Bryan! (00:02.931) You're listening to Bring Me the Axe. I'm Brian White in one half of this morbid equation, and I'm joined by my cohost and actual brother, Dave White. Hey Dave, how you doing over there?

Dave! (00:12.138) Thank you for asking. I'm doing pretty well. I'll tell you, I have found a new thing I enjoy, and it is videos of people falling down. And I was never really one for these types of videos, and now I just cannot get enough of them. I don't know if it's just the way the world these days, but God damn it. I just like a video of someone falling down a hill.

Bryan! (00:21.317) Hahahaha

Bryan! (00:36.996) I can't fault you for that. It's objectively funny. Yeah. No, no, nobody can get hurt here. Just a nice little slip and fall, you know. Maybe throw a banana peel down there.

Dave! (00:40.695) Yeah, I don't want to see anybody get hurt like, you know, I don't want to see the aftermath. I just it's kind of hilarious. Yeah, it's just a light tumble. That's the best I got. It's been that kind of fucking week.

Bryan! (00:58.599) Yeah, no, I getcha, I getcha. So hey, who's this over here?

Dave! (01:04.567) Well, you see, we have a guest, but we do not have just any guest. We have us a writer, an actor, director, world renowned drag performer, and gal about town. Why, it is Peaches, Christ. Hi, Peaches.

Peaches Christ (01:19.714) Hi, thanks for having me. Thrilled to be here.

Bryan! (01:22.855) Yeah, this is very exciting. We've been looking forward to this one for a little while. And I'm so glad that you joined us for this movie in particular, because man, we're going to have a good time with this one.

Peaches Christ (01:34.078) I am excited. I have to say that Dave's hobby is an old time passion of mine. And when you really go down the rabbit hole, you'll find Instagram pages like kids getting hurt. And I highly, highly recommend you follow kids getting hurt or America's Got No Talent.

Bryan! (01:50.249) Hahaha

Bryan! (01:56.804) Hehehehe

Dave! (01:56.922) I feel like kids getting hurt is something that gets you on like a no fly list though.

Peaches Christ (02:00.386) He he.

Bryan! (02:01.876) Yeah, yeah. I got in a lot of trouble once on Twitter because I made a joke about one that, when I used to work, remember when I used to work at that fucking pizza and birthday party place, and it was just, so it's nothing but children. I used to take great pleasure, it was a very high pressure job for such a low pay, and so it was so terrible. And I used to take great, great pleasure when a kid would just go running through and trip. Oh man, it just, it warmed things up for me in a way. I just, I just.

Dave! (02:09.142) Vaguely, yes.

Peaches Christ (02:22.658) Of course. I mean, I'll say this. The caveat is they're not seriously hurt. You only make it on kids getting hurt on Instagram if it's sort of all ending in laughter.

Bryan! (02:29.588) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (02:37.764) That's good.

Dave! (02:38.082) So there you have it. Peaches Christ not pro children getting hit by cars, definitely pro children falling down though. And that, that I get.

Peaches Christ (02:42.358) Well...

Bryan! (02:42.974) Hehehehehehe Hehehehehe

Peaches Christ (02:45.278) Yes exactly. Following down, yeah safely.

Bryan! (02:49.311) Yeah, it's let's keep it all above board as long as I always have a good time kids falling down. It's a great. It's a great time Yep, yep coming soon to patreon Yeah, so hey We practically grew up in neighborhood video stores and the steady diet of utter garbage that those shops provided us with continues on abated to this Day, there's no one I enjoy chopping it up with more about trashy movies a day

Peaches Christ (02:56.065) Yeah.

Dave! (02:57.597) Stay tuned for our kids falling down podcast.

Peaches Christ (03:00.834) Hehehehe.

Dave! (03:03.304) Oh god.

Yep.

Bryan! (03:16.483) So just before we get into it, here's a little housekeeping. If you want to keep up with us between episodes, you can also find us on Instagram at Bring Me the Axe Pod and Dave's over there at That Queer Wolf. We've got a sweet website now at bringmedeaxe.com. You can listen to all our past shows there and read the transcripts if that's the sort of thing you're into. And if you don't know, we have another show called 99 Cent Rental, where we cover all manner of video store madness on the weeks that Bring Me the Axe is off. Our latest episode covering John Waters' polyester is out now.

and we'll be back next week with a look at Brian De Palma's rock opera, Phantom of the Paradise. And you can also contact us directly at bringmetheaxpod at gmail.com with any questions, comments, or suggestions. Do let us know if there's a movie that you love and would like to hear us give it the business. Now lastly, if you like what you hear, you can subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. We're on YouTube now, search for us by name, subscribe if you prefer to consume your podcasts that way. And you'd be doing us a big favor by leaving us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.

Spotify and I gotta tell you I see the number going up and it really warms it warms my heart and it brightens my day I love it so yeah you know keep doing that and if you listen on YouTube do us a favor give the give the episode a like and leave a comment we love hearing from you guys we're always talking at John on Instagram so you know drop us a line just want to get that all out of the way right at the top of the show because I'm about to give you a taste of what we're doing tonight

Dave! (04:37.646) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (04:44.806) Use a taste.

Dave! (06:02.975) So.

Dave! (06:06.638) Thanks for watching!

Dave! (06:11.708) Guys, a lot of staccato sound there.

Peaches Christ (06:12.13) Woohoo! He he.

Bryan! (06:13.995) That is a sharp, loud trailer. Yeah, also I'm shocked I was able to actually shut that down and close out the window without closing out this window also, cause good God, that was a repeating pattern for a while there. Yeah, Fright Night is, this is a movie that when I think about 80s horror, this is one of the first titles that comes to mind. And I don't necessarily.

Dave! (06:16.772) Move.

Peaches Christ (06:27.426) Hehehe

Dave! (06:36.554) It is also quintessentially 80s.

Bryan! (06:39.479) It is firmly planted right there in the middle of it all 1985. It's yeah, it's a favorite of mine. I watch it fairly frequently, you know.

Dave! (06:44.087) Mm-hmm.

Peaches Christ (06:53.014) I love this film. I just, I mean, when you threw out some titles for possible collaboration on your show, this was the one I was hoping I would get. And yeah, I think for all the reasons you say, it's very, very 80s. It's very stylish. It's fun. It's also scary. It has so many.

Bryan! (07:04.922) Oh yeah.

Peaches Christ (07:19.758) qualities that make for a great movie, but in addition to that, it's got sort of this weird underlying queerness both in terms of its cast and its subject matter that just make it you know, Just when you look at queer horror quote-unquote, which is kind of a new thing that people started to look at You know, there is a specific reason that a bunch of us were really drawn to fright night, you know is a handsome Pair of men

Bryan! (07:30.299) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (07:48.298) you know, move in next door to a very attractive and cute teenager who's dating a lesbian and is best friends with a gay guy. You know, it's just a really, you know, queer movie that's just a lot of fun not to mention Rodney Mcdowell. I didn't even you know, yeah.

Bryan! (07:48.766) Hehehe

Bryan! (07:55.947) Thank you.

Bryan! (08:02.619) Yeah, yeah, it's super. It's some of the research material that I went. I went over while I was doing this is a lot of stuff of like Tom Holland saying, like, this movie is not meant to be campy, but. It really is. It's like super campy.

Peaches Christ (08:18.774) Heheheheheheh

Dave! (08:19.37) He you know, he also says that he did that all of the queerness is unintentional. And I find that very hard to believe, especially and we'll get to a point where I'm pretty sure he kind of shows his hand. But it is it is so explicitly gay at certain points. I mean, there's the undertones are obviously there throughout the whole thing. And it kind of makes me wonder, does Tom Holland see queerness as sort of an extension of or as a part of an intrinsic part of?

Bryan! (08:26.627) I find that very hard to believe too.

Dave! (08:48.966) the vampire legend in general? Or is he doing this, you know, very intentionally? Because my God, you have stacked your cast with gay men and women. You have got a scene after scene of just innuendo. And I just to say, it's sort of like when George Romero says, well, you know, I cast the best actor. I had no intentions when I cast a black man. It's like, sure, you didn't. But also, you kind of did a little bit, too, like.

Bryan! (09:15.435) Yeah.

Dave! (09:18.082) This feels a little bit intentional, not in a bad way. I think it's I think it's pretty neutral in terms of what to think about it. But I just don't believe them.

Bryan! (09:24.347) Oh yeah, there's certainly there's certainly no judgment cast in it and it's not used in like a shocking way either. It's just there is something about there is there is an inherent sexuality about vampires. And like I there's this like not really talking about the Lost Boys. The other sort of 80s vampire movie that comes to mind that is pure sexuality is The Hunger which just puts everything sort of front and center. There's nothing really that well actually no.

Dave! (09:47.96) Hmm

Dave! (09:51.478) Well, that's because of the hunger. They were like, here's the hottest people we could find. Now they're all going to fuck each other.

Peaches Christ (09:55.746) Hehehehehehe

Bryan! (09:57.257) Yeah, yeah, so I mean I think it's unavoidable but the queerness of it has got to, has to have been a sort of deliberate element to it, regardless of what Holland says.

Peaches Christ (10:12.438) Yeah, it's hard to imagine that it was that unintentional when you really add it all up. But part of me goes, okay, well maybe, because there's this sort of part of, you have to look at all the people who worked on the movie, right? Of course, Tom Holland is the director and the buck stops with them, but really when you look at something like A Nightmare on Elm Street, part two, and you go down the rabbit hole of Mark Patton,

Dave! (10:29.388) Mm.

Peaches Christ (10:40.406) you know, having kind of his life and career sort of destroyed by this experience, you know, and you watch that movie and you go, well, it's undeniably using queerness, you know, and homophobia as a sort of a weapon of fear, you know, as far as the teenage boys who were buying tickets to, you know, A Nightmare on Elm Street, part two. And then you find out the director, I believe, was really oblivious, but the writer wasn't and the production designer wasn't.

Bryan! (10:44.692) Yeah.

Bryan! (10:57.171) Yeah.

Dave! (11:05.095) Yeah, the writer was definitely not.

Bryan! (11:05.627) You're right, right. Yeah.

Peaches Christ (11:08.654) And the casting director wasn't, you know, so you kind of go like the more I see those interviews with what's his name? Jack? What's his shoulder? I'm like, Oh, yeah, I could buy that you're totally you were totally oblivious to all this. While while shooting, you know, Bob Shay and a leather outfit, you know,

Bryan! (11:15.282) shoulder.

Dave! (11:16.606) Mm.

Bryan! (11:20.633) Hahaha

Dave! (11:24.106) Well, and I think what he seems remorseful to like he seems once it was sort of brought to his attention, he seems like he really did kind of feel bad. He did not mean to set out to sort of destroy someone's career or make anyone feel bad. And I, you know, I think I guess I would buy, you know, maybe this is the sum of the parts in terms of Fright Night in which Tom Holland may have been oblivious and maybe, you know, he's sort of a non-judgmental guy in general. And so it just didn't occur to him. And now that he sees it, he thinks it's great. But everybody else on this is sort of like

Bryan! (11:24.341) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (11:34.956) Right.

Dave! (11:53.34) They were sort of just doing what they do. They're just being who they are.

Bryan! (11:55.063) Yeah, I don't, I don't necessarily buy the oblivious part of it because he was tight with Roddy McDowell and but and also I mean we go through it again on child's play a few a few years later so like he was definitely at least, you know, a queer adjacent, you know,

Peaches Christ (12:01.303) Yeah.

Dave! (12:07.689) Mm-hmm.

Peaches Christ (12:15.662) I mean, yeah, he's friends with Rodney McDowell, right? They worked together, and probably were friends even beforehand with Class of 1984, which I actually just watched for the first time. I'd never seen it. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, I don't know. There's just some of these movies that you know you're supposed to have seen and you've never seen them and the longer you go, you just have never seen it. So finally, Fright Night, or yeah, not Fright Night, Night Flight.

Dave! (12:22.432) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (12:26.811) Oh really? It's great.

Peaches Christ (12:47.243) the app put class of 1984 on for this month. So I was like, I'm gonna watch it. And I didn't even realize that Roddy was in it until he showed up. I think I remembered, but Tom Holland, did he write that movie or he produced that movie? Okay, so with Fright Night, it's like, I don't think Amanda nor Stephen Jeffries, I don't think they were out of the closet. So-

Dave! (12:49.067) Mm-hmm.

Dave! (12:59.383) He wrote it, yeah.

Bryan! (12:59.556) He wrote that one, yeah.

Peaches Christ (13:11.638) You know, and then you've got, you know, handsome Susan Sarandon, Susan Sarandon, Chris Sarandon. Oh my God, I'm really a mess today. This is what drag queens do. We change the names of everyone. We make them, you know, all different. But it's sort of like maybe he really, and then you're like, you say he goes on to work with Don Mancini in the next big movie he does, you know? So maybe he just was accidentally surrounded by queers.

Bryan! (13:11.805) Thank you.

Bryan! (13:18.706) Hehehehehehe

Bryan! (13:31.336) Yeah, yeah.

Dave! (13:37.87) Yeah, I'm claiming Tom Holland. I'm claiming he's an ally. That's true. No, he's not. I believe he's married to a woman.

Bryan! (13:38.015) who's under their terrible gay spell. No. Yeah, but for a long time, I was under the impression that he was, and I don't know why. And I think maybe I was just confusing him with Don Mancini, so I mean, that's entirely.

Peaches Christ (13:42.134) Well yeah, is Tom Holland queer? Okay. Well, it doesn't really mean anything.

Dave! (13:50.973) I kinda thought he was too.

Peaches Christ (13:56.329) Alright

Dave! (13:57.278) And I always thought Chris Sarandon was gay, probably because of this. And I never I never made the connection. Chris Sarandon was married to Susan Sarandon. I didn't really put that together until, I don't know, ten years ago or so. But I think because of this movie and because of Dog Day Afternoon, in which he also plays well, I wouldn't say also, but he plays a queer character in that in this in this, I think he just comes across as that because he is a very is a very handsome man, he's very graceful and kind of elegant in the way he.

Bryan! (14:05.61) Yeah.

Bryan! (14:09.866) Yeah.

Bryan! (14:16.818) Mm-hmm, yep.

Dave! (14:25.846) portrays this character, I think the way he portrays a lot of characters. And I think it just to me, especially when I'm seeing this as a younger person, you're looking for anything that looks remotely gay. And it was just like, oh yeah, that guy, that makes sense.

Bryan! (14:28.691) Yeah.

Bryan! (14:38.803) Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's just gotta be the vampire thing. Like, have you ever watched the TV show of what we do in the shadows? Because there's a real, there's an ambiguity of the sort of gender and sexuality in that one that I think that they're really, they're really clamping on to where it's just like, it's not really, it's not really, it's not really sexuality. It's just sex, you know, so there's, there's the preference is completely...

Peaches Christ (14:39.534) Totally.

Dave! (14:46.36) Yes.

Peaches Christ (14:46.922) Yes.

Bryan! (15:06.643) beside the point. It's just the sexuality of the vampire as a concept.

Peaches Christ (15:12.45) Yeah, vampires seem to be the queerest of the monsters, but also sexually ambiguous or poly or pansexual, whatever, they're just sexual and horny and.

Bryan! (15:25.279) Yeah. Yeah, they've been around for so long that like, eventually, you're just gonna get bored doing the same things.

Peaches Christ (15:31.89) Yeah, yeah, yeah. They can seduce you, right?

Dave! (15:33.726) And thank God because they're the human looking ones. I guess we kind of win out in that. We don't get to see the Gill man having sex with another Gill man?

Bryan! (15:39.121) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (15:39.938) Yeah.

Bryan! (15:44.439) or zombies.

Peaches Christ (15:46.07) Well, that's what one thing I really love about Fright Night is they take the attractive vampire sexual, you know, trope, and then we still get a monster movie in the third act. Like I love that in this world, the vampires can become these incredibly ridiculous monsters. I mean, oh God, Amanda Beers, when she turns with that giant, you know, mouth and everything, it's just.

Bryan! (15:58.895) Oh yeah, yeah.

Dave! (15:59.681) No.

Bryan! (16:12.664) Oh, the shark mouth, yeah. I love it.

Peaches Christ (16:13.982) Oh, it's fabulous. You know, and Stephen Jeffries when he becomes the monster version of evil ed, it's just I love that Fright Night gives us both and you know, I never really thought about it, but you're right to sort of position it or talk about things like the hunger and the Lost Boys. Because God, the 80s were great. In general for horror. But once again, I mean, some of the best vampire movies, wildly different vampire movies because now I'm thinking about

Dave! (16:32.609) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (16:33.029) Hahaha

Peaches Christ (16:43.75) Near Dark, another, you know, 80s vampire film that's just incredible. Yeah.

Bryan! (16:45.235) Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. It's like each one of them is a each one of them is a little different like a different kind of vibe to it like near dark is probably my favorite of the 80s vampire movies just because that's the kind of vampire that I really like is just this kind of like Predatory menace that must be destroyed and like that one. They're not sexy at all. They're horrible like creatures

Dave! (17:07.362) Well, you also get that you get the influence, too, of the growing popularity of the kind of, I guess, punk culture, goth culture. And you see, you see that people are allowed to be. It's not the Bela Lugosi or stuff from the 60s, Christopher Lee. You get this kind of edgy sexiness that you get in the 80s from stuff, you know, the influence of like, Suzy and the Banshees and sort of that big British punk culture.

Peaches Christ (17:07.51) Yeah.

Bryan! (17:16.105) Yep.

Dave! (17:35.998) And you get in who made Near Dark, Penelope Spheeris.

Peaches Christ (17:41.751) Catherine Bigelow. Yeah.

Bryan! (17:41.824) Oh, Catherine Bigelow. Nice.

Dave! (17:43.856) Yeah, but you still used to get that kind of early LA punk 80s kind of like dirty, I don't want to say crust punk, but a little bit of homeless.

Peaches Christ (17:52.338) Yeah, all that's yeah, no, it was the so there's like, I look at this is gonna sound obnoxious, but I'm Gen X. I'm officially 50 years old. You know, so for me, the 80s were formative, you know, I was born in the 70s. But I came of age of the 80s. I loved all that music you just mentioned. And, and I think that gritty goth era that was a fusion of punk rock.

