Halloween III: Season of the Witch

In the finale of this year's Halloween Series, Anna and Derek chat about the irresistible allure of Dr. Challis, the ethical implications of chiseling Stonehenge, and much more during their discussion of the cult classic horror flick Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982). 

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.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

The festival of Sawan. The last great one took place three thousand years ago when the hills ran wrecked with the blood of animals and children. Sacrifices. Part of our world. Our craft. Witchcraft. To us it was a way of controlling our environment. It's not so different now. It's time again.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Whoa, and welcome to 80s movie montage. This is Derek.

SPEAKER_04 0:39

And this is Anna.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

And that was Dan O'Hurlihy as Mr. Cochrane and Tom Atkins as Daniel Chalice in Halloween 3 season of The Witch.

unknown 0:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

From 1982.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Cracks.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

I couldn't believe it was just 1982.

SPEAKER_04 0:55

Yeah, I I when I was doing my notes for it, I was like, oh wow, it's kind of weird to think that it's so early in the decade.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

So really it comes Okay, so I'm already going all over the place. But that's why it's so funny because when uh Dan, the Tom Ack, right? His first name's Dan, Daniel.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

Um, when he's in the bar and they show a clip from Halloween, yeah, and they call it a classic, I was like, okay, it just came out four years earlier. But okay. But yeah, Halloween three, season of the witch. Woo-woo.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

I I mean, look, I hated this movie for the same reason most people hated this movie when it first came out, and that's because I was just so used to associating the movie Halloween with Mike Myers.

SPEAKER_04 1:40

And I felt like what I don't think you watched this movie when it first came out. I did. You would have been really, really, really little.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

I've seen the I saw The Exorcist when I was little, so yes, I did too. That was my parents snuck me in the theater in a in a backpack. In a backpack? And then let me sit down and watch. Like Gizmo? Yes. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

In any case, uh I love this movie. I know I know you do.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

I don't hate it as much as I used to.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

I think I'm probably taking the stance of like sticking up for the underdog.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Although I think it's come to a point where a lot of people do love this movie. I don't think people are so rigid anymore about because like you, I think you said this on the tail end of the last episode. You're like, there are far worse Halloween movies. And you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Yeah, within within the Halloween movie franchise, this is it's not the best, but it's definitely not the worst.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

I'd way rather sit down and watch this again than any of the last three.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

I would watch the last three again. I probably would um I I have the Rob Zombie ones probably at the like bottom of my list.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

That is at the bottom of my list, too.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

They're just so depraved.

SPEAKER_04 2:57

I mean, geez, even for a horror movie.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Yeah. Uh I need I need something in between. Something in between that and his Munster remake.

SPEAKER_04 3:06

Yeah. Somewhere in between. Pendulum Swing. Yeah. So this also happens to be the concluding film of this year's Halloween series.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

It's true.

SPEAKER_04 3:19

It's very appropriate. So I'm a little slay odd, but we're going out on a banger, as far as I'm concerned.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Does it does it feel at this point like there's just several months of filler before so we can get to our Halloween?

SPEAKER_04 3:33

There's like 10 months of filler. So we can get to our Halloween series.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Please subscribe.

SPEAKER_04 3:39

Please subscribe. So let's dive in. Uh first, let's do some writing credits as we normally do. I okay, so I will start with the the one person who's credited, but it's a little, it's a little skewed when you if you were just going by IMDB credits.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 3:58

But let's start with Tommy Lee Wallace. He also happens to be the director of this film. This was his feature directorial debut. And he but he's the credited writer, but he's certainly like not the person who like originated this material. However, some of his other credits, he wrote the strictly speaking, writing credits, Amityville 2, Cullen the Possession.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

That I mean, similar to Halloween, that's probably not the worst Amityville.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Probably. Oh, far from it. Like, because we've seen enough of them now. I mean, we had a whole conversation about this in the last episode about all the Amityville's. But he wrote that. He wrote Fright Night Part 2. Oh. He did Departure from Horror, Far From Home. However, he did write on the TV miniseries It that uh what was it, early 90s?

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Yes, yeah. The 91 with Tim Curry as Pennywise.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

Yeah. And then more recently, he has a writing credit for Vampires, Colin Los Muertos. Am I saying that correctly?

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Los Muertos, the Dead.

SPEAKER_04 5:01

The Dead, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so moving on to the uncredited writers, one of which, and I think this will probably be the only time, maybe, that we bring him up. Of course, everybody associates John Carpenter with the Halloween franchise, as they should. Uh, he originated the material with Deborah Hill, but he I think he did a pass on the script. We've talked about this in other episodes about why there even is a Halloween 3, which is to say that he and Deborah Hill had wanted this franchise to be more of an anthology.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

Where so and I think even uh, I mean, maybe that's why he signed on for the film, Tommy Lee Wallace also thought that was like a cool approach to the franchise, is that you'd have a different movie every time happening on Halloween with like a different horror story. I love that idea. Like, I don't get me wrong, I love the lore of Michael Myers, and even in the films that I bag on, there's something fun about it because it is the lore of this really captivating character that was created for this franchise. But I love the idea of there having been the could the coulda shulda woulda of an anthology.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

I g I mean it's just um It's just a title then and like a different horror. Like, you know what I mean? Like there's no if there's nothing.

SPEAKER_04 6:28

I mean, that's why it's called Halloween. Like it the title itself, I mean, sure, Michael Myers went on his like childhood not killing spree, he just killed his sister.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

But when he killed his parents, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:40

No, no, he didn't kill his parents.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Okay, yeah, that's right, because they showed up home and they showed up like Michael. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:45

Anyway, so I think that that made sense for why it was even called that, if that was the original idea of it. But because like, look, come on, in Halloween Kills, how old is Michael Myers at this point?

SPEAKER_02 6:56

He's very spry.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

For his age.

SPEAKER_04 6:59

But he's like so fucking old that like the whole storyline is that he's like kind of passing along his evilness to some younger dude who I do not give a flying fuck about. So that's like why that movie sucked. Sorry. But like don't care at all. Uh anyway, so Carpenter had a pass, I think, on this script. And some of even though he's uncredited, he's very much worth mentioning for this episode. So let's really quickly go through his writing credits, many of which he also directed. Assault on Precinct 13, of course, Halloween, The Fog, which it's kind of grown on me a tiny bit. Really? Don't know, I don't think it's a great horror movie, but Atkins is in it again. Jamie Lee Curtis is in it. Yeah. Another instance of him hooking up with a very, very much younger woman than himself.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Um Atkins can't even control it in these movies.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

Women just throw themselves at him, apparently. Except for his ex-wife. She really hates him.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

But I almost included the clip when they're in the hotel and he's like, hey, I can like sleep in the car. Oh god. Better than sleeping on the floor. And she's like, Where do you want to sleep? Where do you want to sleep, Dr. Chalice? And his response is that's a stupid stupid question.

