'80s Movie Montage
Breaking down our favorite decade of flicks. Hosted by Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke.
'80s Movie Montage
Near Dark
Welcome to this season's Halloween Series! To kick things off, Anna and Derek chat about the rules of vampirism, the criminal under usage of Jenette Goldstein, and much more during their discussion of Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987).
Connect with '80s Movie Montage on Facebook, Bluesky or Instagram! It's the same handle for all three... @80smontagepod.
Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.
Let him go, I'm looking at your body. You're looking after the mom. Damn it's my family. Let him go! The question is whether they let us go. They've been tracking us. Now they know our faces, I say kill them.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, and welcome to 80s movie montage. This is Derek.
SPEAKER_03:And this is Anna.
SPEAKER_01:And that was Adrian Pazder, Lance Henriksen, Jeanette Goldstein, and Bill Paxton from 1986's Aliens. Oh. Wait, no, no. That's 1987's Near Dark.
SPEAKER_03:That is that was good. That was good. I liked, I liked that. And yeah, Near and Dark, which is the first of the movies Halloween Halloween series.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, no. I think I think I didn't know if there was something more.
SPEAKER_03:I love it. It's my favorite. It's my favorite time of year. Yes, near dark, we are kicking things off with. And yeah, it's hilarious that you said that because it is very much a reteeming in many ways of some of the people.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it was it was intentional because at the time Cameron suggested to Bigelow like, use these people. They had good chemistry in this movie I just made that was featured on a movie marquee in one of the cities they were in in Near Dark.
SPEAKER_03:Such a great Easter egg.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:That was an amazing Easter egg. I'm curious, I don't want to get into all this, but like obviously Bigelow and Cameron were married. So was he already because at the time he should have been married to Galen Heard because that was the producer on Aliens. Anyway, I'm already getting off track.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it it just said, like, future husband Cameron suggested this.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, and we are completely bearing the lead because we have yet again another female director.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So that's awesome. And we will get to her in like a minute. So near dark, as you said, 1987. And let's start with the writers. I love this name. The first of the two credited writers, Eric Red.
SPEAKER_01:Not Eric the Red.
SPEAKER_03:That's exactly that. You just stole my joke. Not the Viking, just Eric Red. And but it does seem so the other, I mean, I'm not trying to like withhold any information. The other credited writer is Catherine Bigelow.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It I don't think that they were necessarily like writing partners, but they do have another shared credit. He doesn't have like a huge writing filmography, but a huge film that he did do that had some life beyond the original film was The Hitcher.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, which we could do. Honestly.
SPEAKER_01:Isn't Ruper Hauer in that?
SPEAKER_03:He is. There you go. Yes. And is it see Thomas Howell? I don't remember who the kid is in it. But anyway. So The Hitcher he did, which then he has credits as well for The Hitcher 2. Colin, I've been waiting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, if you're a hitcher, probably.
SPEAKER_03:Which I think went maybe direct to video. And then I think there was, as there always is, a reboot. There's a 2007 The Hitcher.
SPEAKER_01:Do you think that's why there was so much hitchhiking in Near Dark?
SPEAKER_03:So okay, so what I was thinking about first of all, you're absolutely right. There's so much hitchhiking in Near Dark, but I think that that was like still it I think it was definitely on its way out, but that still wasn't a completely unheard of thing in the 80s.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It kind of reminds me of how like off the record we were talking the other day about um quicksand and how quicksand was like such a thing. Yes. Um oh it was C. Thomas Howell in the Hitcher. I actually got that right. Anyway, yeah, I there's a lot of hitchhiking. I think that the hitcher would never be made today. Although I wonder what they did with the 2007 reboot. I wonder how they work that.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it's not a thing where we are. I mean, maybe in some other parts of the country, there's still some hitchhiking going on. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, the synopsis for the reboot, which by the way stars Sean Bean.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:A couple from college get caught in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a psychopathic hitchhiker.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's why no one picks him up.
SPEAKER_03:That's why nobody picks him up. But to get back to near dark. So among Eric Red's other credits, we have Blue Steel.
SPEAKER_01:Not the look from Zoolander.
unknown:Not the look.
SPEAKER_01:But the cop drama with Jimmy Lee Curtis.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and that's the title that's gonna be brought up a couple times. Uh also Bad Moon, which for some reason always wants to autoplay when I don't know what streaming service it is, but if I just like put a moving movie on, I swear the next movie is always like suggested to be Bad Moon. And then 100 feet. So the other credited writer I mentioned, Big Low, she look, she's primarily a director, so she has a very short writing credit list. Uh, this is one of them. The Loveless is another one of them. And then she also does have a credit, so this is the shared credit between them. It is Blue Steel because she directed that movie as well. So, and then 10 seconds later, I'm bringing up Blue Steel again because now we're gonna talk about her directing credits. And I'd like to think that probably a lot of the people listening to this podcast are familiar with film, film history. She is forever going to be in the history books because well, because of why. Why do you think?
SPEAKER_01:Oh. Um first woman to win best director.
SPEAKER_03:That's absolutely right.
SPEAKER_01:There you go.
SPEAKER_03:I remember watching that ceremony. I'm like getting emotional about it. Because it's a big deal.
SPEAKER_01:Was it for point break?
SPEAKER_03:Thank you for raking me out of my my crying jag that is about to begin. Um it was a big deal.
SPEAKER_01:And it was for the Hurt Locker, right?
SPEAKER_03:It was for the Hurt Locker 2010, which is like insanity that it took Yes. Wow. Insanity. She wasn't the first nominated, but she was the first to win. And what's also kind of funny about it is that she was up against Cameron. Um, I believe for it must have been for Avatar. And so it is it is kind of hilarious that the two of them were up against each other. I mean, what what are the odds of being up against your ex-husband or best director? But I mean, that yeah, that's and I remember it being such a big deal that my father, who you know, what I'm in LA, he was in Chicago, not a huge movie guy, but he was watching the Oscars, and as soon as she won, he texted me about it. Which like made me just feel that much more emotional about it because he knew how important that was. Yeah. So in any case, um, her credits include so Blue Steel was very early. She did direct Point Break. Yeah. So fun film, but just outside of the 80s, so we can't cover it. Strange Days, The Weight of Water. I mean, she has largely made a name for herself for very action-forward films. Um, K including K9, The Widowmaker.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, K19, you mean?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I'm sorry, K19.
SPEAKER_01:K K9 or something.
SPEAKER_03:I totally have it written correctly. I just I just said it incorrectly. And then, yes, so in 2010, not only did she win best director for The Hurt Locker, but also she was a producer on it, and it won Best Picture that year. So she got double double Oscars for that. So that's awesome. She got nominated again a couple years later for Dark uh Zero Dark 30. I will always say that name wrong. Um, but she got a nomination for that, and then more recently she did the film Detroit. So interestingly though, I want to say Detroit was like what, 2017, and I didn't see anything since then. So hopefully she's in the works on something because she's an incredible filmmaker and deserves to continue to work. So I don't know. Moving on to cinematography, Adam Greenberg. He is currently 88 years old, and a lot of amazing credits. Um he's I think retired at this point, but among I have yeah, all films for him. It's and this is not the first time we brought him up. Probably not the last time.
