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With a variety of shows, Legion Podcasts brings you discussion on the worlds of horror, film and video games from an assortment of perspectives.
You? But you're supposed to be dead.
I am dead.
Why? Grandpa. Fly.
Everything is ready, my darling.
Do not be afraid. Soon we'll be
together again.
This sandwich tastes as dry as hell.
Hello and welcome to hello. This is the Doom show. I am
Richard. Folks, my grandpa is in the
house and his name is Grandpa Jeffrey.
Excuse you, Grampire Jeffrey.
Oh, man, I blew it already.
We haven't talked to each other in a while, so we're a little off.
It's only been like six months. It's fine. We got this.
We are talking about Moonrise Kingdom.
Yes. Starring Al Lewis from the Munsters.
No, no. Oh, wait, we're not doing Moonrise kingdom.
I watched the wrong movie. Oh, no,
you watched the Wes Anderson and his white linen
suit in the criterion closet. Yeah. And I was like, that's a
vampire. We are talking
about my grandpa as a vampire from 1992.
Yeah. This is a children's film.
Yes, that good old David Blythe,
our friend and yours,
very quick to defend a certain scene in one of the movies he made.
We'll talk about that in a second. I'm getting ahead of myself. Yeah.
1992, my grandpa's vampire made and beautiful,
very beautiful New Zealand and written by
Michael Heath. These two gentlemen made a film called.
Death warmed Up, which I know you're. A big fan of from 1984.
It has one extremely problematic moment in
an otherwise totally run of the mill,
splatter horror movie from the eighties. There's a certain
convenience store clerk played by a white person
portraying a not white person, and it's brutally
unfunny and hideous. And for
some reason, he defends it. And the
extras, like, we played this scene in India, and they love it.
Really. They collectively have gotten together
and said, we love it. Michael and David,
you guys, you really are funny. You know
our humor. No, they were. They were plotting your murder outside the theater,
which is also imaginary because you never played that in India.
You're a liar. But anyway, I was wonderfully surprised that
there were no racial stereotypes in this movie that I could
detect, except for americans and vampires.
And the vampires. I can deal with that. But David Blythe also
worked on house three, the horror show, which he was fired from,
which I like. House three, the horror show. It's a very unusual
film. How much of his footage that he
was there for to direct, I have no idea. House three.
It's better than house two. Yeah, I I'm sure
there's house two defenders out there, but man,
y'all are just. You're vibing in a vibe.
I can't vibe with. Michael Heath also wrote next
of kin, the excellent 1982 Aussie sploitations
slasher giallo movie. Yeah, when I saw that, I was
like, whoa, buddy. Yeah, yeah.
And he didn't really do much else. I mean, he did, you know, death warmed
up this and next of kin, a couple other things,
but nothing really of interest to us. What, what a career. Three bangers.
Yeah. I'm very excited to get into this little
slice of heaven. This is a. A frickin, what do
you call it? A vehicle for a very special vampire.
Al Lewis, our friend from what was the movie
we covered, where Al Lewis was the creepy guy.
Frightmare, frightmare. Oh,
boy. I think Frightmare made me trust him less,
because there's moments in this movie where I got really scared for the
children. I remember. I believe, if I'm not mistaken,
you, like, showed me that there was a frightmare.
One sheet available on eBay with Al Lewis's, like,
horrifying face on the COVID art, just like.
And I, of course, bought it. I've yet to hang it up in my home.
But one day, that'll be your conversation
piece. I love it. So Al Lewis
is kind of the only actor in this. I recognize.
Um, you know, when you watch, you know, australian movies
or movies from New Zealand, you'll see the same, like, six people over
and over. Maybe not even that many. The same three people. Uh,
so I was surprised we didn't have, like, all these familiar
faces from that popping up. But maybe I just also have
lost touch with any, um, New Zealand cinema made after,
like, you know, death warmed up. Well, one thing that I noticed
going through everybody's IMDb page is that a lot of them had very
minor roles in the Lord of the Rings film, so.
Which makes sense, of course. Nice work if you can get it.
Yeah. So I'm going to drop a trailer in here. Found a wonderful trailer
for my grandpa as a grandpa.
And here it is.
There are stories told of creatures centuries
roaming the night searching for just
one thing.
Some farm. Grandpa. Cougar.
A vampire grandpa.
281 years old.
Mozarthouse. He was a beautiful boy. Not running
out of time. Help me. Save me.
I want to fly like Peter Pan with you boys.
Now out into the night.
Grandpa. Now. He's cool.
Give me five. And five makes ten. He's got the
wheel. And here we go.
If he just wasn't dead. Sorry,
lady. I'm starting to feel very strange.
How strange? Maybe he needs food.
Two raw meat patties. No.
Die, you monster. Die. I am
dead.
Grandpa. Run. Follow me, boys.
Al Lewis from the monsters is
Grandpa. Sometimes grandparents really
can be a pain in the neck. So I backed down.
I was gonna read the entire republic.
It's long, it's way over. It just
wouldn't be entertaining. So I grabbed a very succinct
one from a beautiful website called I am debuh.