Bryan! (18:06.381) Mm-hmm.

Peaches Christ (18:19.49) but also the new romantics and new wave. You know, it all came together and created this sort of soup of style that was just so great. But by the time you get to the 90s, I have to say, you know, it's commodified and you've got stores like Hot Topic and malls and you know, the quintessential goth characters in every movie and it's kind of this sort of stereotype and kind of boring, you know, with the exception of, you know, maybe Winona Ryder showing up in something, you know, it...

Bryan! (18:36.345) Thank you.

Thank you.

Bryan! (18:44.455) Yeah, yeah.

Peaches Christ (18:48.242) In the 80s, it still was cool. It was pure, the Lost Boys with all those adamant, you know, kind of jackets and looks and the buttons and the, you know, so good. Ah, fabulous.

Bryan! (18:56.683) Oh god, the costuming in that movie is great.

Dave! (18:59.39) And we actually, we watched, so after we watched this the other night, we also watched Lost Boys. Because I wanted to see some, well, actually, we watched this and then we watched American Werewolf and then we watched Lost Boys. Because what I wanted to see was what is this sort of trajectory of the, I don't want to say horror comedy, but definitely comedic horror, because there's a tone to Fright Night.

Peaches Christ (19:05.848) Oh yeah.

Bryan! (19:12.02) Hehehe

Dave! (19:27.038) And I don't think it always works throughout this movie. I ended up having a lot of kind of complicated feelings, I guess, this time around. And so I think what Fright Night is trying to do is what Lost Boys does very, very well, which balances comedy and horror. And I don't think it works quite so well in this. But what I think is really interesting is you get a kind of goofy version of it in Fright Night and then by like, what is 87? I think it was Lost Boys.

Bryan! (19:52.059) Yeah. 87.

Dave! (19:55.798) then it's really edgy, it's really cool. And it was just interesting to see their trajectory because I think a lot of what doesn't quite work so well here definitely does work there. And I think it all kind of comes back to American Werewolf which is kind of what they're trying to do, which is like, they're still cool.

Bryan! (20:10.931) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (20:11.21) And interestingly, American Werewolf is the best of the best, I feel like, in my mind. But Lost Boys, I think, is so good. Revisited it recently also. But how funny that we're talking about Tom Holland making this uber gay, almost borderline silly but super fun gay vampire movie. And then Joel Schumacher, the silliest gay guy in Hollywood, making a more straight dude version of Fright Night. You know, like...

Dave! (20:26.702) Mm-hmm.

Dave! (20:35.528) Yeah.

Yeah. A man, a man who worked with Halston makes this very, very masculine movie. And it's like, Jesus.

Peaches Christ (20:42.783) Yeah.

It's Butch, yeah!

Bryan! (20:46.97) It's.

Peaches Christ (20:48.65) I never, I'll never not think about that. Like Tom Holland made Fright Night and Joel Schumacher made The Lost Boys. Speaking of The Lost Boys, I have to tell you, cause you might get a kick out of this, it will be, it's gonna happen, I'm sure, before this episode airs, so apologies to the listeners. But this Friday, I'm actually doing an event. Yeah, yeah, with the, yeah, the Red Room Orchestra, which is a local music group here in San Francisco.

Bryan! (21:08.76) Oh yes, this sounds awesome.

Dave! (21:10.474) Mm-hmm.

Peaches Christ (21:15.066) is doing the soundtrack to The Lost Boys, and I'm acting out scenes as Jamie Gertz and also Diane Weist. And Tim Capello is going to be there playing the saxophone, and he of course is the sexy saxophone guy. And they've got, oh my God, what's his name? Bill and Ted, Alex Winter. Alex is gonna be there as well. So it's this total like Lost Boys concert celebration happening on Friday night.

Bryan! (21:22.743) Yes!

Bryan! (21:28.364) Oh, that is so great.

Bryan! (21:36.494) Oh yeah, that's winter.

Peaches Christ (21:45.406) This thought you should know. And of course, Fright Night, which is the topic at hand, I have celebrated many, many times at my Midnight Mass event over the years and have actually had two shows with Stephen Jeffries that were about 20 years apart. The first one I did with Stephen was about 20 years ago, and then we did another one this past spring where I reached out to Stephen and he joined me again. And so Stephen, of course, I adore because he's

Bryan! (22:00.959) Oh, wow.

Peaches Christ (22:13.93) You know, he's evil Ed, but also I just think, you know, I feel like Steven's one of those talented 80s actors who didn't get a fair shake, has a similar story like Mark Patton's where he couldn't both be gay and be a teen successful young actor in Hollywood. His roommates, just to give you a sense of the trajectory he was on, his roommates when they made Heaven Help Us were Sean Penn and...

Bryan! (22:24.459) Thanks for watching!

Peaches Christ (22:42.57) Susan Sarandon's other husband, Tim, what's his name? Tim, Tim Robbins. Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Stephen Jeffries, they shared an LA apartment together. Stephen Jeffries had this huge career, you know, that he was launching and was a very talented actor. I mean, you can't not see it when you watch Fright Night, you know, oh, he's amazing.

Dave! (22:45.528) Robbins.

Bryan! (22:47.216) Oh my god.

Bryan! (22:59.306) Yeah.

Dave! (23:02.026) Oh, I mean, especially in this. Yeah, he is, he delivers the performance that is, that is bizarre, but also very moving.

Bryan! (23:08.679) Yeah. Oh my God. Yes. Yeah.

Peaches Christ (23:08.966) moving and fabulous. Yeah, it unique and then boom, you know, he finds that he's, you know, not accepted as a queer person and falls into a lot of drug addiction and ends up doing adult films and, you know, struggles to stay relevant, you know, I so I root for those people. I just love Stephen so much.

Bryan! (23:28.623) yeah, here, hold that thought. Let's let's do some facts on this one. So the year was 1985. So some other movies released in 1985. Cemetery of Terror by, yep, by, uh, Bring Me the Axe favorite, Reuben Glynders Jr. Also that year, The Peanut Butter Solution.

Peaches Christ (23:30.526) Yeah. Okay.

Dave! (23:41.302) Love it.

Peaches Christ (23:41.698) Okay.

Dave! (23:49.378) Not don't think I love it. Oh, it's a bizarre Canadian movie.

Peaches Christ (23:51.199) I haven't seen that.

Bryan! (23:53.421) Don't... We did an episode on that one, a few of it. It's a Canadian children's movie that is horrific. Yep. Also that year, Evils of the Night. Are you guys familiar with this one? So, super low budget piece of garbage. It's got... It's got Julie Newmar in it, and it has John Carradine, who would be in anything.

Peaches Christ (23:55.143) Oh really?

Peaches Christ (24:00.744) Oh, hilarious.

Peaches Christ (24:06.678) Now?

Dave! (24:17.15) Yeah, John Caron would be in anything. It doesn't.

Peaches Christ (24:17.19) Mmm. Heheheheh.

Bryan! (24:19.095) Literally anything it is it the way that I describe it on letterbox is it's like a porno, but they left out all the fucking

Dave! (24:27.005) Hmm.

Peaches Christ (24:27.106) Wow. So it's just bad acting. Hehehehe.

Bryan! (24:27.995) Yeah, it's an unbelievable piece of garbage. Unbelievable piece of garbage. It's on Tubi. I sort of recommend it just to see what, it's unbelievably weird. Also, Day of the Dead came out that year. Yep. And rounding it out, Silver Bullet. The Stephen King. Watch, listen to our Silver Bullet episode.

Dave! (24:30.455) down.

Peaches Christ (24:42.892) Oh, okay.

Dave! (24:46.772) Mmm.

Peaches Christ (24:49.122)

1. And those are like the most notable horror movies.

Bryan! (24:53.58) I know, those are just the ones that we haven't mentioned on the show yet.

Peaches Christ (24:55.722) Okay, because I was gonna say like, God, this is the heyday, right? I know 84 is, I think, Nightmare on Elm Street, and also maybe Poltergeist, or maybe Poltergeist is 82. 82, okay.

Bryan! (25:03.807) Poltergeist was in 82, but Nightmare on Elm Street was 84. Nightmare 2 came out this year also. This was the year that they were kind of the competing horror movies. And I believe this one actually outperforms it. So as we mentioned, the director is a man named Tom Holland. And this is his first feature director gig.

Dave! (25:05.476) Peace. Get it to ya.

Peaches Christ (25:14.887) Uh, interesting.

Peaches Christ (25:21.301) Yeah.

Dave! (25:24.018) And I dare say, I think it shows a little bit.

Bryan! (25:28.051) I think it is tight. Dude, I say this, I think it is tight as hell, but here's the thing. This was not his first time as a director because he'd done like literally hundreds of TV commercials prior to this, before he was even a writer. So he's also an actor, he's also a writer. He'd written a few pictures, turned out quite well. Like we said, he wrote Class of 1984, which we'll probably cover on 99 Cent Rental at some point.

Peaches Christ (25:28.416) Wow, Dave, you are a tough critic. I was going to say for a first director, yeah.

Dave! (25:29.626) I will. I'm coming in hot. I think he's a competent, very competent director.

Peaches Christ (25:43.83) Mmm.

Bryan! (25:56.663) He also wrote Psycho 2, which I watched last night. I love it.

Dave! (26:00.418) Pretty good movie. Yup.

Peaches Christ (26:00.718) I love Psycho 2. I love it. I think it's so, yeah, it's so underrated. Although I think it's getting a, what do they call that? When something's valued over time. Anyway, a reevaluation, yeah, exactly. But it is so good. But I like Psycho 2 from the day it came out, you know, as a kid, yeah.

Bryan! (26:02.311) Yep, way better than you're expecting it to be. Yeah.

Dave! (26:12.402) It's having a renaissance.

Bryan! (26:19.987) Yeah, it's.

Dave! (26:20.378) It sounds like it was a horrible experience for pretty much everyone who wasn't Anthony Perkins, but otherwise it worked out great for us.

Peaches Christ (26:25.126) Right. It's fabulous.

Bryan! (26:28.152) So, so he, Michael winner, as we mentioned in our, in our Sentinel episode was a real piece of garbage. And he, he did it he directed one of Holland scripts movie called scream for help. And the way that it came out pissed off Holland, so much so badly that he decided that he would direct his next script to see it done right. And so he takes it to it pretty well. Now a few years later.

Dave! (26:33.686) Yeah.

Dave! (26:52.542) Yeah, I am firmly anti Michael winner.

Bryan! (26:55.779) Oh yeah, Michael winner, two thumbs down. F minus.

Dave! (26:57.726) Huge piece of shit. Yeah.

Peaches Christ (26:59.286) Wow, okay. So it's official, we all hate Michael Winner. I will, whatever you guys think, I'm gonna adopt that as a philosophy. You tell me who to hate. Hehehehe.

Dave! (27:03.787) Yeah.

Bryan! (27:04.385) Oh, we are in agreement. Yeah.

Bryan! (27:10.124) careful. So a few years later, he delivers one of the genres biggest most enduring hits child's play. And that eighty seven or eighty eight? Yeah.

Dave! (27:10.923) Yeah, see you.

Peaches Christ (27:19.178) Yeah, what year was that?

Dave! (27:21.074) 87, 88.

Peaches Christ (27:24.302) were seeing that in the theater, like going to see it, thinking it was gonna be more like a Fright Night type movie.

Bryan! (27:31.195) Nope.

Dave! (27:31.226) I actually had a conversation about that movie with my therapist a couple hours ago.

Peaches Christ (27:35.806) Really? It was a lot, I'll say this, it was a lot, that first child's play was a lot darker and bleaker than I expected as a 12 or 13 year old going into the cinema.

Bryan! (27:36.378) Hahahaha

Dave! (27:44.906) Yeah, she said she said it was the movie that she was terrified of it when she saw it on TV, probably as a child. And I was like, I don't I don't think I remember seeing that on TV at the time.

Bryan! (27:56.559) No, no, that was one that we definitely came around to on video because when that one came out like I wicked wanted to see it but I didn't even bring it up because come on my six years

Peaches Christ (28:02.882) What's the age difference between you two? Six years. Oh, that's a pretty big difference when you're looking at movies as kids. Yeah.

Dave! (28:05.131) Six years.

Bryan! (28:09.707) Mm hmm. Yeah. I wanted to see that one in the theater so badly, but I never even brought it up. Like, Mom would never have taken me to that. But she did take me to Monkey Shines, which is...

Dave! (28:09.791) Mm.

Peaches Christ (28:17.384) Uh, we-

Oh, did she? That's hilarious. Oh, I was sneaking into all this stuff. I mean, you know, it's back in the days of, sure, I'm going to see such and such a movie. And then of course, you know, you because back then you could really just buy a ticket. And then just, you know, with the multiplexes of the 80s, you can kind of just jump around, especially if you're a kid, you know, no one really cared. There was no assigned seating or checking, you know, usually it was one usher.

Dave! (28:20.42) Which is similarly whimsical.

Bryan! (28:22.212) Yeah, yeah.

Oh, lucky you.

Bryan! (28:39.911) Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Peaches Christ (28:47.89) at the top of a long hallway or something, you know, and you could kind of, you know, yeah, exactly, yeah. I knew exactly what you were doing, you know. Yeah, so yeah, Tom Holland, I did not see Fright Night in the theater. I know that. That was definitely something I saw on video.

Dave! (28:51.39) And that utter was 17 years old and didn't give a fuck.

Bryan! (28:57.224) Yeah. All right.

Bryan! (29:02.827) No, I remember, I remember riding, there was, we lived in a little small town when this one came out in called Marblehead, it's down there next to Salem, Massachusetts, and we had a two-screen movie theater and I remember that this was one of them. I would ride by and fucking look at that poster because it's a very evocative poster, but the Fright Night poster, yeah.

Dave! (29:23.019) Mm-hmm.

Peaches Christ (29:24.246) The Fright Night poster. Oh, I'm obsessed with it. I think it's one of the, I mean, obviously 80s poster art, the one sheets, some of them are real works of art. I mean, in my living room to this day, I have my Dream Warriors poster framed from when I was a kid and I got the one sheet from the back of Fangoria Magazine. This is the height of brilliant artwork. And I would say,

Dave! (29:28.236) Yeah.

Bryan! (29:41.862) Ah, yes!

Peaches Christ (29:54.446) Fright Night is in my top five. You know, just brilliant poster art. So much so, I'll have to send it to you guys, but we did a Peaches Christ t-shirt of me above the Castro Theater where I do all my shows. And it mimicked, yeah, it's me as the, you know, the cloud vampire. I'll send it to you all, but maybe you can share it with your listeners. But that's how obsessed I was. We did this all over t-shirt of Peaches as the Fright Night poster art.

Dave! (29:58.017) Yeah.

Bryan! (29:58.843) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (30:09.568) That's awesome.

Bryan! (30:22.419) That's great.

Dave! (30:22.442) Yeah, it's it is iconic. I think it's probably I think just not just my personal top five. I think it is probably one of the best most iconic from like the video store shelves. This was one that really jumps out at you because it's so it's whimsical in a weird way, but it is also terrifying because it does have that shark mouth vampire on it. And it's just it is it is evocative of so many things. And I don't I don't know that it really accurately represents the movie.

Bryan! (30:42.792) Yeah.

Dave! (30:51.606) But I don't care because it looks awesome.

Bryan! (30:53.615) Oh yeah, yeah. And the thing is, and I've got a note about this way down, you know, towards the bottom of the show run, but that appliance that they made was like a last minute thing that Holland came up with where he was like, it'd be really awesome if she had this thing, can you guys make it? And the special effects guys were like, you fucking crazy. Like we're almost done with this movie.

Dave! (31:14.23) Yeah, because they had like two days left of shooting.

Bryan! (31:16.539) And they're like, and we have no money. Like this is the thing. He's like, just do it for me. And they did it and they fucking hated it. And I guess most of them hate it to this day, but it's like one of the most enduring images of the entire movie. So.

Peaches Christ (31:30.466) So wait, who hated it? The actors hated wearing it or the filmmakers hated the look of it?

Bryan! (31:33.275) No, no, the effects technicians, the guys who actually made the mouth and put it on Amanda Beers, like they just, they thought it looked like crap. And, you know, I mean, like they're behind the scenes. They're on the, you know, they're on the set. They see it, like they don't actually see the finished product, but like when it came out, like it's, I see that image more than I see Chris Surrendon and you know, whenever you see references to this movie, like in magazines or books and stuff, yeah.

Peaches Christ (31:38.108) Ah.

Peaches Christ (31:49.59) Right, right, right.

Peaches Christ (31:59.114) Oh yeah. Yeah, it was fabulous. I mean, that was one of the things I loved so much about the third act of the film was all those crazy ass, wild prosthetics, you know.

Bryan! (32:11.039) Right, because it's a very it's a very effects light movie until that third act turn and then all of a sudden it's awesome. So here's some cast we got we got the star of the show is Chris Sarandon making his second Bring Me the Axe appearance, the first being the Sentinel, listen to our Sentinel episode. It took a lot to get him to play a role in a horror movie since the Sentinel left such a bad taste in his mouth to put things mildly. I suspect that he and Holland saw eye to eye having both been abused by Michael Winner.

Peaches Christ (32:15.598) Yeah. Yeah!

Bryan! (32:41.051) And he's awesome. Jerry Dandridge is one of my favorite horror movie vampires of all time. Nobody else. I could not see anybody. He is perfect in this movie. We also get William Ragsdale, which is Charlie Brewster. And this lands real early in his career. I think this is one of his very first roles, like period.

Dave! (32:46.09) Yeah, I can't imagine anyone else doing this role.

Dave! (33:01.486) I think it's his first. Or you get Herman's head later on. That's all I remember him from is Herman's head.

Bryan! (33:06.099) You know what's weird about this is I constantly confuse him with Zach Galligan.

Dave! (33:11.774) Hmm

Peaches Christ (33:12.206) from Grimlands. I agree. Very much so. They had a very similar, maybe, and even the kind of the iconic characters they played in Fright Night and in Grimlands have a similar, like, you know, can't believe this is happening teenage boy with a girlfriend, you know, type vibe going on in suburban America, yeah. Yes, exactly.

Bryan! (33:13.407) from gremlins. They kind of look alike.

