H!TITDS - Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978)

Jeffrey and Richard have gone to the dogs! But also they're talking about director Curtis Harrington's Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978), a classic made-for-TV horror classic. Don't go barking mad, check out the episode!

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Richard

Host of Hello! This is the Doomed Show and author of Giallo Meltdown, Giallo Meltdown 2, & Doomed Moviethon.

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Hey folks, it's Richard. I just want to let you know that Hello, this is the Doomed Show is coming up on episode 300. We would love to hear from you. So doomedMoviethon at gmail.com.

is the email you can write in or if you want to record an audio message in mp3 form or whatever. Do this before May 1st. So episode 300, write to us.

Ask us about specific movies you want opinions on or directors or genres of movies. Uh get those cool NFT Bitcoin tips.

We'll hook you up doomedmoviethon at gmail.com. And that deadline is May 1st, on with the show. The demon dog, the black dog, the dog of darkness.

Sometimes he runs with backward pointed feet. Sometimes he is ablaze. Sometimes he is headless.

But even a glimpse of the beast in his true form will send a man to hell.

Everything is ready.

So we'll be together again.

This sandwich tastes as dry as hell. Oh

Hello and welcome to Hello, this is the Doomed Show. I am Richard. Folks.

Doggone it. Um, we're going to the dogs. I am Richard, but I'm here with Jeffrey. Are you ready for a Halloween howler at 9 p.m. on CBS 7, the CBS Tuesday night movie?

Yep. I am actually ready. Good.

Yes, so we are talking about Devil Dog Colon, The Hound of Hell from nineteen seventy-eight. This is a televised movie presentation. That's like a motion picture, but made for the TV.

Which means it's exactly the same. It's just small.

Just much smaller, uh much more tasteful in its nudity.

So yes, this is uh from director Curtis Harrington whose career

is kinda blowing my mind a little bit. Oh yeah. Curtis Harrington is a uh queer filmmaking icon, the director of Night Tide, Queen of Blood, What's the Matter with Helen? Ruby.

And and uh when he was slumming it a bit in the seventies, he did movies like Devil Dog, The Hound of Hell, How Awful About Alan, The Dead Don't Die, and

Killer bees, which he's he's really proud of killer bees. He's not proud of the other ones, but he loves killer bees.

The Dead Don't Die. Mm-hmm. What is that? It is a I believe it's a Haitian zombie movie. Oh, okay. Dead Don't Die. I know him best from the uh Dark Room.

I I don't remember the two episodes of Dark Room that he directed, but um as a kid I was

Very very very very scared of Darkroom when it came on TV because the intro was I think still pretty eerie to this day. Big fan of that show in terms of I remember it. Well that's something.

Yeah, so purely nostalgic. It has never been properly released at all, of course. Uh but good old James Coburn hosted all sixteen episodes before it was

Cancel. Curtis Harrington is really awesome. Besides the the films, he also had collaborations and friendships with people like Kenneth Anger. He he's in uh at least one of Kenneth Anger's films.

That's cool. And he's just a really interesting curmudgeonly personality. Um, there is a fifteen minute audio interview with him on the Shriek Show Blu-ray, um, which I will give you some great trivia from later on.

I'm excited about that. That's where I learned that he loves his he l he's most proud of killer bees and that the bees were great to work with.

I love it. This was written by Eleanor and Stephen Oh my god, Carp.

Yeah is a awesome last name. So they they worked on um a couple of their notable horror TV movies, gargoyles in particular, as well as Terror in the Sky. I haven't seen either of those. I've been meaning to see gargoyles for years.

Same. Yeah. Same. Um, they also created the soap opera Capital um from 82 to 87, which ran for over 12.

Twelve hundred episodes. Never heard of this. Never heard of it. That's so funny. I mean, like, but how long was Dark Shadows on? For like Yeah, not as long as that. Yeah.

Lord, it's crazy. Um, notably the music here is by Artie Kane, who did the music for eyes of Laura Mars, uh looking for Mr. Goodbar.

And MST3K classic, The Bat People.

Ooh, you know what's so amazing about the bat people? I like it. And I've never seen I've never seen the MST three K version. Oh another episode of theirs that I

There's stuff that they've covered, especially the m more recent episodes, that I'm like, No, no, no, no, no. I need to see that film before. That's what I did with pod people. Mm-hmm. I've still not seen the MST three K. I I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. You should.

But a film like the Bat People I would have watched.

That in an instant. But luckily, I I actually watched it and was quite a fan. It's pretty insane. Yeah. But yeah, Artie Kane. What was the first thing you said he did? I'm sorry. He did the eyes of Laura.

Speaking of uh Eyes of Laura Mars, I gifted Brad the wonderful vinyl of that soundtrack years ago. Noise. Um that is a frickin' wonderful, wonderful movie and a great score. Holy crap.

Yeah, I'm surprised it didn't do more work really. I mean he he's contributed to the soundtracks of many, many films, but in terms of being the sole composer, not as many things as you'd think.

Uh, we are going to play a wonderful I you know what? Screw it. I'm gonna play both. I found two TV spots for this, one from America and one from what sounds like the UK. And uh let's just rock these funky joints.

Ow Tuesday.

Dog. Only one thing is wrong. Some evil power has moved into my house. It's taken over my wife and my children. It's a Halloween you'll never forget. Devil Dog, the Hound of Hell, Tuesday at nine, eight cents.

After the paper chase.

He's a brand new puppy, yet possessed by an evil from Munga.

You know, I think you're crazy. Thursday, macabre mystery makes its presence felt. Even a glimpse of the beast. Surprising suspense holds you into the unexplained. Children! Avette Mimeo and Richard Krenna. Hey, don't you see it's the hell?

