Latest / Citizen Frame / Halloween Month and a 1/2 episode 1: House by the Cemetery

Transcript

Halloween Month and a 1/2 episode 1: House by the Cemetery · Citizen Frame

0:27
That's right people it's halloween month and a half or probably halloween month
0:34
three quarters or three months uh maybe two months till we get to christmas
0:38
but we're gonna we're gonna dive into,
0:41
with some foreign the foreign market
0:44
one of the next couple films and the
0:48
italian market i guess you'd say mainly uh giallo filmmakers and we're gonna
0:55
start off with this kind of a lot of people seem to like it fair reviews called
0:59
house by the cemetery now i saw this years ago don't even remember it so this
1:04
is my first time the next couple movies we're gonna do i haven't seen really,
1:08
all right i've seen them but i don't remember them at all which is going to
1:11
be this one and then i I think we're going to do Black Sunday.
1:15
And so bear with me here. And I know this one's definitely beloved.
1:21
We're going to start off with director Alicio Falschi.
1:24
He's an Italian director, screenwriter, and actor. He is known as the godfather
1:29
of gore. Yeah. With his graphic on-screen violence.
1:32
He's got a really distinct surreal style. And he's definitely got a cult following.
1:37
Where Argento is the box office guy.
1:43
He's the one whose works are a lot more appreciated and taught and teached in film schools.
1:50
And so I think Argento is the more experienced and the more successful one,
1:54
not to take away from Fulci's work.
1:57
But I'll tell you right now, based on this one film, this guy doesn't have even,
2:04
it's not even an inch of resemblance to our boy or Zento.
2:09
Well, I wouldn't compare the two for a start because their styles are very different.
2:14
You know, with Fucci as well, with this film, The House by the Cemetery,
2:18
it's also part of his loosely related Gates of Hell trilogy,
2:23
which also includes City of the Living Dead and The Beyond. The Beyond is an absolute classic.
2:28
But I don't know. I suppose you can compare them in certain ways because both
2:33
filmmakers do use dreamlike qualities.
2:35
But Fulci is more known for his gore especially with zombie flesh eaters eye
2:42
gurgling stuff like that whereas.
2:45
Go ahead I think Fulci is more monster based than where Argento is more Hitchcock
2:54
based yeah well there's also a lot of sort of lovecraftian influences with Fulci
2:59
as well so there would be more sort of yeah,
3:05
you can't compare the two but you can't if you know what I mean there are similarities
3:10
but at the same time they're both quite distinctive,
3:13
Yeah, you got that right, especially with this film. Wow, you know,
3:19
I was excited to watch this, you know, and this is by far one of the worst films
3:27
I've seen in years. Really?
3:29
It is terrible.
3:32
I am going to tear this shit apart. So if you guys, and I saw Gates,
3:37
in the States, we call it Gates of Hell.
3:39
Right. The movie, there's the Beyond and Gates of Hell. Those are the ones we
3:43
know him for. And New York Ripper. Yes.
3:46
And the Gagefell is pretty good. I haven't seen the Beyond in years. It's superb.
3:52
Yeah. Oh, it's anything like this. I'll skip it. But let's talk about this terrible film.
3:58
And wow. I just don't get people's tastes.
4:02
I guess it's just me. People put down the like Halloween ends,
4:05
which is a dark take on something, you know, on a, on a,
4:12
a series that was going batshit loony crazy and stupid and it got tortoise reds but this one,
4:20
will get rave reviews and this i felt like this film was shot by a 12 year old.
4:28
And and it probably was probably by bob but well we'll need to talk about bob
4:34
we'll get the bob we'll talk to bob but bob but yeah so anyways what italian
4:40
cinema does italian cinema is uses Italian actors, but they can speak English.
4:45
That's what all they all do. And they actually film on location.
4:49
This was filmed in New York and in Massachusetts on location.
4:53
So it's got heavily influenced Italian filmmakers, Italian actors,
5:00
but filmed within the U.S.
5:02
And then you've got that over-the-top gore and almost the red is almost,
5:08
It's not corn syrup bread Like
5:11
you want to make the bread The blood look real They'll cartoon it up a bit I
5:18
would say regarding the gore Especially here It's not nasty I mean it's graphic
5:23
and it's pretty out there But like you say The color saturation and all the rest Not nasty I mean.
5:31
Stabbing that woman with the fire poker Right in the throat That's not nasty
5:34
Obviously in real life something like that would be nasty but I think the general
5:38
realisation of this film overall, and do you know what I'm going to say as well from the offset?
5:44
I'd probably agree with most of your criticisms here, but I still love it due
5:48
to the sheer absolute batshit craziness of it.
5:52
I just can't do that.
5:56
I know a lot of people can't. That's why this is a cult film.
5:59
I mean, this is because people just jump on board and go with it.
6:02
I can't. I mean, because I've been...
6:05
It's subject to people ripping Friday the 13th apart, but Friday the 13th is
6:11
5,000 times more competent filmmaking than this is.
6:17
And yet, if it's bad cinema, oh, it's wonderful.
6:21
And I don't get that, and I can't jump on board on that. I don't think it's bad cinema.
6:26
I could jump on board of it if it's Ed Wood, because the guy doesn't know what
6:30
he's doing, and God love him.
6:31
You go with him. But this is an educated man in the field.