SPEAKER_01:Probably not.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think I think there are multiple opportunities actually for us to bring him up again. Earlier in his career, he did It's a Funny Funny World, the last American Version.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So we brought him up what, it was last season when we did the Terminator?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I think so.
SPEAKER_03:So so he was a share kind of a shared DP between Bigelow and Cameron. Um probably recommended by Cameron, perhaps. Probably so also came back for Terminator 2 Judgment Day, for which he got his one and only Oscar nomination for best cinematography. He did Once Bitten, Iron Eagle, Bla Bamba. He it's interesting because this isn't necessarily the case when you have a sequel, but he also did Three Men and a Baby and came back for that sequel and did Three Men and a Little Lady.
SPEAKER_01:Peak cinema.
SPEAKER_03:He did Turner and Hooch, Ghost, Dave, a lot of just one one word titles. Junior. He did first night. Not a great movie, no, but it hit me at a certain time in my life. That kiss. Whew, that kiss.
SPEAKER_01:That like just that movie, like some of those like um Arthurian kind of uh periods, some of them because of the casting, they just feel like like a play more than like a movie, because the immersion is not there for me when I'm watching like because like the King of England still sounds like Sean Connery. Right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, but you know what? I'm not I'm not mad at his casting.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not upset about it. It's just it's just like something that I'll also like with Kevin Costner as Robin Hood. Sure. It's just like that casting sometimes it's like it's hard for me to not Was Sean Connery in that movie too? No, okay, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_03:Uh I will say though, Richard Gere is Lancelot. Yeah, no, that makes sense. It does? Yeah. I think that's terrible casting.
SPEAKER_01:No, I could see that.
SPEAKER_03:I swayed you really easily on that one. No, I I thought I he he is not. I mean, look, he's a great actor, but that is not that is not the rule for him. But he brought he brought that like uh he brought that kiss. That sass and that impotence or not impotence, um impuged. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever that word is, he brought that. So anyway, Greenberg shot it. He also did Eraser, Collateral Damage, so a couple other Schwarzenegger films. Uh and Snakes on a Plane.
SPEAKER_01:Ants Fear, which was a pretty solid uh, I think Michael Crichton book that was also made into a movie.
SPEAKER_03:There you go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so we have brought them up uh not that long ago. Music by Tangerine Dream.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you know what? I'm gonna say something. I I think they're great, and in like every other movie that we've that we've seen where they've done the the score, it's been amazing. And even some movies that we can't cover because of the period that they were set in. Correct looking at you, sorcerer. But it didn't work for me as much in this movie.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, really surprising, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I I don't I feel like I don't often call out the score, but there were a couple times actually in this film where I'm like, huh?
SPEAKER_01:Like most recently in Thief. We talked about that.
SPEAKER_03:Thief it was fantastic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Uh perfect scoring for that film. And that film has still stuck with me. Like that was such a surprise to me.
SPEAKER_01:It kind of felt like, hey, do you guys have some tracks left over from all these other things that can just kind of like fit in, maybe?
SPEAKER_03:There were just a couple moments in the film where I'm like, I don't feel like the music works right now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, you know, I'm just just one person's opinion, maybe two people's opinions since you seem to feel the same way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But I notice it right at the beginning too. Like right from the outset when you kind of like hear the music coming in. I'm like, oh, yeah, this isn't what I expected. I knew it was them. Right. But it part of it is just that like the tone of the movie, yeah. It never really I'm never really sure like what they're trying to establish. Uh like on one hand, and we probably talk more about this, it felt like it was potentially like multiple movies kind of like crammed into one movie, but then other parts of it, they were like taking way more time than it felt was needed.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think confusing. I look, I will applaud this film for like it being a really interesting, and we'll get we can get into all of this, but like I'm always really fascinated on like the world that they set up for vampires and like the way that the lore that I think just by osmosis through multiple movies and stories and everything that we've like digested over the course of our lives, like what we think the lore is around uh vampires and how that gets switched up from no crosses, new story to new story.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no crosses. Not a single cross in this movie, but possibly the quickest and easiest curt to vampirism in all of cinema.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, and and also just like the rules, so to speak, around how quickly you need to eat to to maintain your strength and just all that stuff is really interesting. But uh I'll just say, yeah, the score does contribute a back to Tangerine. Well, it does contribute a lot to what the tone is. I mean, you're you're right. And I think I came into the film with a preconceived notion of what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was gonna be campier and a little funnier, and it wasn't that. And I'm trying to reconcile whether or not my disappointment is like fully my fault, or if it could have been something a little bit different that would have improved it.
SPEAKER_01:I yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have needed it to be campier or funnier, but if it's gonna have a more like serious vibe to it, yeah, then I think there are other expectations that come along with that.
SPEAKER_03:And one thing that you brought up that I fully agree with is like, man, I wish I would have known more about all those characters, the non-human characters. I we get little bits and pieces. I think we get the most about Jesse. We know that he was a Civil War soldier.
SPEAKER_01:He yeah, like he was coming up with his backstory, and before they started filming, he would dye his hair black with tar, because that's what apparently like soldiers and men in the Navy would do in the 1800s. And he took broken fingernail extension pieces and covered his like fingers with them to look like like his hands were like broken, jagged bones or something, and he was driving and and brought on a hitchhiker himself, and the hitchhiker was like, Yeah, no, you can just let me out. Because he looked like a maniac and he was Man, fucking actors. Yeah, so he gave him eighty dollars. He gave him the eighty dollars that he had just to like for putting up with him and and let him go.
SPEAKER_03:That's funny. But yeah, I mean, we we know that. Um I think it's funny when I don't know if you caught it, but when Severin, which like made me immediately think Harry Potter. Uh, but anyway, when Severin was like, hey, remember that fire we started in Chicago? That was really funny. Yeah. So like there's all these like little tidbits that we learn. It sounds like May was turned very recently. She was just turned, like, I think she said four years ago, because she was still in high school. Homer turned her because he was a fifth grader, or he he presented himself as a fifth grader that needed help. Anyway, we get these bits and pieces, but like I would have loved to have learned more about all those characters. We know basically nothing about Diamondback.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's what I what I meant in terms of like it could have it could have been longer. Like, that's that's an area where I'm like, yeah, I would have loved to have seen more of it.
SPEAKER_03:It's a really tight film, so they actually could have anyway. Okay, getting back to Tangerine Dreams. Oh my god, we're still talking about it. Yeah, some of the other credits, which we've covered a lot. Uh, we mentioned a thief. We have not yet done risky business, uh, but they scored that. Firestarter, we could also do vision quest, we could also do, but we have done also Legend.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Probably the strongest, I would say.
SPEAKER_01:What is Vision Quest? Why is that?
