I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking you know what the world needs?
Yet another horror podcast.
But what about a podcast?
Soley devoted to horror comedy.
What?
That sounds great.
Well, thank God you said that because that's what this is.
Once a week we're going to be doing a deep dive into a horror comedy film.
Breaking it down.
What makes it funny?
What makes it scary?
What makes it good?
What makes it bad?
Welcome to Die Laughing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Welcome back.
For this first episode, we're going to do a little bit of a different format
than we will in subsequent weeks.
In that, for this episode, my co-host doesn't know the topic of the podcast she's agreed to.
And she'll find out live on the air.
I'm very excited.
I hope my co-host is excited as well.
I'm going to bring her on.
She's one of my favorite people.
Anything she says I find entertaining.
I am so giddy.
So bring on my co-host, Lindsey Roberts.
Hi.
I'm so happy to be here.
Are you excited?
Yes.
Are you nervous?
Yes.
OK.
Good.
All the things.
As I mentioned, Lindsey has zero idea what this podcast is about.
So I sent Lindsey a list of questions trying to figure out what she liked, what she disliked.
Most of the questions were complete Mr. X because really there was only one question in there
that was really about what this podcast is about.
So the list that I sent, Lindsey, questions about music and movies and sports and seasons and
cabbages and kings.
So my first question was what's your favorite genre of music?
I also asked what her least favorite was.
And she said, new country.
It's an auditory crisis.
Listening feels like consenting to a slow cognitive decline.
Amen.
Chris Stapleton, you're excused.
I'd also say Sturgel Simpson, you're excused.
You're doing the Lord's work.
I think both of them are doing the Lord's work.
Yeah.
It's extraordinarily hard for me to listen to it.
It just, they're either, I just feel like they're trying to pull at your heartstrings in
a really weird way or they're trying to be patriotic.
It just, none of it feels authentic to me.
And I guess that's kind of what it just, it's so
manufactured.
And it just, it just, it feels kind of gross.
I think you're very kind in your answer.
I think my answer about new country would be it's dip-shit stupid.
Oh, totally.
Yeah.
Just music for dip-shits made by dip-shits.
I'm sure you've heard the AI country songs.
No.
It's such an easy task for AI to do.
Just can shit out a country song in five seconds about pickup trucks and dogs and, and
beer drink.
Oh, it's, it's awful.
So easy.
All right, back to the list.
Here we go.
The first sport was I, I think I knew, NBA basketball, no hesitation.
For Lindsey's least favorite sport, anything where the entire premise is to beat another
human senseless, boxing UFC, all of it, it's barbarism and high definition.
I'll never understand the appeal of watching someone's face turn into a cautionary tale.
All right, favorite movie genre.
I'm so mad at you for this one.
So mad.
So mad.
This question is almost offensive, she says.
I follow directors, not genres.
But if you insist, romantic comedies, when done well, are perfect.
Drama and comedy are neck and neck behind that.
But again, it's more about who's behind the camera than what bucket it falls into.
Lease favorite movies, Lindsey says.
Action movies, particularly anything with Michael Bayes name on it.
Amen, sister.
I agree.
I prefer my explosions, metaphorical and my dialogue above a sixth grade reading level.
So thank you for your answers about music and movies and sports.
And so I think it's time to let you know that this podcast is about new country and its
effect on UFC fighters.
I'm great, I'm your...
Welcome to our podcast, "Smash and Grab!"
I'm your girl, you chose so wisely.
So what we're going to do is we're going to watch one hour of UFC a week and while we watch
it, we're going to have the sound down and we're going to listen to nothing but new country.
And we're just going to discuss it at the end of that week.
So you hate me, is that what we're talking about?
No, no, no.
This podcast is something that I want to do for a long time and it is a genre that I'm
a big fan of and it's a genre also that is very divisive but I think when done right is
spot on perfect.
And so Lindsey Roberts, welcome to our first episode of the Die Laughing Podcast, a podcast
on horror comedy.
Oh my god, I'm so happy right now.
Yes.
But that's what we're going to be doing.
Once a week we're going to be watching a horror comedy, a horror comedy horror and then we're
going to be discussing that movie.
I'm so happy right now.
So it's funny because it's one of my favorites as well.
I didn't mention it.
I don't know why I do love it.
Horror I think in general for me as someone who is so weird and picky about my movies and
I probably should have mentioned it.
For me, it is the most forgiving genre.
I will forgive, plot, I will forgive writing, I'll dialogue, I will forgive the artistry of
the actual film and how it looks and feels.
I will forgive all of that if you either make me laugh or scare the shit out of me then you've
done your job.
It is a genre in and of itself that that's the only genre that exists like that.
It's either a shit movie or a great movie and it either holds up or it doesn't.
I don't expect any of that out of horror film.
As a horror fan, which I am, just straight horror, I love straight horror.
We have this certain varying degree of judgment.
We know going in like, oh, it's this type of horror film.
So our inner critic kind of adjust based on the movie.
So it's going to be like just a bizarre mind-fuck.
We're like, okay, plot's not going to be really thick.
Our dialogue is going to be kind of crap, but this is going to be really twisted.
And then we get so excited when a horror film is amazing in all respects because we have
this fluctuating critic.
So when it all aligns, it's just magic.
All right, Lindsey, here we go.
For the inaugural episode of Die Laughing, I have chosen National Lampoons Class Reunion.
It was released in 1982.
It was National Lampoon's second film release with the first being the beloved National
Lampoon's Animal House.
This is not a film that you can find on streamers, but you can find it on archive.org, since
it's fallen into the cracks elsewhere.
There was a Blu-ray released in 2018, and you can find it online occasionally for $50.
The film is essentially a parody of the movie Promenade, with traumatized student Walter Baylor
played by Blackie Damott, who is the father of Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony
Ketus, returning to wreak vengeance upon his school tormentors.
The screenplay was written by John Hughes.
No.
Yes, well, he was still a staff writer at National Lampoon.
Yes, 16 Candles, John Hughes, the Breakfast Clubs, John Hughes, Plains, Trains, and Automobiles,
John Hughes.
It was to be his first solo feature-length screenplay that was made into a film.
Wow.
Oh my God.
I love John Hughes.
John Hughes, who was pretty unhappy with the final product, and would later tell the
Chicago Tribune, "They didn't even want me around.
I was shocked when I saw the movie.
My screenplay had been completely butchered, and my name will nevertheless be on the credits
forever."
The film was directed by Michael Miller, who also directed Silent Rage with Chuck Norris,
also in 1982, and he would use most of the same crew from Class reunion and even actress
Stephen First for that one too.
This film is definitely on paper anyway, a comedy first with horror parody.