And it goes like this. Sent on a trip from California
to New Zealand to visit with his eccentric grandfather,
Lonnie discovers that his grandpa is a vampire.
Unnerved at first, he soon discovers that his grandpa is a good vampire.
That's it. That's the whole thing. Well,
it does leave off the fact that his name is Grandpa Cougar,
which the Republic Pictures home video vhs
tape mentions no less than three times.
Cougar. Cougar. Cougar, cougar, cougar, cougar,
cougar. There's a really weird review.
I'm not gonna read it. There's two user reviews for this film,
and the second one is the person detailing when he rented this
film. And it is a very, very strange short
story, very detailed about the.
In particular, very unflattering portrait of the person working at the video store.
That's just bizarre. And also, they hated this
movie, which. You can't hate this movie. Oh,
my God. So here's your spoiler warning.
We are totally going to spoil this movie. Not the entire movie,
but we're going to spoil, you know, the. The big moments. In order
to not do a audio commentary or longer
length episode today, um, we're going to do ten scenes,
ten key scenes from this film.
Jeffrey's picked five and I've picked five. We're going to go back and forth.
That way we give you the good stuff and you can go in
there and investigate on your own, which.
Spoiler alert, I kind of recommend this one.
Thank you, Severin kids, for putting this out.
So, Jeffrey, you want to open us up? Give us the fun stuff?
You bet. Let's open up with the opening of the film.
This is a perfect opening to me. We have, like, this chill,
twinkling Jim Manzi music on the score as Gramps
just sort of flies through the air over
and down to a cardinal carnival like this. Every movie
should start with this. This specifically.
It's just such a good vibe. I'm already smiling.
It reminds me a lot of the scenes of the worst witch
flying around as she's, you know.
Have you ever seen the worst witch? Oh, of course. Yeah. Okay. She's. There's just
like, long, like, three minute long scenes of her just flying around
her room across the countryside. And this is much like that.
It's not long enough, but it's okay, because when
he goes down, it's to go to this carnival. He immediately
encounters his. I guess it's his daughter, right?
Like, the aunt is his daughter. Yeah, daughter. And her
kind of boyfriend, Ernie.
Ernie. And Ernie, like,
wants. He hates this man. Even before he knows he's a vampire, he hates this
man. And then the feelings are
mutual. I mean, we do. He is kind of weird.
And we learn that he, like, smells like moldy chops and,
like, is always playing the magic flute.
Anyway, he. Ernie says to him, go buy yourself
some tutti frutti and just throw some money at him.
But instead of doing that, because he doesn't eat food, he's.
He's a grampier. Gramps goes on a
dark ride called Davy Jones's locker.
And I guess it's like a boat, dark ride, and he's
going through it, and it's really intense. And he's,
I think, in a boat that's right behind two kids.
And one of the. One of the kids,
one of the kids is told by her boyfriend it's not real.
And she says it is real. Oh,
yeah, of course this ride is real.
But also, when Gramps is going through this
and starts to have, like, a coronary, we're told that
he is. He goes through this ride often.
He's known as, like, the crazy weirdo who rides Davy
Jones's locker. This is our introduction
to the film. And this character, he's just like, this weird old man
who can fly and goes through a dark ride to
have a heart attack. Great opening. He gets hit by the car.
So he rides out of the ride, right?
While having a coronary on the hood of this little car and
these kids just screaming. It is freaking hilarious.
Surprisingly, this movie is going to drop a few great slapstick
moments that I was. I was expecting to never crack a smile
or laugh during this film, but that is one of the moments that made me
laugh. The kid Lonnie, who's the
grandson, he comes back from America. I just want to say,
lietta called this. Have you seen the scary godmother
movies? The CGI? No.
Okay. There's an evil character named Jimmy who
is the villain of both of the scary godmother
made for tv CGI movies. And the kid,
Lonnie, looks just like him. It's frickin hilarious.
Interesting. I looked at his career. He hasn't done much,
though. He was in a movie called the witching of Ben Wagner,
which I've heard of that. Yeah. It looks cool. Yeah. It was
around the same time as. This, so I might have downloaded that and forgot about
it. So he's visiting to visit Grandpa because
grandpa's not doing so well. But then he gets treated
to something that I want to try, which is Oz dinner.
Tell us about Oz dinner. So this is, I guess this is,
I think, the first day that he's there.
They are treated to this dinner where they are just
slopping tomato sauce all over
their dishes. I don't even know what they're eating. It's unclear to
me. Oh, I can tell you. Okay. It's basically bangers and mash.
So it's just sausages and french fries. Okay,
well, it's largely tomato sauce. They taste these.