SPEAKER_03:That's the one with Matthew Modine and Linda Fiordino, and I think he's like a wrestler.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And it has Jake from 16 Candles in it. Okay. I think Madonna has an appearance in it. In fact, she was like getting so popular at the time that I think in some countries the title is more about Madonna, I think, than anyway. And then uh they also scored a film which I love. It's the 1989 Catch Me If You Can. Nothing to do with the Spielberg.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, moving on to film editing. Howard E. Smith, he's gonna turn 80 this year. So well done. Also, I think retired, maybe at this point. So some of his credits. Um we probably we probably did bring him up because I do think we were covering most of the people from this film. Twilight Zone, the movie, he specifically edited segment four. So isn't that the 10,000 feet, whatever one?
SPEAKER_01:Oh is that the last segment?
SPEAKER_03:I think that's the last segment.
SPEAKER_01:Of the William Shatner thing on the plane. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:I think that's the last one.
SPEAKER_01:I yeah, I think it is because then he's like leaving in the ambulance, and the driver of the ambulance is Aykroyd. There you go. Brings it back, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So we covered him for Baby, Secret of the Lost Legend. Go check that one out. We did that one with Chris a couple seasons ago. He cut at close range, he also did River's Edge, which I don't know if I'm gonna ever want to cover that one. Um, he also we covered him when we did The Abyss. Oh. That one was with James, so go check that one out. So he reteams with Bigelow because he cuts Point Break. He also does Glengarry Glenn Ross.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing family comedy.
SPEAKER_03:That's a hard movie to get through. I mean, it's a play that was turned into Yeah. So it's just oh, they're all so awful to each other.
SPEAKER_01:That scene with Alec Baldwin, though, yeah, I know, I know.
SPEAKER_03:They're it's a great film. Yeah, they all do great.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's a hard movie to watch.
SPEAKER_01:It is.
SPEAKER_03:So anyway. Strange Days, so he teams up with her again. She must have liked him as her editor. He does Dante's Peak again, because he cuts the weight of water. Blade Trinity.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, that movie. That the movie's kind of grown on me. Oh my god, it's so bad.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's so bad.
SPEAKER_03:It's kind of grown on me. He also, uh, this is kind of a funny like teeming. It's not, it's not Catherine Bigelow, but whereas um Greenberg shot Snakes on a Plane, Howard cut it.
SPEAKER_01:So there's always one movie that just like always pops up.
SPEAKER_03:Kind of a weird, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And today it's Snakes on a Plane.
SPEAKER_03:I had to just bring this up because he cut Nights of Bad Astom.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, we never watched that.
SPEAKER_03:We've like um Yeah, it's come up before.
SPEAKER_01:We've looked, we watched the trailer. We've always considered watching it. We've not done so yet.
SPEAKER_03:We have not done so. And then lastly, he cut Vengeance Colin. A love story.
SPEAKER_01:I love it.
SPEAKER_03:Alright, we're at the stars of the film. Starting with, and you just made sure that we would say his name right, Adrian Pazder. Yeah. Who plays Caleb? Caleb Colton.
SPEAKER_01:Kind of two first names, but Yeah, Colton is the first name. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So interesting because in many regards, uh unknown lead. He he had like a bit part, so he played a character named Chipper and Top Gun. I think he had like one line because I was like, who the hell is that? In Top Gun. And I think at the like graduation ceremony, he's the character who's like, Where's Maverick? I think that's his line.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing.
SPEAKER_03:So that's like Chippa. Mostly what what he had done before this movie comes along. Um, and yeah, he's he's very much sleeds. He's the human, which like, look, I was saying this a couple times at the beginning of the film. I'm not a huge fan of the way that he was coming on to May.
SPEAKER_01:He comes on real strong. So much other bullshit happens that you kind of forget that this dude was just like kind of predatory.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, kind of gross.
SPEAKER_01:I I honestly I don't know what was going on between him and May because I assumed that she was just gonna like kill him. Like feed off him, but I mean she just wanted she just wanted to night out, it appears.
SPEAKER_03:It was clear that you know he was gonna survive what was gonna whatever was gonna happen because he's the lead. We start with him, so I didn't think he was gonna die, but you know, it's interesting, like knowing like you said the same, like it's pretty clear, even with her introduction, that like right away you kind of know she's a vampire. Um it seemed like the original intent of her evening was just to find a kill, but she seemed to be attracted to him or interested in him, or I could totally see why she wasn't like total jiving with the rest of her crew. Like she's very different than the rest of them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So it's it felt like you know, she kept hesitating to bite him, and it felt like she on the one hand, and very quick quick turnaround, felt enough for him that she didn't want to do that to him, but also didn't I don't know, want to leave him. Like, I don't know, it was a very interesting opening. I couldn't quite get the sense of what her intention was.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that's like that is kind of a common thread that you can like pull on and unravels in a lot of other scenes in the movie where I'm like, I'm not really sure why this person is acting the way that they're acting, but I'm willing to just kind of accept it and watch it because we didn't really know. Like it it seemed, like you said, really obvious that she was just there to like bait a victim and then I don't know why. Like, was there something special about Yeah?
SPEAKER_03:I'm like, why are you all of a sudden caring about this guy? He's kind of treating you horribly.
SPEAKER_01:And and like she was freaking out because it was near dawn, which would have been, I think I said, a better title for this, because it's constantly always near dawn in the that is something that I do need to bring up about this film is that there seems to be a lot of loosey-goosey with like what time of day it is. Dawn is in five minutes, ten minutes later, high noon.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's it is very all over the place with like what time of day it is. And it seems to like be a little convenient that like you know, the sun's out when when they need to get out of like anyway.
SPEAKER_01:It was um so it was about to come up, yeah, and he's like, Okay, I'll take you home because she was really nervous because she's gonna fucking like die or undie or whatever it would be called. Um and he's like, sure, but you gotta give me a kiss.
SPEAKER_03:Gross.
SPEAKER_01:What? Yes, gross. It is, yeah. Yeah. Like so I my my what was just like my reaction in the moment to that, like to him saying that. That's why it's like, what do you like?
SPEAKER_03:I didn't look, I didn't like fall and hate the guy throughout the entire film. I was able to move on from that. But it's hard because this was a film where I didn't really the person I cared the most about was actually his little sister. She was a little badass. Yeah, she was. She was amazing when she's like, like she didn't drop the F bombs, but basically she's like, I fucking do what I want when I want.
SPEAKER_01:Like that was amazing.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But that was the moment where she just, where Mae just kind of like nicks his neck.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And she's in kind of peril because the sun's coming up.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like, not a whole lot about that. Like, there were so many other opportunities during that interaction they had, which I guess was the entire night, that would have made sense. I don't know if they were trying to like rush him to so that he would be in the daylight, so that now suddenly he's like immediately like smoking because of being in the sun.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Because like Homer full on is on fire within seconds of being outside. Yeah. Whereas May, I guess a a blanket cures all things as long as you're under a blanket and you're fine.
SPEAKER_01:Always have a blanket.
