Bo: Hey gang, your old pal Bo here, uh, doing yet another intro for the dark parade.
Bo: Yes, it has been a while, but we are now, uh, you know, really firing up all the generators.
Bo: The lights are being turned back on, we're flipping those big switches that have the handles and you move them from the bottom to the top and then electricity starts to arc between a couple of metal poles.
Bo: Nobody's sure what it does, but you know that work and science is being done.
Bo: Work and science is being done.
Bo: So this has been a long road to get all of my additional work done and kind of settling into the new job and all that stuff.
Bo: But you know that's neither here nor there.
Bo: You guys don't care about that part of it.
Bo: What you care about I hope, fingers crossed is that we're going to be on a semi-regular new schedule.
Bo: I'm still figuring out what exactly that looks like, but you're definitely going to be getting content every other week at least.
Bo: And oh god, I use the word content.
Bo: I hate the word content, it makes me twitch, anyway.
Bo: So we'll be digging more into that.
Bo: But to kick things off, oh boy, you know, like when you want to ease back into things, you get yourself a Cort, psyops and Cort is just the best and, as you will hear, we talk about the movie Sweet Home.
Bo: We dig into the weirdness of it and try to figure out if it's actually a good movie or not, and I'll leave it to you to discover how we came down on that subject.
Bo: I would also point out, folks, before we get into the courts, eye up stuff we've got a Patreon for Legion Podcast, which, which is the network, uh, in which, uh, the Dark Parade appears and, uh, you know, look, the website costs money.
Bo: It costs money to host the, uh, the audio files and all that stuff.
Bo: Uh, so it's contingent upon you, gentle listener, um, to you know, kind of help us, uh, keep everything afloat.
Bo: If you're enjoying the shows here on legion podcast, like the dark parade, um, and it's not expensive or anything.
Bo: It's not an outrageous ask, um, but the question has always been like, well, what do you get for the money, like you know, in addition to just being the altruist that you are and feeling good about yourself, uh, but how about a little something, you know, for the effort, as a wise man once said, well, here's a little something for the effort.
Bo: We are doing a show here on the Dark Parade called the Ranking of Horrors, in which I am attempting to rank every single ding-dong horror movie that has ever been.
Bo: We started off with 10 uh and and ranked those uh.
Bo: We will continue to do so on the monthly at least on the monthly it depends.
Bo: Every time I've got like 10 or more movies that we can throw on the list.
Bo: That's that's sort of my uh, my measurement.
Bo: Um, we will do it live.
Bo: We'll do a live version of it with the video where you can see it all, and then it becomes an audio podcast, unless you are a patron of Legion Podcast, and in that case you can see the video anytime you want.
Bo: You can watch the ranking, as it happens.
Bo: Those pregnant pauses as I'm staring at the list a little more tolerable, quite frankly, when you're watching it as opposed to listening to it.
Bo: So that is it.
Bo: That is the pitch.
Bo: I hope you do go over to Legion Podcast.
Bo: I hope you subscribe.
Bo: More importantly, I hope you enjoy all the stuff over there and as time goes on, I'm going to try to throw some more stuff on the Patreon that is exclusive to that, and I've got some ideas about what that might be.
Bo: But at any rate.
Bo: And then you know, youtube.com/LegionPodcasts is where you can find the live streams as they happen.
Bo: I will post those as well in the Facebook group for the Dark Parade so that if you want to join in, if you want to be part of the discussion, as we're ranking stuff and I really enjoy that, that was a lot of fun.
Bo: It's great If you guys can participate, and so if you can, you know I'll, I'll post that in the, the Facebook group and you drive by and we, we chat and we rank the movies and and we apply much needed science to the affair, so that you know we don't have to second guess ourselves and worry that subjective opinion is getting in the way of this kind of ranking.
Bo: So enough of all that stuff, let's get into all the other stuff.
Bo: I'm so happy to be kind of doing this on the regular again.
Bo: I've really missed it.
Bo: But also, you know of everything that was going on in my life.
Bo: It was the one thing that you know.
Bo: No one would die and I would not lose my house if I stopped doing it.
Bo: So, anyway, but now things have changed and we are back.
Bo: Oh, we're back, baby Back, and better than ever?
Bo: I like to think so without further ado, here is my discussion with Cort.
Bo: Psyops, all about the Kurosawa no, not that one movie.
Bo: Sweet Home, the inspiration some would say for Resident Evil as a game, but we'll get into all that too.
Bo: So thanks for sticking around, thanks for listening and enjoy the conversation, folks.
Bo: Uh, when, when I say show, uh, what I mean is pure, uh, distilled entertainment, the kind of entertainment that, if you were to inject it directly into your veins, would result in a trip to the hospital.
Bo: And that's what you can expect here, because with me, you were lucky to be listening to this episode with me, as ever, the, the irrepressible, the irascible Cort, but psyops, of course, from cinema, but psyops as well as the horror podcast landscape.
Cort: I was going to do my shouting of hello but you got me laughing too much.
Cort: But then I also decided that I didn't want to blow out your ear drums, so that's probably for the best.
Cort: And I'm just so happy that you said the psyops when you brought me on.
Cort: That's like my favorite bit we do.
Bo: Yeah, it's real Looney Tunes.
Bo: We've talked about this before, but I am a fan of anything, of anything.
Bo: Uh, you know wb, looney tunes and um, to that end, the movie we're talking about tonight is speaking of looney tunes, yes, speaking of looney tunes, truly truly is, uh, a movie entitled Sweet Home from 1989.
Bo: It is directed by none other than Kiyoshi Kurosawa, director of Cure and Pulse.
Bo: Honest to goodness, stone-cold classics, horror pedigree yeah, the kind of pedigree that is jaw-dropping.
Bo: He is a true master of horror.
Cort: Yeah, absolutely.
Bo: But that didn't really happen until later.
Cort: Early on.
Bo: Kyosha Kermis was getting his bones doing like some shorts here and there, my favorite and his.
Bo: No, it's not his first feature.
Bo: I think it's his second feature.
Bo: It's a movie called Kandagawa Pervert Wars that title alone.
Cort: Yeah right.
Bo: I haven't seen that movie, but I feel like I've seen that movie, um, but yeah, so that was in 83.
Bo: This movie comes out in 89.
Bo: In between he did a short, a couple of more shorts and a another movie called bumpkin soup.
Bo: Uh, and you know, your guess is as good as mine.
Bo: Uh, what the hell's going on with that thing?
Bo: Uh, but yeah, and then, and then along comes sweet home.
Bo: Um, you, you may know this already, Cort, uh, but for our listeners the movie was also beset, uh by, by sort of editing issues.
Bo: As far as Kurosawa is concerned, in a lot of ways this is sort of his alien three of like hey, the studio kind of fucking got in there and trimmed the shit out of this and moved some stuff around, and there was, there were some reshoots that kurosawa had nothing to do with and even though he is still listed as the director, he is kind of quick to say this is not really my movie this is an alan smithy for him, for those that are aware of that.
Bo: Right, yeah, that kind of thing, but nonetheless um, I think this is almost that David Lynch Dune kind of thing where you're like no, no, no, no, don't be too upset with the result here.
