Blood Rage (1987)

Episode 149, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast

Craig:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Craig. 

Clip:  I’m Todd. I’m Todd. I’m   Todd. I’m Todd. 

Todd:  I’m Todd. I’m Todd. 

Craig:  Gosh. Yeah. 

Todd:  I love hearing my name in a movie. I don’t hear it often enough. Unfortunately, whenever I do hear my name in a movie, it always ends up being this dorky, lame ass way. 

Craig:  No. No. Todd is awesome in this movie. 

Todd:  Dude, I don’t Bruce Willis never gets cast as a guy named Todd. Know what I’m saying? It’s always people like this. 

Craig:  I know. I know. That’s why like watching, Friday. Craig, you know I love your mom. Oh, man. Alright. Well, it’s Thanksgiving time. 

Todd:  Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. 

Craig:  It’s time to watch a movie about Thanksgiving. 

Todd:  We we managed to find 1. 

Craig:  We did. You know, it’s it’s tricky. We’re big dorks, and we love doing these themed episodes, but you just don’t find a whole lot of good Thanksgiving horror movies. No. You don’t. And and and we didn’t this week either. No. 

Todd:  Is no exception. 

Craig:  But we did find a Thanksgiving movie. We sure did. We found, 1980 seven’s Blood Rage, directed by John Grissmer, written by Bruce Rubin. 

Todd:  Pretty much the only thing these guys have written or directed. 

Craig:  Oh, I know. Each of them has, like, 1 or 2 other credits. Yeah. So this is the Okay. Alright. So the movie opens up in 1974 in Jacksonville, Florida at a drive in that is showing the town that cried murder. And, it’s, you know, it’s typical seventies driving stuff. 

Todd:  Well, it is, except for the fact that everybody At this point, is wearing complete 19 eighties garp and gear and hairstyles and everything. But but do That 

Craig:  that is It’s absolutely true. And you youngins out there may have never experienced a drive in. In this small rural community that I live in, we used to have 1, just a half an hour away. And my friends and I in college would drive down there on the weekends, and and it it really was fun. You know? It was fun to just hang out in your car, and, like, there was a concession stand, and we would buy cheap pizza and do things. 

Todd:  You wouldn’t really even watch the movie most of the time? 

Craig:  No. Not really. You just hang out and, whoever wasn’t driving, of course, maybe have a little bit to drink or whatever. It was fun. Yeah. 

Todd:  So this 

Craig:  is, you know, very typical driving stuff. We follow some good looking guy walking around through the concession stand, then he walks into the He walks into the bathroom where I was sure this guy in, like I don’t think it was a trench coat, but it may as well have been, Like, comes up to him and he’s like, hey. Hey. And he opens up his coat, and instead of having, like, drugs or something, he’s just got rows of condoms hanging He downed his coat like he’s selling condoms on the black market list. 

Todd:  So sweet. 

Craig:  Oh god. And and that that that guy, it was Ted Raimi. 

Todd:  I know that. I did. I saw him, and I was like, gosh. This guy Super familiar. Who is this man? Who is he? And, yeah, Ted Raimi, of course. I guess it was his 1st screen appearance too. He was 19. Even though this movie was released later, It was shot in 1983 well, it was finished in 1983, but it wasn’t released until 1987. 

Craig:  Right. Right. And it’s and I I have no idea. I read that too. I have no idea what the delay was, but, yeah, it was years before it actually came out. Gee, I I wonder. 

Todd:  Yeah. Cool. 

Craig:  I don’t know. Oh, I mean, there had to have been demand. Oh, gosh. I don’t know. But, anyway, so, he buys some condoms, And then we just see, you know, there are some girls smoking some weed and the people making out, and we cut to this, car making out, and I’m like, surely these people are not supposed to be teenagers because the woman looked like she was in her forties. I’m like, this is Todd. But it turns out they’re not supposed to be teenagers because she the girl is Maddie, and she is a mother. And she has 2 twin boys who are in the back of the car.   And this guy is trying to, like, you know, put the moves on her, and she’s like, oh, no. But the boys and, he says, well, they’ve been asleep for a half hour. And she’s like, okay. So they start making out, and the 2 boys who turn out to be identical twins wake up. And this movie is just so full of great lines. Like, 

Todd:  I they wake up and they look 

Craig:  up at the fret, and one of the boys is like, mom’s at it again. What? 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Craig:  Oh my god. It killed me. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  So they sneak out to get away from their Make out mama, and, they they’re walking around, and one of them randomly finds, Like, this axe in the back 

Todd:  of the 

Craig:  pickup truck. Yeah. Yeah. And they’re walking around, and they come up to the car with the good looking guy who we saw before who is fully naked, having sex with a girl in the back seat who is also fully naked. Yeah. Now my drive in experiences are very limited, but I would have thought that if you gonna get freaky at the drive in. You might be a little bit more discreet than taking off all of your clothes. 

Todd:  Laying across the back with the windows down. Yeah. 

Craig:  But apparently not. And so what the boy with the hatchet who ends up being Terry. It’s 2 boys, Terry and Todd. Terry, like, watches them going at it for And, eventually, the good looking guy looks up and is like, hey. Get out of here, creep. And so Terry takes his hatchet and, like, totally hatchets the guy’s face. Like, like, several times, like, right in 

Todd:  the face. In the middle of the drive in. 

Craig:  In the middle of the drive in. And The the girl jumps out of the car fully naked and runs off. 

Todd:  This, like, this movie is not shy about nudity one way or another, But it also seems to present a world where nobody else is. 

