Dad’s Night Out: Blood, Bats, and Bad Decisions

Three very different vampire stories take center stage in this episode. The genre‑bending chaos of From Dusk Till Dawn collides with the tense, high‑altitude survival horror of Blood Red Sky, all capped off with the offbeat, creature‑feature energy of Fangs (1981). Together, they paint a picture of how wildly the vampire myth can shift—from grindhouse mayhem to airborne terror to cult‑era oddities—while still sinking in with the same primal bite.

Transcript

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Welcome to Dad Bot of Horror. I'm your host, Butch Barr. Still no co-host. We're working on it, I swear. So welcome to episode 16 of season one. Wanted to thank everyone out there who's listening. And uh don't be afraid to tell your friends. Spread the word. A little bit of housekeeping. So I'll let everybody know I am on X at Dad Bot of Horror, and I'm on Instagram also at Dad Bot of Horror. So the first thing to talk about is uh this past week I did see uh did watch a horror movie. I believe I it was on Hulu, and it was one of the first horror movies that I supported on Kickstarter. It's called Shelby Oaks. It's kind of uh it's a found footage. I'm not a big fan of found footage movies, but it's not terrible. I would give it a four out of ten. I'd also like to remind everybody, and because I haven't done this in a while, to uh please support independent movie makers if you can. You could use uh sites such as Kickstarter, Indigo Go, Seat and Spark, WeFunder. There's a whole bunch of crowdfunding sites out there. So if you have a couple of bucks, take a look, see what you can do. Also, as I've said before, one of the other ways that I do it, I do support some on those kicks on those uh crowdfunders, is also to check out Tubi, Plex, Fossum, any other streaming service that is free to use. You just have to watch commercials. So, again, that supports independent horror if you watch or put on an independent horror movie, so which is something else that I do. So, movie one for season one, episode 16, is the movie called From Dusk Till Dawn, 1996. You can find it on Paramount Plus and Pluto TV. Production company, companies, excuse me, Dimension Films, A Band Apart, and Los Hulugans Productions. The director is Robert Rodriguez, the writers were Robert Kurtzman and Quentin Tarantino, and it stars Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, and Juliet Lewis. So the plot, two criminals and their hostages unknowingly seek temporary refuge in a truck stop populated by vampires with chaotic results. That is pretty much it. So, why this movie? So I wanted movie number two to be movie number two, which is Blood Red Sky. So I needed to find kind of a hit movie that deals with vampires, and uh, this is definitely one of them. How did I see it? I don't remember when I saw it for the first time. The truth is, I am not a Tarantino fan. So I feel I watched it for the first time much later than most people saw it. I know that I had heard a lot about Salma Hayek's dance in it, and I'm pretty sure that influenced my decision to finally watch it for the first time. My favorite kill. This one's tough. This one's a fun movie. This is uh, you know, like a horror comedy. This is a fun movie. So there's kind of a point in the movie where it's kind of vampire versus human kind of pandemonium going on. And there's lots of kills going on in there, and I think that that whole the whole feeling at that part of the movie was kind of my favorite. So I don't have a singular favorite kill. So I really did like this movie. I do not like Tarantino, especially as an actor. Of all the actors in the world that could have played the part Tarantino played, I'm sure Quentin Tarantino wouldn't be would be in the bottom 1% of those that could do it. Because he's not an actor. He's I feel and have always felt that his best contribution to the film world, film industry, was when he worked at Blockbuster. I really do not like him. Aside from Tarantino, this movie had actual actors in it who helped the movie a lot. And I'll talk about them a little bit later, I think. Um the the the movie had uh a really good story, the writing was well done, and and it was a well thought out story. And it was a it was a it was a good movie. It was uh it was a this great mix of like a crime drama in the beginning that leads into like this horror movie. And the writers, they they had half decent backstories for these characters. And was it essential for the movie these these backstories? No, no, no, no. But it really helps give the characters the depth and makes you kind of care for what's going on in the movie. Having said that, uh, one of my issues with the movie is, and this is spoiler alert, is George Clooney lives. So, George Clooney, when he made this movie, was not a movie star. Um, he was on ER and he was maybe a TV star. And you know, there's that whole can they translate from TV star to movie star, or even go the other way, going from you know, everybody wants to be a movie star, not necessarily a TV star. So this was like his first shot at becoming like a movie star. He was in a terrible horror movie years before, and I will eventually go over that movie at some point, not in this episode. But but he his character lives, his character is a bad guy, his character just got out of jail, and his character has been a part of killing uh quite a few people and threatening people and beating up people, so he's not a good guy. He should not have lived at the end. Um they kill off a guy that was a uh a priest and the priest's kid. Those guys die and Clooney lives. No, that that's that's that's BS. I don't I don't care. Maybe they had to promise Clooney he'd live at the end. I don't know, but uh