Bo: Take the W Absolutely, because this movie is what scientists refer to Cort as Bananas.
Cort: Yeah, yeah.
Cort: I believe the more colloquial term of shit nuts is what I've heard it referred to.
Cort: That's not very scientific.
Bo: Yeah, you're right, but that's not this show.
Bo: The Ranking of Horror show is a totally different show.
Bo: That's science-based.
Bo: This is more subjective.
Cort: So it's okay for me to say that this is batshit crazy.
Bo: Yes, absolutely, this is bad shit, crazy.
Bo: Yes, absolutely, this is all this is pure illogic.
Cort: Uh, this show that's not saying that I felt that that was necessarily a bad thing, as I am sitting here vibrating with how happy I am that I just finished it yes, it's right, right.
Bo: So the the other reason that we want to talk about this again just to establish some bona fides here the other reason we wanted to talk about it is because this is the movie that produced a video game called Sweet Home.
Bo: In fact, not produced, the video game and the movie were released simultaneously and it was a real cross-media event at the time of its release.
Bo: So there was this nes game that never made its way over to the the states, but it was hugely influential, especially in japan was it capcom's first, or is it just the one that put them on the map?
Bo: I don't, uh, I I hesitate to say it was their first game, but it definitely it was.
Bo: It was a milestone, like it.
Bo: And when I uh, I watched a little bit of uh video of gameplay of the game and it's very final fantasy ish, but it's got an inventory system and the characters are kind of swapping around, it's like for it being an nes game, it was pretty impressive yeah, yeah, it looked more like the later nes game level of graphics and things too, where, like your teenage mutant ninja turtles, the arcade game port that was in the later 90s, it had that yeah uh, we, we should probably tell everybody.
Cort: You can't get this really anywhere, but you can watch it on YouTube, and that's where I saw the video game footage same same as well as the movie.
Cort: The movie is incredibly hard to find, but there's a great quality print of it on YouTube the version that I found on YouTube that was really nice was actually it had a little bit of like the video game commercial that's like now featuring the film or whatever.
Cort: I'm assuming because it was in japanese and I don't speak japanese and there was no subtitles for the the commercial part.
Cort: But that actual gameplay is that's what it kind of reminded me of, was as far as they could push.
Bo: The 8-bit is what it looked like on screen to me for sure, and and so that game then went on to inspire the video game resident evil, which, of course, welcome to raccoon city was an episode that we did yeah, uh, and see, that's why I assume that you asked me to to cover this film.
Cort: But I guess it's because you thought when you think batshit crazy, you think courtside ops well the reason is um twofold actually.
Bo: One is I had had this movie sitting open in a tab for like two and a half weeks where I was like I want to watch this movie and I need a good reason to do it, and you and I had been talking about, like man, we need to just sit down and chat, and you know.
Bo: And then, of course, because I'm me, I was like, well, let's do some recording and uh, that's, that's how we do that is how we do.
Bo: and uh, then I was like, oh well, we had been wanting to do godzilla minus one, or I wanted us to do Godzilla minus one, and I still do.
Bo: Once that hits streaming, we are going to do Godzilla minus one.
Cort: The return of the G spot, that's absolutely Um.
Bo: But in the meantime I was like, well, I don't know when that's going to release and I I want to have this conversation with you, not about a particular movie, I just want to have this conversation with you, not about a particular movie, I just want to hang out and record with you.
Cort: So you know that was the confluence.
Cort: Yeah, any excuse you have for us to hang out, I'm definitely down.
Bo: Great, great.
Bo: I'm so glad to hear that.
Cort: I really did, and all that time that you were away I really missed you.
Bo: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fun to be able to just kick back and record.
Bo: Now, the thing that everyone tells you when you start teaching is like, hey, your first year is fucking mayhem, and that is 100% accurate football or something.
Bo: When they say like, oh, the things just start to slow down after a while and you start to see all the angles and all the cuts and and that's kind of where I'm getting to.
Bo: I'm not quite there, but I'm getting there where it's like, oh, okay, well, this just feels like a job now, like you know, uh, or a thing that I can do, not a thing that I'm just like constantly like what the fuck is going on.
Bo: You know, how am I damaging these children and how do I make it stop?
Bo: I'm similar at the position that I have just taken, not too long ago, so I understand yeah, right now getting to the point where I'm starting to understand what it is that I need to do yeah, right, yeah, and so yeah, it's a great feeling when it's like, oh okay, I'm walking in the door and I feel like if somebody asked me a question, like I know where the vending machines are and shit, but anyway.
Bo: But so yeah, it's been fun to be back and especially stepping into a conversation about this movie.
Bo: That truly is kind of great.
Bo: I think, like it's not without its problems and we can talk about those, but it's kind of this like silly, goopy, like you know, surprisingly gory, but it's fairly coherent, like it's not bananas in the way that something like the grudge is bananas, where it's like what fucking timeline, what is the order of things again, and what's going on.
Bo: It's it's more of a like oh well, that's an interesting choice, well, that's a bold decision.
Cort: You know, it's that kind of thing yeah, it felt really kind of tongue-in-cheek attempt at a horror comedy crossover.
Cort: Yes, it was uneven in its attempt in that like the first half is pretty much all of the comedy and then the second half just goes for the fucking balls to the wall.
Cort: Horror, yeah.
Cort: It's such an uneven tone that like you feel like you're watching two different films pretty much midway.
Bo: Yeah yes.
Cort: Yeah, I agree, I think that's right.
Bo: And it's schlock.
Bo: You know, that's the thing it's a schlocky movie.
Bo: Yeah, yeah, and it's like intentionally so it feels, like everybody's in on the fucking gag, like you're almost watching a parody movie that still wants to go serious with the gore kind of deal yeah, a hundred percent, and and all right, so here, here is the, the broad strokes of the movie, before we just start yammering about how fucking weird.
Bo: It is um how much we enjoyed that right and how and how good the weirdness is.
Bo: So we kick off and the whole deal is that we've got a team of reporters.
Bo: They're doing this show all about these missing frescoes that were painted by this incredible painter named Miyami, who also happened to build this giant manor.
Bo: And you know, ill shit happened in the house and now it's haunted and everybody kind of seems to acknowledge that, like, oh yeah, it's haunted as fuck.
Cort: Yeah, it's shades of Paganini's horror, almost in the way that it's set up, where it's kind of tongue-in-cheek, where everybody's talking about how awful.
Bo: It's shades of Paganini's horror, almost in the way that it's set up, where it's kind of tongue-in-cheek, where everybody's talking about how awful it's going to be and yet no one really seems to be all that serious about it.
Bo: Um, they go to meet with a local official who shows up like where I don't know where they are.
Bo: It's like in some weird post-apocalyptic desert, because the guy walks in with these giant goggles on and as he walks in the door in this kind of white linen suit, he takes off his shoe and he pours out what's easily two gallons worth of sand out of this shoe, out of one shoe, right out of a single shoe.
Bo: And you're like, wait, what is happening again?
Cort: Right, I was like dude, don't waste that.
Cort: I could use that to put in the back of a truck so it can get some traction in the winter.