It's my wife, my kids, that dog. In the tradition of the Amateurville horror comes the TV premiere of Devil Dog, 830 Thursday. Did this get on a VHS tape?

One has to imagine. I forgot to look it up. Oh yes. Oh video. This is a great cover art. Oh my god. Spoils his final uh final form though.

Oh that's too small to read. Damn it, I should have looked this up first. Ebay, come to my rescue. Okay, here we go. This is not as short as the one I wanted to read. Richard Crenna, the Flamingo Kid, and Invet Mimiu, Baringers.

Star in this eerie tale of the supernatural and the occult, as man faces off against a best friend, who has become evil itself.

Immediately after the Berry family acquires a new puppy, odd things begin to happen. Their maid warns the family that the puppy is possessed, and she mysteriously dies. Did I mention spoiler alert? Mike, Krena.

and his daughter are caught in a violent storm. The dog saves Bonnie but leaves Mike defend for himself.

What? Betty, Mimiu, and her children partake in secret occult memories and team up against Mike. When Mike learns that their dog is a bargus,

A monstrous dog who has captured the souls of his family. He travels to Ecuador to find out how to exercise the monster. With his newfound knowledge, Mike confronts the devil dog and they engage in a harrowing and fiery fight to the finish.

Devil Dog, the Hound of Hell is a chilling tale of demonic horror. Man against animal, man against the I can't read that'cause the the person's flash on eBay covered up the last words.

Oh no. So all that's all pretty accurate. Um particularly my storm part.

My favorite line there is where they they allude to a dog being man's best friend, but they just say a best friend, like man's got a couple other friends who maybe rank slightly higher.

Uh that videotape was from Lightning Video, of course, the wonderful Lightning Video. Naturally.

Always the sign of quality, those guys. Should we talk about our cast a little bit here? Yes, let's talk about this cast, please. So we got Richard Krena.

As our lead

Uh he of the evil, death ship, Leviathan, and what the flamingo kid, right? Uh sure, sure. Uh what a career.

In terms of uh why Richard Krenner did this movie, uh, Curtis Harrington had this to say uh he needed money.

Yeah. Richard Krena returning to the Doomed show. Um, his triumphant return, because he was in the evil.

Mm-hmm. Which was a a childhood trauma of mine that I absolutely love to this day. Um but yeah, he did that and um Devil Dog the same year. Oh my gosh, wow. And then Death Ship was nineteen eighty, which I love Death Ship.

Speaking of movies I probably shouldn't have watched when I was five or six.

Uh very scary stuff. I love it. Well everyone says of Richard Crenna, he was a very nice man.

Oh, that's good. That's good to hear. Yeah. Um then we got of course Yavet Mimu Mimimu.

She's back. She of Snow Beast. Yeah, that's right. Scream queen of the little screen. Um she's also very notable.

In uh genre film history for being the original Wiena in the Time Machine. Amazing, amazing.

I don't think she aged at all between the time machine and the she looks so she looks really good. Yeah.

gorgeous in this movie. Oh my God. Um she was also in The Black Hole, which is a a childhood favorite of mine and also a movie that I think is a an adult favorite too. I frickin' love The Black Hole. What a movie.

Then we got Kim Richards and Ike Eisenman. They are playing siblings here. And they also played siblings in the Witch Mountain movies, speaking of, you know, somewhat somewhat troubling Disney movies.

Uh and um Ike I don't know if he really did much, but Kim Richards is well known for being one of the real housewives of Beverly Hill.

She's contributing to what we call capital C culture. All right. Yeah. Yeah. No. With Devil Dog, Hound from Hell. Ike, uh, he was a voice actor in a bunch of really cool anime.

Um he did additional voices in uh Nausica Valley of the Wind, which is a stone cold classic right there. Um did some voices in Go Bots Battle of the Rock Lords.

Yeah, I just said that. It's not really the classic Go Bots. I I did have Go Bots as a kid. Fun story. I was uh burning Go bots in my bedroom with matches and my mom and dad caught me and um

I didn't have a great night. You were burning them and Ike Eisenman's voice came out of them saying, Help me.

Why you be killing me?

Um, but yeah, that's just the tip of the iceberg'cause there's some other great people in this frickin' cast. Well, R. G. Armstrong is the person I wanna highlight. Uh he plays one of the Satanists in this film, uh the one who gives gives from the back of his puppy cart, uh are

our uh our family, their their little puppy. He's in Race with the Devil, The Car, The Pack, Evil Speak, The Beast Within, Children of the Corn, and most notably, he plays prune face in Dick Tracy.

Crazy. That's so crazy. Um, I like to call Dick Tracy the uh montage movie. It's like if you took if you took every montage out of Dick Tracy, it'd be thirty minutes long. So funny.

I love it. You you know how um uh war uh Warren Beatty is just holding hostage the the rights to Dick Tracy and that he has been since this movie came out.

Of course he is. He well the way he does it, he can't just like hold on to the rights by like paying money. He has to produce Dick Tracy content every number of years.

So what he does is he has a TCM special where he appears as himself, Warren Beatty, but also appears and is interviewed by the hosts as Dick Tracy.

And this counts and he's able to hold on to the copyright. How have I never heard of this? This is hilarious. It's amazing. I just love TCM's complicity in it too. They're just like, yeah, we'll help you with this.

Scheme, Warren. Wow. Just wow. I of course want to talk about Martin uh Besswick.

She is our our Satanist pal in this movie. Um, and she is awesome. I love her. She's a Bond girl. Yeah in a tank playing

Two different characters in two different Bond movies, but she was the sister Hyde of uh Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde. Oh yes, yes. Which I've still never seen. I'm ashamed of myself. I love that one. It's great.

