What a nice room Brad. This is a real classy place.
We've gotta talk. You've gotta answer some questions. Like what? Like that old man?
Was anything he said true? Uh stupid old man.
Kept me weak by feeding me animal brains while they drained me like two shriveled parasites. They kept me weak, but I still left them. Is that what you want, Brian? Want me to leave you too? No, no, I just I just Damn right you don't. So what are we doing here?
Look, I just want to sort things out. You've got me so I can't think clearly. I can't function clearly. And I thought you were having such a good time. I was. I I am, but.
But I think something awful happened last night and I can't remember it. I don't remember where I went or who I met or what I did. All I remember is feeling something sticky in my pants and then finding them covered in blood. And not my blood.
Part of my talent, Brian, is to spare you any unpleasantness. Yeah, but when it comes to blood in my underwear, I want to know how it got there. Well, it's no big deal. Nothing to get upset about. Came from that girl at the club. What?
A girl whose brains I ate. What? The blood came from a girl whose brains I sucked out.
You sucked out her brains? Yeah. Right through her mouth. Is she dead? Of course she's dead. What are you kidding? What are you telling me that we killed someone last night?
No, no, I don't! How about the Night Watchman? Remember him? The Night Watchman? Yeah. Sucked him dry in a junkyard. First night we went out. Oh my god. Wanna hear the details? NO!
You're a rick, Brian. You've got to relax. Why don't you put me on your neck?
down no way it's not gonna happen again what is killing people oh I thought you meant getting high we can't keep killing people every time you're hungry
Do anything I want us to do. You're mine now, Brian. I own you. Praise the Lord for bringing us this generous.
Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Wait, wait. I worry what you just heard was give me a lot of bacon and eggs. What I said was give me
Hello folks and uh welcome to the Cinemabeef podcast. I am uh one of your hosts and damn glad to be here, damn glad to meet ya as as the man said. And uh
I'm Gary. Um I'm I'm I'm rambling already. See this works it's just been a long time. But uh with me tonight is folks folks you know and I'm I'm excited to tell you those folks are right now.
Uh my brother i in Knoxville, Tennessee, uh
You you know'em. You love him. Mr. X, how you doing, sir? I'm doing all right. How is everyone doing out there in T V land? Oh, do doing doing great, man. Doing great. Um
also with us tonight in this this rotating cast. We'll talk about that later. It's uh our band and
I forget which part of California this gentleman's from, but you know, you know him, you love him for the No More Room and Hell podcast and other other endeavors. Mr Mike Merriman, how you doing, sir?
I'm doing great. I hear some familiar voices that I actually haven't heard in the podcasting capacity in a minute, or at least with me.
on a show. So I am super excited and ladies and gentlemen the beef has been dry aging for a while. So we're ready to take it out of the locker and get going. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, Iris is supposed to be here but she has some stuff going on, so next time Iris will join us it'll be like a m we're mine it's a Tilly, but we're having mini a theme warriors reunion on this here podcast and um
showing the wave of machine for that one. I used to enjoy that show quite a bit and uh
It's good to have uh friends and this is my goal of goals. I it's trying to get friends back together again that I haven't talked to in a while and y you know, so I talked to more, but you know, it just um You miss people!
Cellar what's what's this stuff?
The rumour is, Gary, that if you say Theme Warriors three times, we will have to get Doug Tilly on a future episode as well. So just keep that in mind. He is he is welcome.'Cause I I happen to like the the the match with Tilly, but you know
He keeps himself so busy with the the Cinemas Mortgage Board uh podcast uh network.
of many, many shows, if you guys have checked it out, him and Liam throw down, if you will, on many a many a subject, many an actor, uh
Interchanged that started with one Eric Roberts and yes, it's uh they do a great job over there. Uh But yeah, tonight we're here and um
to talk about film and the the the love of film and you know the the the sliminess of it all if you will. And I'll kick it to number one, Mr. Mike Merriman. What you been watching lately, sir?
Well I just saw Scream Seven. I just talked about it on two different podcasts on my own uh fresh cuts with Mr. Venom.
The one and only Donnadelli. And then I was also a guest on uh the 22 Shots of Moods and Horror, which I think that episode's going up tonight.
uh where we talked about the I guess you considered the new trilogy of Scream Five Six Seven. So I'm all screamed out, if you can imagine. Um
What else? Psycho I mean uh pretty much you name a new release horror movie that's in the theater and I've probably seen it. I I see most.
uh that in the theater. I saw a pretty neat one on Shudder called uh Honey Bunch, which was pretty it was like a eerie little flick about ask the question the when does like uh
care become control. I I like the little theme in that one. Um I just watched Hop Fuzz and Shawn of the Dead. Probably gonna watch The World's End tonight later to round off that trilogy.
Um, I mean I could keep going. I'll I'll I'll keep it brief'cause like I've been I I watch tons of movies as we all do, but uh
Yeah. Just think new releases in the theater probably have seen it. And then I I've actually picked up collecting a little bit lately. I I was kind of like done.
buying physical media early in the Blu-ray era. So like
a lot of the four K's I'm buying aren't even like rebuying. It's just stuff I had never bought before. So I I feel less guilty spending money on stuff for the first time as opposed to like the third, fourth time with all the
different uh media uh advances we've had, but yeah, that's just a small piece of it. So uh I'll I'll pass it on to the next guy.
Cool. X. What you watching, man? I finally snagged the 4K uh UHD set of The House with Laughing Windows from Arrow. And that movie
It's been on the top of my please let a boutique label give this movie the treatment it deserves wish list for like a decade. So I was really glad to see it because the transfer just looks amazing. It's
It's pristine and it's wonderful. I love that movie. It's really creepy and it builds up a lot of distrust and confusion within the characters.
Really organically, it doesn't feel like there's a total shift going on until you realize, oh crap, what is actually happening here?
So great set, got a book, got a poster, super, super pleased with that.