SPEAKER_03:Always have a blanket. Um, because she was outside exactly the same way Homer was, but like it looked like Caleb had just covered her in a blanket and she was fine.
SPEAKER_01:Well, look, I got news for everyone here. There are things called hoodies and gloves.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, wait, now that Jesse was driving and his hands were out fine, like just pull your sleeve up, man.
SPEAKER_01:Why don't I why don't they have why don't they just have gloves?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I didn't really understand the rules around how much the sun affects you.
SPEAKER_01:Because then also like After an undetermined amount of time, you will fucking explode.
SPEAKER_03:Like when they were having the shootout with the cops, yeah, and the cops are shooting holes into the hotel, yeah, presumably like the vampires are clothed. And so even though the sun was shooting in, it felt like, but if they have clothing on, that part of their skin still sets on because like you were seeing little things of fire on them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, not sure.
SPEAKER_03:And and yeah, so like I didn't understand the rules about what you need to do to protect yourself if you have direct sunlight on you.
SPEAKER_01:That's something that I don't know if a single vampire movie addresses that the same way, because the the moment where like all the bullet holes were creating all these separate shafts of light, it reminded me of like the end of From Dust Till Dawn, where where that's happening, and sometimes it's someone inside a building will just start intentionally shooting to create light to protect themselves.
SPEAKER_03:They do that in Fright Night.
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes, sometimes just like a single beam of the sun hits a vampire and they immediately turn to dust.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:That wasn't the case here, but we weren't really sure how it's supposed to work.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. But within that rule, I wasn't understanding the sub rules.
SPEAKER_01:Like this is this is kind of what I meant when I'm like, if it's campy or or not, like it doesn't really bother me, but if it's just like campy and funny, then I don't care as much about some of these things.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's the reason why I brought up the campy thing, because like if there was some camp or some humor, I could let a lot more slide. Exactly. But because they're if they played it pretty straight, and what I was saying just a couple minutes ago about Caleb, it was really hard for me to like root for any character.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And so, and especially like, look, that bar scene is really brutal. I I completely acknowledge that that was probably absolutely the intent of it. Yeah. You know, but as like a viewer, it's just hard to like really care what is the outcome for any of these characters because they never set up anything that's that's really sympathetic for any of the vampires.
SPEAKER_01:You don't get to know any of them enough to even start feeling that.
SPEAKER_03:Like, you know, it's the whole save the cat thing where it's like, give me one thing for each character that that captures my like affection or attention for them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, give me something. Like Homer's a little brat from the outset. Severin is just a maniac.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like Bill Paxton, his character was probably the most complete because it was just a complete maniac.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like I didn't really need to know a ton because that was his thing, is he was just the crazy one.
SPEAKER_03:And you know what? Like, he could have still played it that way if I had had something to latch on to for Homer, Jesse, or Diamondback. Yeah. I then yeah, let Severin be the crazy one.
SPEAKER_01:But I got nothing from any of them.
SPEAKER_03:But I got nothing from any of them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And honestly, they did such a disservice to Diamond Back because Jeanette Goldstein is phenomenal. They gave her almost nothing to work with.
SPEAKER_01:She had very little to do. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And I was like, come on, I want more. Like I love her. Like I'm obviously um thinking of her role as Vesquez and Aliens, and she is fucking phenomenal in that film, one of the best performances ever. Like it's crazy that more people still don't bring that up. I know that there's a lot of kind of like, you know, around the fact that she's essentially in brown face for that role. Yeah. But she plays the role magnificently. And I'm like, give her more to do in this movie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That wasn't it wasn't as as uncommon as you would think, particularly in the 80s. So just go look up Short Circuit.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. I mean, like, look, his uh Hollywood has a long history from its very first days, and it's this is not this is not acceptable, but it did have a very long history of whether or not you know characters are actually put into brown or blackface, but at the very least, characters who are not of a particular ethnicity were played for that ethnicity. So like Mickey Rooney playing someone of Asian descent. Oh, yeah. Like insane, insane casting in some cases. Um, but also say, like, I I just wish I would have seen more from her and and just for many of the characters. But getting back to Adrian. Yes. So Chipper and Top Gun. Um, he, I mean, he has been so busy. Uh, I have like a lot of TV for him. I do so a couple films earlier in his career, still Carlito's Way, the puppetess of love. I love that word. Okay, so here we go. A ton of TV, a lot of like one-offs, two-offs, but also a lot of longer stints on certain shows. So he was on the show Prophet. I think he was a lead character on that. Mysterious Ways, Judging Amy, Heroes. He was on Heroes for a while.
SPEAKER_01:That's where I remember him from. Okay. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So here's what's so interesting. He does a ton of voice work in the Marvel world. And guess what character he plays for like animated series?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I know it, so I won't guess it, but you can tell me.
SPEAKER_03:Tony Stark slash Iron Man. Yep. So he is Tony Stark in the animated series Iron Man. Um, he's done Marvel anime, the lying game game. I'm sorry. Avengers assemble, again, like Tony Stark slash Iron Man.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Colony. So some of these are either behind the scenes doing voice work or in front of the camera, and then more recently, Agents of Shield. So that's funny because like he's still in that world, but now he it's like live action, he's in front of the camera. So I think that's all really fun how that ties together.
SPEAKER_01:He is deep into the Marvel universe.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. So moving on to May, Jenny Wright. Um, not a huge filmography for her. It I I was doing like a little bit of a dive into her history because I really wasn't super familiar with her. It sounds like there was a lot of repeat casting with her and kind of like a I don't know if I'd go so far as to saying femme fatale, but kind of those types of roles, and I don't think that was really driving for her.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Um, but that was kind of all she could get. So I think that maybe she just decided to peace out. Uh however, what I do have for her, the world according according to Garb. Oh, really? Okay. She's in St. Elmo's Fire, which we might be doing later this year. Uh she's in the 1989 Twister. So not not the Bill.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't know there were okay Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So she's in that. Young Guns 2. A TV show called Capitol News, The Lawnmower Man.
SPEAKER_01:That was not good.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've heard I've never seen it, but actually. It wasn't her not her fault, but it was actually and then um, and lots of like TV appearances, but then I think her last credit, it was I I she's she's I think out of the industry. It was a short called uh Nadja Yet. It's from 2007.
SPEAKER_01:She played the role of Nadia Yet.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, she was I didn't even look at her her title. Okay. Getting to, is it all three in a row? Yes, it is. Our aliens crew, starting with Lance Hendrickson. He is 85 years old.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_03:Still going strong. I mean, he is working, working, working. He currently has over 250 credits. And yeah, he plays Jesse Hooker in this film. Yep. And I mean, would you agree that as little as we know about the vampires, we probably in some ways know the most about him? Like with the little things that they drop about him.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, we know that he was a Confederate soldier before he became a vampire.
SPEAKER_03:It seems like he's the eldest of the vampires.