Bryan! (33:28.695) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's also like it's also yeah, it's that horror in the suburbs thing that's got to throw me a little bit. But yeah, Ragsdale is still quite active today. He's he had a cameo in Renfield just last year. And like a lot of people figured in these Bring Me the Axe episodes, he did a ton of TV. And then not necessarily rounding things out, but just kind of keeping it quick. We got Roddy McDowell, prolific actor of stage and screen, known for several roles, including this

but also as Octavian in Cleopatra. And most importantly, well, for most of us, as Cornelius in Planet of the Apes. To say nothing of the Poseidon Adventure, and also the Legend of Hell House. But yeah, and he came into this movie because of the part that he plays in Class of 1984. And this is to say nothing of the co-stars, Stephen Jefferies and Amanda Beers. They had both just done a movie called Fraternity Vacation together.

Dave! (34:05.956) He's also in The Poseidon Adventure and my favorite episode of The Twilight Zone.

Bryan! (34:28.375) which I've never seen. But Jeffries was a Tony nominated actor before he even got to Hollywood where he stayed fairly busy until 1985 or 1989 and then he vanishes reappearing in the 90s under the alias Sam Ritter in a rather prolific career turn toward porn appearing in movies with titles like Das Butt, Oklahoma, and I Dream of Weenie.

Peaches Christ (34:51.438) Hehehe

Dave! (34:55.291) I think all of those are fantastic titles.

Peaches Christ (34:55.605) Oh.

Bryan! (34:58.942) Yep.

Peaches Christ (34:59.886) love I dream of weenie

Dave! (35:02.63) Well, I thought Oklahoma was pretty great too.

Bryan! (35:05.595) You know what they sound they sound almost if it wasn't if it wasn't porn it porno in nature they almost sound like uh Troy McClure movies but yeah I found these on these titles on an article called the films of Stephen Jefferies from top to bottom yeah

Peaches Christ (35:05.953) Yeah.

Dave! (35:14.998) Hmm. I was gonna say Christopher guest.

Peaches Christ (35:16.021) Oh yeah.

Dave! (35:25.545) Aw, come on!

Peaches Christ (35:25.682) Of course, of course. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing with Stephen is like, obviously, and you know, I don't think that he I don't I don't think it's that private that he, you know, had a pretty severe drug habit. And, you know, I think, much like Mark Patton, there was sort of this sense, what least getting to know him and befriending him, there's this real tragic sense

ahead of his time as far as being an actor who was very, very talented, but couldn't hide their queerness from the screen. It was just, they were too weird, too queer, but both very fucking talented. And like Stephen Jefferies, Mark, before he did Nightmare on the Street, was on stage on Broadway with Cher, Kathy Bates, Karen Black, and Robert Altman's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean. It's amazing.

Bryan! (35:55.819) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (36:03.123) Yeah.

Bryan! (36:19.562) Yeah.

Dave! (36:19.626) Yeah, his role. Yeah, his role in that is fantastic. He's incredible in that movie.

Bryan! (36:23.175) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (36:26.258) Yeah, yeah. He's preoperative, Karen Black. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (36:26.819) Yeah, the thing. That's right. That's right. Yeah, it sounds it basically it sounds like he just fell in with a really shitty agent who was like, oh, well, nerds in these comedies are really hot right now and you're kind of nerdy. So we'll just put you out for all these nerdy roles. And like some of the stuff that I read about it, like he was really kind of bummed that he kept getting these auditions for movies that like.

He auditioned for Weird Science in the role that Michael Anthony Hall gets. He's in, he's a dork in Fraternity Vacation. He's supposed to be a nerd in this one, but I feel like his character is really half-baked and that quality of him doesn't really come across very clearly, but like.

Peaches Christ (37:06.444) Yeah.

Dave! (37:10.514) I think that's the case with a lot of storylines in this movie. I think there's a lot of plot threads that they either sort of unceremoniously abandon or introduce with very little context.

Peaches Christ (37:10.71) Boys are so c-

Bryan! (37:19.731) That's the thing with this, it seems like he played a much larger role in the movie in earlier drafts of the script, but as the Amy character sort of was introduced because she wasn't in the like the, the first draft of the movie. And so, as she was sort of brought in to sort of give, you know, Charlie Brewster some like a romantic interest like they probably had to cut parts of like the evil head story, which is a.

Peaches Christ (37:20.128) Mmm.

Dave! (37:43.734) Well, there you have it. Ladies are ruining stuff again.

Bryan! (37:47.839) Here's the thing, I identify with evil Ed more out of anybody else than, you know, than anybody else in the movie. It's really crazy. So here's some taglines. And they're not very good. And there's only a couple of them. There are some very good reasons to be afraid of the dark. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And then there's this. Yeah. And then there's this one. If you love being scared, it'll be the night of your life.

Dave! (37:57.7) Mm.

Peaches Christ (38:01.186) Ha ha.

Dave! (38:08.627) OK. Sure. Mm.

Peaches Christ (38:09.634) Generic, it's kind of generic, yeah.

Dave! (38:17.239) Okay, yeah, I mean it's no it's no Satan's waiting Satan's waiting

Peaches Christ (38:17.49) Also generic.

Bryan! (38:19.059) Yeah, so this was. Nope, yeah, so this was released in August of 85. Like we said, with an estimated budget of around $8 million, then it was a surprise hit for Columbia who just used it to fill up the last spot of their 85 schedule, and it ended up outperforming the movies that they expected to be huge hits. Movie called Silverado, which was a Western and perfect, which is the yeah, the John Travolta. Jim Likers.

Peaches Christ (38:23.138) Hehehe

Peaches Christ (38:44.446) Oh yeah, John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtis, aerobics movie. He he he.

Dave! (38:46.578) Yeah. Yeah, that's the one you'll get the popular meme of Jamie Lee Curtis thrusting her crotch.

Bryan! (38:48.678) Yeah.

Bryan! (38:53.335) Yep. And so while neither of those movies were bombs, but their combined box office gross fell just short of Fright Night's total take. So suck it, horror haters. And it also reviewed very well, even though the review. Yeah, even though the reviewers and critics were characteristically shitty and passive aggressive about it. But yeah, like even fucking Roger Ebert liked it.

Peaches Christ (38:53.525) Yeah.

Dave! (39:03.697) Mm-hmm.

Dave! (39:07.257) It really did.

Peaches Christ (39:18.158) I mean, it is a fun 80s vampire romp with style. And it just, I think it delivers. And I, you know, you can watch it to, I know Dave has serious criticisms, but I think as the cult, as the cult queen who kind of screens it to this day and gets to sort of see how it plays, you know, with an audience now, some of these things,

Bryan! (39:25.894) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (39:32.977) Hahaha

Dave! (39:34.198) Burn it to the ground!

Peaches Christ (39:46.454) don't really stand the test of time. And Fright Night really does. It still plays, it's still really entertaining for an audience. The finale is fabulous. Yeah, it's just a great movie. I love The Hunger, but The Hunger is boring. You know.

Dave! (40:02.154) Yeah, it's supposed to have went down there. Yeah, it.

Bryan! (40:02.787) Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? The Hunger is great for a few very key scenes in a couple of performances, but it is a long movie where not much happens.

Peaches Christ (40:10.77) Yeah.

Dave! (40:12.542) I will say in my defense, peaches Christ, I will say from a position of pure spectatorship, this is a really fun movie. You know, if you just sit back and watch it, it is a great time. It just can't be as hell despite what Tom Holland says. It's super fun. But I think once we engage with it more critically, that's when I started to be like, well, there's a lot of stuff here that just doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Peaches Christ (40:15.512) Ha ha!

Bryan! (40:16.55) Hahaha

Dave! (40:36.886) So as long as you don't give a shit about that, then yeah, it's super fun. It's fun to watch, it's fun to talk about, and it's fun to quote. But it's like once we start, one of the reasons we're kind of doing this show is to revisit the stuff we really loved when we were younger and to see what holds up and what doesn't. And when you start to look at it that way, things take on a very different meaning, especially when we look at them now. We're in our 40s at this point. And so things mean a lot different things now.

Peaches Christ (40:40.65) Yeah.

Dave! (41:06.614) And it's just, it's interesting to see what happens when you look at it from that position. And it just, it becomes something very different. This, I was, I mean, I still think, even from that point of view, it still holds up very well. There's just some stuff where you're like, wait, what? Okay.

Bryan! (41:25.387) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (41:26.242) So why don't you bring up those things? Because I actually think you're probably right. What I've noticed, especially with my own, you know, cult movie podcast, we often will reevaluate these things that we loved and we sort of talk about the cringe meter. You know, like, oh God, how racist was it? How misogynistic was it? How, you know, just how cringey is it? And one thing about Fright Night is it doesn't have a lot of that, thankfully, you know, which is nice.

Bryan! (41:43.783) Hehehe

Dave! (41:51.542) No, no, I think there's, I think, yeah, for the most part.

Bryan! (41:53.052) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (41:53.982) and a lot of movies in 1985. Oh my God, they're really awful, you know.

Bryan! (41:57.011) Whoo boy, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dave! (41:57.63) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the racism and the misogyny is usually what jumps out. I think more it's more structurally for me in this in terms of this movie. I mean, the fact that and obviously we know at this point that the Amy character is sort of a not a last minute edit, but she's a rewrite. And I think that feels very shoehorned in at a certain point, because it's like you have a whole story built around this kid who becomes sort of obsessed with his neighbor.

Peaches Christ (42:04.543) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (42:08.62) Uh-huh.

Dave! (42:27.582) And then all of a sudden you're like shoving this woman in it as though to be like, but don't worry everybody. He has a girlfriend too. And it's like, okay, easy everybody. The character, I mean, the Stephen Jeffries character, the evil Ed character, that's another one where you're like, you get to the point and we'll get, when we get to that point in the movie, the part where he dies, or even the part where he is turned into a vampire, you get this feeling that it is this very tragic moment.

Peaches Christ (42:34.123) Right.

Bryan! (42:36.236) Yeah

Bryan! (42:55.049) Yeah.

Dave! (42:55.102) And his death is extremely tragic. And it's this really beautiful moment between Roddy McDowell and the Evil Ed character. And you don't get much leading up to that. And the thing I thought was really strange is if you watch the special features on the latest release, the 4K release, they talk a lot about how Evil Ed and Charlie are these, they're super great friends. It's like, I never get that in this movie. I mean, at best, at best you think they're just sort of like a little adversarial.

Peaches Christ (43:19.406) Hmm.

Bryan! (43:19.739) I don't either, you can't really.

Dave! (43:24.622) And just kind of like they had kind of annoy each other and that's about all you get so it's like I don't get the feeling that they're friends at all but throughout these commentaries they all talk about like well he's his only friend and it's like what do you mean friend? They they're shitty to each other pretty much the whole time. So it's like stuff like that we're like well wait a minute, why are you like this feels like it's supposed to be more important and yet you've given me nothing up to this point.

Bryan! (43:41.187) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (43:41.515) Yeah.

Dave! (43:50.998) that leads me to believe that it should be. And so it's like just little stuff like that where I'm like, you know, it's not as impactful as it could be. I still think it's a great movie, but you know, in terms of what we're watching, like there's a lot of competing things happening too. I think, you know, obviously he wants to tell this vampire story that feels fun and fresh. And I think for the most part it is, but he's also, I think what Tom Holland is trying to do is defend the relevance of

classic horror and classic monsters and to show that in this age of slashers, you know, especially coming off that first teen cycle where everything is just kind of mindless, you know, misogyny, that these movies still have a place and they still have considerable value. And I think he does kind of do that, but it gets muddled with all this other stuff that's happening. And so you have this character, this Peter Vincent character, the Roddy McDowell, where, you know, he should feel more relevant. And that...

kind of comes across and the fact that he is a little bit washed up, but you don't really get a lot of that. So he builds all this stuff into the movie that feels like in his original concept, it probably was a lot more relevant. And then for either because of, you know, studio notes, or because of what, you know, whatever rewrites he had to do, it ends up kind of getting pared down and pared down until eventually you're left with kind of a shell of that original story.

And those really powerful moments don't really pop the way they should. And so when I say it feels like he is this kind of feels like a first outing for him, I think that's more what I mean is that the vision for this movie is not really there the way that something like the child's play, but also something like Lost Boys or, you know, like those types of things where it is very clear what they're trying to do. And here.

You get the feeling that there's a lot of competing ideas and he didn't really have the confidence to be like, no, this is the story I'm telling. Let's go.

Bryan! (45:49.578) Ha ha.

Peaches Christ (45:49.746) I think that's all fair. I mean, you know, I definitely think that a lot of these movies that we loved so much, interestingly enough, run the gamut of being really good movies to really bad movies, but we can still love them. And I think Fright Night kind of falls somewhere in between. You know, it's like, I don't know. Well, The Lost Boys I think is a great example, or Near Dark, those are.

Bryan! (46:04.904) Oh yeah.

Dave! (46:08.863) Mm-hmm.

Peaches Christ (46:16.31) really good movies. You know, in fact, The Lost Boys is better than I remembered it right? Like as an adult, I rewatch it and I'm like, holy shit, this is a great movie, you know.

Dave! (46:22.258) I, me too.

Bryan! (46:26.183) Yeah, Dave, you used to talk shit openly on this podcast about that movie.

Dave! (46:27.93) I always, I always think about that movie and I think, you know, I don't remember liking that movie. And yet every time I watch it, I'm like, you know, that is a really good movie. It is solid for me getting to end, especially when you consider the rest of the shit that fucking Joel Schumacher did. Yeah.

Peaches Christ (46:30.306) Hahaha, really?

Bryan! (46:38.804) Hehehe

Peaches Christ (46:45.382) It is amazing because he really kind of is I want to root for Joel Schumacher. Who doesn't want to root for a big Queenie mess, you know? But like, you know, his Batman movies are like, well, you know, just, you know, when you especially with you. I mean, yeah, you look at something like Batman Returns and you're like, holy shit, this is amazing. What a cool direction. They're taking this in and then, oh, you know, Joel Schumacher shows up. But lost.

Bryan! (46:53.812) Hehehe

Dave! (46:59.758) I mean, they killed the franchise for a while.

Bryan! (47:12.48) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (47:15.138) The Lost Boys, wow, he really hit a home run with that one, especially more so now watching it as an adult. I showed it to, my husband is Turkish and he had a friend come over who is a movie buff in Turkey. And so I often show a bunch of titles going, have you seen this, have you seen this, have you seen this? Because they don't, certain movies just fall through the void and he had never seen The Lost Boys. And so we sat and watched it a few weeks ago.

Dave! (47:18.348) Mm-hmm.

Peaches Christ (47:42.478) And oh my God, watching it through someone's eyes, who'd never seen it before, you know? And I loved it even more. And I do love Fright Night, but I actually fell more in love with The Lost Boys, where, yeah.

Dave! (47:54.11) Yeah, that's how I felt too. Like every, you know, same thing with the other one we watched, American Werewolf. In my head, I'm always like, this movie just doesn't really do it for me. And then I watch it, I'm like, Jesus Christ, this movie is really, really good.

Bryan! (47:54.228) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (48:00.859) Ugh.

Peaches Christ (48:04.119) What?

Bryan! (48:07.627) Mm-hmm.

Peaches Christ (48:08.042) I think it's so good. I think that movie and you know, I also like as a kid, I watched an American Werewolf in London. You know, I remember I remember when Michael Jackson's thriller came out and everyone talked about you know, the director of thriller and that the special effects guy and you know, I liked an American Werewolf in London, don't get me wrong, but I was too young to actually really get that the sheer genius of that film and the quiet moments and the this

Dave! (48:18.763) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (48:19.486) Oh yeah.

Bryan! (48:35.123) Yeah, I definitely did not appreciate it until I was an adult. Cause I was a hot, I, yeah.

Peaches Christ (48:38.43) Yes!

Dave! (48:38.73) And it's also tainted by John Landis. It just could have been not a great person.

Peaches Christ (48:43.231) No, he's not.

Bryan! (48:44.199) No, but like I think I to this day, I still put the howling above it, but it wasn't until like, until, I don't know, the last, oh yeah, I love the howling. I'm a, yeah, I'm a big.

Peaches Christ (48:50.21) Really interesting. Is the Howling your favorite werewolf movie?

Dave! (48:52.298) The hell is more fun.

Bryan! (48:57.815) No, The Wolf Man is my favorite werewolf movie, but The Howling is definitely is definitely a top like if I had to if I did like do a top three it's in the top three for sure and American Werewolf is definitely would probably be number three, you know.

Peaches Christ (48:59.931) Okay, classic.

Peaches Christ (49:08.182) The howling...

Peaches Christ (49:12.142) Okay, so The Howling, An American Werewolf, and The Wolfman. So what about, so now I'm interviewing you guys. What about, since this is the vampire movie, top three vampire movies.

Bryan! (49:19.235) Hahahaha

Bryan! (49:25.051) Oh god, Spanish Dracula. Actually, I can't say that. I have not seen it. I hear, though I've been told for years that it is superior to the Bello Lugosi one.

Dave! (49:26.326) Spanish Dracula.

Peaches Christ (49:27.847) Oooo

Dave! (49:29.526) Yep. It's a hell of a movie.

Dave! (49:37.502) I'm a huge fan of the Mexican Dracula film. I think it is far superior to the American one.

Bryan! (49:42.791) Yeah, no, uh, Lugosi, Vampire, Dracula 100%. Um, near dark, absolutely. Probably number two, very close number two. And, um.

Bryan! (50:00.056) Oh, Twins of Evil. Yeah, yep. I love Twins of Evil is fucking great.

Peaches Christ (50:02.048) Ah.

Dave! (50:02.146) Really? Weird choice.

Peaches Christ (50:06.218) You know what I love that I just saw at Berkeley Rep, of all places they did a stage version, is the original let the right one in. And they just, and the American one, not so much, but okay, the original, I just, I love it so much. I think because it's one of those things where, Near Dark did this well, and Interview with a Vampire, but it's not easy to do.

Dave! (50:06.222) Deep cut.

Bryan! (50:16.042) Oooo

Dave! (50:16.245) Mmm.

Dave! (50:20.79) I haven't seen that one. I saw the original, but I've not seen the new one.

Bryan! (50:26.827) Thank you.