Um and that's about it as far as movies. I know I'm I'm reading my way through Lord of the Rings'cause I promised my wife, the Cootie Bug, that I would.
And then I need to start reading uh Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pinchon.
So after all that, I'll probably just read some Sweet Valley High to get rid of all the serious literature uh in my head. And I don't know, for music
'Cause I'm a Renaissance man. Film and books and music. Listen to failure, listen to chat pile, listen to crippling alcoholism, and listen to stacking thirds to heaven. You'll thank me later.
Uh I gotta write these down, see, you know. I can send you the list. Do it, man. Do it.
Oh man, I was I was trolling Tubi and this is always a good thing'cause you know, you find stuff on Tubi, they drop stuff on there and
Somebody told me about this movie'cause you you this is a good part of the internet. You find these movies on the internet that you don't know about. And I watched one called F Flatbed Annie and Sweetie Pie.
Lady Truckers. This was Annie Potts. Annie Potts in this movie, yes. And and Kim Darby looking adorable too. And yeah, this is from the seventies. This is a was a like a failed T V pilot that they had they made a movie out of and
It says about Fred Willard who plays uh Kim Kim Darby's husband gets attacked by these these baroders. He's a truck driver and She has to take his truck or again or a new truck, I forget how it works, but she teams up with Annie Potts, who's like this, you know, no guff, you know, lady trucker.
to go collect collect a load so so they can make money and and sh there's there's this thing where there's drugs in the trucks, these these guys are after them and Harry Dean Stanton's in this movie singing while he's driving a car play playing harmonica and shit and
This is all a pure good people and I I will say this all day long and
If you have time, you have an hour and forty minutes or something, good go watch this movie on TV'cause uh it's worth it for Harry Dean Stanton in my opinion. And uh I got I have a small thing or a major thing with uh
And uh yeah, it's it's a it's a major thing. Even as an older lady, she would still uh get strange things from me and be very disappointed in me, I'm sure, too. But uh
Oh, another one I watched. Yeah, this is by I this watches actually called the Georgia Peaches. This is another thing that was on Tube as well. So it just it just keeps playing into each other the two the Tubi the Tubi chain of
truck exploitation, exploitation, uh whatever you want to call it. Uh this is another you know, failed TV file, but this was produced by Roger Corman. Uh this stars
Tanya Tucker, the the singer. Terry Nunn, who who was also who's also a singer, she's the singer from Berlin. She's in this movie. Lane Smith, Sally Kirkland, And Burton Gilliam and the the one and only Dirk Benedict in this movie who drives a souped up firebird that has like
moonshine that shoots out of the back of it to set it on fire and uh some kind of fly hook thing he uses in the movie and it's just about these you know two uh I guess aspiring singers.
Who get mixed up in the moonshine business and then get get get somebody gets mixed up in the tobacco, like illegal tobacco business.
And they get hired by Lane Smith who's a government stooge to to basically be the the basically find find these people out who are running as illegal tobac tobacco industry and in the middle of all this you get some amazing chases with Dirk Benedict and you get
some some pretty hoppin' songs. It's Tanya Tucker in this movie. She's singing with Terry Nunn and I I think that alone is is worth it to watch this movie. And um
Go go check that out. I I'd say if you wanna go yo tr turn your brain up and watch something wholesome. Those last two films are like are are in for you guys to watch.
Dust Bunny was a thing I watched and I Oh, I saw that. Yeah, I see the preposter for that and I read the premise for that and I said, Hey, I'm all over that'cause If you don't know what this film is, it's basically if Pad is the Labyrinth and the professional had a baby.
A little girl which stuff monster from under a bed. It comes re becomes real and kills her parents and kills her step parents.
And she hires Mads Mickelson, who who's a random neighbor, I think his name random neighbor in the credits, uh t to either slay the creature or get away from the creature and this thing is literally a giant bunny that comes out from underneath her bed and it plays on this whole
you know, childhood rules things about, you know, the bed like the bed is home base and like you can't get hurt there and like you know, Segurity Weaver shows up in in a amazing role as like his handler and she's got like guns in her shoes and stuff and
David, whose last name I cannot pronounce ever, uh, shows up as like an agent in this movie and this is just fun if you haven't watched this yet.
You can yeah, I don't wanna give a whole lot away, but yeah, just check out that movie, Dust Bunny. If it looks silly then y you're you're not watching it for the right reasons, put it that way.
Um there was other stuff. I just can't recall what that is,'cause I was frazzled before we did the show. So, you know.
I'm gonna leave my watches at that. But there there are there are more besides, you know, enjoying Danhausen's debut on Raw'cause
That's just uh a pure good for the WWE right now. You need to bring back the funny and I that's that that's gonna help things. Yeah.
Um today, tonight, we're here. We're back again. I I was promised I was gonna keep this thing this this show fun and our next three are already lined up and I
you know tonight is no exception though. And I wish uh I was gonna have been here talking about one of these films for sure.'Cause uh we're doing Welcome Home Brother Charles or doing brain damage, uh being as
you know, both uh phallic worm type things uh kill people and do funny things. So we're gonna talk about these two films and the choking and the the blue juice of it all and I'm I I'm The head and water of it all.
We'll start with Welcome Home, Brother Charles.
Brother Charles is home. His mood's as black as his skin. He done the man's time, paid the man's price. Now he's back on the street, looking to even some scores.
Welcome home, Brother Charles. The most outrageous, terrifying movie about the black experience you'll ever see. It tells it like it is, and the way some people think it should be. Welcome home, brother Charles, when they're nailing the lid down.
Not much to lose by fighting.
Brother Charles has a
couldn't talk about it. Their wives wouldn't.
Welcome home, Brother Charles. They tried to take everything he had, including his manhood.
Uh right there for a second. That's a station break, y'all. Alright. You open the thing here?
There it is.
All right, we're going to this in three, two and a one. Welcome home, Brother Charles from nineteen seventy five.
