SlashBack Cinema
Technically a horror podcast. Actually, a time machine. Remember the video store horror section? The sleepover dares? The practical effects that grossed us out? SlashBack Cinema is two Gen X dads going back — humor, nostalgia, trivia, and the scenes, memories, and VHS-era oddities that made them unforgettable
SlashBack Cinema
Hack-O-Lantern (1988) When a Pumpkin-Obsessed Grandpa Runs a Satanic Cult
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Get ready for Hack-O-Lantern (1988) A schlocky, satanic, headbanging mess packed with awkward family moments, cheap cult rituals, and enough bad acting to fill a pumpkin patch. It’s Halloween horror at its most wonderfully awful. Shanny and Ryan ask the question - How did this ever get made?
It's Halloween every day here on slash back cinema, but today, things are getting a little extra satanic.
Shanny Luft:That's right, we're talking hack o lantern, the 1988 Heavy Metal harflic that asks, What if grandpa was a Satanist, and also, really in a pumpkin carving.
Ryan Dreimiller:We're talking sex Satan and some seriously questionable special effects.
Shanny Luft:So put on your devil mask and join us by the flickering light of the jack o lantern. This is slash back cinema.
Ryan Dreimiller:All right, oh, my God. Well, Shanny, we're about a year into this thing.
Shanny Luft:No, actually, we're exactly a year. We started right around Halloween. So we have, like, our one
Ryan Dreimiller:year in, wow, yeah, we should be having, you know, a birthday cake or maybe carving some pumpkins to celebrate the moment. But, huh, here we are. You're a year later. Any deep reflections on what we've created
Shanny Luft:over the last year? It's funny, you asked that, because one of my reflections is I definitely thought we'd be watching a lot more movies like hack o lantern. And in fact, we there. There are a lot of really good horror movies that came out in the 70s and 80s, and so I feel like we've split our time between, like, good ones and crappy ones. But even the crappy ones weren't as crappy as this. This movie is like a whole new level of suck,
Ryan Dreimiller:you know. But I do feel like there, there's a certain joy and entertainment factor that comes out of these really horrible films. And I was thinking about, like, why I like it so much, and it just fits right in with the hard comedy stuff, which we love, which these maybe weren't meant to be funny, but they're so fucking funny that less they're just a joy in their own right, although you really have to, like, break them out into different buckets. There's, you know, hard comedy is intentional B movies, and then, like, a C movie, like this, that maybe was trying to be something else that it wasn't. But, you know, kind of like uninvited, like fail so spectacularly, there's true moments of comedy, but likely not intended by the director. Yeah, I feel like people who
Shanny Luft:listen to this podcast will understand the expression straight to video, because this or direct to video, because this movie is the directest to video movie we may have ever seen. I don't know if this actually got a cinematic release. Do you know anything about it? I never even heard of it before. You recommend it?
Ryan Dreimiller:I think it was direct to video. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know that there's any way this this movie made to the theaters, but, you know, maybe it's ready for a re release.
Shanny Luft:I'm surprised that it hasn't. When you go online and look up hack o lantern. There's some people who love this movie, and there's been a, I noticed, a promised 4k release of the DVD or Blu Ray. It still hasn't come out, and it's been a year, but people like are excited to get, like, a really high quality edit of this film. Meanwhile, for now, you could just go on to be and watch it for free, if you will, just partake of the advertisements, which is what we both did.
Ryan Dreimiller:Hats off to Tubi. They really are going deep with their catalog. You know, I think right now they're probably runner up to eternal family, which I feel like we need to go deeper into their catalog, because every time they serve a preview on Social, I'm just like, oh my god, we got to watch this one. Watch this one, right? But to be, if, if you're looking for some weird, obscure B movies that they've really they bought the entire catalog that was produced and in the 80s and the 70s,
Shanny Luft:yes, to be feels like the modern version of direct to video, because if you watch hack o lanterns, or even search for hack o lanterns on to be, you will get 50 suggestions for other movies, and they're all, they all look pretty fantastic. So before we actually get started talking about hack a lantern, I thought we could just do a quick little catch up. I wanted to share with you that there's this movie that just dropped on streaming about kids that all disappear. Oh, weapons, yes. Weapons, yeah. I heard from several people who saw this movie when it came out in theaters, so I never got to see it in the theater, but I've noticed now it's on streaming. I watched the trailer and I thought, holy crap, this movie looks terrifying. So I have not actually seen the movie yet, have you? Did you see weapons
Ryan Dreimiller:now it's on my list. And if you remember when we recorded with weirder the crew, I think Sean had recommended this movie. He loved it, and I've only heard good things about it. So, yeah, I beat down to watch. I mean, shit. I just saw black phone two in the movie theater. And Shanny, you know, I've reached out to you in advance of watching that one, because I was a little scared. But I'm okay. I think we can watch weapons and we'll be okay.