Peaches Christ (50:36.078) to have a kid play an old person effectively and believably is tough. And I feel like, especially with Let the Right One In, the fact that it's also this transgender ambiguous kid and there's all this just weird dark shit going on and it's so dark. And I love the snowy backdrop of it all. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud, Let the Right One In would probably have to be in my top three and maybe even near dark. Funnily enough, a friend of mine

Bryan! (50:39.411) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (51:05.822) Um is josh miller who plays the kid in near dark. Yeah, so josh and I are old friends We got to know each other through his uh performance in teen witch I've celebrated teen witch many times and so but do you know that okay? This is how hollywood I now we're really deviating how hollywood josh miller's family is Do you know his mother? Was the kidnapped woman the girl in faster pussycat kill

Dave! (51:08.044) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (51:08.355) Oh, no kidding. That's great.

Bryan! (51:17.073) Hahaha

Dave! (51:26.94) Hmm?

Bryan! (51:27.344) Yes.

Dave! (51:34.286) Mm-hmm. Yep. And it's father's. Yep.

Bryan! (51:34.767) I did not know that actually.

Peaches Christ (51:35.862) Yes, and his father, of course, is the priest. Yeah, and the exorcist and his brother, of course, is in the Lost Boys. So it's all connected. I never even thought about that. God, that family had two of their kids in the best 80s vampire films.

Bryan! (51:40.08) Yeah.

Dave! (51:45.014) Yeah, Jason Patrick.

Bryan! (51:46.251) It's all connected. Ha ha ha.

Bryan! (51:56.442) Right?

Dave! (51:57.394) I will say though, what I think all of those things that we're talking, all these movies that we're just talking about now, what they all have in common is a confident director. Someone who's willing to just be like, this is the movie I am going to make. And I think that's what is lacking in Fright Night is he doesn't quite have that common. I think Tom Holland is a great film writer. His movies are so creative. He is bringing a lot of really new, fun, fresh ideas that I think draw from the classic horror that I, you know,

Peaches Christ (52:07.211) Right.

Bryan! (52:09.599) Ahem.

Dave! (52:27.366) I don't know about you peaches, but like our father loves sort of old Hollywood. We were very, very he would show us a lot of old Hollywood films. And so we developed our love of films are rooted in old Hollywood. And so I still have a very strong affinity for that era. And you can see that Tom Holland is bringing this stuff in. And that's what makes this movie fun. But he just didn't have the.

Bryan! (52:36.651) Mm-hmm.

Dave! (52:53.194) the focus and I think the confidence to say I'm making this movie. We don't need to add a girlfriend to make it a teen date movie. Like we're just going to make this cool ass movie and it's going to be great and I that's what I think all these other things. We're talking about like these really clear visions near dark, you know, let the right one in these are all people who are like I'm going to make this movie. I've got this stand back everybody.

Bryan! (53:00.071) Uh.

Bryan! (53:15.463) Yeah, yeah, no, I can I can I can definitely get down with that being his first feature film He probably didn't have the latitude to be like this is the movie i'm making so we probably had to cave to a bit of the a bit of studio pressure, but you know

Dave! (53:29.618) Yeah, I think you feel that. And like, I could get that throughout. Like a lot of times when I'm watching stuff, it's like you hit certain points in a movie and you're like, this feels like this was someone else's idea. This feels like you're jamming this in here. And it's usually, especially in something like this where there are such like overt queer moments, you get the feeling that someone was like, no, you can't do that. He has to have a girlfriend. They have to have sex at the end of the movie.

Peaches Christ (53:41.524) Right.

Dave! (53:56.862) Or like there has to be a big romance. And it's like, oh, Jesus fucking Christ, get out of here.

Bryan! (53:57.556) Yeah.

Mm. Yeah.

Peaches Christ (54:02.59) Yeah, I think those are all fair criticisms. And unfortunately, for better or worse, they exist in a lot of these, well, a lot of movies, a lot of Hollywood movies constantly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I would agree with all of that. And yeah, and especially this sort of, I guess for me, Chris Sarandon, they're all really, really good, but there are certain standouts who kind of like,

Dave! (54:15.562) Yeah, especially at this time though.

Bryan! (54:17.319) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (54:32.358) show up and you know, I think Chris Randon is so good. And Stephen Jeffries is so unique. And they really put this movie and this those special effects like despite those folks not liking them, you know, it just puts this movie in this sort of over it sends it over the edge to it's like, okay, this is really good. But without some of that stuff, it might not have succeeded, you know, it could have been forgettable. And it's not because it adds up to being really satisfying.

Bryan! (54:52.789) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (55:01.742) fun movie. Yeah, I mean, the more I think about it, the more I'm like, I really like the music, the soundtrack, I think is quite good. You know, yeah. Yeah.

Bryan! (55:02.835) Yeah.

Bryan! (55:08.119) Oh my god both the score of the Brad Fidel score is super good super 80s and like right I mean well they he had just come off of the Terminator to do this one yeah killer score and then but then the soundtrack album like the actual like licensed you know

Dave! (55:09.995) It is really understated.

Peaches Christ (55:16.767) Yes.

Dave! (55:17.498) Which, I mean, that's what he excels at too. I mean, look, if you just go down his resume, it is like action movie after action movie.

Yeah. Which is a fucking killer score.

Peaches Christ (55:26.854) Wow. Yeah.

Bryan! (55:38.135) awesome. There's you know that really funny like Jake Isle's band theme song. Sparks are on it like it's so good. But uh yeah so here's a few facts about the movie. So the character Peter Vincent is named for Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. Yep Vincent Price and so Holland wrote the part of Peter Vincent for Vincent Price but there's deferring stories about why he didn't take it. One says

Peaches Christ (55:45.441) Yeah.

Dave! (55:55.559) Love of my life, Finster Price.

Peaches Christ (55:56.768) Yes.

Bryan! (56:05.683) that Price turned it down because he'd been so badly typecast over the years, but I find this very hard to believe. It's Vince! It's Vince! It's Vince at fucking Price!

Dave! (56:10.954) No, that's not true at all. He, Vincent Price, I am a, I am the, the Vincent Price fan. That is, that is T-H-E-E, Vincent Price fan. He would never have done that. Vincent Price loved these movies. He loved these roles because he was a big, hammy actor who loved going big. And he thought this stuff was super fun. He was, he's one of those performers where you learn about him and there was no pretense. There was no ego.

Peaches Christ (56:22.53) Hehehe

Bryan! (56:25.779) Yeah.

Bryan! (56:30.407) Yeah.

Dave! (56:38.838) Well, that's probably a little ego, but not a lot. And he just loved this stuff. The reality was he was quite old at the time. He was not in great health.

Bryan! (56:40.228) Little bit of it.

Bryan! (56:46.759) That's yeah so that was that was my next is the reality of it is he was very old he and his health was in decline and so he wasn't really capable of doing much more than like cameos or like tv appearances at the time

Dave! (57:00.874) Yeah, I mean, if you look at the stuff he's doing around this time, it's, you know, it's whales of August where like you don't have to do much.

Bryan! (57:05.151) from a right, he's in the wraparound stuff from a whisper to a scream. Yeah, but anyways, after this movie, no, Monster Club was a 1980, but yeah, so I suppose yeah. But yeah, but anyways, he died eight years after this movie came out. So yeah.

Dave! (57:11.25) Oh, he's a monster clover on this time as well.

Peaches Christ (57:22.402) Hmm. Right before, I guess right after he did Edward Scissor-Earns, because that would have been shortly. Yeah.

Bryan! (57:27.595) Edward Scissorhands was this. Yeah, and like it just looked. Mm hmm, yeah. But personally, I can't really see Vincent Price in the role because Roddy McDowell really does make this his own.

Dave! (57:30.638) He did a lot of voice acting at this time too. It's like real low maintenance stuff.

Dave! (57:42.518) Because you have to Roddy McDowell sells the idea that this is a washed up man, that this is a man with very little confidence. And Vincent Price is nothing if not overconfident, like every role he plays is big and present and wonderful. And you have to sell this as someone who really doesn't believe what he's doing anymore, because that's part of the story is that like the shit he tries to do to save the day doesn't work because he doesn't believe in any of it.

Bryan! (57:53.971) Yeah.

Bryan! (58:02.291) Yeah.

Bryan! (58:10.012) Right.

Dave! (58:10.587) And I don't think Vincent Price sells that the way that Ronnie McDowell really does.

Bryan! (58:14.143) Now, I love me some Planet of the Apes, but this is probably my favorite movie of his. Yeah. So there is also a...

Dave! (58:19.626) Yeah. Well, I'm going to say I'm going to I'm batten for Poseidon Adventure. I love the Poseidon Adventure so much.

Bryan! (58:28.39) Okay.

Peaches Christ (58:29.247) Ah, yes.

Bryan! (58:31.443) Yeah, so there is also a Fright Night video game that was published. I want to play it too. Published in 1988 for the Commodore Amiga in which you play not Charlie Brewster but Jerry Dandridge. Reviews all say that it looks great but playing the game actually sucks. Yep. I did not know this until I did the until I did the research for this.

Dave! (58:35.386) I read about- I wanna play that now.

Peaches Christ (58:44.95) Oh.

Peaches Christ (58:49.686) Hehehehe, I did not know there was a game.

Dave! (58:55.742) It's just hour after hour of eating apples and stroking your roommate's face.

Peaches Christ (58:56.433) Ah.

Peaches Christ (59:02.275) Hehehe

Bryan! (59:02.752) So like most movies released in the 70s and 80s, there's a novelization which is long out of print by author John Skip, who had one month to write it from first draft to final, and I assume that there were not many drafts in between.

Dave! (59:15.638) Yeah, give it two months and one of these fucking companies will be reprinting it any day now.

Bryan! (59:19.867) No, I know, but actually there was there is another novelization that was actually written by Holland in like the last 10 years or so. There was a remake in 2011 which I've been meaning to watch but I've never gotten around to it stars Anton Yelchin as Brewster, Christopher Mintz passes Ed and Colin Farrell as Dandridge oh and also David Tennant as Peter Vinson I'm told it's pretty decent.

Dave! (59:44.614) Nah.

Peaches Christ (59:45.55) I haven't seen it either. I mean, I'm not anti-remake because obviously some of the things I love the most are actually remakes. But I am kind of baffled by sometimes remaking things that were so great already, like where I'm like, okay, I don't need to see another poltergeist. You know, I don't need to see another child's play.

Bryan! (59:46.804) Yeah.

Bryan! (59:55.156) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:00:04.513) Yeah, like I think.

Dave! (01:00:06.453) Well, especially when they don't do anything new to it. Like if you're just going to give me a shot for shot remake, then I can just watch the original.

Peaches Christ (01:00:12.353) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:00:13.335) Yeah, I think that one came out kind of at the tail end of that sort of remake fad that was happening. And by that point, I was just like, I'm not interested in any remakes anyways. Why the fuck would I watch this? But then, like, people I knew who had seen it were like, no, it's actually it's pretty good. You should see it. So, yeah. So maybe one of these days I'll get around to it. Yeah, it's apparent. Right. Apparently, the vibe is way different. It's a much like darker, meaner movie.

Peaches Christ (01:00:20.526) Hmm

Peaches Christ (01:00:31.638) Really?

Dave! (01:00:32.674) I mean, it's kind of strong cast, but I mean, there's only so many hours in the day, you know?

Bryan! (01:00:42.823) But I don't know, maybe I'll get around to it at some point. And here's, lastly, there was an unofficial Mollywood remake called Kalpana House in 1989. I have not seen it, but I'm told it's terrible. You can watch it on YouTube. It is, yeah, it's, from what I can tell, it is like beat for beat. It's the same movie just made in India.

Dave! (01:00:43.416) Mm.

Peaches Christ (01:00:55.096) Wow.

Peaches Christ (01:00:59.87) Okay. He he he.

Dave! (01:01:00.05) and I probably will.

Peaches Christ (01:01:10.498) Wow.

Bryan! (01:01:11.495) Yeah. So shall we get into it?

Peaches Christ (01:01:14.925) Yeah.

Dave! (01:01:15.375) I don't... certainly hope so.

Bryan! (01:01:17.564) I know here we go. So we open on a full moon and a pan around a neighborhood at night as a man and a woman talk as though they're in a vampire movie. Then as we pan up into the second floor room of a nearby house, we learn that it is a vampire movie playing on a TV. It's Peter Vincent movie where he plays a vampire killer. So meanwhile on the floor nearby, Charlie and his girlfriend Amy make out and it turns out that the movie is a part of something called Fright Night.

the local TV horror movie show where Peter Vincent is the host.

Dave! (01:01:49.09) Why are they on the floor?

Bryan! (01:01:51.319) I don't know. I do not know.

Dave! (01:01:53.874) Also, I mean, I think in the special features, they, I think Tom Holland says something about how like, you know, the movie that they're watching is kind of a callback to the kind of B-movie stuff of the drive-ins past. It feels to me a lot more Dark Shadows than anything else. I mean, right down to the fact that he's, yeah, he's got the stake facing the wrong direction. Like if you've ever watched Dark Shadows, which I am a big fan of Dark Shadows,

Bryan! (01:02:08.106) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (01:02:12.25) Yeah, the way that they talk to each other is...

Dave! (01:02:22.338) They fuck up left and right in that and it just feels dark shadows to me.

Bryan! (01:02:26.657) Yeah, I would be willing to bet that Holland was very familiar with Dark Shadows because it was it's hard to understate like what a sensation that show was at the time. Like our mother was a fan of that show.

Dave! (01:02:37.034) And I think this is like...

Well, I am a huge fan of it now. I am going to get a Julia Hoffman tattoo soon. Yeah, I'm committed. I'm real committed. Peaches, I think this is one of those moments, too, where you said, what like, what are the parts that don't hold up? This is one of the ones where Charlie comes across looking real gross because, you know, he Amy puts up like puts up a boundary of like, you know.

Peaches Christ (01:02:40.374) Hehehe

Bryan! (01:02:42.368) Hmm?

Bryan! (01:02:47.031) Oh, very nice. Ha ha ha.

Peaches Christ (01:02:47.618) Wow.

Peaches Christ (01:03:00.491) Mmm.

Bryan! (01:03:03.353) Ahem.

Dave! (01:03:06.55) This is as far as she's willing to go. And he kind of jumps up and gives that like, come on, we've been dating for blah, however long. And it's like, dude, give it five minutes. You're gonna be obsessed with the man next door. So I don't think you have a lot of room to be complaining here.

Bryan! (01:03:17.631) Hehehehehehe

Peaches Christ (01:03:18.57) Hehehehe

Bryan! (01:03:21.486) Yeah, yeah. K-

Peaches Christ (01:03:22.31) Yeah, I would agree that it felt feels like inserted at the 11th hour like thought the relationship was forced at a late draft

Bryan! (01:03:32.515) So, yeah, so Charlie wants to go further, and he doesn't and stops him, but then she relents, and then they suggest that they take it to the bed, but as they do, Charlie notices two dudes next door moving an elaborate coffin into the basement, and it completely distracts him from the girl on his bed taking her shirt off.

Dave! (01:03:47.286) Yeah, I would say it's I'd say it's more coffin ish than coffin.

Bryan! (01:03:52.999) Right, when you see them, when you actually see the coffins a little bit later on in the movie, as they're sort of prepping the one that she's supposed to occupy, they, like, you couldn't fit a child into these coffins.

Dave! (01:04:02.89) I mean, it could be a coffin, it could be a sideboard. Who am I to say, honestly? Also, when you say when the girl is taking off her top of your bed, when that girl is Marcy from Married with Children. I mean, I don't want to comment on a lady's looks, but.

Peaches Christ (01:04:03.319) Hehehe

Bryan! (01:04:06.287) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:04:15.758) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:04:16.716) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:04:21.579) Right.

Bryan! (01:04:22.24) So yeah, the two of them, they're supposed to be teenagers. And both of them were like well into their 20s while they were making this movie. But yeah, they do. Yeah.

Dave! (01:04:28.81) Yeah, she I think she's 27 and I think he's like 21 22.

Bryan! (01:04:33.515) Yeah, she's the ad but she looks she you know, she looks apart. She looks quite young So angry Amy storms out and Charlie chases her and then they talk briefly with his mom Well, Charlie completely ignores her because he's too busy watching the new neighbors move in by Boone

Dave! (01:04:49.734) What's interesting about this set, so the set where they're shooting this is the Disney back lot and they're shooting on the same lot that something wicked this way comes where they shot that.

Bryan! (01:05:03.319) Oh yeah, there's this thing is, is this movie is supposed to take place in Iowa, but man, it looks like a back lot in Culver City, right? We, you know,

Peaches Christ (01:05:03.47) Oh.

Peaches Christ (01:05:12.63) Hehehehe

Dave! (01:05:13.902) But I mean, it gives it that feeling of that. Again, it lends itself to that sort of whimsy in the idea that like this is a very because, you know, it's a back lot. So it's not very big. There it's big in terms of like, you know, where you're filming, but it all feels very fake. It's sort of like when you watch rear window. And. Yeah.

Bryan! (01:05:34.183) Yeah, or a lot of like Joe Dante's movies come across like this, like in the burbs, the burbs looks like a studio back lot neighborhood, you know?

Peaches Christ (01:05:34.574) Hmm.

Dave! (01:05:42.398) And it really like it really gives it that feeling of like, this is small town America. And I, what I find really interesting about that idea is that it's still, even though this movie is a vampire movie and it is playing, uh, it's playing kind of in a fun way. It's still, it brings that idea of, uh, like what you get in Halloween, where, you know, you get this sort of, uh, menace comes into a small town and it's kind of faceless and it could be anybody.

Bryan! (01:05:57.641) whoop

Dave! (01:06:09.926) Even though he's trying to have a campy fun time, at the same time, it is that feeling of like the evil comes out of the city because vampires until this point had been either castles or very urban. And now we get like vampire comes. That's what it's again, it's that feeling of like this is super 80s. That fear of like something dangerous is coming into suburbia. Look out, everybody. And by everybody, we mean white people.

Bryan! (01:06:32.315) Oh, yeah. Yeah, like, I mean, really. Because that's the thing is at its heart, this movie is Dracula, right? There's this exotic foreign.

Peaches Christ (01:06:37.239) Hahaha!