Bo: Right, right.
Bo: Well, he's got an instant sandbox, which is pretty handy.
Cort: Right.
Cort: If he wants to do a little soft shoe, he's set Right.
Bo: And so we've got our cast of characters here, which are Let me hit the cast here.
Bo: So you've got um akiko, who is the um uh, uh, like the, an older woman, kind of middle-aged woman, and that's one thing I like about this movie is that a lot of the characters are just older, like we, you have some kids, but most of the characters are, honest to goodness, adults.
Cort: Yeah, it's trying to handle a very grownup subject matter, so it's probably for the best that you don't put a bunch of teens in there.
Bo: You're probably right.
Cort: The shit that's taken place in this later on is like way too heavy for a bunch of teens to be able to maintain you couldn't have the gang and Scooby investigating this.
Cort: It would just wreck Fred and Velma.
Bo: Oh, I didn't even mention this in the upfront.
Bo: But holy shit everybody, all the practical effects in the movie Dick Smith, dick, fucking Smith is doing them.
Cort: That explains why they look so good.
Cort: Yes, one thing you definitely have to give this film the effects are really good for its age at a hundred percent and that, and that's why you know there's.
Bo: There is a fucking burned baby right, oh, it's horrible that looks legit it's.
Cort: It's really unsettling hey, how do you know what a burned baby looks?
Bo: like Look, we've all been to college here.
Cort: My lawyers have advised me not to respond.
Bo: Look, this is all still in litigation.
Bo: An indictment is not a conviction, my friend Right right, right, and once acquitted and I will be acquitted uh, yes, anyway, but yeah, so this team is going, they're trying to get uh, the key to this manor, so they can, you know, shoot the interior and get this new story um, all about.
Bo: You know the, this lost art.
Bo: And then you've got um, uh asuka, who is the, the talent, she is the woman in front of the camera, reporter, incredibly vain.
Bo: And then you've got uh, kazuo, uh, who is the uh, I guess, producer is his role here.
Bo: Yeah, he says he's producer um in the office while the guy is dumping out a bunch of sand right, and then his daughter, um emmy, is along for the ride as well, as kind of serving as a pa sort of, and then akiko is sort of the director, like she's really the one getting all the shit done and then she's like the line producer and the older guy is like the executive producer, because he just sits back and like makes tea for everybody and she actually does all of the work that like a line producer would do is what I'm assuming yeah, and then you've got a real sleazebag named Akira, who is the cameraman and is constantly trying to get a look at Asuka naked.
Cort: Yeah, could have done without that.
Cort: Oh, and speaking of him being named Akira, that also fits why he was wearing that red jacket.
Cort: He was.
Bo: Right and Neo Tokyo is going to explode cort all over this movie.
Cort: Kind of.
Bo: So this is our cast of characters.
Bo: They go to the house, they get the key from the mayor, dude, and they with the goggles and and sancho um, and go uh to the house and they're, you know, taking pictures and uh of the interior.
Bo: And I gotta say there's a scene where they actually discover these frescoes and the music kind of swells and at first the lights are getting little bits and pieces of it and then you see the whole thing and it's kind of this really dramatic, wonderful moment in the movie.
Bo: And it was really the point in the film where I thought is this movie good?
Bo: Like it's well directed, it's well shot, like they're wringing emotion out of this moment where, like, going into the movie I was like I don't give a fuck about frescoes, and then when they find this big fresco and the music swells, I'm like they found it.
Cort: This is kind of magical it's really interesting the way that it does that.
Cort: It starts off without even really being interested in having you like or care about any of these characters.
Cort: They're absolutely detestable.
Cort: But once they start doing their fucking job and they become all professional, the movie then shifts tone to sort of match that because we're trying to create an atmosphere to sell their tv show of her restoring this thing, and as she's doing the work you become fascinated, like like you're watching a diy thing that she's actually doing, like you're watching the show, and seeing the picture slowly be revealed is just breathtaking.
Bo: It's really well shot, just like you said yeah and oh, by the way, earlier, like emmy is shiting her dad a bunch to Akiko, the older lady, the other producer, because Emi's like, oh yeah, the reason that I'm here is because I'm babysitting my father.
Bo: Like he's been a real mess ever since we lost our mom or, you know, he lost his wife and, by the way, he's kind of on the market and I know he kind of sucks, but you know, if you're looking for a guy, my dad's available and you seem competent right, she's parent trapping her yeah, kind of, but really negging her dad along the way.
Cort: You know, like she acknowledges like yeah, yeah, yeah, I know he sucks, but you gotta kind of scratch the surface a little bit and underneath it all he doesn't suck nearly as much I think she's actually using a reverse nagging technique where, as a teenage girl really talking down about her dad, it's gonna make the adult person be like, oh, he can't be that bad, you're just over, exaggerating and being dramatic and therefore starting to get her thinking the way that she wants her to think.
Cort: I think this is a master manipulative technique from a psychopath I like that idea because emmy is kind of ultra manipulative that's how I've read her.
Cort: I mean I've.
Cort: I grew up around ultra manipulative people.
Cort: Let me tell you this like she's sending off red flags, like this is uh.
Cort: This is a manipulative thing because she doesn't want to take care of her dad.
Cort: She's trying to pawn her dad off on somebody and then she's using every trick in the book she has yeah, absolutely uh.
Bo: But yeah, it's like they're another thing I really like about this movie.
Bo: It's kind of a production design thing but all of the architecture in the house is it's all curves, you know.
Bo: There's these arches and these kind of winding uh bits of of molding around a lot of the doors and things like that.
Bo: It just like it's a house that doesn't have a lot of right angles and as a result, it it kind of feels a little a little weird and a little unsettling and a little unreal um.
Cort: It reminded me of the consciousness maze that's uh featured prominently in westworld, the series yeah, okay, all right, yes a little bit like when you see, when you kind of see the hallways, when they're going through them and they're twisting and stuff like that's what it made me think of, because there's no, there's no real direction in the house either.
Cort: It's very disorienting and you have no idea what room goes from what to next, not just because of the editing, just because of the way that everything curves.
Bo: Yeah, yeah, it's, yes, it's very disorienting in a very intentional way.
Bo: And so, as they're kind of settling in because they're staying at this place too, we have a moment where Emmy finds this old projector thing like a slide projector, and we see pictures of Mamiya I think the owner of the house, it's his wife, mrs Mamiya and the picture goes all weird and Emi is like, oh, that's fucked up.
Bo: And then the slide burns up inside the projector.
Cort: So you know, supernatural stuff is gonna go down I like when they cut away from the business professional stuff and we're back with her, it gets sort of silly and nonsensical a little bit with what she's doing, but it's still creepy.
Bo: It's just kind of a little more silly tone to it, especially with the score and everything yeah and and like she's bouncing on the bed and there are feathers everywhere and things like that, like it.
Bo: It a lot of this movie veers into that kind of uh, highly tropey, um you know sort of vibe, where it's after school special kind of yeah yeah, it's After school special kind of.
Bo: Yeah, yeah, it's very goofy and silly, but on the heels of all of this and the moment with the projector is kind of creepy and fun.
