EPISODE 11: HOUSE

Introducing Kim & Em's forgotten movie GEMS! There are certain films in our lives (horror in our case) that burnt their gory glory and dreamlike atmosphere onto our retinas and while they may not be worthy of the critics thumbs up - we love them anyway for how they made us feel. The nostalgia flicks! The unsung underated heros of our formative years. We love these quirky films and one of us gets to choose a favourite weirdo movie from our past to revisit. This week it's Booth's turn and she chooses HOUSE which she remembers renting from the video store time and time again. But is it just a light frothy fun ghoulish 80's horror - or does it go deeper then we all thought. The answer is yes it does - find out in this fun nostalgic trip back in to the world of Steve Miners 1985 (now) cult favourite HOUSE.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Two women countless villains. You have entered Kim and M versus Evil.

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So some extras for all you freaky deekies out there who love ASMR.

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What's that you've got?

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Oh that works.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

What's that you've got there, Em?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

I've got crunchy popcorn. Popcorn in a little old-fashioned box. But apparently ASMR, I think it it on me, it makes this is how it makes me feel. It's like someone's going like Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 0:48

You know it's like slightly annoying. Like, ooh. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Not in a sexy way.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

You said that as if I No, I didn't. I had strange tastes. Anyway, we've got our popcorn because. Can you hear this? Probably. It's horrible, I'm sure. Today, pod I can't say podcast, that's an Adam Buxton thing. We like Adam Buxton.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Um podcats, is that what he says?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

He says, um hello, podcats. We can't take that. Um pod nerds, podgeeks. Anyway, we've got our popcorn because we are doing slightly more of a fun episode here. A bit more of a popcorn horror.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

And cheesy poops.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

That's Cartman. Cartman says cheesy poops. Oh, does he?

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Um, well, at least we're not doing product placement.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

No.

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No what sits here.

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Um generic what sits.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Generic what sits. I'm gonna slowly open it.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Oh, it wasn't very good. It wasn't a good pun. My brother would find this so annoying. He hates the noise of anyone eating, he will tuck and tell you off.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Oh dear, I hope he's not.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

And if if my brother goes, if you go to the cinema with my brother, he's one of those people, if, and I do get it, if someone does that during a film, he looks behind him and goes really obviously. He's like, Can you stop rap?

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Can you stop rustling rappers? I was in a screening once and somebody went shh to you. Not to me, no. Someone else. Someone was having a little talk, but it wasn't that dis I don't know. Anyway, I will shush people that are. Some people have zero tolerance. I mean, they were paid to see a film.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Yeah. You pay to see a film. Um yeah. It felt a little bit It can be too moony. Firm. Anyway, right. On with a pod.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

We've warmed up. Cheesy poof dust. Poof! Poof dust! Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Alright.

unknown 3:08

So then.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yes, it's us against evil, but we also like to shout about it and praise its merits in the movies. And today sees the first of our wildcard movie pods, uh, where one of us gets to play the Joker and pick a film that may not be of Oscar-worthy fame or even remotely intelligent, or even have good reviews in this case. But for some reason, it shook us by the shoulders, it sent tingles down our spines, and it helps cement its place in our own personal horror movie history. It's my turn today, and I have chosen House from uh 1986, I think it is.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Is it six?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Well, I put 1985 here, and then some I think it was one of those things where it's maybe 85 in the States and maybe 86 in the UK. So House. Okay, I know some of you will probably groan, and hopefully some of you may utter a tiny little yay! I love that. Um so we're just gonna be revisiting this less obvious 80s gem and give it some much-needed Kim and M love. Um now I've chosen this simply because it genuinely did spook me a lot when I watched it, but I was only 11. Um, and it brings back happy days for me. And I have since, on the rewatch and researching this, learned a lot more about its deeper elements and its merits and how it works. But um, but Kim, what's your kind of experience or opinion of House?

SPEAKER_02 4:41

I certainly watched it as a very young child around the time it came out. Um I I loved horror. We've talked about this before, both grew up watching horror films as our as our Disney almost. Um, and um I enjoyed it. I'm not sure I fully understood it, but I liked the monsters in it, and I liked the zaniness because there is a zaniness about it. Yeah. Um it is described as a horror comedy, although I think it does lean more into horror than comedy. The the House 2 is more comedic. Anyway, there are comedy elements. Um and it and it yeah, I stand by.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

I said there was quite a lot of comedy when I re-watched it. Well, and then with the funny montages and their use of music. And casting Yeah. No, no, that's it. That's all I was gonna say. Like they had um a mamas and papas tune when they're showing him going slightly mad and things.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Um and casting George Wendt, who uh famously is best known as Norm from Cheers, who is a comedy actor, and he plays that role pretty comedically as well. Um, but there is this underlying really serious PTSD theme that uh that they are exploring and the loss of a child. Yes, um, and a divorce.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

And I don't know about you, but when I watched it, obviously because I I didn't know anything really about I'm talking, you know, I was pretty young, I didn't know anything about the Vietnam War, I didn't give a shit about losing kids or divorces. So none of that none of that kind of um rang any bells to me.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

I I didn't really care about it. Fighting monsters in the house, and I really liked, I remember strongly at that time liking any film in which there was a gateway to hell or or another dimension and there were monsters that were unleashed. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

I really loved that, and the 80s. I've got a list um that I've written down somewhere coming coming up like the 80s, we all know is is uh considered the sort of wonder years of horror, I guess, for many people. Um, but there were loads of those portal, like you open a door and there's like you know, you're in a different dimension. Set in a domestic setting often, isn't it? So yeah, it's that that um yes, and that's how it works on many levels. I'll I'll get into that. Yeah, um, yeah. So for me, uh the film hooked me in. Um, this might have been for you as well, and for a lot of people out there, because uh we're going back to the VHS, those brilliant VHS years. Um, I do remember going to the video store and seeing that brilliant cover. I'm gonna show hopefully the lighting doesn't go with it. So it's very simple. It's say it's house, and there's a disembodied hand, which doesn't actually really that particular hand doesn't feature in the film. It's misleading.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

I guess it is, but it's it it's it's sort of come off and his hand doesn't come off.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

And to this day, still think the tagline's one of the best. Ding dong. You're dead. That's all right. Oh fucking talk when you were. No, no, no, I know you're not. What am I doing?