SPEAKER_04 8:21

He's really got the memes. Uh Carpenter also wrote Escape from New York, which we did that earlier this year. Go check it out. We uh we also did in an earlier season, Halloween 2, with a a friend who is a huge, huge fan of this franchise, minus this movie. But go check out that episode. He also wrote Escape from LA, uh Prince of Darkness as which this is interesting when I get into the next writer. So he wrote Prince of Darkness as Martin Quartermas. That name's gonna come up again.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

Uh he also wrote and directed They Live. We did that episode a while back too with Bob. Please go check that out. That was that was a film that was at least introduced to me.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

And I love it. It's a it is a great movie. It might be one of my favorite Carpenter films. Uh he did it also under a pseudonym pseudonym of Frank Armitage. Armitage. And then, of course, he has credits for just all the Halloween movies. So Halloween 5, uh Revenge of Michael Myers, The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween H2O, Halloween Resurrection, Halloween, uh, even the 2017, The Rob Zombie, um, and then of course this most recent trilogy. So Okay. Oh, and Ghost of Mars. Sorry. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

There you go. All right.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

That's Carpenter. Next, we're moving on to Nigel Neil? Yeah, I think the case silent. Like night.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:55

So here's the thing. Okay, so he has passed. He passed in 2006. He's uncredited. He was the original writer on this, but I guess he he asked to be taken off.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 10:07

Because he didn't I guess they made changes to it, and he didn't like how violent the film became.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Didn't like how violent the horror movie became? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

I mean, a little little bit of a question mark there about what he thought he was doing, but it is pretty violent.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Like what happens to the kid in the test test room is horrific. And then what happens to Marge also just got a note, second movie with a Marge in it.

SPEAKER_04 10:37

Second and second change. Do you know that like the actress? She this is what is so funny to me. So she and Tom Atkins were married.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

And the funniest thing in the world to me is that like for that scene, he's hooking up with Ellie. Yeah. And then it cuts to this woman's face getting whatever happened.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

From the uh silver shamrock uh logo device thing. That was that was incredibly horrific.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Horrific.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Like her, it blew her face off, basically. And then, you know, like what happens with all of this like weird dark magic bugs start crawling out of her face.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

And it's just funny to me that Tom Atkins is like obviously it's acting, but he's like hooking up with this character, and then like his real life wife is getting obliterated. Anyway, I find that funny.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

That is what's funny to me is that it seemed like he was gonna go like run off with her too. And I'm like, well, that's his wife, so fair enough.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

Well, when when uh Ellie's like, what was that? And he's like, who cares? Go back to go back to their cnoodling. Okay, so Nigel, if you look at his filmography, it it's not exclusive to this property, but pretty, pretty much leans into this quarter mass. We got so that's where the name comes up again.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

We got whole mass of quarter mass.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

So so I think you know, that seems to me then that Carpenter took on that pseudonym as like an honor of him. I would think so all these titles, you know, it's I I'm not familiar. I don't I don't really know the quarter mass experiment. I guess it started as a TV show.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:15

And then there was the Quarter Mass X. So instead of EXX experiment, oh that was a film. Okay. Then there was a quarter then quartermaster, a TV mini series, then the film Quartermaster. However, the TV miniseries had the Roman numerals, Quartermas II had the Arabic too.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

So you could probably guess what my call to action is gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 12:37

What what is this? Yeah, and then Quartermas in the Pit, that was TV mini-series, then Quartermas in the Pit, the film. Oh, then the Quartermaster Experiment, another TV movie, uh, or no, no, no, first of the TV movies, and then Beast, so not Quartermas and then he does this TV miniseries, but then the Quartermas Conclusion, which is a film, and then Quartermasion, again, TV miniseries, and then quartermaster experiment, another TV movie. It was so fun to write this off. I was like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

None of uh none of these seem to take place in the 80s, so he's got yeah, this guy really made his bread and butter on this, so that's kind of fun.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

So there you go. There's Nigel. That's Nigel. Okay, moving on to already mentioned it. This was also directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. And yeah, I mean, some of the stuff that he wrote, he went on to direct uh not horror, but he directed the film Aloha Summer.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Oh, yeah, that's not doesn't sound even sound like a horror movie.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

Doesn't even sound like a horror movie, but he did also direct Fright Night 2, part two, my apologies. He also directed some of those episodes of it, the TV mini-series. He also directed on the TV series Flipper, not the original, because it was like the 50s, but I I guess there was a remake of that uh 80s or 90s, I think. Must have been 90s, and then he did direct Vampires Colin Los Mirtos.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:08

So there you go.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

There's so many movies that could be vampires. It could have been John Carpenter's Vampires, but no, it's Los Muertos.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

Could have been. So moving on to cinematography, we've brought this gentleman up several times at this point, Dean Cundy. He is a absolutely tremendous DP who has done a ton in horror. I love that he had such an affinity for it, but he's done far more than that. Uh, it's I guess been a minute since we've brought him up. He came up earlier this season because he does collaborate or has collaborated with Carpenter quite a bit over the course of his career. But his credits include, so very early on, Satan's Cheerleaders.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Oh, that movie comes up a lot.

SPEAKER_04 14:50

Because of him.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:51

I think every time we yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

He was the DP on the original Halloween film, as well as The Fog, as well as Escape from New York, as well as Halloween 2. So if you go back to those episodes, you're you'll hear us talk about him there. He did Jaws of Satan.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Jaws of Satan.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

He also did the thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

Uh, so go check out that episode. We've done that too, as well as not a horror, romancing the stone. Oh, yeah. That might have been the first time we brought him up. Yeah, it might have been. Yeah. So he also, so we've again we've talked about him a lot because he also was the DP on Back to the Future and Back to the Future 2 and 3, which three we probably did talk about a little bit, even though technically is 90, I think.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

It's fine.

SPEAKER_04 15:41

He did again, the he might hold the record right now for the DP we've talked about the most. Big Trouble in Little China.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Amazing.

SPEAKER_04 15:49

That was what our third, fourth, fifth episode ever.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

It was really early on.

SPEAKER_04 15:54

It's very early on, but you can go check that out if you'd like.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

If you dare.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

We also covered who framed Roger Rabbit with him. And up till now, this is the only Oscar nomination that he has for best cinematography. Personally, I think that that's kind of ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

He also shot Death Becomes Her. I I think he I say this every single time. I think he could have gotten a nomination for Jurassic Park. I think he could have also potentially gotten a nomination for Apollo 13.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

I agree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

Yeah. He could have done both those. Or gotten nominations for both those. Uh more recently he has done some TV. He did shoot on the TV mini-series, The Book of Bubba Fett. And then also the TV series, which I think it's coming back soon. Ish. The Mandalorian.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

I yeah, I'm con because I think they're having a movie come out too. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 16:49

The Mandalorian and Grog. Is it just called Grogo?