Uh yeah. Uh your plot synopsis is this after being released, a wrongfully imprisoned black man, not really, exacts revenge vengeance on who those who crossed him via the power of his newly
P prehensile penis, which can hypnotize women and asphyxiate men. This is written and directed by J James J J Jama Fanaka, who biggest claim to fame, he gave us the penitentiary sequels.
And those aren't bad, those penitentiary films. Uh who's in that film? The first one I believe, I forget now, but um still be pretty prompt. Yes, that's Isaac Kennedy, I'm pretty sure.
This stars a whole lot of folks you've probably never seen other things. Marlamonti plays Charles.
Uh Brother Charles, if you will.
I didn't go too far into this, but um
Yeah, let's just let's just get into to the the meat and the then the and the snake and the potatoes of this fucking movie. And uh actually you're real excited'cause you said you'd never seen a better strangulation scene than you need to do in this movie.
I thought it was hilarious. Uh I'll start with Mike though. Mike, what'd you think of Welcome Home, Brother Charles?
So my first mistake was not taking the second half of the synopsis in enough of a literal sense. Because uh Uh this movie ends up turning into a monster movie after not too long if you catch my drift because there's a monster.
waiting to be unleashed in this movie. Um but yeah uh before before that it it
Kinda comes off like a typical black exploitation movie that has all the elements you like. I mean it's rude, it's it's crude, it's violent, it's
Hilarious, maybe unintentionally in many parts. Um, but yeah, this was a first-time watch for me. I I got a kick out of it.
Uh and uh I I'll leave it general, like if we just wanna do like general intro thoughts on it. But I I do I read that this was made
while the director was attending UCLA, so it had to be done like part-time on weekends, like in between classes. So that's a kind of cool element to that too. Um it is like lower budget.
and it is memorable and we get somewhat of a money shot towards the end and uh
I had a blast with it. Like I was I was laughing, I was hootin' and hollering, and uh I I I th I think that vinegar syndrome or at least like a Blu-ray maybe of this I thought I saw that when I was googling around about it.
Um but yeah, what a discovery, what a find. Um I mean one of the fun elements of doing cinema beef for me is oftentimes at least one out of the two movies is something I had never seen, never heard of.
and uh it's it's a mo it's an an experience I would say it's always usually
Glad to have had. Now, the other movie I have seen before, but yeah, this one, definitely a first-time watch. Um, I liked it. I had fun with it, and I'll leave it there for the moment.
Cool. X? Not a first-time watch for me, but this is definitely the movie that proves that BBC doesn't just stand for British Broadcasting Corporation. Um I always...
read a lot into movies, especially the low budget shit. So You know, once again with my bull crap analysis, there's a lot to unpack in this movie, Giggity, and I feel like I'm not qualified to do that unpacking.
I am I am too white and I cannot murder anyone with my penis, which happens in this movie. And an amazing like Mike said it's the money shot. It's
Needs to be seen to be believed. But this movie addresses for me, or at least it you know, nudges some important.
and weird issues. And I think the main thing that kicks everything off, Charles gets arrested. Okay. And like
wrongfully and Gary said, not really, and that's that's accurate. But he gets arrested by a character that I call the angry white cop.
And the angry white cop tries to cut Charles' dick off with what was it like a like a straight razor? Is that what that was? Or a box cut or something?
Which is a traumatic experience it wouldn't be for anyone. It's like a blunt blade or something. I don't even know what the hell it was, you know. Yeah, it's something. And I think the reason that the angry white cop was so angry.
is because his wife was having an affair with a black guy. So the act of trying to, you know, whack off the tally whacker
is its transference and its projection at a humiliating and ultraviolet level. It's probably not because of the emotional aspect of the affair, because there's probably not much
love left between the angry white cop and his wife anyways. But I don't think that the angry white cop would have been that mad if his wife had been stooping a white guy on the side.
The angry white cop is mad because he has the idea that a black guy might have a bigger dick than him.
So when you look at it through sort of that lens, Welcome Back, Brother Charles fits into that weird sort of seventies and eighties idea.
where movies were centered around interracial sex and big black cock. Think of think about Mandingo, think about drum, hell think blazing saddles or even history of the world part one.
Um
White women were fascinated and enthralled by black men with big dicks. That was just a weird sort of subgenre in that time.
Now, Brother Charles is more modern, I guess, if you will. It's grittier.
had the budget of a pack of cigarettes, but it perpetuates that same myth because there are scenes where Charles is taking his revenge against the people who have wronged.
Him and all he does is whip out his dick in front of a white woman, and they go into a literal trance.
slack jawed, wide-eyed, and they will do whatever Charles wants if they can get their favorite body parts around Charles's well, Mankal used to call it his coal sausage.
So not only that, but you know, after going back, the women don't go back because they're they're hypnotized.
Charles leaves them with these post hypcoctic suggestions that help him murder their husbands. This is all based on mythic stereotypes. You know, not every woman's gonna drop her panties and do the hip spill for a black guy's cock.
And not every black guy is hung like a horse. But Jimafanaka, the director and rider,
has this understanding um about what kind of hold that stereotype has over over white guys. And he uses it to fantastical and in a lot of ways very comical.
effect. The white man's got the political power to keep the black man down, but the black man
has the wit and the girth to destroy a white man's heterosexual relationship and lure white women to the dark side, if you will. Mm-hmm. There are other themes here. I mean, Charles had a difficult time finding a job because of his criminal record.
And when you can't get a gag, you get desperate and you could potentially do things that get you into trouble again. And in the movie, Charles calls that the white man's installment plan. Two years here, five years there.
It's a tragic cycle and no and it's one that this society can't solve or has refused to solve. So it's no wonder that Charles sees the white man as the enemy.
'Cause the light men are the ones who put away to begin with or tried to CUT HIS NECK OFF So if you can't beat them in the courts.