SPEAKER_02 7:51

You love your um his I was gonna say his arm comes off at one point, but not at the wrist. At the shoulder. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Um so for me, it was just I think I saw that in the video store. The title, the the image of the hand, the ding-dong you're dead, and uh yeah, we we rented that out many times.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

I remember um the the all the times that he's in Vietnam, and but it's in his head because he's writing his book. Because we'll go through the premise in a minute, but as a kid, I I didn't I didn't I didn't understand that what that was showing me was something in his head. I would have would have been about seven, I think. I thought he was young. I thought he was really going so that but he does uh at some point in the film, he does actually go through the the portal, if you like, um and Big Ben takes him through, and um he is in the that Viennam Vietnam setting, really actually bodily. Uh but at the beginning of the film when he's those Vietnam Secrets are.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, and he's trying to write a book about his um experiences of being a um Vietnam war vet. Yeah. Um okay, so one of the reasons um I want to sing its praises is because I mean there are a lot of fans out there for house, thankfully. But some of the critics, whatever you think of critics, good or bad, I mean there's good ones and bad ones.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

I'm one, I'm one.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Um well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you're a sort of journalist. Yeah. You don't just criticize. No, I don't.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

I rarely do critique.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Um but honestly, some of the responses of this film are snobbishly derogatory, and they can and that's probably why I want to sing its praises, because I think they're I do think they're sort of missing the beauty of the film and they're missing the point. Um, so for example, Rotten Tomatoes. It's written here Rotten Boring Tomatoes. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you you do that bit. You say, what do they say? Because I'm not a massive Rotten Tomatoes fan, I don't know about you.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Well, I mean Rotten Tomatoes aggregates journalist uh reviews. So someone on Rotten Tomatoes, Rotten Boring Tomatoes says, House crumbles under cheap effects, chaotic tonal shifts, and aimless antics, ending up as a hyperactive juvenile horror comedy, which is totally untrue. None of that is true. And patronizing. And a patronizing juvenile comedy. It's like it's not juvenile, it's dealing with PTSD.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

I mean I mean the juvenile aspects are the sort of comedic aspects and the the puppetry. The puppetry, the animatronics. Yeah, there's some very cheesy, not not cheesy, but there's some very fun um moments with with the puppetry, with the humour, with the the missing hand. I mean, it goes slapstick. Yeah, it does go slapstick.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Was this um a contemporaneous review, or is it or is it more recent? I don't even know what that means. Well, uh from a peer, yeah. So what so they felt that the effects were cheap back then, even for in 1985.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

I mean, the only time it looks cheap to me is actually at the very end, but anyway, when um Big Ben comes back.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

But at the time, I like I thought it was at the time a little bit of it. It's a bit clubberry. I think it looks good now because but then we like animatronics now. I think maybe we have more reverence for them um in the wake of CGI and a lot of bad CGI. But um, I mean this was destroyed by CI. There were 17 um uh creators that worked on the puppets for this film.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

I love the creativity of it. I mean, yeah, it's that closet monster. Oh my god. That's I mean, I saw it as genuine, and I I'll go into the bits that actually frightened me, and I mean actually really spooked me to the point where I was I was sort of I think I was I'm a bit of a um what's the opposite of a say masochist in that, and I think this is one of the joys of horror in general. I would get it out, the film, um, put it on, knowing I was gonna and I'd watch it on my own. I'd make myself watch it on my own, knowing I was gonna be scared. So I was enjoying knowing when I was gonna be scared. So a bit bit sick like that. But the there's a really funny, ridiculously unenthusiastic synopsis. Also, um I think this is on Rotten Tomatoes, and it just says, A mounted fish moves, household objects levitate, and monsters haunt a troubled novelist. Which is so a mounted fish moves. Did AI write that? Household objects levitate, monsters haunt a troubled bloke. I mean, yeah, that is that makes me think of Billy Bath.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Do you remember that singing fish that the the they put on the wall? Yes. Mounted that's what that makes me think of.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

But there's a really weird trend for a while having that. Um so a very, very uh do you want to do a bit more of um well, a normal synopsis?

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Yeah, alright then. Okay. Hang on. So this sorry, I really shouldn't have popcorn in front of me. I'm I'm gonna eat some now, but no, I won't because I'm gonna talk. So that alright, a slightly more detailed synopsis. Where's this from? From me. From you? Oh, from you. I just thought I'd write it. I normally wrote this. I'm gonna read it. I haven't cut and paste. Alright, a famous novelist, Roger Cobb, is suffering with PTSD, a divorce, and his missing child. So moves into his dead aunt's beautiful yet creepy mansion to write a memoir about his traumatic experience fighting in Vietnam. But the house, capital H, has a life of its own and uses his fears, trauma, and guilt to torment him. Is he going insane or does the house really hold the key to his past? Excellent synopsis, well. Not bad, not bad, a bit serious. Well, it's a serious film. I'm I I think they differ about the comedy element.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

But also, very quickly, going back to um the reason I think that um I haven't got the name of the um critic from Rotten Tomatoes because it's just comes up on their home page at the front. Um, but they say chaotic and right, it's it's too chaotic, it's too aimless. And I would say that was like one of its strengths. I quite like the chaotic and the aimless and the fact that it doesn't make sense. I think 80s horror had this brilliant illogicness. That's not a word. Like phantasm or oh, I don't know, dream demon, there's loads more. The gate, they all have this like crazy element to it. Even um Nightmare on Elm Street, you know, it doesn't, there's no logic, doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

No, but am I alone in thinking that that this is none of those things?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

I don't think it's chaotic or illogical or I think they're saying chaotic tonal shifts when it goes from crazy house stuff and then they cut to the Vietnam War. So some critics are saying the film falls flat when they go to the Vietnam war scene.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

The comedy, the comedic moments in um interspersed with the with him trying to write and do you know all of all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

The only thing I find funny about the the Vietnam scenes is that it looks like someone's garden. There's sort of animals, a lot of tight shots, the budget, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

The budget was three million dollars, uh, but it made a lot of that back. It made it well, it was a success. It was a success, $22 million it made at the box office. So and that's so that meant that there were sequels made. We had four house films in the end. Um, the fourth one does bring it back to the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Yeah, and some people say they love the fourth. Uh you know, I'm not very good at sequels, I'll be honest, and I'm such a house kind of supporter. Um, but should which one should I watch out of the sequels?