So a comedy horror, more so than a horror comedy.
So let's watch National Lampoon's Class reunion and see if it deserves its 0% score on rotten
tomatoes.
I'm so thrilled.
I have never seen this movie.
I cannot wait to watch it.
It's been a long time since I've seen it, but my only advice is temper your expectations.
From the makers of Animal House, National Lampoon's
Class reunion, no class and less class than this class.
Coming this fall from ABC Motion Pictures and 20th Century Fox.
There is not a chance that is the trailer for the film that we watched, not even a little
chance.
It is 100%.
No, it's not, you're a liar.
Here's my question.
Do you think that trailer was shot before or after?
I gave this quite a bit of thought this morning.
I think it was shot after and it is a representation of the studio saying, we're going to give this
the bare minimum.
Since somebody out and do two shots and throw a bunch of shit at the wall and that is our
promotion for this film, I think the trailer that we just watched is that the studio's confidence
in the success of this movie.
That's what I think.
See, because I think you have all this editing, you've filmed this movie, everything's in
the can.
It seems like it would take less time and energy to just throw what you already have in
the can.
There are a few shots together, put some names on the screen and say when it's coming out.
Because it's clearly a different location, it's clearly the lighting is different.
They're not even using the same class reunion banner.
There are no props from the movie.
It looks like it's shot on really bad 16mm too.
It looks totally different.
Because it just feels like they shot it not knowing what the movie was going to be.
I've seen trailers like this before that have worked.
Obviously, Alien.
Alien was just that one shot trailer within space.
No one can hear you scream.
Then there was a maximum overdrive when Stephen King sitting down and he says, I'm going
to scare the hell out of you.
He did scare the hell out of us just by his cocaine-filled piece of shit movie.
Have you ever heard of any of the stories that he's told about?
No.
It was a cocaine-filled shoot.
Him included.
Because that was his directorial debut.
What a silly movie.
Obviously, all of their focus was on cocaine and not on the movie itself.
Oh my gosh, that's incredible.
I've seen trailers like that work before.
I think this trailer is an excellent representation of the movie itself in maybe an idea that
wasn't totally fleshed out.
They were coming off a lot of pressure after the success of Animal House.
You would think that coming off of that success that they would be swinging big and it doesn't
feel like they were swinging big.
It feels like they were kind of playing it safe.
Animal House, I haven't seen it in years, but I've sought enough to just be storage in
my brain from when I was a kid.
It was a lot of locations, a lot of shots, a lot of jokes, a lot of funny characters, a
lot of flesh out characters.
You would think they would have kept that standard that high.
But let's jump into it before we start picking it apart.
Let's address the elephant in the room right off the bat.
That is the script.
Oh boy.
How about this?
When you think back to John Hughes movies, I'll be at this was his first produced screenplay.
He has essentially disowned it.
This is interesting, a lot of things that I read said that John Hughes claims that he was
fired.
I was like, well, that's an interesting word.
So was he or does he just not want to be associated with this movie?
I don't know.
Maybe he was, but it said John Hughes claimed he was fired.
I also saw a blurb where he said they just didn't want me unsat.
But then again, that's most films with the writer.
Then like you've done your job and I'll get the fuck out of here.
I also read something, I don't know if this is right, but it says he's the uncredited girl
with the bag on her head in the car.
That's a red that that's John Hughes.
I don't know if that's right or not.
I hope that's right.
But if that's true, that would make my fucking day.
That is pretty fantastic.
Do you think he even like if we were to say John Hughes, we want to talk to you about
your catalog?
We'd love to discuss class reunion.
I mean, this was 1982, right?
He's dead.
Right, right.
No, I'm just saying, but if you, you can't talk to the dead.
I know.
Well, you can't through a medium.
So what if we talk to a medium and we said, I want to talk to John Hughes?
But do you know what I mean?
If you were able to talk to him.
That's not a bad use.
You only have one use of a medium.
That's not a bad use of it.
That's not a bad use of it.
Yeah.
I would agree with that.
I would agree with that.
Do you think he would even want to talk about it this many years later?
Do you think he just never wanted to talk about class reunion?
It was like that bad of an experience?
I think it was such a blip in his career that he wouldn't want to talk about it.
I tried to find some interviews with him and I think there was one and he just really, that's
pretty much what he said, but yeah, they but your miscript, they didn't really want me
around.
But who knows?
It's your first script turned into a movie.
I don't see you not going to the premiere and stuff like that.
So I'm sure John Hughes, there was some excitement in his life to go to the movie and then
see, oh my God, what a thing they've done here.
Mm-hmm.
So yeah, just call it a thing.
I just want to kind of, I kind of want to
reserve my opinions until I get a little deeper into it.
But let's talk a little bit about the movie.
So all these classmates in 1972 are all sitting around a campfire, they're all high school
students and all of the actors, of course, look like they're in their 30s or 40s.
Like you do in all 80s movies and all 80s movies.
Like no Tim Matheson in here to be agilist.
Or William Zabka.
Or William Zabka.
Just a bunch of people that already look 40.
So they set it up with Blacky Damage character, which again, we mentioned that's Anthony
Ketus is dead, playing a character Walter Baylor.
Mm-hmm.
I think this.
Bob, the main antagonist, tells Walter that the hottest girl in school wants to have
a little go with him.
But she's very modest, so he asks him to put on this paper sack on his head.
So Walter excitedly takes the paper sack and they've been trying to get him drunk at the
beginning too.
I love it.
It's that classic low-budget campfire scene too with everyone.
Everyone's at the same frame.
Like a choir, facing one direction.
Yes.
Yes.
So then Walter goes over to a car and we see him getting a handy from another person with
a sack on their head.
And that's when we see all the car headlights turn on and all the classmates have set them
up.
Bob yanks the bag off of Blacky Dammit's Head, Walter Baylor that is, and he screams, he pulls
the bag off of the person who's giving him the handy.
And he screams and that way we know it's definitely not who he thought it was going to be.
Right.
You don't see the person's face that he's in the car with, but you can tell it's really
bad.
And you're like, oh, that is kind of intriguing.
I was like, who is it?
Yeah.
So that was that.
And then we go straight into the opening credits.
Straight into, yeah, 10 years later.
Yeah, the opening credits sequence under a song by Gary U.S.
Bonds.
Yes.
And all week singing and I'm really mad at you about.
Class for you.
Yeah.
But the whole time.
I was like, damn it.
Bart.
So the credits he went to high school yearbook.
Right.
And we see all the, their phase this.
We see, we see the actors.
See he's playing them, but there's also all of the most likely to yada yada.
Yeah, all the super live.
Yeah, the blind girl most likely to get hit by a car.