6:37
And if you're, I mean, come on, guys. I mean, this is amateurs.
6:43
Amateurs. Oh, I disagree. I will agree that while there are some sort of crazy
6:50
moments, let's just say, overall.
6:52
Not some. There's, the editing's terrible. The editing is terrible.
6:57
I'll tell you another story about this, actually. Apparently, I read up on it.
7:01
If you think that it is somewhat incoherent on
7:05
you know the viewing that you've just experienced apparently
7:08
in the 1980s there was a video release
7:12
of this in america and the video company the distributor or whatever got the
7:18
basically the film reels mixed up so so it was all it was basically even more
7:24
incoherent and incomprehensible so i think by it wasn't that bad i mean we talked about,
7:31
especially with Deep Red where.
7:34
I think it's the style of the directors and it happens with Argento is where
7:40
they'll film a scene and then the scene is still going and they'll cut to they're
7:46
in a different country like what the fuck just happened and this happens with
7:50
this one the only difference between Argento and him Argento has talent and Argento,
7:55
at least gave you a solid scene. It might cut to a completely different scene.
7:59
He kind of thrown off, but what he presented in the first scene that he cut
8:04
away from was solid and well-directed.
8:06
This is just fucking slop.
8:09
But let's jump into it, and we'll discuss it. It's a terrible, terrible film.
8:14
We've got Catriona McCall as Lucy, Quallo Malco as Dr. Boyle. That's the husband.
8:21
Or I just say, fucking clueless twat.
8:24
We got Anina Perone as the babysitter. With her eyebrows? Yeah.
8:30
What is with the zoom in with the eyes in this film? We got Giovanni Frezza as Bob.
8:37
Now, who calls their kid Bob? Usually, if you give your kid Bob,
8:40
you're going to call him Robbie or Bobby.
8:42
Yeah. You're not going to call a little child Bob. Well, every time they were
8:47
looking for Bob, I kept looking for an adult.
8:49
Bob is also I must say this young sort of almost androgynous young boy who is
8:57
voiced by an adult dubbed by an adult woman and it is completely,
9:02
surreal let's just say the reason the two kids Sylvia Colatina as well who plays
9:09
May the ghost kid creepy yeah.
9:13
Those two were dubbed because they were the only ones on the set that couldn't
9:18
speak English that's right yeah I read that too so I'll give it a pass but yeah
9:22
it's terrible dubbing we got,
9:25
Dagmar Lysander now that's a woman I guess Laura,
9:30
And then we got Dr. Freudstein. Oh, no, no, take a Dr. Frankenstein there.
9:34
Dr. Freudstein, Mr. Wheatley, and the stupidest fucking person in the world, Daniel.
9:39
Now, we got a nice opening here. We got some nice, you know, nice booby shot.
9:45
We got a girl who says the name Steve like 3,000 times.
9:50
And she just got done making yum-yum time with Steve.
9:53
Steve's missing. Then she finds him hanging from the door. and then she gets
9:58
knifed from the back of the head through the mouth.
10:01
Yes. Lovely opening scene. You had me. I was like, this is good gore.
10:05
All right. And then the body's getting dragged and the door closes.
10:10
So we have a mystery. Who's in the, who's downstairs?
10:13
Who's in the, who's the killer? Who's in the door? I'm like, I am in.
10:18
That's it, people. The movie's over for me now. Okay.
10:21
Then we got the music, which is complete ripoff of Goblin. I love the score
10:25
though, especially the opening and closing thing.
10:29
I think it's genuinely beautiful and haunting.
10:32
Even with Demons and the other films we talked about, they have that goblin-esque
10:36
kind of quality. A lot of these Italian horror films from back then had similar type scores.
10:41
So you got this fucking kid, Bob, and he's got the fucking Shining,
10:45
I guess, and May is talking to him through a picture of the house they're about
10:50
to go visit, because May's in the fucking picture?
10:53
I don't know if the fuck. Yes, it's a painting. It's not even a picture.
10:56
Or something, I don't know.
10:57
But yes, ghost kid from Victorian times, she's basically telling Bob not to
11:01
go to the house from this painting, essentially.
11:06
Yeah, because yes, because Bob has apparent supernatural powers in a way.
11:12
God, if I was Jimmy King, I'd sue.
11:15
So, here's the plot. There is one, I think.
11:19
So yeah, Dr. Boyle was taking over his dead colleague's research.
11:23
His dead colleague, Peterson, killed himself.
11:25
And while he was researching Dr. Freudstein and his residence,
11:29
where he was clearly doing some kind of experimental work. It's an isolated house in Boston.
11:35
He's taking his family and uprooting him there, as you do where murder-suicide happened.
11:41
It's like the ultimate haunted house trope. There's been a series of murders
11:46
in the house. Yeah, let's go and stay there.
11:49
Yeah it's been human experimentation let's bring Bob there our young kid yeah
11:55
to be fair after listening to Bob for a while you can sort of understand that.
12:00
Fuck I would have chucked that kid in the basement and left him there you know
12:04
we talk about when we don't like kids in cinema yeah Bob's the ultimate creepy kid,
12:10
little fucker I would say that the young actress playing creepy Victorian girl
12:15
isn't bad I mean she's a bit Oh, come on. She's terrible.