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Is it four? Uh I mean four is the only one that ties it back to the beginning. The other two are different houses, different people, different hauntings. Different films entirely, especially the third one, which has no comedy whatsoever in it. But uh but I liked the third one best. It has Lance Henrickson in, and also Brian James, who was um Leon, the replicant from Blade Runner. Oh, wow. As this as this um serial killer who comes back to life after having been killed by electric chair and comes back to haunt Lance Henrickson, the cop who caught him and his family. And it's really quite um um brutal, and it's that's like more of a body horror, if anything. Oh, well I like that as well. You quite like that one.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Okay, we've got some let's get some basics out for you for people who don't know it.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Um, to remind you all, House came out in 1985. Stroke six. Stroke six. It was directed by Steve Minor, uh, who I immediately knew as director of Friday the 13th, part two. Did he not do part one? No, umingham did part one.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Oh, he's yeah, it's it's basically the it's a real kind of collaboration b between the Friday the 13th people, like the whole team, yeah, including Kane Hodder.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Yeah, oh well God, I didn't know this until you brought this to my attention. So he did part two, which was his uh directorial debut in 1982, uh, and then came House, but also he he directed episodes of The Wonder Years and also did the film Warlock, which is another one from my childhood with Julian Sands, who went missing in recent years, tragically in the most kind of mysterious circumstances, but we'll yeah. Yeah. Um I don't know if there's a house curse. No, a warlock curse. Yeah, oh yeah. Sorry. Uh the movie was produced by the very prolific Sean S. Cunningham, who we just mentioned, um, who produced many of the Friday the 13ths, uh, and also Last House on the Left with Wes Craven.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

And uh good credentials, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Freddy versus Jason.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Um yeah. I think also uh I like the fact that it was actually brought to us by Roger Corman, who's kind of um I don't know how to describe Roger Corman, kind of an exploitation. He done did some exploitation type films, quite trashy films, um, and he gave us uh New World Cinema. And um, it was one of the most successful films to emerge from uh Roger Corman's uh production company. Like other titles were uh Death Race 2000, 1975, Piranha, 1978, Rock and Roll High School, don't know that one, 1979, uh Caged Heat, and the big doll house. Um it launched Careers as well. Well, because of Piranha, that was was that Joe Dante, or did he do number two?

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Joe Dante, no, he did Piranha 1.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah. That was it.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Um which we screened at a fright night. We do a yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

So I mean there's basically good horror sort of clout, I would say, going on behind the film house. Um, and just just for some fun, I quite like the names of some of Roger Coleman's exploitation flicks. You wouldn't get it now, would you? Women in Cages, which I think we showed on on the horror channel, maybe. Black Mama, White Mama, Big Bad Mama, Crazy Mama, she's getting worse. Um, then there was Cannonball, Death Sport, but also notably the Slumber Party Massacre in 1982, which was a slasher hit.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Did we say that was directed?

SPEAKER_01 19:41

I would love to find out. I I've got a feeling it was directed by a woman, but I might I might be confusing it with something.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Uh directed by Amy Jones. That's it. And written by Rita May Brown. So Rita May Brown?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

That's like what isn't that in educating Rita?

SPEAKER_02 19:59

No, oh, wasn't in Ghost. Whoopi Goldberg's character is called Oda May Brown. Oh yes. A weird connection. Anyway. Okay. So who's who? Very quickly. Quickly, yeah. Let's go through who's in the film. All right, William Catt in the lead role is Roger Cobb. Uh, he also played the nice one in Carrie in 1976, Tommy Ross. Yes, he did, but he had curlier, bigger big hair.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Oh my god, and I didn't I didn't make the connection until I researched it because he looks quite different.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

He comes back in part four, Roger. We don't see him in part two or part three, because different houses, different people, but comes back in part four. And I'm not going to spoil that. Uh George Wend, as we mentioned earlier, Norm from Cheers. Um he plays Roger's affable neighbour, Harold, who is also a Roger Cobb super fan. Yeah. Um and yeah, they both bring a lot of comedy to the film.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

I mean, there's other people involved, but I've got a really fun, silly cameo, fun fact for you. So, Kim, if you don't know this, because normally you know all of these things, so if you don't, I win this time. Um who connects the film house? This would be a good quiz question. Who connects the film house to Austin Powers? I've done this. Who? In who? There's one person connecting house to Austin Powers. I don't know. Okay. Her name, her real name is Mindy Sterling, and she plays Flaufa Busna. I've got it. You know the one that goes, um she she shouts all the time. What does she say? Come no, yeah! All the time. But she's the crazy fan in the book signing. Oh my god, which one though? There's a couple of things. There are loads of crazies, but she's like the the sort of mumsy looking one with long blonde curly hair, and she pokes her head out. She's like the fourth one back or something.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

I remember, yeah, oh my god, that's been amazing. Weird connections. Anyway. I love those fans. They're part of my when I was making a villains list for this film. The fans is is one is on the list collectively. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because they are um part of the reason he unravels, part of the reason Roger Cobb is um um struggling as a human being. Yes, it's his Vietnam PTSD, but also his fans demand so much of him, and they're shown to be because they're all stereotypes and they're all kind of a bit unhinged, but um um they're kind of just demand demanding him fit a certain role.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

They don't want him to write his Vietnam book, neither does his publisher or a that's quite a uh that I don't know if that's a horror trope, but it's a it could be a horror trope because um it's almost like you get these demented fans who adore what you do, and then as soon as you decide to do something real, or you know, there's there's that trope, especially in misery as well. It's like as soon as you think, I I I want to stop doing that now. I know that was what made me a commercial success, but I want to do something real. I think actors do it as well.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Was that in the mouth of madness as well? Was that an element of that made it?