SPEAKER_01:I think so. Yeah. And we don't know a whole lot more than that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he presumably started the Chicago fire with Severin in 1871. So he did that. Um he is brutal, but it does seem like he also like look, some things I do understand. You know, he's upset that um what the hell's his name? Caleb. That Caleb didn't kill that kid in the bar because now that kid, and that's exactly what he does. He goes to the police, and now he can identify them. So he does have like um a rational logic about him for his own survival.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he's a survivor, which was kind of interesting for you know a vampire that had been around that long. I feel like in most other like vampire stories, they're like successful financially. Yeah. Like they're not just scavengers living off the road, which is what they were doing. So that was something where I'm like, okay, I I can get on board with that, but without the backstory of understanding like why that's their like that's their lot in life.
SPEAKER_03:That's a really interesting point, because you're absolutely right. Like, I think that is what we see a lot of, even most recently when we um we dumped it after the second or before the second season, but um a discovery of witches.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh, that was like that was a discovery of something for sure.
SPEAKER_03:That first season was so good. And then as soon as they like went back in time, I was like, I'm gone. But yes, I mean the vampire in that story, they're extremely wealthy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because they've been around so long. Like apparently, apparently Jesse Hooker made some real shit investments.
SPEAKER_03:But that's yeah, that's such an interesting point that they kind of just they they live on the road, they don't put down roots anywhere. I thought it was kind of funny that the motel manager was like, Don't I remember you? Didn't you come through here? I'm like, are you seriously telling me you remember somebody from like 50 years ago? He is quite a distinguishable. I mean, sure. I don't know if I'd remember somebody 50 years down the road.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe there's that weird rat tail he had in the back of his.
SPEAKER_03:But those little things were fun. Like I like when those little things come up. And yeah, but he he is still very brutal. You know, he immediately shuts down the idea of letting Caleb's family go. Um, kind of for the same reasons, but there's like there's just not even a consideration of keeping them alive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because they were they successfully tracked them and they know what they'll look like.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah. So and and he's also very hard on Caleb. Like it's kind of interesting to me because like really this is all May's fault. She turned him.
SPEAKER_01:For sure.
SPEAKER_03:And and they give him like no time to I thought that that was interesting, is that they it's very calculated in the film that he never kills a single person.
SPEAKER_01:He does not. Yeah. He kills he kills a few vampires, but real quickly, I just want to point out they never use that word a single time in the movie.
SPEAKER_03:A single time.
SPEAKER_01:Nor do you see a single thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, they do that a lot in different films. Like, there's a ton of zombie movies where they never mention the word zombie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, I think that was the whole thing with uh The Walking Dead. That term is never used.
SPEAKER_01:So is this a universe where no one's ever heard of what a vampire is?
SPEAKER_03:I well, that's so interesting because like Caleb seems to pick up. I mean, once he's turned, maybe more specifically, once he drinks from May, he seems to immediately understand what what is happening. But so it's like there seems to be some understanding of what this life or uh undead life is like. I don't I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:This undead life. This undead life.
SPEAKER_03:So Lance Hendrickson, uh what a career this guy has had and continues to have. Early in his career, he has a very bit part. I'm trying to remember, is he? I think he's one of the guys that um at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he's like at that final where they're communicating with it, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So he's in that. He's in Damien Colen Omen 2.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:He this went off the air a long time ago, but for a while he was on that uh soap opera Ryan's Hope.
SPEAKER_01:Never heard of that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, exactly. I don't know if this would have been the first time he would have interacted with Cameron, but he was in Prana 2 The Spawning. So he's in that. The Right Stuff, which we could cover at some point. Oh yeah. I do really love his little part in, and I'm not trying to say that rudely, but like his smaller role in The Terminator.
SPEAKER_01:He is what is he? He's a he's in the cop station, right? Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:He's like, I don't know if you'd call him a cop or a detective, but he is the one that is kind of communicating with the head guy who is also phenomenal in that role. God, they really they gave so much to those roles. Um, he's really good in that. He's in Jagged Edge. So, as we have mentioned multiple times at this point, he is Bishop in Aliens.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:And this, you know, his his uh part in this role then has a huge ripple effect. Because he's been in a ton of other alien properties. Um he is an alien three, probably not for very long though, right? He's you know that movie better than I do.
SPEAKER_01:He um I think they they do something with his head kind of similar to what they did with Ash.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So there's something like So like what get information? Yeah, but then it's either like another another synthetic, but it's like it's him. I I couldn't remember if it was like the human or like the person that Bishop was based off of. It's Bishop 2, is like what he's cast as in that, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But yeah, he's he has parlayed that role into like other to involvement in other alien properties.
SPEAKER_01:Wasn't he in um Alien versus Predator? The first one?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, he is.
SPEAKER_01:And did it not really make sense?
SPEAKER_03:Or or did it it so okay, it's been a minute since I've watched that movie. But um is he supposed to be a human and maybe a human based off like that they used to create a synthetic? I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember, but he does Oh, you know who?
SPEAKER_01:He's Charles Bishop Whalen.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So he's part of the Whalen corporation. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so that's why, like, did they create a synthetic off of him?
SPEAKER_01:That seems like something someone with that ego would do.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I think something like that. So anyway, um, and then his other franchise, Pumpkinhead. Yes, what? We're not doing that this Halloween series because we did that way back for an earlier Halloween series with Sarah. So please go check out that one. And he also has returned to that for Pumpkin Head colon ashes to ashes and pumpkin head for colon blood feud.
SPEAKER_01:I always love the the colons in these uh horror sequels.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, me too. Sometimes they're real fun. He is in house three, colon, the horror show.
SPEAKER_01:There you go. We haven't seen two yet, have we?
SPEAKER_03:We watched Do we own it? Did I buy one and two?
SPEAKER_01:I think so, because we watched the first one. It got it it gets weird. It gets real weird.
SPEAKER_03:I've heard two's even more bonkers.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we saw the did we see a trailer for two after like immediately following one? Probably. There was something weird about it. It's like, what is this? Back to the future two or something? Where they like would show you the bits from from three at the end of it.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, oh. He's also in Jennifer Eight. I didn't so I never watched this one, but he is King Bowser in Super Mario Bros. Not the one that came out a couple years ago, but the one from the 90s with what Bob Hoskins? A live action one? Yeah. He's in a couple like infamous movies.
SPEAKER_01:Nintendo is like, we're not fucking making a movie for decades after that.
SPEAKER_03:Uh Color of Night, he is in. The Quick and the Dead, Dead Man, Powder. He is he is mostly TV, but he has done, or I'm sorry, mostly film, but he has done some TV work. He was on the show for a while, I think. Millennium, which I think was like the main guy. I don't know that show.
SPEAKER_01:It it had like uh an X-Files kind of feel to it, I think. Or was that other one? Fringe? Like they're they're kind of that kind of a style of show, I think.
SPEAKER_03:He is a real swarmy guy, but he's really fun in Scream Three.
SPEAKER_02:Hmm.