12:20
Jesus Christ. My gosh, so bad.
12:26
There's a, did, did, by the way, did you notice that the guy before his like
12:32
boss who basically sends him to the house, you know, to do this research,
12:36
you know, with the, with the sort of quaint bow tie and smoke in the pipe.
12:40
That's Fucci himself. That's Lucio Fucci. I know. Yeah. Yeah.
12:45
Yeah. So as they're driving to Boston, you have this cutaway of a little fucking
12:50
idiot ghost girl, and she's looking
12:53
out this window of a department store display, and you see this family.
13:00
And then she's looking at it like we're supposed to go, oh, she misses her family
13:04
because she's a dead kid.
13:05
Yeah. Yeah, the mannequins. And then all of a sudden, the mom's mannequin's head falls off.
13:09
And also, weirdly, the mannequin looks exactly like the babysitter.
13:14
The random babysitter who hasn't been hired by anyone
13:17
who just I mean who takes somebody into their house a babysitter to look after
13:22
their kid or a farn up it's Bob yeah we'll get to that we'll get to that because
13:26
yeah the beheading of the mannequin comes because it ends up being the beheading
13:30
of Anne yes and it looks exactly like her as well the mannequin but that's,
13:35
I got a lot of questions about the fucking babysitter,
13:39
she's hot so we got that going for her yeah this is just terrible So,
13:45
the kids got The Shining. It's terrible. And...
13:50
We meet Anna. I love how they call the realtors, and they go to the realtors,
13:54
and they go, oh, yeah, can we get the keys to the house, blah,
13:56
blah, blah. Yeah, no problem.
13:57
I'm on my way. Oh, here's Anna. She's your babysitter. Bye.
14:01
Oh, okay. The estate agents are pretty sort of weird and behave weirdly as well.
14:06
And there is a sort of Shining-esque suggestion here as well,
14:10
and later on, of some sort of reincarnation,
14:14
where the father is speaking to one of these sort of like library sort of guys
14:19
and says, oh, you know, you were here before, weren't you?
14:21
You were the former guy, so there is perhaps a little bit of borrowing from
14:26
The Shining. Although it depends when this was filmed.
14:29
This could have been filmed late 70s. I don't know, essentially.
14:32
No, there's nothing there. They try to make it look like, oh,
14:37
you've been here before.
14:38
No, I haven't. And he hasn't been there before. And if he was,
14:42
they'd never ever go back to that.
14:44
It's like they're just writing something. Hey, I have an idea.
14:47
Say this line. Okay, when's it come back i don't know there's
14:50
a lot of stuff here that isn't followed up or isn't explained in fact
14:53
yeah it's terrible it's i mean that's there's a scene later
14:55
on where the estate agent woman the one who gets killed with
14:58
the poker where she blanks katrina mccall in the street after basically you
15:06
know letting out this house to her and it doesn't make any sense you know and
15:11
even even katrina mccall talks about it to her husband and then it's never followed up.
15:18
So there is a lot of stuff here that it feels dreamlike the whole thing feels
15:23
like a weird dream to me and,
15:27
We'll get to it later on in the wrap-up, but that is essentially why it works
15:30
for me. But go ahead. See, that's the problem.
15:34
You're thinking that's what his intent was. It's not. It may or may not be.
15:38
You're making the filmmaker look more creative than he is. He's not.
15:42
And so you're trying to grab at something, and now you're going to go,
15:46
well, I've got to give this movie a pass because he was trying to do it. No, he wasn't.
15:49
There's nothing of talent. Whether he was attempting this or not is kind of
15:54
a moot point because it's the end result does work for me in terms of it's just
15:59
so over the top and crazy with all the loose ends not tied up.
16:03
I'll give you all the negatives at the very end and then you can actually go
16:07
and you can sit there and go wow no this is, I get it.
16:11
Alright so here we go. So fuck me.
16:14
And there's no there's not a scary moment, there's one scary moment.
16:19
One. And then that's even ruined. So the whole house, Doc like Doc Boyle is
16:23
walking around the house and he hears a kid crying.
16:27
And he thinks it's Bob, the little fucker. And it isn't. It's just obviously a ghost.
16:35
You know, I watch the Amityville Horror.
16:37
And I watch Burnt Offerings.
16:40
And I watch fucking anything but this film.
16:45
And they know how to do creepy. And all of this is a fucking voice.
16:48
How could you fuck this up? It's not even scary, the kid crying.
16:52
It's not even ominous. It's not even kind of a tackle. It's not even giving us any...
16:59
I ain't going to give you sound effects. I actually found that distracting.
17:03
You know, the weird sort of crying.
17:05
It's not actually even explained who it's coming from. I'm presuming it's previous
17:09
victims of Freudstein or even like the previous family, you know,
17:13
their kid after, you know, the dad butchered them.
17:16
But I did find it a little distracting. I didn't find it creepy.
17:20
I did find the stuff with the mannequin and the head falling off and the young
17:25
girl with her like creepy doll and stuff.
17:26
I did find that mildly creepy. but the stuff, I did find the crayon coming from
17:32
the work a bit distracting and they could have done without it.
17:36
Let me ask you this.
17:39
So A.M. the babysitter is caught breaking the seal of the basement door. Yeah. Right?