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Probably.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

I think it is.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Really missed out on just calling them Baby Yoda forever. Baby Yoda. Forever.

SPEAKER_04 16:58

Forever. So there you go. Okay. So, oh, I was so wrong about that being the only time we bring up John Carpenter because obviously he did the music for this. So it is very Carpenter-esque. Uh it is.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

It there are moments where it kind of feels like you're here hearing the soundtrack to one of the like first two Halloween movies, but just a little different.

SPEAKER_04 17:23

Just a little different.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:26

But it hit I mean his stamp, it's look, it's fine. Like there are plenty of composers out there who just have a certain sound where you're like, oh, that sounds very familiar.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 17:38

And and it's kind of funny to me that more people maybe don't think about him as a composer. Obviously, I didn't because I forgot that we were going to bring him up again. But uh he has partnered a lot. So this is a partnership as far as the composing credits go between him and Alan Howarth that he has worked with a ton. Uh we'll start with Carpenter's credits, although there's there's gonna be a fair amount of overlap between the two of them.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

So it's not one-to-one.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

No, it's not it's not one-to-one. But for Carpenter, I mean, I feel like I don't want to speak out of term, but I think he pretty exclusively composes on all the films that that at least he directs. So he does have composing credits on Assault on Priest13, Halloween. Oh, he didn't direct Halloween 2 though, but The Fog, Escape from New York, Halloween 2, Escape from LA, Christine.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Yeah. You can there there was like a certain sound effect that he would use in Christine that I heard a lot in Halloween 3.

SPEAKER_04 18:38

And actually, I was when I was reading through some notes, uh when Marge notices the little, what is it called again? Like the little kind of uh uh the silver samrock device. The device that they put in all the masks. I guess like the I shouldn't say stinger, but there was like a piece of music in the moment where she discovers it that I guess was pulled from the fog. Oh. So he he does steal from himself, I guess. But that's fine. You can do that if it's stealing from yourself. Also, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

I mean, that happens that happens a lot. I mean, we talked about that with was it James Horner for um Star Trek 2 and Aliens. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:19

You know, the fact that all these masks are supposed to have like the whole reason why they do what they do is because there's a teensy tinsy piece of Stonehenge.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Yes. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

That's a lot of Stonehenge, though, if you add it all up. Like this.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

All it takes is a particle, though.

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Just a part. My favorite thing is that they actually manufactured masks from the movie to sell to promote the movie.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Love it.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Parents, what are you doing? I think it's hilarious. Because I I mean, can you imagine some parent getting them the mask and then being like, oh wait, what does it do?

SPEAKER_04 19:56

Yeah, what it's it's supposed to do. I mean, going back to the Stonehenge thing though, like as a I mean, you made a funny point off, Mike, that like technically Cochrane would be a warlock.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:09

Not a witch. But I would think within that world that it wouldn't it'd be frowned upon for him to be desecrating Stonehenge by like chipping away pieces of it for his own purposes.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Yeah, you know, they played real fast and loose with all that stuff. There was some at like a Comic-Con or some kind of convention, somebody asked the director about some of that stuff, like how that all worked, and his response was it's just magic, man.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

No. Yeah. Need answers here.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

That was it.

SPEAKER_04 20:44

So it's like I I can only imagine what I feel like there's a lot of like reverence for the things like Stonehenge and and like witchcraftery, you know, like I feel like it would not be taken well to like even if we're taking little pieces, like I don't He's like, we had such a time getting it here.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

What an amazing story. And then that's it. Or you would never believe it. And then they're like, let's just move on with the movie.

SPEAKER_04 21:17

I love how they're like, this is how we'll appease people. But Carpenter, so go check out Christine. We did we do that one just last year?

SPEAKER_02 21:24

I think so.

SPEAKER_04 21:24

Uh love that movie too. He also composed on Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, They Live, In the Mouth of Madness, Vampires, Ghost of Mars, the 2022 Firestarter. And then he does also, I will say this for the most most recent trilogy. I've said it before. I do love kind of the upgrade to the music.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

It's like bumped up just enough. It's the right amount.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

It's really good. Yeah. It's really good. Okay. So moving on to Alan. Uh he also kind of like did his own, like, it's kind of funny that Carpenter, you know, he went away from the Halloween franchise for a little bit, but Howorth didn't. So his credits include Escape from New York, Halloween 2, Christine, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness. But then we have Halloween Four, The Return of Michael Myers, They Work Together Again and They Live. He also has a credit for Halloween five, The Revenge of Michael Myers, Halloween, the Curse of Michael Myers, and Dante's Hotel. Okay. Okay. Moving on to the editor of this film, she did have a great career, but not really um not a ton of like film cinematic releases. So she passed Millie Moore in 2015. Two of the films that I have for her, I don't know either of these, but I thought they were fun titles. The Man Who Skied Down Everest. Oh, I got that one. And The Great Texas Dynamite Chase.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Sounds like fun.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

However, of her 42 editing credits, 28 are TV movies. So that's kind of where the bulk of her career was.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

And that's She did edit on um on a movie called Johnny Got His Gun.

SPEAKER_04 23:15

Oh, I did see that.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Which was used in the video and was like part of the Metallica song one.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

Nice little trivia. Yeah. There. Okay. We are at the stars of this film. Starting with Tom Atkins, who plays Dr. Daniel Chalice. Dr.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Dan.

SPEAKER_04 23:40

He he's fun. I mean, he had a very different role in Escape from New York. Uh, that's the first time that we brought him up on this podcast. Um, oh no, that's not true. He wasn't lethal weapon as well. So he was really close to each other.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

He was like the friend who was not a very good friend.

SPEAKER_04 23:59

No, he wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Lethal Weapon, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Yeah. So he has come up actually a couple times, and I'm very excited because like in the future, I want to do both Creep Show and Night of the Creeps. And he's in those. I was almost going to do Night of the Creeps this year, but I was like, he's gonna be featured so prominently in Halloween 3 that I wanted to space it out a little bit more. So even though it's only been since earlier this year that we brought him up, let's go over his credits. Uh, some early work in television. We have him on the TV series Sirpico. Sir Pico. Sirpico, as well as the TV series of the Rockwood Rockford Files. He, as I mentioned, I think I mentioned, yeah, because he hooks up with Jamie Lee Curtis in the fog. I mean, it's such a funny intro between the two of them in that movie where she's hitchhiking.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

He picks her up and then she's like, Are you weird? And he's like, Yeah, and she's like, Awesome. So glad you're weird. It's such a strange anyway. But it's funny because uh his character in that film is Nick Castle. I know I bring have brought this up before, but Nick Castle is the actor who played the original Michael Myers.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 25:10

Yeah, so that's kind of a fun little wink and a nod. Uh, as I mentioned, he was in Escape from New York. As I also mentioned, he is in Creep Show and Night of the Creeps, which certainly will be on tap for future Halloween series.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

I mean, I'm just gonna say Creep Show is probably gonna be next year. One of the movies next year.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

I mean, I also really want Isle of the Graves. Maybe we're just gonna have to space him out.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Maybe.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

One won't be the first, one won't be the last. He was in Lethal Weapon. That was maybe our season finale last year. Could have been.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Could it could have been.