SPEAKER_03:He's like kind of uh amalgamation of every CD gross, like director slash producer in Hollywood. Like that's kind of the character he plays. Okay. Yeah. He, to your point, Alien versus Predator. He did some voice work on the TV series Tron Uprising. He was on the show The Blacklist for a bit. Uh, a film, Exorcism at 60,000 feet.
SPEAKER_01:That's a high altitude exorcism.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And just a ton more. I mean, he's just this is a fraction of the work that he's done, but he's still gone, so good for him. All right. Moving on to Bill Paxton. He plays Severin, and this has come up before because this is not the first time we've talked about him, but this one this one made me really sad when he passed away in 2017. He was only, I think, about 61 years old. Um he passed away from complications of heart surgery. And I think that was shocking for everybody. Like from everything that I've ever read about him, he was a great guy and everybody loved him.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Uh, and he was always like a joy to have on set. And it is it's really a shame that he passed away. I mean, some people might think 61 doesn't sound so young, but it kind of is nowadays. Yeah. So he he left us too soon. And as far as his work goes, um, especially earlier in his career, all films for him and a huge amount of like like huge blockbuster films, he has a very bit role. I don't we just did this one not too long ago, so I don't even think we brought him up. Stripes.
SPEAKER_01:Soldier.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he's like a soldier, yeah. But he has a really fun little bit role at the beginning of The Terminator.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. Uh that interaction at I think what is Griffith Park or Griffith Observatory. Correct. Yeah. When nude Schwarzenegger walks up and I think it's I think it's Paxton who's like, nice night for a walk, eh?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, which you said to me just the other day when we were at the park. Uh yeah. So he's in that. And then it's funny because there are parts of this film, Near Dark, that like the truck scene that felt very Terminator-ish.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The truck driver's like, get out.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. Both the original Terminator and T2, because they both have like truck scenes. Yeah. And there was a lot of like, I don't know, that vibe just hit the same way. So he also probab it's kind of a funny role to like make your name on initially, but he is the asshole older brother Chet in Weird Science, which we have not done yet. However, when we were watching Near Dark for this show, I was like, oh my God, he's using the same laugh. Chet laugh. The Chet laugh. Uh, which I just thought was funny. He's in commando. I mean, the whole thing about Bill Paxton is that everybody says like he's the only guy who ever was like killed by an alien and a predator and a terminator.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Xenomorph, predator, terminator. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And I think there's a couple other things that he's been killed by. But anyway, those are the biggies. Uh so commando, aliens, predator two. So he's in the second one.
SPEAKER_01:But my favorite thing about Predator 2 is how they try so desperately to make Los Angeles seem like it's New York. There's like such a focus on like film in New York.
SPEAKER_03:Like, just have it set in New York.
SPEAKER_01:Like the yeah, just like the focus on like the downtown stuff. And I'm like, hmm, interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's it's weird. Anyway, he's in another kind of infamous, infamous film, Boxing Helena. He's in Tombstone.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Uh, so he's the youngest ERP brother. He has a fun role in True Lies.
SPEAKER_01:Simon. Yeah, he's great in that.
SPEAKER_03:He's great. I mean, so he reteams with Cameron on that one.
SPEAKER_01:Swarmy used car salesman guy.
SPEAKER_03:I appreciate that he is he was up for like taking roles like that, even though he's pretty big at that point.
SPEAKER_01:But it's like another Cameron Schwarzenegger movie, so sure.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Uh he is in Apollo 13. So he is one of the Apollo 13 astronauts. Yep. He's we mentioned a different twister. He is in the twister that most people are familiar with, with Helen Hunt.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, he is in Titanic, so he is not part of the mostly flashback of a film that it is, but he is the He's the guy looking for the jewel of that goddamn old lady threw in the ocean.
SPEAKER_03:I'm sorry, that will never not annoy the fuck out of me that she just throws it into the ocean.
SPEAKER_01:Selfish, selfish lady.
SPEAKER_03:He's into Simple Plan, Mindy Joe Young, Frailty, which did he direct that one as well?
SPEAKER_01:I don't know, but that's like a sneaky good movie that like I don't think it ever got a ton of attention or traction. Powers Booth is in it too. He's great too. Yeah, no, that that movie is really good.
SPEAKER_03:Well, he's in it, and I I want to say he directed it too. He so okay, so he transitions to TV and he transitions in a big way.
SPEAKER_01:He did direct it by the way. Oh, great.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you for confirming that. Confirming that. Because he is on the TV series Big Love. Oh, yeah. Which was huge while it was on the air. And then I didn't realize that he, I guess, was on also Agents of Shield for a while.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I don't think I knew that. I didn't I never watched that. There's just Me neither. I uh There's too much.
SPEAKER_03:Too much.
SPEAKER_01:Apologies. There's too much Marvel stuff. Sorry. Uh The Circle and then he was on an uh season of the Circle?
SPEAKER_03:That that film with I think Tom Hanks and Emma Watts.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I thought you meant on uh Netflix.
SPEAKER_03:That would oh my god, that would have been amazing if he had been on a circle. And then prior to his passing, he was on the TV series version of Training Day.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so we brought her up already, but Jeanette Goldstein, Diamondback. So she is presumably she's like kind of a couple with Jesse. We know absolutely nothing about how they got together, or I don't know. It I couldn't get the sense either when they were in the bar.
SPEAKER_01:We don't know anything about any of them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I in the bar, like look, they're brutal killers. That's how they all are, even May. But I couldn't get a sense with the waitress if she was like a little bit jealous of the way that Jesse was interacting with her, or if like, nope, that's just how they kill. They just I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:But impossible to say.
SPEAKER_03:And at the end, I mean it's so funny to me because you know, they're in the car, her and Jesse, and they're burning up, and she just grabs his hand and she's like, good times, like, or we had good times, or something like that. And I'm like, boy, you guys really succumbed to your fate fairly quickly. Like, I feel like you could have had options here to even, even just go under, like, respectively, go under your part of the car.
SPEAKER_01:Just get a fucking blanket, man.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, like you could have like cars nowadays aren't so much like this, but I remember older cars from the 80s. You could you could climb under them. There was uh there's even in the while you're still inside the car, you could go under like where your your feet would be.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:In the front of the car. Okay. Like you could hide from the sun.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:There were options as well.
SPEAKER_01:There's no reasoning with these vampires that wouldn't ever call themselves vampires.
SPEAKER_03:But she's she's fantastic. I think that um largely she has also pivoted out of acting. She has her own like set of, I think, lingerie stores. Okay. So she has that going on. Aliens was her first credit. I don't know if I actually brought that up when we did it.
SPEAKER_01:Insane because that's such a memorable, amazing character. I'm literally looking at the Aliens Vasquez action figure that I got that was just like left over in a box when I worked at Fox.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. It's awesome. I'm so glad we have it. And that again, I'm just like kind of I can't wrap my mind around the fact that she had that kind of outstanding performance and that it didn't quite translate into a bigger career. She's fantastic. Yeah. She is fantastic in that movie.
SPEAKER_01:She's in more movies than I think the average movie watcher even realizes. Unless you like look at her filmography. She's in more stuff, but she's such a chameleon.