These wonderful New Zealand containers of ketchup that look
just like tomatoes, and they're just, like,
squeezing all of it out. It's at the same time that
fake Uncle Ernie comes into the
scene and, you know, like, Lonnie and Kenziora,
his friend, they need to, like, talk about, like, whether or not he actually is,
is the uncle, because it seems like him and the
aunt, they're like. They're, like, having sex, maybe, which is something
that these children talk about. But as he's working his way
into aunt's bedroom, he does this disgusting,
like, swiping of the food off of their plates. These two
children he is not related to by blood. He's just sticking his
hand, his filthy little Ernie hands,
into their plates full of sopping wet
tomato sauce. It's disgusting. Yeah.
Ernie is my secret hero because he is literally
the worst and most repugnant guy in the whole movie.
This is, you know, an adaptation of Dracula that says Dracula is cool
and Van Helsing is your crappy uncle.
The line is, Lonnie, do you think Ernie and your
and your aunt are doing it? And Lonnie
goes, anything's possible.
Anything's possible in New Zealand. It's a running joke
to the movie, man. Oh, my God. It's so funny.
Is he really your uncle? No.
Ronnie. Hmm. Do you think Ernie and
your aunt are doing it? What do you.
Man, anything's possible. So he goes,
they go up to see Grandpa, and, you know, grandpa's ailing from his
heart attack, but these kids, they inspire him.
And what happens when they inspire him to get out of his sick
bed? He's really upset. That again, aunt and fake
uncle Ernie won't let him play his vinyl records.
And particularly, he really likes the magic flute
because, you know, Mozart, he was a beautiful boy.
Does this imply that grandpa, like, knew Mozart,
was, like, friends with Mozarte? Yep. And, like, was an admirer
of Mozart's beauty. I don't know. Anyway,
he has the kids put on his. His, uh, his record,
and he does this wonderful little jaunty dance.
Holy shit. Where he lights candles with his fingers.
Because in this world, vampires have candle lighting powers.
And the boys just assume that it's a magic trick.
But no, I think it's, like, one of his powers as a vampire.
At the same time, like, watching him in his, like,
pajamas, doing his little dance.
The boys don't really know what to do.
So it's clear that, like, they weren't given very good directions
at this time because they just sort of. I think Lonnie starts
bringing up his hands and, like, fake conducting the
orchestra. And then Kenzura just sort of, like, starts doing
a little ditty. It's great. Then for some reason,
the blinds come up and there's sun out there,
I guess. And it nearly kills grandpa.
What a scene. The scene where you can,
like, if we had audio from that
filming that day, you could literally just hear the director, like, no,
keep dancing. Because every time the camera comes to them,
someone points it. The kid, the other one,
Caziora. Very weird name this kid has.
He, like, remembers he's supposed to be dancing every time they cut
to him. And it's so awkward in the best way. It's such
a, like, honest kid thing.
It's. Oh, man. They had no clue what they were doing.
It's awesome. But this is where I believe
this happens. After this, wherever Lonnie and Casiora,
if I'm saying that right, that they start to think,
hey, grandpa's kind of weird. Maybe he's a vampire. And Casiora is really pushing
this hard. So they decide to test it
out by garlic. No.
Ooh, holy water. Let's go get some holy water.
So the next day, or the same day, no idea what
time means in this movie. They go to
the catholic church and. But Lonnie's not. I'm not doing this. So our pal
Casiora takes a cup and goes in just a cup from
a fast food place and just dips it right in the holy water.
And this priest sees him, and he hides
the cup behind his back, and he's like, all right, kid, what are you hiding
behind your back? And the kid's like, nothing, sir. He's like, you wouldn't lie in
front of in God's house, would you? And the kid's like,
it's a milkshake. Okay, show me the milkshake.
You get the sense that the priest, for a moment, is like, oh, it's just
a milkshake. Okay.
Man. It's really bizarre. But then he drops the cup and they have to flee.
It's a very weird scene. Like,
what is this priest's problem with somebody coming in and taking the holy water?
Like, who cares? I think it's what it's there for.
You know, it's a lost boys situation. Come on.
Grandpa does die his first death,
as opposed to the many deaths we're going to die soon. So they're having a
funeral party, and Lonnie's already there, but they invite good old
Caziora to come over. And he comes over in his school uniform
to grieve with his friend. And we
get a character that I begged. I was literally
begging the movie to not go there. There's a lady
who's inebriated at this party.
She is drunk. And I thought because she starts flirting and the boys
are trying to have some punch at the punch bowl, get some snacks.
Casiora is literally shoving crackers in his mouth
or something, and they think this lady's looking at them,
flirting with them. Jeffrey. She was.
She indeed is. Yes. Like, winking lasciviously
kissy faces and then literally wagging her
tongue at these boys. And I was begging the movie to stop it.
It was very upsetting. Yeah, I don't think we fully highlighted
the fact that these boys are, like, eleven years old.
It's out of control. Out of control.
And then the boys start.
After the party's over, they start playing a keyboard.
Now there's a keyboard left. Just randomly sitting there.
And I wanted to go to eBay and see what these things are worth nowadays.
This is a Casio E 20. Excuse me? A Casio.
A Roland E 20. And let's see. Oh, that's not
bad. You can get one for 400. That's downright affordable.