Shanny Luft:Tell me about black phone two. How was that watching in the theater? You know, like,
Ryan Dreimiller:I forgot how fun it is to see a horror movie in a theater. Like, usually go to theater and like, kids are being noisy, everybody's on their phones. Like nobody was on their phones. They were all like, there was like, dead sign. And there's this scene where, like, basically, the one of the lead female protagonists keep hearing this noise, and she's in a cabin by herself. And it's very creepy. They got these red heaters everywhere, and it's like, like, winter time outside, and she keeps hearing the scratching noise, and she, like, is hears it under her bed. She's leaning over under the bed. And then everybody feels like, and then, of course, jump scared. Everybody's like,
Shanny Luft:that sounds really fun. Yeah, it was fun. You see it with your kids?
Ryan Dreimiller:Well, I took Cai and his boys to see it, and it's because the theater is, like, an hour away. Well, I watched it, of course, I didn't sit with them. I sat down in a different section, you know, isolated from the kids. God forbid, you'd be seen with your father. Yeah, it's good, man. I was impressed. And like, it sounds I didn't see the first one, but it sounds like they did some different things in the sequel. That really it was reminding me of Nightmare on Elm Street. Vibes like heavy
Shanny Luft:so you didn't see the first one, no, Ed, but you could still follow it. It didn't matter.
Ryan Dreimiller:You know how it goes. They give you enough of the background that you're like, okay, yeah, this guy was grabbing people and killing them, blah, blah, blah. Like, yeah, and the guy killed him. So, you know, end of the first movie, and here we
Shanny Luft:are, yeah, yeah. So I haven't seen the movie, but you mentioned you were going to see it this weekend, so I watched the trailer, and the only thing I got from it is a black phone rings, and it's one of those old fashioned phones, like from our lives, yeah? And, you know, just the sound of those old phones can be kind of creepy. If you hear them ringing, I feel like, was it Black Christmas? Christmas? Yeah, yes. Also made good use the original black phone. Yeah, yes. Good use of of an old style telephone. You know, October is the time where the best horror movies drop. So we've got, it's, it's, we got quite a bounty. So it's, it seems like it'd be worthwhile just to at least acknowledge what else is out there. And I really wanted to hear how black phone went. I recommend black phone too. It was very good. I like the fact that you're recommending go to see horror movie in a theater, because we watch a lot of these movies. I don't know about you, but I'm watching them like on a laptop in my bed, and it's not quite the one of them I watched on my phone. I think that was my previous Yeah, yes. It was, yes, thank you. It's not the same thing as going to see a horror movie with a bunch of other people getting crap scared at you. So you want to hit me with a hack o lantern overview.
Ryan Dreimiller:Oh, my god, yeah. So this one is from 1988 it's really this bizarre, low budget Halloween Horror, again, set at a specific time, which apparently, you know, we talked about this before in the pod, that a lot of these movies tend to do that. So, happy birthday to me. Everybody's got a birthday. Well, everybody enjoys Halloween. So it's about the satanic cult led by this creepy grandfather who's basically grooming his son or grandson, Tommy, to carry on the family's dark tradition. He's the chosen one, and so you've got a mix of Tommy, angsty teenager who's actually in his 30s, heavy metal music.
Shanny Luft:There's supposed to be, right? He's supposed to be in his 20s. Is that right? Yeah, yeah,
Ryan Dreimiller:for sure, everybody says to be no, like, teenagers, like, but they're all, like, 30 plus years old. You got heavy metal mixed in. You got some devil's horns and a lot of pumpkins and killings and pentagrams. So it's really, this is about as schlocky as it gets in terms of 80s cinema. So that's broad strokes. What's going on? And there's some family tension there as well, with mom and grandpa. And, you know, Grandpa killing mom's husband, you know, typical family drama.
Shanny Luft:Yeah, so it's got the mom has three kids, right? She's got a daughter and then two sons. One son seems like he's gone the he's gone down the dark path. Yeah, he's like, the demonic one. The other one is like the opposite. He's like, become a police officer. And then the daughter, she also seems like the good girl. She's got a friend who is is constantly talking about sex. You realize 30 seconds after you meet her friend that she's gonna die. The friend that talks about sex, just because we all know how these movies go,
Unknown:why are you hiding that dashing young deputy from me? Who me Does he look as good out of his uniform? Oh, I hope this isn't gonna turn into something X rated or illegal. I hope it does.
Shanny Luft:And so if you're horny in a horror movie, you're doomed. You're definitely doomed. But yeah, there's lot. I noticed lots of videos on YouTube talking about this movie like, I'm like, you, I've never heard of it. How did you come to recommend it?