17:45
She's obviously a hired gun for something and they're always zooming in their
17:48
eyes. They're always zooming in their eyes. What's going on with their eyebrows?
17:51
I don't know. Werewolf eyebrows?
17:54
She's part of this whole thing? Yes. I don't know. It's not explained.
17:58
It's not explained because there's one of the funniest scenes ever.
18:03
It's sort of suggested that she's working for Freudstein and just some sort
18:12
of, I don't know, or possibly even the estate agent people who have sent her
18:16
who are also working for Freudstein.
18:18
But it's never properly explained. And also she gets killed later on.
18:23
Yeah, she gets killed, but she goes down the stairs, she's scared.
18:26
But if she was in on it, she'd walk down there going, oh hey doctor maybe maybe
18:30
he gets sick of her maybe he thought that she wasn't doing a good enough job I don't know,
18:35
fuck me yeah we cut to a bunch of different scenes I've known the we it's,
18:42
they decide they want to get out of the house I'll give them that at least they
18:44
decide they want to get out of the house on like a lot of London house films,
18:47
and they're like oh yeah we'll find you a place and that never happens by the way and,
18:54
We meet Daniel, who's going to be kind of the assistant to Doc Boyle here.
18:59
This guy's a clueless twat. I mean, this guy is... And Miley's creepy.
19:04
It's like Napoleon Dynamite meets fucking Harry Potter or something. I don't know. Yeah.
19:11
Just really, he's got pedophile right now. I was just about to say,
19:16
you wouldn't in a million years let this character babysit the kids. That's all I'm saying.
19:23
Let me ask you this fucking scene. So Lucy is, you know, la,
19:27
la, la, she's cleaning, right?
19:28
Yes. La, la, la, cleaning the house. And she's cleaning the floor. Oh, look, a tombstone.
19:34
And she tells her dipshit husband, there's a fucking tombstone on the floor.
19:39
Inside the house. Oh, that's because of the weather and stuff back then.
19:43
And they buried people in the house or something. It was a one-line fix.
19:47
It was a terrible one-line fix. Is that true? I don't know. Is that true?
19:51
No, no, it's not. Don't start thinking.
19:55
Don't start thinking I'm asking a question I'm not actually saying that No,
19:59
no Hey, do you want to go visit Grandpa today?
20:03
Yeah, he's in the living room Fucking hell So, but listen to this,
20:10
So that's what I don't get. It's his headstone. It's his tombstone.
20:14
Here lies whatever it is.
20:16
Yeah. Doesn't necessarily say
20:17
the name, but you can put the fucking piece together. It's Dr. Freudstein.
20:21
So he goes on a journey. He leaves them in the house for the night because he's
20:25
going to go to this cemetery to find Dr. Freudstein's tombstone.
20:30
And this grave guy says, oh, he's not here. That's just a lie.
20:33
Yes. What? How do you know that?
20:35
Oh, it's just a lie. Well, first of all, why are you going to look for his headstone
20:40
when he's clearly in your fucking living room?
20:42
Look, I got the impression that, although, again, it's not properly explained.
20:48
That the basically gravestone inside the house was possibly,
20:54
you know, the creepy Victorian granny character who pops up at the very end
21:00
whenever, basically, Bob travels back in town.
21:03
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
21:06
But I could be wrong. Please, withdraw what you just said there.
21:11
Re-bee? Well, she's meant to be. I'm not saying, you know what I mean.
21:15
Re-bee? She's meant to be. I felt like we went back and I was watching the fucking
21:19
Waltons or fucking Little House on the Prairie. Right.
21:22
But I think whenever he goes on his wee journey, he's originally going not to
21:28
go for Freudstein's grave, but to actually just research about Dr.
21:34
Freudstein. and then he's then directed possibly by creepy in a completely different
21:40
way librarian guy to the graveyard, the cemetery,
21:44
the other cemetery not the one by their house where then the random gravedigger
21:49
says nah he's not here dude, you know he's somewhere else so,
21:53
well when she when she's cleaning and shit and then the kitchen starts moving
22:01
and shit and doors start flashing no no that's not there yet that's another scene we'll get to.
22:08
But it's a terrible shot. So she's like screaming and these ghost noises.
22:14
And her husband comes home. And she's in like the fetal position on the corner of the floor.
22:20
And then it quickly cuts to, which we always get, he's making her breakfast.
22:25
And brings her to her room. Obviously, she's tired of what she went through.
22:29
And there's a scene where he opens up the fucking curtains.
22:32
And he's got this fucking glow.
22:35
And she's looking at him. And she's got this glow. And it's like,
22:39
is this Captain Kirk about to fuck a hot alien?
22:41
Or what is this? You know, you have that alien glow that they use in Star Trek. Yes.
22:46
Yeah, I mean, it's so bad.
22:50
There's also the suggestion, especially at the start of this film,
22:55
that it's all going on in her head and that she's actually mentally ill,
22:58
but it's not followed up again because there's stuff with her tablets and stuff.
23:03
I mean, you know, she's on certain tablets for, you know, for whatever mental health problems.
23:09
So there is that suggestion. But again, it's forgotten about once it's established
23:14
that Freudstein is actually real and he's out for human blood.
23:19
Okay, sure. There's another scene where Anne. The babysitter. Yes. No, the other Anne.
23:27
Anne, Doc, and Lucy are in the hallway.