Craig:  Yeah. Right? Yeah. It’s fine. Nobody and nobody even notices her running, like, through the field, like, Buck naked. But, anyway, so, the mom realizes the boys are gone, so they go looking for them. And we See that Terry Todd apparently is, you know, totally traumatized by what he’s just seen his brother do. So he’s completely in shock, not speaking, not moving. And Terry wipes the blood all over Todd’s face and hands him the hatchet.   And so when everybody comes running, Terry says, Todd did it. Todd did it. Todd Did it. And, apparently, they believe him because then we cut to 10 years later, and Todd is in a mental institution has been for the past 10 years, and now his mother is visiting him. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and, like, this whole first sequence of this movie, I was I was pretty joyful. I thought, okay. This is gonna be a movie I’m gonna get into. Not because it’s a great movie, but because it’s gonna be bad in all of the right ways. And, yeah, after this point, I was getting this distinct intruder vibe. You remember intruder, the one that took place in the supermarket? Yeah. Something about this movie, something At the root of it, really felt like intruder.   I don’t know if it was the quality of the acting, the absurdity of the plot, The horrible one lie you know, the horrible lines and the melodrama of it all, and then the extreme gore, you know, mixed in. And maybe and it was shot around the same time too within a couple years of each other. I was I was searching in IMDB to see if there was any connection But in between this movie and the produce makers of Intruder, and the only one I could find was Ted Raimi. 

Craig:  Ted Raimi. Yeah. 

Todd:  Who was shooting Evil Dead at the time this came out, I think. And then Intruder came out in 89, so it was even a few years afterwards. So I don’t know. In my head, there’s just this, like, click of people around this time who were just All in everybody else’s movies, and everybody was just making horror movies and having a good time. But this was shot, like, in Jacksonville, Florida. And I don’t think that I don’t think that the Rameys were doing their thing and the intruder thing was happening on that side of the US, if I’m not mistaken. 

Craig:  Yeah. You’re you’re probably right, but you’re but you’re definitely It it it feels very much like that movie. And, you know, initially, I guess the working title was Slasher, and that’s very much appropriate because that’s what the movie ends up being. It’s very much a slasher movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s one of these movies that changed titles, like, 2 or 3 different times. And, apparently, it it you know? Again, it was released much later. It had a very limited theatrical release. It was called, like, Nightmare at Shadow Woods, which is the name of the apartment complex this all ends up happening in. But, yeah, you you can kinda tell. I think Intruder was the same way, wasn’t it? Didn’t it have another title as well before it was released. Yeah.   I think so. Released years after it was made kinda thing. And and the other aspect of it I wanted to say was, the way that it’s shot. And I think that the scene that you just Todd finish describing is perfectly emblematic of what’s so funny and incompetent about this movie is that it’s so stagey. Mhmm. They set up these scenes in front of a static camera that just that look like they’re set up for the camera, and they’re lit for the camera. All the lighting in this movie is totally flat. You can see, like, shadows on the wall and across People and stuff where the these bright, you know, movie lights are coming at them.   None of it seems none of the lighting in this movie seems motivated whatsoever. It it’s it’s it’s it’s lit like a comedy, like a sitcom or something. And then, you know, there’s very little in the way of of clever camerawork, which was something the intruder had actually quite a bit of clever camera. Yeah. This has none of it. And then the acting and the staginess of it, you know, this this kid smears his Todd this blood on his brother’s face and puts his hatchet in his hand. In the meantime, people are already walking towards them from these other cars. 

Craig:  I mean, 

Todd:  people are seeing this go on. And the mother comes running over, and everyone just stands around and stares, and nobody really does anything. And they’re all just waiting for her to finish her line, and Everybody looks melodramatically at the other kid. You know? Everybody just kinda stands around. It’s it’s and this movie is full of this, which is just laugh out loud funny times. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and, you know, Terry is, like, covered in blood, and meanwhile, he’s wiped a little bit of blood on his brother’s face. 

Clip:  Like, he 

Craig:  did it. Exactly. 

Todd:  Okay. It’s a poorly framed scene of a poor framing. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there I I guess I’m gonna try to be a little bit generous in some ways because I I will if we haven’t gotten there yet, we will. But Some of the gore effects and not even so much in the kills, but the aftermath of the kills. I like, I could tell they were trying. 

Todd:  Like The effects were good. 

Craig:  There was a good effort there, but, oh, man. The the writing, it it really, you know, straddles that line of so bad it’s good. Like like you said, literally, I laughed out loud several times, and I I kept writing down lines because there are so many good ones. Anyway, so the mom visits Todd in the mental institution, and it’s so silly. It it’s just exposition, really. And in fact, I’ve read that in Some cuts of this movie, they cut this scene out entirely. 

Todd:  Yeah. For good reason. 

Craig:  Right. I mean, she shows up, and the The doctor there I don’t know what her name is. Doctor Berman, who I read was they cast somebody as doctor Berman, but then the lady who they just didn’t show up, so the producer just stepped in and played her. 

Todd:  And it shows. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh my well Well it’s like she’s, you know, subpar in comparison to everybody else. 

Todd:  Well, that’s a good point. And they handle it all in voice over. It ends up being super melodramatic. 

Clip:  Doctor Berman’s patient consultation notes, November 22, 1984. Saw Maddie Simmons, Todd’s mother, for the first time today. I don’t think she was quite prepared for What I told her, that after 10 years, Todd was starting to remember what had happened in the drive in that night. Facing the fact The Todd’s memory of the incident cast suspicion on his twin brother, Terry, was not that easy for her.   On Terry? What? Are you crazy?   Her position on another issue was also somewhat negative. No.   No. No more tests. No more tests. My children are not skinny pigs.   My past work with hysterical patients helped me calm her down. 

Todd:  And it’s Thanksgiving. We’ve been told it’s Thanksgiving. So mom is bringing him a piece of pie or something, a 

Craig:  cake Yeah. 

Todd:  Which later on, she says she used She does every year except except it we’re hearing at this scene that she’s hasn’t been there, and she hasn’t seen him, like, since She put him in the institution or something. 

Craig:  Exactly. So 

Todd:  it doesn’t make sense, but it’s so funny because he comes in and he’s staring at her. And the voice over says he’s catatonic, but he starts talking to her. And then they start talking to each other, and they have this argument. And he opens up the cake, And he picks it up, and he just starts smashing in his hand and With his hands. I mean, you know that this probably looked great on paper, but it looked it is so poorly executed on It’s green. But by the end of this scene, he’s on his knees in front of her leg. 

Clip:  I considered the setback relatively minor because Todd remained focused On establishing his innocence and getting on with a normal life.   Get me out of here. I never killed anybody.   I must now begin the long preparing him to the dangers of the world in which he has been sheltered. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. It’s so melodramatic and hilarious. 

