Cursed (2005)

Episode 250, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Craig: Hello, and welcome to the 250th episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I know insert fake applause. Woo.

Todd: “Looks like we made it after all.”

Craig: 250. Can you believe it? Like that is just, it blows my mind.

Todd: Yeah, it’s kind of hard to believe that you and I have sat down and had 250 conversations about for an hour each that’s 250 hours, even a little more than that of a us and namely chattering.

Just about dumb movies. You believe it, who else can

Craig: say that? I know there’s a running joke in my house, and I know that you are in a similar situation. My partner doesn’t listen to these episodes at all, ever. And so I told him we have to get to three 65 so that if I die first, he’ll have an episode to listen to every day for a year.

Todd: Nice gift. You will leave him with

I’m sure he was thrilled about that by the way.

Craig: Yeah, he totally is. But, uh, here we are at two 50 and, um, with one exception on every mile, The stone episode, we have returned to our roots and done a West Craven film. Of course, we’re both huge West Craven fans. We were both pretty devastated when we lost him years ago and, uh, we’ve done a lot of our favorites.

Um, so what we’re left with are some of his maybe less popular films. Uh, there are some still, uh, that we haven’t touched for various reasons. Last house on the left comes to mind. Mm Hills have eyes. Yeah. Oh God, that’s a good one too. But, uh, I actually have been trying to get Todd to do this movie. For a while.

Really the primary reason is because this film has such a storied production history. What we’re doing today is a 2005 cursed, which is West Craven’s only werewolf film that he did with his, uh, Collaborator on scream, Kevin Williamson, even though it has a very interesting production history, which I’m sure we’ll talk about at length.

Another reason that I wanted to do this is despite the fact that Craven and really most of the people involved with this movie were ultimately. Unsatisfied with it when it was released, I actually find it to be a fun and a really entertaining film. Yeah. It’s not bad. It’s really not. And despite what you will read about it and despite all of the.

Production trouble that they had. I think ultimately, you know, it’s still fun and it I’m surprised that it wasn’t more successful than it was because it really wasn’t. It was kind of a flop really, but it’s very much in line with. And in the same style as those movies that were coming out in the early odds like scream, and I know what you did last summer, it’s just full to the brim of young, famous, good looking people.

It’s very hip and. Cool and young and we are not exactly, but we were a member. We were a member a day, you know, when we thought we were

Todd: cool. Yeah. That’s the big distinction when we thought we were,

Craig: we never, maybe thought we were as cool as some of these kids in these. Teen movies from the early odds. But I, I was excited about this movie when it came out, I was always excited about new West Craven films.

Um, of course, you know, both of us were big nightmare fans and then, you know, scream and West Craven really. Was kind of at, I don’t know if I would necessarily say it as best, but it is most popular, uh, during this time very mainstream and I was really, uh, excited about this movie. I don’t think I saw it in the theater, but I did see it.

Uh, you know, I think as soon as it came out on video and I remembered liking it then, and I’ve watched it. I don’t know, maybe once or twice since then, it’s been a very long time since I’d revisited it. And I really thought that maybe my fondness for it would have waned over the years, but watching it again yesterday, I’m still a fan.

I mean, there’s, it’s not great. It’s not one of his. Best movies, but I still found it to be entertaining and not super scary, but you know, good, scary elements going on overall. I enjoyed it and we can talk about its flaws and all that stuff. And that’s perfectly fine because it’s not a perfect movie. Um, and I’m.

Really interested or would be, I suppose, really interested to know what the original vision would have turned out to be. But this is what we’re left with. There are actually a couple of versions. There’s an unrated version that I was unable to track down. So I watched the PG 13 version, which is available to rent on Amazon.

Is that the version you watch too?

Todd: Yes, sir. Unfortunately,

Craig: I couldn’t find the unrated version and I, I’m not sure what the major differences are. Whoever owns the rights. I read a name. I don’t know who it was, whether it was a studio guy or what, but whoever owns the rights claims that they have. Three different complete versions of this.