He'll kill them with the help of all these dignotized white women by strangling them with the thing that they subconsciously fear the most, his big black cock. Did I just hear dignotized? Yes, you did.
And where do you go after you murder a cop and a lawyer and you try to murder a judge?
You go back to jail. So in the end, Charles could be
beats the system with the encouragement of his girlfriend and avoids prison in well, the the most permanent way possible. This movie came out in seventy five. I think we are way past the spoilers uh deadline here.
Anyway, I think it's a great movie. I think it's a little preachy. I think some of Charles's monologues are a little bit too on the nose.
Um, but the way that it plays into those archetypal fears of s sexuality of insecure white men is it's fascinating.
And I imagine and again I can't
say this definitively because I am just way too Caucasian. But I imagine that some black people, when they saw it, were empowered by that message. If not seriously, then at least at least in a whimsical way.
So yeah, I had a lot of fun with that.
Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say, yeah, it feels it has that kind of like first.
movie touch to it where you see the subtext and you see it working on like the literal and the ma meta level and kind of like the you get this a lot sometimes with uh movies early in a director's career or director writer's career where
maybe they haven't quite mastered the art of like where the line should be on like meta versus literal. And that's why I think like when I was saying like some of this some of the stuff in this movie
I was like laughing at but I could still see and hear like what message they were trying to get across. And uh you you laid it out
pretty well. Like I don't even really need to add to a lot of the exclamation you have, but I thought that was cool because it really did play on the stereotype.
of like the big black dick is gonna hypnotize women or white women and there ain't nothing the white man can do about it and like I I thought it was like well done within the context of the broader message.
of the movie, even like when it came beyond like the all the sexual prowess stuff, but like you said, when he was talking about like you get out of jail and it
almost like your ticket is already punched to return eventually because of how the system's set up. Right. So I I was pretty impressed.
uh with with all that going on in this movie because when it starts out well it's like, oh, this is gonna be like a little entertaining movie and I'm not gonna think much about it but
The more it goes on and you're actually listening, you're like, okay, there's a there's actually something here, you know. Yeah, it's an interesting balance between very straightforward and pointed social commentary and the concept of hypnofucking.
Yes. Oh man, this is the first time watching me too and you know lots of accent really hits yeah on you know social comedy or whatnot, but
I think this film does well is, you know, Charles is not a man you're supposed to like. You know, we from the from jump he's he's a pimp, he's mean, he's crude, you know, all all the stuff. He's he's just he's just a piece of shit, you know, but
Yeah, so after he gets out of jail, it uh it's almost like it has two different parts of the movie. They're probably supposed to not feel pity for him'cause he's a piece of shit and then, you know, afterwards when you find out, you know
you know, what what the what the the effect of the man is on him and his lifestyle obviously. K next he he c couldn't find a job and, you know, he lost his girlfriend. He l he lost his business to to uh
uh a rival pimp, if if you will, and it's just um his life is a mess. So he has no no way but to to get revenge with his newfound power, which I don't know
exactly where it comes from,'cause he has like this medallion thing around his neck and does it come from that? And ye you really don't know. All of a sudden His dick becomes like sentient and like excess can hypnotize white women, you know, which is
You you wanna laugh at stuff like that, but I I got a lot of like clockwork orange vibes from this. Like when Alex gets out of the institute, like all of his his life and all of his friends are gone.
But he uh he has a through line to, you know, although his dick doesn't work right or it works all too well now.
his old girlfriend still kinda wants to hang out with him as so there's that. Yeah, so that's the one big difference there, I'd say, in the clockwork originality. Um But yeah, when he starts to go like full like
catatonic, you know, hypnotizing the the the white girls, you know, and I I I just I just love it.
You laugh you laugh a little bit the the re the the the absurdity of this film and but at the same time you you're you're kinda rooting for it, but you weren't rooting for'em in the first part, so I think that's something this film does extremely well is to make you kick a guy who's not a nice guy
You turn him into a guy that you're kinda you're kinda say yeah, fuck these people, you try to cut your goddamn dick off and now w why not plow his wife and
you know, kill'em if he's sleeping in the same bed, you know. But uh it's just yeah, it i i it gets crazy real fast and
I I I love my time with it. I l I love the soundtrack to this. It just um that kicks a lot of ass and
It's not a big budget film, like I said. He's made out of pr he's made out of a pack of cigarettes as he as as he says and um I think it really works like especially the the soundtrack that when they're inside the these strip bars and um That works really well and
I made a comment iris with her her former co host partner, uh, Mike Murphy, one of my my uh one of my uh mentors, if you will.
we call titties flapjacky and there was a very flapjacky titty scene in that movie. I think you appreciate it very much'cause uh once that top comes off the them the things aren't too perky. So, you know, there there's that in this movie. And
When you get the reveal of what happens, which I I love about this film, you only get like one reveal of what's really happening. Otherwise it's just, yeah, he's murdering these people somehow.
But when he he uh drops trowel
And in in in the bedroom with the with the with the was it the judge that you did does this to? It was the lawyer. Oh the lawyer. He's in the bedroom with the lawyer. And you s you see the hang down just coming down.
And then it it hits his neck. It all is revealed. It it looks like he's being attacked by a fucking placid dildo.
But at the same time it it really works'cause you only get like that one reveal of what's really happening.
Again, I I love films like this where they don't really explain to you how it's happening. It's just
There's a point in the film where I thought it was a delusion, like'cause it w cause his the the psychiatrist was talking. So I thought maybe this was all in Charles's head, like a like an American psychotype thing, but apparently it wasn't.
So I'm all for the the the the the guesswork of a movie like this and
It's just crazy and like Mike said, it it's on well it's it's out I think it's out of print now on Vinegar syndrome, but I I wish I wanna I wanna look into it and see if there's like a commentary or something.'Cause there might be, but I don't know.
I just I want to know more about this movie and you know,'cause for a film that there's the premise of, you know, I've always heard about it's the film where a guy kills somebody with his dick.