SPEAKER_01 23:15

I don't know, but I've seen it in loads of films where um an author decides to go off piece and do something else, and the fans are really disappointed.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

But he needs to write this for his own um catharsis.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Therapy and catharsis, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

And they're resistant to it.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

And uh I'm just gonna jump in with um music. I think obviously it is key to any film, especially horror. I mean, it literally, without the music, if you watch it, it doesn't, there's no tension usually, there's no suspense. Um and I love the music in house. So as soon as I did a read the re-watch for this podcast, that it was the music that transported me straight away back into my little living room, age 12. I was like, oh my god, it's like, and the writing, which I think stranger, Stranger Things, the font of it is really similar to Stranger Things has taken so much from house.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Um, I haven't thought about it in terms of and I know Stranger Things are taken a lot from all about a boy, a kid going missing within the house, and they and he has to go to another dimension to f to bring the kid back, and that's supposed insidious does that. Also, poltergeist, we do.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Poltergeist is a some fun, yeah, very quite big, obvious uh comparisons there. Um so the music comes courtesy of Harry Manfredini, and he also scored the whole Friday the 13th franchise as well as Swamp Thing and Wismaster.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Wishmaster's another funny isn't that like one of the most lucrative um uh franchises, Wishmaster. Wishmaster no, it's this it's got the most nude scenes in the city. Oh really?

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Oh, I love these lists, I love these lists. I think we need to cover some real apparent crap films like Le Pacon or something. I don't know. Let's do Wishmaster. We could do Wishmaster.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

So we were gonna look at where House sits in the genre with uh having mentioned some of those. Take everyone back in time. Poltergeist, poltergeist 1982, Toby Hooper, uh seems to be a work produced, I believe. This comes before House.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

But there are yeah, poltergeist comes before house, and I'm they they must have been influenced. Like literally, child goes missing, the closet, there's a monster in a closet. I mean, I know that is obviously a big horror trope. Um, but a child literally kind of gets that that is the portal, that's the same in poltergeist as house, but even the way um Roger goes to save and find his child in said weird dimension, um, it's exactly the same as how I've forgotten her name, the mum of Caroline or Oh God the mum of Caroline. I'm sure I've written it down somewhere to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Is her real name, you just all you've got to do, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Tie a rope around you, it's very simple. Tie a rope around your waist. Right, so your child's gone missing. Yeah. Uh it's in some sort of dimension. You can right, so she hears it in poltergeist. Like Caroline's like this weird sound in the ceiling somewhere. In house, he sort of sees it, could just be his mind, but flashes of the child in the window, in the mirror. Um, so he's in a weird dimension, that's all you need to know. And he when you find out where that hole, that that key or that door to the dimension is, you just put a bit of rope around you, tie it to someone. This seems so rudimentary to me, and then jump into the hole of nothingness. We don't know what happens when you're there all a lot a lot of the time, and then you sort of you just hopefully return with a scared, confused-looking child in your arms. In the house. And you pop out somewhere different. Like in poltergeist, you fall through the ceiling. In house, the exit of the portal is the swimming pool, which is quite cool, I think, for like just that that transition.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Also, though, I mean, that's where the kid goes missing from, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

So he he um he does go down a weird weird tunnel and shoots a really weird bat with a gun. Oh no, the bat with the gun.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

When he goes through the mirror in the bathroom, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

So we are gonna be on a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

The swimming pool is like when they come out through the through the swimming pool, oh my god, I've got so much to say on this. And when people say this is a stupid film or it's not intelligent, I'm what are you talking about? Thank you, Kim. Because because there's this whole theme of him, well, you can read it again, like we just did Rosemary's Baby, and how you can read that um without an actual devil within it. Well, you can read this without any of the supernatural stuff in it. Just as a man who is working through his PTSD and coming out the other side, he's divorced from his wife. Um uh they split up because well, the the agent or publisher, whoever whatever role that he has, says that that his focus on doing this Vietnam project, his new book, is what split them up. But I think the implication is um his focus on that and his trouble processing what happened in Vietnam is what uh drove them apart. And so there's this idea in the film that um so she's gone off, they still really care about each other, she's got custody of the kid. There's a moment, the the blonde neighbor that he's attracted to looks a lot like his wife. You can read her as being the wife who brings the kid over for a night when she's got an act to acting part of it. Her own kid, yeah. And he's and it's this moment where he reconnects with his role as a father, and this is what starts bringing him back to himself, and and shortly after that is when he goes through the portal and rescues his real son from the other dimension, and they pop up through the swimming pool. Um, and that moment is like a rebirth. Rebirth! Yeah, it's a big thing. I knew that's what it always means.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah, popping up through water is is a rebirth. Now I thought that the reason they um divorced this is um Roger and his wife have forgotten her name, was because her their child was abducted because he went missing in that pool. That's his aunt's house. Yes, the child went missing really quickly. Um, you see Sandy. That's what she's saying. That's it. Sandy Roger turns his head for one second. Every parent's worst nightmare, turns his head back again when his children, his child was in the pool. Is it little Jimmy? Jimmy, yeah, Jimmy. And he's gone, just gone. Um, and so yeah, that's that's a pretty serious theme as well. Yeah, I mean, yes. Anyway, back to where the house sits in where where we are in terms of the 80s and how how the house sits within all the other films that was coming out. So there were a lot of slashes and stuff like that, obviously. Um, and this film notably isn't a gore film at all. I don't think there's any blood, I don't think. Um, it's a kind of a creature, not creature feature, but it's like it's a ghoulish film. Um, so we've got Fright Night in 1985, 1982 saw Creep Show, which is kind of similar with their uh ghoulish antics. Um, The Gate, which sometimes comes up uh 1987, another kind of what I call childhood horror. Yeah, childhood horror both in the sense that I watched it as a child, but both, but also in terms of the fears that the film is about, is very much about what um children are scared of being in your home and your home, your your sense of security, everything that the home represents big being against you. Uh we had Killer Clowns from Outer Space in 1988, Chopping Mall, one of the best titles, Night of the Creeps, Evil Dead 2, Wax Work, I is another one of my little guilty pleasures. I think I've not seen it much though, so maybe it's shit on a second watch.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Well, I haven't watched it for a long time. But the but also the Love Craftian stuff, I'm thinking like Prince of Darkness, John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, and stuff like that, where they uh tap into another dimension and there are uh monsters that come back.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