Ryan Dreimiller:I think I saw the trailer. And if you watch the trailer for this movie, it is bonkers, like it was in this I would put it in the same categories as house we saw that trailer like, oh my god, we got we got to watch this. Thinking at the time, there's no way that movie could live up to the trailer that we just saw. But, you know, as we talked about on that house episode, it really exceeded the trailer like that movie was unbelievable. This movie, I don't know that the movie quite lived up to the trailer in the same way that house did.
Shanny Luft:The plot is about like. This, like satanic cult being run by grandpa, and then Grandpa is like, doing this voice. Here's the confusing thing about grandpa and this voice he's doing, it reminded me a lot of Emperor Palpatine, but inexplicably, he had this kind of Louisiana bayou accent. But he's the only character in the movie that seems to be coming from the south. Everyone else is just kind of talking, kind of a Midwestern accent.
Unknown:I have plans, Tommy, you will be a leader. You have taken my husband from me. Your husband came to us. He shouldn't have done that.
Ryan Dreimiller:Yeah, that was perplexing. He also like nothing, like his daughter or his grandkids, like his short, stumpy guy, his the actor's name was high pike.
Shanny Luft:What I want to say about high Pike is he is, I don't feel like he's quite exactly in the same movie that the rest of the cast is now. He has really committed to this crazy voice. And what's really funny to me is one choice would have been, only do the crazy voice when you're doing your satanic rituals, but he just walks around like everybody talks to he's like, Hello, children, like he does this voice at all times to everyone, and everyone else is talking pretty
Ryan Dreimiller:normal in Vera, honey, I must say, you are certainly growing into a very tempting young lady. Yeah, that was his character. Was bizarre. I think the whole time I watched this fellow, I was like, What the hell is the backstory by so many aspects of this movie, including him?
Shanny Luft:Yeah, it starts off where he brings one of his grandchildren a pumpkin, but he's got two other grandchildren. He doesn't bring them crap. And then the kid starts to carve it, and he cuts himself. And so he starts like, sucking on his fingers that are bleeding. And then Mom grabs the pumpkin and smashes it, which seems like an overreaction, like, why is the pumpkin the thing that she's angry about?
Ryan Dreimiller:But young Tommy, in that moment right before mom smashes the pumpkin delivers one of the best lines of this film,
Unknown:Tommy, we have to wash that. But mom, I like the taste of wood. Grandpa says it's good for me, grandpa. Grandpa says it's
Shanny Luft:good for me. There are so many good lines just absolutely bonkers. And there's like the script is wild, but also some of the line readings are really wild. I feel like this is the kind of movie that re watching. It just makes it better and better. It's like a fine wine. You watch it the first time and you're like, well, this movie just sucks. But I feel like upon re watching it, you really start to look forward to some of the crazy things that people are saying and doing.
Ryan Dreimiller:Yeah, it is wild. One of the things coming out of my first watching of this film was I thought to myself, How many times did someone flash the devil horns in this film? Because, yeah, like, I don't know that I've ever seen a horror movie where it shows up so many damn times. So I like looked it up. There was no exact number that came up. But somebody had suggested a drinking game, where every time someone flashes the devil horns, you got to take a shot or drink. What you would be pretty drunk by this you're 10 minutes into this movie.
Shanny Luft:Yeah. Interesting. You say that because I was going to ask you about that. So the devil horns, I thought, is your pointer finger and your pinky, and then the rest of your your fingers have to be closed. But I felt like sometimes his thumb came out a little more. In fact, if you look like on the box, it's it's more like this with his pointer finger and his thumb out. It looks more like he's saying I love you in sign language than he's doing the devil horns. I don't know if Grandpa has got the movement right,
Ryan Dreimiller:or it was high pike being subversive in his role, he was really pushing the envelope the director, you know, maybe he didn't know ASL and he was just the
Shanny Luft:other funny thing is, Grandpa uses, like you said, he uses the devil horn so often he's using them, kind of like they're gonna do the Jedi mind trick on people, like he waves it at people, like he's going to brainwash them. But it never seems to work. So people in the movie are just ignoring the fact that he's constantly waving his devil horns or saying, I love you to whoever he's talking to, and the conversation just continue as he's trying to, like, brainwash his family members.
Ryan Dreimiller:Oh, my god, yeah, we'll get in the scenes. Yeah, pretty amazing.
Shanny Luft:And speaking about the relationship between the characters, I did not look up who wrote this film. However, I feel like the writer was very insecure that the audience would not remember the relationships between every character. There's a huge amount a number of times when the characters just remind each other in the movie what their relationship to each other is like.
Unknown:Not a cop. That's Roger, my normal brother. It's my big brother. Again, I'm your little brother. I'm supposed to bother you. After all, you're my brother. You know Amanda, the problem. Is he's your father. Is this guy bothering you? Vera, oh, no, Brian, this is my grandfather. Would you learn how to talk nicely to your sister? At
Ryan Dreimiller:its heart was all about family. Because, like that final scene, it's mom and her son Tommy, reconciling their satanic differences, and, you know, coming together in the end.
