You've got to remember, I'm just a simple private detective.
I deal in facts. And all you're giving me is demons and devils.
Don't drive so fast. If you're afraid to meet your maker,
we're all in a lot of trouble. I'm not afraid to meet my maker.
I just don't want to meet him today.
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. I am Brad. Folks, we have a listener
request. Brad, tell us about our listener and their request.
Okay, so friend of the show, friend of ours,
Mark really, really enjoys this film. And so
he mentioned it, and then he mentioned it again,
and maybe he mentioned it a third time, and he
had said something in this third mention that really,
really piqued my interest, which was Brian Eno,
and also because he's our friend,
and so he's been a really good friend of the show. So we wanted.
I texted you, I said, hey, would you want to do this? And you said,
of course. So we both bought the Blu ray,
the indicator Blu ray, and I'm not going to tell him anything
about it. I'm just going to let him find out.
Perfect. Yep. Perfect surprise.
Exactly. All right. It's called the Devil's
men, aka Land of the minotaur.
And this is a greek horror
film bankrolled by british people and
starring british people, which we'll get into. This is directed
by Kostas Karragianis,
and I've never seen anything else he directed.
This was also written by Arthur Rowe. He actually
did write a few films. Oh, I missed his writing credits.
What? He wrote the magnificent seven ride,
which is the final in that.
In that trilogy of films. And he wrote
Zeppelin from 1971,
which sounds interesting. It's about a. Like a
height. It's kind of like a heist film, but it's World War one,
so you're there on a zeppelin. Sounds interesting.
Michael York. Elka summer. Yeah. Yeah.
And so then he was a producer of Fantasy
Island. I. Having produced, according to Wikipedia,
137 episodes, writing 13 of them.
Nice. Wrote colchack episodes. Yes.
Makes him a winner in my book. Hell, yeah. Finally got
that box set. Yes. Nice. I love colchack.
My dad loves colchack, too. All right,
I have a lovely trailer
for the film. So here is the trailer for the devil's menta.
Come with us, if you dare. On a
terrifying journey through cells of madness,
haunts of horror, and fear. Come with
us to this forsaken monument of crumbling
stones which echoes the desolate cries of the dead.
Descend with us to the forbidden chambers of the ancient
pagan gods of wrath, where the devil's men
performed the secret rites of the land of
the Minotaur.
Those who enter the forbidden chamber of the Minotaur
must die.
The land of the Minotaur.
Donald pleasence, as the man of God who defies
the dark and sinister powers that curse this land and
all who venture into it.
The devil has many faces and many helpers,
too. Come on, let's get out of here.
Peter Cushing, as the red prince of evil,
who lures young lovers into the deadly embrace of the
devil's men. The old
customs remain and the ancient gods
live on. The old customs remain and
the ancient gods evolved.
Bullets cannot stop them. No, brutally.
Power can stop him.
The land of the Minotaur. The most terrifying
film of 1977.
Coming to this theater soon.
Don't miss it. From the
Internet system called Google, I discovered
the VHS tape from interglobal video.
Here's the tagline on the tape. It says, half man,
half beast trapped in a world forgotten by time.
Not accurate. No, no, not at all. They were
trying to pass this off with the art. And the tagline is
like a, you know, like an adventure film. Uh huh.
No, no. But here's the plot synopsis from said
VHS tape. A small village is the setting for horrifying
ritual murders, demons and disappearances of young tourists.
Father Roche is aware of the evil surrounding the
village, and when his own pupils begin to disappear without
a trace, he sets out to uncover the cause. Black hooded figures,
symbols of ancient worship, convince the father that
he is dealing with a phenomenon older than mankind. A power without
a face that can make people abide by its wishes.
Ordinary methods cannot destroy the power that is running
the village. Exorcism is the only method to destroy them.
The sacrifice begins when the moonlight falls.
88 minutes. Color.
Excellent. Thank you. That was my finest performance.
It was up there.
I got goosed by my own performance.
So spoiler alert, folks, we're gonna spoil this movie. But let me
tell you, thank God we're not going scene by scene,
right? We'd be here for 15 hours.
Especially trying to explain the mechanics of this film's supernatural aspects
that will never be explained. Motivations,
they don't have them. But, you know, watch the film first
so, you know, don't get spoiled if you don't care. Then let's proceed.
Yes, some. Some wonderful people in the cast. Donald pleasence.
Wonderful, wonderful. Donald pleasence. You know,
what was he doing before and after this, other than having
a beautiful wife who has a small part in this movie?
Ooh. Are you serious? I did not know that.
Oh, yeah, his. We'll get to that. We get to nice. I did not know
that. In 1976, he had
a bunch of stuff come out in 1976 because, you know, he liked to work.
Nothing horror related in 1976.
Except for this. Yeah, this was the horror outing that
year. Interesting. The following year. The following year was the uncanny.
Uh huh. And then 1975 was
I don't want to be born, aka Sharon's baby, which I love.
You do love you. I've actually seen that film because
you sent it to me once upon a time and we watched the hell out
of it. Oh, it's crazy. He was also
in escape to witch Mountain that year in 1975.
Wow. You know, I've never seen those films. I've never seen those.
I haven't seen the uncanny. What was he doing in
1978? Nothing. He's retired.
I knew it. I knew it. If only he'd
found that signature roll. If only that could
have happened for him. Next thing you know, you're at a windy salad
bar.
Next up we have Peter Cushing. Of course, you know,
Peter Cushing looks like a freaking skeleton. He may have
already been dead at this point. Not sure. I mean,
I love him. He brings it. He doesn't care that he doesn't know what's going
on. He's excellent in this movie, as always.
He is dressed like a boss. Totally,
totally. This year, the year of 1976,
which I love. 1976. Of course, he was in
at the earth's core space,
1999. And then the previous year, he was
in the ghoul legend of the werewolf. All kinds of cool stuff.