Dave! (01:06:41.186) Mm-hmm. Now, is it though, like you said, cause you said that to me the other night, and I thought it's Dracula, but maybe Dracula as an afterthought.

Peaches Christ (01:06:41.707) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:06:51.327) Well, it's all of this, it's all of the Dracula stuff after the Jonathan Harker sections so it's exotic foreign gentlemen like moves into this kind of like unfamiliar setting and kind of becomes a sort of threat that, you know, like, really everybody was trying to sort of escape, you know, because that's really what the suburbs kind of represent, you know, in a lot of these movies, and also.

Dave! (01:07:14.506) Well, I mean, especially when you say this is we're talking about the queerness of this movie. This is 1985. So we're four years into the AIDS crisis. I mean, at this point, the AIDS crisis is a full blown, you know, pandemic. And so you get that feeling of like, you know, if what the suburbs are presents is white flight and sort of wealthy white flight at that, then you get this feeling in the mid 80s of like, you know, everybody we ran to the suburbs to hide. And now here the gays are.

Peaches Christ (01:07:22.091) Right.

Bryan! (01:07:25.515) Hmm.

Bryan! (01:07:42.496) Ahem.

Dave! (01:07:43.726) permeating the suburbs as well. And, you know, obviously I don't think Tom Holland, if he did indeed know what he was doing, I don't think he was gonna take it that far, but it is interesting to think about.

Bryan! (01:07:46.247) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:07:55.046) Oh my God, I think it's totally worth noting. And I mean, as far as gay tropes go, not only were they wearing nice sweaters and they were two handsome men, you know, in the 1985, people knew gay people. It wasn't like, you know, it was like the sexual, everything was in chaos because of AIDS, you know, but people at this point, you know, it's not the 50s. People knew gay people, people knew what gay people were and they made these people

Dave! (01:08:02.431) Mmm.

Bryan! (01:08:02.841) Hey

Peaches Christ (01:08:23.911) antiques dealers?

Dave! (01:08:26.002) And so I wonder, are they leaning into that idea of like, you know, the sort of gay stereotypes, or is that a nod to Salem's lot?

Bryan! (01:08:36.127) That could very well be. Well, is he an antiques dealer? Because something he says, he fixes up houses and he has a live-in carpenter.

Peaches Christ (01:08:36.19) Ah?

Dave! (01:08:41.59) Yes. Well, they I mean, they kind of free like the mother frames it as I think she says he's an antiques dealer. And then she says he has a live in but then she says he's probably gay and it's like girl come on.

Peaches Christ (01:08:41.738) Aren't they into antiques?

Peaches Christ (01:08:49.802) Oh, she does, yeah.

Bryan! (01:08:52.383) But that very well could be, but.

Bryan! (01:08:57.395) Yeah, no, that that's actually a point I hadn't really considered because this really is like Kurt Barlow and I can't I can't remember his ghouls name, Straker, very much is that sort of model but based on the book and not the TV series because Barlow's

Peaches Christ (01:08:58.722) Probably.

Dave! (01:09:05.39) Straker.

Dave! (01:09:12.774) I don't know. I mean, they do. Well, I mean, Barlow is a giant blue monster in the movie. But but I think the James Mason character is very, very Queenie. But that's the interesting thing about these two characters is that they're so to say that, oh, we didn't mean for it to be queer. It's like you have cast these people and you have written these characters as the Queeniest bitches on the block. I mean, they are raising their cock in an eyebrow.

Bryan! (01:09:17.055) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:09:36.692) Hahahaha

Dave! (01:09:41.566) and they are reading a bitch one after another. I mean, you can't say, no, I have no idea. I was like, yes, you did.

Bryan! (01:09:45.724) I'm out.

Peaches Christ (01:09:45.891) See ya.

Bryan! (01:09:51.379) I know, I know. So the next day at school, Charlie fails a trigonometry quiz, and we meet his friend Ed, who Charlie calls evil. And I feel like there's a backstory to that, that we never hear.

Dave! (01:10:04.522) And that I think that's the biggest failing of this movie is their failure to really flesh these characters out because this relationship feels like it's central to the whole story. And then like we get this really beautiful moment later. It's like that could have been so much bigger and so much more important. It's not, though.

Bryan! (01:10:17.235) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:10:24.947) Yeah. So back at home, Charlie gets home, he talks to his mom a bit about the new guy next door who is a live in carpenter. His mom remarks with my luck, he's probably gay. Lady, you don't know the half. So, yeah, like we said Stark and Sarandon were apparently completely oblivious to the subtext of their relationship until they actually saw the movie, and then they're.

Dave! (01:10:46.106) Again, I don't buy that.

Bryan! (01:10:54.619) And so the next day at some sort of diner, Charlie.

Dave! (01:10:57.746) Oh, this is after we get we get the play the Playboy Playmate model stepping out of the car where they make her nipples erect for the film. For fuck's sake, there you go. There's a thing that doesn't hold up well.

Bryan! (01:11:01.237) Oh, that's right, yeah.

Bryan! (01:11:07.919) Yeah, Holland said he needed. Yeah. So yeah. What we see is, so yeah, there's a scene where Charlie's getting home from school. And there's this like sexy lady getting out of a cab and in a very ridiculous dress for Iowa. And she, you know, he directs her to the house next door. And so the

Dave! (01:11:32.022) Yeah, you know how she you know she's a prostitute? Gold belt. Big chunky gold belt. Yep.

Bryan! (01:11:35.679) Yeah, so the next day at this diner Charlie and Amy makeup, but a television of the diner reports that the sexy lady that Charlie saw the day before was found dead. This is the second body found in as many days. Once again, he's ignoring her in favor of the TV. Amy gets mad, grabs some dude's burger, smashes it in Charlie's face, sending evil Ed. Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:11:36.214) Heheheheheheh, it's the dead giveaway!

Dave! (01:12:00.406) Wait, did you say diner? Aren't they in like a cafeteria, like a high school cafeteria?

Bryan! (01:12:05.275) It's like it's like it's like a diner or maybe it's a cafeteria. I don't know. But I mean, what school what school what school cafeteria has a fucking television on playing the news?

Dave! (01:12:10.333) I mean, I know it's been a while since he went to high school, but...

Dave! (01:12:17.693) Well, Hollywood.

Peaches Christ (01:12:17.902) I always thought it was a diner to be honest. I never thought it was a school cafeteria. Yeah, but.

Bryan! (01:12:20.041) No.

Dave! (01:12:20.891) I really I thought it was okay.

Bryan! (01:12:23.635) But it is filled with like teenagers. So I guess I could, you could see, it could be either really, but nah, nah. But Charlie gets the burger in his face, sends Evil Ed into a fit of hysterics to which he says, oh, you're so cool, Brewster. Which is like one of the like, it's probably the line of the movie.

Dave! (01:12:27.286) Yeah. I don't think it matters. I'm just.

Dave! (01:12:41.75) Yeah. So much so that they come back to it later. In an ill-advised moment.

Peaches Christ (01:12:44.043) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:12:46.395) Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I know. So back at home, Charlie tries to get a look at the new house catches the eye of a living carpenter who's busy painting over the windows. And he intercepts Charlie is about to sneak into the basement and scares him.

Dave! (01:13:04.278) This is another, so this movie is full of people making weird choices, actors making weird choices. Now, I'm not an actor. I don't really know how any of that works, but I feel like there's a couple things that happen in this movie. This is one of them where he plays this character in such a strange way where he's like one part 80s bully villain, one part actual menace. And I mean, it works for the most part.

Bryan! (01:13:28.682) Yeah.

Dave! (01:13:34.358) But it is such a weird vibe.

Bryan! (01:13:36.327) Yeah, so this guy is this is an actor named Jonathan Stark. I don't know if I've ever seen him in anything else, but He's one of the original groundlings. Yeah. So he's a comedian, but by, you know, like that's his whole thing. Yeah, so he

Dave! (01:13:41.118) He was one of the groundlings, one of the original groundlings.

Dave! (01:13:46.634) Yeah. And an improv comedian at that. And I think that works to his credit. I mean, what he's doing, everything he does, it doesn't feel wrong. It just feels a little bit. Maybe it's maybe that's a testament to his abilities that it's just it is off putting.

Bryan! (01:14:03.393) Mm-hmm. Yeah. But at the same time, like, I would say he's maybe supposed to be off-putting. He's the... It's not really clear what sort of a creature he is, because later on he...

Peaches Christ (01:14:04.563) Yeah, I would agree with that.

Dave! (01:14:14.078) And I think that's another one of these moments where you're like, OK, you maybe had something else in mind for this character that it just it doesn't work because you never really know who he is, what he is or why he's there. He's just sort of there to fill a role. And that's one of those where it sort of falls off a little bit.

Bryan! (01:14:27.175) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:14:33.247) Yeah. So that night, Charlie watches the house next door until he falls asleep. Then he wakes up in time to see a woman undressing in the house next door. And there's a dude about to bite her on the neck. He appears to have fangs just as he's about to bite that neck. He looks up directly at Charlie, pulls the blinds down.

Dave! (01:14:53.674) He also has big, beautiful nails.

Bryan! (01:14:56.275) Yep, that's right. Yep. So now Charlie runs outside in time to see the carpenter appearing to load a body-sized bag into his Jeep from his hiding spot in the bushes. He's pretty well hidden, but then his mom comes out calling him, which attracts the attention of the carpenter and the vampire. He takes a huge chomp out of the apple, throws it towards Charlie's hiding spot, indicating that he knows he's there.

Peaches Christ (01:14:57.424) Hehehehe

Dave! (01:15:18.214) He does, he takes a huge chomp, and the huge chomp is like through the core of the apple.

Bryan! (01:15:22.655) through the core because he's a monster. He's got a big, a big vampire mouth. So apparently, so, so sir, this, this is like, I, I never really thought about this until I looked it up because I, I never really noticed it until it was pointed out to me. But Sarandon eats fruit throughout the movie because he read that most bats are frugivores, meaning they mostly eat fruit and because he's half, because he's a vampire and he can turn into a bat. It just makes sense that he'd eat fruit.

Dave! (01:15:52.446) Now, listen, you may have noticed just a minute ago, I said, I'm not an actor. But Christopher Serendin is an actor, and I feel like maybe he's overthinking things a little bit here.

Peaches Christ (01:16:03.618) Hehehe

Bryan! (01:16:03.672) Yeah, so, so when before they went before that they actually went into production on this they did a couple of weeks where they did like rehearsals for the for the movies they blocked it they did all their lines and so when they actually got down shooting it. It was a really quick process but in the process of that sort of rehearsal Holland had everybody like right like a background of their character and at some point he was like, okay, so.

Dave! (01:16:05.346) down.

Peaches Christ (01:16:06.688) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:16:27.863) know vampires bats eat fruit like obviously i'm going to eat fruit holland was like i fucking love that do that and so they

Dave! (01:16:35.118) Actually, I really like this idea that Holland puts forth is like, I want you to go write a backstory for your character, because I really feel like it makes them embody this character a lot more than they might otherwise do. Stephen Jeffries, most notably, is the one who didn't do it and refused to do it.

Bryan! (01:16:45.736) Yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (01:16:51.431) Yeah, yeah. So yeah, Charlie then tries to explain to everybody that there's a vampire next door, as one does, including the cops, who he brings over to the house. We find out that the carpenter is a guy named Billy Cole, who's a roommate to Jerry Nandridge, and he also

Dave! (01:17:08.162) And what's that? Roo is a roommate. Big old air quotes, a roommate.

Bryan! (01:17:11.023) Yeah, he also has a painting of a woman that looks a lot like Amy.

Dave! (01:17:16.194) That's another part where I'm like, this feels so fucking shoehorned in. Again, we're like, now we have this like, well, he has to. There has to be a reason why he wants Amy. Like, you wouldn't have to do this if you didn't fucking jam Amy in the movie in the first place. Just make a movie about dudes. Do what I want.

Bryan! (01:17:19.743) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:17:31.076) He he.

Bryan! (01:17:33.227) Yeah, you can just make it a bromance. So neither the cop or Billy take Charlie seriously, and they openly mock him. And I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty funny.

Dave! (01:17:43.854) I, you know, this is like, this is, I think one of the things that makes it feel so quintessentially eighties is that idea, it's the Goonies, it's Monster Squad, it's all of those where it's like, it's kids versus problem. And the adults in this, in this sort of very, kind of, P-Nazian way, the adults are very non-present. Like, yeah, he has a mom and she's kinda in it a little bit, but not really.

Bryan! (01:17:56.639) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (01:18:06.659) Oh yeah, but some really fucked up shit happens to like his house and his possessions. Like Jerry wrecks his car at a certain point, like throws him through the closet door and shit. And his mom is just like, hey, what's going on in here?

Dave! (01:18:16.066) Yeah, and beats the shit out of him.

Dave! (01:18:21.494) But that feels very 80s to me of like, it is the kids that have to solve the problem.

Bryan! (01:18:27.375) Oh yeah, I mean they, it's one of the reasons why I think, uh, Stranger Things really resonates with people of a certain age because that kind of was what it was like in the 80s. This is obviously an extreme example.

Dave! (01:18:39.522) Well, it is. I mean, it's the emergence of it. And I think this is there's a market logic to all of this because it is that emergence of kids as consumers where it's like, OK, now we're pitching to children. We're making movies for kids. How do we do that? How do we lure them in? Well, you make them the star of the story. When in reality, we just want to see you fall down a hill and get hurt. That's what we want. That's why we're what is.

Bryan! (01:18:49.704) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:19:03.375) No, we want kids. We want kids falling down.

Dave! (01:19:06.402) Hey everybody, here's what Generation X wants. We wanna see you fall down a goddamn hill. I don't wanna see you get hit by a car. I just wanna see you fall down. But in the meantime, we're gonna make movies where you're the hero. And I think that feels particularly 80s to me.

Bryan! (01:19:11.415) Hehe

Bryan! (01:19:18.631) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:19:22.363) Yeah, because it definitely it disappears as the 90s kind of dawns. It's a very strange thing.

Dave! (01:19:28.63) Well, I mean, it's again, there's a march. There's a market logic to that as well. And that is that the kids who were going to the movies in the 80s are now going to the movies in the 90s, but they're not kids anymore. So, you know, they still want to see themselves. They're just in their teens and 20s now.

Bryan! (01:19:40.071) Yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (01:19:46.728) I suppose.

Peaches Christ (01:19:47.074) Yeah, I think it's important to remind folks that weren't Gen X and didn't grow up as kids in the 80s, yes, we were completely on our own. There was no adult supervision. So, things like Stranger Things or Fright Night where these movies, like ET is essentially a movie about don't trust the adults. It was all very real. I mean, that's how we were, yeah, boomers didn't raise us. They just sort of told us to be home

Bryan! (01:20:07.161) Oh yeah.

Bryan! (01:20:14.243) Oh, yeah. Right. Speaking of.

Peaches Christ (01:20:16.531) street lamp is on.

Dave! (01:20:17.642) Well, I actually challenged that a little bit too, where it's like, we all went out and played all that. It's like, no, we didn't. We all sat in front of the fucking television just as much as anybody else did.

Bryan! (01:20:27.015) Yep, so Charlie goes to Evil Ed's house to tell him about the vampire. He takes him about as seriously as the cop did, but he helps Charlie out anyway, and he runs down the rules for repelling vampires. It's all the usual stuff. Crosses, holy water, and garlic. The most powerful weapon of all is that a vampire can't enter his house uninviting.

Dave! (01:20:48.85) OK, so here's what I will say about this particular part. I think and this maybe speaks to Stephen Jeffries trajectory as an actor is that we're again supposed to accept that they're very good friends. And that if that were the case and if that were the narrative we were given, then a lot of what happens would make sense. Otherwise, he's a very close talker. There's a lot of weird touching. It's like I don't touch a lot of people that I'm not sleeping with.

And he's very kind of like very in his face, a lot of touching, a lot of grabbing. It's like, all we know is that they're kind of associates from school. But now he's grabbing him, he's touching him. It's like it just that contributes to that weird performance that Stephen Jefferies gives. That's like, what are what are you doing? Because these are strange choices you're making. The character as a whole is already very big and weird, and you're making it even more weird.

Bryan! (01:21:27.239) Yeah, yeah.

Dave! (01:21:47.218) And that would make sense if they were good friends, but we don't know that they are. And so it's just like, you're kind of just grabbing him and touching him and being weird.

Bryan! (01:21:52.329) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:22:00.716) So, Charlie sets to securing his room, happy that the vampire can't just walk in uninvited, and then his mom calls him down to introduce him to the new neighbor who she has invited into the house. And this is where, this is our first introduction to Jerry Dandridge, who is one sexy vampire. And he makes, yep, he makes no mistake about letting Charlie know that he can now just waltz into his house anytime he wants. Also Charlie's mom is crazy horny for Jerry.

Dave! (01:22:28.478) Which again, weird choice for a person who's not gonna be in the movie that much.

Peaches Christ (01:22:33.71) But who wouldn't be?

Bryan! (01:22:35.28) I know.

Dave! (01:22:35.766) Yeah, I mean, I said early on, like, I thought, I thought this that Chris Sarandon was gay based on this character, because he's sexy as hell, rolls in real elegant, real classy. I just assume he's gay.

Bryan! (01:22:50.815) Hmm? Yep. So predictably, Jerry lets himself into Charlie's house. And you can hear him walking around on the roof. And so Charlie sneaks around his house with his cross, looking for Jerry, but he becomes convinced that the sound he heard was just some branches against the window. But Jerry is actually there and lets himself into the house through Charlie's mom's window before going to Charlie's room to wait for him. And now Charlie, thinking he's safe, relaxes. And that's when Jerry attacks. And he coughs, he ruffs up Charlie.

Peaches Christ (01:22:51.351) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:23:19.975) gives him a chance to get out of this alive, basically by just saying like, forget about it. And Jerry Lee promises to leave him alone, but then Charlie tries to ward him off with a cross, and Jerry demonstrates his power by casually flicking the lock off the window and easily lifting the window, which has been nailed shut.

Dave! (01:23:37.546) Well, he actually says something I think is really interesting. He says, I'm going to give you something that I never had. And that is a choice. And it's such a an interesting moment because it's like there it gives you insight into more like depth of this character that we don't really get a little bit, maybe a little bit later on. But like there's that again, there's these parts of the story where you're like, I feel like there's something that's supposed to be something more here that I'm not getting.