Shanny Luft:It was a beautiful moment, right? Yeah,
Ryan Dreimiller:that director Jag, Mandra, or Mandra, I don't know how you say his last name. I guess he was an Indian director who thought this was his way to cash in on the 80s slasher craze and make some bucks in the US. So he'd made a couple other horror films, but yeah, this one looking his catalog of films he produced. I kept thinking he was like the Indian Jim winorsky who or winorski, who had done shopping mall and Swamp Thing and some of these other ones, similar level of quality, although, you know, Jim might be a little elevated above what, what jag delivered us here with a hack o Lanter.
Shanny Luft:So you want to talk about some favorite scenes.
Ryan Dreimiller:Oh, yeah. I mean, as we kicked it off, and I was playing that, that fine tune for you, you're the devil's son, the music video like that. Was pretty peak in this film. Tommy's in he lives in his basement. He's hanging out, and he like, takes his shirt off, and then he like, puts on his 80s Walkman headphones, and he's looking for cassette tapes, and he like, finds the right one, and he pops it in, he lays down his bed, and then it cuts to this. It goes from that scene to 1980s heavy metal music video.
Shanny Luft:Twice in the movie, there's like a break for entire MTV style music video where they play the entire song, beginning to end. And this is the first time,
Ryan Dreimiller:yeah, we saw that. Oh, shoot. What movie was that that had, don't open till Christmas, that had that whole video cut into it? It was like, oh yeah. It was exactly like that. They were just like, you know, hey, we're, you're watching something else now, but, you know, so he's in the music video. It's this, like, female singer in the front heavy metal, the rocking out heavy riff. And then this, clearly, she's meant to be connected to Satanism in some way. She shows up. She's got multiple arms. She's dancing where, you know, wearing this exotic looking outfit with bones and whatnot. You know, it was going to the next level when she starts shooting laser beams from her eyeball and hits the drummer's cymbal set, and they all change in, the shrunken heads, they cut to the drummer. He's whipping around the shrunken heads. And then next thing you know, the shrunken heads around her neck. It's pretty incredible. That's worth watching. But it ends with poor Tommy. He learns the dark side of being Satan's chosen one with his guitar, gets turned into a pitchfork, and the woman proceeds to chop his head off with the pitchfork and then smile and dance around with his severed head. And then he wakes up pretty amazing stuff
Shanny Luft:all around. Yeah, the movie doesn't do a good job of communicating. He's sleeping now, and this is a dream, or this is a flashback. So while you're watching it, I'd say for 30 seconds a minute, you're like, Wait, what is happening now? Are we in the next scene? Did he go off and is he recording a music video? So I we were pretty lost. I was watching this with my wife and my daughter. Wow. Yeah. What a good fair. We were all like yelling at the movie, like, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and, yeah, it was, it was insane. So that particular scene and that music had a very kind of 80s hard rock kind of thing going on that I thought was pretty entertaining.
Ryan Dreimiller:So I did find out that was an actual band. It was DC. Was it Lacroix and yeah, two albums back in the 80s, like they were trying to make a go of it like that. They that was the actual band that showed up to play, and this was like, going to be their big breakthrough moment. And, well, hack a ladder didn't carry him very far.
Shanny Luft:Unfortunately, yeah, yeah. I feel like they had to be right, because that sounded like a real song. There was no way that this song was written for the movie.
Ryan Dreimiller:It was a pretty good song. I was digging it.
Shanny Luft:Yeah, reminded me a little bit of like a model. Yes, exactly. I was gonna ask you, wow, that sounds a lot like shadow the devil, yeah. So we were talking about favorite scenes. So you're saying that that music video, is that one of your
Ryan Dreimiller:favorite scenes? I'm laying that down as one of my favorite scenes. Yeah. What do you got?
Shanny Luft:Man, I feel like the Halloween party. The movie is like building up to this Halloween party, and it's like a party for the whole town. The whole town seems to be like this one fire hall or something. And so you see, just like everyone you've seen in the movie, plus about 100 extras just kind of hanging around with, you know, like, kind of like red solo cups are just kind of standing there. But this Halloween party is the craziest party in the world. Like you said, there's a stripper, there's a stand up. Median, who goes outside to entertain people in line. And then there's a belly dancer with a snake dancing at the party. It's just crazy. And of course, there's also, like, the killer is there wearing, like, what is clearly like a store bought Halloween rubber mask going around, stabbing people. That whole Halloween party was great. There's a woman who's, like, kind of hitting on the young son the police officer. She goes into the bathroom, I guess, to get herself ready to seduce the police officer guy, and then the killer comes up behind her, and she asks him to, like, tie her corset tight, but he ties it too tight, just kind of like a warning for viewers, don't tie these things too tight, because she passes out from how tight the corset is, and then he stabs her. And so she's a character we've never seen before in the movie, and she dies. And then a second death happens at the Halloween party. Grandpa dies at the Halloween party.