Bo: And then immediately we go to a moment of like oh hey, by the way, there are all these other Frescoes that we have discovered and they've got their little vacuum cleaner thing out to suck all the dirt off of it and they're, you know, kind of going around and piecing this story together and it's like oh, this is all about a dead baby.
Cort: So uh, just a dead baby, but a dead baby that was apparently burned alive.
Cort: As they reveal that, and everyone is horrified and the tone shifts again.
Cort: Yes, fun, but like professional spook, like spooky atmosphere to the deep end of, like an exploitation style, like even the music gets more like a lucio fulci hit right before someone gets stabbed to the back of the head with a chef knife there.
Bo: Yes, there are a lot of fulci riffs in this movie, um, until you get to the very, very end.
Bo: There's a good like 20 minute chunk that could have been directed by lucio fulci and but then, like you said, it makes another pivot where it's like oh, this turns into kind of a hollywood monster movie sort of thing at the very end.
Bo: But what I mean, we'll get there.
Bo: But it really is like this movie just rockets from tone to tone and scene to scene, like what, what?
Bo: What is happening in the scene dictates the tone of the scene and there is no connection from one scene to the next in terms of of total consistency.
Bo: But it still kind of works because it is so like pinballing from one thing, one emotion and one uh level of seriousness to the next, because so there's a moment in this like as they're discovering all these dead baby frescoes, then the fucking creep, akira has discovered an axe, but the, the way that's revealed is like this silent hill pyramid head dragging of the axe down a hallway.
Cort: And it's like, because the tone has been so crazy already, you're like, is somebody about to get fucking killed with an ax in this movie, and not at the moment and I just have to state that, uh, if you made that thing double headed, I would love to wield that ax as the character that I played in Warhammer fantasy battle in the late nineties.
Bo: It's very cool, it's.
Bo: I like the fact that it's so big and heavy and Akira has to wrestle with it and he almost kills somebody by dropping it and it's very threatening.
Bo: And then, when this Chekhov's axe pays off, oh, does it ever?
Bo: Oh man, that's the thing.
Bo: When this movie decides to get gross, it gets super gross.
Cort: The same thing with the serious and the spooky and everything else.
Cort: I didn't know how to describe it until we got really talking about it.
Cort: This film is basically like a film with a manic depressive sort of disorder.
Cort: It jumps all over the place place and it's not consistent with whatever mood it's going to be in because it hasn't been taking its medication to level out that chemical imbalance.
Cort: It's totally not its fault, but that's what's going on with it because, like, it reminds me of living with someone that had a similar disorder to that, that would have those just dramatic shifts like that for no reason and then right back to where they were or to a completely different area, and it's all just a chemical imbalance.
Cort: And that's what it feels like while you're watching this movie, that the movie is having those shifts on you and I think it's doing that to keep you offset at all times, like it's going to make you uncomfortable one way or another, another, whether it's because you can't get right with the shifting tone or with the absolute dramatic horror or the after-school special hey, will you take my dad so I don't have to take care of him stuff that they have in a sub subplot line, I mean it just goes in every direction, that it goes to the absolute extreme and just swings wildly in all directions yeah, what?
Bo: and that's the thing the movie does not take small swings it, every swing it takes is going for the fucking fences yeah, and it has that axe behind.
Cort: It is what's going on with it yeah and uh.
Bo: So we've established that the axe is there there.
Bo: You know, again, that really is just to pay it off later.
Bo: And then we get the creepy stalker moment with akira and um asuka in the indoor pool where he is kind of observing her, you know, nakedly bathing um, or I guess it is just an indoor bath, but it seemed it like the the um reflection is all over the walls and stuff like again, this is all the the uh.
Bo: Production, design and cinematography in this movie is is pretty top-notch, um this house was abandoned for how long?
Cort: I would be really, really afraid of getting naked and getting into a bath of water in this place like that.
Cort: I would pick something up like some kind of mold or fungus or something oh, no doubt.
Bo: And worse yet, he just kind of creeps up behind her and starts like drying her off.
Bo: And then she starts it with a little like I want my baby back, baby back, baby back.
Bo: She does she.
Bo: It's the lyrics are I give my baby back to me?
Bo: Give my baby back, baby back and yes, the whole time she's saying it I'm, I'm like because I'm a shit heel, that's what's running through my head is like, I want my baby same same.
Cort: I've never felt so seen yeah, it's like.
Bo: I know it's a flaw of me as a person that that is my reaction to it, but you know, here we are it's a flaw we have in common.
Bo: My friend and I'm okay and now I want ribs same.
Bo: Oh man, it's been a long time Cort.
Bo: I could.
Bo: I could get down with some ribs anyway, um, but yeah, he finally pulls the towel off of her and she's got like black, hollow eyes and he's.
Bo: You know, akira is naturally freaked out.
Cort: He has been hoisted on his own petard a bit one of the eyes too, is actually like melted away and you can see where there was like flame damage to her face.
Cort: Yeah, in that that turn um, it took a little bit to be able to like realize what was going on, just because the resolution we were dealing with on youtube, but it still was very dramatically, a very cool makeup, from what you could tell yeah, and, and so this is when oscar, who is kind of, you know, possessed by this spirit, goes out into the yard and digs up this fucking baby cord.
Bo: Digs up a baby.
Cort: We are at the full four fulci at this point.
Bo: Yeah, we are at the 30 minute mark of this film and we are digging up the corpses of dead children um, not to segue or anything, but this was the point where I knew I was in.
Cort: I used to talk about that all the time on my podcast, where it's like this is the point where you know you're in for the rest of this movie, like, like you're, you're down, like that, this film gets you, yeah, this.
Bo: When she does this and it goes to the absolute horror, I'm like, holy fuck, this is extreme awesome yeah, so she opens up this casket and inside is the corpse of a burned baby, like half of its face is horribly, horribly burned and holy fuck man, it fucking moves.
Bo: It moves it like and its head lolls back and it looks so fucking real it's, it is so outrageous, it was outrageous for what you could tell on the resolution.
Cort: For what we had, it looked more than believable enough, and it made me jump when the thing moved.
Cort: I wasn't expecting it, and it was at this point.
Cort: Not only that I knew that I was in, but I also need to have a proper copy of this film get released somehow.
Bo: Yeah, yeah.
Bo: Having seen this now, it's crazy to me that there is not a gettable good version of this somewhere other than YouTube.
Cort: It's outrageous.
Cort: Yeah, it's egregious.
Bo: I mean not to jump to the end of the film, but it's just too fucking good to be this buried and and it's too, it's too colorful, it's too, uh, too filled with this kind of like incredible practical effect for there not to be a really good like blu-ray transfer at minimum if not 4k oh, totally agreed, totally agreed.
Cort: I will accept a blu-ray of this, but I am really, really, really, really dying for a 4k.
Cort: Um, there's a lot of boutique boutique labels out there that could probably make a really good grip if they could get the rights to this yeah sell a lot because this has got to have a built-in audience.
Bo: Just for the video game fanatics that know what this ended up being like the precursor for, for like resident evil and those things right, or and just it's current, solid, like you know, not the akira one, but the other one, the other one that's almost as good, the one that's the good one in horror.
