the little walls.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00

I didn't expect it. It was a great one to end on because it's like this was just pure fun. Um, but yeah, I just love like fun, haunted house shorts, you know. Like, not like actual shorts, but you know, like uh films.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13

There were even though they weren't me and boys, they were dumb.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16

Yeah, yeah, they were dumb. You know, they're drinking, dumb. Like, who knows what would happen if there were girls at that party.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22

Hey, no, you go to a house and there's nobody home. You're like very dumb. Maybe I got the wrong address. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:32

It's fun to seeing them using a map because they don't have phones. It is good. I like that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37

Fucking pirates. Yeah. You remember that shit? Like map quest?

SPEAKER_02: 1:40

Yeah. God damn. You have to like print out. That's how me and Richard, anytime we like travel to go like WrestleMania's and stuff, like we'd have map quests. That's how we got around.

SPEAKER_01: 1:51

Yeah. Um, how far into the house would you walk? I don't know. I guess I'd open the door, not hear music. Anybody here? Yeah. Okay. Let's go back and let's double check our memory.

SPEAKER_02: 2:07

And they, you know, they try to explain it off by being like, oh, maybe this is like a haunted attraction type. And then once you get upstairs, that'll be all the people. But it's just like I mean, that's kind of what happened. Yeah. I don't know. They're just like drunk and wanting to party, and they're like, whatever we gotta do. The door is open, I guess. This is supposed to be the address.

SPEAKER_01: 2:25

Um let's just keep poking around until we find our friends.

SPEAKER_02: 2:29

And then, you know, like halfway through, they're like, oh shit, these men are doing some of this woman. And they run downstairs, like, just keep running. Call the cops, dudes. What are y'all doing? But yeah, I just love the hands, man. I love like the way they do the ghost. It's kind of classic ghost shit where it's like you see it in the mirror, and then you turn your head and you see it, oh, it's not there. And then you look back in the mirror and the ghost isn't there. It's I love that stuff. It's been they've been doing it for decades and it still gets me.

SPEAKER_01: 2:56

I like how they went to the attic and they were kind of getting into the chanting. Because like you're a good chant, you gotta take part.

SPEAKER_02: 3:02

Yeah, and they're like, oh, this is part of the attraction. All right, oh Lord! Oh shit. And they turn around, it's like, what the hell are you guys doing here? You're not supposed to be here. Hey, this is a classic exorcism. You're not supposed to be here. Um, hey, have you ever heard of a group called um Radio Silence? Don't think so. So, Scream. The new ones? Yeah, like the two most recent ones, they're directed by these guys. Oh. Yeah. So they did the legacy reboots to them. It's uh Matt Bettanili Oakland, Tyler Gillette, Justin Martinez, and Chad Villela. Uh some weird names though. Um cancel them. And until I started doing notes for this, I did not realize that I've been watching them for 17 years. Damn. Because I heard so they before they were performing Radio Silence is what they called themselves. The group worked together as Chad, Matt, and Rob, known for their series of interactive adventures and roommate Alien Prank Goes Bad. Classic, dude. So it's this great thing. Um, because this they were doing this when I was in high school. So it's like, yeah, 17 years ago. Oh man, and I remember watching this with like uh my girlfriend in high school, because we like I like to, she got really scared easily, and I loved watching scary videos on YouTube. And I remember watching this because I went back and I looked it up and I clicked, I was like, oh shit, I remember this. That's cool. You should watch it. It's funny because it's like two guys, it's classic prank videos, like, we're gonna prank our friend who's sleeping in the other room. We're dressed as aliens. They go in, they scare her. We're gonna pour a bunch of nails on him, and they do it a couple times, and the last time they do it, they uh they there's a lot of lights, and they go in and there's this fake alien there and like moving and looking around, and then at the end, like one of the guys just beats the shit out of this toy alien. And it's so funny. And I was like, I've been watching their videos for a while. I was like, oh man, they made YouTube videos and then became famous directors.

SPEAKER_01: 5:03

Makes you want to make me wish I would have started making videos a long time ago. Me fucking too.