Yeah, they're right. They jumped to 600 immediately. There must be something wrong with that
$400. So these boys are with their dirty fingers,
just slamming their fingers all over this keyboard, just destroying it.
But it's this. I love this scene with them again.
Kids being kids, just dancing awkwardly.
The Lonnie shows off his one sick move he learned from, like,
an R and B video spinning on one heel and like.
Yeah. Like, clapping his hands and it's just so cute.
But unfortunately, or fortunately, it resurrects
grandpa. Their energy feeds him.
You know, it's the magic flute. That's kind of what
they were channeling there. The beauty of
Kenziora. Majestic.
Majestic stuff,
everybody.
Okay, so my favorite scene of
the movie, except for the scenes that
Jeffrey picked, is when the kids and Grampy grampire
go flying. They go flying, you know,
because Grampa reveals that the moonlight gives him power,
which is why this movie was originally called Moonrise.
Very catchy. Very catchy title. I like it. I mean,
moonlight might have been a good title, too. Yes.
Or I'm powered by the moon, said grandpa.
That one rolls off the tongue. So. So Auntie
and Ernie are having their date, their special night in,
drinking champagne. You know, she's in a very vulnerable place because she
just lost her father. I hope Ernie's a nice boy and doesn't
take advantage of her, but they're having a nice date, and the
boys and grandpa are flying over the city, flying over
whatever in the full moon. And then
a cloud covers the moon, and they drop
like stones from the sky and hit that metal corrugated
roof. And I burst out laughing.
It made me laugh so hard. I just loved
that. That was my favorite thing. I. God bless
it. And this is what I
think I'm too jaded from
Fright house. Or is it frightmare? Fright house.
Oh, yeah, you're right. It is called Fright House, not frightmare. Yeah, sorry. Fright house.
I must be too jaded because I got so creeped out with him with these
boys. And Al Lewis wasn't a bad person.
It's just like my grandpa.
I would not. I would not want to be alone with my grandpa. He was.
It was something. I won't go into it.
He was a character, a kooky character. That's putting it
as nicely as humanly possible. But, yeah,
I just get so weirded out.
I mean, just listen to Lonnie. Lonnie says that grampire
is. Excuse me, grandpa Cougar is his favorite
cool guy. I. Maybe I'm
just jealous. I just have to ruin it because I didn't have a cool grandpa.
Damn. So now that they know that grandpa
is a vampire, they have to hide him,
because Ernie has discovered grandpa alive
and well and vampin, stone cold vampin,
and he wants to kill him, wants to drive a stake through his heart.
So the boys concoct a way to hide grandpa. So they take
him to Kaziora's house and hide
him in the shed. But what happens when they do this?
Well, in the middle of the night, we have grandpa giving
way to his vampiric impulses in
sort of a classic dracula or Salem's
lot tradition. He approaches the
window of Kenziora's bedroom and
starts sort of, like, outside of it.
And by the way, Kenziora's room is really cool. He's got lots of cool,
like, horror posters up, including, I think it's a famous sponsors of
filmland cover with Vincent Price and madhouse. And then
also our girl from Lair
of the white worm, a beautiful poster of her in snake form.
That kid's a Ken Russell fan. This kid is me.
I am Ken Ziora,
but so we've got grandpa Cougar
going outside the window, and he says,
thirsty, thirsty,
while bearing his dentures. And then we do a quick
cut to the kitchen where Kenziora is giving him a glass of
water. Dude, that joke hit so
hard. I love that bit. That reminded me of,
like, that would be the best joke in the disney
version of this movie. Like, that was a great
joke. Yeah, it feels like a joke that the
movie was sold on. Just like, you know, you can imagine the pitch meeting where
they're like, you know, he's outside the window, but then he really just wants a
glass of water like grandpas do.
He does the whole glass of water. And then he says, one more,
please. And Caziora's
dad hears him. He has to pretend he's sleepwalking. I found that part very funny.
That was great. Oh, wait, he should have given him the milkshake from
the church. No, that would have killed him. Oh, right,
because there was no milkshake. There was no milkshake. Wow,
he fooled you. Damn, got me good. So the
kids, through an insanely weird
thing of Katziora's family going on vacation,
they go to McDonald's. Now,
I looked up commercials for New Zealand
McDonald's, and I found the most New Zealand
McDonald's thing ever. They call it Maccas. So it's called Maccas
over there. They call it maccas. I wish the sign said maccas instead
of McDonald's. That'd be great. But I found a commercial that just
lists a bunch of New Zealand things that,
you know, people in New Zealand would understand in
this jaunty little song. So here's this beautiful McDonald's
commercial. It's wonderful.
Arnold and raisin beasts. Chili bins. Cricket wins.
Basties. Gold teas. Silver ferns. Carriedries. Kiwi burger,
love one, please. With a slice of watties. Beetroot, 100% pure beef. Patty and
an egg from farmer brown. It's the original Kiwi burger.
Hokey pokey. Mari Hacker Kiwi burger. That's a taca.
This McDonald's sequence, I can't talk about it.