And you know, i it shouldn't be this good, but it really is. It's just it's I I I really dig it quite a bit, the the the transition of it and everything about it. It's just it's a it's a nice it's a nice stew of a film.
And I'll uh
The S Anaconda don't want none unless you've abused the legal system, son. There you go. Exactly. Yeah, Gary, I would love a commentary on this if it was available anywhere. Oh yes, I am.
Oh man. I can get back to you, Mike. Anything else you wanna say about it, sir? Um, just I think it's another example of like Uh when it comes to the genre of black exploitation
I I mean I would s I I've seen a decent amount. I would still call myself a novice, but I know there's people out there that have seen even less than me, and I think a l a lot of times when they hear
the word black exploitation, like a few of the big name movies t to come out of the genre might come to mind, but To me, seeing this for the first time is just another example of how expansive it really is if you get in there and like kinda
poke around and and and look for uh things under the surface, under under the ones that like everybody knows. And there's nothing wrong with those ones either. I mean
lots of them are entertaining. You know, something like Black Caesar, Shaft of course, uh come to mind. Um, those are great, but the genre
There's a lot of treasure like hidden in this genre that probably a lot of people are unaware of, m myself included. So I would say like take the take the time to like just uh Explore and and look for the gems such as this one.
I'm not sure I would suggest this one. It's like you're jumping off point.
Like if you've never seen a black exploitation flick, maybe
Don't kick it off with Welcome Back, Brother Charles. Um, because it's a little bit intense. I'm a truck turner guy myself. I love that movie. That would be my my entrance point, that, or maybe even Coffee with Pam Greer.
Um but yeah, I love this movie. I l like
I I think Gary had a great point when it's got some clockwork orange sort of elements to it. I didn't I didn't think about that while I was watching it, but yeah, that's a really good good comparison.
But yeah, I mean I'd say if he has like some black exploitation experience, hell, even if you've seen Behind the Green Door, go ahead and watch Welcome Back, Brother Charles.
Man, I was breathing. It's okay.
Yeah, this is it's a great first time watching. I I was trying to look up the the Blu-ray of this to to see what's on there really fast. So hold that thought for one second, guys, and I'm gonna look it up real fast.
Welcome back.
Oh well. I also like the fact that whenever uh Charles is hypnotizing somebody, they always show a close up of his mouth and he's licking his lips. Yes. And this happens like eighteen times in the movie. It's like just
Will you stop? The part the part where he makes the woman go hang out by the kids' room, I guess, to make sure he they his dick don't attack the kids. I guess that's the thing. I can't stop laughing'cause you you know
Man. Oh. It's so funny.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, nothing really Yeah. Newly scanned restored two K from the fourth thirty five dollar uh mi original camera negative.
A history of Elliot Rebellion in in Jama Panaka and Appreciation by Jan Christopher Horek, director of UCLA Film and Television Archives. So you get some history on the director on there.
And uh post film QA with actress Jerry Hayes from two thousand seventeen screening of anime.
in Brooklyn, New York in two thousand seventeen. So yes, not nothing no like um historical, you know you know, hysteria continues uh you know, um commentary on there at all.
Which is nothing like nothing like here's where we bought the dick. Well, you know, in Tank Girl, you know, they made sure you they heard that you know what? We built a kangaroo dick and just it was just unused, you know.
It remains bla it remains placid and not inside tank girl. So there's that yeah.
I digress. But yeah, this is a great discussion and a film that's pr pretty fucking silly in parts, but pretty fucking serious in other parts, but um
Go uh check it out if you go find it. Um great. Welcome on Brother Charles. Uh we're gonna move on to uh to New York City and then some psychedelic worm action craziness and uh Frank Hen and Lauder's brain damage after the break.
You wake up.
Now Brian.
A little peculiar.
completely different person. I don't even know him any Sometimes everything removes.
What are you telling me that we Slimy.
Very Brought in.
Leave me alone!
Brain damage. It will turn Side out.
Brain damage from nineteen eighty eight, uh directed and written by Frank Henanlauter. Uh one morning a young man wakes up to find a small, disgusting creature has attached itself to the base of his brain stem.
The creature gives him a euphoric state of happiness but demands human victims in return.
Uh, this is a hand a lot of films, so you know what's gonna get weird people, is all I'll say.
And uh this stars recurses, Brian. Uh your your your main uh lover of the blue the of the blues the of the the brain goo, the blue stuff, if you will. Uh
Jennifer Lowry as Barbara, uh Theo Barnes as Morris. Um Lots of other folks, but one of the biggest names in here is uh Zacher Lee.
uh famous horror host who is also the ho the he's the voice of a of Aylmer, which is the the worm that sings and talks in this movie and gives him the blue juice and Hilarious hilarity ensues.
phallic craziness, uh
That's by Gabe Bartellos. I'll say that all day long. Yeah, I love Gabe Bartellos.
I think one of the most shining achievements to me is the troll in Cat's eye. So there there's there's that Um I'll kick it to you first, X. Uh brain damage lay it down, brother.
First time watch for me. I don't know why. I just never got around to watching it. And there's a lot to like about it. Um, like you said, Zachary's Aylmer's voice is fun.
I laughed out loud when Kevin Van Hentenric showed up on the subway with Bala's back. So good. So good.
Um, and I liked seeing the swimming pool cues and that bar scene because I'm an old head and that song brought back a lot of nice memories. So that was really cool.
I st I think and this is weird for a head and lauder movie, but I think the movie's too clean.
Visually. It's it's it's shiny, Captain. And for a movie that takes place in the late 80s of New York City, I kind of wanted something.
grittier, you know. Show me more movie marquees from fifty second street. You can you can tell that a lot of the sets on Brain Damage were constructed, which
I I don't know. I'm I mean I'm glad the filmmakers have the money for that, but it kinda it it kinda takes away from the overall
believability, if you could believe this movie at all. Um Aylmer, Parasite, is sort of a he's sort of a catch-all for all the vices that people tend to be attracted to.