SPEAKER_02: 5:08

Because, dude, I I could easily do some prank videos, but now it's oversaturated and you can't get famous everything more unless you make something really new and then you hurt somebody for real. Yeah, and but then at that point everybody's just watching Minecraft videos anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 5:20

So fortunately, yeah, you gotta have Minecraft playing next to the real video. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:25

Um, and one more fact about this, uh so this segment has an alternate ending where the guys cheat death by escaping from the car. Uh I guess you can see the uh see it available if you have the VHS or the DVD of it. Um, but I'm kind of glad they got ran over. Even though they they didn't seem like bad boys. That was a cool ending. Yeah, but like, I mean they set up the train. Check off the train.

SPEAKER_01: 5:48

Oh. They set it up from earlier. The fucking guy. He's got his hand in everything.

SPEAKER_02: 5:54

Yeah. And uh um, but yeah, I think that's about all I have for this. Uh let's just hop into it. And of course, this is the end of the conclusion of tape 56. Um, which uh ends on a whimper, in my opinion. So tape 56 continued. Back to the VCR room where the guy watching and the old man are gone. A guy looking for his friends comes back to find an empty room. He picks up one of the cameras and hears noises downstairs. He goes to check it out and finds one of the friends' heads cut off. Yeah, how'd that happen? Wait, no, never mind. This actually is kind of fun. Because then he turns and sees that there's a head on the ground. It's like, ah, I thought this was a prank. Now this is his actual head. Um the guy's supposed to be a zombie or something. I don't know, man. That's what's kind of frustrating about it. It's like all this, and we don't know anything. You made me watch all this. We could have just done segment, segment, segment, and it'd been an hour and 30-minute movie, and it'd been great. But then he turns to see the old man in the doorway. He runs away but falls down the stairs, and the old man follows him and kills him. In the VCR room, we hear a tape being loaded, but no one there to load it, which I did like that element. That is like it continues no matter what. There's constantly tapes being watched. That's fucking cool. Yeah. Um, but yeah, when the old man, I was like, oh, he just got attacked by this. Is this man just sleeping?

SPEAKER_01: 7:06

Yeah, they didn't check. Is that what this was? I could just move. I mean, they're not doctors.

SPEAKER_02: 7:11

He didn't look specifically like anything, he just looked like an old man.

SPEAKER_01: 7:14

Yeah, he's just maybe not breathing very heavily.

SPEAKER_02: 7:17

I mean, just like I guess this was his way of killing people. I don't know. Maybe watch too many tapes when psycho.

SPEAKER_00: 7:23

It happens.

SPEAKER_02: 7:24

Yeah, all these bad boys died. Thank God.

SPEAKER_01: 7:26

Yeah, they deserved.

SPEAKER_02: 7:27

They needed to get out of this planet. Now, on to the finale. 103198. So we meet some guys grilling in a park. Just some boys being some boys grilling some wieners with some styrofoam plates. Oh man. Um, so then it cuts to Chad, Matt, Tyler, and Paul. They're dressed in Halloween costumes as a unibomber, a pirate, a nanny cam, and a marine, respectively.

SPEAKER_01: 7:51

I did not get unibomber. Yeah. Well, he says it. Oh, okay. I just missed that completely. Um because like one's a soldier, one's a pirate.

SPEAKER_02: 7:59

Yeah. And uh the guy who's dressed as the nanny cam, which is the camera we're following the whole time. Great idea to make to have a reason to film. Um and so, yeah, and then we he we cut to him, he's getting ready, and then you got like a dick friend who's like, This is all coming down as soon as he hits 12 o'clock. It's like, have fun, it's Halloween. What the hell? Everybody likes Halloween. It's like the thing. Halloween rules. Um, and then like his friends, they come pick him up, they're having fun. Uh, they're gonna head out to a Halloween party at a stranger's house. They have to cross a train track. Check off train. Uh they seem to be getting lost using a map. Um, it's like classic.

SPEAKER_01: 8:37

But also like crossing the tracks is like the wrong side of the tracks. Ooh. It's like a separation. The demon side of the tracks.