Then the following year, again, the uncanny. Well,
so he and pleasance paired up again. I wonder if they shared scenes,
because I wasn't so sure that they shared scenes in this until we got
way into the film. See, I'm worried about the
cats in that movie because the cats feature prominently in that film.
I've not seen it. Like I said, don't. Do they, do they mistreat
cats? I'm looking in the keyword search.
Gotcha. It looks like it might be safe
to watch said movie. I'm getting more and more sensitive to
these things. Right. Just cause it's 1977, can't you use a CGI
cat? But yeah. Peter Cushing, awesome in this movie, has a
scene stealing. Excuse me, a movie stealing
scene in it. We'll talk about that. Donald pleasence plays Father Roche,
the hero. Well, one of our heroes,
Peter Cushing, plays Baron Corfax, the villain.
Lori is our lady pal in this movie. She's played by
the very lovely luan Peters. Yes. Oh, my gosh.
Mark made mention of Luann Peters. She is in
some other films that we really enjoy.
Yeah, she was in lust for a vampire and
the flesh and blood show. That's the one. Pete Walker.
And then, so I mentioned that. I mentioned that to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth,
we talked about Pete Walker for the next ten minutes and how
we love, like, every other year, we watch all of Pete's
horror films. Of course. Of course you do.
She had a couple episodes of Doctor who, apparently.
And she was in a very fun episode of Fawlty Towers. That's how I know
her. Yes, and we talked about that too, where Basil
tries to repeatedly turn a switch on and off.
Oh, boy. So our hero alongside
Donald Pleasance is Milo, played by Kostas
Kara Georges, which is very confusing since the
director is Kostas Karagianis.
They're very similar names, these boys.
And the thing about the principal greek
cast in this movie is they were all prolific in
Greece. Like, they all have 50, 60,
90 credits to their names. And this Chara Georges
guy is certainly no stranger to that. When we introduce,
when we're introduced to him in the plot, we will talk about this actor because
we need to. This. This movie should have been called Milo. I mean,
he's also the director, but he has two. But he has a
different last name. Yeah, as far as I understand,
it's the same guy. What? The director
was Costas Carrageianis.
Right. And Costas Carragiores,
credited as Costas Scouras was Milo.
So he directed the film. I had no, I thought it was two different people.
Okay, well, he was credited. That's. I mean, there was a reason you thought that
was because he didn't want anybody to know. Ah. And he was credited
under one name, and he directed it. Kind of like a Paul Nashi thing.
Bob Baling, who is. He plays Tom,
one of the hippies who shows up. He was in one of my least
favorite films of all time, island of death. I haven't
seen it. Don't. No, it is a
video nasty. It's actually gross and
actually shocking. And I strongly don't recommend
it to you, especially for your tastes. I haven't seen
it, and I don't plan to. He was also in
the not so great greek giallo called the hook with Barbara
Boucher. Which is.
It's boring. It's very tepid. Not a fan.
No, it's not very good. No. Next up
is Jane Lyle, who plays Milo's girlfriend,
who's not a big part of this movie, but she's got a funny moment.
Two funny moments. She was also an island of death,
the poor thing. Oh, my gosh. Mira Shore,
who plays the maid. She is Donald
pleasence's wife. Wow. Do you remember the
maid who knocked over the thing? I do. Broke his
crucifix or his cup of something
religious. Wow. That. Yeah.
Yeah. Beautiful. Yes, she was.
I did notice her. Oh, my. Yeah. Because she's walking out
of the room after she's broken, and she stops and looks
back at him and has that look on her face and
then just keeps walking off. Yeah, I remember her. Wow. That's great trivia
right there. Next up is Jessica Dublin. She plays
misses Zagros. She's a character who tries to help
during the movie, does not help at all. But this actress was in
all kinds of stuff. She's in fragment of fear. Mm hmm.
She was in so sweet, so dead.
Yep. She was in sex of the witch,
one of the worst giale ever made. See, there's another. You see, you talk,
I listen. I haven't seen it. I have it. I can't
wait to rewatch it because. You told me not to. Oh,
watch it. I want you to feel my pain. No,
I'm excited to rewatch it with the new, really restored edition,
because one of the problems I have with it is it's
almost impossible to see in the old bootleg
form. Gotcha. And maybe it sucks. Maybe it'll suck
worse being able to see what's going on. I don't know. You never
know. But poor Jessica Dublin.
She was also an island of death.
That's gonna be our new thing. I think it was made at the same time
as this. I think island of Death was also 76.
Yeah, it was. Next up, just a little bit of trivia.
Robert Rioty, he's the one who voices the cop.
Vendris Vendress is played by someone named Dimitris
Bislanis. But this guy, over 230
credits to his name. Wow. Mister Raite.
And he had a very small part in the omen.
He was the monk who was pushing the other monk
in the wheelchair around, and he had some lines. That's all
I remember. Monkey, monk,
monk. We're gonna try to talk about this plot, and Brad and I,
before we started recording, talked about how difficult this plot is to
talk about. Yes, because this movie is
really complicated, and if you categorize
things as important, then nothing happens
in the movie. Right. But if you
want to talk about what happened in the movie, you have to pull out some
stuff. So we did. But also,
this movie's insanely hilarious, but we'll get to
that. When we get to that, we're going to talk about this opening sequence.
This introduces us, the viewer,
to these evil people. Brad, what's going on in this frickin
opening sequence? So there's some people
in hoods worshipping a Minotaur,
which the actual story of the Minotaur, as we'll all remember from
our middle school greek mythology, is a terrible story.
And we discover immediately, right off the bat that
Peter Cushing is the leader of these people.
They murder some young people. Some would say hippies.