Bo: Right, right, right, not the genius, but the kind of madman yeah, the mad scientist one, not the genius one, right, the one that might destroy the world someday, not the one that was trying to.
Bo: You know, like dreams and let's do colors and everything's a painting.
Bo: This is the one that's like everything's fucked up, and here's why.
Bo: Absolutely so, uh.
Bo: We are also introduced shortly thereafter, uh, to our old man character, um, who is presumably a local crank question mark, the uh, uh, kenichi is his name, um, but yeah, so uh, there's a whole scene with him and Akiko and they kind of know each other and uh, and I just you know, I am sure at one point I was clear on what their relationship was, because at one point he's like you know, you saved my life that time and you're like come again, what happened now?
Bo: And I wonder if this isn't a little bit of a problem with, like, the edit and so forth, that I'm just not 100% sure what the fuck is going on.
Cort: Well, that might be a problem with the tone too If they jump around in the events of when things are happening.
Cort: This could have had a subtle shift from that sort of after-school special like lighthearted thing that brings you in and disarms you, to like this ever-winding descent into this mad labyrinth of hell that is this house.
Cort: You know they could have done that and just chopped it up a bunch because they didn't trust that it was going to work to try to make it sillier yeah, yeah, that's what it feels like.
Bo: It feels like a lot of the inserts are feel like they were done to make it a little lighter in tone as opposed to it being, you know, full of dead bird babies, um, but anyway.
Bo: So emmy uh finds the casket uh of this baby and is wrestling to get it open, like nobody really knows yet other than akira, that asuka is having a moment um with uh, the whole like potentially being possessed business, and uh, finally, akiko and uh emmy get this casket open, at which point they're sure enough, dead horse, just where you left it, and oscar rushes over, is like my baby.
Bo: And at that's the point where everybody's like, okay, there's something going on with oscar now yeah, that was crazy and they rebury the baby.
Cort: They just take it back outside and bury it again and they try to do it very respectfully and they don't even cry like dig into the fact that someone just lost their mind and dug up a corpse for no reason.
Cort: Right, nobody, nobody, nobody tries to unpack that.
Cort: They just very concertedly go about trying to alleviate any curse that could have resulted from this happening, and that's their main focus yeah, well, naturally, naturally, um, hey look, let's just put everything back where we found it.
Bo: And uh, and, and we'll just finish the shoot.
Bo: But uh, of course, oscar uh freaks out, grabs the jeep, runs into a rock, uh, knocks herself out, and so now we've got a damaged car and oscar, you know, has a once again very cartoon bandage around the skull to let you know that she got conked on the noggin with a coconut or something she's now temporarily forgotten who she is right, right, she thinks she's marianne now, um, yeah, uh, there's some business with uh, akiko and Kazuo, the, the, the two producers kind of meeting on equal terms, but it's again every scene they're in.
Bo: It's clear that akiko is kind of in charge.
Bo: You know this is a very like female ford relationship and uh, but they're also kind of dancing around it like it's a real sam and diane will.
Cort: They won't be bullshit I mean, while the daughter's just tapping her foot, looking at her watch, hoping that someone else will take care of her dad so she doesn't have to.
Bo: Well, she ends up getting whammied by a spirit or something too.
Cort: And then that's where Akira finds Asuka as she is being like, attacked by something, question mark, and then Akira gets whammied in the belly and melts essentially like something drips through him through the floor like alien blood, and with only half of a torso and his arms he holds on to Asuka who is trying to run away we forgot to mention that at one point, the one lady crashes the van right, yeah, they have to, but it was like after they got the gas for the generator and then, when she crashes the van, she crashes the van right, yeah, they have to, but it was like after they got the gas for the generator and then, when she crashes the van, she crashes the van into a very specific rock formation.
Cort: That, uh, was stacked very precisely right and she did it as um, as she was possessed by the spirit, and this was before the daughter gets whammy that that happened before the, before the guy dies, I do believe.
Bo: Yeah, and it's the old man who shows up and is like hey, who fucking broke these rocks?
Cort: Yeah, the guy at the gas station turns out he's the harbinger of doom that you need in every one of these kinds of movies.
Bo: Right, yeah, and he's like you fucking idiots, uh, you have like released this spirit.
Bo: And now, and it basically tells him like get out of here, you guys, you have done plenty, get out of here, I'll take care of this.
Bo: And they're like no, no, no, we're going to stay and, you know, finish our film, or whatever.
Bo: And he's like all right, well, here's what's up.
Bo: Uh, by the way, there is a ghost in this house of you know, uh, mrs mamiya, who is searching for her dead child, who, of course, uh, is horribly burned beyond recognition, and and what we later talks the worse it gets to like, the more heartbreaking it is yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just because it's what the kid is playing near the furnace and, uh, what is she's just doing something else, like, was it?
Bo: I don't think it was anything that made her like a bad character or anything like she was a bad mother, um right, like she wasn't just okay the death of the infant happened specifically because she was cold and she went to go light the furnace right.
Cort: The infant had been a toddler at this point and had just started to walk, so somehow it had gotten into the furnace and was playing in there like well before she came to go light it.
Cort: How that happened I don't know, but she lit it, that burned the child and she burned herself horribly, including her own eye, which we do see in that makeup.
Cort: That it was like the ghostly reveal.
Cort: When the lady turned, uh, while being bathing and asking for her baby, back ribs and uh, so the disfigurement that happened to her.
Cort: I mean, she survived, but the child obviously didn't make it.
Cort: It was already too late and that's how the child got burned.
Cort: So it was 100% an accident, but it was such a horrible thing that it's basically like the grudge, where it's something that is so unforgivably horrible, even though it was an accident, so unforgivably horrible.
Cort: Even though it was an accident, it was so tragic and it was such.
Cort: They die in the grip of such sadness that it marks this house.
Cort: It's very much like juan very similar.
Bo: Yes, um, yeah, I was trying to remember the.
Bo: The thing I couldn't remember was like, oh, was she doing something that like justified her being a real villain?
Cort: and it's like, nah, she just wasn't paying attention at that moment, you know, and it well, and then he, he does say something about them, like either her spirit or like babies, started disappearing and they were being burned in the furnace yeah, yeah, yeah, like she was roaming the countryside, like you know, la llorna or something, yeah, and I think that's her.
Cort: it was her ghost and if he doesn't put the curse in check to keep her in this house, she will continue to do it.
Cort: And that's what that stone steps like stacking was all about.
Cort: And the amulet was for him to be able to battle her.
Cort: He's not just working the gas station, he is literally there trying to keep this spirit at bay, so it can do no more harm.
Bo: Right, and then we have the death of Asuka, which is maybe the most heinous things that happens in the movie, where she's like running from the spirit, like you kind of get these Nosferatu shadows on the walls and she's running from that.
Bo: And then the you know kind of zombified half torso of akira shows up.
Bo: She has to grab a wrench and beat him to death by turning his head into a fucking pulpy mess, and then the the most horrible thing that can happen to a person happens, which is that an axe that's set up in Act 1 falls into your cranium.
Cort: Yeah, and it was set up by the guy that was obsessed with her and it leaned against that dirty wall and apparently it was just a fragment of dust or two away from sliding anyway.