Bryan! (01:23:43.488) Mm.

Dave! (01:24:06.946) But it's a great moment, it's very cool. And he kicks the shit out of him. But, yeah.

Bryan! (01:24:11.451) Oh yeah, he throws him, he throws him through the closet door and beats the, beats crap on him. They struggle. He's got, didn't he, does he, does he smash? No, he lifts the window and he's like basically dangling him out the window. This is what he

Dave! (01:24:22.154) Which is a very threatening moment because he just, the nails are still hanging out of the window. They're still sticking through the actual window part of the window.

Bryan! (01:24:31.019) Mm hmm. And the pencil effects. So what ends up happening is he grabs a pencil off of his desk, he stabs Jerry in the hand and then he pulls it back. And this is the thing is what he does. He Jerry spins away from him in this really strange way. Like this is a grievous injury for some reason. But what you see is he looks at it and he's got the he's got the pencil through his hand and he does this thing where he like pulls the pencil out and appears to sort of like draw the thing out.

he looks at the other side and the pencil is gone. It's a super cool effect that was apparently was inspired by a scene from Excalibur where Lancelot is run through by a sword. So this is apparently enough to reveal Jerry's true form which is a nasty ass vampire thing.

Dave! (01:25:15.831) It still looks pretty good.

Bryan! (01:25:17.207) I think so too. Yeah, I've never been a big fan of the like transformed kind of like monstrous animalistic vampire like the Buffy the vet. Yeah, like I'm not I like to get it. He kind of want to give him a look. But I don't know, I just kind of I think that the fangs are enough for me, quite frankly.

Peaches Christ (01:25:17.516) Yeah.

Dave! (01:25:23.378) Yeah, like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Peaches Christ (01:25:33.567) Yeah, I agree.

Dave! (01:25:33.978) I do like his I like him in his third form later on at the end where he's kind of really monstrous looking and yet still very charming.

Bryan! (01:25:37.423) Oh yeah, yeah. When he's. Yeah, I can. Yup. Yeah. So yeah, this attack is enough to wake Charlie's mom up and scare Jerry away. He gradually transforms back and runs away. And she comes in and says, he tells her he had a, you know, just had a nightmare, a nightmare that fucking trashed his room. She says, do you want to value him?

Peaches Christ (01:25:43.508) Yes.

Dave! (01:26:01.56) I caught that again, quintessentially 80s.

Peaches Christ (01:26:02.402) Heheheheh Yes

Bryan! (01:26:02.539) the yep so few minutes later jerry calls him up to let him know they trashed his car because you hear him doing something out in the yard after this happens and that he's going to kill him too so billy cole jerry school or whatever cleans the wound on his hand very

Dave! (01:26:21.286) Okay, so this is where I think we can say Tom Holland may be full of shit a little bit, because this is the moment where Billy kneels in front of him, and it's very clear what he is intending for this to look like.

Bryan! (01:26:27.598) Yeah, it's a fair.

Bryan! (01:26:32.787) Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.

Bryan! (01:26:38.823) Oh yeah, it's a very intimate moment, it's very erotic.

Dave! (01:26:43.054) I mean, well, it also looks like he's blowing him, you know, from his perspective. And it's like, OK, if you can't say you didn't know that there was sort of like queer undertone here where you're setting up a shot where it looks like this one dude's blowing the other guy.

Bryan! (01:26:45.892) Me? Yeah.

Bryan! (01:27:00.987) So at the same time, Peter Vincent is on TV talking about how he believes in vampires. Charlie watches him kill a vampire in one of his movies. He gets really excited. The next day, he intercepts Peter on his way out of the studio, learning that Vincent was just fired from his gig at Fright Night because nobody wants to see vampires of the Hammer variety anymore. They only want masked madman, it seems. So Peter

at first thinks that Charlie is just a fan, but then he suddenly realizes that he's serious and he wants his help in killing Jerry Dandridge who does his best, and so he does his best to shake Charlie who is acting like a crazy person. And so, with nobody left to turn to, he asks Amy and Ed for help, and they arrive at his house to find his room covered in candles, garlic, and crosses as he sharpens a steak that he intends to drive into Jerry while he sleeps during the day, and they too think he's crazy, as they should.

So looking for help, they run to Peter Vincent, who's being evicted from his apartment. That guy just can't catch a break. So their plan is to bribe Peter Vincent to come up with them to perform this vampire test to prove that Jerry's not really a vampire. The plan is to have him drink holy water, which will just be regular old tap water.

Dave! (01:28:16.882) I will say, I think the old age makeup on Roddy Mcdowell looks really good.

Bryan! (01:28:22.419) The hair looks very powdered.

Dave! (01:28:23.69) The hair looks, the hair is terrible. The hair is not, like it looks like they're just sort of dumping baby powder in his hair. I think everything else, like if you look at any old age makeup pretty much any time, it kind of looks pretty shitty because it's a hard thing to recreate. But I think on him it looks, it's pretty realistic with the exception of the powdery hair.

Bryan! (01:28:46.491) Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, they arrive. Jerry dramatically descends the stairs in the main hall, and he enthusiastically greets Peter Vincent, and he is particularly taken by Amy, and she's taken with him as well. And so, Jerry readily drinks the water, proving to everyone that he's not a vampire, but Charlie isn't convinced, of course. There's some passive aggressive threats toward Charlie, suggesting that Jerry will kill his friends too. The clincher on the scene is that as they are about to leave, Peter Vincent produces a small mirror to check himself out on.

And the process notice that Jerry has no reflection.

Dave! (01:29:19.186) And this is that moment. This is a very Dracula moment because this actually happens in Dracula.

Bryan! (01:29:23.983) Yes, yeah, yeah. So Peter, it's a Peter sucks at hiding his shock. He drops the bear, which leaves a little piece on the floor, which Jerry finds.

Dave! (01:29:32.315) Peaches, are you a video game person at all?

Peaches Christ (01:29:35.254) No, I mean, that's one thing I just, I don't know. You'd think I would be being such a Gen Xer, but I'm not.

Dave! (01:29:41.971) There's a video game series called Fallout and Roddy McDowell plays the president in one of them. And every time he speaks, it's all I can hear is President John Henry Eden from Fallout 3.

Peaches Christ (01:29:55.282) Oh wow, that's funny.

Dave! (01:29:56.662) because he just he has such a distinctive voice.

Bryan! (01:29:59.236) He does.

Peaches Christ (01:29:59.498) Yeah, I mean, it's that sort of, yeah, well, same thing with just watching a class of 1984. It's sort of like, oh yeah, there he is, you know, Peter Vincent.

Dave! (01:30:05.654) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:30:08.335) Yeah, he's the he's the robot Vincent. No, no. Yes, Vincent in the black hole also. And it's just immediately recognizable the gay, the gay robot who kills Maximilian with a dick drill. Nope. So walking Amy home. Sorry.

Dave! (01:30:14.954) Yep. The gay robot Vincent.

Peaches Christ (01:30:15.428) Mmm.

Peaches Christ (01:30:19.203) Oh my god.

Ha ha! Well that's fierce.

Dave! (01:30:25.422) Hmm. Yeah. Take that. Take that American horror story. Someone else did it better. Surprise.

Bryan! (01:30:31.913) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:30:32.243) Hehehehe

Bryan! (01:30:35.771) So walking Amy home, Evil Ed is still unconvinced. He disappears down an alley and he pretends to be bitten by a vampire. Now pissed off, Charlie leaves him on his own in the alley and it turns out that Jerry has been following him in a sweet leather overcoat. And now cornered, Jerry takes the form of mist that vampires sometimes do. I fucking love that scene. This movie's got a lot of fog machine going on in it. To great effect.

Dave! (01:30:58.91) Yeah. And I love a fog machine, and just in any movie. I wanna get one from my house, to be honest with you. And when I say by my house, I mean the three-room apartment I live in. I think it'd be a lot of fun.

Bryan! (01:31:06.823) I very nearly did at Spirit Halloween.

Peaches Christ (01:31:09.302) Hehehe

Bryan! (01:31:14.981) Yes. Hello.

Peaches Christ (01:31:17.066) Yeah, I'm lucky enough to have many, many fog machines because I, well, I own a haunted attraction, so. Ha ha

Dave! (01:31:25.88) Well, brag why don't you?

Bryan! (01:31:27.326) It's good.

Bryan! (01:31:34.035) I know it's got a very distinct, it has a very distinct odor that I do love.

Dave! (01:31:38.174) Yeah, that distinct odor is community theater.

Peaches Christ (01:31:38.312) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:31:41.975) Exactly. I love it. I'm like, oh, the show's about to start.

Dave! (01:31:45.546) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:31:47.711) So yeah, so he what he ends up doing is he offers Ed the gift of vampirism, which he accepts after monologue about being different and no longer being picked on or singled out for being different.

Dave! (01:31:59.474) Yeah, this is one of those moments where it's like, this would be a very powerful monologue if we understood why it was that Ed felt so excluded and why it was that Ed felt so different. I mean, you get the feeling that like, yeah, he is a bit of an outsider in school, does not have friends, but you don't feel that.

Bryan! (01:32:19.583) But you never see it in action, and so it feels disconnected from the intention of the scene. Also, it...

Dave! (01:32:29.886) And, but even like, even separate from that, like you, you feel, because there is sort of an inherent queerness to this character.

Bryan! (01:32:37.304) I was gonna I was gonna say it kind of feels like Jerry's saying one thing but meaning something else.

Dave! (01:32:43.902) Well, and then because he follows it up by wrapping him in his arms and taking him in a weird... I understand, I think what they're going for is a sort of bat wing, wrapping in the wing kind of vibe. But you don't really get that because you... I don't know, they never really deliver on that part of the story. And so it feels a little empty.

Bryan! (01:32:54.44) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:33:08.595) Give, give pages a second here.

Dave! (01:33:12.494) Whatever that is in the background is cool as hell.

Bryan! (01:33:14.889) That is a very, very interesting image.

Dave! (01:33:18.89) Is that, do you hear behind, is it either, is it your audio? Someone's audio is crackly as fuck. Might be my.

Bryan! (01:33:25.49) Not me.

Peaches Christ (01:33:26.538) I've heard it, but I don't know what it is.

Dave! (01:33:28.786) I hope it's not mine. I'm trying to.

Bryan! (01:33:30.426) I've not heard it at all. What is that image behind you?

Dave! (01:33:33.419) That's really cool.

Peaches Christ (01:33:34.338) Oh, it's this, you probably can't tell, but it's like this drag queen buying snacks at a convenience store and it's been like all blown up. And it was from a trip we used to do to Reno where I take two busloads of drag queens to Reno. Ha ha.

Bryan! (01:33:43.103) Hahaha

Bryan! (01:33:52.503) Very nice. So spooked, Charlie and Amy run from Jerry, who magically appears at every turn, and then they sneak into a crowded nightclub. Now, Evil Ed, meanwhile, gets himself invited into Peter Vincent's place where he reveals to Peter that he's now a vampire and sets to attacking him. Peter, who gets the best of Ed when he presses across to his forehead, leaving behind a bad burn, which becomes kind of a

big piece of sort of Evil Ed's character now. Repelled by Vincent's on-screen character, Ed leaps out the window.

So back at the club as Charlie tries to get in touch with Peter, Jerry lets himself into the club, draws Amy to him with his raw hypnotic vampire sexiness. Oh so sexy.

Dave! (01:34:38.018) Things are about to get real sexy. And I feel like in this moment, so he is, Serenadon is sort of puffing up Amy's hair. And I thought, are they doing this in order to make it less obvious later when they give her a surprise wig?

Bryan! (01:34:57.496) Is it a wig? No, well, the sudden change in hair color and the long hair is like supposed to be a part of her like vampiric transformation.

Peaches Christ (01:34:57.57) Probably.

Dave! (01:34:58.663) Oh, it is definitely a wig.

Dave! (01:35:07.574) They don't even bother to try to preempt any of this. They're just like, and then all of a sudden she has long hair, enjoy.

Peaches Christ (01:35:12.31) Hehehe

Bryan! (01:35:15.25) Yeah, and bigger boobs they molded fake rubber boobs for her to wear.

Dave! (01:35:18.474) Yeah, okay. Here's the thing that I, so here's another moment, like revisiting these movies and watching the special features because these movies were made at a time. You know, there are 70s and 80s when people who are now in their 60s and 70s were, you know, 20s and 30s. And to hear some of these guys be like, you know, and then she had, you know, we had to have her take her boobs out. Ha ha. And I'm like, Jesus fucking Christ. Do we have to do this?

Bryan! (01:35:46.163) Yeah, I know. I know. There's a there's a bit in it in some of that stuff. There's basically on the on the blu ray that came out of this. There's a really awesome fucking documentary called You're So Cool Brewster. It's three and a half hours long. Really, really long.

Dave! (01:35:59.038) Yeah, it is long. It is really. I made it two hours into it and I was like, I don't I can't commit this much of my life to this.

Peaches Christ (01:36:05.87) That is long. Wow.

Bryan! (01:36:07.243) No, I used it. I sourced a lot of from this and it's I had to do it in two sittings. But there's one part where she's got she's got the eye, the eye contacts in and she's got the mouth on and she keeps like bumping into shit and hitting her head. And she according to one of the sort of special effects technicians, she's like laughing it off because everybody's like, ah, and at a certain point, he's like, she was very clearly

Bryan! (01:36:35.751) compliance off of her. It was like we're done here. I think we got the shot. They're like actually no, we're not I need you to fix that So yeah, there were people on this on the set who were like, okay enough of this shit

Peaches Christ (01:36:39.622) Ah.

Dave! (01:36:45.99) And I ran into this another time when we watched Halloween and I listened to the commentary and Dean Cundy is sort of consummate professional DP. And he just sort of talks about the making of the film and the other two dudes every now and then they're just like, oh, now here we get to see PJ Sol's boobs. And it's like, for fuck's sake, you're a man in your 60s. Stop talking about that. I don't want to hear that.

Bryan! (01:37:11.996) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:37:12.32) Right.

Dave! (01:37:16.01) And it's just another reminder of like, yep, that's what they dealt with the whole time.

Bryan! (01:37:21.427) Yeah, yeah. So unable to resist his domination, she heads out to the dance floor with him where his sexy moves place her fully under his power. And at the same time, Charlie's on the phone imploring Peter to help him. Peter's too terrified to do anything. Charlie tries to break the spell that Jerry has over by throwing a punch, but Jerry handles him easily telling him to bring Peter to his house alone if he wants to save Amy. So now a couple of bouncers try to break up the action in the club.

Peaches Christ (01:37:22.035) Yeah, that's right.

Bryan! (01:37:50.927) end up getting killed by Jerry who goes half yes but I don't know from where

Dave! (01:37:52.61) Do you recognize one of those bouncers?

Yeah, because that's Ali from Friday Three. Yep. It should have been in it more. Love that guy. Don't know why he only gets a cameo.

Bryan! (01:37:59.92) Oh yes!

Peaches Christ (01:38:00.258) Really? I never put that together.

Bryan! (01:38:07.039) Yeah, but yeah, yeah. He kills both of them going half vampire mode, the chaotic rush to get out of the club Charlie and Amy are separated. Jerry is there to grab her bail. So he runs to Peter's house to beg for help, but he finds him getting ready to leave town, begs for Peter's help, but he's too scared to do anything. So Charlie goes to Jerry's house alone. But Jerry in the meantime puts on a little sexy music.

and Amy wakes up to find herself on a furry rug in a very sexy dress.

Dave! (01:38:39.01) This is he I feel and I don't know if it's because we in retrospect, we like we know that Amanda Bairce is a lesbian. And, you know, if you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you watched her on Married with Children. But like to try to sell her as a sexy character, it's a little bit of a hard sell.

Bryan! (01:39:01.967) I, you know, I'm gonna tell you what, like, to a degree, at a certain point, I'm like, okay, let's pull it back a little bit. But there's supposed to be, this whole thing is sort of like, she's like, virginal, and this is sort of her maturing, evolving, kind of becoming a woman that they're trying to put across. It kind of works for me.

Like I said, up to a point that a certain at a certain point, it's it just she becomes a part of the action.

Dave! (01:39:34.282) I mean, I think what I said to Michael last night was she was literally a replacement for divine on married with children. I mean.

Bryan! (01:39:42.399) That's funny. I had no idea.

Peaches Christ (01:39:45.081) Wait, that's not the role Divine was supposed to play.

Dave! (01:39:48.106) Well, Devine was supposed to be the neighbor.

Peaches Christ (01:39:50.614) Divine, yeah, and actually play a man, which was interesting. They were gonna have Divine, you know, right.

Dave! (01:39:53.31) Yeah. And then of course, Devine died and so they had to come up with something else. So they came up with this sort of Marcy Darcy character.

Peaches Christ (01:40:02.242) But I do agree with you that all of it feels, now that you say it, I can't stop thinking, oh my God, there was this sort of 11th hour draft, and of course Tom Holland and people are never going to admit that there was a closed meeting where they said this shit's too gay. You know, I mean, that is exactly what happened, you know?

Dave! (01:40:14.626) down.

Bryan! (01:40:16.279) Ahem.

Dave! (01:40:22.328) Yeah, I mean, there's no way. Yeah, there's.

Bryan! (01:40:22.543) Yeah. It's it's kind of the it's kind of the peril of doing this podcast is like we watch these movies in much like we don't necessarily watch them so much as we examine them. And in the process of that, we come to certain conclusions that like, honestly, we can really only speculate about. But that speculation makes a lot of sense when put in its proper context and like we're just we're seeing it here where it's

on its own as a casual watch this movie fucking rules. But when you really get into it and look at it at this sort of level of detail, it's like certain parts come across as very clunky.

Dave! (01:40:58.978) But I think also, and we'll get to this at the conclusion of the episode, but the thing is, we were all there. We grew up then. It's not like we didn't know that this was a homophobic time or an era of misogynistic time. It's not like this is a big surprise. And so I'm still able to look at this and say, yeah, I'm guessing this probably went before either a sort of test audience or before.