Craig:  It it is. And but what the what the doctor explains to us is that he’s been basically catatonic since the events of that fateful night. But now Now that she’s working in with him, she’s had a breakthrough, and he’s talking and he’s remembering what happened. And according According to him, he now remembers that he didn’t kill anybody. It was actually Terry. But the mom doesn’t wanna hear that, and and so she leaves. And then we get to see what’s going on in Terry’s world. And Todd and Terry, by the way, are played by the same guy, Mark Soper.   I kept waiting. I’m like, when are we gonna get them both on screen at the same time? 

Todd:  How are they gonna handle 

Craig:  Right. And it doesn’t happen until the very end, and then it’s some really funny bad wig work, like, Where 

Todd:  the wigs don’t even look like No. Hair. They’re, like, one of them is, like, gray. It’s so bizarre. Yeah. Yeah. 

Craig:  And it you know, it when they when they shot it, obviously, like, they had to shoot it so 1 person had their back completely to the camera so that you could just see the other guy over their shoulder, and then they would switch perspectives and wigs. 

Todd:  It’s late. 

Craig:  But, anyway, whereas Todd is kind of pale and disheveled, Terry is, you know, an all American guy with this great wavy hair. And, of course, they’re all wearing their eighties garb with, you know, like, the super shorty shorts. And he’s this athletic guy, and he’s at this group of friends and, you know, everything’s very idyllic, and they’re playing football, blah blah blah. And, it’s Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving. Well, which makes sense because, you know, you play football outside on Thanksgiving, I guess. And it’s also clunky. Like, they they introduce characters in such a clunky way. Like, we meet these apparently new neighbors in the complex just happened to come running by, and they’re like, oh, hi.   We’re your new neighbors. And one of them is Andrea who immediately starts Flirting with Terry. Even though Terry already has a girlfriend Right there. She’s right there, and he’s flirting back with Andrea Todd. And his girlfriend’s just standing there looking at him like, 

Todd:  And they’re all playing they’re all playing touch football, which is also quite cute. Like, this a very unlikely group people to be playing football. 

Craig:  We get Thanksgiving dinner where we find out that mom is going to be marrying her fiance, Brad, who also happens to be the manager of the Apartment complex that they work in. Yeah. But what’s what was so funny to me in this part was Music in the background Yes. Was so dramatic. Like 

Clip:  Congratulations. I’m happy for you both. 

Todd:  I I really am. 

Craig:  Thanks. 

Clip:  I guess the toast is in order.   Here’s to the new family. 

Craig:  Nice. Like, you just expected at any second for somebody to just pick a knife and stab somebody in the face. 

Todd:  That’s true. The movie tells us, you know, what’s going on by extremely dramatic musical cues and close ups on overacting faces. Terry’s just mugging for the camera in this. 

Craig:  Yeah. But, I mean, in this scene where it’s just this dinner and they’re playing this super dramatic something scary is gonna happen music, nothing Scary happens. Like, it’s 

Clip:  just No. 

Craig:  I guess we’re just supposed to be like, oh, there’s Terry. We know he’s bad. Something could happen, 

Todd:  But nothing will. No. Terry’s not happy about mom marrying this guy, apparently, though. And we’re really not I’m really not sure why Terry’s unhappy with anything and any of his friends that he subsequently goes on a murderous rampage against, except for the fact that, I guess, Terry’s just crazy, And this whole incident makes him snap or whatever. 

Craig:  I guess. It’s kind 

Todd:  of unclear how a guy would get through 10 years of life after this successfully framing his brother, Lead this absolutely normal life and get all this great group of friends, and then 1 night decide that, he doesn’t want them anymore and be better off if they’re just dead. He takes care of 

Craig:  Yeah. Because that’s kinda what happens. The mom gets a phone call that says that Todd has escaped. Now And and so she tells Terry, and she’s like, okay. But don’t tell anybody because I don’t wanna ruin Thanksgiving. So then they go back and sit Todd, and Terry’s like, oh, I guess you’re gonna get to meet the rest of the family because my lunatic brother just escaped the mental institution. Dun dun dun. 

Todd:  And then an an extremely long, like, 2 minute shot of her just staring at him. It was and it was so uncomfortably long that you’re thinking this is one of those cases where the director just forgot to yell cut, and they just decided to use the whole take. Because at one point toward the end of it, it’s like they don’t even really know what to do anymore. And the mother in this, Maddie, is actually, Louise Lasser, who is a very, accomplished actress even by this point. Yes. She was in a lot of Woody Allen’s earlier films. She’s actually mostly in comedy, I did a ton of TV work and stuff like that. And, it’s a it’s it’s it’s crazy.   You know? This is a case of where I would like to say she was the best actress in the movie, except the material that she was given was so ridiculous that there was no way she could make it good. And so her performance ends up coming across as super ridiculous. 

Craig:  It does. I mean, she was in Requiem for a Dream. Like, she has done some really, really good stuff. But in the movie, she just kind of comes off as a lunatic too. Like Yeah. She she’s so neurotic, and And it’s weird. Like, I couldn’t tell. And especially by the end, her attachment to Terry is a little 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Much. Like, what? Oh, Terry. 

Clip:  I love you so much.   Oh, that’s really nice. 

Todd:  Like, it 

Craig:  it’s and and she knows. Like, the doctor told her that Todd said Terry did it, and and she just totally rejects that. Like, she just totally I I guess since Terry was the one that she ended up Raising because the other one is in the middle institution. Like, she just clings to him and just refuses to even consider that he could be bad even though he’s clearly in that job too. 