Uh she was also in from a whisper to a scream. Uh Trancers 2. Speaking of Unseen by Me, I'm very excited. I just got the Blu-ray of Trancers 2.

She was also Xavier Hollander in The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood.

Mm-hmm. Is that the main character? Yes. That is the main character. There you go. Folks uh hold hold on while we go watch that and cover that real quick.

We're a pair of happy hookers ourselves. Oh, she's also in in Seizure. Um Oliver Stone Seizure. Yeah. She's like the the the main woman in that. The what's her name? The Queen? Yeah.

Nice, nice. That's crazy. But yeah, dude. Great cast. Just stacked stacked cast.

Uh so yeah, we're gonna jump into this plot. Uh so the movie starts in and I wrote in my notes Lakeland, Florida because I saw the sign says Lakeland Kennel, but it was it's Lakeland, like California.

Probably. Um we get the uh smiling Satanist lady played by Martin Bezwick. Her character's name is Red Haired Lady in this. According to according to IMDV, that sounds interesting.

Uh she and her goons want to uh

Frickin' adopt a dog, a very specific dog, uh when they get there. She asks the uh the kennel owner, how much is that doggy and the kennel? Whoop whoop. Just that dog. It's perfect.

They want a dog that's a good breeding stock that's already had some um some puppies. They don't want some virgin dog. It has to be an impure dog.

I mean they didn't say that.

Uh one of the goons here is wearing these ill-fitting aviator sunglasses. Hold on to that. Hold on to that. We'll return to it later. Nice, nice. I love that they pay.

Frickin' five thousand dollars.

in nineteen seventies money for this dog because the guy's like, oh I can breed this dog. I I really love this dog. And of course, because they're Satanists, the dog's afraid of them. And because they're Satanists, they're rich.

That's right. That's right. Because material things are easy when you got the devil on your side.

So they buy the dog and then Jeffrey, uh they have a ritual. Tell me about it. Yeah, they have a bit of a summoning circle in a uh Hack O'Lantern type Satanist barn, uh with Lady the dog.

Oh man. If only High Pike had been there. If only. I mean it's pretty good already, but that would elevate it.

So um they're all there, uh uh Martine and her two goons. This is at night, and the one goon with the aviator sunglasses has a funny reveal where we see he's still wearing the sunglasses indoors.

There they throw some like popper firecrackers on the ground. Um, Lady doesn't like that. Uh no. They keep saying things like send the beast and uh and start chanting Bargest, Bargust, which sounds like bark, like the sound a dog makes with EST at the end, barkist.

We also see that the Satanists and this is not very Satanist of them, if you ask me.

They're holding candles. That's cool. But they have tin foil wrapped around the candle bottoms to protect them from any wax drippings. That's not very hard. Oh my god. These are these are weak.

Weak Satanists here. Um, once they summon the Barcast though, uh the forest turns red, which is a pretty cool like the forest around the barn.

And then this is actually legitimately pretty cool. We get kind of a very lackadaisical evil dead camera of the uh I guess the beast.

Coming to mate with Lady. It's a cool it's a cool opening sequence, I gotta say. It's really good. Send the beast. Send him now.

Send him now.

Barguest! Barguest! Come!

Come!

Yes.

The next day we have the saddest moment of the movie. We meet Mike and Betty Barry. He's picking her up from work.

Um what is his job? Is he like a What the hell is his work? Uh I don't know. I don't know. Advertising corporate yeah, corporate something. She works at the VA and she works with

um troubled, uh you know, uh traumatized GIs and she's helping them with uh an art class, getting them out of their shelves.

Yeah. And she's she's really sweet and wonderful. It's hilarious when she turns on them later, but whatever. Get to that, we get to that. Um, so they're teasing each other about going on a date and they're on their way home and then they find They're dog, skipper, lying dead in the street.

And I wrote in my notes, O skipper, we hardly knew ye

Wait a minute, how long has the body been there? Because of course, when uh they're picking the dog up off of the street.

It's completely stiff, like completely solid sculpture of a dog they built for this.'Cause of course not a real dog. They live on a very sleepy neighborhood.

Mm-hmm. Uh the neighbor runs out. He was he's such a sweet guy. This is George. Uh he is played by uh Lou Frazel and he

It says he chased down the people but lost them. They had a black station wagon and which we know that the Satanists at the beginning of the movie, that's what they drove up to the kennel in. Um and the Satanists are gonna be back a whole bunch in this movie, so Wait.

Are they? No. Is that a joke?

Why didn't you see one of them again? Uh we got RJ RG, RG Armstrong coming back. There you go. He comes back. Yes. He's vegetable man. We'll get to him. Bonnie the daughter.

Totally traumatized. She's can't they've canceled her birthday and they're talking to her, trying to calm her down, and they ask her, like, well let's get another dog and she's so offended. She says the best line in this whole thing.

If something happened to me.

Did you just say get another daughter? Maybe.

Maybe we would. Especially if she's a child actor, we can make money off of her.

I wish there was a scene right after this, like as part of the birthday celebration.

Uh they uh they try to bury the dog in a shoebox. Like if they just were trying really hard to fit it into one of dad's old shoebox and like it just won't fit. It's so stiff.

You can tell we're cat people when we make that joke. I I just I like the idea of somebody trying to bury a dog in a it's like that's not gonna work.

Uh so luckily, uh, you know, her brother's trying to cheer her up and they go out that day to uh go on a little bike ride. And that's when the fruit and vegetable man pulls up, and uh but he also has puppies. The other vegetable.

And there's this whole thing where he's like

He's a good Satanist. He's he's very

playing into the whole you don't have to ask your parents, but yeah, I guess it would be good if you checked with them. But I'm gonna see a lot more kids today. They'll give these puppies away. Also, this puppy cost five thousand dollars.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

So he gives her the dog and he ski daddles as soon as the kids are convinced to take the this puppy, uh who we'll find out is named Lucky by uh Bonnie in a minute. This guy hauls ass to leave this satanic pup. It's amazing.