for me as a movie goer, I kind of go or I felt kind of cheated that he lived. One thing I was not cheated about was Samo Hyke's Dance. You know, as when this came out, so '96, I was in my mid-20s, and you know, I'm a guy. And uh, you know, some of my friends are saying about this dance, and uh so it's they're not there weren't they weren't wrong. The the dance is really worth watching the movie for. What I later found out is again, if you watch the movie or if you've seen the movie, you know, I'm talking about the dance, is that there was no choreographer. The director just kind of said to Hayek, just kind of feel the music and go with it, because this really isn't a spoiler alert, but she dances with a snake, and so it's kind of like you almost have the snake leading you, I think, because you kind of have to move so the snake doesn't fall off of you, kind of a deal, and make maybe that helped the dance. So it definitely was worth it. Um probably and again, kind of a spoiler alert, but again, this movie's 30 years old, so unless you're a younger person, I expect you to have seen it. Yawn. So one of the best things, one of the best parts of the movie is you know, it's the end of the movie, Clooney and and and the other survivor kind of go their own way, and the movie pull and the the the camera pulls back, and and granted it's mostly a matte painting, but it turns out the bar is you know the top of what I would assume to be a huge Mayan temple. So, and there's cars and and trucks like down the side. So the bar, the bar is at the top of the temple, and it's kind of like on a cliff area, and like down at the bottom of this cliff or mesa area is just buses and cars and tractor trailers and stuff like that. So obviously, this has been going on for decades, if not centuries. So that was that was kind of cool. Like to me, that's it. That's a good part to put it. You don't have to put that in, you know what I mean? Is there's vampires, blah blah blah. But that whole pullback is like, ah, yeah, that's cool. So, like I said before, like uh this movie had actors in, and that helps a horror movie so much, even but they might not have been names at the time, I mean uh somewhere, but it still helps so much. Like you had Clooney, obviously, huge star. Harvey Kaitel, huge star, Juliet Lewis turned into a big star, and you know, even Tarantino for people who like him. I don't need to say a whole bunch about the Kalis Faces, they've all had pretty good careers. And then you had Cheech Marin of Cheech and Chong, and of you know, Nash Bridges and whatever else. Cheech has been in a lot, Cheech is a star. He actually plays three parts, three different parts in this movie, and it's hilarious. Um, and again, he's had uh an incredible career in comedy and in TV and in movies. Then you had Samahayek, um, who again, I think when people talk about this movie, at least guys, that's one of the things they talk about is Sama Hayek, and she's not in it very long. She does her dance, she turns into a vampire. She's a vampire for a little bit, she goes back to herself, becomes and then she's done. She's is she's really not in it all that long. I can't believe that when she made this movie, and when you watch her dance, and she was 30 years old, like she looks younger than that. I mean, she still looks younger than her age now. So a very, very young looking Danny Trejo was in this. Again, he doesn't have a big part, but he does have a meaningful part. And again, he went on to have a terrific career. Fred Williamson's in this movie. Fred Williamson had a terrific career before this movie, and he still had, you know, a half-decent kind of a career doing this, where he basically does cameos in movies. And, you know, for those of you who don't know Fred Williamson, I'm talking about Shaft. And lastly, Tom Savini is in this movie as an actor. Now he's a special effects guy, and he's done acting. Um, I spoke a lot about Tom in an earlier episode because he did the special effects makeup for Friday the 13th. So I have talked about him before. Um, and in this movie, if you see it and you don't know who Tom Savini is, Tom Savini, Savini is the guy with the 12-shooter COD piece. Another memorable thing from the movie. I don't know how practical it is, but it's still pretty memorable from the movie. So, movie number two. The reason I wanted to do this movie and uh is Blood Red Sky from 2021 is I noticed that I had a uh a very faithful listener in Frankfurt, Germany. Uh, they've listened to every one of my episodes, which which is is really nice, unless it's you know a different person each episode from Frankfurt, but I think it's one person. So I wanted to do a German-made movie, and I remember seeing Blood Red Sky and how much I enjoyed it, and I found it it was German-made, so I want to talk about Blood Red Sky. So, Blood Red Sky. Uh I said the year 2021. You can find it on Netflix. Production companies are Netflix, Rat to Pack Film Productions, and Serena Film. The director is Peter Thorworth. The writers are Peter Thorworth and Stefan Holtz. The it stars Perry Baumeister, Carl Anton Kuck, and Alexander Scheer. The plot: A woman with a mysterious illness is forced into action when a group of terrorists attempt to hijack a transatlantic overnight flight. So, why this movie? I think I just told everybody. Um, it's for my very faithful listener in Frankfurt, Germany. How did I see it? Like, when it came on Netflix, they really promoted the heck out of it. And I liked horror movies, it looked interesting, so I watched it, I think within the first week of it being available, and it was great. My favorite kill. Um, so it's a vampire movie, and uh there's one point where so um it kind of follows so the the a woman. So the woman is a mother, and