But we don't get that now. It's almost like horrors just too sophisticated to do something like I don't know, something like Hellraiser or something like House. It's like these are horrors that don't always, I mean they are serious in a way, but their logic isn't serious at all.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

There's far too much explanation now in a lot of in a lot of not just horrors, logic films generally. When I was when I was watching Apartment 7a, I thought they've explained way too much at the beginning. They've set up way too much in a way that Rosemary Yeah exposition in a way that Rosemary's Baby doesn't do. It just it just you know and the mastery of that film versus um something like Apartment 7. I've that is definitely the difference, yeah, and a more modern way of making movies. I don't know, but you do still get some amazing um Yeah, Ariasta.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Is it Ariaster? I said that right. He's I think um oh not just him. Um there's um like the woman making he I can't remember her name, but like you know, there are people really flying the flag for new kinds of horror, um especially the women coming through. But anyway, yeah. So I classify House as childhood horror. I touched on this before, um, both because I watched it as a child and it definitely burnt itself onto my retina. And I don't know about you, Kim, but a lot of these unsung heroes, horror gems, whatever you want to call them, the reason they are such, the reason they are so is because of when we watch them. Yeah. They would not have had this impact had we watched them now. So I just think when you watch something is is key to how it affects you. Um, but also the actual idea of the use of the home. Um literally, so in this film, um, and even the the batty old aunt says, This house knows you, it knows everything about you. Um, the house took him, and when um, yeah, when the wife goes, shut up, you old fat, and she goes, chat or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

Do you know what? I really want why has no one made that prequel about her experience in the house leading up to her apparent suicide? We don't know if she actually killed herself, but she was found hanged at the start of the film house. Um but she was an artist, and she the her paintings were clearly um her experiences of living in the house.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

But it was all about the boy, the son, that went missing. Oh, but there are other paintings because there's a painting they look at.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Oh, look how excited you are no, wait, we're gonna mention Event Horizon.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Whoa. No, there's this that one painting on the stairs where there's this um there's this figure like buried in the sand or dirt, um, and uh it's got these spiky kind of um bones or metal, whatever it is, encasing the torso. Everyone's naked in this painting. And then in the background, there's there's a like a bonfire, there's two male naked figures in it, either dancing or burning to death, and then there's a naked woman kind of suspended with wires, um contorted into this inhuman shape, and and the aunt has painted this, presumably from her experiences in this hell dimension hallucinations that it gives you, yeah. Well, he actually well, is it a because he does visit another dimension, whether that's real or not, I don't know. But and then there's another painting that sticks in my mind of a woman, another again, a woman um without any legs. So she's uh they I don't know what's happened to the legs, but they're not there. And and in the film, actually, he gets attacked by garden implements, doesn't he? The shears, and and so that's happening to this woman in the painting, too. So I'm like, why hasn't no one made that? I should have known that. But it reminded me of Event Horizon and the hell dimension.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

That's crazy, biscuits. That really is. But the the the And Hellraiser. And yeah. The the key painting did make me laugh a little bit, the one that you see at the very beginning. Yeah, it's like, ah, here are the clues, right? At midnight, because there's a big, big bench. Big big bench. Big bench. A um grandfather clock, that's what I meant. Um, and it's uh at 12, and at 12 is when everything goes cuckoo, doesn't it? Because he opens the closet and it's fine, then he opens it at midnight, suddenly there's a monster there. And so she's got all of these weird little clues, and there's a little there's the the boy's face in the cabinet, but bathroom cabinet mirror, which is a bit of an odd place to have a portal, but anyway, I just thought that painting was really funny. It was a bit sort of obvious, obvious little clues.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

But otherwise, the paintings I felt were kind of at odds with the tone, because big those particular ones, because I thought this would make a fucking good film of its of its uh on its own, and I don't know why they didn't make that prequel, because they made three sequels. Indeed.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Maybe they were um but I think one of the sort of if we're going into like primal fears, like how the film works, especially scaring children, yeah, um, and scaring the main character, uh Roger, is that the house, the idea that your home is literally watching your every move, it knows your fears and it manifests them in truly nightmarish ways to kind of start driving you insane. And I think that is a frightening concept for a child. That's why we have things like Monster Under the Bed or Monster in the Closet, because it's like your world is your home when you're a child, and for that to be turning against you and showing you these frightening images is is really terrifying.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Are you saying that the home is a is a villain or is a source of evil in the film?