Yep. We never learned the motivation of why they're killing people
for the Minotaur, what the Minotaur has promised
them in return or has given them in
the past. It is. There's no motivation for this killing.
And, Mark, listen, don't take any of this negatively, because.
I don't mean it negatively. Nope. But. But there's
no mystery to this film as far as the
plot. It's the Minotaur. So two things about
the Minotaur he needed. Well, three things. One, he's very mad about
people coming into his secret chamber.
He threatens to kill people because they've been there, who have never been there.
He threatens to kill people who've been there. Then he doesn't kill them. But then
he doesn't talk about his followers being protected from him
killing them. Like, that's neither here nor there. The other fun
thing is definitely a blowtorch being fired
out of his nostrils. Right. Looks like the most dangerous prop
I've ever seen. Yes. How do you grow as a cult if
you. If they. If the. If what you worship
kills you immediately? You know, I don't understand.
And then the best thing is the Minotaur is
anatomically correct. Yes. And you,
boy, you get a look at his junk over and over again.
Yeah. It's made of stone, but it's still quite
hard. Quite, quite a man.
Yes. That was. You saw that all the time. And I should
have watched the other scene to even understand how they went around, how they
got around all that, but I did not.
Oh, boy. So Donald pleasence, his father, Roche,
he's trying to report to the authorities that people are
disappearing. It's not working. And so he writes to
Milo, the one and only Milo,
shout out to Simon. Simon, you'll get this one.
It's not Milo. It's my lol.
That's a little Simon joke there. And then,
Brad, what you wrote in your notes,
you said, I hope Milo isn't our hero. What? What does that mean?
I thought he was dopey. Kind of dopey.
Also wrote, because we see him,
like, our first. Our first scene of him is on, uh, he's with
this girl, and, uh, it's all.
It's. She's naked. Completely naked. And, uh,
I wrote, he's like Chris Avra in Bay of blood.
But. But he's ugly.
He looks like father Ted. He does look like Father Ted.
Holy crap. Fans of british tv.
And you know what I regret? I regret saying that I kept it in there
because it's funny, because he actually equipped himself quite nicely.
Oh, that's right. He is. There's two things about
this character. One, his swagger is hilarious.
It's awesome. He has. He has a very unusual
screen presence. And what's set up here is he's
skeptical of what Father Roche is telling him. Father Roche
is, quote unquote, one of his best friends he ever had.
Right. And he's completely skeptical. And so
is his girlfriend. His girlfriend is completely skeptical? Yes.
All right. Who is she?
Incredible. How did you guess that? My pen pal wore a skirt.
Give me that letter.
It's just another one from that party. Irish priest. Don't put him down.
All right, so maybe he's gotten carried away, but he's no crackpot.
He's the best friend I ever had, and he's been good to
me. I owe him a lot, so lay off him.
Oh, come on. These things he keeps writing you about students
disappearing, being swallowed up by some ancient magic or
something. It's crazy. It's medieval.
I know it sounds a little far. Fetched, but are
you trying to tell me you believe it? No.
At least not enough to drop my work and go over there and help him.
Because he wants me to. Besides, if it's true, he can tell the police he
did. They don't want to know.
Well, you can't blame them. They've got
better things to do. We're gonna come back to the two of them later.
The gist is he's not dropping what he's doing in New York to go
flying out there. Has this actor ever set
foot in New York? I think not. No. Negative.
Go nowhere. Next up, we meet some fun
loving archaeologists. This is Ian, Beth, and Tom.
And they show up to hang out with
father, Father Roche because they're gonna go on to do some
exploring at this archaeological site.
And he literally tells them, don't go.
It's dangerous. But more importantly, this establishes
something wonderful in this movie, Brad, something that you pointed out in your notes.
The awkward silences. What is up?
I don't know. There's two scenes in particular where dialogue
is given and then everyone stands
there silent for,
I mean, not like much longer than you,
than you should have. So there's a couple of scenes of just awkward
silences which really just add to the oddness of the film because
you're like, why? Did anybody say anything? Yeah.
It's like, did I pause the movie by accident? Yes,
exactly. So. So they're like. He's like,
why do you want to go there? What's changed? And they pull out the
little bull symbol in gold, this little minotaur
symbol. That's going to be a recurring theme in this movie. And that's. They're just
staring at it. And that's supposed to be important.
It fails completely, and I love it.
Yes. So next up, all these hippies.
She's fine for a little while, but the guys go in to the
crypt, find the previous corpses, and then
they are captured. She goes into the town full of weirdos
to do some shopping. It's just like a Paul Nashi film
where two people are like, we've come in search of this tomb
that's been in, that's been hidden for 2000 years,
and it's just in the most likely spot. They're like, whoa, here it
is. And they go in. Yes. And that's exactly
what happens. And this film did remind me at times of an Ashy
film. Yes. But, yeah, these guys found this ancient tomb real,
real easily. Nice. In this town of weirdos,
we meet Peter Cushing, who's, who's. I wrote in my notes, cushing of
the Carpathians. That's right. He's an out of
towner who's become a local by,
you know, starting this cult or whatever happened.
Exactly. I just love that Peter Cushing is in this and
giving his best as he could with what he was given.
Always a class act. Then Beth gets captured by
something very important. She gets captured by these cloaked figures
that we've been talking about. And I want to talk about
two things right quick. The year 1976.
Right? That's the year I was born. So all movies that
came out in 1976, aside from island of Death,
are movies I enjoy checking out. I love
seeing what was in the cinematic atmosphere,
the time I was plopped out on this planet,
and my mom tells a story about some
cloaked figures trying to kidnap me.
So according to my mother, when I was two weeks
old, there's a knock at the door at our house in Great Falls, Montana.
And there were men in cloaks, and they asked
her to give them me,
her first and only son.