it's her and her son, and her and she's a vampire and her son is not, and her son helps her do a lot of things because he's kind of like her day person, uh, but he helps her a lot, and at one point, she just the uh head hijacker, I forget exactly what he did to torque her up, but she just jumps on him and just bites him and rips his throat. Uh it was awesome, it really was great. I I really did enjoy that. So, as I said, I really like this movie. I've been very happy because Netflix, probably starting back then, have really been adding a lot of foreign horror movies, and I do like watching foreign horror movies. I like watching every horror movie, really. I also like the the just the differences in countries and their version of horror and and the other things that you can bring from like the movies, because a lot of times movies are reflection of the society that made them, so they're really interesting to watch. Um, when I do watch foreign horror movies, I do prefer to watch the dub version, and that's only because I'm not always just sitting there staring at the screen. Sometimes it's kind of on and I'm kind of you know multitasking. So it's hard for me to just sit there and read the whole time. I can appreciate subtitles because I get it. You like the subtitles because when you it's the actor's voice, you get the nuance of the actor in the role. Again, it just requires me to watch the screen. And I do that. I will do that for foreign horror movies if they don't require have the dubbing. I will sit and watch and and again like foreign horror movies, and I'm gonna try to do more in this podcast if I can. Um again, lots of American-made and Canadian-made horror movies I'll be doing, but I'm gonna try to get a few more foreign movies in here. In the beginning of this movie, you get the feeling that the woman in the movie has cancer, but then there's a point where it's obvious she comes out as a vampire, and I think that's kind of neat. I don't think you can like put the two together, like, uh, you know, all vampire people have cancer and whatnot, but look like they have vampire look like they have cancer. Because in this instance, like the vampires, like they don't have hair. So she wears a wig, but it's very much like the Nosferatu type vampire in this, and it then it is, you know, your your Dracula, Bram Stokerish vampire. I never even thought about that to talk about it as I'm talking about now. The the the thing is is that she's going she is on this flight to go and get a surgery to take out the blood she has and put in uh new blood. And I think the idea is that she won't be a vampire anymore. And I think like that there is a is like a time limit or whatever it is where she can't really kill a lot of people and drink human blood or whatever, and it'll it'll take her too far over the edge. She's still very human, she still has very human emotions, she's protecting her son, but I think there becomes a limit that she can do and kill and drink blood until she's basically full on vampire, and there won't be anything that anybody can do for her. And I think that's I don't think they say it anywhere, but I think you feel it as the movie goes on. Like the son gets more and more worried as she becomes more and more feral. Again, I'm giving a lot away, and I'm sorry, but it's an excellent movie. Another part of this, and strangely enough, a part of the the first movie I did, is it's really a great story. The writers do a great job. The movie even does a great job of like filling in her backstory of how she became a vampire and like why she makes certain choices. It is really well done. I do have one huge issue with this particular movie. It shows two dogs getting killed. Okay, I don't think either one was necessary to show. Uh dogs getting killed in a movie is a big no-no for me. Kill as many humans as you like. Thousands. I'll watch them, I'll watch them all die violent, horrible deaths, but leave the dogs alone. I'm not kidding. Leave the dogs alone. Now, this movie it kind of ignores some vampire rules. I guess as most of them don't have a lot of bearing in this, the the uh, you know, sunlight kills vampires and fire kills vampires, those are still in here. One rule that I believe in, and I don't know if it's a real rule or if it's just I hitched onto it because I saw it as a rule and I liked it, is that older vampires are stronger than newer vampires. I think that only makes sense to me in the world, like the strongest vampire should be the original one. You know, no matter how old he gets, his should be the strongest. Otherwise, if you keep making vampires, eventually they're just gonna overthrow you, you know. So this movie doesn't have that because like she has trouble overpowering humans, which is which is kind of weird. But anyway, again, different writers have different concepts of vampires. I'm just glad she didn't sparkle. Again, this is another movie where no one listens to a kid at the peril. The little boy is trying to tell the security at an airport about like what to do and what's going on, and none of them believe him, and it leads to a bunch of them getting killed. You know, come on, let's listen to kids a little bit. I mean, I don't get me wrong, I probably wouldn't listen to him either. I did not really, again, um, a farm made movie. I really didn't know the actors in this. Now, the only one I recognize was Dominic Purcell, and uh, he's pretty much like a B listener, but he has his purposes, and whenever called upon, I think he does a good job. I know him from He had a TV show where he plays gosh, I'm gonna say Captain Cold, but it's like it's in the Flash universe on uh the CW. It's in that he plays a villain that becomes a hero kind of person. And and again, I've seen