He doesn't really choose Brian randomly.
But the fact that Aylmer makes his presence known by injecting Brian's brain with his psychotropic juice, which leads to an immediate behavioral change.
It underlines for me the point that you you never know who's going to have a problem with something.
You know, and it could be a substance, it could be an act, some sort of addiction.
It could be the most conservative, jock looking or attractive person you know. And Aylmer is all of that. He's drugs, he's power, he's alcohol, he's sex, he's
that thing that overstimulates the pleasure centers in your brain. He's the dragon that you can't stop chasing. So it's no surprise.
to me that Aylmer looks friendly, fucking goofy. I mean as as friendly as a phallic parasite that lives on your neck and eats human brains can be.
He's got these sleepy blue eyes and a crooked smile and a soothing voice, but he's an asshole, just like
a lot of people who seem nice. He's a gypsy, the acid king, and he destroys not only Brian, but just about everything and everyone that he loves. So for me, brain damage starts out as a really fun
uh kind of monster movie. And then it turns into this
just absolute tragedy. And it's hard not to see the movie through that lens, but if you read old interviews with Heinlawder, he doesn't feel like that's the point of the movie. That's accidental to him.
So it's a good thing that you get to interpret art as as the audience and not simply the creator. So anyway, all that being said, I don't know how to feel about this movie.
It it's gooey and it's disgusting and there's some low brow humor to it that appeals to me.
Um the famous scene where the woman wants to give Brian a blowing job, but she ends up putting Aylmer in her mouth instead, and that is really uncomfortable enough to be funny.
But there's such a strong tonal shift at the end. Um And it goes towards weird sadness and it points directly to the indifference of the New York general populace uh to the crimes being committed all around them.
And the so the ending, which I'm not gonna spoil completely, but the ending, um could either be incredibly sad.
With addiction taking its final toll, or they could have gone super Hollywood happy, very hallmarky, and the main character overcomes their addiction and becomes this productive uh tax paying member of society.
But instead what we get is this thing that is
strangely ambiguous. It's almost like the end of Fulci's City of the Living Dead, where you almost feel like you know what happened, but you're not quite sure what happened.
So I don't know, it's weird. It's a lot of a lot of back and forth in this movie to me. I it it's a lot like drugs, I guess. I don't know. I I did acid once. I had a great time, but it's not an experience that I'm really clamoring to repeat.
All right, Mike. Yeah, I was m I'm totally on board with the idea of this being like
Allegory for drug use addiction. Because I agree, it it starts out I mean from the jump, like Elmer, the way they play Elmer almost kind of like straight. He's like this parasitic
drug worm, but like the interactions with him s seem pretty straight, like with his with his dialogue and the conversations he's having.
Yeah, I mean i I don't know if that was like a purposeful choice to kind of show like the allure uh you know, another alluring aspect of maybe like getting into the drug scenes or when you're first starting out because I I felt like yeah, the the euphoria and and the fun, the experience
It it kind of mimics like dr like drug use, I guess, in like the early stages. And it slowly shifts and goes from a fun add-on experience to dependence.
an addiction and I think like it culminates as we're g you know, we're making our way to the end and like Elmer's former owners
decide they can't live without Elmer and his juice and we get the confrontation. I do agree there is like a tonal shift. Um I have seen this before
And I actually never thought about it, uh, the way X was saying like for where it's taking place, yeah, it kinda is missing some of like the city the s the city scope and
landmark well I guess you would call'em like the dingy landmarks, you know. Um like show us the grimy the grimy shots of, you know, the neon signs
and you know, every corner of the worst parts of the city. Make a y'cause tha that was always a feature of like this era, like of movies in like Chicago or New York
that I really liked is like I I remember you know, I was very young in the eighties still. Um, I mean I was born in eighties, so obviously I was young in the eighties, but like one thing that I remember
as a kid watching movies that take took place in like almost you know, most metropolitan, big metropolitan cities, they scared the shit out of me as a kid. Like I thought these places where like
just a one hundred percent danger once the sun went down. And I uh to a certain extent, so like areas of them definitely were But I I I remember just thinking as a kid from I you know, I I'm I'm not in like the backwoods, but uh my city compared to all these is small and
The the the movies I would consume made me think like you don't go to these places well when the sun's going down. It's like
It's like you're running from vampires basically in and I guess a metaphorical and a literal sense. You you get the hell out of there before the sun goes down because things change.
And m maybe the the movie for taking place in like a city like that w is missing a little bit of that. So that was a good observation, especially on a first time watch, because I think I've seen this once or twice before. Um
It it definitely had like your cool kinda stop motion, I think, i and a couple shots with Elmer and his attacks. And yeah, the ending, I guess you could take it
Like either way, I I mean I see it as like a tr you know, a a a tragic conclusion to addiction. And um overall, yeah, I I like the movie. It's a very interesting movie. It it
It's kind of hard like it's almost hard to like box it in too,'cause like you think when when you kinda read the description or hear from about it generally, you th y it's gonna be like a straightforward just like kinda
body horror movie, but there's a little more going on. It it
It kind of pushes some boundaries. Um, it definitely, I would put it in the category of like an oddball movie. Um, definitely something like most people I you know I talk to about movies have have seen it at least once.
and there's a lot to like about it. Um
It's just yeah, it's a little bit of an odd one for sure. But overall I I do like it.
Elmer as th the character, the worm and the voice just always crack me up and just how straight he sounds and and how matter of fact he is in explaining it. So yeah, I'll leave it there. But yeah, another one I do enjoy.