Ryan Dreimiller:What an epic battle of it looked like wooden sword and pitchfork.
Shanny Luft:Yes, kind of an Errol Flynn like fight on a staircase. His eyes pop up in a startling way, and then he touches the younger son, the police officer, and he says something about the blood transfer through the blood. I didn't write down the line about how
Ryan Dreimiller:the or is in the blood or something. Yeah, Luft out the devil horns on his forehead. Yes, you see the like beam of light show up on
Shanny Luft:there was so much anxiety about Satan in the 1980s I feel like this movie should have eased some people's anxiety, because these Satanists are, like the least frightening Satanists you've ever seen in your life. They do a pentagram on the floor and light a candle, but they also kind of do, like a little dance around the pentagram.
Ryan Dreimiller:And they're wearing these robes that I kept thinking Reese's Pieces like, I don't know, like it was, maybe as the color of the robe and the lighting, but they looked like, like, Halloween candy come to life, basically like, it felt like they really, like, got all the pieces. But the way they filmed it, it was, yeah, it sort of drained any Yeah, any anxiety out of the parents mind. If they watch this, they've been like, Oh, this is what the satanists do. They're like, never mind.
Shanny Luft:Doesn't seem that bad. Do you have any favorite deaths or anything else that stands out
Ryan Dreimiller:to you? There's just all these, like, little nuggets and just moments of silliness, things that were making me laugh. I mean, that comedian who was, I looked him up, his name was like, Wild Bill of Bill Tucker, and you're right, he just does this whole stand up bit outside that is just so weird and bad, like the jokes he was doing. Yes, he had this whole bit about a turkey being in the wrong place the wrong time, like around Thanksgiving, and they proceeds to imitate a turkey, which you ever been
Unknown:at the wrong place at the wrong time, you know, like a turkey three days before Thanksgiving in the woods. He's scared. He just got away. He's a pet. He doesn't know what's going on. He looks at the hunters.
Ryan Dreimiller:So many head scratching moments in this film where who made the choice to do this, and then is no one watching what they've filmed. And they're like, yeah, it's good. Let's just roll Yeah.
Shanny Luft:The impression I got from this movie is he filmed it and he just threw in random things that he ran into on that day, like that comedian was playing that night in that town, and he was like, Hey, you want to do like, a bit in the movie, and then that band gets to sing their one song. And there's, like, a couple of examples of that, like, there's a stripper who I just felt sure is an actual stripper they hired. And then, like, the belly dancer dancing with a snake, they just come across as people who do this for a living. And he just filmed them and found a way to stick them in his movie because they make no sense in the context of the movie. These aren't like characters that you run into, and he just kind of packs them all into the Halloween party.
Ryan Dreimiller:Also, just not to say I was expecting a tight plot, but like in the first few minutes of the film, you know, grandpa's come by. We talked about grandpa meeting up with Tommy there in the beginning and giving him the pumpkin and his own special pentagram, because he's the chosen one. And then, you know the dad? Tommy's dad says to the wife, well, you can't keep your dad in line. I'm gonna go talk to him. He goes over there to talk to grandpa, and grandpa proceeds to kill him. His friend hits him in the head with a hammer, and then they burn his car.
Shanny Luft:Also, that guy's son is a police officer and never is able to solve the murder of his grandfather killing his dad. There's not even much of an investigation there.
Ryan Dreimiller:No, I it sort of is, like the whole film approaches like it wasn't even like a big deal. It's like it is what it is. You know, Grandpa
Shanny Luft:just kills people. The thing that my wife and daughter got a big kick out of is there's a scene with Tommy where he is kind of got. This girlfriend, who you meet her, I think, for the first time, when she is buying liquor, and then she walks at a liquor store, and then you see she's got this very prominent satanic pentagram, like, tattooed on her butt, pretty high up. So she has to wear, like, basically, almost like a bikini bottom. So that you can see the tattoo, my wife and daughter got a big kick out of the fact that several times the tattoo seemed to move around on her butt, and then at one point, there's a scene where she gets out of a pool and the tattoo is unfortunately washed off, and so it's like looking really faded. And you find out later, I feel like kudos to the movie for for giving you a little context for this, that the tattoo is actually they burn that symbol, the pentagram, into converts. Yes, although I do feel like if you burn a symbol into somebody, it doesn't really look like what a tattoo looks like, what in the movie? What it looks like is someone took a black magic marker and trip on your butt.
Ryan Dreimiller:That is what happened. Yeah. Let's not beat around the bush. That's exactly what the director did. It feels like a good time for stabby scores, unless you got some other lore you want to bring up
Shanny Luft:or No, I think that's good. Let's get to our stabby scores.