And she said, no,
you can't have them. And they asked again, and she slammed
the door in their face and they left. And she was very unnerved by this.
And when I asked her to elaborate
on this story, she said,
that's all I remember. I was very sick from the anesthesia
they gave me. When you were born. Ask your grandma.
And I never did. I never asked my grandma. That's the whole story.
I don't know who these men were. I don't know where. I didn't know where
you were going. I assume they were production assistants
on Land of the Minotaur looking for a baby extra.
I don't know what the story is, but in doomed movie Thon,
the book available Amazon.com in my
1976 movie Thon, you can read all. I was going to ask about this.
Yep. Yep. That's it. That's it. That's a story that my mother tells. Whether or
not it's a true story, I have no idea. But they
didn't get me. But they got Beth. They took Beth away.
I own a copy of every book that Richard has written.
A and sorry I paid for all of
them. I'm pretty sure myself. I appreciate that.
Yeah. There were no give me, because I support Richard.
I'm sorry for your loss of money and shelf space.
No, I'm staring at him right now. I can see him.
But, folks, giallo meltdown two is the best
book he's written so far, in my opinion.
He's always been good, but he's come a long way, too.
And it is. It's. It's a very enjoyable book. You really.
You really got it down pat. And I know other people who said the
same thing. I appreciate that. I'm like Virginia
slims. I've come a long way, baby. That's right.
So, Laurie, before he died
or got kidnapped or whatever, Tom the hippie writes
to his girlfriend, Laurie, and she comes running
to come and join them. She arrives, and she's as
blonde as every other woman in this movie. She might be
the blondest. She is rather
nude. Not all the time, but, you know, she's very
into bathing. Brad, what happens with this bath. This pivotal
bath sequence. So she gets in the bath naked,
which, uh, is that how you
get in a bath? But, uh, she gets in the bath,
and, like, everywhere. Windows,
doors, from all sides of the room, uh,
are hooded figures opened in windows. Closing windows. Opening doors,
closing doors. It's really creepy. I love
it. It's. It's creepy and jarring and confusing. It is.
It's like, peekaboo. We're here everywhere.
One thing about Laurie that's very important to the plot is
her body is not aware of gravity at this stage of her
life. Nope.
So now Milo's getting
involved again. I believe it's a phone call this time.
And he.
Does Milo ever get dressed? Yes, he does.
But the scene with
his girlfriend and this scene with his girlfriend are clearly filmed back to
back or right at the same time, because he's naked in both of them.
He's smoking cigarettes in both of them. His girlfriend's naked in both of them and
giving him crap about this rose stuff. It's part of
this. The worst stuff about this movie is the back and forth.
Why did we need this scene again? Like, come on.
But I made me laugh because Milo is just naked all the time. And it.
To me, it kind of was like, let's see. In Babel,
where Chris Abram. They talk about the skrunk. Oh,
yeah. Or squawk. Yeah. Squawk.
I think it's the squawk. Yeah. I think it's wonk.
But it kind of reminds me, and that's never a bad thing.
Never. So. So he finally comes
to Greece and rents a car. And, man, this stuff
is so fun. This is my favorite shit in the movie.
How Milo thinks that Father Roche is his best
friend, I have no idea. Maybe he's the only one who tells him like
it is. Tells it like it is to him. They are
immediately arguing, especially about Milo's driving.
He's gonna get them killed. It's awesome. It's great.
Loses his hat, and Father Roche is like, my hat.
Go back for my hat. That's my best hat. And Milo's like, I hate your
hat. That's awesome.
It is like what? You're driving. You're riding in
a convertible. Maybe you should take your hat off,
you know? Hey, what a concept. Milo hates that.
That's some bad hat, Harry. Which is a quote from
Star Wars. Star wars, the Next Generation.
Episode three.
Roses are red, violets are blue, light beer from Miller. I love
you. You've got a third less calories than the regular beer. And really
are less filling, which is something to cheer. But what I like above all the
rest is the way you taste. You are the best. Yes. Blue is a violet
and red is a rose. And if you don't believe me, I'm gonna break
your nose like beer from Miller.
Everything you always wanted in a beer. And less. Okay. All this
shit is being crazy. We keep having all these
incidents where cloaked figures run in.
Milo never sees them. He is so skeptical
to the point of complete madness, where Laurie
and Roche are like, dude, this shit is crazy.
And Miles, like, nope, haven't seen it. Nope, I didn't see that.
How anyone who looks like Father Ted is gonna
be, like, stoic and not
into weird shit. I don't. I don't get it. I don't know, man. He.
Yeah, he's got musk. He's got some sort of nashy musk about him.
Oh, boy. It's so good. So.
So next up, we see Tom and Beth
and them being held by the Satanists, by the
minotaurists. What is
going on? When the Minotaur speaks to the girl.
So he
tells the Minotaur. Tells her that he wants her to kill
Father Roche. And then we see, uh, father Roche
there in the chamber with a knife
coming at his eye, you know, repeatedly. Repeatedly.
What they're hoping is a flash forward,
obviously, but it's a really. It's a really cool scene. The girl
that plays. The girl's really good. That plays the,
uh, the child that they want to kill
father Roche. That little girl is like. Her name's, like,
christina. And the actress's name is also Christina. So it's one of
those, you know, she's definitely a Madonna.
Exactly. Everybody in Greece knows Christina.
Christina.
So, yeah, that's one of my big complaints about this movie is not this
scene. This scene is cool. This is the only scene that isn't like all the
other ones with the Minotaur stuff, where the Minotaur is really repetitive
with his orders and really repetitive with what he says. And whenever
they go to him, if they're not sacrificing somebody,
the minotaur just comes up out of the floor, blows fire,
makes his proclamations, goes away. Like, I was almost
expecting it to be a wizard of Oz situation.