Yeah, the editor actually the editor, right? So there’s basically the original cut with all the original practical effects and the original actors. What’s so interesting about this is they shot it and then the Weinstein’s were unsatisfied with it. So they had to go back and reshoot it. And then the Weinstein’s were still unsatisfied with it.

So they ended up shooting it at least one more time. I think that by the time they had finished it, they had done four shoots of this movie so much. So that entire plot points changed. And the cast changed like they had filmed? No, I can’t imagine they had filmed. You know, the original shot and there were all these other people in it who, for whatever reason, either their characters were cut or then, or they just weren’t available for the reshoots.

So they couldn’t come back and they had to recast them. Heather Lang in camp was originally in it. Scott Foley, Omar Epps, skeet Aldrich, James Brolin, Corey Feldman, Eliana Douglas, like Mandy Moore.

Todd: Popular famous people.

Craig: Yeah. Skeet Ulrich and Heather Lang in camp and Scott Foley had all worked with a Craven in the past.

You know, these were like, Cravens folks. Um, and, and they’re gone. They’re out there totally excised from the movie. And man, if those versions exist, the fans want to see these cuts, you know, release these cuts. We will, Oh my

Todd: God. Somebody needs to start a Kickstarter to buy the rights to this film or something and get that original.

Because also one of the maddening things about this movie, which by the way, this was the first time I’d seen it is that you read and even see credited Rick Baker as doing the special effects. And Rick Baker is a special effects. Genius. He’s you know, he’s the one who did American werewolf in London, which has I think to date.

To date still the best werewolf transformation scene I’ve ever seen in any film. And one of the first things they did when that second reshoot is, they brought in a whole other team KNG or Knb to come in and redo the effects. And then the third time around, they decided they were going to just paint over.

All of the Knb effects? Well, not all of them, but most of them with fricking 2005 CGI. Oh, what a shame you can go online and you can find some photos, you know, Fangoria had photo. Thank goodness for. Outlets like Fangoria entertainment tonight actually ran a story, a brief story on this film while they were shooting the first version and they interview skied all rich and whatever.

It’s, it’s only like a little five minute thing, but there’s a lot of little behind the scenes footage of them shooting this movie with skeet Ulrich in it. And so, uh, it’s kind of cool to go and look at some of that stuff too. And again, You know, they decided at some point that, uh, it needed to be PG 13 instead of R so he’s Gore effects were cut entirely from the movie that they had before.

And it was trimmed down and re edited to make it a little less provocative. When, you know, when they first announced the movie, Bob Weinstein said, this is going to reinvent the werewolf genre. I mean, if the original script was going to do it, I don’t think the script did it, but, uh, I mean that, might’ve been a little bit of hyperbole all the way around, but it’s certainly, I think my take.

Well, overall on it is just like you said, perfectly fine movie, kind of fun. I mean, fun, entertaining hip for its time and you know, fun to watch. And it does some interesting things with werewolves and puts them in situations that we haven’t necessarily seen them in before. But that being said, it’s. It’s not reinventing the genre and it’s not, it’s a little pedestrian and predictable in some ways and the little flat in some other ways.

And honestly, probably because they were their third go around. Some of the production feels a little cheap for what is supposed to be a star-studded big box office, movie, and all those things combined damage it. But you’re right. Yeah. I would love to go back and see it’s not the first time was Craven was messed with, right?

Oh no, but he was. Super resentful of the process of this movie. He said, I wasted two and a half years of my life ended up with something I didn’t like. Wasn’t happy with. They cut it off to shreds. And, uh, during that time period, I could have made, he said this, he said, this will be the last time he did anything for money because they agree to pay him double his salary, uh, for this movie to convince him to do it.

But he said in the two and a half years, it took for him to shoot this movie. He could have done. Two or three other movies and made more money. Anyway, the reason why his phone stopped ringing, he said is because that was quite well known. So it damaged his prospects a little bit. He got taken off of, um, a movie that he had co-written called pulse, which was a remake of a Japanese movie.