They they didn't pay RJ Armstrong for more than a more than a day's work, so he had to get out of there.

No, no, not at all. Not at all. Uh we have a great bit where uh George the neighbor brings over his dog named uh I wrote in my notes Fritz a bunch of times, but Lietta says it's Prince.

brings over this huge dog, I I don't know if it's a great dane or a marmadukey dog or whatever. Enormous. It's like a human on all fours. Giant dog. And of course Lucky the puppy puts the whammy on him and scares him.

He puts the he puts the eye whammy on him, right? Oh yeah, we got glowy eyes, killer dogs. Oh

Maria the Maid is no fan. She takes one look at this frickin' dog and is like, Fuck this dog. We gotta sage this puppy.

Yep, yep. Maria is played by Tina Minard, who was a very prolific actress. She's in so much stuff. It's crazy.

Lou Frazel, seventy seven credits, all kinds of TV. Like name a frickin' uh seventies TV show and he had an episode. Amazing. Amazing. Maria

while she's left alone with the dog, is uh trying to, you know, pray so that she can protect the family, she lights a candle and immediately bursts into flames.

And dies. Very sad. We miss Maria already. If only she had wrapped some tinfoil around the bottom. Mm-hmm. Right around that candle. Would have saved your life.

The family recovers very well. I guess it's a year later. Uh a year later they recover from Maria's untimely demise. I mean t to be fair, they recovered within five minutes. This this family is not affected by death all that much.

The bounce back berries. Uh but now that Lucky's all grown up as a as a as a very strapping young puppy dog, what is his powers? What does he get up to? So he's he's got a lot of hypnotism.

Um, he just sort of stares at you and he can will you to do things. Uh notably this is in a scene where um they are I guess they're trying to like fix the lawnmower that's on the fritz or something.

Um or on the prince as we say. Yes. The blades of this lawnmower are up in the air in a very dangerous way. Oh my god. And in the best scene of the movie, we have Lucky, willing Richard Krena to sort of put his hand into the now spinning blades of the lawnmower.

And it's edited so well it just

Cuts back and forth between the dog. It's all it's sort of from the perspective of Richard Krenna. He's looking at the spinning lawnmower blades, looks at the dog, looks at the blades, and the music is out of control.

It's so good.

Wonderful scene. The Blu-ray has this as the menu video and they just play the entire scene which is so long and then loop it.

Uh suffice it to say he does not put his hand into the lawnmower blades. He's able to resist the hypnotic urge.

And uh then the funniest part is that Lucky is just like, all right, and trots away, like, better luck next time.

Yeah, you win this round, Dad. Oh my god, it's so good. Next thing you know, uh the kids are up to some mysterious nighttime shenanigans.

They're running around with candles and and uh acting sketchy and of course they go up into the attic to do something. We don't see what they're up to till later.

But then the next day or whenever, who knows what the timeline is in this frickin' movie, mom is in the kids' bedroom.

And she's looking at their c little art book and everything and she knocks over what looks like a can of paint. But it's blood. And uh while she's cleaning it up, the kids come in and she's like, What is

This looks like blood and like no and their their attitudes are immediately like complete shifts of character, no gradual turning evil, just shitheads immediately.

So much so that Lucky has to like nudge Charlie to be like, Bro, be cool. And he's like, Oh, I'm sorry, Mom. Ha ha ha. Just kidding. We'll clean this up. Wonderful. So uh

First of all, these these children are, I think, a little bit too old to be sharing a bedroom at this point in their lives. Like they're they're entering the teen phase. I think they're across the hall from each other. Oh okay. They don't share the same bedroom. Yeah. All right.

Well This is his room. This was Charlie's room. Okay. So in Charlie's room we do have one great detail. I'm looking at it right now. There is a it appears to be a framed peanuts print.

on the back wall. It's the characters from Peanuts, the Peanuts, playing um

Baseball? Or like kind of standing around a dugout?

But the really cool thing is that it's sort of in like these muted pastel colors and there's no black line work. So it's just the like blobs of color in the shape of the characters. It's really cool. I need to find that print.

It almost sounds like a an animation cell. Like like the back the backside of an animation cell. The way you describe it. Yeah, that's that's certainly the vibe it's giving off.

Nice. Weird. I did not notice it. I think he also has a big stack of National Geographic. That has a yellow spine, right? I'm pretty sure it does. Yeah. He's got a nice collection of the

Come on, parents, we know what those are for. Speaking of looking for things I could not find later uh from this movie, uh mom is reading a red book and I could not find the issue. I was not eagle eyed enough to to find out what

the the topics covered on Redbook. But uh what happens while mom is having some mom time? When mom's having some mom time on the

moss colored and textured carpet sitting in a big old wing back chair. We have Lucky approaching to do a little bit more well in this case it's not hypnotism, it's more just being a creep.

Um we do another great editing job where we're cutting back and forth.

uh between mom trying to get read another sentence or two uh with and when she looks up, lucky's just a little bit closer, his tongue lolling stupidly out of his mouth. Um

As opposed to the lawnmower scene, this one just has ambient room sound. So even though Lucky looks really sweet and not menacing at all, it does seem it feels kinda menacing nevertheless.

She she eventually runs out of the room and is pursued by very meek lucky.

Um, one thing that uh that um Curtis Harrington mentions in his interview about this film is that he was really upset with the dog. He didn't like working with this dog because this dog was too nice.

They wanted to make this dog look evil and menacing, and it was just a sweet little German shepherd.