Um yeah, this is a lot of what you guys said the it rings true. I I love the grossness of this, I love the silliness of this, but at the same time, you know, the way it handles addiction is is almost to like
New Jack City pooky like proportions'cause th he gets addicted to the the the uh the blue goo, i if you will, and The way his body breaks down, the way he reacts to not not having it.
it it reminds you of, you know, and they they always say that Chris Rock in New Jack City was probably one of the best examples of how how to play a role like that correctly. And he you can see the shakes there's convulsing all the stuff, so you know He has no choice but to do what he has to do and
Fe feed his feed his worms the the brains, which you know the brain the brain stealing scenes are just.
Just hilarious. I I I love him to death that uh the the b I don't know that's a bathhouse or what's going on there where he's he kills the muscle man. I I wish I would have seen more of that, you know,'cause this is a this is a hen a lotter film after all. But um
Just craziness and the stop motion of the bike bench one of my favorite shots of the film is
When you see the blue the blue juice, you know, come up from his bedside and you see the phone moving around and stuff. I I I really love that that that shot. I think that's pretty amazing. And uh Zachary
I I think I might have had Zach Lee around my house. I I don't even know. Maybe I have some weird UHF channels somewhere I could tell you, but our our horror host is Finn Gooley, who's now shared amongst everybody, which I think is pretty spectacular. So
Enjoy that. Uh he used to be ours, now he's everybody's. Uh um plays the the role so well this smart basically, you know, friendly worm thing, which is friendly at first, but at the same time t towards, you know
The middle half of the film basically lays it out to Brian and say, Well, I guess you you need you need me now, so you're gonna you're gonna
my Seymour and find me fresh meat'cause that's a this reminded me of right away was when I saw it the first time and this time was hen a lot I saw a little shop of horse and said, I'm gonna make this really fucked up.
And you know what, there's some really fucked up shit in this movie that the blowjob scene that X mentioned I think is man, it's just it's so it's so funny and and so ridiculous that y he would keep Fucking sucking this thing which is probably slimy as balls.
But she she has those standards apparently. D she blows she blow'em in i in a fucking alleyway, this fucking slimy pal thing that she thinks is his dick. I guess she deserves to get her brains caved out. I don't even know, but you know
It's it's it's it's weird, man, and I I love the couple that you get in the beginning of the film and follow you throughout the film there looking for Aylmer and if I he's like this forever thing. I just I just watched um I just watched a frickin' Twilight Zone earlier and
The long live Walter Jacobson episode with Kevin McCarthy came on. It kinda reminded me of that of it, like this uh Elra's been everywhere. He's been around since since this, that, or the other and he got tell the whole story. I love the death and uh
It's just um it's the good time. I guess it's probably the tamest of any hen and laughter film as far as like, you know, the gore goes.
'Cause you work with Gabe quite a bit on the basket case films and stuff and
probably on bad biology too, which is probably you want extre extreme hen and ladder, you know, that's the one you watch is bad biology. It's it's freaking
It's freaking strange. Much more strange than this.
But this is this is meant to be fun. It's also meant to make you think about the addiction thing.
plays in are printing again a surprisingly incredible role.
in in this film, the way they handle addiction and the way Brian handles his his high and any any any way to get it at this point, to to the point that we get the end of this movie. And
Yeah, I I I agree with you guys. You you really don't see the the real dirty dankiness of this of of of New York City in this film. It's just uh one of the flaws. But then you have other films for that, so I'm gonna leave.
brain damage to say it's it's almost it's almost perfect and I do enjoy my time with it. I will kick it to you Mike. Any other thoughts on the film?
I would say like check it out if you're a Hen and Lauter fan. Or I mean maybe because it's
A little tamer. I mean it it's weird to call a movie tamer that has like a blue worm infesting people with drugs and boring its way into
uh various body parts of people. But maybe that makes it like a good intro to Hennen Lauder because it'll
It i it's kinda like uh watch this and if you if you're on the right track to something you want more of, continue the journey. If if not, if brain damage is a little too much for you then
I guess you can uh kick it kick it to a different director. So maybe in that sense it's it's a good like
first one for people aren't familiar with Henman Lauder. So I'll I guess I'll just leave it there. Uh yeah, I enjoy I enjoyed my time with it.
Cool, X. Aylmer is the miniature version of Shy Halud, may his passing cleanse the world.
I don't know who that is, but yeah. Uh sandworm from Dune. Oh, okay. I gotcha. Um but unlike Brother Charles, this one has a stacked Blu-ray you can you can purchase for Fomaro. It's just All over the place, up and down, uh director's commentary.
Special effects videos.
Fooling documentary with casting crew. It's all it's all over the place. So If you really, really like this movie and you really want to invest in a really good good print of the film and a good edition of the film, that arrow that arrow edition is is uh right in your wheelhouse, I'd say and
I don't think you'll regret it'cause I I again I I have you have a great time with soul mean y you you pity the the man at the same time as far as like your your main character goes, so it just um
Zach to keeps it light. And I will say that. It uh Till doesn't have to keep it light, it's kinda like the duh the d the Dalton of of a fucking phallic parasites, you know.
Be nice. Does it sign not to be nice, you know? Alm Almer is uh he's the man. He is the cleaner. But uh I'll leave it at that. And um Welcome back to uh close out the show.
Greeting cinema lovers. This is Golden Brown checking in from Los Angeles, California. I'm a DJ producer broadcaster here.
None other Beefy Gary to give you guys a top five song on a psychedelic murder spree.
So that is our subject. I'm gonna run down five tracks.
Would be fun to live in the world.
While we go out and get murderous.
Starting with number one.
Creeper than this.
Old school folk psych at its finest creepy thing vocal acoustic guitar with electric guitar color over the top.
Makes time slow down.
Steady drum beat, creepy, creepy.
Yeah. Number two, I got Diamanda Gallas with John Paul J. And this is And this is Diamanda's guttural kind of Middle Eastern style vocals eerily over John Paul Jones.
They lend a fun Tor torturous kind of murderous mayhem.
Of a track.
And that is my second Number three.