SPEAKER_03:It's yeah, and it's also very small roles. Like I I don't know. She's so she's in Lethal Weapon 2. She is the foster mom and Terminator 2, Judgment Day. She reteams with Cameron a lot. Uh, she's in the film, another infamous film, Fair Game. She is one of the steering, would you say, is it called steering passage in Titanic? She's reading a story to her kids, like she basically knows that they're all gonna die.
SPEAKER_02:Oh.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. Because they're trapped. Yeah. And so she starts reading or telling a story to her kids to help them go to sleep, to kind of soothe them. It's it's very sad. It's a very sad moment in the film.
SPEAKER_01:I have bad news for you. That movie is a little bit of a tragedy.
SPEAKER_03:She's in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, living out loud, cockstoppers. And she has done like a handful of TV appearances.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know how like what her role was. I know that she was in the Presidio with um Mark Harmon and um Oh my goodness. Sean Connery. I think Meg Ryan's in that too. And but that is an 80s film, so I think maybe one day we'll we'll cover that. It was a good movie. Okay. I saw it in the theater.
SPEAKER_03:All right, moving on to Homer. So it's an interesting character. I mean, it's very like very much like Kirsten Dunn's character in the interview with the vampire, where he got turned as a kid.
SPEAKER_01:Although this would have preceded all that. It did. So it's more like um someone just stole a bunch of ideas from Near Dark.
SPEAKER_03:Well, the interview with the vampire was a book.
SPEAKER_01:When was it written, though?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know. So I don't know if preceded this film. But it's the same concept, is all I'm trying to say. Is that it's a kid vampire, which that's another thing about vampire lore, is that there's kind of this like uh I don't know, unspoken rule, you don't turn kids. Yeah, I guess I've just seen that in a number of stories at this point.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You don't turn children. So, but he is, but he's seen he's like an older kid.
SPEAKER_01:Whoever the actor is that got to play that probably had a blast because he's like drinking and smoking throughout the whole movie.
SPEAKER_03:And and you know, I don't know like how old he really was when he was filming, but played by Joshua John Miller and not a huge filmography, although he has done some work fairly recently. So he is, I think, one of um uh oh my gosh, what's his name? In Halloween 3 season of The Witch, which we will be covering. Spoiler.
SPEAKER_01:My favorite Halloween movie.
SPEAKER_03:Well, we will be doing it for this Halloween series. He is one of the kids, so he's not the kid. He is not the kid that like has that grotesque uh death. He's not that kid, he's just one of the main guys' kids.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So he's Okay, that's good. Yeah, he's in that. He's in River's Edge. And as I was mentioning, uh just last year he was in a film called The Exorcism, and he's done some TV appearances, but you know, not not an extensive filmography.
SPEAKER_01:Breaking news. It appears the interview with a vampire novel was written in the uh 70s. Okay. So there you go.
SPEAKER_03:I thought it maybe was, but all right. These last two, um, I almost kind of debated, but I I was like, okay, fine. The dad. Uh Caleb's dad. Loy. Loy. Loy. Loy Colton. So played by Tim Thomerson. So presumably his name is Thomas Thomerson. I think it's awful when parents do that to their kids, but it's not a tragedy. No, it's not a tragedy, but it's like a tragedy before we coined tragedy for other types of names. Yeah. It was the original tragedy. He is still working because get this.
SPEAKER_01:That's wild. Is he 105 years old?
SPEAKER_03:No. Here is the thing. Was he 25 in that movie? Okay, so I brought this up with Teen Wolf 2 and the vice principal and how old he looked. Yes. So when this film came out, this actor was 41. Okay. He looks like he's about 61. I don't know if he had the Steve Martin thing going on or his hair turned gray early. Maybe. Or what, but I'm like, that guy was only 41. 41. And he plays this like grizzled dad.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he looked like he was. He it felt like the role was him supposed to be like 60. But then but then Colton's sister was like very young.
SPEAKER_03:Well, he could have had a younger wife.
SPEAKER_01:He could have had a wife.
SPEAKER_03:He could have had a wife.
SPEAKER_01:He didn't there's there's no mom. There's no mom.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. But anyway, he is still very much working. He also has like over 200 credits. Nice. He's been very busy.
SPEAKER_01:And actually, I recognize him, but I'm just not sure from what.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, well, I'll bring up some stuff. I mean, what's so he has a mix of TV and film. What's interesting about him is that often, and this is not to be disparaging, but a lot of time when you see a filmography, you might see an actor who's been on a ton of TV shows, but often for like one episode, maybe two episodes. What makes his career really interesting, he's he's actually had a lot of extended stints on a pretty substantial number of TV shows. So that that got my attention that he's had that. And all these shows uh are a case of that. Starting with all that glitters. I don't I don't necessarily know these shows, but he was on them for a bit. Quark, The Associates, The Two of Us. So a couple films. I love this title. Jekyll and Hyde, dot dot dot, together again. He was in Rhinestone. Okay. With Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone. He's in Volunteers, which we could do. We should do. No? You don't like that movie? Okay. Iron Eagle. He was on the TV version of Down and Out in Beverly Hills. A couple more films, Who's Harry Crumb, Air America, and more TV series, Sirens, Land's End. He had his time on soap opera, day, daytime TV, Days of Our Lives. He also just this year, a film came out with him called The Butterfly Guard. And just beyond everything I mentioned, he does also have like a ton of one-offs and two-offs on TV.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So Marcy Leeds is the daughter. I already brought her up, Sarah Colton. She's a fun little badass. Um really is. I think in like when she first sees Caleb, after he's been missing for a few days, what did she say? She's like, I should just punch you or something like that.
SPEAKER_01:She says exactly that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So she's a little Spitfire. But she, yeah, she packs a punch for the amount of time she's on screen. She definitely has just. Just I think once she she had a lot of other roles when she was a kid and hasn't been in anything since. But she did play like a younger version of one of the two leads in Beaches. Oh, okay. Yeah, she was on the TV series The Beauty and the Beast for a little bit. The one with um Linda Hamilton.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. And oh my goodness. He was in Alien Resurrection. Ron Pearlman. There you go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yep. And then I think it's this is her last credit. She was on a TV miniseries called Vendetta Colin Secrets of a Mafia Bride.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Film Synopsis.
SPEAKER_01:For near dark? Cracked. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:A small town farmer's son reluctantly joins a traveling group of vampires after he is bitten by a beautiful drifter.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that kind of makes it sound like they're like a traveling band or something. Like we're just a traveling group of vampires.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I guess on the nose, that is correct.
SPEAKER_01:He doesn't reluctantly join it.
SPEAKER_03:He just doesn't really know what the fuck's going on at first. And and so he's kind of hanging with them because he doesn't really know what's happening. He does try to get away.