Even those just none of them landed.
No, it all misses the mark.
Like, because they do the same thing at the end of the movie, right?
They show all the people in the supporters.
Exactly.
The same one.
The same one.
Exactly.
And the same song.
And after watching the whole film, I'm like, oh, that was that person.
That didn't even look like that person.
I would have known that.
Some of it doesn't even connect.
You don't even connect it to the correct person.
Yeah.
It's not, not well done.
And you know what?
You find out after you've watched it, it doesn't even really matter.
It doesn't.
So yeah.
So then we open up at the school.
Lizzie Borden High.
I can't talk about it.
I died.
I'm sorry.
I really appreciated that.
I love that about the movie.
I thought that was hilarious that they had it take place at Lizzie Borden High school and
that there is no place in the film where it is talked about or referenced or, besides
when they say it, right, at Bordenhai, they would shorten it and call it Borden High a lot.
But like just the obviousness of it was something that they left completely alone.
And I appreciated that.
And that the slogan and the logo of the school has two axes crossing and then when they're
on the stage and there's the portrait of Lizzie behind them.
And she's got an axe in her hand and she's just pointing to it.
I'm dead.
Like I was like, I love this.
I absolutely love it that they did that.
I thought that was really funny.
I thought the movie needed 20 more of those.
Yeah.
A thousand of those.
A thousand of those.
Elite League, non-sequeter, odd jokes.
Yes.
Yeah.
I'm sure that you're like, yep, that, I need Matt.
That's what I need.
The other one that comes to mind was the Medieval Science Lab when the character Gary is
looking for weapons and he's going through the classrooms and it says Medieval Science
Lab.
And he goes in there and there's like Knights of Armor.
And for no reason, I thought, now see, you could have done that a lot and made it way
funnier because then it's almost like airplane.
There was a lot in there that felt like airplane to me.
An attempted tone, I think it's similar to airplane, but airplane unlike a lot of films
in the 80s knew the tone going in and were insistent about that tone, which is, so we're
going to get all these old stars that used to play these straight characters and we're
going to have them play it fucking straight and it's going to be hilarious.
They're not going to wink at the camera.
They're going to play it straight and it's going to be funny.
That was one of the things I really appreciated about this movie that these characters are
in it.
No, they don't play into the joke.
They play it straight.
There is one.
There's one.
Someone literally winks at the camera.
Oh, no, it's the vampire.
When she says it's that time of the month and he's like, he licks his lips.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's breaking that wall of sort of it's got to be good.
It's got to be worth it and not Mr. Roper.
Whereas airplane nailed the tone.
That's why it's an iconic film.
It's hilarious.
They knew the tone going in.
This is all over the map.
So Bob, he's the asshole character, the main antagonist and painter.
He's played by Garrett Graham who is mostly known as beef from Phantom of the Paradise.
So he's grown up to become a successful yacht salesman.
He's the guy who that's funny.
It is.
I actually a couple of times started thinking about like what a yacht salesman's life would
be like.
Right.
Right.
It's so random.
It was really, I did appreciate that.
I was like, did he just say yacht?
So the yacht salesman probably has their own yacht, right?
And he was like, you got to show off your goods and, you know, big people in-bias.
So he shows up with his fiancee played by Jacqueline Zeman who is best known as playing
Bobby Spencer on General Hospital for over 30 years.
Some of the people in there, I was blown away.
I was like, what are you doing in here?
You know, I wish there had been more of those.
Like Michael Learner is the one who like, oh Michael Learner is in this.
Michael Learner from Barton Fink, head of capital pictures.
And Ramsey.
Yeah.
Well, the salesman's made me choke.
I love her and everything, right?
Goonies, throw Mama from the drain.
Oh, yeah.
She is exactly who you need her to be in every film.
Like, you know, I miss characters like that.
You're never going to catch a film with somebody that looks and acts like Anne Ramsey in it today.
You're not.
No, you're not.
I'm sure you know this, but the reason she spoke that way was because she had cancer and
it had a lot of her tongue removed and a lot of jaw removed.
And that's why her speeches like that in throw Mama from the train, you know, because they
had removed a large part of her mouth and then still playing comedy that way.
Right.
Right.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I enjoyed seeing her as the lunch lady.
That made me happy.
We needed about six more Anne Ramsey's just peppered here and there.
They tried to fit in as many character types as they could in the class.
There was the deaf blind crazy seductress played by Mira Small.
Yeah.
I can't think of that voice sounds familiar and I had to look it up.
She was best known as candy.
She was one of the women that Jack Nicholson sneaks into the asylum in One Flew Over The
cuckoo's nest.
Stop.
She was the one that was dancing with Billy Bibbit and then Billy Bibbit.
I think they had up having sex because when Nurse Ratchet comes in the morning, Billy
Bibbit gets pants off and then so yeah, that was them.
Sure.
That is so funny.
I did not realize that.
That's what the class is on.
So she also was on several episodes of mash as Hawkeyes love interest.
But yeah, so we've got the yacht salesman in his fiance.
We've got blind.
I guess she's deaf but she's wearing headphones but she can hear sometimes and can't.
I didn't really understand that.
Yeah.
Did you?
No.
I know.
It just didn't read.
Like sometimes she can hear people really clearly and then there were times people had
to yell at her and I'm like, what can you hear or not?
I don't understand.
When you're seeing eye dog vanished about 20 minutes in the movie and never came back.
Sure did.
That's the best trained thing in the film, right?
He sat in the corner in that one scene and was like poking his head out.
I know.
I was like, the dog is doing a killer job.
That's where this movie's budget went to.
The dog trainer.
The dog trainer.
Now we know.
Now we know.
We had a character who she wore leg braces in high school but she has sent soul to her
soul to the devil for not only the ability to walk but to breathe fire and blow
wind.
Can I just be really honest with you right now?
Yes.
I'm obsessed with her.
I was obsessed with her.
The whole movie.
I loved every single thing about her.
I realized it was utterly and totally ridiculous that she was possessed by the devil and everybody
just seemed to be a-okay with it.
I kept thinking if I were in this movie and you know if it was real life, I would just
be following her everywhere because she's probably the only one who could actually
take out Walter with her fire breathing and all of this craziness.
She was hilarious.
I thought the relationship between her and Mary and Flem was brilliant.
I loved watching the two of them nag after each other.
I loved her.
I loved that character.
I thought it was absolutely hilarious.
I loved every time she was on the screen.
That first scene where they see each other at the bar and she lights her cigarette with
her finger and then they have that, you know, it's very clear that they don't like each
other in high school and so they have this dialogue, right?
And they're very snarky to each other and the laughing with the two of them laugh and
they laugh-
You just keep laughing and you laugh.