It's too crazy. Jeffrey, you're gonna have to handle this one
well. So first off, I think, you know, we have to acknowledge this is a
full scene in this McDonald's. This is,
you know, 1991 prime New
Zealand McDonald's. It's a vibe. It's a whole vibe. But first off,
I just love the fact that this definitely required McDonald's,
like, consent and involvement because it's really. They were putting it on
display here. And so I love that, like, after fumbling
with Mac and me in the eighties, they're like, we're going
to rebound. We're going to. We're going to bring this around. My grandpa
is a vampire. This is the one. This is the one. It's going to work
out this time. And it did,
actually. Yeah, they part of a great film. We got a cameo
here from a weird Ronald statue in
the front door. That's, like, waving. We also have a cameo
from Captain Crook, a McDonald's character who has
sort of fallen by the wayside. But my favorite part
here is just what's going on with grandpa and the kids. Grandpa is
not doing so well. They have disguised him in
a dirty yellow bucket hat and sees big sunglasses.
He reminds me a little bit of Christopher Lee and howling, too, with these sunglasses.
They're not quite as, you know, crazy, but they're close. They're full
on Oakley's. They're like, full on that yellow band
with the super mirror reflection on
the. On the shades. They're pretty stylin'yeah. I mean,
as Lonnie says, grandpa, you look cool.
He doesn't really, though. In fact, he looks like he's dying.
See, that's the thing. One thing we have not talked about is, like,
other than the pajamas, al Lewis,
this entire film is in, like,
17th century garb. Like,
he looks like sort of dressed like a fop or like
someone who would, like a courtier or something. It's hilarious.
Yeah. Someone who would try to seduce Mozart.
Oh, no. Oh,
no. So the boys go to the counter and order themselves
some big Macs, but then order some two raw meat patties
for Grandpa, which they then squeeze
into a cup. And, you know, they just say, like, well, they should say they
don't, but they should just say, like, grandpa, it's a milkshake. Here you go.
They plug his nose because Grandpa doesn't want the
blood, so they plug his nose and just funnel it into his
throat. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
There is also crazy, a sort of closing moment in
the scene, which I don't.
Maybe New Zealand. Our New Zealand listeners will understand this reference
because I sure do not. I didn't. I know exactly what you're talking about.
Yeah. So. So Grandpa, or I think, you know,
Uncle Ernie Bustin. That's what happens. And points at
Uncle Grampire and says, that's a vampire.
And some random guy who's eating at the McDonald's just says, yeah,
mate, and I'm John Collinse and we're supposed to get
it. I don't get it. I looked up John Collins, New Zealand,
and there was like, a politician and I think maybe an athlete.
I didn't get much from that. It's got to be the cricketer.
The cricketer. There you go. Yeah. But. But then again,
he died in 1943.
Weird. There's. There's a rugby
guy. Yeah. Well, you know what? It made the
New Zealand dads roll
over with laughter. I just wish. Wish we had been
raised right, then. We know and we'd laugh along.
That's right. They managed to get Grandpa out of the
McDonald's and they end up at the talent show.
So this is a big talent show. One of the characters we've sadly left
behind is good old Caziora's sister,
who hasn't even. She didn't even look at Lonnie
before she had a crush on him. Or does she see him and describe him
as river Phoenix or something like that?
Yes. They say he's like river Phoenix.
Yeah, kid, I've met river and
you ain't no river. No, it was very sweet.
But she's doing a sort of a hawaiian,
I'm guessing, or just an islander dance. I got confused because
I'm, you know, a goofy white person. When they were dressing
up in the lays and everything, I didn't know. I'm having a
cultural, like, brain fart, so just ignore me. But anyway,
they're doing a song on stage and of course grandpa crashes
it, literally destroying the stage. And then the cop
who's been trying to catch him and Ernie end up
flying through the air and hooked on the
top of the stage in the lighting rig and sparks are shooting
out of all the lights. And I assumed that Ernie
and this cop were dead. They were just dead meat.
But no, no, it all works out, this whole thing.
The stage crashes, people are screaming. It's insane.
We think Grandpa's dead again because the light rigging falls
on him in this big debacle. Oh, my God. So then the
end of the movie comes and the kids have to say goodbye
to grandpa again. He's going to go out and
be a real vampire now, presumably actually killing people,
drinking their blood, etcetera.
It doesn't make a lick of sense. It is so baffling.
It's very teary. Earlier in the movie, I really did like
when the kids were, like when Lonnie was actually crying over
his dead grandpa before he came back. And then
it has that phone call with his mom. I'll be okay,
mom. Oh, man. Brutal. And I think that's just
the movie broke so many times. I think. I think the funny thing
about the ten scenes that we picked out is that each time the
movie came to a complete standstill and then kept going like,
that was something else. It's slightly episodic in its
structure, let's say. Yeah. The producers on this,
two of the producers, Judith Tyre and Murray Newey,
worked on a film that very unusual called
Jack Be Nimble, which I don't know if you've seen that one. It's from 1993.
Yeah, it was on. Put out on Blu ray pretty recently.