That was one of another one of those things where it seems like he said he has absolutely no connection with how that turned out. It didn’t look at all like his original script and he obviously didn’t get to direct it. So bit of a toll. You know, you never know how a project’s going to end up. And this is an industry, you know, the people, the money you’re ultimately pulling the strings, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a business first and art second, and sometimes that’s what happens, these compromises.

And then we get, we get a film like this, but it’s still a lot of fun to talk about and a lot of fun to watch. So I’m really glad that we’re gonna be doing this. I’m glad you brought it up and I’m glad we. When we came around to it for 250th episode,

Craig: I am too. And, you know, despite all of those things, like we’ve already said it it’s really not a bad movie. I enjoy it. There are good things going on here. It’s it’s clever, there are some funny parts. There are some silly and ridiculous parts, but it’s kind of funny too. And still, despite all of the recasting.

We say this all the time. It’s so cliched, but we usually say it about the eighties, but this is really a time capsule of the early aughts, like so many famous people, like it opens up on like a. Peer or a boardwalk or something. It reminded me of the lost boys. You know, it’s the same thing. It’s just a lot of people, you know, doing their own thing, having fun.

It’s crowded, it’s fun. And, um, there’s a band and the band is. Playing a modern rock version of, Hey there, little red riding hood, which I thought was,

Todd: I like that song anyway. I need to bowling for soup actually is the band that’s that’s doing. Oh really? I didn’t know

Craig: that them right there in the movie too.

And the first thing we see. Is Portia de Rossi is a fortune teller on this boardwalk and these two girls, Jenny and Becky Jenny has played by Maya who was very famous at the time famous singer performer. And Becky is Shannon Elizabeth, who was also right at the height of her career. Gorgeous as always.

And they go and see her Porsche looks at both of their hands. I see so much blood. Okay. That’s nice. But you too,

you should fear. Okay. We’re done here. Come on back. Let’s go be aware of the moon.

You can’t tell people this shit. It’s funny to read about the history because a lot of the scenes were in the original script, but they were at drastically different places in the script and featuring different people. Initially the Maya character was supposed to be scuttle or rich and apparently. If you look closely, there’s a point where Becky and Jenny gets separated and Becky calls out Jenny’s name.

Really? She’s calling out. Vinny or whatever his name was supposed to be or Vince or whatever his name was supposed to be. And they just dubbed it over with Jenny, lots of trickery going on there. I took so many notes over the first 15 minutes, because this is one of those movies that makes a point of introducing you to all of the main characters in the first 10 mins.

Yeah. So yeah, it’s kind of a lot to do take in right at the beginning, but we meet Jimmy who is played by a baby. Jesse Eisenberg. He’s so young. I don’t know if this was his first film, but it’s certainly the first thing I remember him from. He’s so young. He, I mean, he plays, yeah, he’s a teenager in high school and he looks like a teenager.

He does. He meets. His love interest Brook played by Christina on a pout, which I thought her character was entirely unnecessary. Yeah,

Todd: I,

Craig: yeah, I did. I didn’t need her at all.

Todd: I was waiting for it, some payoff with this character. She just kind of pops in and pops out and then it’s so silly at the end when she comes in.

Oh, God, it’s so dumb.

Craig: That was the worst part of the movie.

Todd: You have to imagine that the, you know, the original script gave her more to do or had her head with her a little more significant in it. Perhaps. I

Craig: think I really, her only purpose is to introduce, uh, Jimmy’s rival bow again, played by a baby Milo Ventimiglia and I like my Levin’s Famiglia and I really liked him and heroes.

He’s. Still very successful. He’s on, I don’t know, some sappy, nighttime soap type. This is us, which I watched some of, uh, so I’m not making fun of it, but it is sappy. Oh, come on. You know, you watch them. I don’t, I don’t still watch it, but I did watch the whole first season and cried.

Todd: I can only fit so many soaps into your day though. I understand that

Craig: he’s a baby too. And Oh my God, he’s so cute. But he’s also just like the cliched bully and he’s constantly picking on Jimmy and all of his. Jabs at Jimmy or about how he’s gay. Um, and like he calls him a geek on his way to fag town and like calls up like an ass wimp, wad, like just the lamest insults.