And they laugh at the exact same time for the exact st.
length of time in the same tone and they're like, they do it three times and then she just
walks off.
I was like, I need this in every part of this film.
Like that, I almost had to pause it.
I was laughing so hard.
She is by far, to me anyway, the most memorable character in the movie of one I remembered.
Oh, for sure.
I hadn't seen the movie in, I don't know, decades and then, but that was the one person.
I was remembered like there was a possessed person in the movie.
Like, oh yeah.
Now I know why because she stole every scene she was in.
She's foaming at the mouth and she grows horns, Bart Shannon.
I was so here for it.
I loved her.
She was, because she was so wackado and she leaned so into it, man, she just, she was like,
I'm going there.
I am going there.
She was great.
She was great.
I don't really recall seeing her in anything else ever.
Zane Buzby.
That's her name.
I was obsessed with her.
Yeah, but she was fantastic.
And then let's talk about the other odd horror-troped character, the vampire.
He was played by Jim Stahl, who he came from, second city.
Yeah, but it was a hat on a hat.
You didn't need a possessed person and a vampire in the same class.
A thousand percent.
One would have been fine.
And we don't find out he's a vampire until halfway through the movie and then they start
kind of developing his character, halfway two thirds of the movie.
To no benefit, the weird part is that they show him at the beginning and he smiles.
And so you see his teeth.
And I was like, did he just wear those?
Is that fake teeth?
And then it's just completely dropped.
And you're like, okay, it just didn't make any sense.
And then they pick it back up and all of a sudden give him these like, what is it?
Like five minutes or six minutes of this whole story.
And you're like, why?
Edit, cut, don't need it.
Yeah, it was almost like an afterthought character.
We need one more horror thing.
Hi, how about a vampire?
It would have been better with a werewolf, but then again, I guess we already had one transformation
character with the possessed.
She's older, so the devil, but she was also possessed at times.
And a little fluctuating on what her deal was.
But Chuck Berry.
I think it's time to address Chuck Berry.
Okay.
So within the first ten minutes of the movie, Bob, the Yacht Sailsman has booked Chuck Berry
for the high school reunion.
And then we get Chuck Berry and one of his most uninspired three song medley's you will
ever see.
Even Chuck Berry is like, what am I doing here?
I know.
You can tell he's thinking that when it says in the credits, special appearance by Chuck
Berry, I was like, not a chance.
That's true.
That would have been funny.
That would have been something that they needed to do with the yearbook, special bears
by Chuck Berry and Chuck Berry doesn't show up in the movie.
That would have been an extra joke.
But no, they needed time to fill.
So that's, I guess that's why we did a free song montage.
That was the first time I'd ever heard my dinghyling.
Yeah.
And the best part is that they talked him into doing his hold the guitar and scoot across the
stage.
It was duckwalk.
Yeah.
But yeah, but they didn't show his legs.
It wasn't a full frame.
You barely even see the whole guitar.
It was like a medium shot.
Well, I want to see the whole thing.
This was 80s Chuck Berry.
He could have said, like, I can't really do that anymore.
My legs don't do it like that.
And they're like, how about we shoot it from the waist up?
He's like, okay.
That could be.
Can you just push me on a dolly?
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
That's fair.
That's fair.
Let's talk about the first kill if you don't mind.
Oh, yes.
Let's talk about an airplane moment, right?
Oh, exactly.
And I think this was 82.
So, yeah.
Airplane was 80?
Yeah.
I think it was 80.
There is no reason for a little melt-freedman to be a hurry, Krishna, because there's no joke
about who he was in high school.
And now he's a hard-crystina.
Now it's funny because we just jump right in and the character Gary, who is the nobody that
no one can remember his name.
Apparently they were close friends in high school and he even little melt-freedman can't
remember who he is.
And he's a hard-crystina.
He seems like a non-practicing hard-crystina because he keeps slapping Gary on the face.
That character was very odd and gets off right away.
He's kill number one.
But he was played by Steve Tracy.
That's known for being the husband of Nelly Olson on Little House on the Prairie.
Oh, my gosh.
Come on.
Yep.
It's just out of nowhere he was a hard-crystina.
I was like, well, this just feels like they were like, well, airplane put a hard-crystina
in the movie.
So let me go ahead and put one of those in here and have it just make no sense at all.
Yeah, to me it felt like, hey, we've had a hard-crystina outfit over here.
Should we make the character a hard-crystina?
Because, and we're never going to mention it, we're just going to have him be a hard-crystina
and then he dies right away.
So, it won't matter.
Yeah.
He's tangled with a phone cord and almost total darkness.
So you can't see the kill.
Yeah.
Trying to use the phone and he says something like, I'd get better reception with two cans
in a string and Walter says, I got your string and strangles him.
That's that.
But I did love him swinging across the stage.
Yeah.
I did like that.
I was like, okay, I'm here for this behind Mary Imflin going across the stage behind her.
I thought that was a good gag.
And then she turns around and it fucking hits her and she, bam, is down on the ground.
All right.
So, at this point, we've had a murder.
And pretty quickly, out of nowhere, Michael Learner shows up as a doctor from the hospital
of the criminal insane.
Milley Insane.
Milley Insane.
So, there's another odd scene.
So he steps up on stage and announces to all the classmates that he is the doctor from
the criminal insane and that he doesn't even say anything else.
They all go crazy and start running for the exits and then he just steps off the stage.
Right.
Yeah.
I was like, huh?
He didn't say anything.
He didn't say anything.
He just announced who he is and where he's from and they go crazy and they start trying to
flee.
And then he steps off stage and it's one of those low budget.
We need to shoot this shot.
You two stand against this wall.
So he steps into frame, the character Bob steps into frame.
And that's where he says Walter Baylor has escaped and he's coming here to kill all of
you.
It's like, why didn't you just say that on stage?
Right.
And then he says one of the best lines in the movie, are you a religious man?
Certainly not.
I'm an Episcopalian.
We needed a hundred more of those.
A hundred more.
It was missing jokes.
There were some really great one liners and the ones that were in there were really good
but there was far too few of them.
What was the other one?
It's time to pipe the pair.
Yes.
Did it hurt the piper?
I died when he said that.
I also really liked was it Gary was in the food line and he was like, well, this food looks
almost good enough to eat.
I just delivered really well.
And then somebody later said, I can't remember which one it was.
Some lady said, I don't know what's worse.
This reunion or my marriage.
I enjoyed that line.
I thought that was funny.
Anyway, there was some great one liners.
There was just one enough of them.
It was all about just over the top performances at times, especially by Steven first who
was in the bluto for a nut bluto.
Sorry, bluto was John Blu-Sheet, a flounder for the animals.