SPEAKER_04 25:43

I did make it a holiday. Yeah. Holiday film. So go check that one out.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

It is. It's mostly a Christmassy movie.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

I mean, people there are some people who make that argument where they're like, well, if Die Hard's a Christmas movie, Lethal Weapon is too. I don't agree.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

No, I think it's more like Die Hard definitely is. So because Die Hard is, then I can kind of maybe think of Lethal Weapon as one too.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

I mean, if you want to think of Link Lethal Weapon as a holiday film, I don't really care.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

I just I mean, it's a movie. I think it is. It's a it's got like excessive police violence, potential suicide. It's got everything. It's got a couple Christmas carols. It's yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:27

So Atkins, also a manioc manioc. A maniac. Maniac cop.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

Bob Roberts. Oh, yeah. He had a part in the 2009 My Bloody Valentine. We did the original last year. We gotta throw that one on again. I do love that movie. Yeah, it's it's uh has the best closing credit song ever. Yeah, it does. Uh he was on the TV series of creep show, but not the same character. Oh. And I mean, he's still he's still working, he's done tons of other TV work. And yeah, he I don't know. I just enjoy watching him. He's just a fun actor. He's good, yeah. He's really good. You know, and he kind of owns the character in this film where like it's just, you know, like his phone calls with the ex-wife where he keeps bailing on taking care of the kids.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Oh my god, over and over and over again he bails on her. And at a certain like when you first see him interact with her, you're like, oh, she's not she's not that nice and whatever. But then he just he's supposed to like get the kids in like over and over again. So then at the end, when he's trying to call her to tell her what him put the masks on, yeah, you can just hear like a screw you or or something.

SPEAKER_04 27:42

And so like And it's it's uh warranted because he's kind of a shitty absent dad. And also he gets the kids really shitty masks. Like, you know, it's one of those things where this season, season of the witch, yeah, that the kids wanted the silver shamrock masks, and he comes in and gives them these like shitty cheapo masks, and then she has to be like, No, I already got them the mask that they wanted. Well, he got them the masks that wouldn't kill him, so this is true, but without them knowing, without them knowing that those masks are gonna kill them, the optics are like, Oh, you're just like totally out of touch with your kids. And and actually, oh, real quick, this came up a couple episodes ago. His son, he is um the kid from Near Dark.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

He's just littler.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:33

Yeah, but it's the same kid.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Man, that that kid's parents really wanted to be in movies that were kind of non-kid appropriate.

SPEAKER_04 28:41

Uh yeah. So I do really enjoy him in this. I mean, it is very funny that he I mean, there was like the one scene, okay. So when Ellie's dad comes into the hospital and they basically like stabilize him, and Atkins is walking down the hallway with the nurse, yeah, and he's just like, I should have married you, and then he like slaps her on the ass. And and she's like, Oh, Dr. Chalice, you know, like first of all, not great, but it's just so funny to me that in this film, minus the ex-wife, yeah, all these women are just like, oh, you know, around him. Like it's really weird.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

It's yeah, no, no one can resist Dr. Chalice. I mean, yeah, I don't know if he had a piece of Stonehenge or was some magic going on or something was going on.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

And like the poor, I feel so bad for it. Seems like they had like kind of a, I don't know if they were like friends with benefits kind of situation, but that laboratory.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:47

Yeah, like that's the sense I got like certainly more than friendship, but not committed in any way. Uh like, yeah, like every woman that he interacts with. Mm-hmm. Yep. Has this weird anyway, it's just funny to me. So speaking of, next person we're gonna cover, the character Ellie Grimbridge, played by Stacy Nelkin. So yeah. Uh apparently the actress had never seen the first two Halloween movies when she was offered this role.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

That helps probably.

SPEAKER_04 30:24

Yeah, I think I from what I read, she I mean, I think that's probably why most actors she took the role because she loved the character, but didn't realize that this was like a huge departure from from like what people had known of the Halloween franchise so far. Yeah. So in any case, I think she's also done. I when I was like reading through notes, I was reading a lot of like at a horror con, at a horror con. So I think she's also embraced the fact that she's part of this outlier film, and people seem to love her for it. But you know, her character, I say this every time we watch this film, I'm like, your dad died like two days ago, and you're like hooking up with some rando you just met.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

She comes in on a Sunday, and I know this because they put like in pretty big text at the bottom, they give us a real good breakdown of the timing for everything. And so he dies on a Saturday, I think. She's in on a Sunday, Wednesday, I think, is when they're at the bar. Okay and and things move on from there.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

Okay, so like four or five days later.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

With the famous scene in the bar where she's like, You're Dr. Chalice.

SPEAKER_04 31:35

He's like, I know.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

And then he says, You're Ellie.

SPEAKER_04 31:38

I know.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

They really breeze through those introductions.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

I think it was the other way around. I think it's them introducing themselves and they're like, I know. Yeah. And instead of saying, like, be like, You're Derek Dinky. I know. I know.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

That would have been even better.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

That would have been even better.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

But it turns it into like a fucking airplane movie.

SPEAKER_04 32:04

I love that though. Uh yeah, I mean, I do really like her in this role. I think she's really good. Yeah. And they do have like a weird chemistry.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

So it is a weird chemistry, yes.

SPEAKER_04 32:16

I guess it works. Uh as far as her credits go, I I mean, she she definitely has been working not as extensive as like other people, I think we have yet to go through. But earlier in her career, she was on a TV show called The Chisholms. The say what now?

SPEAKER_02 32:35

The Chisholms? The Chisholms?

SPEAKER_04 32:38

How would you say that? Chisholms?

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yeah, I think so. I don't think I would say the Chisholms.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

She was on in a film called Serial, Going Ape, or not question mark. Excellent. Exclamation point. Get crazy. She was on the TV series Generations. She was in the film Bulletsilver Broadway, which I didn't realize. Uh The Forest Hills, and then she has over the course of her career made multiple TV appearances. That's gonna be a common refrain for like basically everybody.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Uh there's a uh there's a movie that she was in in 2022 called Quakasaurus. Love it. And her name, Dr. Cochrane.

SPEAKER_04 33:18

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

That had to be a wink to had to be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:22

Speaking of, the next person I'm gonna cover, you say his name better than I do.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Dan O'Hurley.