Bo: There's a great shot where, as the axe is falling, it slides along the wall and just kind of peels up dust on its path.
Bo: It's really cool.
Bo: Again, this movie looks great and there's a lot of great shots.
Bo: And then, of course, the axe just like now that it's built up some momentum lands right in the middle of asuka's you know forehead and she falls backward into a wheelchair and so now she is a rolling corpse carrying this axe, you know, along its path and when, like so that's going on inside.
Bo: Finally, you know Kazuo and Akiko and Emi uh and the old man are making their way inside, Um, and they come across Asuka in the wheelchair.
Bo: Except she has turned into this like altered states, bubbling red mass with an axe in it.
Bo: I mean, am I describing this accurately?
Bo: It's.
Bo: Do you have a better description?
Cort: yeah, she wicked city blows up yeah, yeah it's.
Bo: it's very cool.
Bo: Like it looks like lava is just poured into, like well, uh, it's this candle wax slash lava, like it's just somebody melting.
Cort: Yeah, oof, yeah, it's horrific.
Bo: Yeah, and you know, again we get to all this like glowing red to suggest that this is, you know, molten hot and whatnot, and yeah, and glowing red to suggest that this is you know molten hot and whatnot, and yeah, and so that is the end of asuka, our you know tv star, um, and so, yeah, you know, yamamura gets, uh, gives them the lowdown on everything that's going on.
Bo: Uh, meanwhile, emmy gets um, targeted by the spirit and she is ultimately, like you know, possessed as well.
Bo: Um, and uh, you know, oh, yeah, you, you mentioned earlier the, the um crap.
Bo: Uh, the amulet, the, the little charm or whatever that's used to stave off evil, is kind of in play here.
Cort: Uh, yeah, as well, the guy brought it.
Cort: The guy from the gas station told us about it.
Cort: Well, she went to go get the gas from the generator and, uh, he also basically had like a warning for her about the house, but she took off before he could warn her and so, when he's back with the amulet, that that's why he brought it with him and he's trying to stack the stones and use the amulet to keep this woman from escaping, which she has done thus far.
Bo: She has not done yet yeah, um, and I think, uh, the only point in the movie I feel kind of drags is there's a little bit of time here after the old man Yamamura has sort of given everybody the lowdown and whatnot, where they're just kind of wandering around looking for Emi and it's like alright, I get it, let's go, let's go.
Bo: Alright, I get it, let's go, let's go.
Bo: But just about the time that I get a little bit bored with this movie, all of a sudden Yamamura goes into a ghost dimension for a minute and then gets kicked out of said ghost dimension only to melt like tote from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Cort: Yeah, it's almost like sped up slow motion wax melt.
Bo: It's really I.
Bo: I mean, you get some of that red glow as well, but like it it is an extended fulci-esque scene of this old man just coming apart yeah, this goes full-on fulci and like pagnini horror level, like like italian horror at this point, with the grossness yeah, like I mean skin sliding off the skull and all of I mean it's again folks, it's like demonia level of yeah, yeah, but that's the thing that I mean.
Bo: Hey, no matter what you're looking for in a movie, people, sweet home's got it.
Bo: And that is both the great thing about sweet home and it's also the thing that makes sweet home kind of a mess is that there's a little something for everybody.
Bo: This is the uh luby's buffet of horror, where you can get everything from the soft serve, which is delicious at the make, the make-your-own-Sunday bar, but also along the way, you're going to have some questionable corn and just stay away from the fried okra.
Cort: And, tonally speaking, it's how I eat at said place, where I'm all over the place just grabbing stuff whenever I see fit.
Bo: Oh, man I was thinking about back in the old days when I would go to a Chinese buffet and just like plunk down my 10 bucks or whatever it was, to get your plate and just make an ass of myself.
Cort: We used to set up a role-playing game and just keep eating the whole time in college, Like an all 24-hour kind of buffet.
Bo: Oh wow it was near us.
Cort: It was great.
Bo: That is a great idea.
Cort: Hey, we paid.
Cort: We always made sure we tipped the servers and everything and all of that, so it was just something that we did.
Bo: Yeah, no, that's great.
Bo: And you know, get those crab legs.
Bo: Where are those crabs from, who knows?
Bo: Maybe a bathtub, it doesn't matter, they're 10 bucks.
Bo: What do you want?
Bo: Eat those crab legs.
Cort: Yeah, it doesn't matter if we've seen TV shows that result with zombieism.
Cort: For Drew Barrymore after something like that Right, yeah, yeah, I mean hey.
Bo: do you want a single bar that is going to serve you hot wings and vanilla pudding?
Bo: Well, brother, have I got a deal for you.
Cort: Get yourself to a buffet.
Bo: Yeah, anyway.
Bo: So back in the movie, um, there's, uh, uh, some business where, uh, emmy gets possessed just as, um, kazuo and Akiko are escaping and they're like, oh shit, we got to go back in there.
Bo: And, um, and go in back in there, does this like friday the 13th, part two business where she, like, dresses up in a mom dress and carries the, uh, the casket around, as if to lure you know, said monster or said spirit, uh, out of hiding, which works in fairness, like it, it does the trick, uh, because, sure enough, and we're kind of flying into the end of this movie, where we have this final confrontation between the spirit of the house, mrs Mamiya, and Akiko, who is going full-on mom energy here, but also sort of offering herself up to giving herself over to the house, because the whole deal is like, oh, I've got to go into the furnace.
Bo: But there is also fire blasting out of the furnace and she's like, oh no, I won't be burned, I've just got to, you know, have the willpower to resist this.
Bo: And then into the furnace she goes cort yeah, that was horrific it's a pretty good fire effect too.
Cort: Uh, I have to say, um, and they used all the flame bars right at the camera a hundred percent, uh.
Bo: But she finds um emmy inside this furnace.
Bo: Well, like, gets her her and pulls her out, and then they're back in this basement and finally we get the full-on.
Bo: Here is the spirit of Mrs Mamiya flying in, who has the like half-burnt face and you know floating, with the pale skin and the long dark hair, and it's like ah, this is good, old-fashioned Japanese ghost territory, I get it, this is familiar territory.
Bo: And then Cort, the movie changes again.
Cort: Yeah, you got too comfortable in the tone it's shifting just to keep you uncomfortable.
Bo: Mm-hmm, it's shifting, just to keep you uncomfortable.
Bo: And it turns into this incredible monster puppet with like babies boiling in on its skin yeah, that's a really good way to point.
Bo: Put it like it's actual boils that lands and then a baby comes out is how they're being born from it, which is absolutely horrific it is so disgusting yeah, this is so goopy too yeah, and, and the part of it that is a bit silly here is that it's also using like force lightning, to try to drag emmy toward her and, I guess, like consume her along with the other children, um, but it's like it's a hundred percent a final boss monster, um, and they end up, uh you know, having to fight against this crazy labyrinth style puppet at the end of it, and at the end of the day, they just kind of give it the baby and they're like, hey, you should go to heaven now.
Bo: And the mrs mabia is like, yeah, all right, and then off they go.