SPEAKER_02: 8:47

Devil train. Um, but yeah, I think it's funny. Like, oh, we're all having a good time. We're going to this party. Can you guys stop? I like their song. I gotta look, I gotta look at my little yeah, it was a good song. I gotta look at my little map. Just seeing the unibomber look at his map. Um, so they make it to the house. They think they found it, but soon find the house deserted. They get in through the back and think that the house is actually a haunted attraction. As they search around, the camera comes from Tyler's nanny cam in his bear costume and shows distorted visions of a ghost woman on the stairwell. Right? Love it. I immediately was like, I'm in. Uh the other three friends come from another rooming saying they could see hands coming out of the walls. And they're like, Whoa, what a cool attraction. So they're thinking, like, oh, it is a haunted attraction now. They saw the hands come out thinking. I didn't think the hands come out yet. I must have mistaken. Well, they were in the separate room with the guy with the camera, so we didn't see it. We just saw the ghost in the stairwell. But he didn't see that because it's only on the camera. Right. Yeah. Fun. Great start. That's bad. So the friends continue through the house. Tyler separates from the friends again and goes into a room. He sees a ghost in the mirror, and turns and looks at where the ghost was outside of the mirror, and then turns back, and the ghost is gone. He then gets locked in the room and the lights go out, but ends up getting out.

SPEAKER_01: 10:02

I was like, that's when you're like, you know, I don't know this house. Maybe we'll check the next house next door. We could have got the house number on.

SPEAKER_02: 10:12

So you guys hang out. I'm going to sit in the car.

SPEAKER_01: 10:17

Obviously, no one else is here.

SPEAKER_02: 10:19

Yeah. So then the group hear loud chanting from the attic and interrupt a group of people seemingly assaulting a bound young woman. They think it is a joke at first, but soon realize the truth when the leader assaults a woman violently, and then the cult members are pulled to the ceiling. This is great. And they kind of like disappear into the shadow of it. It's fucking awesome. Yeah, they're like chanting and they're on the thing, like, Yeah. Oh, Lord, cast them out. It's fun. And so, yeah, when the guys start getting pulled just to the ceiling, they're like, We're gonna run away now. So the guys get downstairs, but as soon as they get there, they decide to return and rescue the girl, not realizing they are interrupting an exorcism. Good guys, it's gonna go bad.

SPEAKER_01: 11:01

Okay. She was getting exercised. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. I thought that they were just gonna kill her.

SPEAKER_02: 11:07

Nope. So they run in and get attacked by the two surviving cult members. They fight them off and get the girl as we see a hand come up from the floor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:17

It's doing like the devil horns like so.

SPEAKER_02: 11:23

They try to get out of the house with the girl. As they run, we see uh doors, doors kind of flying around them in rooms, birds flying through, hand prints on the wall.

SPEAKER_01: 11:32

Things that fly, things that don't fly.

SPEAKER_02: 11:34

Yeah, and then when they make it to the front door, the door slowly just like the window goes away, the uh the handle goes away, and it's becoming a wall slowly. And I was like, um, they try to find an exit, but door knob, the like one of the doors, like back doors, like the knob sucks into the door, and it's great. And then you see pots and plans flying at them, and it all looks CG and you can tell it's not real, but it's fun and it's a great idea. It's low budget, it's great. Um, they exit through the basement in time before the hands can grab them and get into the car and drive off, and the car eventually stalls, though. Suddenly, the woman she disappears and reappears beside the window as a demon-like figure, then appears in front of the car and then walks away. The car starts to move by itself. The friends witness the woman leave into the night and they realize that their car is on the train tracks, that the doors are sealed shut. They attempt to break the windows as they see a train approaching. Final video ends as the friends are killed by an oncoming train. The finale of VHS. Great! Loved it, amazing, fun.

SPEAKER_01: 12:43

Yeah, that was my favorite one.

SPEAKER_02: 12:44

Yeah, really? That was your favorite? Yeah. It's just, I don't know, just it's like being in a haunted attraction. And it gives you that feeling of that when you go yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 12:54

And it's like, ooh, fun, scary.

SPEAKER_02: 12:57

Because even like the parts of the beginning where they're going through a house, and like, you know, when you usually start a haunted attraction, there's only like there's like a couple little scares at the beginning, but you're it's unnerving because you're walking in a place you don't know. And it's like something here could kill me. It kind of gives me even the beginning kind of gives me that feeling, especially once you see the ghost girl, it's like oh no, there's danger afoot. Of course. But yeah, uh, these guys are I feel like these guys are really talented. Um, they did a movie called Ready or Not. Um that's awesome. I haven't seen it. You should watch it. I think it's on like Max right now or something. It's just fun, it's not really it's not scary. It's just um girl gets married, hangs out with a guy's family, uh, and some stuff happens, man. To this girl. And it's uh it's very fun. It's got a great ending. Family stuff. Great ending. Okay. Great ending. Uh now let's just say one person's running around, a group of people chasing. Oh really great. Um, yeah, I love this. Um 10 out of 10, short for me. So now that we have concluded all the bonus episodes, Jason, I believe it's time to rank these one through six. You have amateur night, second honeymoon, Tuesday the seventeenth, strange things that happened to Emily when she was younger, 103198, and tape 56. So let's start with our number six. Okay. Okay. Um my number six, I put Tuesday the 17th. The Glitch Man. The Glitchman. Um it just, you know.