Would be the Ministry's Scarecrow.
Starting off with Reverb stress drum.
Droning guitars and distorted vocals from Uncle Al He croons and croons and leaves you in a state of anxiety and paranoia.
Utterly delightful creepiness there.
Number four.
Borders into a psych high
Trip hop, psych hop, it's Tricky's Hell Is Around the Corner. Uh you can vibe out to this one. Tricky rambles on over Excellent old school Isaac Hayes sample.
And Martina Toppley Bird adding hypnotic melodies over the top. Delightful darkness on this one. Do not sleep on this track. It is good, good, good.
And then number five.
Skinny puppies killing game.
Piano leads us into a dark lullaby or nightmare however you want to look at it spoken word vocals and an orchestral background leading into an absolute epic psychotic Pi, skinny.
That is my top five running it back real quick. I had Donovan's hardy girl.
Then I had...
Diamanda Galas.
And the title of that track Then I had Ministry with Scarecrow Then tricky hell is around the corner.
And then s finishing off.
Just kidding.
I hope you enjoyed my tracks. Go check them out. You can find them all streaming on your streaming platform of choice. And uh thanks for the opportunity, Gary. I'm signing off from Los Angeles. By the way, I am
A DJ here. You can catch me at 88.9 FM KXLU out of Los Angeles or KXLU.org around the world. My Instagram is Golden Brown Mundo. It's G-O-L.
E-R-O-W-N-M-U-N-D-O-N-O-S-D-S- Thank you, thank you, and enjoy.
Those flicks, y'all.
Thank you.
Well folks, this was the first episode of what I'm calling Cinnamon B f four point oh'cause I forget which version this is and I really don't care at this point. It's just been doing this too goddamn long on and off and
pleased to come on with these gentlemen to talk about these fucking crazy fucking films and that's what this is all about, you know, uh brotherhood and sisterhood and community and Yeah, just discussing crazy shit that you watched and you know uh of the friendliest of friendly nature.
And uh I will kick it to you, Mike, and any plugs you have or anything else you wanna say, sir, go ahead.
Uh I think I mentioned at the beginning Fresh Cut well, maybe not the podcast, I I talked about the movies. Um I do a weekly show called Fresh Cuts where we talk about the latest horror movies.
Luckily, and well, luckily is I guess relative, but into the twenty twenty six there's been a lot of theatrical horror to be start out the year, so almost every episode so far has been covering something in the theater. But when there isn't, we will look to VOD because there's always a
Plenty there to to turn to when we need to. And then the main show we do, which we finally just recorded.
a new episode for the first time in a while. No More Room in Hell is our kinda main show where we
Pick two to three movies kind of with a similar theme or some type of connection and cover those and we'll talk horror news. We'll catch up uh everyone with what we're watching. Um and those are the two main ones. There's a
There's a couple other smaller ones that just don't record very often, so maybe I'll announce them when I actually get a new episode of them recorded. Those can both be found on Dark Discussions Network as well as the No More Room in Hell podcast YouTube.
channel so I'll leave it at that.
Cool. X, any plugs for you, sir?
Uh um, well, I mean, I'm alive. Um Cootie and I are doing exceedingly well. As most of you probably know, we did a show called Kiss the Goat, which was all about
devil movies. It's probably out there somewhere. Check Spotify or something. Um, you can find my writings over at Biff Bam Pop and on the Cultural Gutter.
Uh we may have something in the works for a new show. I don't know. We've I don't want to talk about it a whole lot yet because we're still in the very early stages of of conversation. But right now we're
not as visible as we used to be. And that's just because we're hanging out with each other and hanging out with grandbabies and family and doing stuff like that. So
This is the first show I've been on in a long time. I don't even know how long it's been since I've been on a show, Gary. It's it's been a hot minute. But um anyway, yeah, I'll be back. We'll talk about that later, I guess.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, me, this show. And you can find you can find the butcher shop bead. Um, I have food in my mouth right now, unfortunately. But it be uh last call of torches.
Almost done with Walter Hill's uh directing career. Uh next year you'll see and work every recording that next week. Me and the boys will be the Deadwood pilot for HBO. Um
Patreon would be the Deadwood uh movie that that came out. Um very excited about doing that.
Uh that should be the next show you hear on the speed actually.
Uh but the next Sim Beef that's coming up uh will be two films of
Suzanne will show up with this, I'm sure, because her her man's isn't one of them and Iris possibly two and possibly all of us. We'll see what happens. Like I said, we're we're playing it real playing real smooth, you know. If one of us can't show up.
It's okay'cause we have enough people then, which is great.
Or we're doing Ruckus, which is a film with Dr with Dirk Benedict.
uh from nineteen eighty and we're do we we're doing First Blood from eighty two, the one you know, the the very first one that brought John Rambo into the world. And um of course starring great Sylvesterone and The great Richard Crennan, the great Brian Dennehy and uh
A lot of smaller folks in there at the time. Dave Crusoe shows up in that movie. I keep forgetting all about that, but yeah. Uh I love First Blood so much. Looks amazing. Gave him dra It looks so amazing in four K. It does.
Um yeah, it's called objects on this show. I'm excited about doing that and We've all went well with this show.
You heard a music segment from my my my friend at the the Nibs V Nibs vinyl uh on Pico Avenue in in LA. DJ Golden Brown uh did something for for this program and
Uh, I'm sure he plugged all of his stuff. He does a radio show and does a regular DJ set and um decided to help brother out and have some fun with some stuff. So if you want to hear the full version of that, I think that's how that's gonna work.
You have to go over to the Patreon download this episode, but um that's gonna have the full
music cues and all that stuff that you know, the the red flag for us for having a hundred hundred downloads and say, you know what, you're stealing from us, but not really. Okay. But uh I'll leave it at that.
This has been the Cinema Beef Podcast, where if you've got beef, we've got the grinder. See you next time. Peace out.
Moved in a dirty egg.