So um what Lucky has apparently done is is turned Betty to naughty Betty. Uh because when uh when Mike comes home from work, he's so apologetic about working too late, and she's standing in the backyard creepily staring at him and smoking a cigarette, and immediately suggests that they go and

Skinny dip and do other things in their neighbor George's pool. Like George won't mind. Let's go ruin his pool.

After this this frolicking, the next the cut is really funny cause George is uh is trying to clean his pool.

And uh Prince, the dog, is barking his head off and of course, uh, evil Betty stops by now that she's mean.

To tell him, Your dog barking too much, why don't you put him to sleep because he's he's got uh doggy dementia or something?

Cracks me up. So funny. And then the next thing you know, our pal prince is dead.

Very sad.

He's been torn to shreds according to uh there's no blood in this movie at all, other than the blood that the kids had in the jar. And uh he he's been torn to shreds and of course George thinks or just knows

that uh Lucky did it and he's talking about how he wants to shoot the dog. And my other favorite line of the movie is again, Bonnie

Don't you hurt our dog. I'll kill you, you old creep.

I want that dog destroyed. That dog was locked up in the house on

Don't you hurt our dog. I'll kill you, you old creepy got no right. Just because we're not going to be able to do it. Charlie, shut up, Charlie. Beautiful. And then of course, my favorite scene of the movie, speaking of this n overly nice dog.

George, of course, is gonna die. He's his been marked for death by Lucky the Wonder Pup.

Of Satan and we have to have a menacing shot of the dog

creepily walking around the pool at night. But the dog apparently was walking incorrectly for it to look menacing. So you just see the shot of the dog's feet as he's walking along the pool.

And I think they are like leading the dog to make him walk slower.

And it looks really unnatural. The dog is like, what do you want me to do here?

So funny. It's so funny. Apparently, every good, he was a very well-behaved, nice dog, but all they could really do is use this little ball toy to make him look

in a certain direction. So that's mostly the acting you get from Lucky is looking. Oh man. Related to this, I love the way they treat the animals in this. There's n there's no like scene of like

Ooh, that dog is unhappy. Or, you know, that that cat looks like he's being menaced by someone off camera because the one thing I didn't like about Zoltan, the uh uh Dracula's dog, that movie, the dogs

He possesses some other dogs, I think, and they all get fitted with these fake teeth to make them look like they're snarling all the time. Oh yeah. And these poor dogs are just dry.

And drooling. I'm like, oh no, that's not nice.

Well and I do like that movie other than that. Of course. We still must say as if it's not obvious enough, this movie does not pass the does the dog die test.

Not at all. Which hey folks, if you watch Italian horror and Spanish horror, you're relieved that the dog is obviously not getting killed for real. And you you know you don't care anymore because the animal's safe.

Presumably. Presumably.

Laws were different then. Anyway, so now we've got mom's always horny all the time, keeping dad happy. But he's worried about Charlie and uh Bonnie. Um so Charlie, according to this is uh

Miles, the uh guidance counselor slash English teacher. This is uh Ken Kirchavel. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, but yeah, 71 credits.

Wonderful. Lots of TV stuff. I think everybody everybody was on Walker, Texas Ranger, at some point. Um he was absolutely on an episode of Murder She Wrote. Hell yes.

Highway to heaven. Ooh. Anyway.

So he comes by to talk about Charlie, whose grades are fine, but it's not about grades. It's about him being a little tyrant.

Um, he's won the school election by falsely accusing the the the kid who is definitely going to win with a stolen watch scenario.

And and uh Bonnie has turned into a little shithead. She's now um stealing and getting in trouble and just being just an ass.

And uh Betty takes Umbridge with this. She can't she can't handle any of this bullshit, and she throws Miles out, and then goes and seduces him.

She puts on the sexiest dress that you can get in the color brown, because it's the seventies. The sexiest dress in Lakeland, Florida. Lakeland, California California.

She totally just within three seconds of being caught in her lie of where she was, she just tells Mike, Well, yeah, I freaking seduced him to help Miles out. I mean help Miles to help uh Charlie out.

And of course he's appalled by this. The problem is

Our pal Mike wants to go talk to Miles and sort this shit out. So he leaves to go over there, but bad news for Miles, what happens?

A bad news for Miles, he's visited.

In his window at night he had

By devil dog Dracula. Um, oh boy, so So the thing is, uh uh uh Lucky assumes an ultimate form, and this ultimate form is an entirely different dog um that has what could be best described as like um like feather boa hair.

Uh it's like just a shock of of hair that just sort of like wiggles around. It's kinda it's like it's like you replace the dog with a Liberace dog, and that's uh what this dog looks like.

Uh it's crazy. The appearance of Devil Dog Dracula Liberacci and Miles' window sends him running into the street directly into an oncoming car. He's dead.

I love the smoke machine and the colorful lights and everything and the and the dogs superimposed over this.

'Cause here he's bigger than a normal dog, but later he's gonna be real big. It's freaking amazing.

Way, way over. Holy shit. It's hilarious.

It's like when you're watching a movie that they use that early chroma key stuff.

Mm-hmm. Like um Hao Sue from seventy seven. They use a lot of that video effects. So they're the movies shot on video I mean, excuse me, the movie's shot on film, but then the effects shots are done with video.

And then once they were done, then they filmed the video and then spliced it back into the movie and it looks crazy. It's like what what happened? And that's absolutely what's happening here. But they're doing it so early, like

Much earlier in the scene than it should be. It's not just for the special effect shots. Yeah. It makes me wonder if the print they had had some issues.

Yeah. From it'cause the it just lo it looks so bad. It is really striking in the Blu-ray. Um it just is it's we we trans we're transpl uh transplant trans transplanted into an entirely different movie.

The copy of a copy of a copy.

Electric performance.