I totally was. Peter Cushing is controlling this animatronic
creature. But no, no, I thought we
were far in. And I said. I asked Elizabeth, I said, do you think,
is this supernatural? And she said, yeah, duh,
moron or whatever. And I'm like,
okay. I'm like, well, I didn't know. I thought maybe it might have been.
And that's what I said. A wizard. Weird. The law situation where somebody's controlling
this thing. I'm like, but because we don't
get, we don't get any motivation from the Minotaur.
We don't, you know, he just demands that you kill who comes in there.
I mean, you know, that's, that's pretty easy,
you know, for a cult. It just, what is he, what does he, you know,
does he give him stuff? Is it for the harvest?
I don't. I don't know. But it also, it adds
also to the strangeness of the film.
Totally, totally. I almost said totally, totally.
Only one thing can save you now.
Father Rose has died. He has
entered my.
No. What's the matter?
He wants Father Roche. He wants me to murder him.
So things kind of hit the fan where the
black cloaked figures finally reveal themselves to Milo
as well as everyone else. And there's this big fight scene.
They find the hippies, the missing hippies van. They run over a
guy. They run over Ventress, who's vendress,
who's this cop who's been, like, smugly watching them
and denying everything that's happening. The next morning at
the hotel, they can't find Lori. Lori's gone.
When Vendress, who we know to be one of the members of this
cult, shows up, Milo flips the fuck
out. Brad, what? What happens when this shit goes down?
He's just decided he's not going to take any more shit and
just goes wild. It's like, he didn't. He, like,
he flew from America to Greece to help the father.
Immediately upon arrival. He's like, I don't believe anything you're saying.
And then spends the rest of the movie actively denying
that anything is going on supernatural. And then
finally something happens, and he's like, oh, I get it.
And it's on him. Beating the crap out of this cop lasts
for quite a while, but then the baron,
good old Peter Cushing, rolls up with a shotgun. He literally
brings a shotgun to a milo fight. That's right. And is
threatening to shoot Milo. And then this great
standoff, Donald pleasence, you know, he's trying to
defuse the situation. Peter Cushing does a countdown and
then literally stops time by shooting the grandfather clock.
And, oh, it's just beautiful. It's a beautiful moment
and probably one of the best written moments in the movie.
They leave. They pretend to leave. And of course,
Roche is like, yes, that's nice you have a gun,
Mister Milo. Not gonna work on these people. Need to
get some religious artifacts to take these fuckers
down. They go to a church, he gets the
crucifix, he gets the holy
water. Holy water. And they head out to the
lair of the Minotaur. Not the land of the Minotaur,
to the lair. Right. And Donald pleasant says the most baffling
thing and liad and I were talking about it off and on today.
Please tell me and us. He enlists
Milo's help to get up on the second
floor of this lair so that
he can block the moonlight from
getting in the window, thus letting the evil people
complete the ritual because it's powered by moonlight. Okay,
okay, Brad, this is the, this is the most important question I'm gonna ask you
in the history of this podcast. Okay, I'm ready.
How does Donald pleasence block this
window? The moonlight. And what effect does it have when
he successfully or unsuccessfully blocks
it? It's a two parter. So he,
he climbs up it in a ridiculous manner
that I don't, I mean, I don't think would have ever worked.
And he gets up there and he blocks it and
nothing happens. He blocks it with his
body? No, he just, he just
stands there. Right? The window,
yes. I mean I didn't expect him to bring like curtains
and like a curtain rod, but like what the fuck?
Nothing. He brought nothing to do this with. No.
And what effect does him doing nothing have?
Nothing. Exactly.
You get all of the answers, right? Okay. So crazy.
Honestly, honestly, I missed the part. Why? He was climbing up
there, I looked up, all of a sudden I was taking notes, I looked up,
he's like spider walking up the wall and I'm like,
why is he going, why is he going up there? Why isn't Milo,
who's, you know, twelve years younger
doing it, then he gets up there and then, no, nothing happens because
they're getting ready to kill everybody. Oh, it's so good.
Yeah, it's really good. Sure, Milo tries to
shoot some people, has no effect. You know, Father Roche
is waving that crucifix around, it's, it's sort of having
an effect. Not really. Everyone's about to get sacrificed,
everyone's about to die. But then that's when our boy
Donald pleasant starts flinging the holy water around. That's right.
And all he double hockey sticks breaks out. Brad,
tell us about what happens to at the climactic,
climactic of this movie. I mean, the whole cult falls apart,
the holy water and there's a fire. And they
rescue whom they can.
And the Minotaur just. It collapses.
The whole. The whole place does. Comes down. Then there's a ridiculous
final scene where they're talking. Where they're talking about
fighting evil. Yep, yep. The Minotaur explodes.
The place falls down. We had great effects shots where.
Oh, sorry. Yes. They fill the
cloaks with chunks of meat and blow them up. It's almost
too fast to see anything. But yes, there's some. There's some bloody chunks flying.
Yes. And it's the most unexpected thing in this film.
I rewound it and we watched it again because it's. They just
start exploding. It's so overwhelming. This whole movie is overwhelming.
Was the Minotaur keeping them alive? We don't know.
Maybe. We don't know. Maybe they've been alive for thousands
of years. Who knows? They were all Greek.
I mean, they're carpathian Greek. Carpathian Greek.
I don't think it's a thing. And then the closing credits
has the most bonkers freaking song playing. Yes.
It's Paul Williams. Like, is that Paul Williams? Are you serious?
I am dead serious. Holy shit.
I, uh. Because this song is completely crazy.
I liked it on YouTube. It's called the Devil's Men. Paul Williams.
And so what I should have done, I meant to go back
because in the beginning it says music vibe
ryano. And then it's got song sung.