unknown: 14:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 14:32

Cool idea, just the things around it just didn't fully work. Um the deaths were great though.

SPEAKER_01: 14:37

The deaths were great. I think I'm gonna I'm gonna bump uh Tuesday up to number five, but my six would would be the sick thing that happened to Emily when she was younger.

SPEAKER_02: 14:49

Yeah. Um the strange thing that happened to Emily. Oh, right. So um I've my number five was Tate 56, the wraparound thing. Oh, yeah. That was my least favorite. Would you put that last? Or that was my second to least favorite.

SPEAKER_00: 15:02

Okay. Uh that that's gonna be my number. That will be Oh, don't ruin it. My number five.

SPEAKER_02: 15:12

So your number five is Tape 56 along with me.

SPEAKER_01: 15:16

It would also be Tape 56, but I did I did enjoy it.

SPEAKER_02: 15:19

I did like it's just like a cool, I don't know, is it's like a palette cleanser between segments. Yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: 15:27

And there was still weird shit going on, yeah. And it was still kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02: 15:31

I it it's it is bumped above Tuesday the 17th for me just because of the basement scene. Like, I thought the basement scene, and then you know, like the fun parts where it's like because even while watching the segments, you're gonna be like, is the old man gonna be there? Is someone gonna be like on the other side of the screen whenever it cuts back to it? Um, which left a little bit of like tension.

SPEAKER_01: 15:50

The first part of just I hated these guys. Yeah, I know. I mean, I guess that's what you're supposed to do.

SPEAKER_02: 15:54

Yeah, you're supposed to hate them.

SPEAKER_01: 15:56

They're shitty voice. They could have been shitty without and they didn't have to assault what I know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02: 16:02

But I think it, you know, they're just kind of playing off the probably the things. Where are their parents? Yeah. Well, they're adults now. Their parents were allowing them to watch Comedy Central past 3 p.m. Oh no. 3 a.m. That's what happened. Um, my number four is Strange Things That Happened to Emily when she was younger. Um you know, it's just uh it's not terrible, it's not great. It's just it was about middle for me.

SPEAKER_00: 16:26

Okay. I'm I'm I'm backing up. All right, your six was strange things that happened to Emily.

SPEAKER_01: 16:33

Yes. Your five was tape fifty six. Four is Tuesday. Tuesday, okay. Yes. Alright, yeah. Because I like the I like the glitchy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:44

Yeah. You are a glitchy man. So for my number three, I put second honeymoon. I thought that like the realism of it was great, and I thought it was really fun. Just, you know, kind of gave me the hippie jeepies. So you have amateur night, 103198 left, and second honeymoon left. So what is your number three?

SPEAKER_00: 17:04

Yeah, I think mine's gonna be uh second honeymoon. Yeah. I mean, uh I think it's I didn't think it was as scary.

SPEAKER_02: 17:13

Um there's just something it feels wrong watching it. True. Which is kind of what I like about it.

SPEAKER_01: 17:21

So you the I didn't when I was doing my rankings, I didn't include tape 56 like the wraparound version. Yeah. And and part of these. So that kind of threw everything off for me. I made them the same as yours, sort of. Oh, that's fine.

SPEAKER_02: 17:36

We could I mean that just goes to show that like I mean, the good ones are the good ones and the bad ones are the bad ones. Or the ones that we like the least are the the ones that disarn as well done. Yeah. So for my number two, this was tough. It's between amateur night or 1031 98. But I put 1098 as my second, my number two. It's really fun, it's really great, but 1031? Yeah. That the creature in amateur night is was I just it was it was it's good. I like it.

SPEAKER_01: 18:06

It's great. Now I think my number two would be amateur night. Amateur night, yeah. I I really love the succubus and and the ball ripping. Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah, it's great. Well, it's just And the flying off in the night.