A revolutionary news set.

people who brought you the first home television receiver and the first receiver to use I mean VIR colour signal.

This is the widescreen 1000 with a picture three times bigger than a 25-inch diagonal set.

You want G. Uh Mike goes to his doctor and asks for a complete remote.

Physical checkup to make sure he's not going insane.

Because he he he wants to rule out any physical manifestation that's making him like go crazy. So once his doctor gives him the okay, then he's like, all right, then this is real. I thought that was very strange.

Filler scene. Loved it. He also is growing uh even more alienated from his family. Like when he tells them about Miles's death, which he witnessed.

And they laugh. He's like, got anything to say? And uh, I believe his son says, Yeah, nobody flunks English now.

Dude, that's so annoyingly evil. Like, I actually got angry too when I saw that part. I was like, damn, that kid's.

Sucks. The weirdest thing is um dad needs to prove that his kids are possessed by some evil thing. So do you understand the mirror sequence?

Um no, except I guess if you are evil and under the influence of uh devil dog, your skin looks real bad in a mirror.

And this never comes up again. This just happens this one time where he leans over Bonnie while she's sleeping, puts a mirror in front of her and she gets this horrible acne looking face.

Very strange. And then out of nowhere and folks at home. This is not a statement on this movie. I was very tired. And I was starting to drift and Lietta had to keep waking me up. Uh bless her heart. Um and the next thing I know

Uh Mike is in Ecuador. Yep, as you as you do.

He's in Ecuador to research uh this this the The Barcast. Barcast? Yes, the Barcast.

the barkin'est dog that ever was, and I I just got that he stares at some ancient uh cave art that is exposed to the elements is like totally like just on

The side of a rock wall, not really in a cave. I don't know how it survived so well, exposed to the elements like it is. But then he gets he gets inspired, he gets the power to stop this dog and goes back. What is what happens in this showdown, Jeffrey?

So yeah, I mean like up until I I I'm totally agreeing with you by the way about it getting kinda sleepy here at about the one hour mark.

Um'cause he he has like uh and we skipped over it and totally, you know, understandably so. He like has meetings with a whole bunch of different people who give him more information about the bar guest.

He meets with this woman in her library, then in Ecuador he meets with this like shaman and they're telling him more and more information. It's sometimes like a little bit funny. Like I think the woman at one point tells him uh when she shows when he shows her an image.

V the barcast. She says, Uh pity it's not a one-eyed devil. They're not the brightest.

'Cause it's a three eyed devil, that's different, you know. Oh god, I I must have been really asleep. Oh my god, I missed the best fucking line of the movie.

I mean so like that stuff is pretty it's funny, but it's you know, it's still just kinda drawn out until our final confrontation.

Cause you're right. He goes to Ecuador, he has that shaman meeting, he gets the power from a mountain or whatever, and then he confronts Lucky in a factory setting. I'm not even sure exactly where they are. Do you know?

It's a factory. Maybe it's connected to his work. Yeah, yeah. Ambiguous work. Um you know, when he's when he's off the clock being dad, he works at factory.

Uh I go to job. And feather feather boa liberachi lucky once again appears, snarling smoke much much bigger he's like kaiju sized now oh I love it so much he's so such a big big pupper the the quality once again drops radically for the special effect shot

But it's not just Liberace Lucky that is a special effect because we also have Dad's glowing light hand. Which he uses to combat the giant Lucky.

Actually I do have to point out, because again, I'm watching it as ever as we are talking. And there is a great uh uh in camera special effect here as dad is approaching his final confrontation in the factory.

He walks towards the camera and behind him is a moodily lit um like silo, like a you know, like one of those big circular things.

And it's got a staircase that's running up it. And then we have the silhouette of the dog, Nosferatu style.

walking in front of it. It is a direct nod to Nosferatu here in this movie. I totally missed it last time. How fun. Dogsferatu. The dog is holding its it someone's holding its paw up like this to make it all creepy.

So yeah, he compats Lucky with his his his palm. I like to imagine they just smeared some peanut butter on his palm and covered it up with a light effect. And uh this makes Lucky explode into flame.

Well, he turns into a demon man. He turns into that that that very wise three eyed demon.

in this confrontation. Oh shit. Yeah, this is what we've all been waiting for. It's a big special effects blowout to bring us to bring us some closure.

The uh the the very ending is when the family's packing for a trip, everyone's nice again. Hopefully mom is still horny, uh but the kids are nice now and as they're leaving for vacation Charlie's like.

Hey Dad?

What about the other nine puppies that were in the back of that truck and get that Well, I don't know. Guess some other families are totally fucked, you know, then off they go on vacation. Richard Cretis says, Forget about it, Charlie. It's Lakeland, Florida, Fornia.

And folks, that is the entire plot of frickin' it uh devil dog hound of hell, including the stuff I slept through. It's fine. It's a television movie. You're supposed to sleep through it a little bit. That's right, that's right.

Tell me all about you.

the uh the the trivia from our our fun director here. Okay. So first off, the Shriek Show Blu-ray has way, way more special features than you'd think.

Like really it's only got like two, but one of them is like an hour and thirteen minutes of interviews. Like Yeah, I did not make it through that whole thing. I did listen to most of the interview with uh Curtis Harrington.

to to recap some of the things he says. First of all, he's super surly throughout the entire interview. It's so funny.

The interviewer is like j asking him these questions, he's like, I don't wanna answer that.

Uh so yeah so he did this because he needed the money. Uh he thought it was ridiculous when he read the script. That's a direct quote. Uh he didn't know how to fix it, in fact, because it was so ridiculous.

Uh the dog was very difficult, though a good boy. Um he wanted to use a rottweiler, but was told they're they're they're not intelligent enough.