Bye, Paul Williams. But I didn't read who wrote the song,
if it was Paul Williams or if it was somebody else. But it's a banger.
Yeah. Yes. Music by Carl Jenkins and lyrics
by Carol Ann Barrott. This song is like
sort of prog rocky, sort of, for lack of a better term,
glam rock. But if Paul Williams is involved, of course it's gonna be
nuts because he always brings the craziness. Yeah. I went straight
to YouTube. Find it, father of life.
Before we talk about how we feel about this movie, we have maybe
a little bit of training trivia, but we're definitely going to talk about the
crew behind this thing. I express apologies
for my ignorance. I don't know the greek films
that are referenced here. I have not seen a lot of greek films,
and I definitely have not seen, like, anything that these
other actors have been in. So, of course, if I don't mention some
of the greek producers of the film, it's because I just don't recognize anything
that they've done, not to belittle them. Right. But first
up, we've got a producer, Herbert G.
Luft. He's an associate producer on this movie. Along with
the greek people who bankrolled this beauty.
He produced the mutations, which I
don't know if you've seen this. Another Donald pleasence vehicle. Yeah, I don't.
It's one of those that I might have seen as a kid. I've had to
see it now and see if I remembered it. I can't remember.
It's pretty interesting. I watched it on good old Joe Bob
and enjoyed it. I don't know if I'd ever watch it again, though.
Gotcha. Worth a look. Nick Morrison,
he was the executive producer on this. He also executive
produced a classic mystery science theater
3000 film called Mitchell from just a
year or two before this. I shame,
shamefully admit I've still never watched the Mitchell
episode of MST three k. That is a very key episode.
I just have not gotten to it yet. Nice. But Brad's
been chomping in the bit, and he's about this one. Music by
Brian Eno. Brad, what is up with this emo eno man?
So I guess probably earlier in the show.
I hope Mark hasn't been fuming the whole whole show.
Brian Eno then is not Brian Eno now,
obviously. Correct. So correct. It's well within
the realm of possibility that he could do a soundtrack for
a low budget horror film. Yes. So he had been in Roxy
music and was kind of. He was the keyboardist and did treatments and whatnot.
And then he broke away for a solo career. He released
here come the warm Jetse. Yes.
Which is a really groundbreaking album.
It's glamrock, but it's the most. It's. It's.
It's just different. Experimental. Yeah, very experimental.
He went on to make. Had like four, quote unquote, pop albums
in the seventies. See, second album had third uncle, which was covered
by Bauhaus, mother whale, eyeless.
Anyway. I like that one. Yes. So he is
a very seminal figure in glamrock
and ambient. He pretty much. I wouldn't say he invented
it, but he certainly popularized ambient music.
He went on to be a producer, produced for the Talking Heads.
I believe he produced some u two. He produced
a lot of people. I'm sure. I'm leaving it out. Yeah. Kind of hitting the
high notes. So he's. He's very much on the technological edge
as well. So very, very important
music guy. And the soundtrack for this is fantastic.
It's. It's really good. I have an
opposite feeling. Okay. I love Brian
Eno. I love Brian Eno this period.
I do not like this score, I believe it's cool.
Yeah. And effective for making me
uneasy. Okay. However, he didn't
make enough music for this movie. There's no
songs. Yeah. Right. There's no melody. Right. There's.
There's percussive, you know, like.
And, you know, melody can be.
You could say that the staccato, breathy stuff he's doing is,
like a type of melody. But, like, I. I jumped over
to the Brian eno of Dario Argento's
opera just for my fun brain to listen to.
And that is, like, the most pop film score
stuff ever. Because even though it's spooky and strange,
Briano, it all has a melody that will stick
with you. Sure. Whereas this feels like I'm
gonna name drop the nerdiest shit right here. There's a composer
named Elian Redige. I don't know how
to say her name. A lot of the stuff she's doing is
that Brian Enos doing. Reminds me of her stuff.
And her stuff is very difficult music.
Like, it's unsettling and hypnotic
is the best thing I can say about it. And that is exactly
what Brian Enos is doing here. It's very hypnotic, but it
also makes me upset. I gotcha. And I just wanted
more. I just. I was like. And this was, like, his second film
score ever. I was gonna say this might be one of his very,
very earliest. Absolutely. What he did
do in this, I think, is, like you said, very effective because
it helps build tension. He's really good at that.
Oh, yeah. Yes. But I get what you're saying. As far
as Melody. I know exactly what you're saying. Hey,
I like how we both had a totally different feeling about it.
That's freaking great. Yes. It's rare, but we're both Brian Eno.
We're both. Yeah. And we're both eno nerds. I love it. I do enjoy
Brian eno. Scott Curtis bought me here
come the warm jets for my birthday.
Great record. You mailed me your cds. Do you
remember this? I do, yeah, they were there. You sent me a.
They were remastered first. His first four albums.
You mailed them to me all the way here to Tampa. And I burned
them and sent them back to you. And I still listen to those mp3
s all the time. Heck, yes. I'm glad. No,
I do remember, because they were. Was all you could get.
Yep. You know, was that the only remastered set? I don't know
if they've remastered it since. Who knows, you know?
Several reissues later. Right. Cinematography was
by Ari Stavrou. He shot the hook, the aforementioned
not so great greek giallo, which is
just one of those. Yeah. My husband's rich, and you're
my lover. Kill him. Don't like
it. The production company, one of the production companies was Getty
Pictures. They did the mutations. So probably the production
company of that luft guy. But this was
released on Interglobal Home Video,
which is a label that released the Asfix,
which. I've never seen that. Have you seen the asphyx? I have seen the asphyx.
I've always wanted to see it. I've just never gotten to it. It was a
long time ago. It stars Robert Powell.