23:33
And I think they're supposed to play on Anne's Having an affair with Doc And
23:39
the wife's supposed to think But there isn't, it's never played on But I think
23:41
that's what they're trying to do Again, it's more stuff, random stuff that's
23:44
sort of thrown into the mix And then they're like.
23:48
Doc says something And then we zoom in on Anne's eyes And then we zoom in on
23:53
Doc's eyes And then we cut to fucking Lucy's eyes And I'm like What's with all the eye shots?
24:00
Possibly a reference to Kubrick Kubrick was known for the eye shots,
24:04
at the end of the back of the Shining no it could very well be or at least an
24:08
attempt at it I didn't see any eye shots in the Shining like this no I know
24:12
it's different in terms of the realisation of them but Kubrick was renowned
24:16
through his career for the eye shots you had the eye shots in the Shining the
24:21
face close up of Jack Nicholson,
24:24
similar with Alex Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange it could be,
24:30
I think, see, I would need to sort of re-watch more Fulci stuff that I've seen before.
24:37
So I have to just double-check if that's an actual trope within Fulci films as well.
24:42
So it's been a while since I've seen the likes of zombie flesh eaters and his
24:46
other Gates of Hell films and other ones.
24:48
But you realize a trope is usually a positive thing.
24:52
It's something that a director would be known for. We talked about that in this
24:55
last podcast with De Palma.
24:58
Yeah. He always has those three elements, those three scenes that bring the
25:02
audience in, beginning, middle, end of his films. That's a De Palma trope.
25:07
Having zoomed in people's eyes for no fucking reason whatsoever is not a trope.
25:13
The problem is, at this point, it's sort of suggesting that there isn't a fur
25:18
going on, or there will be, or there's sexual tension between the babysitter
25:21
and the dad, but it's never followed up like so much of this.
25:25
Know what I mean? I mean, we must just call it, I mean, it's never followed up. Yeah.
25:31
I can't believe you're giving this a pass. Anyways. I'll give you the reasons
25:35
why at the end of it, but yes, go ahead. Okay, we'll jump into it.
25:39
Let's get back to the, pardon the pun, the batshit crazy scene.
25:43
So they see, they find the ring of the one girl, because they zoom in and the
25:48
ring of the first girl got killed. Yeah.
25:51
In the opening scene. and they go downstairs and the bad funniest fucking scene
26:00
in film history is in this scene.
26:03
The funniest ever and not intentional because it's just bad cinema.
26:08
But if you're going to watch this film just watch this scene.
26:12
So the mom and dipshit and the doc are down in the basement.
26:18
And I don't know if the kids are there yet. I think it's just Doc and her.
26:22
Bob's knocking about someone. Hey, I think Bob's playing with his cars,
26:25
you know, making the badly dubbed, you know, car noise. He's going like, rrr, rrr.
26:29
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fucking idiot. Okay.
26:32
Whatever. So it's just him and her, and they're walking down the stairs.
26:38
And there's a jump scare with the bat.
26:42
And the minute the bat shows up, it quick cuts.
26:46
The bat jumps on Lucy's hair
26:49
and it twines itself in there and he's
26:53
obviously screaming it is the most
26:55
unintentional funny scene I've seen in horror film history this
26:59
is so badly I mean I couldn't stop laughing during the scene where we're supposed
27:04
to be terrified and then the bat locks on the fucking dock and he runs up and
27:10
he's sitting there stabbing it for like nine hours and it won't die.
27:18
And then it finally comes off. I could not stop laughing.
27:21
I thought, I was about to say, maybe this should get a pass just for that one
27:25
scene. It's so horribly bad.
27:27
I mean, it is, at points like this, it is sort of bordering into Garth Marenghi
27:32
type parody, you know, horror parody, unintentionally.
27:36
And, you know, I will give you that. But, yeah, it is pretty bad shit.
27:40
I do like how they see no bit of continuity, you know, in its favor.
27:44
Where Katrina McCall is wearing like a sort of, like some sort of net in her
27:48
hair. because obviously the bat has put out a lot of her hairs, essentially.
27:54
So after the calmness of the bat attack, he runs up the stairs to clean the
28:00
wound. You got Lucy, who's crying in the corner.
28:03
Bob's just a clueless idiot, little fucker. And then you've got Anne,
28:07
the background, pretty much orgasming over all this because she's like, oh, yeah.
28:11
Yeah. So let me zoom in her eyes. She's like, ha, ha, ha. World with eyebrows,
28:15
yeah. You know, all the eyes.
28:18
There was the famous Simpsons one. It's one of the funniest ending for a Simpsons.
28:22
And it was the one where Mel Gibson was in it. I remember that. Yeah.
28:27
And there's, and Homer always wanted, you got to put the dog with the shifty eyes.
28:35
Yes. And the dog with the shifty eyes.
28:38
And he puts it in the film. And at the end of the Simpsons, it goes,
28:43
and then zooms in the dog's eyes.
28:46
And it's just funny. You got, if you're a Simpsons fan, you'll get.
28:48
No, I know the episode. Yeah. Yeah.
28:51
But that's what this was. And that was done for laughs. This is not done for
28:56
laughs. And that's the sad part.
28:59
Now she gets this, the realtor gets it, right? Yes. She comes around. Yeah.