Ryan Dreimiller:That scores, yeah. So what do you want to go? You want me to go? How do you want to handle this? Why don't you go first?
Shanny Luft:I'm very curious. You recommended this movie. You? I know you're a fan of heavy metal music in the 80s. We're going to come back to that in a moment. I'm very curious, like, what you thought of this whole movie and what the experience was
Ryan Dreimiller:like for you. Yeah, yeah. Similar to many films we've watched, we talked about at the beginning of this episode, you really got to like review a movie within the context of what the movie is like. If I was to compare this movie The Black phone too? I don't even know that I could honestly like give this any stabbies, yes, but when you you start to appreciate it for what it is, which is pure ease, straight to video, the straightest to video ever. Like, I think someone actually died from the video hitting them on its own. This is, like a one stabby movie, but like, there was so many move moments that made me just laugh. And I really did enjoy it that I'm gonna, I'm gonna deliver three stabs for the for this film, yeah, yeah. It is, it is garbage, but it is enjoyable garbage, yeah, yeah.
Shanny Luft:Yeah. I it just gotten really hard with the stabby scores to know what to do with these movies that are definitely terrible but also very enjoyable. I would watch this movie again. I might consider watching it every Halloween.
Ryan Dreimiller:I think we got to do like the drinking game with the devil horns jack for the next watching.
Shanny Luft:I think we'll, I think I'll die of alcohol poisoning. The other thing about this movie is, if someone were to ask me to, like, recommend, like a terrible horror movie, this might be the first one that comes to mind. And, you know, I loved basket case, which is, like, one of the first movies we reviewed. But Basket Case is such, like, a uniquely specialized movie for like, a very small audience is going to appreciate that movie. I feel like, if you are interested in watching a schlocky horror movie, this is the schlockiest horror movie I've ever seen in my life.
Ryan Dreimiller:I feel like, if aliens came down from outer space and they were like, they were like, let me understand what the 1980s and bad horror movies were all about and and what American culture was like at this time. This is the movie I would make them watch. I would, I would say, watch this film. You'll really understand what bad cinema from the 1980s is and all the cliches that were part of that culture. It does. And maybe that was like a piece of this director, being from another country, coming here and being like, this is what I think America is about. Like, I don't know when he came to the US, but yeah, it did kind of it feel like it checked all the boxes. We've got our heavy metal we've got our Satanists, but we've got incest teenagers Gone Wild. Like, yeah, that's a good way.
Shanny Luft:I really like that insight. It does feel like it's the 1980s filtered through an outsider, like an immigrant who came to this country and reflected back to us who we are. And so because of that, I'm very opposed to three as a stabby score. As you know, I've talked about this before, because I hate the middle, middle of the road. I feel like, then, what are we really telling our audience? And so many movies will end up middle of the road. So because this movie achieves what it set out to be, which is straight to video suckitude. I'm giving this four stabbies, because I feel like, if you're gonna watch it, you and I both agreed we would watch this movie again. And just the fact that if I'm giving a movie one, two or three stabbies, I'm not sure I would actually go back and watch it, but on a scale of one to five, I'm giving this a four because I you watched it twice within like, a week, and you get new things out of it each time
Ryan Dreimiller:you really do. I like discovering the laser beam from the dancer, turning the symbols into struggle. And heads like that's a detail you don't really catch in the first watching.
Shanny Luft:So right, right, there stops going on. Yeah. This is a four stabbing movie. I recommended. If you wanted a schlocky, crappy movie, you had hit pay dirt with a hack o lantern. This is also, I want to acknowledge the fact that this is yet another movie where the title is completely irrelevant. It's like, they definitely came up with the title and the whoever came with the title did not see this movie. We've seen a couple of movies, shopping mall.
Ryan Dreimiller:Like, exactly, like, it's got a great name, it's got a great logo, like, hack o lantern, the poster arts, fantastic. Yes, it was also known as Halloween night, which is a terrible name, but hack o lantern, but that's like, that's great. A right there. Like, you know,
Shanny Luft:yes, the movie, uninvited, also had that quality of somebody just thought up the name at the production company. It has nothing to do with the movie at all. I mean, I guess there are Jack O' Lanterns in the movie, but they seem to be like, irrelevant to the story, and just worked into it, because you're supposed to know that the movie took place at Halloween. So I want to acknowledge the fact that this is yet another very poorly named movie, which, in and of itself might make it hard to remember. But God, this movie is a classic of crap. Highly recommend.
Ryan Dreimiller:I am impressed, man. You know, forced Abby's like, well done. Hey, Ryan, I got a quick question for you. What you got? Shanny, my question to you is, shall we play a game? Oh, is this an anniversary game for here on flashback cinema? I'm ready for it.