Yep. Yep. Just came out. It is
very unusual. I recommend that one. It's just
very atmospheric. Kind of artsy. Maybe not kinda. Maybe very
artsy. But I. I remember liking it a lot. It was one of those ones
I caught on cable and was like, what is this? That might have even
been a Turner classic. Movies in the middle of the night movie. Oh, could I
mention a couple other things quick, please? Just about
the music in this film. Oh, yeah. I didn't even look up the music.
Yeah. So the music is by Jim Manzi, who is
a well known composer for a bunch of different movies,
including Night of the Demons, two Bloodsurf,
one of my favorites from a whisper to a scream. That one actually got a
vinyl release recently from. Wow, somewhat a
few years ago from terror vision. What else did he do?
Leatherface, Texas Chainsaw, three tales from the dark side,
stepfather two, make room for daddy.
Nice. Yeah. Jim Manzi. Cool. Damn. I dropped the ball
in the music. Thank you. But I also wanted to point out the
closing song for the film by
Andrew Fagan, who is the ex frontman
of the New Zealand band the Mockers. And the
song is called I still want you. And it's a total, total bop.
I love this song.
Leeta asked me to turn it off. I loved
it. Oh, man, it's like a perfect. Like sugary power
pop song. I tried to
find it on YouTube. YouTube or Spotify. It's not there. But,
uh, he. Andrew Fagan himself did
post the official music video on his Facebook page so you can view
it. I'm gonna look up the mockers I
love. I just assume based on the
age of the person composing, that maybe
it's punk or new wave or something or. No,
I think it's sort of just like power pop.
Oh, okay. Okay, cool. Yeah. Cuz I think it's
somewhat similar to what you get there with. With this song.
Yeah. Because there. There's a great playlist of Ozzy,
of Ozzy and New Zealand, new wave and
punk. Mm hmm. I don't know if that playlist is still. I'm assuming it's still
sitting up there. And it was crazy. Like, there's so many bands he never,
never crossed over to over here, you know, they can't all be
freaking split ends, you know? You know, it's a whole different country.
What? Yeah, it's the 51st
state. Okay, do we have any trivia about this movie? I could
not find Jack or squatt about this movie.
I mean, a little bit about the film itself,
particularly that it was first developed and
produced as a children's radio program.
Oh, wow. So Michael. What was
his name? Michael Heath or something? Yeah,
he wrote this as a. As a play that was broadcast in
New Zealand, and from there, they used that as the inspiration for the screenplay.
The entire. All five episodes of it are included on the Blu ray from
Severin. I've not listened to them, but I wonder how they differ
from the. The final film. I'd be very curious to find
out, but I think maybe some of the episodic structure kind of plays in with
that, too. I wouldn't be surprised. They did a little cheating
and didn't fill in the gaps so good.
The other thing that I found out from the special features and such,
particularly the interviews with Karen Lewis,
who is Al Lewis's wife, was that he was thrilled
to be a part of this movie. This was not like him slumming it or
just like playing. Playing into an expected role. He was like,
oh, oh, this. I might actually get this role because.
Because I've been Grandpa Munster in the past, I'm already
well known as a vampire. I get to do this. I get to go on
vacation to New Zealand. Apparently, after he read the screenplay,
he was buzzing with excitement. He was so thrilled to be a part
of this. And I think you can tell I'm not surprised. It really gives us
all in it. At his advanced age, that absolutely
makes perfect sense. This does not feel like a cashier
paycheck and go home thing. He was all in for this magic.
As confusing as it was. I mean, he was also excited
to have a starring role in a film. You know,
like, somebody like him. You might end up on the poster
art for Fright house, but you're not necessarily
pulling a lot of heavy duty work. But in this film, he does.
And I think he appreciated that. But speaking of Al Lewis,
his Wikipedia page has got a lot of fun stuff on it. I learned
a lot about him today. Me too. So, yeah, Al Lewis
of the Munsters fame, which was a whole two years in
the mid sixties. And of course, they had some reboot
movies that came later. I love
Munsters. Go home. I had no idea. I really,
really love that movie. It's just so outlandish and bizarre.
Like, speaking of not having enough plot to do a whole
movie, and yet here we are. You know, that's great. But, yeah, he was.
He was a free speech proponent. He was. He was very outspoken.
Apparently. He was somewhat something of a regular on Howard Stern.
He was. Yeah, I remember when he used to. Call in,
I was not a Howard Stern guy. I know basically the setup.
And then I remember seeing the.
The frickin biopic, and I was just like,
I'm out. But he went into politics. He was a Green
party almost nominee. He actually ran under
the name Grandpa. He tried. He tried to run under the
name Grandpa Lewis, but the court said he couldn't do it. Aw.
But he got 50,000 votes. He didn't get the nomination,
but he got close. Better than I would have done. They won't let
me be Grandpa Richard either. He opened an italian
restaurant called Grandpa's Bella Gente. Did he
really? Yep. Wow. And the only other trivia
I have about him is that he lent his likeness to a video
game called Midnight Mutants, which you could have played on the Atari
7800. And I believe you can play it on emulators now.
And he's all over the artwork. He's all over
it. And then in the game, he breaks in and, like,
texts. You know, he's looking all vampy. And then he plays some
texts and says, thirsty.