29:06
And I mean, I'm not going to follow the effects. The effects are quite good.
29:11
And what she, her final death is getting stabbed in the throat.
29:15
And with the fire poker it's quite brutal as prolonged,
29:19
as Fulci is known for as well you know with the gore scenes it's quite prolonged
29:24
I mean it doesn't let up for quite a while I mean he knows how to shoot gore
29:28
yeah and he knows how to shoot death just too bad he doesn't know how to shoot anything else.
29:34
So again the body's being dragged and guys if you haven't seen the film her
29:40
throat was cut there's fucking miles and miles of blood. All right?
29:46
Funniest scene ever in a film is now in this scene. Not the bad scene anymore.
29:52
It's this scene. So this is where I get confused who Ann is.
29:55
She's obviously the cleaner for the Freudstein, Dr. Freudstein.
30:00
And she's sitting there scrubbing, getting all this blood that's like two blocks long of blood.
30:06
And she's like scrubbing, cleaning away. And there's a lot on there.
30:09
All of a sudden, the clueless twat walks in, Lucy,
30:13
And, hey, what's going on? And Anne's like, oh, you know, nothing. Oh, I made coffee.
30:20
She makes no comment about the fact that she's mopping up a massive pool of blood.
30:25
And then she goes, Anne goes, I made coffee. Oh, great.
30:30
And that's it. And at the end, it could be, I mean, I might be giving too much
30:35
credit here, but it could be adding to the suggestion that the mother,
30:40
Lucy, has mental health problems or I don't know there's some sort of magic
30:46
going on with the babysitter who made her ignore it I don't know but it is pretty
30:51
it is pretty what the fuck you know.
30:56
There's also another scene where they're in the kitchen and she's having her
30:59
coffee and she's surrounded by blood but she doesn't see it there is something
31:03
really weird going on there again not explained she's asking Anne all these
31:08
basic questions Oh, what do you do for blah, blah, blah, blah.
31:11
And Anders keeps walking toward her. And they cut to Lucy's driving.
31:15
What? Yeah. What?
31:18
This is terrible. It's like dream logic or something. Oh, God.
31:23
Here we go. Maybe I am giving it too much credit.
31:26
But certainly the end result is some. I'll say one thing about it.
31:29
For all its sort of craziness and flaws, it's never boring.
31:34
You know, it's a very entertaining film. Whether.
31:39
It's not entertaining. It is to be. It's not. Yeah, well, that's.
31:44
I mean, that's a proper, by the way. Except Spooksho. Yeah. So the doc,
31:48
so I'm so confused at who.
31:54
So you got Doc Boyle. He finds a tape and the tape is pretty much Peterson.
31:59
And it's Peterson's meltdown of the investigation he's been,
32:03
and pretty much his final tape. Yeah. Doc burns it.
32:08
Again. Why does the doc burn it? Again, not explained, but it is almost suggested
32:14
that he is now under the influence of Freudstein.
32:18
None of that comes around. I know.
32:20
The problem is a lot of stuff is suggested here but never followed up on.
32:24
And it's like to throw a load of ideas into a blender.
32:28
You know? Trevor, as you're talking about it, don't you at least have some kind
32:31
of dignity and self-respect where you can just sit there and go, you know what? I'm okay.
32:37
I might have thought this was good. No, no, I will fully admit that this is
32:41
batshit and basically incoherent for basically the bulk of it.
32:47
But at the same time, there is something that adds to it for me.
32:53
If you know what I mean, it's almost like you're on some sort of acid trip or something.
32:58
Seriously, but there is something. It's very, and I would say it's pulled off
33:03
unintentionally here, but it's a very tricky thing to pull off.
33:06
It's just the sheer craziness of it attracts me to it.
33:09
And the visuals and stuff, I genuinely enjoy this.
33:16
Oh, Jesus Christ. All right.
33:19
So Anne's looking for the fucking Egypt kid.
33:23
Bob. And then she goes, she thinks she's down in the basement,
33:27
and this is where she gets beheaded. Yes.
33:29
I'll tell you the difference between good filmmakers and this guy.
33:35
Or at least this one piece of work by this guy. Yeah.
33:40
Is they know how to build tents. You know, Dario is not very good at it.
33:44
He knows how to use, when to implement music.
33:47
He knows when to make it quiet.
33:50
He knows how to make something atmospheric. Okay.
33:54
So Ann goes down to the basement and it's so confusing.
33:59
She goes down there and Freudian scene is going to kill her.
34:02
Which I don't get two things.
34:05
A, we find out, fortunately, he only has one arm. So good on him.
34:08
He's pretty good at what he does for having one arm.
34:11
But what I don't get is she's running up the stairs. She's scared.
34:15
The door is closed. The kid's trying to get the door open to get her out.
34:19
At this point, and then the killer is coming up the stairs. We see the knife.
34:23
Yes. And he's coming up the stairs.
34:25
We should be going, oh, my God. Come on. We don't care. A, we have no idea if she's good or bad.
34:34
B, there's absolutely no build-up to this. It's tackless. No school.
34:40
It's laughable. And this is the big part. The person holding the knife has a clean hand.
34:46
No, I was just about to say, I think basically... Don't say,
34:50
don't give it credit. No, no, no, no. Freudstein has two arms.