SPEAKER_04 33:29

Thank you. And he plays is it Con Conell?

SPEAKER_02 33:35

I just call him Mr. Cochrane.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

Mr. Cochrane.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

But probably Connell.

SPEAKER_04 33:39

Connell.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Probably Connell Cochrane, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:42

Yeah. So the actor, he he has been passed for a while. He passed away in 2005. And this gentleman, first of all, he does they they did the thing that they do in so many horror movies that I love, where they bring in one like heavy hitter. Like they bring in one actor who has like real street cred. And I mean, this guy was an Oscar nominated actor. Yeah. And and I just I do really love when they do that. I mean, sometimes they're a little bit more high profile, like with you know, George C. Scott in The Changeling or Gargory Peck in The Omen. But it is very fun to me when most of the time they have just like at the time actors that maybe most people aren't familiar with, and then they have just this like one person who is this like very well known and he's great in this. Yeah, he is great.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

He's I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

He totally owns it. And I read that like apparently he did enjoy making the film, but he didn't think that it was like that great of a movie. Well so let's go through his credits. I didn't put this in because just to give you a little bit of like context. Back in 1948, he was in the film Macbeth.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Oh, yeah, I've heard of that.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

With Orson Wells.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Holy shit. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 35:02

So yeah. And then pretty early in his career is when he got his Oscar nom. He got a best actor Oscar nomination for Robinson Crusoe. He was in, I have mostly films for him. He was in The Virgin Queen, One Foot in Hell. Um, my guess is this is a remake. It's 1962's The Cabinet of Kaligari. Oh he was in a TV series called I mean, he did a ton of TV, but as far as like projects where he had a longer stint, he was on the TV series The Long Hot Summer. He was in the film How to Steal the World.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 35:41

Another TV series called A Man Called Sloan. I didn't realize this. He's in The Last Starfighter.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Yeah, I think I'd have to double check, but I think I know who he is.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:56

He maybe came up. I don't know if he did. There were a lot of, it was actually a pretty big ensemble cast, but we did cover Robocop. He probably was brought up.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Yeah, he's the old man in Robocop.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

Yeah, so probably, but I just know that there were a lot of other people we talked about in that film.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:13

Uh but go check out that one. We did that.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

He did the firing.

SPEAKER_04 36:17

He did the firing.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Yeah, at the very end, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:19

And he came back for Robocop 2. He also was in the original TV series of Twin Peaks. And as mentioned, just besides these other TV series where he had like a longer stint on them, just a lot of TV work. So okay, moving on to Michael Curry. So he plays Rafferty. Rafferty is the like motel manager.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

With like the super exaggerated accent.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

Yeah, like he's very and he's like very oh shucks, and you know. So uh he has passed as well. He passed in 2009, but he also had a very distinguished career before he passed on. Some of his credits include the earlier in his career, the TV series Dark Shadows. He was in the film Any Which Way You Can.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Oh, yes. The classic comedy about, I think, a truck driver who also makes money on the side fighting, and he also does all of his traveling with an orangutan.

SPEAKER_04 37:18

That's it, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Named Clyde.

SPEAKER_04 37:20

Okay. Named Clyde.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:22

He was also on the TV series Soap. And then um, I have, I think the rest are all films, Dead and Buried, Sudden Impact.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Yeah, he's in a few Clint Eastwood movies. That's that's Firefox, one that we may eventually cover.

SPEAKER_04 37:37

Oh, I didn't even name that one. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

I know.

SPEAKER_04 37:40

Uh he was also in the Philadelphia experiment, the Deadpool.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

Was that a that was a Stephen King movie. Got it. Wait, no, Deadpool. I was thinking of Dead Zone.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

The Deadpool.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

The Deadpool is a dirty hairy movie. Okay. I think it was like maybe the first Jim Carrey, first movie that Jim Carrey was in. Where he was like a rock star lip syncing to Welcome to the Jungle.

SPEAKER_04 38:04

Yes. I rem I think you've shown me that.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

The video, like the the scene from the movie where Jim Carrey is singing Welcome to the Jungle, I encourage everyone to see it. It is it is like wildly bizarre. It is intentionally, but like seeing like Jim Carrey just go completely manic singing that song. And it's to the like the like the whole music video they're making is supposed to be a play on The Exorcist.

SPEAKER_04 38:29

It's all very strange.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

And the music video is being directed by Liam Neeson.

SPEAKER_04 38:34

Okay. So he's in that. Yeah. G.I. Jane. And then besides all that other work, uh, same as most of these people, a lot of TV appearances. Okay, moving on to Nancy Keys. Uh, I wanted to bring her up. She's really not in it very much. She's Linda Chalice. She is Dan's ex-wife, disgruntled ex-wife, but for very good reasons. Uh part of the reason why I brought her up was because she actually was married to Tommy Lee Wallace.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 39:06

So she was married to the director at the time. In fact, I think she was expecting their child while she filmed this. And she has a couple really notable other roles. Yeah, if she looked familiar, I think for the most part she hasn't been doing a ton of acting, but there is like a fun little comeback she made. So she was in Assault on Precinct 13. So she is one of Lori Strode's friends in Halloween. That meets her end. Uh, she is the sheriff's daughter. And I think that's the only reason why she has a credit for Halloween 2, because it's brutal. Like Halloween 2, you know, they wheel her out and he comes and realizes that it's his own daughter that has been killed, and they like I think show her really quickly. So m maybe must have been really her on a Gurney. Uh so she's in that. She actually has a very, very fun role in The Fog. That would might be one of the reasons why I would want to do that film for the podcast, because she plays like an assistant to um oh my gosh, what's her real name? It's uh Jamie Lee Curtis's mom. And she's just like the snarky assistant who always has like a snappy little comeback. Okay. And she she's very fun in that movie.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

She got to do a little bit of that in Halloween three.

SPEAKER_04 40:37

Yeah. I mean, she's just mostly pissed off.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:40

But yeah, so she's she's really fun. She okay, so this is why I added the years to this, because she was in a TV mini-series called Ladyboss. That was all the way back in 1992. And then her next credit is just from last year. So she had like what a 30-year gap. Wow. Uh, a film called Hauntology, which I thought was very, very fun. Haunt, like Hauntology. Yeah. Okay. H-A-U-N-T. So that is Nancy Keys. Okay, moving on to the how do you say this family's last name? Cup Kupfer?

SPEAKER_02 41:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Oh yeah. Geez, we gotta talk about them, huh?

SPEAKER_04 41:24

We gotta talk about the Kupfer family. Um I feel so they introduce them not in the most not in the best light. Like they're all kind of obnoxious. They are. Every single one of them. Uh the kid's a brat total flips off his mom.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

Complete little asshole.