Animal house, yeah.
He was just playing this total slob character, no redeeming qualities.
But also not really anything funny.
He wasn't doing anything funny.
This may be an unpopular opinion.
Maybe you're going to say we're stopping the podcast now.
I can't believe it.
But I really did not enjoy Blackie Damott in this movie.
I think we witnessed why Blackie Damott's career did not take off the way.
I'm sure he had hoped after this.
He's a hard person to look at.
Yeah, you're right.
He's a hard person to look at.
Maybe that's why they had a bag over his head most of the movie.
But he was so incredibly over the top, the entire film.
It was hard to look at him and it was also hard to watch him.
He was so intense the whole time.
I was like, I can't watch this.
Really, it was really off-putting.
I think the fact that that's all he gave us probably means that's all he could give.
But yeah, it felt the same way.
He just giggled and laughed and then would have a menacing look.
And that was it.
That was his range.
Yeah, but Steven first was the same way.
Yeah, yeah, that's Steven first.
That could have been played by anyone.
And probably better.
After this, I think we go straight and pretty close into the second kill.
Just like a few minutes later, and that is, unfortunately, Anne Ramsey.
The lunch lady.
I thought this scene was funny, but it would have been funnier if when Blackie Damott's
character is trying to kill the lunch lady, which why is he trying to kill the lunch lady?
She didn't have anything to do with the prank.
Right.
She's not on his list.
She's not on his list.
Maybe Anne Ramsey was like, I'm going to give you one day.
Yeah.
Alright, give me the fuck out of here.
Yeah.
So you have to kill me off or something because I'm not sticking around.
I remember being a goonies in two years.
Here we see her cutting.
It looks like peach cobbler with a chainsaw.
She's cutting it with a chainsaw because she can't get it out of the pan.
She can't get it out of the cookie sheet.
And so she takes the chainsaw and just slicing it with the cookie sheet into.
I think this is one of those, we need justification for this and this is where I think it was the
wrong thing to do.
When he's trying to kill her in the kitchen, he's grabbing knives out of the knives that
hang over the stoves in the kitchen area and she keeps disarming in the knives from him
in this high speed of like so like she had the sudden nose karate.
And then he reaches up and all the utensils and pulls out the chainsaw.
Imagine how funny that would have been.
Had she not been cutting the peach cobbler with the chainsaw?
And just in the kitchen utensils, there happened to be a chainsaw in there.
Now that would have been a very airplane-ish where just, oh, there's a chainsaw.
What do you know?
A chainsaw in your kitchen, for no reason that we have no, we're not seen previously.
And so she, he goes at her with a chainsaw, which we assume that is how.
She meets her fate.
Yeah, I did kind of like this scene of all the scenes of him killing people.
I think what I liked most about it is that Blackie Damott refused to unclutch his purse
on his shoulder.
Did you notice?
He had his purse on the whole time.
He was just clutching onto that shoulder bag.
He wasn't going to let it go.
He was going to--
It was going to be.
I think he finally set it down at one point, but he just holding onto his purse, like fighting
the lunch lady.
That I did appreciate.
You know, it could have been the Blackie Damott was such a bad actor that they said,
"You're doing stupid things with your hands.
Give them a purse."
Give them a purse.
"Blackie, hold this purse.
Why, that doesn't make sense.
I can't show my range, just hold the purse."
And then that's it.
That's it for the kills.
And we're like 30 minutes in at this point.
I had to make sure, but yeah, that's it.
That's our two kills.
Later Steven first gets hit in the head with a hammer, but he doesn't kill him.
He just knocks him unconscious, which I guess there's been.
This character is so valuable.
We can't kill him.
He needs to just be injured so we can keep him around to the end of the film.
What I would love to see him die.
So at this point, Michael Lerner's character has said that Walter Baylor is here to kill
you guys.
So we need to split up and find him.
A very Scooby-Doo moment, and so the main characters decide to go searching for Walter Baylor.
So they all split up.
The two stoners, which I think even as a kid, I wasn't a fan of the stoners.
It's so used.
It's just over and over.
I mean, how many joints can we smoke?
You're open in your jacket and it's just joint after joint after joint.
I don't know.
It's just overplayed in the film.
But I did like his pin.
I thought if I was on set, I always steal one thing when I do a show or if I'm on a set, I
always steal one thing.
So I have a combination of all of these little things from shows and films that I've done.
I would have asked to keep the Nixon as the one pin.
He's wearing a pin on his jacket that says Nixon is the one that made me laugh.
Anyway, that was the only thing that I found or appreciated about the stoners.
The one in the Army jacket?
Yeah.
I think of his name, but he was on Seinfeld once as this terrible stand-up comic that Jerry
gets stuck in the cab with.
The other guy, a lot of mash crossover.
He was in an episode of Mash.
Michael Lerner was an episode of Mash as the dentist and the actress who plays the
blind woman.
She was also on Mash.
But here is something that was really weird.
So when they all split up to go try to find Blackie Walter.
A couple that sneaks off to the theater and has sex and has births and lays.
So they find the theater and they're walking around amongst the set and they're having sex
frallicking on stage.
And then we see Walter see them from the back row and breaks off a seat back.
And then we never see them again.
They don't show up in the dance sequence at the end and they don't get killed.
There is mention of them.
They were like, what happened to the theater geeks and they're like, well, I think they
got killed.
There is a very small mention of it, I think.
The crazy part was that everywhere they went, it was the kind of set that I was like, I
would not want to walk around this set.
It looked gross.
In a good way.
Yeah, in a good way.
Yeah.
Very well done.
Yeah.
It was.
I was like, this set is gross and also amazing.
I mean, they've a shit everywhere, papers everywhere, water coming down.
Everything looked disheveled.
It looked like they were having a classroom union at a school that had been shut down for
50 years and the building was about to be demolished or something.
Like that's what it looked like.
And then all of a sudden they get to this theater and there's a full fucking set.
And all the, the parkans still work.
Yeah.
They were a little up.
Yeah, everything's working at the theater.
I mean, listen, there's something to be said for that, right?
But then they're putting the costumes on and then he comes back and he puts his hands on
the chair, breaks the chair.
I'm like, why is he mad at them?
Yeah.
I mean, I guess he's mad at everybody, right?
But like, I guess maybe that what they're trying to say, John, maybe not John, he's, but someone
else who took a dump on his script.
Like, they're getting to have sex with someone other than their sister.
Did we talk about that?
Did we say that that's who was underneath the?
No, we didn't.
We didn't.
I don't think we did.
We just, we just mentioned that he had got a handy from his sister.
Yeah, that's who, that's who the reveal was.
And there was his sister, which is also played by Blackie Damott, right?