34:53
Basically what Freudstein is up to is he's using... The reason he's killing
34:58
people is he's using human remains, essentially, to prolong his life.
35:01
Because he's like from Victorian times Yeah, he's starting to...
35:05
He has two working hands and arms.
35:08
One of them is like normal human hand and the other one is like a zombie type
35:13
one He loses one of them, I can't remember which one,
35:16
later on with Dipshit Bob in the cellar and stuff you know, the whole sort of
35:20
finale but as far as I'm aware, again this is pretty confusing,
35:24
as far as I'm aware Freudstein has two working arms and hands but one of them
35:30
is like more regular human and the other one's like a zombie arm.
35:33
It's fucking stupid. Because every time we see his hands when he's stabbing
35:37
somebody before, it's a zombie hand. Yeah.
35:44
So he's ambidextrous? Well, with stabbing people anyway.
35:48
With stabbing sort of... You know what it is? See this scene?
35:51
I think it was a case of as they were filming it, they realized,
35:55
oh, there's not much happening here at this point. We need another killing.
35:59
So, well, who's disposable here at this point? yeah let's go for
36:01
the babysitter yeah let's kill her and but it also harks back to the sort of
36:06
when the mannequin's head falls off and the mannequin looks really like her
36:10
so i don't know i don't know i would say you would have to ask luccio fuji but
36:16
he passed in the 1990s so um he passed fairly young 68 yeah.
36:23
Okay, we've got 20 minutes left, so fuck it. I don't care. Yeah,
36:27
so the parents come home, and Dipshit's crying.
36:33
Anne's dead. And so they decided to go in the basement.
36:37
Mommy, mommy. Her head's cut off. Mommy, mommy.
36:42
So you finally have a cutaway shot. That kind of gives you a jump scare of these
36:46
two eyes in the darkness. Is that the cat in it?
36:50
I don't give a fuck. Yeah. Single.
36:53
So, but then they ruin it by showing the eyes again and again and again.
36:58
And it's like, they're all over the place. Yeah. So there's,
37:01
so he's human, but technically he's not a ghost. He's a zombie.
37:07
He's a zombie. So he can't move to point A to point B like a jackrabbit.
37:11
And he's very fucking slow. We figured that out during this. When we see him.
37:17
I mean, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's kind of like. Oh,
37:22
well, anyways, let's just keep going.
37:27
Bob's a hero here. Bob's a horror icon. Yeah. I love the fact when,
37:34
And Bob stabs him. Yes. Right?
37:39
And he's got, and there's a shot of all the fucking knives, all these knives.
37:45
There's butcher knives. There's Michael Myers knives. He stabs them once.
37:51
And then he just stares at him as he walks toward him incredibly slowly.
37:55
Doesn't decide, oh, I'm going to pick another knife up. No, he just lets him rip his throat out.
38:00
I like how whenever. While the mom does absolutely nothing to hell.
38:07
There is a big problem here with characters not just behaving stupidly,
38:13
but doing everything in a really drawn-out, slow manner.
38:19
Oh, my God, yes. It's just like, if that was me, if I was down in that basement,
38:24
and I'm unfit as fuck, but I would be breaking world sprint records up those stairs.
38:30
I would have shoved him out of the way, stabbed him multiple times.
38:32
You could have easily done it. Rob the stairs and bust through that fucking
38:35
door. Add us the one bulb in front of him.
38:38
The little fucker. Sacrifice the kid. Nobody likes him anyway. Yeah. Little bastard.
38:44
Mommy, mommy, her head came off. It's so fucking stupid.
38:50
So after Dipshit dies, she decides to go a different route and go up these steps.
38:57
It's a ladder. It's a ladder now, not steps.
39:00
It's literally a ladder. So they're up there trying to get through,
39:03
I think it's the crack in the tombstone. It is, yes. That's on the floor. Yeah.
39:08
And so, and he's coming to get them and he's walking up. It's a ladder.
39:14
It's not the fucking, you're not walking. What's the, you're not walking up
39:17
the Statue of Liberty steps. This is taking you three seconds to get to them.
39:20
I would be up and out of there in no time.
39:26
Another laughable scene. that even beats the bat and even beats the blood on the floor.
39:31
This is it. They're on a ladder, guys. They're not on stairs. Yes. Keep that in mind.
39:37
So he finally makes it to the top of the ladder, which is probably about two feet.
39:42
And he grabs her and he yanks her down.
39:45
And there's a scene that's about a minute long. And she's falling down the stairs
39:49
with her head banging on each step.
39:51
And I'm like, well, how many steps are there? And she's like, bang, bang, bang, bang.
39:58
It's terrible. And the little fucker finally, you know, makes his way through.
40:02
But I was crying laughing.
40:06
It's so fucking bad. Anybody who sees this says, oh, my God, this is sheer terror.
40:14
It's full of shit or should be institutionalized. I don't think it's scurrying.
40:20
I don't think it's terrifying.
40:22
But there is just something I really love about the absolute craziness of it all.
40:27
And it's just like crazy shit after crazy shit, then there's new crazy shit
40:31
then there's random other crazy shit I love that sort of stuff and I love the
40:38
very ending where Bob basically travels back in time.
40:43
Back in travel time it was May who helped him out of that fucking floor or whatever
40:48
and then May's mom jumps in with her I guess and says, this is like the ending
40:54
of Casper the one that came out in like 98.