Todd:  I guess. Yeah. I mean, they they just play her for the neurotic, Unhinged mother all the way through this movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. I guess, basically, what the point is at this point is now Now that Terry knows that Todd is there and the doctor told the mom he’ll probably come to you. He’ll probably come home. Terry, Harry, I guess, in his mind decides, well, since Todd’s coming home, I have to kill everybody to make it look like he did it. 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. That was the problem with the that’s kind of the problem with the motivation and and really, you know, a big problem with the whole script is that it’s just I think the only way we’re supposed to understand it is just that Terry is is what you just described. I can’t think of any other way to interpret it, which is so dumb. You know, are are we supposed to believe that he was looking for an opportunity to off all of his friends and this is it? As the movie went on and more and more people got picked off, I was just getting more and more confused because I was earlier on looking for motivation. I thought, okay. Well, her the mother’s husband’s gonna get it because she he’s so attached his mother, and he clearly doesn’t like that she’s getting remarried. But then as he starts going after all of his other friends, who are all seem very quite very friendly and happy go lucky and and fine with him.   I realized, yeah, I guess there’s really no no real motivation. Nothing Besides plot driven, we’ve gotta kill a whole bunch of people in this movie. 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it’s just kinda weird. I mean, we after we find out that Todd’s escaped. We see him wandering the streets, and then the doctor shows up at their house, but, like, She shows up with this guy. Like, there’s a knock at the door, and then we see who’s on the other side of the door. And it’s a guy with a gun, like, Hiding, like, around. Like, he knocks on the door, and then he does the whole cop thing where he, like, you know, stands off to the side of it with the gun. And then so Terry Perry opens the door, and the guy points the gun at him and 

Todd:  Point blank range. 

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t even know what the point was, but then the doctor steps up and she’s Like, no. No. That’s Terry. That’s his brother. And the guy’s like, oh, they look so much alike. And the doctor’s like, don’t worry. It’s just a tranquilizer gun.   And then the mom shows up, and she’s like, doctor Berman or whatever. And then she She she, like, screams, what’s that gun? The delivery was so funny. I almost peed my pants. 

Clip:  Doctor Berg, did you find them?   No. I haven’t even looked yet. What’s that gun?   It’s okay, mom. 

Craig:  Oh. Oh, man. And there’s so much of that throughout, like, just the ridiculous lines and ridiculous delivery. It’s so funny. But it turns out that the guy with the gun is with her, and they’re there to look for Todd. And and and then Terry starts killing people. But this also So confused me because since the boys are both dressed or or no. They’re not dressed the same.   They’re dressed differently, but they pretty much you know, they’re played by the same guys. They look the same. At first, I thought Todd showed up and started killing people. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And I had that in my notes for, like, for 2 or 3 lines. I’m like, okay. Todd shows up behind Brad in his office and and cuts Off 

Todd:  his hand with a machete, 

Craig:  but it’s not. It’s Terry. And then people are out looking for Todd, and Jackie was the guy with the gun who came with the doctor, and he he sings. 

Todd:  This is where I started to roll my eyes because I just keep thinking of that George Carlin, routine about guys named Todd. And I don’t mean to make this personal, but it’s so silly. They’re walking around the woods going, Todd? 

Clip:  Todd? Are you there, 

Todd:  Todd? Todd? 

Clip:  Todd? Todd, I don’t like this, Todd. You better come back. Todd. Todd, it’s doctor Burman, Todd. Please come out, Todd. I’m here to help you. 

Todd:  Oh my god. And then then this other guy, Jackie’s doing it too. Todd. Todd. Hey, Todd. We could smoke some weed, Todd. I got some weed here, Todd. And then he just decides to sit down in the backyard of some random guy and light up a a joint. 

Craig:  Yeah. But not before he sings the theme song to Flashdance, except he changes the Todd. 

Todd:  Which which would you think about is also a bit of an unnecessary Todd change too? 

Craig:  No. They they they were probably trying not to pay rights would be my guess. I don’t 

Todd:  know. I guess. Yeah. 

Craig:  But but then Terry kills him. He he’s got this machete. He just keeps killing people with it. 

Todd:  Just These stabs them straighten the guts. And like you said, the gore effects are fun. I I would say they’re fun. They’re not real Because there’s way too much blood squirting everywhere, but they’re fun. They’re they’re actually pretty typical of this kind of low budget Eighties horror. Although, they linger on it quite a bit. And I guess I guess we’ve watched the uncut version. And I guess when this was released, a lot of The gore was cut out.   I I heard I read that it was actually showed on cable a little bit, but obviously, so much of this would have been cut even for cable. Then I I kinda like that part of it or these these ridiculous gore effects. And, also, I really like that premise in a movie like this where if you cut off someone’s limbs, they keep Twitching? Mhmm. Yeah. Like, the the this guy’s was holding a beer in his hand when Todd came up from behind him, Brad, and and sliced his hand off. And Brad just stands there holding a stump of his arm, just looking at it, screaming. You know, it lingers on there for, like, 10 seconds. And then we see a close-up of the hand of, clutching the beer on the floor, and it’s just like squeezing it, squeezing it, squeezing it.   And, later on when, after he after he stabs Jackie, The next person to go is the doctor who, again, is is inexplicably going extremely slowly walking through the woods, calling his name. And he comes up to her, and he ends up we don’t see it happen. We see the aftermath later where she’s vivisected. He’s cut her straight across the, stomach. And she, again, is like, her legs are about 5 feet in one side, and, she is laying there. And, She’s still screaming and flopping around. 

Craig:  Right. And it’s And her legs 

Todd:  are still twitching. 

Craig:  It’s and it’s totally obvious that, you know, like, she’s laying and and her legs are down underneath the stage 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Somehow, somewhere. But, But, again, like, this 

Todd:  thing fun. 

Craig:  It is. And and they clearly made an effort with these practical effects, and they’re bloody and they’re gory. They don’t look real. I mean, it looks like effects, but it was fun. And when he slices is her in half with the machete. Then we get what has to be the best line of the whole movie. And not only is it the best Fine. But it then gets repeated 2 or 3 times.   Yeah. And you know exactly what I’m talking about. Right? 

Todd:  I do. I do. I have some it’s 

Clip:  not cranberry sauce. 

Todd:  The blood the blood. He looks at the blood on 

Craig:  the machete. It’s not cranberry sauce. Oh, I had to pause. I had to pause so I could write it down. That was so great. 

Todd:  And, yeah, we do. We keep hearing it over and over again, but I like that because it continues to anchor this film to Thanksgiving. Yeah. I’d like that they put that effort in because we we need to be justified in doing this as a Thanksgiving movie. It has to be more than just the dinner. It has to be more than that pumpkin pie she delivered to him at the beginning, and I really appreciated the references to cranberry sauce All the way up to almost the end. It it was great. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s it’s hilarious. I mean, I think that they had to know that it was funny. I mean, it’s hilarious. 