Cort: This reminds me of a ghost story movie that I watched once, which was very similar to this idea, where they put a ghost to rest by burying the baby with the mother, sort of like.
Cort: At least they tried that in the woman in black version.
Cort: Uh, that, uh, daniel craig was in, or not daniel craig, but uh, daniel radcliffe, yeah, the harry potter woman in black.
Cort: Like they try to bury the baby with the mother to appease her and you think it's gonna work, but it it doesn't.
Cort: This is kind of what they're doing, right, it's similar to that yeah, well, yeah, there there is a bit of well.
Bo: So, um, all she goes to heaven, um.
Bo: And then akiko and emmy just kind of stroll out of the house and are like, well, you know, it really sucks that your dad is presumably dead after all the shenanigans with the ghost in the house, uh.
Bo: But of course, hapless Kazuo uh like pushes out of you know, this big bureau, uh, where he has been hiding, and you know, comes out with his clothes all tattered and he's got the little totem from uh yamamura, and then he rushes outside and then they all uh embrace anikiko and emmy are like, oh, you poor schlub, get over here, you big lug.
Cort: We're gonna be a family, yeah it goes right back to the after school special like nothing happened yeah, and then that's kind of, that's kind of sweet home.
Bo: You know, uh, you end on on credits kind of over the the manor uh itself, um, and you know, presumably I don't know I I'll tell you the one thing I didn't look, look up.
Bo: I don't know if there's a sweet home too, because this ends with the house crumbling like the very like post credits and everything.
Bo: Uh, you know an early post credit scene, In fact Samuel Jackson shows up to ask Mrs Mamia if she would like to be part of the Avengers initiative, Right, Um, but yeah, so the house crumbles and and I've got to look this up right now I did not.
Cort: I do not know if there is a Sweet Home 2.
Bo: I just want Sweet Home 1 on a release before I find that out.
Bo: Yeah, so what was your takeaway Cort?
Bo: How do you feel about 1989's sweet home?
Cort: I want a really good version of this so I can make everyone I know watch it like I really really enjoyed this.
Cort: It is batshit's crazy.
Cort: It's so uneven in tone, it's so all over the place.
Cort: It it's so me, yeah, like it's pushing every little button and ticking little, every little box of something that I would want in my entertainment to enjoy and I really want to see, like I want to see all of the grossness in all of its glory here, and I can't wait for someone to do a release of this.
Bo: I'm begging for it man, I want to see that blu-ray baby Cort.
Bo: I need me a blu-ray burn baby.
Bo: That's the name of my next album, blu-ray Burned Baby.
Cort: That's the name of my next album Blu-ray Burned Baby.
Bo: Yeah, look, I hand out album titles like business cards.
Bo: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm totally with you.
Bo: I think this movie is.
Bo: It's a mess.
Bo: It's not like a well put together movie and I think that's a result of the editing and reshoots and all that stuff.
Bo: Like, I think Kurosawa's version was probably really dark, really dark.
Cort: I believe that yes.
Bo: And I think that, uh, cause, this was I, like this was a Tohei release, right, Like weren't they the ones behind this.
Cort: And I could leave.
Cort: That was their intro, yeah I.
Cort: I think that maybe what happened was just like uh, no, uh to go as dark as other movie company releases, especially in this era in the 80s yeah, for sure.
Bo: Okay, I just double checked.
Bo: Yes, it is their logo on the front end of this.
Bo: So, yes, I can totally see where they're like.
Bo: Hey, dude, we make fucking son of godzilla over here.
Bo: Okay, that is our speed.
Bo: We are not all in on the burned babies and mothers who have burned children alive in furnaces yeah, this, uh, this cut definitely tries to whitewash over a lot of that right and spends a lot more time being creepy with akira the stalker.
Bo: So I I it's a weird trade-off, like I.
Bo: Maybe that it makes more sense tonally if you're dealing with.
Bo: You know these ideas of the corruption of family and you know betrayal and blah, blah, blah.
Bo: Maybe that works a little better.
Bo: Uh, or maybe it's just good old.
Bo: You know Japanese.
Bo: Like hey, we need somebody in a bush leering with their tongue out, um, but yeah, yeah, I find that to be a little off-putting and also yet another tone in gear that this movie doesn't need um.
Bo: But but that all said, it totally appeals to me.
Bo: Like it's.
Bo: It's kind of a monster movie, it's kind of a ghost story, it's kind of a body horror film, like it's all of those things all at once.
Bo: It's everything everywhere all at once essentially.
Cort: Yeah, it's a first take at it anyway, yeah it's it, yeah, I, but it's.
Bo: It's really crazy and I would love to see, like you said, I would love to see a good version of this.
Bo: There is not, as it happens, a sequel to it.
Bo: That seems like a shame, uh, but you know, I don't.
Bo: Where do you think this stands like?
Bo: I mean, obviously it was earlier in his career, but do you do you think that curacao was right to disown this movie?
Cort: is there.
Cort: I don't not, any more than I would think, that david lynch would be right to fully disown dune.
Cort: But david lynch will still answer questions about dune and talk about the production and things.
Cort: He's just not very happy with it and he hates the way that it was re-edited and fucked with right, yeah.
Cort: So I mean, embrace what you wanted it to be, maybe try for a director's cut if the stuff still exists, but like, the end result is still a very powerful and just weirdly off-putting and entertaining all at once kind of film.
Cort: It has no right to be this dichotomy of just manic depressive disorders all at once at you in on film.
Cort: But it works.
Cort: It somehow works and it was somewhat of a phenomenon because the video game became one and you know it.
Cort: I would not be ashamed of this.
Cort: I mean, yeah, it may not have been the project you wanted it to be, but like what it turned out to be is still something that I think you should be proud of yeah, yeah, I, yes, I'm kind of with that as well, um yeah I think that like, yeah, right, you said, even if it's not everything that he wanted the movie to be, or you know that it was taken away from him, it was reshaped and re-edited and all of that I get it.
Bo: That sucks, but there is Kurosawa in this movie.
Bo: Like you can feel some of his sensibility in this, um, but I would love to, you know, see a translated interview to hear him talk about.
Bo: You know this movie in some more detail?
Bo: Um, because I'm curious, like, where this sits in his.
Bo: As I mentioned earlier, I think all of his best movies are just about how everything has gone to shit and I wonder if, because there's a lot of that, this idea of a mother killing her own child, even accidentally, and that sort of ultimate betrayal that you know, uh, uh, of the one entity in the world that you were supposed to love and nurture best and you, you know, broil it Then, you know, like that, that feels Kurosawa to me, whereas the happy ending where, like, oh shucks, kazuo was in the bureau the whole time, you know that feels very tohei, you know like that's the ending is forced is yeah, that that would definitely be.
Cort: I can see where he would be like super pissed that they ruined the ending because he wanted a probably more dour down ending.
Bo: Yeah, and I kind of like the idea of, like, emi and Akiko surviving, because that makes thematic sense.
Bo: Like this is about, like the reunion of mother and child.
Bo: And then here is this you know, impromptu, a daughter who has lost her mother and a woman who does not have a child.