40:58
And it's like, okay, you saved, you came in, you saved Bob.
41:02
We're going to go now. And Bob's just sitting there going, oh,
41:04
okay, yeah, talk to you later. And.
41:07
This is time travel my impression, basically
41:10
they were from Victorian times and the sort of the look of the room and stuff
41:15
the decor of the room suggested to me that Bob had been saved by them like through
41:22
time and he was now sort of trapped in Victorian times and it ends with the
41:28
made up quote by Foochee by the way,
41:31
you know the whole sort of, we cannot decide whether children are monsters are monsters are children.
41:37
And there's a sort of weird happy ending for Bob. It's not made up.
41:40
What? It's not made up. No, apparently it was.
41:44
It's credited to Henry James, but apparently Henry James didn't make that quote.
41:48
Apparently Foochie just made it up for it to be, like, sound good and atmospheric and stuff. Okay.
41:53
What is it? Okay, tell me what that means. Well, it's sort of left open to your
41:58
imagination that the kids are monsters or are monsters kids, you know.
42:03
It's basically a commentary on creepy Victorian
42:06
girl but in a strange way I like
42:09
the thought that yes Bob is trapped back in Victorian times but he has a sort
42:15
of happy ending where him in Victorian times him and creepy Victorian girl grow
42:21
up and eventually get married and have loads of sort of even creepier kids with creepy voices.
42:28
So good on Bob you got a wee bit of a happy ending.
42:34
Even though freudstein's still out there.
42:39
So we're gonna give it a pass are you karen this is god-awful cinema this is
42:45
just you know i give it a pass i really enjoy this film,
42:50
it's really entertaining and that's not me being sneering i just it's just so
42:54
bonkers and sort of you like you like shit and i don't mean that isn't so you do you like films,
43:01
that are poorly done, poorly executed, and you'll just give it a pass because it's so bad, it's good.
43:08
No, no, not in this case. I look at it from an artistic point of view,
43:12
and I look at it from a slasher film point of view.
43:16
I look at it from a horror film in general, and... Artistic and slasher are
43:21
not two words that usually go together, but anyway. Really?
43:24
I see it. Black Christmas.
43:26
There is some classics, yes. Psycho. Halloween. Well, I see it not usually.
43:31
Scream. I mean, I can keep going. But no, I mean, come on. This is terrible filmmaking.
43:39
No, I'm not going to judge the man's complete library on this.
43:42
I'm not saying it's not flawed, but I will say that I find, and again,
43:48
not in a sort of sneering, you know, sort of so bad it's good.
43:53
Yes, it's certainly flawed, and a lot of it is completely incomprehensible.
43:57
But especially in terms of the story and all these random things that are thrown
44:01
in but I'm never bored watching this and I just enjoy the craziness of it.
44:07
Trying to give it a pass because of that. Anyways.
44:13
I don't get it. I don't. I just, I don't. Fair enough. I was pissed.
44:16
I wanted to turn it off. I would advise you maybe checking out other Fuji films,
44:21
which I think you might like better, like Zombie Flesh Eaters,
44:24
also known as Zombie and Zombie 2.
44:26
I've seen Zombie, and I've seen, I don't remember those years ago,
44:29
and I did see Gates of Hell.
44:30
Yeah. And they're fine. I'm like, but this is terrible.
44:34
Fair enough. I mean, there's only one else I can say.
44:36
For anyone who doesn't like editing, good editing and films,
44:40
anybody who doesn't like good scripts, anybody who doesn't like good acting,
44:44
anybody who, who likes nothing but bland, boring,
44:52
stupid people on screen and a noxious fucking dub child.
44:57
I love Bob.
45:00
The Bob. And fuck me. And it's wow.
45:06
Well, just, wow. It's a film that has everything. It's got creepy kids,
45:10
a creepy doll, creepy mannequins, a haunted house, time travel.
45:14
I love crafting elements to the stories. There's nothing creepy in this.
45:18
Okay, you've got to get a word creepy. This is not a creepy film.
45:21
Well, the guy in the neighborhood was pretty creepy. Oh, dear God.
45:28
It's got zombies and everything. What more? Yeah. We've got to wrap this one up.
45:34
We need to get something real quick here something better well Black Sunday
45:38
is a gothic classic oh god I picked Black Sunday fuck me that's gonna suck a
45:43
bag of dicks no it doesn't it's a very different in tone film again it's Italian
45:47
horror Mario Bava but it's a gothic classic,
45:52
it's a word if I'm starting if I'm starting a Halloween month and a half off
45:58
with two bad films I'm gonna be pissed tough shit,
46:04
God Alright guys Thanks for giving us a listen here If you're a fan of this
46:08
piece of shit let me know Because I want to make fun of you,
46:12
But yeah give us a shout It's this frame underscore podcast On Instagram and
46:16
of course Facebook And it's really all I have I can't believe we've been talking
46:20
about this fucking thing for 50 minutes Dear God See there's all sorts of layers going on you know,
46:26
And nuance You know Yeah lots of layers you peel one layer of shit well look
46:31
there's more shit and then you'll pound,
46:35
all right anything you want to add no no that's it all good and yeah you know
46:41
what can I say you know go Bob.
46:46
We're done we are done take care of yourselves talk soon.