Todd:  Well, the other reference to Thanksgiving here too is that, I think it’s almost the next scene after this is the what what’s happening here is while everything else is going on, and there’s a bunch of ridiculousness, oh, we’re going to this party. Oh, we’re gonna play some video games. You know, we’re bouncing back and forth between all these couples and people. Mom’s through line of this whole thing is that she can’t get a Todd of Brad. Mhmm. Because he was the 1st to be killed, and he said, I’m gonna be in my office and just call me if you need me. And the 1st time she tries calling him, he doesn’t answer the phone. So she is gradually and slowly more and more flipping out that she can’t get ahold of him.   And so the next scene is of her sitting on the floor in the kitchen with The door of the fridge open, staring into the fridge while she has 2 big pots of Thanksgiving leftovers that she’s eating with her hands. 

Craig:  Right. With right. Her legs spread full apart with these yes. Oh, so funny. And hilarious. You know, Unless I was missing something, I felt like there were aspects of the movie that were really pretty inept. And when I say the movie, I mean the shooting. Because After Terry kills Brad and the doctor, then he goes home and he’s, like, looking in the mirror and he’s got blood all over himself, and then he takes a shower with his pants on.   Like Yes. And and, like, you can just barely see that he’s wearing pants, which makes me think that they thought that that wouldn’t be in the shot. Mhmm. And there are other places like that. Like, there’s a scene on a tennis court at one point. The camera pulls back kind of for a long shot, And you for just a split second before it cuts back to a closer shot, you can see somebody kind of enter the frame, and I think that it was a cameraman. If it 

Todd:  was a if it was a A 

Craig:  character, I totally missed it. And there are a couple of other places. I don’t remember there was another place where 

Todd:  There’s a place in the woods when, just before someone’s about to get Killed. 

Craig:  Yeah. You can see people walking around in the background. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s true. It’s like they didn’t notice this or they had no better takes to use. I guess. 

Craig:  But him funny. Him taking a shower with his pants on gave me a chuckle. Oh, man. 

Todd:  There’s no suspense in this movie. There’s just none. And a part of it comes from the fact that we know who the Killer is. And and like you said, we thought early on that because this is a twin movie that there would be some duality, some kind of, oh, is it him? Is it her? It it would there be some twist at the end? No. There is no twist. I mean, we are just watching Terry going around killing these people. And then when you find out it’s Kind of unmotivated. Like, there’s no real rhyme or reason why he’s killing any of these people that that you can discern.   You’re just waiting for the next one to happen. And then when it does, it’s not like there’s a lot Stalking going on. It’s not like there’s even much of that creeping around. I heard a noise. What is it? And then there’s a jump scare. It’s just generally somebody’s doing something, and then Terry’s there, and he he kills them. It’s disappointing for a horror movie, but it’s hilarious. 

Craig:  It is pretty funny. 

Todd:  And there are times also when I wondered if they were playing it for comedy. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Sure. There are 

Todd:  at least a few moments in this, and I’m sure we’ll get to them where A line is set, and it’s just so funny that you wonder if they aren’t poking a little bit of fun at themselves. I don’t know. What do you think? 

Craig:  I can’t tell because some of it, Like, it’s not cranberry sauce. I mean and and if he had just said it once, like, that would be one thing, but he says Like, 2 or 3 times throughout the course of the movie. So they had to know that was funny. 

Todd:  It’s like a running gag. Yeah. 

Craig:  Right. But you can’t tell sometimes times if it’s trying to be funny or if it’s just really bad writing. Because, like so Terry goes, to where Audrey, who he met earlier is babysitting, and, like, she comes on to him, but he just wants to watch TV or whatever. Like, I feel like there’s supposed to be this subtext of Terry think sex is bad, and that’s why he kills people, but it’s it’s downplayed. 

Todd:  I don’t even know why he went over there. 

Craig:  I don’t well, She’d invited him earlier at at dinner or whatever. 

Todd:  Oh, that’s right. That’s right. 

Craig:  But but then okay. So he is over at her house, and then his Girlfriend Karen shows up at his house, at Terry’s house, where she runs into Todd, but she thinks that Todd is Terry. And She’s like, oh, you must be high. You’re always so quiet when you’re high. 

Todd:  Boy. And then she goes with this Really long monologue that I guess is supposed to explain their relationship to us, the audience. 

Clip:  You know, we’ve both been away at school, and I don’t know. We haven’t Talked to each other. You haven’t written me any letters, and I’ve hardly even seen you since you’ve gotten back. And I don’t know, Terry. I just love you a lot and, well, I want you to make love to me. You’re shocked, Well, Terry, come on. I wish you’d say something. I’m not Terry.   I’m Todd. Terry’s brother? Oh, my God. I mean, So you’re home for the holidays, You seem nice. I’ve never kissed a girl before. Oh, yeah. Well, you really ought to try it sometime. I gotta go. Bye. 

Craig:  Oh, god. Oh, man. So funny. 

Todd:  It’s brilliant. Brilliant stuff. 

Craig:  And then she she randomly runs Todd, like, I guess, their friends. I I don’t know if we were supposed to remember them from earlier, but there’s a couple of guys. There’s Greg and Artie. And 

Todd:  They pull up in a car. It it it’s And she says, oh, I just met the creepy Todd guy. And so, Greg says, oh, I’m gonna go check him out. And he pulls a bat, and he runs over there, but he doesn’t find him. And I don’t know. Then we just get all this weird kind of supposed to be teenage drama where they’re gonna go to a party, but first, they’re gonna go over to somebody’s house, Craig play video games, and then they’re talking. And in the meantime, mom is drinking wine and vacuuming. 

Craig:  Yeah. And cleaning the kitchen. And, like, it just keeps cutting back to her and and and, like, some type there’s a whole hue like, I feel like it’s split up over a couple of scenes where she’s pleading with the operator to connect her to Brad. Like like Yeah. No. No. There must be some mistake. I know he’s there. 