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Like well, it shouldn't be. The home like home in general isn't, obviously, but um in if we're going to villainy, then yes, I guess I can't think of any any other source of evil. Uh but also the Vietnamese war. I think war.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

But I think but touch on war later because there's loads of other films that um kind of are spun off from the Vietnam War themes.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

But that idea of the home and um, you know, there's always this behind closed doors and what goes on and abuse and stuff. Yeah, and while there's no um So it's not your safe place. No.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Opposite, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Yeah, interesting. That's that's touched on. So I think that's an interesting. Um for him, the home is this symbol of um well, domesticity, of of normality, and he's come from this abnormal, kind of traumatic experience fighting in Vietnam, and comes into this suburban house and is expected to kind of slop back into um society and civilization and is struggling to do that. And for him, it's a prison, it's a battleground, the home, um, and a place where his son is taken away.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Yeah, I mean it's his aunt's his dead aunt's home where he obviously kind of spent a lot of time, it's where his son went missing, as you said, and he's purposefully gone back there to write this book. So I think maybe he he obviously wants to feel inspired and perhaps be able to go to a darker place. Yeah. Because he knows he says at the beginning, we know my aunt said this place is haunted. Another really cool film connection to Ghostbusters. So the person, I don't know his.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

I'm thinking about eggs in the fridge now.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

No, the guy who's the real estate person who's trying to sell the house. I was watching it thinking, I know that face. I knew I knew his face. I frigging know that face. Who is that? Um, and he is the hotel manager who calls the Ghostbusters in. Do you remember he owns- of course he is, yes. Um, for me as well, the film, um, especially as a child, you don't piece everything together, do you? Like you were saying, you didn't really care about the war, PTSD themes. For me, it was about the sort of set pieces, like the silly roller coaster moments that you get in these films where you really take note. And I think the first one, and it's still freaky and sinister, is when that frigging fish, that fucking fish on the wall, it's massive for a start. It is massive, and it's got big black doll eyes as well, like our friend Jaws. Um and that suddenly comes to life. And what is really scary is actually not not just when it starts flapping madly, but when Roger walks away, and you and then you sort of go to the uh a shot of the fish, his eye just starts following him, so the dead fish's eye starts moving. And I thought that was really chilling. I'm really scared, didn't it? I scared.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

I mean, obviously, I mean, not as a kid, that wasn't the scary thing for me. Um, but uh, and in and now I've got Billy Bass in my head. I can't find that frightening. But the closet monster, definitely, he was quite scary. Is he he? I don't know, maybe it's a she, but um what was it? War they they actually called it something.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Well, it it it it's not um there's a character called Big Ben. We're going we're jumping around a lot here, so do forgive us. I hope you've seen the film.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

The war demon, that's what who was the actual model of the war demon was 18 feet tall, fully mechanized, and operated by 15 people. Yay! And it featured and I don't know what this means, but it featured a fully working lower bowel system. Now, bowels makes me think it was able to go to the toilet. I don't think that's what it means. I think it means sort of basement. Yeah, it does. The underneath level. I don't know, maybe it could have a shit. Who knows? And also, just as a factoid to share, the film used puppetry and animatronics, as we've discussed, but also stop motion and actors in rubber suits for the monsters. I'm I'm thinking about the uh witch, the the obese witch, I think.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah, the who was his wife and oh my god, so I've got to talk about that scene really quickly because um okay, so yeah, I love the flupping fish. I love the horrendous closet creature, the the war demon. Yeah. Um, and I'm not joking, I would be terrified. Like, I'm not I'm not joking at all. I thought the clown-like, grotesque uh demon wife was horrifying. Quite clown-like. Everything was exaggerated. She's fat, ungainly, she's got this horrible mouth, gnashing teeth.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Um and relentless, but even when she gets chopped up, she keeps coming.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Yes, that's but what in terms of clever filmmaking, okay. Here's another reason I think this film deserves a lot more praise. Um, and this is a directorial decision. So it's taking risks. I think house, like, um, it takes it takes a lot of risks, like again, a bit like Rosary's baby, a lot of it is sunny, it's daytime, it's everything's really normal. Um, and they have all these really unexpected jump moments that I haven't seen in many films. So there's a scene where his his real wife, Sandy, she's an actress, she she turns up at the aunt's house because she's worried about Roger's um sort of sanity. Um, and she just sort of comes uh she comes to the door, and for reasons I can't go into now, there's two sort of bullets or shells that are on the floor under the table. And uh Roger clocks this and she sees it and she goes, Oh, I'll pick. Those up for you. And she ducks down. So Sandy ducks down under the table to pick some these bullets up for a a second or two. And when she pops up, out of nowhere, she has transformed into this horrific vision of a demonic, grotesque uh version of his wife. And I think it's that abruptness that I found so jolting and unnerving. And I think that is good directing.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

And also, you know, because he ends up um shooting her and killing her, and then the body in uh as we see it and as he sees it reverts to his his ex-wife's body. So he thinks he's killed her, and we think he's really killed her, and it's not until right the end when she turns up again, right at the end, that we know that he hasn't actually shot and killed her.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Um, yeah, which is the house playing because I mean, obviously, again, no logic. The house is playing tricks with his mind. You could read it as he's just losing his mind.

SPEAKER_02 45:01

Um did you know that actress Kaylenz uh who plays Sandy was in was most probably most famous for that role and um uh uh Clint Eastwood's breezy in the 70s. But but apparently they had wanted or they had considered for that role, Glenn Close before her and Sigourney Weaver, we talked about ghost specs. I saw that they're a bit too good for uh a tiny little yeah and also before I before I forget to say it as well, because Tanya, who was the neighbour, the sexy blonde neighbour who brings her son Robert over for babysitting, who looks a lot like the wife, um, she was a Miss World 1977, Miss World 1977, and also she was a bond girl in two.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

She was a bond girl with Roger Moore Octopusy, yeah. Yeah. And good old age. Butrekill. Love Butrekill. So I just wanted to say that before I forget. And I think the film is a little bit uh risky and cool in terms of um where you place it. I mean, it's people say, oh, it's haunted, the house is haunted, even the characters say that. But it's not a haunted house film. There's no ghosts as such. Um, it's not a zombie film, it's not a demon film, it's not a creature feature. So I think it's you know, it's it's it's sort of got it's not its own genre, but I think it kind of almost stands alone.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

I think it's kind of Lovecrafty, and it is like this alternative dimension thing which unleashes strange monsters.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