Peaches Christ (01:40:59.414) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave! (01:41:27.27) studio executives and they were like, no, we can't have this faggot shit in our movie. You have to prove that, you know, by the end of the movie, this has a heteronormative conclusion. I'm sure like, heteronormativity was shoved in our fucking faces every day. It's why we have so much internalized homophobia is because we were told it's okay if you're the queer best friend who dies tragically. It's not okay if you're the star of the story.

Peaches Christ (01:41:37.471) Yeah.

Dave! (01:41:55.05) That's why, like, I watch this stuff now and I'm like, yeah, of course that's the way it was. Like, I'm not, I'm not deluded. It's not like, oh my God, this is a revelation, but it is still interesting to be like, I can still like these movies, even though I know that's the way it was. I know that's the way it was, because I was there. We were all there, like.

Peaches Christ (01:42:11.402) Yeah, in this movie, like I think we all agree, it succeeds despite it and it's still likable. And I think part of it is just what all the actors bring. And I think Tom Holland, you know, was very, very competent and a good filmmaker, but these parts of it do feel like someone said, you know, you gotta get this into the script. And, you know, and...

Dave! (01:42:18.807) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:42:38.438) And I agree. I mean, what would be interesting is to know if they even, you know, cast Amanda, and there was a draft that was less, you know, obnoxious. And they were like, Nope, we need more. Nope, we need more. We need. Yeah, we need to see she needs to be sexier. Yeah, all of that. Interesting.

Dave! (01:42:49.93) Yeah, we need we need her more in your face.

Bryan! (01:42:55.123) Yeah.

Dave! (01:42:55.838) And I think that's the difference between a movie that is sort of didactic in telling you, you know, gay is bad. Because God knows there's plenty of those. I mean, that is the bulk of the movies that involve sort of homosexual themes throughout the 80s. This movie doesn't do that. It doesn't. It's sort of neutral on what you know, how you're supposed to feel. It's not going to tell you how to feel about it. Right.

Peaches Christ (01:43:14.798) Yeah, no, it's not sleepaway camp, you know, it's not like, like where the entire premise hinges on, you know, the discovery of, you know, these gay fathers and, you know, repressed, you know, a forced trans kid, you know, like, that movie is the piece de resistance, but we know that movie is in some ways, a ridiculous example of something that existed in more subtle ways in all movies, you know.

Bryan! (01:43:17.075) Yeah.

Dave! (01:43:24.502) Right.

Dave! (01:43:39.8) Yes.

Peaches Christ (01:43:43.126) for better or worse.

Dave! (01:43:44.162) But I think that also might be a little bit to its detriment in this case, because you do get that feeling that like this is somebody else's idea. This is someone else coming in and saying, no, you have to make it this way. You have to tone this down. And again, there's that lack of vision where the director says, OK, fine, I'll do that. And it compromises the story in a certain way.

Peaches Christ (01:43:49.604) Uh...

Peaches Christ (01:43:53.804) Right.

Bryan! (01:44:06.959) Yeah, I think it's why the evil head character feels so undercooked is because there were probably versions of this movie that existed on page that had way more of him, but as the Amy character was introduced it should she just kind of like that character sort of shoulders out all of that sort of Charlie and Ed stuff, which is why there's this kind of vaguely implied relationship between those two characters that.

seems to be a relic of an earlier version of the movie, you know?

Dave! (01:44:38.506) Yeah. And I mean, and Tom Holland has said as much, I mean, that there is his original draft of this was Peter Vincent, Charlie and Ed. That was the three characters. And so when they introduce this other character, they have to scale somebody back. And, you know, probably because the character of Peter Vincent was written for a larger star. Well, then who gets cut back? It's the sort of tertiary character.

Bryan! (01:45:02.503) Yeah, yeah. So again, under his power, Amy gives herself over to desire and Jerry bites her on the neck in the movie's replacement for a sex scene.

Dave! (01:45:12.702) And I mean, this is the part of the story that I'm like, I kind of lose a little bit of interest where I'm like, I don't fucking care about this. Either give me monsters, give me teens trying to kill the vampire, or like this weird like she's my long lost love. First of all, it is literally a plot line lifted from dark shadows. And it's also like, I don't care. This is boring and stupid.

Peaches Christ (01:45:18.391) Hehehehe

Bryan! (01:45:19.191) Hahaha

Bryan! (01:45:36.099) Oh, but you're about to get vampires and monsters and shit because we are turning the corner into the End the third act. So yeah, I'm convinced that he's gonna have to face Jerry alone Charlie goes to Jerry's house But he runs into Peter who has changed his mind gotten tough and intends to just destroy Jerry like a real vampire hunter He also brings a massive box containing all of his vampire hunter props Once inside they find Jerry waiting for them and Peter produces a cross addressing him like a

Dave! (01:45:38.442) Yeah. Yeah, they take us there.

Bryan! (01:46:04.679) movie vampire rolling is ours to which Jerry laughs.

Dave! (01:46:09.046) Wait, did you skip over the whole Evil Ed death scene? Okay.

Bryan! (01:46:12.327) No, that's coming up. So yeah, so Jerry, he crushes the cross and he says that you have to have faith in the cross for that trick to work.

Dave! (01:46:23.074) Which again, is an I think a nod to Salem's lot.

Peaches Christ (01:46:27.086) interesting.

Bryan! (01:46:27.327) Yeah, yeah, so he's about to kill Peter when Charlie forward charges forward with a cross of his own but this one works and it drives Jerry back and Charlie declares we're gonna make it just in time for Billy Cole to slide into the scene and knock him over the railing So Peter once again flees Leaving Billy on his own, but he runs next door to get Jerry's Charlie's mom Finding the phone lines cut up in a room. He thinks he finds her in bed asleep

but it's really Evil Ed wearing a red yarn wig like Raggedy Ann.

Dave! (01:46:58.214) In one of the weirdest moments of 80s anything.

Peaches Christ (01:46:59.63) Heheheheh! Yes!

Peaches Christ (01:47:06.062) It's like a, yeah, like it's, I guess it's sort of drag, but like the worst drag, yeah, the worst drag they could have pulled off, yeah.

Bryan! (01:47:10.551) It's bizarre.

Dave! (01:47:10.59) It just looks like a mop head just like plopped on.

Dave! (01:47:16.77) That's just like real lazy Halloween drag.

Bryan! (01:47:17.335) Yeah, it's like it's like it's like it's like drag on ten bucks at spirit Halloween, you know It's so yeah, he demands to know where his mother is and Ed informs her that she's working nights and It seems his dinner is in the oven

Peaches Christ (01:47:22.69) Yeah.

Dave! (01:47:31.28) Oh, she left a note.

Peaches Christ (01:47:32.279) Hehehe

Dave! (01:47:37.379) Oooo

Bryan! (01:47:39.343) which is my favorite part of the entire movie. And we have been doing that at each other for like 30 years. Yeah.

Dave! (01:47:42.095) That has always been my favorite part. Yep.

Peaches Christ (01:47:44.318) Yeah.

Dave! (01:47:47.928) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:47:50.122) And that's why we're here tonight, discussing this movie.

Dave! (01:47:52.022) Yep.

Bryan! (01:47:56.51) Yeah. Uh, so yeah, they struggle a little bit. Peter's not

Dave! (01:47:58.746) I mean, he looks great too. He looks like a fucking mess in this scene. Like it's not just, the wig is stupid, but like the makeup in this part is really, really cool because he looks gnarly.

Bryan! (01:48:02.926) Oh yeah.

Bryan! (01:48:06.679) Yeah, so yeah, because like Jerry has the sort of monster form, but he has these like grades of vampire where sometimes he's just got fangs, other times he looks like an animal, but like Evil Ed looks like a fucking monster.

Dave! (01:48:21.79) And he's like deteriorating over the course of the film.

Peaches Christ (01:48:24.521) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:48:25.215) Mm. And so yeah, they struggle. He gets knocked. Peter gets knocked out into the hallway. And now Ed emerges from the bedroom in a fucking awesome scene because he's now a wolf with red glowing eyes and he.

Dave! (01:48:37.982) And I think this is where that weirdness in tone comes in because we have this moment where he pops up on the bed, he's got the kind of yarn wig on, it's really comical. And then it transitions nicely into something that is a little bit weird and a little bit menacing, but then it goes full on menacing and it's like the transition doesn't quite work.

Bryan! (01:49:03.259) Uh, I mean I suppose I don't I don't

Dave! (01:49:05.234) A scene as cool as hell. I'm not, I would not negate that, but like it just feels a little bit weird to be off. From the goofy raggedy Ann wig to an actual monster is like, okay, it's a hard turn.

Bryan! (01:49:16.227) Oh, it is it is a it is a breakneck change of pace for sure. But he charges that Peter, who manages to run him through with a broken piece of the railing, he falls down to the to the bottom floor. And so dying the wolf.

Peaches Christ (01:49:21.11) Hehehehe

Dave! (01:49:31.382) This is an 18 hour makeup. How do you even do that?

Bryan! (01:49:34.271) I know I cannot imagine I would go insane if I had to. Yeah. So, yeah, he gradually transforms back into Ed while Peter watches and it's a really touching moment because like

Peaches Christ (01:49:34.667) Mmm.

Dave! (01:49:38.922) He had to sleep in the chair.

Peaches Christ (01:49:41.814) Yeah, that is nightmarish.

Bryan! (01:49:53.155) Ed is dying. He has this kind of moment where it's like this has been all for not. And at the same time, Peter Vincent is like, holy shit, I can actually do this. But seeing it and it happened. Dying in front of him and he's like pleading wordlessly pleading with him like it's a fucking amazing moment. It's probably what it's probably the best scene in the entire movie like dramatically speaking.

Dave! (01:50:04.214) but also there's a teenage boy dying in front of me.

Dave! (01:50:16.882) Oh, I think hands down, you know, and because he conveys, you know, Stephen Jefferies conveys so much just with his face.

Bryan! (01:50:24.059) and under layers upon layers of makeup.

Dave! (01:50:25.994) Yeah. And I think when you contextualize it to sort of in retrospect, you have these sort of, you know, two gay men doing this death scene in 1985 when, you know, the images of gay men that you saw in 1985 were just harrowing and absolutely heartbreaking. You know, just look at the fucking Nan Golding photographs from that period. And like, I feel like it's hard to not think of that.

when you see this beautiful moment when it's like you have this older man who wants to help realizes that this isn't what he thought it was going to be and then you have a younger man who also realizes it's not what he thought it was going to be. It's just a very touching moment and this is that this is that scene where it's like if we had a build-up to this if they had really let us have that relationship between either Charlie and Ed or you know all three of them.

Bryan! (01:51:01.287) Ahem.

Peaches Christ (01:51:06.798) Mm-hmm.

Dave! (01:51:18.198) This really would have been a remarkable moment in not just in horror film, I think just in film in general, but because it goes through so many iterations and so many revisions, we're just sort of left with this moment that is still beautiful, but feels a little bit flat.

Bryan! (01:51:33.575) It could have been better, I agree, but it's still, it is a remarkable moment in the entire movie. It's just so, so great.

Dave! (01:51:37.91) Yeah. I mean, it's deeply affecting no matter what they do, because I think the acting in this moment is really top-notch.

Bryan! (01:51:46.323) Yeah, so up to this point, the special effects have been pretty light with a couple of like mild tricks. But from here on out, things are going to get effects heavy and I fucking love it.

Dave! (01:51:54.806) Yeah, you get the feeling they saved their money for this.

Bryan! (01:51:57.187) Yeah, so most of the crew in this movie was fresh off of Ghostbusters, and some of them worked with Rick Baker and Rob Boutin on their respective werewolf movies. So there's this

Dave! (01:52:06.026) Yeah, some of the effects are literally fresh off of Ghostbusters.

Bryan! (01:52:09.691) Oh yeah yeah, but there's a one-upmanship to Fright Night where they want to do all of that transformation stuff in much greater detail. And also these were the early days of special effects contact lenses, and so there's a lot of contact lenses on the vampires at the end here. I cannot, I cannot imagine, so these are literally hard plastic shells.

Dave! (01:52:23.837) Oh.

This shit sounds rough. I mean literally and figuratively.

Bryan! (01:52:35.499) So, so, you know, maybe you're familiar with them, but nowadays, like a special effects contact lenses are like the ones that people have been putting in their eyes since your contact lenses began. They're soft, they're pliable, they're reasonably comfortable to wear at.

Dave! (01:52:48.834) So I guess for anyone who doesn't know that I have worn glasses most of my life, if you put contacts in, you literally have to take the thing, get it on the tip of your finger, put it into your eye. You have to touch your eye, basically. And back in the 80s, this was they were made of hard plastic.

Bryan! (01:53:01.8) Yep.

Peaches Christ (01:53:02.667) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:53:07.935) hard plastic shells that are placed over the eye and under the lids.

Dave! (01:53:12.518) And so they would paint onto the lens, whatever color or thick detail this was supposed to show. And in the case of Amanda Beers, they painted them, but forgot to sand down the other side that touches the eye. So she puts these hard, hard lenses into her eye and it still has, like, flecks of whatever on the other side scratching her eye. And they're all just like, whoops.

Bryan! (01:53:28.541) Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:53:29.142) Hmm.

Peaches Christ (01:53:37.877) Ugh.

Bryan! (01:53:38.519) Yeah, yeah, you can only. Yeah, they can only all the oh shit. There is a moment with the dying werewolf scene where they have they have the, they, you know, it's all truly a drippy and shit. And what they use for that, that saliva effect is something called methyl cellulose it's like a thickener, and what they did when they were doing.

Dave! (01:53:59.099) Oh god.

Bryan! (01:54:02.939) with Jefferies in the dying werewolf scene is they were pouring this stuff on the eyes and in the mouth and shit as he's dying and then he's inside the thing freaking out going like what the fuck is this tastes terrible and they're like

Dave! (01:54:15.918) Spoiler alert, it's glue.

Bryan! (01:54:17.939) They were putting like the prosthetic glue in when they thought it was the methylcellulose. And it like it like, it glued his mouth half shut. And the only reason that it didn't all get up in his eyes and stuff is because they were pouring it on the glass eye section of the wolf. Good God, I cannot fucking imagine. Yeah, also there's

Dave! (01:54:34.414) It's like the fucking Wild West. It's like when they made Creepshow and like the fluffy puppet like ripped off Tom Savini's hand.

Bryan! (01:54:44.663) There's parts in that documentary of some of the effects guys also getting like really badly hurt with contact with noxious chemicals and like solvents and stuff like that, acids that burned them. Like the effect, the Jerry Dandridge death scene at the end sounds dangerous as fuck and I'll get to that when we get there.

Peaches Christ (01:55:07.05) You just probably, I mean, comparing this all to the way movies are made today, or the way that, I mean, I hate to say it, but just the way that younger people are, you just would never get away with it. I just read this thing about this background actor suing the producers of Maxine, including Ty West and Mia Goth, because of the, you know, the, when you read the complaint and the lawsuit, you're kind of like,

Bryan! (01:55:29.944) Ugh.

Peaches Christ (01:55:36.79) I mean, I'm gonna get canceled for saying this, but you're kind of like, you're just a fucking whiner. You know, like horror movies are hard, you know, like apparently Mia Goth kicked him or something. And it's like, I mean, and the blood, you know, was sticky and hard to get off his body. And I'm just like, maybe I should reread it. Maybe I have a feeling your listeners are gonna be like, Peaches Christ is a fucking monster. But part of me is kind of like,

Bryan! (01:55:39.762) Hahaha

Dave! (01:55:44.918) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:55:45.574) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:56:00.151) You know, you know, you know it.

Peaches Christ (01:56:04.714) Are you kidding? Like, making movies is hard, you know?

Bryan! (01:56:05.912) I know.

Dave! (01:56:07.682) I mean, I don't honestly I don't think you're wrong. And I'm about to get I'm about to be right there next to you. But like I work on a show that is highly criticized a lot. It's like I write for a true crime show. And and so there's a you know, it's a it's a precarious position. But like in this age of social media where people are so quick to just be like, well, how dare you? And it's like, do you realize that Boris Karloff would get like thrown down the fucking stairs day after day?

Peaches Christ (01:56:19.727) Ah, okay.

Dave! (01:56:36.99) And it's not OK that happened, but at the same time, it's like, hey, man, this is fucking punk rock. What we're doing, we're making horror movies. And there's something about that cache. And I, you know, I don't want to advocate for like bad working conditions, but there is something about like, you know, just suck it up a little bit like you're doing a real cool fucking thing that nobody else gets to do. Like a handful of people get to do. I'm sorry if your feelings got hurt or if you like, you know, you sprained an ankle, but like

Bryan! (01:56:44.744) Yeah.

Bryan! (01:57:00.383) Yeah.

Dave! (01:57:07.146) I don't know.

Peaches Christ (01:57:07.63) I mean, having made a horror movie myself with a lot of practical effects, I'll say that the actors and what you're describing in Fright Night is like a lot of people just don't give them the credit they deserve. Poor Mink Stole in my movie had to have her mouth sewn shut and wear a prosthetic. The mouth sewing shut was actually stressful enough because to get it correct, we actually just had Natasha Lyonne stick a needle through Mink's lips.

where it was like a fraction of, if Natasha had hit the wrong mark slightly, it would have pierced her actual skin. So you can imagine me watching the monitor, you know, and thinking, I mean, we don't want, you know, Hall of Hell to break loose on the set. And Mink doesn't suffer fools, you know, like she's been put through the wringer. She did not want her lip to be pierced. But despite that, which we succeeded in doing that,

Bryan! (01:57:42.237) UGH!

Bryan! (01:57:48.337) Oh my God.

Peaches Christ (01:58:02.402) Then we have two sets, two days where she has to sit on an attic floor with a prosthetic piece, you know, on her mouth. So she can't talk, she can't eat, she can't drink water. You know, like, actors go through hell to make these movies.

Bryan! (01:58:18.023) Yeah, let's name that movie because All About Evil is a hell of a movie. Yeah.

Peaches Christ (01:58:21.808) Thank you. Thank you, but you know

Dave! (01:58:22.126) There you go. Available from NeverinFilms on Blu-ray today. Go buy it.

Peaches Christ (01:58:27.286) That's right. Or if you get shut or you can watch it there. So, Oh yeah, yeah. Go buy the Blu-ray, go buy the Blu-ray. But sometimes I will say this for collectors, it's good to have it streaming cause they'll watch it and then decide, oh, I need to own that, you know.