Powell. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Robert Powell.
And it was an odd movie. It was. It was an interesting premise.
I felt like it was odd. But it's been so long, I I
could probably have a much different opinion now.
It was a long time ago, but, yeah. Having to do with photographs
and capturing your last. I can't remember exactly how it
went. Your last moment, I think. Do what? Before you croak?
Yeah. The last moment before somebody died. You could catch the Aztecs
on in a photo. Yeah. It's crazy.
Name as Fix. It's the greatest metal band that ever was.
It really is. They also released Sisters of Death.
They released Asylum man. They released
a giallo. A giallo under its blade of the Ripper
title. Do you know which Giallo is
called? Blade of the Ripper. What's what? The more common title
for that one. Strange vice misses Ward. Boom.
Exactly. Boom. On us and giall y'all.
That's all the. That's all. That's fun stuff.
Trivia. Did we have any trivia? I don't
think I've got any trivia. According to IMDb.
So resourceful tonight, Donald pleasence was supposed
to play the baron, but he only agreed to do the film
if he could play Father Roche because he was tired of playing villains.
Oh, nice. And Peter Cushing supposedly filmed his scenes
in one week. I would argue it probably took less time than that.
I would say. And this is where I found out that Myra
was Myra Shore, Donald pleasence's wife. Wow.
I will have to tell Elizabeth. She's gonna love that because
she's never. Gonna listen to this.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. She only listens to us. Yes. All right,
well, how do you feel about the devil's men?
Listen. I loved it. Not only did I love
it, Elizabeth loved it. It is. We watched it late
Saturday night, and it is a great late Saturday night movie.
When it's just one of those, it's.
It's an open book. There's no mystery, but things just dreamily
kind of wander on. It's very, very atmospheric.
I look forward to already, to seeing it again. It reminded
me of several different things. It reminded me of,
like I talked about, like a Paul Nashi film in a way,
certain aspects of it. It also obviously
has got kind of a wicker man vibe to it, in a way, kind of,
sort of. But then it also reminded me, in its
kind of meandering way of a film that I really enjoy
called Crypt of the Living Dead or Hannah
Queen of the Vampires. It's one of those dreamy,
you know, it just kind of flows along. And some of.
Some have accused it of being boring, and I know some have accused
this of being boring or nonsensical. I think it
works really well from a perspective of just,
you know, a story being told, but you
pretty much know what's going to happen. I mean, even if there had been
some mystery, I suppose, about Peter Cushing, you know,
Peter Cushing's behind it, maybe they just threw away the pretenses
and just said, hey, we're going to tell you right out the. Out of the
gate who the villains are, because you've seen movies before.
You know who it is. Yes. But no, I think
everybody did a really good job as far as Peter
Cushing and Donald pleasence. His irish accent kind of comes and goes.
Pleasant's. Yes, he loved doing that accent.
Yeah. But no, I'm really glad we watched it. I'm proud that
I, that I've got the, uh, the indicator Blu ray. I think it's
probably would be best recommended to folks
who are euro horror veterans that
maybe have, have seen everything else, but maybe didn't see this
because of its reputation. I don't think everybody's gonna like
it. I wanted, I wanted to cover it from work, but I also
really wanted to see it and, you know, see what I thought of it myself.
I actually owned it. It came with terror, the Norman
J. Warren's terror. It was a double feature dvd,
so I owned it on dvd for forever. But we
just never watched it because I'd heard it wasn't that good. But Mark's mentioned
it several times and I dug it, man.
It's kind of unintentionally hilarious at times and
intentionally hilarious, but it's all presented
in just this strange village,
this atmospheric village, essentially. Yeah. You know,
so, yeah, I really dug it. Cool. This was my first viewing
in probably 15 to 16 years.
I watched it for the 1976 movie Thon. As we talked about,
I said it was boring, but also too weird
to be boring. Hmm. Saturday night, when I took notes on
this, I was exhausted. I don't recommend watching this movie
when you're tired. Right. Do not. Do not take notes on this movie
when you're tired. I barely got. I could barely
read anything I wrote. It was miserable. I was. I needed to go
to bed and watch it the next day, but I pushed through, so my
opinion of it had kind of slipped a little. And then I
had it playing in the background all day today. And I
laughed and had so much fun. And I realized that
if you're in a good mood and you're awake, this movie is a riot because
you're trying to figure out what is going on. One of the funniest things
in the movie is they go to this funeral for
one of these people who's been killed in town, and they sense
some shenanigans are going on. So Milo and Roche run off to go do
their thing, and Laurie's like, wait, wait, wait. What should I do?
And Milo says to her, keep your eyes peeled for any
more funerals.
Then they leave. And I
burst out laughing. Like, what? What did that even
mean? And so there's a joke. There's actually a joke in this movie.
Goofy acting. Donald Pleasant's accent,
like you talked about. Our hero has the wacky swagger.
He's such a dick, but he's so weird,
and you can't take your eyes off him. The wide
eyed actors faces looking confused.
The. The awkward silences we talked about. Yes.
It is a movie that goes back and forth
and back and forth. Like, the movie would be shorter if they cut out some
of the back and forth because the back and forth accomplishes nothing.
But that's the only detriment if you had to pin
something down. And then I think Brian Eno should have made more music
for this movie instead of depending on, like, the four
pieces he did. It feels like only, like, four pieces to me.
Could be. It could be more than that. I might be remembering it wrong,
but that's it. Other than those two things, I think this movie's great.
Heck, yeah. I recommend it. I really do. Yeah.
I think it was a lot of fun. It's the it. There's a lot of
ramshackle charm to it.
Yes. So I
got some. Brad, I heard you have it. Yeah, I heard you have a segment.
Yep. So I'm gonna do something that we have not done on this show in
a long time. And that is, I am going
to read the land of the Minotaur entry
in terror on tape. Oh, shit.