Shanny Luft:Yeah. You know, that would have been a great idea if I had gone back and written questions about previous movies. We should really think ahead a little bit. We'll do that in the future.
Ryan Dreimiller:You know what? You could just ask me all the questions I got wrong, and you would see how I've actually learned nothing even though you gave me the correct answer. It'd be like, Yeah, this is Gen X brain in full effect, right here.
Shanny Luft:That's a fantastic idea. No, my questions for this week, I've got five questions for you. All of them are inspired by that band. Whatever the name of that band was, you see, La Croix. What kind of name is that?
Ryan Dreimiller:Apparently, it was like the lead singer, initials for one of the guitarists, and that the lead singer's name. Like very creative. No, there you go. Yeah, Lacroix. She was from, apparently, Quebec, okay, not too far from Vermont, you know.
Shanny Luft:So my questions for you are all inspired by a hard rock, heavy metal of the late 70s and early 80s. Were you a fan of this kind of music? Judas Priest, ACDC mentality,
Ryan Dreimiller:Riot, poison and white snake and striker. Yeah, do
Shanny Luft:tell good job. Just rolling these names out. So I feel like this is the period of time we've talked about this so many times in the podcast where you were kind of like in between your Christian phase and then moving out of that era, but at the same time you've had a lifelong obsession with the demonic and so heavy metal, I couldn't decide if you would be good at answering these questions or not, because you were still a little conservative back in the mid 80s. But also simultaneously, these bands just loved satanic imagery, which also fascinated you. So yeah, yeah.
Ryan Dreimiller:And so this was a brief window before I found my true love of punk rock and probably the misfits, encapsulates everything that you know. They brought the whole horror, yeah, look and feel and thematic to their music, which that I know quite well, this, this heavy metal zone, some of it I know so Right, yeah, some of it stuck with me. I think the one of the first 40 fives I've ever bought was quiet riot. Yeah, okay,
Shanny Luft:all right, that's so then I'm a little more confident about how you'll do here. So here's question number one. There's gonna be five questions, and of course, I'll give you a multiple choice, that you'll have a fair shot.
Ryan Dreimiller:Can I just apologize to all the actual true metal heads out there before I put your whatever is about to happen here? Oh no. I think
Shanny Luft:you should. I think you should walk in with a little confidence. I feel like you have a good shot at this. All right, bring it on. All right. Question number one, what was the name of Guns N Roses, first album. And here are your choices. Number one, use your illusion. Number two, Chinese Democracy. Number three, Appetite for Destruction. And number four, the spaghetti incident. Although number four, I noticed the spaghetti incident has a question mark at the end of it. So I guess it's the spaghetti incident. You know, you have to kind of raise your voice at the end of a question. But so your choice is, what were the names of what was the name of Guns N Roses first album? Use Your Illusion Chinese Democracy, Appetite for Destruction, or the spaghetti incident, right?
Ryan Dreimiller:So I see messing with me trying to throw out all the other album names in here. So, I mean, I'm pretty confident it's Appetite for Destruction, but there could have been some weird EP or kind of like stripped down release, which makes me think spaghetti incident is a possibility, but I'm just gonna go with appetite.
Shanny Luft:Appetite for Destruction is correct. Okay, thank God. Use Your Illusion. I feel like was the one that came out like in their head, right? Yeah. Well, yes, I feel like I know that one because of you. There's Use Your Illusion, one and two. All right, well done. So yeah, one out of five so far. Question number two, what was Metallica's best selling? Single. So you got four choices here. Number one, Master of Puppets. Number two, Enter Sandman. Number three, nothing else matters. And number four, one, like, O, N, E, so what was metallic as a best selling single? This is really like, you have to guess. Like, I'm not expecting you to like, remember how many copies of the single got sold? There's only two songs here I actually recognize, but your choices are Master of Puppets. Enter Sandman. Nothing else matters. And one, I
Ryan Dreimiller:mean, I thought Master of Puppets was actually an album, so I checked that one off the list, although maybe it was a song title. And then one was definitely popular, but that was before they got huge, although that played a ton on MTV. So it's, it's like B and C,
Shanny Luft:so you're between Enter Sandman and nothing else matters. Yeah, I'm gonna say Enter Sandman. Enter Sandman is correct. Yes, that was their single best selling single way to go. Nicely done. She's just punched the mic there in celebration. You got so excited. All right, feeling a little more confident. Got good momentum, Ryan, and it's funny, I recommended this documentary to you, and I even read the
Ryan Dreimiller:book, so I'm very curious how you'll do it. Motley Crue of vibes coming up
Shanny Luft:here, correct? Ryan, who was the member of motley crew who died and came back to life. Your choices are Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki six. One of them died for two minutes and was brought back to life. Do you remember who that was?