Dave! (01:58:30.438) Oh, stop it, stop that. Make them go buy the DVD.

Bryan! (01:58:36.164) No, I can't.

Bryan! (01:58:44.583) Yeah, yeah, no, but to get to the point of like the shit that people go through to make these movies, like I certainly appreciate that. I understand why visual effects are so prevalent today because they're cheap and it's easy and you don't have to clean up a blood spill constantly in between takes if you don't get it on the first shot. Like it's it it's a fucking matter of like insurance, I'm sure also. But like I certainly appreciate.

a good, like a dangerous stunt or like a really elaborate physical effect because there's a there's a craftsmanship to it, there's a skill to it, and there's a like a tangibility and a physicality to it that like these, you know, the way that they're doing it now does not have and it doesn't thrill me in the same way. So like

Dave! (01:59:34.286) And I think that's a really interesting and good point is like, you know, this isn't just about a badge of honor for doing something reckless. This is about people trying to really push the boundaries with such limited budgets. I mean, these movies had no money ever. And so you had people coming in like, let's be as fucking creative as possible. Now, it was a little bit reckless and sometimes a lot bit reckless. But like, this was not just people being like, you know, whatever, I don't give a shit about this woman.

Bryan! (01:59:49.383) Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dave! (02:00:03.174) Sometimes that did happen, you know, Friday the 13th, part four. But there were for the most part like this is people really trying to stretch the limits of their craft and doing cool shit. And that is what horror was really kind of all about in the 80s was like it wasn't just that these were fun and fantastical stories. That was what they were. But it was that we saw new things and exciting things. And those things were not easy to do and they were a little bit dangerous. And that made them even cooler.

Bryan! (02:00:06.539) Mm-hmm.

Dave! (02:00:31.446) And those people should really be honored for what they did and what they went through. I mean, this isn't just like some weird outsider art where someone would nail themselves to a fucking car hood. Like they were doing this for our entertainment because it was something that they really loved and believed in. I don't think that excuses a lot of the shit that happened, but I don't want it to always be dismissed. It's just like these were reckless men, you know, sort of trifling with the lives of women. Like it just.

Peaches Christ (02:00:36.127) Yeah.

Dave! (02:00:58.462) I don't know. I think it gets dismissed too easily. And I think we're at a point now where it's just like, well, just do a CGI. And we're learning like, well, CGI doesn't do the same.

Peaches Christ (02:01:06.869) Mm.

Bryan! (02:01:09.127) Ah, so back to the movie. Jerry now has Charlie captive, leaves him in the room with Amy, who quivers on the floor in the white dress. He leaves him with a wooden stake, and after he leaves, Charlie discovers that Amy has been turned into a vampire. So, back at Charlie's house, Peter then retrieves the broken railing from Ed's dead body, and now, empowered with his ability to actually kill a vampire, heads over to Jerry's house, which is literally pouring fog.

and he charges into the house and he finds Charlie. Dude the way that the fog is like just rolling down off the top of the house and the way that it's lit from the top it looks so cool and so yeah I'm gonna do that even though I'm connected to my neighbor's house in both directions I'm just gonna do it to my house. So Peter retrieves the whaling. Oh yeah so he charges into the house.

Dave! (02:01:40.814) See, that's what I want my apartment to be.

Peaches Christ (02:01:42.986) Hehehe

Bryan! (02:02:05.135) finds Charlie there, and if they can kill Jerry before dawn, they can save Amy. So now they're confronted on the steps by Billy, who Peter shoots in the head. But this isn't enough to stop Billy, who suddenly sits up like Michael Myers at the end of Halloween.

Dave! (02:02:19.03) this is a cool death. Like this is a great death scene. I mean, I think it speaks to the idea that like you never really knew what this character was. Nobody in this movie knew what the point of Billy was or what he is. But it's a real cool death scene.

Bryan! (02:02:21.508) I love it.

Bryan! (02:02:31.339) It's super gross. Because yeah, so he struggles with Peter in a moment of vulnerability. Charlie runs him through with the board and Jerry, that Jerry left him with to kill Amy. And then Billy like, he melts. And also he's got like a, he's got a contact in that like after he gets shot, like his eyeball, like one eyeball turned hard to the left or something. It's such a cool looking thing. But all of a sudden he's pouring slime like you can't do that on television.

Dave! (02:02:52.524) Yeah.

Bryan! (02:02:59.783) just running out the bottom of his pants. And he, it's almost like the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he kind of like is reduced to a skeleton that just like falls down the steps and just bursts into like a cloud of bones. It's a really great.

Dave! (02:03:12.45) In what is a kind of a goofy shot because they all the bones all kind of go tumbling down the stairs in the very 1950s way that I think is fantastic.

Bryan! (02:03:18.582) Yeah.

Yeah, it's great. So now Amy is now worse, almost fully vamped out. Her hair is now long and red for some reason. And Jerry meanwhile calls to her to awaken from the rooftop, commanding her to kill Peter and Charlie. So back at the top of the steps, though, Jerry leaps through the window. And Peter P produces the cross which works this time, which stops Jerry, who is now stuck between the rising sun and the sign of the cross, which makes me wonder

Did Peter Vincent find God in this moment? Was this a riddle?

Dave! (02:03:54.11) I don't think anybody, I feel like at this point, they're just like, just wrap this shit up everybody. We blew through our $8 million. Let's call it a day.

Bryan! (02:03:58.281) Hehehehehehe

Bryan! (02:04:03.82) that. That. So to escape Jerry turns into a bat, and he attacks Peter, who drags him into the sunlight that causes Jerry to flee to the basement. And so now.

Dave! (02:04:15.382) In all of this, so this ending is very, what year was VAMP? Was that 84? Okay, because I feel like VAMP, the ending of VAMP is very reminiscent of this.

Bryan! (02:04:20.039)

1. So it was the next year. I, yep, very similar where like they kind of like they break that part and there comes the sun and then they break that part and here comes the sun and now they're trapped between the beams of the light. I just...

Peaches Christ (02:04:21.821) Mmm.

Dave! (02:04:32.418) Yeah, it's very kind of video game ish where they're dodging the bursts of sunlight.

Bryan! (02:04:38.663) So yeah, Charlie is in the basement and he's confronted by Amy, who sort of confronts him with his weakness and his inability to save her. And vulnerable, totally falling for it. She turns to attack Charlie now with that gigantic shark's mouth.

Peaches Christ (02:04:57.079) Hehehe

Bryan! (02:04:59.154) And so.

Dave! (02:04:59.39) And I mean, so we were watching this in 4K. It looks a little goofy. I still think it looks really cool.

Bryan! (02:05:05.087) I still think it looks great. I think it's one of the cooler effects in the movie.

Dave! (02:05:08.142) Because it's that wide, giant grin that is so off-putting.

Bryan! (02:05:13.292) Mm-hmm. Edit.

Peaches Christ (02:05:13.886) Yeah, it's a statement too. And I've noticed it's like been sort of used symbolically. Like, well, being in the haunted attraction industry, I've seen a lot of masks and things that mimic that look. They're not necessarily Fright Night, but they're that crazy giant mouth, you know? And it's a fabulous, it was a fabulous new monster look.

Dave! (02:05:33.556) Mm-hmm.

Dave! (02:05:38.63) Yeah, it's very cool.

Bryan! (02:05:38.803) Yeah, yeah, I love, I love the death. Also, it seems to be on a hinge because like it moves a little bit. And it's what every time I look at it, it's like, where is her actual jaw in this? Because like when it opens, it opens very wide. So it's a.

Dave! (02:05:53.782) Yeah, it's a very, it's a very cool, the prosthetic is really cool because it is blended so well that it doesn't feel like, you know, faces when you add that much shit to them can look a little puffy. And this doesn't this looks like it is a very, it's very well integrated into her face. It's, you know, the teeth look a little, but the rest of it is real cool. Yeah.

Bryan! (02:06:04.831) Hmm.

Bryan! (02:06:12.543) Yeah, they're all snaggletooth. Yeah. So Peter, meanwhile, he finds the hidden compartment where Jerry keeps his coffin finds him sleeping there, scarred by the sun. Peter attempts to stake him, but Jerry is able to resist him. He does that thing like in Nosferatu where Count Orlok like rises up like on a hinge on his feet. And he throws the stake which breaks one of the basement windows, letting the little son in.

So then Charlie takes to breaking all the windows, trapping Jerry and ultimately setting fire to him. And so this effect is that super dangerous one that I was talking about before. So what they did was they placed over, especially essentially a leftover dummy from Ghostbusters that didn't get used. And they put like flash paper with the printed image of Jerry's like vampire face over it.

and then they soaked the model in glycerin and nitric acid and then pump no and then they pumped it full of sulfuric acid which turns it into nitroglycerin and so it combusts on contact which is yeah which is why it has that sort of like eruption of green flame and then he's like consumed but it's such a cool fucking effect because it ultimately consumes the entire model like the

Dave! (02:07:13.686) That's never going anywhere good.

Dave! (02:07:23.294) Yeah, so they made a bomb. They made a Jerry Dandridge bomb.

Bryan! (02:07:37.635) is reduced to smoke. Like there's nothing.

Dave! (02:07:40.618) Yeah, well it sounds like they almost consumed the entire Disney backlot in Green's Flame, too.

Bryan! (02:07:45.791) Yeah, but it's a fucking hell of an effect. So now with Jerry dead and gone reduced to literally nothing. Amy is saved and Jerry's house is back on the market. So so sometimes later at Charlie's house, he's making out with Amy in his room. Well, Friday night plays on TV. Peter addresses Charlie directly and introduces an alien stocks the campground slasher movie, which is actually the movie Octoman, which is fucking terrible, but

Dave! (02:07:54.734) Boo, Amy. Boo, heteronormativity.

Peaches Christ (02:07:57.526) There you go.

Bryan! (02:08:15.443) It's worth a watch.

Dave! (02:08:16.91) So what I what I like about this moment, I hate the whole heteronormativity thing. Again, that feels shoehorned in. What I do kind of like is that throughout one of the underlying themes of this is that it's that idea that these older movies are still relevant today, these older themes, these older stories are still relevant today. And by saying we're not going to do this, we're going to do this sort of newer style. It's blending those two things together.

Bryan! (02:08:43.336) Yeah.

Dave! (02:08:43.486) And I feel like that's like that is a nice conclusion to your idea that you can have these new 80s sort of hot new stories and still have these relevant characters and relevant themes. And then they just kind of fucking blow it at the end.

Bryan! (02:08:57.295) Yeah, yeah, Charlie goes to check. I know they could have apparently originally in this scene. The original scripted ending was Peter Vincent like was bitten at some point turned into a vampire. He vamps out on TV to which producers were like you can't fucking do that, which. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Dave! (02:08:58.998) Let's just end on that. Leave it there.

Dave! (02:09:13.214) It's also the end of the howling, so.

Bryan! (02:09:18.131) But yeah, what he does is he goes to Charlie goes to shut the TV off and he gets us he spots a pair of red eyes for a second Jerry's former residence. And then they blink. And we hear evil Ed say you're so cool Brewster. We fade to black, play that Jay guiles band theme song and we roll credits. Fright night. Yep.

Dave! (02:09:25.143) Ugh.

Peaches Christ (02:09:35.702) Hehehehehehe

Dave! (02:09:35.79) God damn, god damn it.

Well, all right. So, Peaches, as I've alluded to several times, we revisit these movies to see how they still hold up today. And so I'm going to ask you first. We have talked a lot about this movie over the last 17 hours we've been talking. How do you feel that Fright Night works today in 2024?

Bryan! (02:09:56.883) Hahaha

Peaches Christ (02:10:07.438) Like I said, recently screened it for an audience. But I think part of why I like it so much is that it has less cringe than a lot of these nostalgia films do. And in that way, I really appreciate it. I think because of the post sort of release awareness around people like Amanda Beers and Stephen Jefferies. It has more of a queer celebration.

than it ever intended to, you know, because we've got Roddy McDowell, we've got Steven, we've got Amanda, and then we've got a queer, you know, subtext running through the whole film. So I think it's quite good, but I honestly, Dave, you've sold me on your criticisms. I think they're all fair and valid. And I agree that, you know, we're sort of having to overlook some of the poor, basically script decisions more than anything, you know.

Dave! (02:11:05.104) Yeah.

Bryan! (02:11:05.683) Yeah, no, I agree. Like in spite of the fact like we've been, we've been very critical of it and sort of like really sorting it out and finding the weak spots in it. But as a movie itself, I love it to death. You know, this kind of like examination of it did nothing to sort of dissuade the notion that like this is an all time favorite of mine. I love it to death. It is.

Peaches Christ (02:11:27.586) I agree.

Bryan! (02:11:29.695) There's a thing about like I really don't like falling for like naked nostalgia, but there is a quality to this that kind of reminds me of a very brief time in my childhood when a thing like Fright Night was Was actually like a thing like we didn't have a horror host in our in our town We but we did have like a monster movie show and Saturday afternoons and that was a major vector for discovering horror it was all you know schlocky 50s stuff, but without

Dave! (02:11:58.494) Is a huge influence on both of us. Like it's undeniable.

Bryan! (02:12:00.231) Yeah, like without the creature double feature, like I'm not this person that I am today, you know? So like it really does kind of remind me of that and sort of, I don't know, it feels like just out of reach, like some part of me wishes that I could sort of recreate something like that. But this movie is as close as I get to it. And, you know, it's full of really great characters. It's got great performances. I do love the story to death.

I don't know, I can't like apart from just like these very valid criticisms, I still I feel like it's definitely stands on its own. And it's not diminished in any in any way for me. I could

Dave! (02:12:41.898) Yeah, I would I agree with all of that. I think I think that, you know, narratively, there are problems. And I think that in terms of consistency and coherence, there's some meddling that I'm sure comes from the outside. But the tone of the movie is one of fun and sort of whimsy. And it is it is something that appreciates the past while still trying to be relevant in the present.

And I think now, especially now that we know, you know, the Amanda Barriss and Stephen Jeffries and Roddy McDowell, like all the queer influence and the fact that it is being embraced again for those qualities and the fact that everybody else that worked on the movie can look at it and say, hey, that's cool. I'm super happy. Like the fact that Tom Holland is just like, well, I didn't intend it, liar. But the fact that he's just sort of like.

Bryan! (02:13:33.262) Hahaha

Dave! (02:13:34.71) That's great, too. It's like, you know what? That makes it feel good to me. Like, it feels good now that some, you know, it's not like nightmare to where he's like, well, I certainly didn't mean to do that. I think fuck you. Like, you get the feeling that it's just like the you know, when Tom Holland says, I'm so glad that people still love it and still find new things about it and like that, I think that is the sign of a movie that lasts that when you we know we watched Black Christmas and Halloween recently. It's like every time I watch these movies, I find new things.

Peaches Christ (02:13:46.672) Mm-hmm.

Dave! (02:14:03.67) That's the sign of something that is really has lasting quality. And I would not put this movie against either of those two, but the fact that we can still watch it today and people can still find relevance in it, still find things to love and discover new things and that the people who made it say, well, I didn't mean it for that, but I'm so glad you found it and that's fantastic. That makes it all the better. And I think that, yeah, it's a little clumsy, it stumbles here and there. There's some bits and pieces that maybe don't hold up so great, but it, the,

the tone of it and everything underlying it is just so wonderful. It's and I think it still works.

Peaches Christ (02:14:41.482) Well, I agree with both of you.

Bryan! (02:14:42.227) Yeah. All right. Pigeon's Christ. Thank you so much for joining us. This is a this is this has been great. It's been a lot of fun. You are very, very busy. And I would like you to tell everybody listening where they can find you and what you're up to.

Dave! (02:14:48.78) Absolutely.

Peaches Christ (02:14:51.682) Thank you for having me.

Peaches Christ (02:14:59.71) Well, I'm on all the social media, although I did get off X when Mr. Musk, which I couldn't take it anymore. Not that Zuckerberg is much better, but like Elon just does too much for me. So I'm off that, but I'm on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok now. So yeah, peacheschrist.com is where you can find me. The biggest thing I have coming up right now is Mink Stole and I are gonna go out and do our two.

Bryan! (02:15:04.479) Good.

Peaches Christ (02:15:27.81) person cabaret show in San York, Salem, Massachusets,

Dave! (02:15:33.486) Mm-hmm.

Bryan! (02:15:34.546) Ooh, I think we're gonna have to go to that.

Bryan! (02:15:42.675) All right, all right. Dave, what are we doing next?

Dave! (02:15:45.314) Hmm. Well, this here show, Bring Me the Axe, we will be back in two weeks with a little film called X-Ray that I have discovered only but a year ago. It blew my goddamn mind apart into a million pieces. And we're going to be back. We're going to be talking with some other guests about it. I'm very excited about them. Please find it. It is on Tubi. It is the weirdest, wildest horror movie I've ever seen.

Bryan! (02:15:58.388) I cannot.

Bryan! (02:16:10.987) I'm sorry.

Dave! (02:16:12.01) But before then, we will be back in one week with 99 Set Rental. We're talking about Phantom of the Paradise, another movie I love.

Bryan! (02:16:19.611) Yes, this is going to be great. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I cannot wait. So

Peaches Christ (02:16:23.294) And that reminds me, I should have mentioned I also have a podcast called the Midnight Mass, Midnight Mass podcast. So if you love these kinds of podcasts, you can check out our podcast. Your Phantom of the Paradise plug reminded me because we've done that movie as well. Yeah.

Dave! (02:16:26.615) Nope!

Bryan! (02:16:26.643) Hahaha

Dave! (02:16:36.042) Yeah. And I'm going to say it right up. I'm a say it right now. I am a person who does not like a lot of things. I do not have a lot of tolerance for bullshit. And I will say Midnight Mass podcast with Peaches Christ. Michael Varaddi is one of my favorites. So do not miss it. If you if you never heard of it, look it up. Find it. It is fantastic.

Peaches Christ (02:16:50.427) Ah, thank you.

Bryan! (02:16:51.315) Yeah.

Bryan! (02:16:55.851) All right, we'll be back.

Peaches Christ (02:16:55.97) Thank you. Alright, thanks for having me!