But um let's talk about so um there is I mean, we've touched on it a little bit, but where there is clear slap slapstick territory here where um it's a bit of child abuse. Um so the the the hand that he chops off of his wife, um a dog unfortunately digs it up.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Sadly, yeah. Yeah. Norm's dog. Sorry, not Norm, what's the neighbour called? Howard. Uh George Wentz. Or Harold. Harold, I think. Sorry. Yeah. Um Simpson.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

And then when the sexy neighbour comes over saying, Can you babysit my son? He thinks he's having a good time, but no, he's there to babysit her son. And this kid turns round, and there's that's a quite a tingly moment. This disembodied hand is clinging into this poor child's back. And Roger's like, ah! He will do anything to sort of get this hand off him, including like running after the child, kind of grabbing the child, throwing him, making him cry, throwing him into the That kid's such a good actor.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Is he really? He was really crying.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Someone's off camera making him cry. Like, and they're going, Your mummy will come back soon. That's they they meant it. You could do that in the 80s. Yeah, you could. And then he he throw he sort of um flushes the hand down the toilet, and there's a really funny scene where he's babysitting. This child gets taken off by an a new ghoulie, and he just sort of for some reason goes into the fireplace and he disappears up the fireplace, and you see his little legs kind of go wee, like right up the fireplace. Really quickly, he's been taken by this ghoul. That make that made me laugh. Oh cruel, you're so cruel. I know, but uh yeah, as you say, you can you can uh get away with it back then. Okay, apparently there were rumours of a reboot, uh like a new new reboot um of the original house.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

I don't want a reboot, reboot, I want a reboot, cheesy reboot. I mean, trying to eat my cheesy poops. Um I want a prequel.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Prequel would be good, I think. Yeah, but apparently Sean Cunningham, um this has been in pre-production house since 2015. Sean Cunningham wanted to read it, revisit it. Um and I looked it up, and the last rumours online were from about three years ago. So yeah, the it the the sort of it went cold. The lead went cold. So um to be fair, Cunningham is 84 years old now, so it might be a bit too late to remake House. But apparently, no, he did want to do an origin story for House, and that could have happened, but it's been stuck in production hell, as I said, since 2015. Never you never know. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.

SPEAKER_03 49:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

Um, so as we've already mentioned, the very serious side of the film is the fact that Roger um, the character, was a soldier in the Vietnam War, and it was obviously very traumatizing. And this links the entire story, the beginning and the very end, um, with a character called Big Ben, who's his his like war buddy. So, talking about Vietnam influencing films back then, so like several horror films um of the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, one of the themes is the mental trauma of the Vietnam War. I guess in the UK it's not very relevant, but obviously it etched the trauma into the American psyche back then. Um, and so here the Vietnam War is is relived and dreamt of by Roger the protagonist. And apparently this can largely be attributed to the actual recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder. So PTSD was only recognised in 1980 by the American Psychiatric Association, and there was an increased um understanding of PTSD symptoms, i.e., nightmares, flashbacks, um, with an increasing number of Vietnam veterans uh committing suicide, even as a result of their wartime experiences. So because this was all happening in 1980, I think that's why it sort of started you started seeing it in films of the time. So, in many ways, films like House reflected a change in the sort of national consciousness as war ceased being depicted as a glorious event and began to be seen more as a sort of harrowing thing. So looking at films, there's one that is before 1980, um, and I don't know it, called Death Dream, 1972.

SPEAKER_03 51:26

I don't know either.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Um where a soldier returns home to his family in the US, but it's actually a flesh-eating, undead entity. Um the main one that comes to mind is I reckon Jacob's Ladder.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

That's I mean, that's a clear Yeah, from 1990 um clear Vietnam reference. In House, which, as we know, came out in 1985 6. Um, there's a line from his, oh no, I can't remember if he's his publisher or his agent, but he says, um uh nobody wants to read about the Vietnam War anymore, and this is 1985. So Jacob's Ladder 1990, which is a psychological horror uh about a Vietnam veteran dealing with dissociation and terrifying hallucinations in New York, which isn't that far removed from house, actually. Uh blurring the line between his war memories and reality. So PTSD again explored.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

Explored, yeah. I mean, uh the cannibal apocalypse is a bit different, but it follows um that was 1980 as well. It follows Vietnam um prisoners of war who returned to America carrying a virus that turns people into cannibals, um, and slightly more tenuous, um, but it's a it's it's more of a like attitude, I suppose. Um we mentioned it earlier. Toby Hooper gave us the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974, um, showing the sort of nihilism and brutality of like post-60s lovely kind of America. And I don't know if he actually said this. I think he did. He did, didn't he say, I want to show the re what America's really like and what we're really I don't know. There's there he I I think he cites post-Vietnam America as kind of the inspiration behind Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as maybe Edgeen and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

The paranoia and violence of that era post-Vietnam in America was was um part of the inspiration, yeah. Interesting stuff.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

So there is like, as I've gone on to realise, hidden depths, hidden depths to the film, for sure. Yeah, definitely. I haven't got I haven't got much trivia, and I think I've sort of mentioned it already. Uh, but there's a lot of people are massive fans of Kane Hodder. I mean, he's so uh big in the industry um as a stunt coordinator, um, who was stunt coordinator for House. Um, and of course, he also played Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th, part two. Um, originally we're talking about the comedy element. So the the script was written by Fred uh Decov Um and it was completely serious, it was really dark, it was it was it was a lot more grim and sort of sad and just horror, and it only became quirky and funny with humour when this writer called Ivan Wiley came on board and he wanted to make it more of a he just wanted to make it more lighthearted, um, which is what makes it a guilty pleasure, I think, is the comedy.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Yeah, that's that moment at the end of the it's so bizarre. Right at the end, when Sandy turns up at the house, that upper floor of the house is on fire because um Roger has has stuck that um hand grenade underneath Big Ben's ribs and he's exploded. And him and Jimmy, the son, have got out of the house and she turns up in a taxi, like as if so imagining like she's dropped the son off, as I described earlier in her guise as Tanya the neighbour, for babysitting while she does what she has to do as an actress or as a schmoozer, whatever she's doing. So she's come back to pick up her son and she sees the top floor on fire, and he comes running over to her and she's like, Oh, my son, picks picks him up and um my baby, I think she says something like that, and she starts crying. Obviously, in the literal interpretation of the film, she her son's been missing all this time. Um but in this moment, if if you're looking at it as being, you know, a PTSD fever dream or whatever, um, and none of that's happened. The house is still on fire, the son's outside, she's scooped her son up. She's like, Fucking hell, Mike, this kid could have perished in this fire. And then he looks over to her. I don't think he's looking at the camera, I can't quite remember now. Um, and he just gives this wonderful smile. Like everything's right in his world.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