Um, but it sets up, you know, this rivalry between them, which is kind of cute and actually in the end ends up being super cute.

Todd: Yeah. It leads to one of the funnier. Scenes in the movie, I think, and the movie does have quite a bit of comedy in it. That’s

Craig: true. We, we ultimately meet, um, our main character Ellie, uh, played by Christina Ricci and she’s Jimmy’s older sister who they all live in Hollywood.

She works on the late, late show with. Craig Kilborne pink. Yep. Okay. So I have an interesting, it’s not a connection really, but I don’t know how to else to say it. All of my life, people have said to me and to my sister, how much my sister looks like Christina Ricci or Christina Ricci looks like her. And that’s true.

Todd: She could be her stunt

Craig: double. I don’t know. It’s so weird. You know, I, I grew up with her, so it it’s weird for me, but watching this movie, I’m like, Oh man, they do.

Okay. She’s so cute. And I love Christina Ricci and she’s still working. I wish she worked more. I, I think she’s a good actor and sh and she’s so pretty. And. Uh, anyway, but she’s the main character in this movie and she’s dating a guy named Jake played by Josh Jackson, who at the time was hugely famous for Dawson’s Creek and was kind of a heartthrob.

And he plays the big heartthrob in this movie. Like he’s just beating women off with this movie. And I don’t know. I mean, he’s. He’s good looking, I guess,

Todd: I guess, but I have to say it felt like that was all he was relying on because his performance was so flat. It was, you know, when we’re first introduced to him, she is, uh, swinging by his nightclub.

He’s opening up a nightclub that called what talents, I guess. And it’s supposed to be,

Craig: but I want to go there so bad. Oh, God,

Todd: it looks amazing. It looks like it’s in an old theater and I guess it is like an old movie theater, but they’ve got it. And they’ve outfitted it with, uh, I mean like a cross between a wax museum and an Gothic castle also with conveniently with a mirror maze.

And as soon as I saw them set that up, I was like, okay, no, we’re going to get a mirror, may scene in this movie. All right. I haven’t seen that five times before. And we’re not disappointed. It certainly happens. It’s

Craig: mostly horror memorabilia. And I also love it. Like there, it, it looks a lot like the wax museum from Waxworks Waxworks, except way more hip and cool.

And. There are displays for everything. There’s a nightmare on Elm street display with Freddy Krueger. There’s a hell raiser Friday the 13th. There’s no, Saratu like, there are just every pretty much everything you can imagine is there. And it looks. So cool. Like I want to go hang out and drink

Todd: there. Yeah.

They should have taken all the PR, you know, once they dress that up, they should have just left it and made it a nightclub. It, he could have made so much money. It was so cool

Craig: in the original script, it was supposed to be a wax museum. And when they changed it, they just turned it into a nightclub, but they just kept the same set, which totally works for me.

Um, Jake also, by the way, was originally. His character was different, but the character was a written. That was the scuttle rich character. And when they revised the script, skeet Ulrich, didn’t like the rewrites. So he dropped out of his own accord and that’s when they got Josh. Oh,

Todd: he dropped out of his own accord.

I didn’t realize that. Yep.

Craig: Cause he didn’t like the, with the ending. I don’t want to spoil the ending yet that he didn’t like the ending. Maybe I’ll spoil it a little bit. Cause it was too similar to something that he had just recently done and yeah.

Todd: Well the movie was originally about three character, like three friends or three people.

Craig: Strangers, no

Todd: strangers. Strangers. Yeah. Who come together over a lot of basically like a car crash and a werewolf attack. And this movie ends up mainly revolving around this woman and her brother. Yeah. And so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s very different. And I think Jesse Eisenberg, you know, came out later a few years ago and said, when he was asked about this movie, he said, yeah, he says, I don’t know what was wrong.