him on a bunch of stuff, and I like him in everything I've seen him in. So Perry Baumeister, she looks like she's had a pretty good career for herself. She was great in this movie. She plays a loving mother who happens to be a vampire, uh weakened by drugs to keep her from fully vamping out. But again, she did a great job, and obviously she has done some good work before and after this movie, so good for her. So, movie number three, cough. It is Fangs from 2002, uh, season one. Uh this is season one, episode 16, of course. Uh, you can find it on Prime, Fossum, Roku Channel, and Tubi. To be tubi. Production companies are Porch Light Entertainment, Porchlight Pictures, and the deal, GmbH. Um, because of that, it makes me think that there was a German production company had his hand in it somewhere because I don't remember what GMBH stands for, but I believe it is German. Director is Kelly Sandefer, if I pronounce that correctly. The writer is, yeah, I'm not good with these names. Jim Gowen. G-E-O-G-H-A-N, Gogan, Gugan, Gogan, Goen, I don't know. It stars Corbin Bernstein, Tracy Nelson, and Whip Hubble. I got all three of those right because I actually know who all three of those are. The plot. It's the attack of the genetically altered killer bats. That is actually what is down as the plot. I didn't just make that up. It's if you go on IMDB, that's what it says. So why this movie? I wanted this to fit in with the other vampire movies. What I didn't realize is that this is a vampire bat movie. So it does and doesn't fit in with this episode, but I watched it, so I'm doing it. How did I see it? I watched it for the first time for this episode. So the favorite kills. The kills are basically people getting bitten by bats. And there's nothing really that cool about it. In fact, I mean, it's not a very bloody. Movie considering is vampire bats killing things. So this movie is bad. And first off, I'm gonna go back to something I talked about in the previous movie, and that in this movie, they also kill a dog. Boo. Not cool at all. And no reason for it. I mean, no reason at all. If it makes sense, okay, do it. You know, in the movie Halloween, there's a scene where the German shepherd at the house is barking, barking, barking at Michael Myers. And the the next thing you see is like Michael Myers, you just see like from his maybe ribs down, and you see the dog's like kind of ribs and his back paws and his tall and his tail. And you see him like you don't see his arms around the dog, but you know he's holding the dog and probably squeezing the life out of it. But you just see the the dog's legs go limp. And if you're gonna do it, do it that way. Because in my head, I'm saying to myself, he is just putting the dog to sleep. That dog is still alive, it is sleeping. I'm okay with that. If I can stretch my imagination to make sure that in my head that dog's still alive in Friday the 13th, the final chapter, you know, part four, the final chapter of 10 movies or more. There's a dog in that, too. And the dog is you'd think to be thrown out of a window. My thought was the dog ran out of the window to get away, and the dog was fine. It ran away. It's smarter than the humans, it ran away. That's what I want to see. I don't want to see a dog killed on camera. You can get rid of a dog without killing it on camera. I will get off my soapbox. Um, this movie, although it made in 2002, is a really bad version of a 2005 movie called Vampire Bats. So I guess quite possibly Vampire Bats is really just a good version of this movie. I mean, seriously, this this one just the writing's bad in it. And there's even like bad science in this because their their whole big way of protecting themselves from these bats is to spray aluminum like uh like little pieces of aluminum in the air, and it'll throw off the bats radar. The problem is bats use sonar, and the aluminum in the air isn't going to do anything to affect that. So, yeah, everything's bad about this. Even Corbin Burnson's overacting was kind of bad, but someone had to act, and if it was overacting, well, then that's just the way it is. I also don't understand how they make movies. There are a lot of actors and actresses out there. Okay, I lived in Hollywood for a year, they're everywhere. Okay, they're everywhere. You know, I don't think you could have found two less attractive leads with absolutely zero chemistry than you had in this movie. So Tracy Nelson is probably a very sweet person. She seems to play sweet people, sweet persons, sweet women on camera. She's not overly attractive. She's done a lot of work because she can act. I remember her from a show called Aid Is Enough, where she played one of the daughters. But this movie did give her nothing, and it didn't help her, she didn't help it. Whip Hubli is the other lead, and he's probably best known for playing a military guy. If you see a movie with a guy, he's just a military guy from the 80s and 90s, it was probably him. He's best just kind of standing in the background, don't make him a lead. And then Corbin Burnson, like, seriously, dude, what happened to you? Like, did you lose a bet? Like, you were in LA Law, man, and major league. Like, what happened? Why are you doing these movies? Because he's in a lot of these bad movies, like bad horror movies. Like, don't get me wrong, I love bad horror movies, but man, he had a career. So um, I'm gonna stop there. I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I do have the next episode is actually for my birthday. Because I'll be recording it like right before my birthday. So they will be birthday themed movies, just so you know, so you can start thinking about what movies would he watch for his birthday theme. So, until then, I hope everybody out there has fun.