Well, it is. I think he's he's basically um it's almost that save the day, get the girl, you know, get the princess. He's back to Yeah, it he's become. I think he goes from zero to hero as well. There's that element of it. Um, I mean, what do you make of? Let me try and get my head around this. My only beef with this film is sort of how it how it wraps it all up with the character Big Ben. I don't know if you think that's cool or clever, but basically how it goes down in the ending is that um, so Big Ben, we didn't even explain this, did we? The reason Roger is being so traumatized and tormented is that his buddy Big Ben during the Vietnam Vietnam War um was sort of in he was sort of in yeah, he he gets really injured, and he's lying there and he's begging Roger to kill him. He's saying, Please just finish me off now. It's like the kindest thing to do, and Roger can't do it, he hasn't got the guts to do it, hasn't got the balls, and um, and then they sort of hear noises. Roger runs off and hides, and this Big Ben is injured, can't move, and he's still alive, and he gets dragged off by like the Viet Cong people, and it turns out, as he reveals later, they kept him alive for weeks, torturing him. So poor Big Ben. So apparently, this whole house fiasco, the whole reason the son was abducted, was that he was actually abducted um kind of by the house, but the house is like a portal by Big Ben to revenge, to yeah, to reek revenge for uh Roger not having the balls to just finish him off, and it would have been a much kinder death. So I'm like, how does that all work though? So what Big Ben died and then somehow made his way to the house. But he how would he know to go there? Steal, abduct the son, take him through the bathroom cabinet, keep him back in. Who knows? It's another dimension.

SPEAKER_02 58:15

It works on a different on a different logic.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

But that's basically what happened. That's Jimmy got abducted by the you know how they sold it.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

They through all the flashbacks and stuff, you see that Ben guy as this loose canon, essentially. He doesn't like authority. He's like, who is this guy telling me what to do? And um Roger's like that's literally his job, you know. He's our boss, he's gotta tell us what to do. So this guy doesn't like taking orders, doesn't like authority. He um at that moment that we see later where uh he's been shot, it's his it's almost his fault he's been shot, he's gone gung-ho, yeah, he's put himself right in risky, yeah. And then Roger's like, be quiet, be quiet, because if you don't, they'll come back. And it and it's entirely his doing that he's making sounds, and um it's not just that he's screaming in pain, it's not even that. I think he starts he starts yelling at Roger because he won't kill him off, and he's like, I'll go and get help, I'll go and get help. Um and then every they come back, and that's so he's the he's the architect of his own.

SPEAKER_01 59:27

He is, but I feel like I would be pissed as well if I was tortured for weeks on end because someone I mean it is pretty hard to to kill a mate, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 59:37

But they they they take they take the film takes um tries to tries to show us in all ways that it's not Roger's fault at all. He did everything right and everything. He shouldn't feel guilty and he shouldn't feel guilty.

SPEAKER_01 59:50

So a lot of the film I think is is trauma and PTSD, but I think it's about facing your guilt. It is, yeah. Facing your guilt and your fears and dealing with that head on. And there's a slightly cheesy line at the very very end when Roger says something like to when Big Ben comes back. It's a bit silly though, he just sort of rings the doorbell and like I'm coming to get you. That's the only thing I don't like is when um Big Ben goes a bit like cheesy and hammy and starts speaking. It's like when I I didn't love it when um in uh Nightmare on Elm Street when Freddie keeps cracking jokes. But neither, no. Yeah, that's that that that was the only thing. But um Roger says to him something like, I'm not afraid of you anymore, and then that's it. It kind of like that's his turning point, and he faces his fear, kills him off, gets his son back, gets his wife back. Buddhum, happy ending. Ah, and that's why we like house. And that's why we like house. That is why we love house, and I said this was only gonna be a half-hour episode, but we uh obviously love it so much, and it's deeper than every film we do. It's like it's deeper than you think.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:58

Well, it always is. You can always read everything anything, you can always actually not always, mostly you can read a lot. Uh even if it's not intentional because because because it's unintentional.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

Because because, because, because, because um we can we can have some what's it's now. I was gonna say throughout, sorry. So no, it's alright. So um we have already done a little snippet on our socials, but I'm gonna do it now for the podcast. We genuinely, genuinely really want to know what your personal horror gems are, or your unsung heroes. The films that you know are not critically amazing, they're not the shining, but you love them anyway, and you feel like they deserve a little bit of attention. And perhaps the Kim and M makeover. I genuinely we both genuinely can't speak, genuinely wanna know what those titles are. Kim has one and she gets to do this one soon. Am I gonna announce it now? You can do, because we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:00

It's gonna be extra. Oh my god. Formative horror one of the first horror films I ever watched.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

This is like Kim's favourite film. Um I have seen it. Definitely need to re-watch it because it's very blurry. I can see why you like it. Is it is it underrated then, do you think?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

Yeah, it's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

But I reckon there'll be a big fan base out there as well. It's hidden extra. Underrated and really unhinged. So films like that, guys, films like House, films like Extro, um, stuff that's not necessarily heralded by everyone as a brilliant horror film, but one that you bloody love. Tell us what they are, DM us, put it in the comments on our Instagram, um, and join us on Patreon and let us know. In the meantime, I guess that's it from us. Thank you for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this um revisiting and appreciation of house.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:59

Stay evil. Stay evil.