Wow. Cushing is a carpathian baron
living on a greek island where he heads up a cult that sacrifices
beach blonde babes in hot pants to
a huge, fire breathing Minotaur statue.
Originally titled the Devil's men, this prettily photographed
but dull british greek co production is
buoyed by a dapper Peter, an amusing pleasance
as a heroic priest, and an eerie Brian Eno
score. Wow. So that's,
that's high praise for two stars. Yeah, that's what I was thinking
too. But also not to leave anyone with a mere
two star. Review from Wikipedia.
Chris Alexander of Fangoria fame. It says,
praising the suffocating ambiance and dreamlike atmosphere,
as well as Brian Enos electronic score, Chris Alexander argues
that the film is underrated. Make no mistake, it's a lowbrow
exploitation film, but it's one that's filtered through a very
stylized art house sensibility. Don't be swayed
by the negative mainstream reviews and general fanboy
silence. So, I mean,
awesome. You know, Chris Alexander, I'm sure he, I don't
know if people like him or don't like him or whatever. As far as,
like, Fangoria goes, I have no idea. But I do know that,
uh, he's not just mainstream horror, because I've seen him on like,
extras for your old horror films, and I've seen him blurbs
and things. So, uh, I always like
it when somebody takes up for a film like this. Hey.
A common theme between both of those is that we didn't talk about how beautiful
this movie shot. I mean, it really. All the locations. Yes. We didn't
talk about the castle and the grounds of the village and just
like how everything is so beautifully shot,
really. So there's points for there. Yeah. And there's the whole
thing. It's just, you could wring the atmosphere out of the whole movie.
Even if, even if you think something is silly or whatnot, it is
still, it is a, it's a british greek co
production from the mid six seventies, you know,
so it still carries that particular vibe.
Anyway. What, you know, whether good or bad, which it's
typically good. The older I get, the more my tastes have shifted.
Where I keep a lot of movies that have boring parts.
Like the whole movie isn't boring, it just has
a boring section. Like deadly Manor,
that movie has a lot of rambling back and forth
kind of boring bits howling three. As crazy as howling
three is, it has this like, hey, you know what? Let's go on. Walk about.
You know, we got time. You know, it's. So if a movie has that energy
that hooks me, I can hang with it. If they intentionally
run out of stuff to do and still have to fill the 95
minutes or 89 minutes or. Whatever, well, let me.
Let me tell you how stupid I am. So let's
hear it. Many, many years ago, for my birthday, Elizabeth bought me
the prowler on dvd. The blue underground dvd.
Yeah. And we had never seen it,
so, uh, we watched it,
and she had also bought me another film that I didn't care for.
So we watched the prowler, and I'm like, that was the most
meandering film I've ever seen. They wander around that house for, like,
three quarters of the film, it seems like.
And I was just. I was like that. I. That was just
a b movie, you know? Yeah. And then.
And then I don't know what happened. Maybe we watched it two or three more
times. I just finally clicked, and I'm like,
how stupid am I? I love this, but everything about this,
this is so. I mean, I. I've got two prowler t shirts,
so nice. But I just completely changed.
Changed the way I felt about it, and I don't feel that.
I don't feel that way about it all. Feel stupid that I did.
So, yeah, you change. That's like me and Norman
J. Warren's terror, where I thought terror sucked. Yeah,
it was dumb. And now I love terror.
It's a classic. Yes. I mean, you and I covered that,
I think, before it had a blu ray. Yep. Had a dvd.
Yeah. We've covered some great movies over the years.
It's. It's quite a career. And,
you know, we get $500 for every episode, so just
think how rich we are. Who. Who is our new sponsor?
The sponsor is $500 per episode.com.
I knew you're a consummate show. And slipping in the
name of our sponsor into conversation
like that, I have. Consummated with a few showmen
in my time. The blue shoes thing didn't work out,
did it? No. So,
folks,
before I let Brad escape this plane of podcasting
existence, we pick a recently seen
and loved film. It can be any genre,
it can be a first time watch, or it can be
an old favorite. Brad, do you have anything for us today?
Yes. I'm gonna tell you the one that I meant
to tell you last week. And then whenever these come out, years apart,
you'll have to do some detecting to figure out when we recorded
these. The thundering sword, Shaw Brothers film.
It is very much a Romeo and Juliet wuxia
film. I don't want to say wuxia because it reads that way,
probably, but, no, it was great. The star,
I always get her. I always say her name wrong, so I won't change.
Pei pei. I did it anyway. She has two roles, two different
roles in it. It was so good. I loved it.
I thought it was fantastic. I watched that.
Yes, you would. It was great. Awesome.
What have you seen lately? Well, I think I texted you when I
was watching it, which watched Scott Pilgrimage.
Yes, sir. The. The good old Scott Pilgrim
versus the world film, a movie I've seen many
times, and I just busted it out because we needed something to watch.
It's like a come down film from a stressful week. It's perfect.
Perfect. We were just talking about Scott Pilgrim the other day,
Elizabeth and I. We haven't seen it in a while, and it's time.
Oh, yeah. That's all I got, man. That's all I've got.
Thanks, Mark, for being such a good friend of the show. Uh, we really mean
that, Mark. Hit me up, man. I hope we didn't embarrass
him. I hope we didn't know.
Did. Right? Did the film, right? Yeah,
exactly. Mark, email me. Dude, I haven't heard from you in a while.
So, folks, thanks for listening. Hope you're well.
We're sorry if we made you unwell with our sexy ass voices.
That's right. Just pull over, Mandy. Mm hmm.
Don't be shy.
Goodbye,
folks. Thanks so much for listening to this episode.
If you'd like to write into the show, send an email to doomedmoviethonmail
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