Right, right.
And so that's the thing, right, that you realize, and they do, they do tell you that pretty
early on, he pulls the sack over her and it's Blackie Damott, dressed as a woman, and then
you realize he's made out with his twin sister, or gotten, sorry, gotten a handy from his twin
sister.
And that's the thing, Blackie Damott is dressed as a school girl the entire movie.
Harry Legs, short Bobby Sox, little saddle Oxford shoes, and a plaid uniform that looks like
he's just left a private school.
That's what he's wearing the whole movie.
Yep.
I then, I did appreciate he had a sack for all seasons.
He did.
He had a wall of different sacks.
Some of them had lipstick on and mascara.
Some of them looked he has daytime and his nighttime looks, sacks.
I appreciated that.
His son, he go to meet and sack.
Mm-hmm.
It felt very, uh, silence of the Lambs Buffalo Bill, kind of, when he, because he, Gary stumbles
into his layer, right, where he sees all of the headshots of the core people that he wants
to kill.
And a Gary, I love his on, like a little side area, like he's still an afterthought in, in
wanting to be killed.
He's like, it's good about him.
I forgot about Gary.
Let's kill Gary too.
And it's like he's right by the guillotine.
Anyway, he finds his layer and so there's just like wall of like paper sacks and they all
like, different and, oh, it's just real, real fucking weird.
This is that part where even for this movie, I, I thought it just became a fiasco when they're
all just going through the classrooms searching for Walter.
But then this is where we get to see the character who is possessed by the devil, um, break them
through one classroom to the other by blowing, uh, blowing fire, former mouth and burning
a hole in the wall.
Yes.
And they're like, huh, good on you.
Thanks.
That's awesome.
That's it.
Cool.
I don't care.
Yeah.
I mean, I will say the beginning of the movie, I was like, I am into this.
The jokes were landing.
I'm seeing Miriam Flynn and Anne Ramsey and Lizzie Borden high and the whole first like 30
minutes of the movie, you know, it was really colorful.
Like the gym was really colorful.
It's like banners of yellow and red and purple and the introduction of some of the characters
that are instantly, which that was kind of the part that did feel very John Hughes.
You have the popular kid and the dork and the person that's not memorable and the, you know,
it means so you saw a little bit of some of that, that John Heusness, but then there's one
liners and then Michael Lerner came in, you know, and when he and Bob are standing on either
side and they're back in their original clump.
I don't know if you, I thought that was kind of cool.
Like at the beginning of the movie, they're all in a clump by the fire, right?
And it's, they're all in the same shot.
And then when they're back in the gym, they're back in that same clump and you have Bob
on one side and Michael on the other.
You speak like, when you say clump, we're talking about Eddie Murphy and Nuddy Professor,
right?
Correct.
Yes.
Correct.
I'm caught up.
I'm caught up.
That is the clump of which you speak.
That's the, the clump of which I speak.
And they're on either side of the clump and Bob will say something and all of their heads
go to Bob and then Michael Lerner will say something and all their heads go to Michael Lerner
all at the same time, the timing and the comedy of that, all of these little things.
I'm like, this is a great movie.
This is starting off really solid.
And then they kind of get to this part in the movie where we are, right?
Them splitting up Scooby Doo style and trying to find him.
And the movie just loses every single bit of momentum that it had.
I was like, I want to fall asleep now.
I don't care about this part of the movie.
I don't care about this.
Yeah.
Again, tone.
It wasn't enough horn for it to be a horror film and it wasn't enough comedy to be a comedy.
So it just fell smack down in the middle of the wall.
Yeah.
It doesn't, it, yeah.
It, there's no suspense.
Yeah.
So it just completely failed in that.
It doesn't land at it as a comedy because the gags are too scattershot instead of it being
like a true horror comedy like in American, where Wolf and London or something, which was
what 81, right?
Mm-hm.
So it just, I don't know, it just played more like a sloppy sketch show if that makes sense
that occasionally, that occasionally remembers they need to pretend that somebody has been
murdered, you know, ever once in a while.
And so I'm like, why would National Ampene?
Why would they do that?
Why don't you just stick to what you're good at and be a comedy because it was a popular
craze, right?
The comedy horror thing, right?
It was being done and it was being done well.
But if you can't do it, don't try to do it.
During a span of, in the early eighties, I think there were four horror spoof movies in
just a few years span, one of which I think was the most popular was student bodies, which
in bodies, not the best film in the world, but I think it manages to balance that comedy
horror spoof much better than this.
They wanted a piece of that pie, right?
They wanted to be the part of the slasher craze.
They wanted to be a part of the, you know, they wanted to maintain their National Ampene
sort of brand and they wanted to be a part of this launch comedy that like Airplane was
doing.
So they just said, let's just make one movie where we do all of that.
Yeah.
But they didn't do any of it well.
They didn't do any of it.
Yeah, that's the thing.
It's like, you set out to make a horror comedy and you fail it both.
Yeah.
It's tough.
So to summarize what you said, you liked the beginning and then it fell apart.
So if Lindsey Roberts could paraphrase a Parliament-fuck-de-ellic song, it would be,
we want the clump.
We got to have the clump.
We got to have the clump.
We want the clump.
Absolutely.
I wanted more of those moments where we're back and forth and back and forth and the laughing
at the bar.
To me, that's gold.
That's the kind of comedy I want to watch.
I want to see a portrait.
And by the way, that portrait of Lizzy Borden, huge, huge portrait, span the entire back part
of the stage that they were on.
Chuck Berry, perform in front of it and just with Lizzy Borden holding an axe, just point
at it.
It was glorious.
It was like, I love it.
And then it just took a fucking nose dive and the film just dies.
Yeah.
Let's get to the big reveal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It didn't help at all.
So I can't remember which character pulls the mask off or he reveals it to, but-
Oh, the woman, the beauty.
The beauty, the one that he thought was responsible for the prank.
She said she wasn't even there.
She didn't know anything about it.
And she found out about it later, but she was the character that he thought he was getting
a handy from and not his sister.
It's Michael Lerner pulls off his mask to reveal that he is Walter Baylor, only different
body type, little in an accent.
Michael Lerner has a thick Newark accent.
Blackie Damner has no whatever the fuck that accent is, Southern California.
Yeah, just a ridiculous reveal.
It's so bad.
But not even funny.
No, it wasn't.
They're not even the same height.
They're not even the same body type.
There's no wig that comes off.
It looks like just a face.
There's no wig, it just-
Yeah.
Oh my god, it's so bad.
So you're Walter Baylor.
You've went into a mental hospital because of this prank.
You escape, you go to your classroom union to kill your classmates.
Tell me the thought process.