Oh wow. Um uh let's see. Um

He was asked by the interviewer who was speaks in like a monotone the whole time, uh, was there anything demonic that happened on set? And he just responds by saying, absolutely nothing.

Ha ha.

What a great question. He says denied. The only good scene is the lawnmower scene, as we noted. And he says, it was only due to my direction.

Well, I won't take that away from him, but no, it's that's that is the best scene in the in a in a fun, good movie.

Um uh these then asked, did the film turn out how you planned it? And he responds, No, not at all. The producer put not one dime into it, uh and the special effects wouldn't scare a mouse. Um

And he ends by saying the film shouldn't have been done at all. Wow. Holy shit.

That's amazing. Um, then moving on to the video interviews, we have uh the producer, Jerry Zeitman.

um who's the one who didn't put more than a dime into it. Um he is much more positive about the film. He uh he even goes on to say that because of the ending where we learn all of the um

Uh you know, there's all those other puppies out there, nine other puppies in that litter. He says, Well, you know, there's a potential to make nine sequels or remakes. Nine sequels. So uh nine sequels or remakes, he says.

And uh he said, hey, anything's possible. We could even do this now in 2011, because quote, people love little terrors.

End quote. Um, Jerry Zeitman did not get he talks about some other projects that he was planning that he is like in the process of making, none of which got made.

Um, he is a famous Hollywood agent. Um, he worked with a lot of really famous people, um, but he only produced 11 projects during his career, notably this and um the adaptation of a Roger Zelazny story, Damnation.

Oh. Yeah, that's a pretty famous one. So he got he got these two, and that's about it.

Um, the next interview is with uh Kim Richards in her Beverly Hills house, which already she's given off.

Beverly you know, uh Housewives of Beverly Hills vibes. This is I think a few years before that. But she is very funny. She talks about adopting one of the puppies, uh, naming him quote Max Doobie.

She wanted to name the dog Doobie, but you know, that's got some connotations. She was worried that her dad wouldn't like it. So she named him Max Doobie, the Doobie being silent.

Um and she also like just throws in that she had to give this puppy up because dad sold the beach house and we couldn't take him back to the real house.

weird stuff going on in their uh in their in their life. Um that is terrible. She also me No wonder she was on a reality show.

She also mentions working for Curtis Harrington and she says she basically doesn't remember anything about him, that he wasn't a and this is direct quote, he wasn't strong her, you know.

Um, so take of that what you will.

A hundred and thirty-four-ish episodes of Real Housewives. This lady. So it was at about that point that I stopped watching the video interviews. I don't know who else was interviewed. Probably I mean probably no one.

Um but that's my trivia and I think all that's good stuff.

The one piece of trivia I got here from um IMDB is that the episode excuse me, the film was inspired by the episode The Devil's Platform from the T V series Colchak the Night Stalker.

They could not get permission to adapt this that storyline to a feature length, so they decided to write something new. And uh Tom Scarrot was supposed to be in this.

But he turned it down to go work with Ridley Scott on some dumbass movie called Alien. Oops. Oh, what a blunder he made. Richard Krenna probably called him and said, Dude, please, I need money. Don't take this role.

But yeah, that's all that's all the trivia we have for this this beast.

How do you feel about this one, dude? Well, you know me. I love a sleepy time, uh, Yvette Mimieu starring.

TV film. So this one, this one works pretty well for me. Um, I do think that first hour is definitely the most engaging part.

Um when he starts going on his quest of learning about the barguest and how to defeat the barguest, it on paper I think it it it works for me and in practice it's just a little bit too drawn out.

Um we needed a little bit more Dick Tracy montage there, if you if you catch my drift. Um but otherwise, great film. Love it.

I know what it needed. Shortened research to find out how to defeat it. Like just let frickin' Richard Creno do the local library thing and then have the devil dog like We see what

the devil dog is making the kids do. Like we see the whole scene with the watch at school and we see Bonnie being a shithead instead of just hearing about it and then like have the dog like taking out some of their friends.

Yeah, if they did like if the family did more evil stuff,'cause what they do is like not super evil. Uh right. Yeah. But you know, I'm not gonna nitpick'cause I love it. It's great. Wonderful film. Five stars.

I strongly liked this. I regret being so sleepy while watching it. Pacing issues aside, at the end, it's all just so frickin' fun. I

adore made-for-TV horror movies from the seventies and early eighties, as everybody should. If you're looking for more of these, check out the book by Amanda Reyes.

Uh are you alone in the house? Oh excuse me. Are you in the house alone?

Where she reviews this and many other great made for TV ones. Does the Blu-ray have that horrible sound issue? The version I was watching had this weird background noise.

That sounded like a bubbling cauldron. We I did not notice that, so I think not.

Yeah, I I have a I have a funky copy. It's it literally sounded like someone was boiling a pot of water and just put a microphone and pointed it at it. It was very strange. It was through Thirty minutes of the movie, at least the sound, it was very obnoxious.

'Cause I thought it was an effect, like, ooh, the tensions boiling over literally, but then we were both like Lietta and I were both like

I don't think that's supposed to be there. Yeah, I will say that the um the the Shriek Show uh Blu-ray, um, despite being from Shriek Show and despite being over ten years old at this point, is quite good. Um it's it's one of their one of their better ones.

Cool. So question off the top of your head, can you think of some other uh made for TV horror movies that you are just a big fan of?

Ooh, ooh, off the top of my head. Or feel free to use the off the top of the internet. Yeah, let me just look up a list real quick because if I forget something important. Be like ah I will.

Okay, so we got like different we've got different levels.

Of made for T V horror, right?'Cause you've got like you've got the made for TV horror that's like big budget stuff that's like

Obviously good. You've got things like the uh the various Stephen King adaptations, Salem's Law, It. Those are great TV films, right? But they're not they're those aren't exactly the same.