SPEAKER_04 41:44

Little asshole. She, I mean, she's probably the least offensive.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Um and she like makes this really lame joke as the like mask was starting to do its thing. Yeah. And she's just like laughing. I'm like, it was not that funny.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

She laughed at her own joke. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then her husband, I mean, his name's Buddy, and then their kid's name is Little Buddy. So that gives you little buddy kind of an idea of what that family dynamic is. Uh, so we'll start with the dad, Buddy Kupfer, played by Ralph Strait. He passed quite a ways ago. He did pass in 1992. Um, so 10 years after this film. And for all the people, uh, all the actors who comprise this family, none of them have very long filmographies, but for Ralph Strait, we have the Super Cops, the Beastmaster.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

I still go back and forth on whether or not we'll we'll cover that. Maybe, maybe at some point. I do remember him from that.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:47

And they call me Bruce. Those are the three films that I you've seen it?

SPEAKER_02 42:52

I don't know if we could ever do they call me Bruce. I don't it is it is like uh a lot of jokes that I'm not sure how they would play. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

But I I thought it was whole like I I watched, I saw it when I was a kid, and I'm like, this movie is really funny. And now I'm like, Okay.

SPEAKER_04 43:12

And then he also did a lot of TV work. Okay, so moving on to the wife, Betty Kupfer, played by Jadine Barbour. So for her, um, seven total acting credits, so not an extensive career, but she was in the film Funny Lady, and then also comprising those credits, like some TV appearances. Okay. So that's for the most part for her. And then lastly, we have Little Buddy.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Little Buddy.

SPEAKER_04 43:40

This was his first acting credit played by Brad Schachter.

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:47

All right. He has a couple fun credits. I mean, also a pretty short filmography, six total acting credits. But one of them is he voiced Schroeder on the TV movie It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown. That's fun. Which I thought was kind of fun. Yeah. So he has a really similar jump in credits as Nancy Keyes. So he was in the TV movie Fear in 1990. And then his next credit is a film called The Third Channel from 2023. So he also has like a 30-year gap between credits. And uh that's pretty much it. That's what we got for him. That's what we got. Okay, so the last person I'm bringing up, uh a little bit just because we I thought it was fun to kind of connect the dots with his career a little bit, is the character of Starker. So Starker is kind of uh the I don't know, I not not not a nice way to say this, but like the drunkard that Chalice comes across in town. All right, who is like the one person who kind of gives it to him straight.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Well, he's like, yeah, it's it's real weird because uh Dr. Chalice is walking back, even though there's supposed to be like a curfew. But he's walking back from the liquor store, and this guy just walks up and he's like, Hey man, I see you got a bottle. I am I don't have any diseases. And they start sharing this information. They're like, Dr. Chalice is Dan is just like, good enough for me, let's start talking. So he's like, Well, can you tell me about this uh Silvo Sharmack? What's going on?

SPEAKER_04 45:23

Yeah, it is a very funny, not very nuanced kind of like I wouldn't say interrogation, but just like his he's not a very suave detective, but I mean I guess he that's not what he trained to be. He is a doctor. He is a doctor, damn it. Damn it, I'm a doctor, not a detective. So it is a kind of funny little back and forth between the two because Starker, I don't know if it's like the whole, you know, alcohol has you tell the truth or whatever that saying is, but he he really goes off on Silver Shamrock. And I think he's like, fuck you, Cochrane. And but then he's also like, I try to get a job there, and he I think that's when he tells Chalice that like every single person who works there was like imported, which is like, oh, because they're all androids.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:14

So at least that's the way we're I don't think they're called androids, but that's how we've been referring to them. Yeah, I call them magic robots. Magic robots. So Starker then gets I mean, he has a pretty memorable death scene because he gets chased down by two of those guys, two of those androids, and just straight up gets his head ripped off.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

Yeah, like one of them is behind him, one of them is in front. Yep. They both grab his head and just pull up.

SPEAKER_04 46:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 46:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:47

It's not a little twist.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

There's a little bit of a twist.

SPEAKER_04 46:51

Also, the the framing of the wide shot is kind of funny because it's like kind of in the dark, and it's like two guys with another guy on his knees. Like it anyway. It was suggestive. It was suggestive a little bit, I would say, and I don't think that would have gone over the heads of other people working on the film, but whatever.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

So they're like, are we filming Halloween three or slow to blow? What's going on here?

SPEAKER_04 47:16

So played by the long reveal, Jonathan Terry, who we brought up for the return of the living dead. Nice. Because he is the what, the uh general? Is he a general in that film? Oh, is he? Is he he is that guy who's like who claims he had lamb chops for lunch and everything sucks, and he's a very angry husband and also he nukes that town catastrophically miscalculated uh the outcome of that missile strike on on the town. Yeah. So that's him, same guy. Uh, which I think shows his range because he plays two wildly different characters between these two films.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

They couldn't be more different.

SPEAKER_04 48:01

Yeah, so it's kind of fun.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Because that general is not going down, getting his head ripped off like some punk.

SPEAKER_04 48:05

No, absolutely not. So some of his credits, uh, and I said this the last time that I'd like to maybe cover this film at some point. He's in Cutter's Way against all odds, as we've just been talking about. He is in The Return of the Living Dead, and he comes back for Return of the Living Dead 2. Yeah, why not? He was in the TV series Homefront, and then he might just be retired at this point because his last credits from 2015, and it is for a film called Little Paradise. Film synopsis.

SPEAKER_02 48:39

What do we got?

SPEAKER_04 48:40

Kids all over America want silver shamrock masks for Halloween. Dr. Daniel Chalice seeks to uncover a plot by Silver Shamrock owner Connell Cochrane.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

That is not a great synopsis, and I think it does a bit of a disservice to this movie.

SPEAKER_04 49:01

Yeah, I think they could have just played a little bit more into the mystery of like who the owner is. Like, I mean, I don't know. You don't really need to say kids all over America want uh whatever.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

It's it sets it up, I guess, but yeah, an ancient warlock observing that the planets have aligned in time for the largest sacrifice in 3,000 years.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

Good job.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

That's just right off the cuff.

SPEAKER_04 49:30

Yeah, no, that's much better, especially the delivery of it. So that would be fun if on IMDB you could have like an audio file of the way people would read these off. Yeah, I mean, sure. It gets it gets kind of to what the film is about. I mean, the film, I don't know. I just it's look, I'm not saying it's a great movie. I just think it's a lot of fun to watch.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

It's a film with androids who are surprisingly fragile yet strong. And if you kill them, they spit out uh frozen orange juice, apparently, is what they use. So that's kind of fun.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

No, the androids they're really interesting. Like, first of all, that seems like a lot of work to do. Like if you're a warlock. If you're a warlock, can't you just like Jedi trick like mind trick people instead of having to go through all the work of building androids?