Ryan Dreimiller:Probably all of them at one point in time. But I'm gonna go Vince Neil,
Shanny Luft:it was actually Nikki six. Oh, god damn it. So not really a documentary like the documentary about Motley Crue. I think it's told from the point of view of Nikki six. And so, yes, he dies. I think his heart stops from cocaine, and then he wakes up in the hospital, leaves the hospital, and then, just like gets up and wanders away. All right, question number four, so Ryan, there was a band, a hard rock band, that came out with a comic book in 1977 in which they battled Dr doom. And my question for you is, what is the name of that band who released it? Was actually a Marvel comic, obviously, because it's Dr Doom, I don't have to tell you that. You know that already. Here are your four choices, what band had a comic book made about them in 77 which they fought? Dr Doom, your choices are Van Halen, kiss, Judas, priest or Black Sabbath.
Ryan Dreimiller:Oh, my god, wow. I'm gonna have to look this up. But I would say this could be totally wrong, but they were such, I think, brilliant branding and marketing. They were all about theatrics, that I feel like it
Shanny Luft:has to be kiss. It was, in fact, kiss, okay, not only that, but we have to find a way. I know this isn't gonna read on the podcast, but I have to share with you the cover of this comic. Oh, 40 pages of full color comics. This is what it says on the front, plus never before published photos and features. And then check out that last line printed in real kiss blood. I looked this up, and this has been confirmed. A vial of actual blood from members of the band was withdrawn and then added to the red dye used to print the comic. Just you're, as you said, brilliant marketers make me the greatest.
Ryan Dreimiller:So as a kid, I did not like their music at all, but like this. So this is, like, when we were broke, ass broke, it didn't like, go buy records. Like, if I would have said to my mom, buy me this record, she'd be like, nope. She's like, but you can check it off in the library. So I would go to the library and check out all of the kiss records. Really, I remember put putting them on every once in a while, but mostly I just stared at the art and read the liner notes like I thought, the Yeah, the album covers are so incredible. Like they were like, I was I feel like they had TV shows, like they were there. I just thought they were cool. They were like, certainly, like, superheroes. I'm really surprised to hear that your mom let you check out the records. Yeah, nights in Satan service. Like, yeah, what? Yeah.
Shanny Luft:A girl I dated in college liked the music from a bad out of hell, but then she was also religious, and so she wasn't sure when it came out, if she should, she should, like listen to the album or buy it, because, you know, hell was mentioned on it, and it's kind of demonic looking, but yeah, are you familiar with bad out of hell? Do you know who talking about meat Luft, I am if I talking about me, and are you talking about your wife? I am talking about my wife. I married that girl who wasn't sure if she should listen to bad NFL. I don't know if I can tell us during the podcast. I might have to check with her first so question number five, how many copies did AC DC sell of their album Back in Black? Your choices are going to give you. Three options here, because it's just going to be a shot in the dark. Did they sell 10 million copies? Did they sell 25 million copies? Or did they sell 50 million copies of Back in Black, back in the day? Oh, my God.
Ryan Dreimiller:Well, that's a shit ton of albums like any of those numbers. I really want to like swing for the fences with the 50, but 25 feels right, so I'm going 25
Shanny Luft:you're locking in 25 it was 50. They sold 50 million copies. The reason I want to talk about that is ACDC was big. They were not the biggest band of the 80s. So 50 million copies is shocking to put in perspective, like where we are today with album sales, I looked up Taylor Swift's best selling album, which I don't have to tell you, was 1989 and Taylor Swift sold 14 million copies of that album. So ACDC sold three times more copies of back and black than Taylor Swift did of her most successful album. And we're just living in such a different world where, like, album sales are just not what they used to be. People, I guess, just buy singles or they just stream music. But, gosh, back when we were kids, like, album sales were huge. If ACDC was selling 50 million copies of back and black, it makes me think, what was like the number one band in the country? Like, what was it? What was a YouTube selling?
Ryan Dreimiller:Well, I was just pulling this up as you were talking about that. And, yeah, and, yeah, it's like the second best selling album in music history, which is ball first. Like, wow, that's wild.
Shanny Luft:But all right, this was very fun. I enjoyed our trip down memory lane. Oh, what a trip.
Ryan Dreimiller:Good luck editing this thing, although maybe it's a bonus, long rambling episode of
Shanny Luft:shenanigans that wraps up another trip down memory lane. Hopefully you enjoyed visiting or revisiting 1988 hack o lantern as much as we did.
Ryan Dreimiller:And if you want to support the show, like a few of our listeners are already doing, visit slash back cinema.com where you'll find a merch store as well as the link for donating to the show, every little bit helps, and we promise not to spend it all on pumpkins and fun sized candy for the kids, minus the razor blades.
Shanny Luft:And we want to hear from you if you have a favorite memory of the 70s or 80s or a classic horror movie you'd like us to dissect. Drop us a line at slash back cinema.com because your suggestions keep the conversation alive. You you.