SPEAKER_02: 18:19

It was just sweet. I'm always I'm a sucker for creatures, man. I'm always been a sucker. Like you put a creature in a movie, I'm like, I'm invested. We'll let me see it. So yeah, and my number one is amateur night, and yours is 1098.

SPEAKER_01: 18:32

10 yeah, 1038.

SPEAKER_02: 18:33

3198.

SPEAKER_01: 18:34

I I just I love the idea that they finally got some guys that weren't such pieces of shit.

SPEAKER_02: 18:40

It was, it was, it was nice. You it kind of ended the movie on a happy note.

SPEAKER_01: 18:44

Yeah, a little bit.

SPEAKER_02: 18:46

Even though, like, you know, they died, but you know, someone's gotta die. But at least they try. Might as well be them.

unknown: 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:52

And then the guy brought a real ass sword as part of his costume.

SPEAKER_02: 18:55

Love that shit. I remember I when you're I dressed as a cowboy for Halloween and we had these replica, uh, they had the firing pins out of it, but like I took them to the uh party and people were like, Are you sure those aren't real guns? I was like, Yeah. I was doing like the flips and my pocket husbands.

SPEAKER_01: 19:13

Yeah, he's like, it won't go off. Playing Russian roulette.

SPEAKER_02: 19:18

But I was like, they were just like, I don't know, man. I think that's a real gun. I was like, there's no place to put bullets. Oh, there wasn't. Okay. Like, how are you expecting me to shoot this gun when no bullets got little caps in it? Well, it's just like it was just kind of like they're kind of filled with metal where the bullets were good. So I was just like it is not when I went out, you know, we went out like adult trick-or-treating. Well, we're I think I was still in high school, so we weren't adults yet. That's a pretty good prop, though. We went uh trick-or-treating and people are like, You're not bringing that, are you? It's like, no, that's why I have the pop gun in my other holster.

SPEAKER_01: 19:48

Give me your candy, motherfucker. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 19:51

Full bars this time. Um well, guys, I hope y'all enjoyed listening to us over the past five weeks discuss VHS one. Join us next year when we do VHS two.

SPEAKER_01: 20:08

Boy, they're wild and crazy shit.

SPEAKER_02: 20:11

Other than like maybe one of them, they're all bangers. Hell yeah. VHS two is probably my favorite still. Um, that are 19. I can't believe I've never heard of these. You've never seen any of the VHS? Hey, watch VHS 2. Skip VHS viral. They're all meh. I mean, there's a lot of good directors that did them. It's just, I don't know, they don't work. I love an empathy. Background sucks. Um, VHS 94 with the rat god. What? Oh, I love that. I can't wait for that. Um, and 99's alright. Uh, they did one that's the 80s, like 1984, and it was fine. Um, there was a little on 1984. No, it's just like the all the films are from 1984. Um, and then the most recent one was VHS uh Beyond or something like that. Really good. Cool. Uh Justin Long directed a nice segment of that, and you'll easily guess which one he did based on some previous movies he made. Oh, yeah, I'm excited to watch these. Yeah, um, just you can skip viral. Uh you can just wait till we do it on the pod. I may skip it just because I want to get to some of the better ones. Um, but yeah, that is our discussion on the VHS segments. Uh, I hope you enjoy this bonus episode. We have one more bonus episode for you, and that's gonna be our commentary on Halloween 3. Yeah, I can't wait. Yeah, you've never seen it. There's no Michael Myers. Well, thanks guys.

SPEAKER_00: 21:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 21:40

Okay. It's about masks and uh, you know, just the mask with Jim Carrey? People making masks and uh, you know, just uh exploiting Halloween is bastards. Um, so yeah, join us next week for Halloween three. Um, thank you for listening. Uh, if you enjoyed these bonuses, let us know. Tell us, like, hey, I love this. Keep doing it every Halloween. And you know what? Even if you don't like it, I enjoyed this. So I'm gonna keep doing it. Um, leave us some reviews, follow us, like us. Uh, thank you, Joey Prosser, for our intro and outro music. Um, this has been the We Recommend Podcast. I'm Jesse.

SPEAKER_01: 22:16

I'm Jason. See you next year.

SPEAKER_02: 22:18

Bye. Happy Halloween.