SPEAKER_02 50:24

I mean, maybe, but even if you like control mind control them, they have like families or a lot of loose ends.

SPEAKER_04 50:29

If you just have like uh But it's uh it's left like a little ambiguous because when Dan and Ellie are driving, initially driving into town, Santa Mira.

SPEAKER_02 50:38

There are real people in there.

SPEAKER_04 50:39

There and they and they seem to kind of be under some kind of spell.

SPEAKER_02 50:44

They're all acting real weird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:45

So it's like so it seems like he kind of already did that. So why do you need all the androids? Like it seems like all the townspeople are not welcoming and that they will, so to speak, tow the company line.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

Maybe the uh magic doesn't work on the android, so they're important for testing purposes.

SPEAKER_04 51:01

Yeah, sure. I mean, also the androids are all in like three-piece suits.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:07

They're they look like I'm curious what the conversation was there because they kind of look like nondescript like FBI agents, kind of.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

Yeah, they look like they're out of the Matrix or something.

SPEAKER_04 51:16

Yeah, so they're dressed really funny, and then I do think it's super interesting that they don't show this for all of them, but there's like kind of an assumption made that like after they make a kill, they off themselves, so that there's like no trace.

SPEAKER_02 51:32

Well, the the one at the beginning that just like gets in the car and then douses himself in gas. That was a brutal way to go. That was yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:40

So yeah, that's a really interesting component to the whole film.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

I mean it's a it's a wild movie because it's like, okay, so there's this witch, got it, and then he's making these masks, they're gonna kill kids, and then all his henchmen are androids. What?

SPEAKER_04 51:57

It just it's it's like so elaborate because it's like you gotta have the first of all, you could have the factory. Yeah, you have to get all those pieces over from Stonehenge. You have to have a big piece, yeah, and then you can like I guess pulverize it and just have like chip away and then have like just little sand pieces in each of the masks. But then you have to make all these masks. First of all, yeah, it is, I guess, simpler times because it's like kids nowadays would not not take too kindly, I think, to like, oh, I get only three choices.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

Like kids, kids are gonna want some variety.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

Do I want to be skull, pumpkin, or witch?

SPEAKER_04 52:33

Yeah, exactly. So there's that. But so he has to he has to put together the factory.

SPEAKER_02 52:39

Which one are you picking though?

SPEAKER_04 52:40

He um maybe skull.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

I like the pumpkin one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:46

Yeah. Yeah. I never even thought about that. But he has to do that, bring over Stonehenge, he has to create all these androids, he has to kind of take over the town.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

I mean He's real old though, so he's had time.

SPEAKER_04 53:00

Yeah. I mean, he has also accumulated a ton of wealth, apparently. Yeah, he's not like those fucking worthless vampires in your dark.

SPEAKER_02 53:08

Figure it out.

SPEAKER_04 53:10

I mean, that's like kind of what you come to expect from somebody who's ancient, is that they've taken the time to accumulate a ton of wealth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

I mean, if if you have you are not financially prudent if you're living for hundreds, thousands of years and you're dead broke. You're dead broke. You've done something wrong.

SPEAKER_04 53:29

So it's just it's like a lot of uh a lot of like not world building, but just like, man, he had to put in a lot of building into this, like executing this plan. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 53:41

So it's and it it was successful ultimately, even though it seemed like Stonehenge Rock vaporized him or maybe captured his like and then also coordinating with the TV stations to get the to get the commercial on the air. Well, that's just part of being a successful business. Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:58

But no, I'm glad you brought that up because we didn't even talk about the ending.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Make a lot of media buys and there you yeah. So the ending where Dr. Chalice, where Dan is like calling, I don't know, who I don't know who was calling, because he's not like there's not like Mr.

SPEAKER_04 54:12

TV just in control of like just like a customer service line to get you in touch with Worldwide TV station. Yeah, where you just call directly into the TV station.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

But at least for the local area, sure. He got he got it pulled from two of the stations, and then he's like flipping through, and on the last one, it kept running. And so he just, you know, it the movie ends with him screaming, you know, stop it, and then it goes to the credits. But originally the director had the idea of it him yelling, stop it, and then you just hear the cries of millions of children dying. I think that's hilarious. It's it's I I wish that there was like a deleted version that had that.

SPEAKER_03 54:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Atkins was way happier with them pulling that and it just being like, I don't think it's that ambiguous. I think they all died. And although the movie was not that successful, there was a novelization, a book released that actually was. And in the book, the book makes it real clear that like millions of kids died because of this.

SPEAKER_04 55:20

I mean, I think it's interesting that Cochrane, he really goes after the American market because like uh you could probably buy that ad space for you know domestic channels, but like he's not going after kids in like Japan or kids in Spain.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

I don't think he has the inventory for that.

SPEAKER_04 55:41

Like, so he just really is focused on like killing off American children.

SPEAKER_02 55:44

Yeah, yeah. So well, at first he's like, Well when when um Dan asks him why, and he's like, What a great joke to play on kids.

SPEAKER_04 55:56

Yeah, I mean that's uh but then he goes into like you want a better reason?

SPEAKER_02 56:02

Okay, let's talk about Halloween.

SPEAKER_04 56:04

Sure. Yeah. I mean, that's like the most like intense trick-or-treat, you know, the trick part.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

This is not a treat. It's not a treat. No.

SPEAKER_04 56:14

But I do think it's fun. I mean, I I think it would have been interesting to have seen more of the like the mystical stuff a little bit. Like it's an interesting mix of like kind of witchcraft and then like sci-fi.

SPEAKER_02 56:29

Pseudo-tech, side-of-fy stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:32

Yeah. So it's I think that's kind of an interesting part of the film is this like mashup between the two. Uh, so it's kind of a mix of different subgenres of horror. But I do I know a lot of people we were talking, we were talking about this at uh Trader Joe's when about about like gore in film. And more than anything nowadays, for the most part, especially with 80s cinema, when I look at the effects, I just am so impressed by what they were able to accomplish. Yeah. And and that's that's kind of the take. That's why I laugh about these things, because it's like I'm not really like I there's a certain level of removal, you know, like, but for what they were able to accomplish in the 80s, I think it's highly impressive. Yeah. So so that's what I see when I'm like seeing Marge's face or I'm seeing little buddy on the floor. Like it's disgusting. So like that's impressive, but it's impressive. So that's that's how I view it. Like film, I think part of it is like films nowadays. I sound like I'm like fucking 85 years old. But it there, there's like no kind of um fun to it. It's just like I don't know. Like, I I won't even watch this film, but like Bone Tomahawk, I imagine that that scene, that infamous scene, I know there's more than one. Yeah. But the but the cutting scene, yeah, is just like a really kind of depraved type of like sequence.

SPEAKER_02 58:02

It's pretty visceral. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:05

And to me, that's like not, we talked about this last week about like what what do you consider like entertaining horror. To me, that's not entertaining. The This is entertaining to me.