We and then you've got like classy stuff from England, like all of their uh wonderful like ghost stories for Christmas or Ghost Watch.

The stone tape, um, all that great stuff. But that doesn't count. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about 70s made for TV horror. And there's stuff that everybody knows like Trilogy of Terror or like the Night Stalker and Night Strangler film.

Um in terms of like stuff that people aren't too aware of

Um I like uh Moon of the Wolf is a good one. Are you familiar with that one? I have I know of it, I have not seen it. That one's really good.

A great one is uh Bad Ronald. Are you familiar with Bad Ronald? Um I've s that has been avoiding me for years. I've always wanted to see it. I was mixing it up with um

The what's the one where the kid has like this mutant gerbil at school? Uh Monster High or something? Oh, okay. What is that one called? I don't know. Horror high, you mean?

That's it. I've I I I still have not seen

uh Bad Ronald because of that. Okay. Ver it's a very different movie, let me tell you. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. I love things like Killdozer, um, The House That Would Not Die, um, Home for the Holidays. I think you're a fan of that one. Yeah.

Brad is a big fan, yeah. Uh-huh. Um oh, one I saw recently that was pretty good. It was released on

Blu ray. A not very good looking Blu ray by

Fred Olin Ray's company, whatever that one's whatever that company's called. Uh Crowhaven Crowhaven Farm.

Uh that one was pretty cool. I like that a lot. I've seen that. Um Kino put out a a few that are all really good, uh that look great. Um uh The Screaming Woman and Scream Pretty Peggy. Those ones are great thrillers.

Um and there are other great ones from a little bit later on, like um Um I'm thinking about the ones that say like uh vinegar syndrome put out on discs.

Um things like Are You in the House Alone, which is great. Yeah. There's so much good stuff. I mean, really, I what I would suggest is buy buy that book by Amanda Reyes and just read it.

Uh just read it and then watch everything. Um Yeah, whatever whatever appeals to you. Two last ones and these ones might be two of my favorites. Um number one, Don't Go to Sleep from nineteen eighty two.

You familiar with that one? Oh my god, it's so scary. Uh uh horrifying imagery in that one. And then one of the best sequels of all time, When a Stranger Calls Back.

Oh yes. Oh my gosh. What an amazing movie. Uh revit like uh those two movies, the original and the and the sequel were ones I watched a lot as a kid. Um

You know, just to mess me up. And uh uh re watching them uh a couple of years ago, When a Stranger Calls Back, a masterpiece, one of the best sequels of all time.

Totally. Off the top of my head, not really. Uh Summer of Fear. Yes. Early West Crayation of Sarah.

Oh sorry, go ahead Summer of Fear is an early West Craven and it's an adaptation of a Lois Duncan novel. She of I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Sure, sure. I've still never read any of Lowe's Duncan stuff. I have um I have I know what you did last summer, and I have her witchy book.

Yeah. The big one that she did that's about witches. I I'm assuming she did one. She has well. Uh is it Gallows Hill or D Daughters of Eve, which is not really a witch book, but

Hm. I don't know. There's a I mean there's a few that involve like witchy type things.

That's probably the I have one of those. Okay. Can't think of the title. And it's the shelves are way over there. Um speaking of West Craven, Invitation to Hell. Oh yes. Which is bonkers.

Um, I love the initiation of Sarah. That was a movie I thought I had seen and I bought the Blu-ray thinking it was something totally different.

Um, and mind-blown. I loved it. I want to say I was mixing it up with Satan's School for Girls, which I also liked.

Uh the spell is really fun. Yes. Um of course we have two midnights. We got midnight hour.

Oh yeah. Which we need a blue ray. That D V D got squashed.

I don't know how many lucky people got to buy that that D V D back in the day before

the they realize they didn't have the rights to that music and that thing disappears. Yeah, that that movie is never I would say it's never getting a release, but then

There are other movies like that where it's like, why would anybody pay all the money for that those songs? Like Skate Town USA. That's on Blu-ray now. So Yeah, no shit. It could happen. Who knows?

It could happen. Um, you know, we just have to wait till everything's in the public domain. Yeah, there you go. Uh and the second midnight is of course, um, Midnight Offerings, which is a great witchy teen movie. I love Midnight Offerings.

And the last one is a purely nostalgic. Holy shit, this scared me so bad as a kid. Dead of Night.

It's an is that an anthology film. I believe so. The story diff yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um oh my god, the story about the parents.

who just they can't deal with the kid. He's cramping their style, so they get rid of the kid.

Oh my god, that movie that that segment of that movie got me still scares me to this day. It's such a wonderfully delivered scare. And last but maybe most least.

Is um Nightmares, which I think was not made for T V was Nightmares, theatrical.

Yeah. So it was it was a T V show.

that they didn't pick up and so like body bags they made it into a movie. I don't know if it was released theatrically. I don't know.

The the most famous segment of course from Nightmares is Emilio Estevez versus a um evil video game. But uh veg just a great movie, a lot of fun, very very, very, very, very good TV stuff.

But that's it dude. That's all I got. Nice.

Um well folks, thanks for listening. Hopefully you are gonna have some hot dogs and share them with your devil dogs.

And uh you're gonna watch some frickin' made for TV horror. Do it. Jeffrey, thank you for being here. I'm gonna go fall asleep on the couch in Ecuador.

Yeah, I'm gonna go look at the uh not at all preserved ancient art that's just on a slab of rock outside. Oh that's how good those artists were that they they managed to use the perfect

I don't know how to end that. I don't know what else to say. Bye everybody. The perfect ink. Blood. Bye.

Yeah. Folks, thanks so much for listening to this episode.

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