And you know what I should do?
I should also create a secondary character where I am the doctor from the hospital of the
criminally insane and let everybody know that I'm on the loose to kill them and then have
them all go look for me if you're Walter Baylor.
What the fuck are you thinking, Walter?
Yeah, I think the missed opportunity just in the filmmakers, right, is that actually was
really smart, but I think that that's something that you let the audience in on day one.
And so you know that Michael Lerner is Walter Baylor.
And so when he comes in, all he has to do is lure all these people in one by one.
Yeah.
And kill them.
That's all he has to do.
I mean, the split up didn't need to have me.
He's like, hey, listen, you know, I've got an idea.
I want to, yeah, yeah, or just get a couple of them together and be like, listen, we need
to go over here.
I want to look at this here.
You know, and then just slash them, kill them, right?
And then come back and be like, oh my god, it was the most awful thing.
I need more help.
They're over here, right?
Like let the audience in on that and then use that to kill everybody.
I don't understand.
Made no sense at all.
Yeah.
Other than give them an actor with a higher profile, I think that's about it because
I think he was the most recognizable person.
So this is when the classmates fight back, the possess character, we fight out not only
can she blow fire, but she can blow wind and blows heavy wind to blow water against a wall.
Great use of it.
Good job.
Great use of it.
Yep.
Great use of it.
Dolores.
All it took was a little wind, a mighty, mighty wind.
Now, and this is when Blacky Dammit really shines.
Yeah, because while he does his scream and run around with his hands waving and saying,
give me out of here, give me out of here because the wind was blown on him.
So stressful.
And then it becomes very slapsticky.
You know, he keeps opening doors and then there's Steven Frost with the hammer and he boops
on that.
And so it's mega, maybe even crazy.
And he just got to get out of here.
He just got to get out of here, which I guess they're justifying by saying he's just insane.
And so yeah, but I mean, he doesn't fight back at all.
He's just running away from all these classmates.
Yeah, being Blacky Dammit just a lot of loud noises and making faces and--
His hands waving in the air and--
Crazy like you just don't care.
Yeah, that's all on Blacky, I think.
Yeah.
That's terrible.
So then he climbs up into the rafters of the gym and is hiding from them up there, scared
cryin' and that's when all of the classmates come and they try to talk him down.
Bob, the main antagonist, he apologizes.
And then Walter slips and falls and Bob catches him.
And then they all cheer and immediately it's over.
It's over.
And we go to a dance sequence.
Yeah, they're like, we're sorry for what we've done and for those that are left that you
haven't murdered.
And I'm like, okay, yeah.
And they just start dancing.
So they start dancing.
No mention of Walter's sister, where she is, what happened to her.
The last sequence of the movie is them dancing as sort of a sultrain dance line style towards
cameras so they can all say their last line towards camera.
There's two marriage proposals by these characters that have just met in the last couple of hours.
And then Walter dances down the aisle in a straight jacket with two orderlies behind him and
then the vampire character says, hey everybody, let's do the Walter.
And so everyone starts hopping around like their arms are tied with a straight jacket.
Which I thought was kind of funny.
It is kind of funny.
Yeah, it is kind of funny.
And then that kind of takes us out.
And right back into the yearbook, Montage.
That's right.
And Class reunion and that glorious song.
And then you get to read some of the superlatives now in hindsight, right?
And you're like, oh, okay, some of them made sense.
And some of them absolutely did not.
Never.
So I've got a question.
The Hughes factor.
Can you see any of John Hughes' later brilliance?
The Breakfast Club, Ferris Beuler, hiding under this mess?
Or is it just completely lost in the rewrites?
Honestly, I don't.
I mean, you mentioned earlier the different school characters, the shy kid, the person that
nobody remembers, and the arrogant one, the geek.
But I think if you're doing any school story, you're going to put those in there because
that's part of our experience of being in school, just the different type of people.
Otherwise, everyone's exactly the same.
So I think that's coincidental that with Breakfast Club, you've got to have different characters
because that's what creates the conflict.
Right.
Like even Uncle Buck, you know, there's so many, like, just touching moments in Uncle Buck and
funny jokes in Uncle Buck.
You can just grab any film of John Hughes and it's just, there's so rich.
It's that bottom thing feeling.
It's the John Hughes feeling.
Wow.
I feel zero of that in this film.
Yeah.
You could have been written by anybody.
If I did not know that it was written by John Hughes, right, and I watched the film and
you said to me after put 20 writers down on paper, I'll give you 50.
I'll give you 100.
I guarantee you, John Hughes would not be among those hundred names, not a chance.
Not a wall.
Nope.
Okay.
So does horror comedy work here?
No.
Where does it land if there was a horror comedy scale?
This on the scale of horror comedy I would definitely, the needle would need to be pegged
heavier into the comedy despite there being very little of it.
You know, it's still in the comedy category because that was the attempt.
There are jokes.
There are a lot of second city people in here, a lot of funny people.
So I think this is like comedy on the right, horror on the left.
It's almost pegged all the way to the right.
The reason I liked it when I was 12 is because I saw more of the horror than I do now.
I love the Lizzy board and stuff.
Love it to Spooky old school.
Love that a character is possessed.
Again, no need for a vampire character.
But I think it's definitely more in the comedy camp than the horror camp.
Yeah.
I, I, a thousand percent agree with that.
The problem is it doesn't even really do comedy super well.
No, it does.
But it definitely would be on the comedy part of the, the meter, for sure.
Even though the film fails at being a really funny film, there's something.
Something about it atmospherically that I root for.
And did it, did what I was yelling and I still do.
It's like you were talking about it the first 10 or 15 minutes.
You know, you're all in at that point.
Yeah.
It's like, oh, it's Lizzy boarding tonight.
That's funny.
Oh, it's, oh, that's, that's the place is scary looking.
So it's like a castle.
Okay, yeah.
I'm, I get it.
We're all in.
Let's go.
It's clue.
It's clue.
It's a low-budget clue.
And then, okay.
So then I kind of want to talk about the best and the worst.
Gags.
What do you think the best gags were?
What do you think the worst gags were?
What I think is the best gag.
And I'd forgotten about it because it's been decades, but as soon as I saw it, I remembered
appreciating it as a kid and I did this time even more.
My favorite scene in the entire movie is the impromptu choreographed cover a stop in the
name of love by the three women who are trying to lighten the mood after their classmates
been murdered and they, they just do a great version of stop in the name of love and with
kick ass dance moves.
Loved it.
Bart, I did not like that.
Oh my god.
And it's because all I'm watching is the blonde in the center and she has zero rhythm, zero.
It's so bad in fact that there are times when the girls on the other side of her are
like they don't even cut it out.