SPEAKER_02 58:15

The the thing with Bone Tomahawk versus because I know that there's like a cutting-in-half scene in that that's pretty gruesome, but it's like the the way that the story is set up and the characters and the like the way that it happens, it's not like a like a campy slasher horror movie where there's very little of substance happening, and then there's like a fucking crazy death where you can see where they put all the effort into the effects. It felt like there was more of like a story, so you felt you like felt something for what was happening. It made it a lot more difficult to watch. Because I'm I'm not gonna watch probably not gonna watch the terrifier movies because I've heard that they're just like the the clown Arthur Clown is is like a fun, depraved character, and they have crazy effects, including someone getting sawed in half. But I would probably be if I was going to watch one of those movies, I probably wouldn't care about it as much.

SPEAKER_03 59:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:13

Just because it's you're it's so like the setup is so different. It's so obvious that you're just watching a movie just to see these like wild effects happen.

SPEAKER_04 59:21

Yeah, I mean, like I don't want to speak out of turn because I think it's really, really hard for anybody to be in this industry, and I truly do recognize the talent that it takes to like execute those kinds of effects, whether or not it's like something that happened in the 80s where it was pretty much practical, yeah, or today where it's probably more of a mashup um of CGI and some practical.

SPEAKER_02 59:43

But it's usually, although I think that's one of the um again for the terrifying, like there's a lot of practical, and that's where people that's where it got their attention. That's how it kind of like gained the notoriety.

SPEAKER_04 59:54

I I guess I just like from my own my own very personal perspective on it is like. The 80s film is part of the reason why I love this decade of horror is because I feel like there's a real kind of like entertainment value that the filmmakers wanted to bring to audiences.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:12

And I feel like today a lot of it is just like how how gross can we make it? And like it's I don't know. There's like just not I don't know how to explain it. I'm not being very articulate, but there's like no kind of like entertainment value for it. It's just how can we like really turn your stomach? Some yeah. Probably the most egregious is like things like the human centi Oh oh the human centipede.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:36

Yeah. That's there it's a very different take, I suppose, on horror and what the how how it's intended to scare or make you feel. And again, like the practical effects in like the older 80s horror movies are fun. The acting is generally not great, but that's fine because there are just these like setups for different like scenes where you know that someone's gonna get it and then they do, and you kind of laugh it off. The ones where they're trying where where the movie itself is made so much more serious, and there's like no real fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:16

Ariaster.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

Like what?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:19

Ariaster.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

What's that? Who's that?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:21

Hereditary.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:22

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, and that's like consistently put it, like the top of lists of scary movies.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

I'm like I'm doing air quotes, elevated horror.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:32

Yeah, it's just like a depression simulator.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:35

Yeah. Like I I appreciate the talent and the hard work for anything that comes to light, but like just not my not my bag. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:45

So if I see a horror movie and at the end I just feel like terrible about everything.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

Then I'm not gonna watch it again.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:52

We were really late to the party, but we finally just got around to watching Sinners. And yeah, I love that movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:58

That was great.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:58

I thought that there was like a fun kind of like entertainment that was brought to that in a way that balance. Yeah, that I don't see. And entertainment's not really the word I'm trying to I'm not finding the right word, but just like kind of a showmanship. Maybe that's a little bit more what I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:14

Um Yeah, it was it was a good story and the Hmm. The it was it was a good story in the sense that I wasn't even sure if we were watching the right movie because like the setup was so intense and going like the backstory behind the characters and and like the setup for the juke joint.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

Until it's a couple different movies in life. Yeah, when you when you see the guy like running through the field smoking, and like, oh, it is a vampire.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:43

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:44

So it's a long movie too, so there's enough time for them to to like get a good payoff for everything. Right. So in any case, also welcome back to Halloween three season two of these.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:54

Yeah, so I just and I feel like this is like kind of an earlier, like this sets up for like films down the road that still retain that kind of showmanship. I guess that's the word I'm gonna land on. Okay. Um, but that's it. That uh that's it for this year's Halloween series.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:11

Happy Halloween.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:12

Happy Halloween. Are you gonna do the song?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:15

Doot doot doot do no, I'm definitely not.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:19

I guess they used uh London Bridges Falling Down because it was in public domain.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

Yeah. Sounds like it. Uh yeah, yeah. So there you go.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:27

All right. Uh I mean, as far as watching this film again, yeah. Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:35

It's ridiculous. I love it. And call to action, I mean I don't consider it a Halloween movie like in the Halloween franchise. I'd I'd if I whatever I'm gonna call it, it's its own thing and it's fine. It's it's like stands on its own just fine.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:49

Yeah, I mean, I guess that's a perfect segue to like, you know, the most obvious call to action, which is like, how do you feel about this film as far as part of being the Halloween franchise? Um, I mean, it's included by name as far as everything else, but like I think the way you describe it probably reflects what a lot of people feel.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:07

If it had been instead of Halloween three Season of the Witch, if it was John Carpenter's Season of the Witch.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

I wonder how it would have done.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:16

So no expectations of Mr. Myers.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:18

We would love to hear from you if you'd like to reach out. You can reach us through Instagram, Facebook, Blue Sky. It's the same handle at all three. It's at 80smontage pod, and 80s is 80S. I don't know if I even brought that up in the last episode. We might have skipped over the call to action.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

Oh, maybe. Maybe possibly.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:37

Hmm. Anyway. Sneak peek.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:40

Yeah, I got I got no idea. No, truly.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:42

We didn't talk about it. So I was I was kind of up in the air about what to do coming out of this Halloween series. And I think what I landed on was doing a soft exit from the Halloween series.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:57

Sounds like we're gonna do a horror movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:59

So soft exit. I don't think it's technically called horror, it's more fantasy. But it is very timely because there is a film coming out that's a part two of a huge film from last year. You should be very familiar with what this film is.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:21

Part two of a film that came out last year.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:24

So I'll give you a clue.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:27

Glenda the Good Witch.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:29

Oh. Wait.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:32

It's like a clue for a clue.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:33

It's a clue. Okay, so yeah, wicked part two would be the clue.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:42

So an 80s movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:44

Uh-huh. An 80s movie. Not something wicked this way.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:49

I've actually never seen it, but I've heard that it is like much darker than you would expect, but kind of on par for children's 80s films.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

Uh Something Wicked This Way Comes.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:58

Return to Oz.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:01

So that is what That is what we are covering next.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

Okay, return to Oz.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:08

Yeah. So in the meantime, thank you to everybody for hanging with us. This is our, now I'm not going to say this every single time, but our 151st episode. And we really appreciate that of all the options you have out there that you are choosing to follow along with our podcast. Thank you so much, and we will talk to you again in two weeks' time.