Clip:  He’s waiting for my call. Please. Please. Please. Like, 

Todd:  he’s freaking out. So long. Oh, god. It’s embarrassing. It goes on for so long. It’s 

Craig:  It is. Embarrassing. And Todd, at some point, finds the doctor’s body cut in half like he tries 

Todd:  to put it back together. Tries to put it together. I know. That’s so funny. And then as he’s walking away from the body, just this random girl walking through the woods like, muffles. Muffles. She’s, like, looking for her cat. And he walks up to her, and I had to this at this point, after I saw the scene, I stopped it, and I called my wife into the room.   Now I knew she can’t watch this movie because of the gore, and and that would bother her. But I said, Honey, you have to see the next 5 minutes of this film so you can just get an idea of what I’m sitting through and how hilariously bad this is. 

Clip:  Hi. I’ve lost my cat. Have you seen it?   No. But do you know what? What? Cats have a way of finding their own way home, and I think that you should go home too because there’s a bad person out here tonight. Okay?   Okay.   So go home and lock your door, and don’t let anybody in. Not anybody, no matter what they say.   Okay. 

Todd:  You’re asking yourself at this point, why is this even in the movie? And this, we find out later, has a payoff off later. 

Craig:  Oh, it’s such a great setup. Like, we we may as well go ahead and say it’s such a because later on, Terry is chasing Karen around, and she’s going door to door trying to, let get people to let her in. And she ends up knocking on this little girl’s door, and the little girl’s like, The man told me not to let anybody in, and she’s like, no. Please. Please. 

Clip:  And she the little girl just goes, you’re gonna hurt my kitty.   While 

Craig:  I was sitting while I was sitting around last night watching TV with my partner, I just kept Saying those things, I just kept saying. And then he started saying it too. Like, he would just turn to me and be like, it’s not cranberry sauce. I’d be like, 

Clip:  you’re gonna hurt my kitty. 

Todd:  You can’t see that light. 

Craig:  Oh, no. Oh, but I I I swear, that’s gonna stick with me. It’s not cranberry sauce that’s gonna stick with me. I I just know it. That’s That’s gonna come back every Thanksgiving. 

Todd:  And then in another case of a seat that should have totally been cut out, but you’d know they just needed up the body count, so they had to include it, we get this Couple. This is the couple that, Andrea was babysitting for, and we get back to them. So they have returned home, and it’s this Supremely dolled up, 1980 style, you know, brunette woman. And this guy who again, My wife was watching this part with me as well because she had to see their interaction as they sat down on the sofa. And she said, is he mister Rogers? Yeah. Because he’s totally giving off this, it’s this some kind of amateur acting performance where he is Fumbling around and acting like he’s really, really nervous to be on this date with this woman. Is she gonna put the moves on him? In the meantime, She’s totally trying to put the moves on him, and we get this close-up of her face. And the expressions on her face just can’t be conveyed through audio.   I No. I don’t know what to say. It’s just hilarious. She’s her eyes are wide open, and she’s smiling at him and overreacting to words he says. And finally, she crawls up on him and tries to give him a kiss. And he brings his hands to his mouth like, and she walks off and says, I’m gonna go slip into something a little more comfortable. When she walks into the bedroom, she starts to dress, and we hear a baby cry. And she walks over to this baby, and I was like, Are you freaking kidding me? We’re gonna get a baby in this movie.   And sure enough, there’s a baby crying, 

Craig:  and she leans in and says, 

Clip:  Mama’s gonna get you a rich daddy. 

Craig:  Oh my gosh. That’s that’s that’s Freaking baby. Oh Todd. It’s so silly. 

Todd:  Even the baby has a payoff later too. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh. Oh gosh. So Terry kills them. Like, he somehow gets inside. I don’t know. Like, apparently, he has, like, a master key to this whole complex or something. I don’t know.   True. No. You’re right. He does knock on the door, and the guy answers it. But then it’s all quiet, and the lady can’t find the guy. And then there’s another knock at the door and she looks out the peephole, and she’s like, what are you doing out there? And she opens it up, and it’s just the guy’s head hanging, like, from a rope at Eye level. It it’s funny, but it was kinda cool. I I have to give them, you know, props for at least trying Todd be a little bit innovative.   You know, it’s a guy walking around killing people with a machete. But when you see the aftermath, it’s usually pretty gross, and they usually try to do something visually interesting. 

Todd:  Yeah. In in that way, it was very much like intruder, I think. 

Craig:  I thought. At some point, Craig and Andrea go off and, like, first, they’re playing video games, and they’re playing tennis. And there’s, like all the all the while like, Terry is always just menacing. Like, he’s always just there, like, watching people. And then, eventually, Greg and Andrea end up at the swimming pool where they full on naked at this public swimming pool. 

Todd:  My gosh. 

Craig:  Doing it on the diving board. And you were right. The the movie does not shy away from nudity. There’s not The only thing that there’s not is male full frontal. Everything else you get. 

Todd:  Yeah. For a moment, I was like, did this slip into Porno territory? 

Craig:  It looks porny. Yeah. It’s very porny. 

Todd:  But it’s it’s also hilarious by this point that absolutely nobody cares that Todd is stalking around outside anymore. Like, they’re walking around. They’re playing tennis outside. They’re walking through the woods, having They’re leaving the win the doors wide open while they’re playing video games. I mean, at this point, the movie even forgets that there’s supposed to be some killer that everybody’s supposed to be worried 

Craig:  about. Right. Yeah. And that’s super silly. Getting back to the noodle because that’s my favorite. One one of my One of my favorite parts was at some point, Andrea takes a shower. And, like, it’s just so funny and so gratuitous because she’s got one of those, you know, like, detachable shower heads, and, really, she’s just bathing. But In a movie like this where they’re just showing her from the knees up totally nude, and she’s, like, washing her vagina.   Like 

Todd:  Well, she’s rubbing herself everywhere except for the place she should be watching, which is her face because presume because just before this, They played this dumb joke on the other couple where she had put on this elaborate makeup to make it look like she was dead. And when the other couple came into the room, was it Artie or I can’t remember which Guy was sprung out with a hatchet, you know, pretending like he was the killer. And so Yeah. The whole idea of her showering is that she’s supposed to be washing this makeup and stuff off her face, Except her hair is dry, and her face is dry. The only thing she’s showering is from the shoulders down, and she’s spending a lot of time on it. Oh gosh. 