SPEAKER_01:Well, look. But when it's a movie that doesn't really tell me a whole lot of what's going on, I'm not going to lean on the synopsis to give me any more information because there's just nothing to pull.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, it this kind of circles me back to some of my original comments, and that I just wish I understood the world a little bit better. I mean, the filmmaker is is completely free to make the film that he or she wants.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But as a viewer, I would have liked to have understood like kind of the rules of the world a little bit better. Because that was another thing too, is that part of the reason why he could not get away from them is because he was getting progressively more and more sick. And part of that world that I wish I could have understood better, because maybe part of it is the lens through which I'm watching this, because I'm seeing other versions of Vampire Worlds that I have like ingested through other films and television.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Where they can, yes, they will weaken, but they don't get like so violently sick. There were so quickly.
SPEAKER_01:A lot of scenes involving him like uh vomiting or with just like goop on his face.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god, the goop was disgusting. Like I was slobber? Yeah, I couldn't spit up or something. Couldn't really figure out what it was, but it was gross. And it was a very quick turnaround even after feeding to when he was like getting really sick. And so I was like, okay, so are you essentially saying that like every single night you have to feed? Otherwise, you're gonna end up that way. Like it I I guess I've never seen a vampire world set up that way where they have to so frequently feed to establish or to maintain kind of their equilibrium.
SPEAKER_01:I wish that um there was an answer to that specific question, but there are so many other questions that I also did not get answers to.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. There's a lot of questions with this film.
SPEAKER_01:But I asked those questions because I thought the cast, like it's an amazing cast. They did like a relatively good job with the with the effects for it being like an older 80s vampire movie. So there was definitely like something there, but I just wish that they had like fleshed out some more of like the lore and the story.
SPEAKER_03:It was you know I would have loved to have known more about the backstories of all the vampires. Uh I and I I think those are my two things. Just give me a quick flashback or something. Yeah, I think those are my two big things. Interesting um editing techniques. We forgot to bring that up between it's like very Star Wars-esque.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Uh, so that was that was kind of fun. But yeah, I think my two biggest hangups on the movie is like really wanting to know more about the characters, not the human characters, but the vampire characters, and then also really wanting more of a setup of the world. Because you make a excellent point too. It's like, why are they so caught off guard every time when they're outside? And like the way that they're so casual, just like spray painting. I'm like at this point, especially Jesse, you have been a vampire for over a hundred years. Yeah, you should have this on lockdown in terms of like protecting yourself every fucking day. Yeah. So, like, why are you guys so haphazard about it? Like, it seemed I just didn't get it.
SPEAKER_01:Why I mean, yeah. Why why why are they in such an unpopulated part of the country instead of with like no housing anywhere for them? Go blend into a city where like honestly people aren't gonna know like if people disappear? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So they made a lot of poor decisions and they suffered the consequences.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they just like weren't very organized vampires.
SPEAKER_01:Disorganized vampires.
SPEAKER_03:Disorganized vampires. That's a good title for a film. So watching the film again, I mean I don't know if I need to anytime soon. Although I always enjoy watching films that that add another layer to lore.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Even if it's different and maybe something I don't agree with or understand, it's always really interesting to just see another person's take on that lore. So for that, but I don't know. I feel like I got a lot out of the it's a very short film. Maybe when I can more easily watch it.
SPEAKER_01:If I if it just ever happened to be on, sure. If I have to go through uh several steps, set sail, um, you know.
SPEAKER_03:We'll leave it at that.
SPEAKER_01:We'll leave it at that. Then uh sometimes like I don't I don't know why. I mean it's it's always it's never a good sign. It's never a good sign when you just uh there should be no difficulty getting any film nowadays. When you hit the little button on your remote to activate that little person in your Apple TV, and they have no there's like nothing. Like I've never heard of that movie, and it's like, uh oh, that's not it's not a good sign.
SPEAKER_03:In this day and age, for all the things that I could complain about, if we're gonna have things like streaming services and on-demand viewing, then every single fucking movie should be made available to the public.
SPEAKER_01:It should always be somewhere.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, like it should always be somewhere.
SPEAKER_01:If it's on some other platform, that's fine. Like there's all the all the paid for ones, and there's like ad-supported.
SPEAKER_03:I'm just saying it should be available somewhere.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So anyway.
SPEAKER_01:There's something else. Buckaroo Bonze was hard to find, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_03:That's like five years ago. I don't remember. Call to action. I guess with everything we've talked about, I just would be really curious about other people's opinions as far as the lore and like, did you not need to know the background on these people? Like, was this a complete enough film for you as is?
SPEAKER_01:My call to action is if it was possible to have contacted Jesse and Jesse and the gang, I'll call them, and let them know hey, we have an almost immediate overnight cure for your condition. Oh, that's do you think they would take it? No. I don't think they would either.
SPEAKER_03:We didn't even bring that up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:That apparently the only thing.
SPEAKER_01:I mentioned that there was the there was the fastest cure to vampirism ever, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03:The only thing that you need to do to cure your vampirism is have a blood transfusion.
SPEAKER_01:Just a uh we have no idea how much because it's not like they were draining the one person for the So like they didn't even have to like fiddle around with that. It was like whatever. Yeah, if you just have like in this dirty shed, get this Oh my god, that's rough.
SPEAKER_03:That close-up of the dirty nails.
SPEAKER_01:Get this much blood out, get this much new blood in. Don't worry about blood type, it's fine.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it was it was real reckless.
SPEAKER_01:Did anyone test May to find out what her blood because between the the dad and the kid, I'm like, okay.
SPEAKER_03:Sure. I mean, I don't know even what you would say her air quotes blood would be.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I I don't know how that works because she's like already I mean, I don't anyway.
SPEAKER_01:And that is my call to action.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, that's a great one. So if you want to get in touch with us, we would love to hear from you. You can reach out through Facebook, Instagram, or Blue Sky. It's the same handle at all three. It is at 80smontage pod and 80s is 80S.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. So we knocked out the first film of this year's Halloween series. We did it. Next up is a Derek pick. Oh. But not to say that you don't have, you know, agency in what we pick overall, but you very specifically wanted to cover this one.
SPEAKER_01:This is one that like I don't know how it came up in conversation with some of our friends, like maybe a year ago, and I'm like, oh, we should definitely cover that. But we've been kind of like waiting, holding on to it.
SPEAKER_03:I hope that we're talking about the same movie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, me too. I didn't actually talk to you about this beforehand. But well, look, the movie that I'm thinking of is uh Dreamscape with Dennis Quaid.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yes, that's it. Yeah, and I have never seen this movie. And Max Von Saddow, I think, is in it. Yes, there's a couple big time people. And it is, I was reading about it, so I'm really curious about like the snake scenes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the fucking the snake when uh I'm sure the the effects are incredibly dated, but when I first saw that and the guy like morphs into a like a snake in the dream to attack Dennis Quaid's character, it was scary as shit. It was it was intense, but you know, effects have come a long way. I don't think it's gonna pack the same punch.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that is next up on tap. And in the meantime, just thank you to everybody for taking the time to listen to our podcast. We know you have a lot of choices. So thank you so much for choosing us, and we will talk to you again in two weeks' time. Bye.