Bo: And they, you know, form this bond and kind of fuck Kazuo because he sucks, you know, let him die when the shit goes down with the ghost monster.
Cort: Anyway, I feel like at this point I'm just giving notes to a movie that's, you know, 35 years old yeah, well, you always have the thing of how I can fix the movie and we both do that quite a bit where it's like things that I would like to have seen in the movie or things that I you know, and I I don't mind the happy ending where the father comes out and like they're going to become a family, because if he did end up grabbing that protective talisman, you know, like we don't really see it or I don't remember seeing him do that so even that's just a forced thing.
Cort: Um, it seems like the sort of thing that the father would do to go to finally be a good father to protect his daughter, and maybe there was some footage of that that got yanked out instead of it.
Cort: You know, being a doesn't count happy ending.
Cort: Maybe this is just kind of he had that totem and she locked him in there so he couldn't do anything to stop her ghost wise or something.
Cort: I don't know, but you know it.
Cort: Just it doesn't feel like it was 100 forced to be a happy ending.
Cort: It maybe just feels like it was a rushed to a happy ending too.
Bo: Yeah, I mean, and I think ultimately, that my biggest problem with the movie is it feels both overstuffed and underbaked because of all of the weird tonal stuff we've been talking about.
Bo: But it's good.
Bo: It's a good movie and despite the fact that it's so all over the place and if you're a fan of J-horror, if you're a fan of of like, I think the resident evil connection is a little tenuous, like I get it.
Bo: I get why it would have inspired the game.
Bo: But you like watching sweet home, there wasn't a point where I was like, oh yeah, that's resident evil right there.
Cort: Um, where the babies were boiling out of the boils and popping out and all that.
Cort: You're right that monster that felt very Resident.
Bo: Evil.
Bo: Yeah, all right, I stand corrected, you're 100% right.
Bo: Yes, yeah, that, and I mean the fact that you're kind of trapped in this mansion.
Bo: Certainly there is that, but in terms of, I mean, there are no zombies really.
Bo: They're, you know, kind of ghosts and ghostly goings-ons, but it's not.
Bo: You know, it is not as direct an influence as you might think.
Bo: Although you know the more I think about it, the more I'm like yeah, I guess there are a lot of elements, but yeah, but it's super fun.
Cort: Well, shit, that's the whole movie yeah and uh, go grab it on youtube, and if you didn't watch it already, shame on you.
Cort: You should have, because it was there for you to go watch and then get us a physical copy of it somewhere world yeah, I mean, right, that's the dream, um, but uh, man.
Bo: So what have you have going on these days?
Bo: I know you've been working a shit ton and we talked offline about all that fun stuff, which is incredible, but what else have you got going on in the world of podcasting horror podcasting.
Cort: I made a purchase of the Al Adamson box set and now everyone who listens to Cinema PsyOps, myself and Matt included, have to pay for that mistake, because that's what we've been covering for the rest of year 9.
Cort: But year 10 is on the horizon and I've been edging everybody about this on my show and I'm not going to spoil it here like I usually do on your show.
Cort: I'm not ready to do the announcement yet.
Cort: We're still shit into your nine.
Cort: But I can assure you, bo, that what I have planned for year 10 is going to be the most self-indulgent celebration of movie love that I can promise for matt and myself.
Cort: Like I'm giving matt 10 picks of his own, like I'm letting him pick 10 movies, I'm obviously going to filter them out for various criteria.
Cort: Star Wars he'd be too happy if he gets to cover a Star Wars movie.
Cort: I'm just not going to let that happen.
Cort: But so he's getting 10 movies and then the rest I'm going to pick.
Cort: Pretty much the thing that I wanted to do podcasting to be able to talk about is going to be the next big thing.
Cort: So I'm basically turning cinema psyops into a spin-off show for year 10 and we're going to go all the way through for year 10, like we've done for year 9, and then we're going to start doing more of a sort of pick six seasons sort of thing.
Cort: I'm not sure if we're going to do just six episodes but we're going to basically set thing.
Cort: Not sure if we're going to do just six episodes, but we're going to basically set a number of episodes that we're going to do and we're just going to get started working on them and then do them and then have breaks in between, like from here.
Cort: So we're just going to do 10 years where we're going to try and hit a weekly release and that after that we're going to start doing more of a season's release kind of thing or something.
Cort: Something different.
Cort: The show's format's going to change after year 10, but I'm thinking the goal is hit consecutive weeks for 10 years, finish out the 10th year if we can do it, call it a day on that and then transitioned into something.
Bo: That'll make it more fun again and less of an obligation to try and always meet a goal yeah, I think one of the one of the reasons I Dark Parade as its own thing was because it allowed me to do a lot of different stuff under one umbrella, and so it keeps me from getting bored.
Bo: And I mean, now I'm at the place of like, oh, I get to do this again, and so I'm just excited about doing everything.
Bo: But you know, I've tried to create an environment, a podcasting environment, for myself where I can indulge.
Bo: Just what you're talking about, like the ranking, the movies thing, is 100% Like.
Bo: This is just something I think would be really dumb and fun to do and I'm having a blast, I think would be really dumb and fun to do, and, uh, and I'm having a blast, like when I I I'm.
Bo: It makes me reinvigorated to watch movies again, because in the back of my mind I'm always thinking like, is this movie better than late night with the devil?
Bo: Like, where, where would this fall on my list right now?
Bo: Yeah, see.
Cort: I never rank things that way Personally.
Cort: I don when would this fall on my list right now?
Cort: Yeah see, I never rank things that way personally.
Cort: I don't think one movie's better than the other or I don't try to think of it that way, unless something is truly bad and then truly wonderful.
Cort: Like I'm not going to put Kurosawa on the same level as I would Bruno Mattei Like that's just one is clearly a bad filmmaker and the other one is clearly a brilliant filmmaker.
Bo: And I don't care which carousel you pick to beat the other side of that, they're still better than fucking the day.
Bo: Yeah, well, but that's the beauty of science, right?
Bo: Is that?
Bo: When applying the science on on ranking of horrors, um, you know, like putting a mate film against you know a robert eggers movie is like.
Bo: Well, you know, we, we just apply the science, science and let the cards fall where they may.
Cort: Right, right and I totally get that.
Cort: But for me it's about what I enjoy more or less, or what I like about the film, and it's the approach to critiquing certain things about the film and the aspects of the film.
Cort: That's the type of discussion that I enjoy, which is why I'm glad to have this format with you.
Cort: I think if you had me trying to rank films like and I've done that before with people's lists and ranking films and arguing about which film is clearly better than the other and it just just tweaks my anxiety so much to do it like I feel like I'm hurting the films and shortchanging all of them, unless they're bruno and tay films then yeah, I I am a fan of rankings.
Bo: There's something about it, but I'm a very uh, order from chaos kind of person.
Cort: I really like organizing things you're a top 10 list kind of guy I am a top 10 list kind of guy.
Bo: Thanks so much for being here.
Cort: Cort, uh, it was, as always, well in code speak if Bo is back, Cort supports Bo's work equals Bo is back.
Cort: That's right.
Bo: All right guys.
Bo: Thanks for listening.
Bo: We will talk again very soon, Thank you.