Maybe this is why I liked it so much.
I completely ignored the woman in the middle because on each side, they were doing great.
They do great.
They were, they were synchronized.
So you did the right thing.
Go back and watch it and just watch her.
Just look at her.
It's very difficult to watch.
You know, she's not a great actress.
She's pretty.
She was a model.
She did like fantasy island and love boat.
I think those were like her, her claim to fame.
But yeah, I didn't because I'd never paid attention to the actress from general hospital
before, but I thought she was great in this.
She is great in this.
She is.
And the two of them are great.
She is never on time.
She is never in the correct timing of it.
And it's so funny.
We'll do this.
We'll both go back and watch that scene.
I will only look dead center and you will only look on the sides.
And then I will love it.
And I will hate it.
Right.
Right.
But yeah, I, you know, and I've already kind of talked about some of my favorite.
I mean, I live for those moments of like being at the bar laughing that I was talking about
earlier between Miriam Flynn and Zayn Busby when the two of them are standing at the bar
and they have that laughing moment or like the head turns in the clump, you know, the
blacky dammit holding his purse to kill the lunch lady, the fact that it's Lizzy Borden
and nobody even mentions that her talks about it and just leave it.
We're going to leave this nugget right there.
And we're just going to let you enjoy this nugget.
It's that kind of stuff that's that I needed a lot more of all of that.
Those are my favorite moments.
I guarantee you we have the same worst.
I would bet we do.
I think the Michael Lerner reveal was just stupid.
I think blacky dammit was terrible.
I think Stephen Furst was awful.
As for something that didn't land, the vampire unnecessary, but I'm listening almost
to the whole movie now.
God, the vampire bed I just thought was, I don't know, kind of gross.
It just felt like a rejected Saturday Night Live skit or something.
Even though it's not great, does this film reflect early 80s trends?
Yes.
I think it does reflect 80s trends, especially as we talked about the fact that for like
a two or three years span, there were several horror spoofs happening.
I can't remember why I think the beginning they were going over awards for classmates.
Isn't that fun?
Yeah, isn't that fun?
Isn't that fun?
Isn't that fun?
Isn't that fun?
I think I told you that my sister and I still say that to this day and I couldn't, I
didn't know where I got it from.
I know Jan Hoax used to say something similar and started the Catherine Herr.
Yeah, yeah.
That was great.
Every time they were bringing people up on the stage, and the best bit was the guy that
they were like, has anybody seen what's his name?
I can't remember the guy's name.
And they're like, but you haven't because he's a woman now, raising three beautiful children
and he just stands up in the audience and it is just full on a man, not beard the whole
thing, just with a dress on.
And they're like, great.
And everybody starts clapping and Mary and Flynn's on stage going, in that fun, in that
fun.
And I love that.
All right, my last question was sort of around the cult value of the film.
Is it worth watching today as a so bad, it's interesting oddity or should this movie stay
completely buried?
You know, that's where it's tough.
I think we both enjoy watching movies for the sake of them being bad.
And this movie maybe even fails at being bad, bad, which sucks.
I think if you were to recommend this movie, I think you would say, hey, watch these four
Horace Booth's and see which one is the least terrible.
But yeah, it's a shame because no one went on to be a superstar in this movie.
This is not like a nightmare on Elm Street where like, you got to watch a Johnny Depp.
Johnny Depp, yeah, just a bit of a show's up.
Yeah, awesome.
Kevin Bacon and Friday the 13th is like, yeah, he's fucking Kevin Bacon.
He just gets an arrow through his throat.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah, exactly.
None of that.
So there's not even that type of appeal.
So yes, I think sadly no.
Yeah, I just think it's sort of like, hey, if you're bored, you want to watch this movie?
You know, it's fascinating knowing that it's John Hughes somewhere maybe in there, you
know, in seeing Anthony Keitas' dad be in a movie, you know, just if you're looking for genuinely
good horror comedies, then you better skip it.
But if you're just like, it's so bad, it's interesting and I've got to know how bad it is.
Watch it once and then move on with your life.
Yeah, I think it's more flat than it is.
God awful bad.
Yeah, legendary.
Yeah.
So if someone were to ask you what your elevator pitch is about what this movie is about,
what would you say?
Okay, I put some thought into this.
Okay.
Okay, here's what I would say.
I actually wrote it down.
It's like if Animal House tried to crash the slasher craze, but instead of being funny or scary,
it wandered around the party in a bad mask, think Halloween meets Saturday Night Live sketch
with Chuck Berry performing for no reason.
Yeah, that's about it.
I felt like that kind of captured it all.
No, that's pretty great.
I think my answer would be, I don't want to talk about it.
If you had a time machine and you were forced to go back, forced to go back to 1980 and spend
one extra day of additional shooting for this movie, what would you add?
Okay, I had to think about this one.
You even have a 16-hour day.
Okay, oh, good.
I honestly, I think I would film some actual horror scenes and sequences.
I would actually put some horror in there to try to balance out the comedy at the beginning.
It just had zero actual horror in it.
Zero.
No jump scares, no nothing.
What would you do?
What would you do with an extra day of shooting?
Extraday of shooting.
I would commit more to the comedy because I think with a film like this that is already the
needle is already leaning more towards comedy.
You've already got enough of a horror vibe to it to say, see what we're doing, we're doing
a horse-boof.
But this is going to be a really funny horse-boof.
I see.
Pepper it with a bunch more jokes, a bunch more just strange non-sequiters, just odd things.
How about you do your day of shooting with a comedy?
I'll do my day of shooting with the horror and we'll re-edit it and see how good it is.
We either need one time machine that will allow two trips or we need two time machine.
Yeah, so that's it.
That's National Lampoon's Class reunion.
I wish it had been even moderately as enjoyable as it was when I was a kid, but unfortunately
it was not.
That's episode one.
We did it.
We did it.
Now that the big question is, do you want to continue or is this scarred you so badly that
you cannot continue and that you're going to retire and spend more time with the family?
I can't wait to continue.
We got to keep going.
I promise you, next week, we will have a film that lands the horror better and lands the
comedy better.
Ooh, I'm excited.
It's a low bar.
That's a low bar.
After what we just witnessed, it's a very low bar, but next week's selection will get
this taste out of our mouths.
I can't wait.
What is it?
I can't tell you.
I can't tell you who our guest will be next week either, but starting next week we will
have a special guest in every episode to sit down with us and chat and discuss these
movers.
I love it.
This was fun Bart Shannon.
It was Lindsey.
And yeah, let's do it again.
Sounds good.
Thank you, dear.
All music for this podcast is provided by MKE to hear more of his music, visit his band's
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(audience laughing)