Craig:  But, you know, thumbs up for a horror movie noodle that I’m I’m down. 

Todd:  Yeah. Because 

Craig:  Okay. So then it turns 

Clip:  into okay. 

Craig:  So, like, the Okay. So, like, the la the last 20 minutes and real the movie is only an hour and 20 minutes long. And, seriously, after hour, I was like, oh my god. There is still 20 minutes left of this movie. 

Todd:  Like It, feels like 2 hours. It for Sure. Yeah. 

Craig:  It does. And and the last 20 minutes is the classic thing where you’ve got the final girl running around being pursued by the killer And finding all the bodies. Like Yeah. You see it over and over again, Friday 13th. We’ve seen a 1000000 movies where, you know, in the last Sacked. The final girl who’s been kind of oblivious to everything that’s going on runs around and finds all the bodies. 

Todd:  She she’s go in this huge Complex, she happens to be visiting all the houses where he’s killed someone Todd. Right. It’s also very convenient. Yeah. 

Craig:  Right. And Terry like, Terry’s chasing her, but I don’t even know why because he not only does he find her, but, like, he could easily approach and kill her. But instead, he just kinda, like, just keeps following her. Like, it oh, so he chases her into, the apartment where there was the smarmy couple with the baby. And, of course, she takes the baby, and then she’s like for the rest of the movie, she’s running around with this baby. 

Todd:  Atel, He chases her, and she ends up in the pool. So she she runs into the pool, oh, how convenient, and sits down at the edge of the pool with her back to the door and just Chills for a while with the baby. Right. In the meantime, he comes in, behind her, and apparently, she doesn’t notice and starts bouncing up and down on the diving board. And she turns around. And instead of, like, fear and shock, it’s almost like an, oh, brother. Give me a break as she Looks at him and runs off. 

Craig:  Well and she turns around, and he’s just jumping up and down on the diving board, and he goes, hi. Exactly. 

Todd:  And she’s just like, Okay. And she runs off again. And that was the point at which I was like, oh, god. This is it is it is this supposed to be funny, or am I supposed to be taking this somewhat seriously? Because there’s, again, there’s no tension. There’s no suspense. Yeah. She runs with the baby into the locker room, And the first thing she does is open up a cabinet under a sink and toss the baby in while she runs and tries to find a place to 

Craig:  Right. Oh, man. Yeah. 

Clip:  And and 

Craig:  then she just she hides in the bathroom stall, and Terry comes in. And, like, this is Where this is where the pool sex couple, their bodies are. And, like, he knocks on the door where their Todd are, he’s like, you guys still in there? And then, like, he opens it and looks in and closes it and, like, smiles and shakes his head. He’s like, you crazy kids. You’ll just do it anywhere. And then he goes and pees in the urinal right next to where she is, but he doesn’t look in there. And at this point, like, I’m not like I’m wondering because I don’t care, but I I kind of wondered, like, does he know she’s in there and he’s just toying with her, or does he really not? Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. 

Todd:  No. I was wondering why the baby wasn’t crying. 

Craig:  Right. Well, I mean, it it’s it was dark and tight in that little space, so I’m sure it was very comfortable. 

Todd:  I don’t know. 

Craig:  Meanwhile, the mom is kind of kind of sort of putting things together. Like, she finds, Terry’s bloody shirt that he had taken off earlier, she finds it in the bottom of the trash, and then she finally you know, she’s been trying and trying and trying, Like, the whole movie Todd call Brad, he’s like a 100 yards away. Like Yeah. He just works in in the office of the apartment complex that she lives in. Like, why wouldn’t she just run down there? Yeah. But eventually she does and she finds him mean, he’s dead and, like, his head is completely split open. And she grabs his gun and very dramatically says 

Clip:  I’m gonna make everything Okay. 

Craig:  Well, are you? I I don’t know how you you, like, tape his head back together. 

Todd:  I I don’t know. 

Craig:  But they but it all culminates in this scene at the pool where Todd finally shows up, and Karen gets behind Todd. The baby’s still in the bathroom. That’s awesome. So she gets behind Todd, and Todd points the gun at Terry. And Terry says, oh, are you gonna try to shoot me again? Because I feel like earlier, he had tried and failed or something. Mhmm. But Todd can’t do Good. So Karen grabs the gun and says she’s gonna kill him.   Does she pull the trigger and nothing happens? Is that what that’s like? 

Todd:  Click, click, click, click. Yeah. 

Craig:  Gotcha. That’s 

Todd:  exactly what it is. 

Craig:  So then we get the great scene where finally the 2 brothers come together, and they’re fighting. And, again, it’s you know, they can only show one of their faces at a time. 

Todd:  So it’s really poorly staged and unconvincing fight, which again reminded me of intruders. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. Terrible fist fighting. And it’s and it’s very brief, but they end up in the pool. Of course. And Terry is all Terry’s all cocky and, like, you know, laughing. And, Basically, he drowns Todd or so we think, and then Terry climbs up out of the other side of the pool, which doesn’t really make any sense. Like, he swam across the pool and talking to the other side. And Karen is trying to help Todd, and I guess eventually she gets ahold of him and starts to pull him out.   And then the mother walks into the frame very slowly, very Slowly, Terry sees her and is like, mom? And she raises the gun, and she shoots him. And she shoots him in the gut first, and it’s all very dramatic, and he’s reacting, and then she shoots him in the head. Platters. It’s pretty good effect. Yeah. And then eventually, he goes into the pool, and he’s dead. 

Todd:  Yep. And then at this point, the mother turns and looks down at Todd. I thought it was hilarious because the Karen is kind of watching this, and she just Kind of slowly slinks away. Like, I guess I better get out of here. 

Craig:  Well well, she run she runs off real quick to get the baby. 

Todd:  Well, it’s not real quick. It’s like, oh, okay. She goes off to get the baby. Right. 

Craig:  But then she comes back. Mhmm. 

Todd:  And then and but she leaves long enough for mom and Todd to have a little Scene, where mom lays bends down next to him is like and this, again, like you said, it almost like she’s a little too attached. 