Thirsty. You defeat him by giving him a glass of
water in the game. That's all I got in Al Lewis. Yeah. I mean,
this man is so interesting. I found more stuff. He had a number of
jobs early in his career. Although one thing
about him is that apparently he, like, lied pretty often,
like, made up stuff about himself, so who knows if these
are all true? Oh, I like this. But he apparently worked as a salesman,
a waiter, a pool room owner, a store detective, a circus
clown and vaudeville performer, a basketball talent scout,
and a hot dog vendor. This is all before
acting. I believe only one of those is unrealistic.
Which one is that? The talent scout.
But, I mean, anybody. I suppose all you have to do is just look for
tall people. Well, apparently he was a high school basketball
player, and quite sure that. I don't
know. I don't know. That's just what he said. For, like, a year and a
half, I played basketball, like, every day with my best friend,
and it was one on one, and I was hideous, but I did it.
So I technically was a player of basketball.
And then you discovered Kobe Bryant, right? Yep. Yep. I saw
a tall guy. So I saw LeBron James and said,
you go, man. To secure his iconic
role as grandpa Munster, he apparently
lied about his age, most likely during that audition process,
because he was born in 1923, which actually
makes him one year younger than Yvonne DiCarlo,
who plays his daughter on the show. That's amazing.
But I guess, like, he just sort of, like, dressed up, looking old and
just sort of always had an old aura to him. But that's why, you know,
when it was the nineties and he still looked basically
the same, it's because, oh, he was actually an old guy then.
He was also. So another important thing about pretty much his
entire life is that he was an unapologetic,
self proclaimed communist and a labor agitator.
He would, you know, when he called up to Howard Stern, he would often talk
about, like, you know, being on picket lines and,
like, fighting scabs,
like, physically fighting. So, yeah, real cool
guy in that respect, for sure. And one last
little thing is he does have a connection to italian horror, which, of course,
is important for us. He had the
role of assistant. This is the character's name, I guess,
in Ricardo Freda's 1957 I Vampiri.
So he appears in that film. Yeah. I look for him.
Not an important role, but he is there. Dude, I haven't seen that in
years. That's incredible. Oh, I do have one thing.
There was. I found a VHS cover. I printed it out for
Grampire. It was one of the alternate titles on VHS.
That's beautiful. It says, sometimes grandparents can be
a real pain in the neck, and some ghouls
just want to have fun. Wow. Wow, wow.
So how do you feel about this movie, Jeffrey? It's a perfect film.
No notes. Nice. It's very
like, you know, this is a film infected by,
by moonlight. It is one that is
dreamlike in some respects. Again, that episodic structure kind of
just has us floating in and out. The main character
is alive and then dies and then comes back and then drifts off.
And all of these sort of experiences the kids have with him are
wholesome and funny. And this
is a film that, if I had seen it as a kid, would have
absolutely been one that I rewatched constantly.
For me, it would be up there with like, little monsters and earnest,
scared stupid. All of those perfect children's
horror films that made up such a part of
my DNA. This one absolutely would have been one because it's
amazing. Yeah, I could see this being alongside. Did you say
Ernest scared stupid? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. That's great.
Be wonderful. I really enjoyed this a lot.
The energy pretty much stays through the whole thing,
and the mind blowing stuff is just so unbelievably
mind blowing. It's also pretty like
they brought the suspiria lighting to this freaking movie.
The house is almost always just
covered in gel lighting inside and out.
Like I thought, you know, at the, at the carnival that, you know, that that
would be the only, like, kooky lighting setups in the moon.
Nope, dead wrong. It looks great. Some of the jokes
are perilously unfunny, but this, the stuff that does
work. Surprising, very surprising. Made me laugh. A slapstick
just kills. The movie's charming and then it's unsettling
sometimes. Al Lewis, as always, is just a huge
pain in the ass. That is a recurring theme and I think
in his entire career. Lyette and I were watching
the second Colchak movie.
Colchak, the Night Strangler.
Not the vampire one? No, they're both vampire ones.
The strangler is also a secret vampire one, but Al Lewis has
a very small part in it. I forgot that he's in it. Yeah. Yeah.
He's a homeless guy living under the streets of Seattle and
let's see what else. Yeah, I was impressed.
I did ask you, is this the weirdest thing we've ever covered?
I mean, seriously, this ranks as maybe
slightly weirder or maybe less slightly
weirder than the face with two. I mean,
the, the, was it the face with two left feet? Yeah,
yeah. The, the Travolta sploitation
movie we covered many years ago now.
Grampire, not normal boarding house.
Normal.
Seriously? Yeah. I think the director,
the team who made boarding house would blink in the face
of my uncle's a vampire.
Not really sure what to do. They might be jealous of the production values.