Craig:  This was weird. It made me uncomfortable. 

Todd:  Yeah. This whole dramatic thing, it’s like she’s talking to her boyfriend. 

Craig:  And it looks like she’s gonna make out with them. 

Clip:  It’s okay. You’re safe. Oh, I love you so much. I love you so much. I’ve hurt you so much. I’m never gonna hurt you again. No one’s ever been to hurt you again. It’s us again.   It’s us again. It’s just It’s us again. No one’s ever gonna separate us again. You’re my whole life. Don’t wanna live without you. You know my world. It’s safe here. I don’t wanna be with anybody else.   We We don’t need anybody else. We just need to be with each other. That’s all. Oh, god. He’s such a A good boy. You’re such a good boy. You’re the bestest. You’re the bestest of the 

Craig:  best. It’s 

Clip:  just us telling. 

Todd:  So, clearly, she still she thinks that, still, that Todd was the murderer and that she killed Todd. He ends up gripping her by the The scruff of her neck. And I thought he was gonna, like, kill her. Mhmm. Mhmm. Except it would have been way out of his character to do so. And he says, I’m Todd. I’m Todd.   I’m Todd. And he stands up, and he starts walking toward the wall. I’m Todd. I’m Todd. And then it’s his close-up of him, and he’s just His his forehead is on the wall. I’m Todd. I guess it’s supposed to be echoing around inside the pool, and then it pans out, and she’s saying it Todd I’m trying I was like, what in the hell is this? In the meantime, this is when Karen there with the baby also looks at what’s going on and decides to sneak out the 

Craig:  It was so that was so funny to me. I’m just gonna go. Like, 

Todd:  I’m just gonna take 

Craig:  I’m just gonna take this baby 

Clip:  and get out of here. 

Todd:  By this point, things were getting a little too weird even for her. Yeah. 

Craig:  I could just I could just imagine the sequel where it’s, like, 20 years later, and Karen has raised this baby. 

Todd:  She’s named it Todd, naturally. Truly. Right. 

Craig:  And and so so Todd is like I don’t feel like he’s literally beating his head against the wall, but he may Welby. Like, he’s just standing there against the walls. You know? I’m Todd. I’m Todd. After all of that, like, it’s so weird. And then and I saw this coming a mile away. She Yeah. Picks up the gun and she shoots herself in the head.   And so then it’s just Todd there with all these dead people around, and you hear the sirens coming. Yeah. And, like, he kinda gets this worried look on his face, and I feel like it either fades to black or freeze frames. I think it freeze frames on his face. Frames. 

Todd:  It’s not classy enough to fade to black. 

Craig:  Yeah. And, and then that’s it. And so then I’m sitting there thinking, Jeez. Poor Todd is gonna take the fall for all of this. 

Todd:  I know. 

Craig:  And and and that’s it’s not how I expected it to end. I thought from the first half hour that I had it nailed. I thought that Todd is gonna come in, and he’s gonna be the hero, and He’s going to kill Terry, and then he will just assume Terry’s identity so that he can go on with his life. And, you know, Terry will get his comeuppance, and then everything will be okay. That would have been clever. Nope. Everybody’s just screwed. Happy Thanksgiving.   But 

Todd:  you don’t. 

Craig:  It’s not cranberry sauce. 

Todd:  But the baby lives, so there’s hope for the future. 

Craig:  Yep. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Man. 

Todd:  I just I’d even though I wanted it to be over an hour into it, I really did enjoy Enjoy watching this movie again, not because it was great, but because it was so much fun to laugh at. And we’ve we’ve seen so many bad movies lately that are just Bad Bad and their torture that I was really happy to find one of those so bad, in my opinion, anyway. So bad it was good Kinda movies, in every way. I liked it even better. I I keep drawing those parallels, but I liked it even better than Intruder. I thought it was more entertainingly inept. 

Craig:  The only reason that I liked it was because I knew that it would be fun to talk to you about. Otherwise And and, you know, I’ll be honest. Like, I wasn’t in a good state of mind to watch it. I actually started watching it at work because I was I knew that I wasn’t gonna have a lot of time, in the evening. And and so I started the very end of the day when I was done with everything I had to do. I watching at work, and then I came home and I watched the last part of it. I didn’t set myself up for a good experience. 

Todd:  You really did. That’s a shame. 

Craig:  Yeah. But, it it was fun to talk about, and it I do think that it is something that could be fun. And that’s the thing. Like, if I had been watching it with you, I think we woulda had a good time with it. I think we woulda had fun laughing together about it. Sitting and watching it by myself, I was just like, ugh. Come on. Like 

Todd:  Yeah. Don’t watch this movie by yourself. Yeah. 

Craig:  No. No. You know, get get somebody else who appreciates, You know, bad horror movies. And if if if you can do that, then I think that you’ll you could have a good time with this movie. It’s it’s certainly not the worst we’ve seen. We’ve seen, way worse. And it is even though I May not have been in the best state of mind. It was laugh out loud funny at sometimes, and I I did laugh out loud.   So, I’m not gonna give it I’m not gonna criticize too much. 

Todd:  And it was quintessential late seventies, early eighties, early, you know, slasher fair, and that was Kind of neat about it as well. And I thought, actually, the music was quite good. At least the theme song was quite good. I stayed through the end credits just to hear the music because it took me back. Even looked up the composer, and I found out now he hasn’t really done anything else. So, yeah, kudos to that guy. 

Craig:  Well, that’s it, folks. That’s our Thanksgiving episode. It ate cranberry sauce. It ate cranberry sauce. If you enjoyed this episode, we have all kinds of back So as you can find us everywhere, you can anywhere you can find your favorite podcast. We’re on Facebook. We’re on Stitcher. We’re on Google Play, Itunes, all over Place.   If you have seen this movie and have anything to add to the conversation, we’d love to hear from you. Or even though it’s a little bit early, if you know of any good thanks Giving movies that we should consider in the future. We’re getting pretty hard up at this point. So It’s a tough holiday for horror. It is. It is. But that being said, we hope that you are having a good holiday season surrounded by family and friends. And, if you’ve got a long drive, we hope that we can keep you company.   Anyway, until next time. I’m Craig. And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.