Yeah. Before we go, I wanted to have a little segment,
a new segment on the show where we each pick a film that
we've recently seen and loved. I'm calling this segment
of recently seen and loved any genre.
What do you got, Jeffrey? What have you seen lately that you just loved?
It could be one you revisited or even, like, a first time watch. What do
you got? Yeah. So a first time recent watch that I think thematically
kind of matches up with this film pretty well. And that it's extremely.
It's an extremely goofy comedy with, like, weird humor,
but that, you know, sort of, like, subtly probes at deeper themes.
Like, you know, this one deals with. With loss and death in some
ways. Right, in the family. And the one I'm going to talk about deals
with themes of growing up and moving on.
It is OC and Stigs from 1987.
The Robert Altman comedy. One of his most hated films
is, I think, wonderful. I loved it.
Really? Yeah. I've never heard of it. That's insane. It's so good.
It was recently put on Blu ray by radiance films in
the UK, and I use that as
my opportunity to finally check it out. You know, it's in that
period from Altman's career when he was, like, interested in doing comedies
and, like, you know, more overt comedies. He did this. He did, like,
beyond therapy, which I think is maybe one that people hate even more than Osean
Stiggs. But Osean Stiggs is great. It's about two
teens who are like, oh, man. It's hard
to describe the sort of humor that they engage in. They are like
two little beetlejuices who are just wreaking havoc on
the world. Particularly this. This guy
in their town who is a.
What is he? I think he's. I think he works with an insurance company
and is just like a real big slime ball. They, like, basically have
dedicated their lives to, like, making him and his children to
cause pain for them. And so it's their experiences
over a summer as they're just sort of, like, going through their random
episodic adventures and causing trouble.
Strongly recommend it. Most people will hate it. I think you might like it,
though. Oh, my God.
You could be making that up. That sounds crazy.
That's basically Lonnie and Kazuria.
Kazura's freaking extended universe. Yeah.
Nice. So I picked my
first film I watched in 2024 I was
trying to get some of those first time watches in I love
end of the year taking a look back. And so I write down all my
first time watches. And the very first film of this year was a little japanese
horror movie called don't look up from 1996,
directed by Hideo Nakata. This was two
years before Ringu. And this movie is scary as hell.
It is about a movie studio that's haunted
and a film crew is in there making a wartime
drama slash thriller and they are being
set upon by a ghost that's, that's taken up residence in that
particular movie studio. And it's a great movie if you
love movie making. Like if you just love the way
that movie magic is portrayed on screen
and when they, you know, lift the veil and you see this
intimate scene with these two people who are having like, this emotional
moment, and there's 30 crew members just
outside of the frame making this whole magic happen,
the fact that Ringo is so lauded, which is a great film,
I think Ringo is a perfect film, but yet for some reason,
don't look up has been forgotten. It does have an open
ended ending. I think that might be why some
people don't talk about it more, because it leaves
your imagination going. And you know, that's a fine line with
horror movie audiences. They get real upset if you don't explain
the mechanics of stuff. But man, I highly recommend
don't look up. It is if you love Ringo, you will love
don't look up. It is great. I don't think I've ever heard
of anybody bring it up before. So yeah, I need to check it out.
It's, it's just complete. I love movies about movie
theaters. I love like, what is that one with John Goodman
matinee? And I love movies about
making movies like that. Stuff's just like, especially when it's done really
well, where it's cynical in the way that it
reveals the mechanics, but it's heartfelt in
that you see people really putting their all into it.
Nice. And like I said, it scared me.
It got me. Got me good. That's it, man. We did it.
Congrats to us. Did you have anything you
wanted to promote while you were here? Did you have any like,
sick URL's to drop?
Www.mustache.org yeah,
man, check out my podcast. It's called Super Chillers.
Oh yeah. And you can follow it on most platforms at super
underscore chillers. And you can check it out on any
podcast. Well, probably not any, but like most podcast providers if
you type in super chillers, we talk about retro
ya teen horror from the eighties and the nineties. And you know what?
It's fun stuff. It's funny. I make jokes. There's a lot of
preparation that goes into it. It's a. It's a hard podcast to
make. I even edited. Wow. You should listen to the podcast.
So sorry for your loss of time,
folks. I am a huge fan.
I'm so madden at how much better super chillers is than this
show. I listened to those episodes numerous times.
Him and his co, Jeffrey and his co host, Katie. They are so like,
the rapport is great and they just love the material.
Even when the material is kind of unlovable, they really bring
it. And yeah, it's. I'm, you know, I've started
reading YA horror novels. I never read them when I was the
age range, so I welcome.
I'm going back and reading stuff, and it's fun as hell. Yeah, Katie and
I are a real Lonnie and Kenziora, and you are our grandpa.
Well, same body type, for sure.
Same bucket hat, same athletic
ability, and sunglasses.
All right, folks, thanks for listening and. See you
later, mashed potato. Oh, goodbye to you in
Auckland. Dream weird,
everybody. Ooh, wait, is that
the magic flute? That's my ringtone. I gotta go,
folks. Thanks so much for listening to this episode.
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