W who had a problem with original script and why they messed it up with it so much. But now that we know what was going on in the Weinstein company at that time, it, it makes sense. There was some kind of turmoil, but he was like, uh, they just made it dumb. Like they turned me in her brother and he said the original was a lot more.

Edgy, I guess is what he said. Right. And

Craig: Judy Greer, who is also in this movie, she plays, uh, I don’t know if she is, she’s a sales

Todd: agent. Yeah. Hey, somebody Scott bales, publicist, which is so funny because Scott bale plays himself.

Craig: Yes. I only read that. This this morning, but Scott bale was supposed to be one of the main werewolves in this movie.

Yeah. Cut that part out.

Todd: Can you imagine, I mean that in itself actually

Craig: kind of funny and in 2005, I would’ve been totally fine with it. Scott Bay on now is. Fucking douche bag, but

Todd: he is,

Craig: but in truth in 2005, I didn’t know that yet.

Todd: What’s funny is there’s a scene in this movie that actually shows its age where she, I mean, I’m jumping ahead a little bit, but what we can come back yeah.

Where she goes to a party and she meets up with Scottsdale’s agent, her agent. Like you said is, is she’s totally a ditch she’s completely pushy and out there and full of herself and really pushing, doing her job, really getting Scott bale, the kind of recognition he needs. And so she’s supposed to quote unquote, interview him before he goes on the late late show.

And which just means meet up with him and kind of sort out the details. And she does this at this party and when she sits. Stone and starts talking with him. There’s a point at which he kind of starts coming on to her a little bit,

Craig: but you’re a beautiful girl when you’ve got this Warrah thing happening.

I just keep my finger on that when you can use your

Todd: own hands. And he actually puts his hand on her. Ni which it’s so funny because he’s playing himself right today. Can you imagine an actor being willing to go on screen, playing himself, basically sexually harassing someone else in the industry? Of course they wouldn’t do that.

And definitely not in the Weinstein movie.

It’s such an interesting element of this film, right?

Craig: Uh, yeah, I know the, I don’t know. There’s a little bit of drama. I mean, there’s not a whole lot of drama in this movie, but Jake tells Ellie that like, he just wants to take it slow or he needs time and space or something. I don’t know that whole, all the relationship stuff is just it’s.

So it’s just thrown away. Like it happens in a matter of seconds. It’s it’s stupid and there are no stakes, but then we see. The LA city scape at night. And I don’t know if I noticed this the first time, but. This time. I did, even before I read about it, the lights in the cityscape of LA make a pentagram, which I thought was kind of cool.

And then Ellie and Jimmy are in the car. They’re going home and they hit a deer. All good. That’s what it looks like, which causes a great big accident with. Becky Shannon Elizabeth, who they don’t know. I mean, they’re in different cars, they’re on Mulholland drive, which is notoriously dangerous and, and her car goes rolling down the Hollywood Hills.

Luckily she has her seatbelt on, so she’s okay. But she’s stuck upside down in the car and Ellie runs down there. Jimmy calls the cops, but then he runs down there too. They’re trying to get her out and she’s hysterical. And Jimmy finally. Frees her from her seatbelt and from the dashboard, which is kind of pinning her in.

Um, but right after she’s freed, as she’s kind of laying there in the driver’s side, what is clearly werewolf bashes in through the woods window and grabs her by the shoulder and it’s jaws and, and rips her out. But Jimmy holds onto her legs, Ellie. Grabs onto his legs and it drags them all yards away from the car before they eventually.

Let go or get pulled away or whatever, but they, they basically see her get mauled and, and killed. Jimmy has a closer look because he was closer to her. Ellie doesn’t see it clearly, but when it’s all over, both Ellie and Jimmy are scratched or injured in some way. And the cops arrive. And I was so tickled to see that the cop, that interviews them was Nick Offerman.

Did you notice?

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: I was like, Oh my God.

Todd: Watson. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: It was cool. Even if, if we didn’t know that this was a werewolf movie already, which we do obviously, but Jimmy’s dog, this cue like golden. Retriever is now very wary of him. And in fact bites him and, you know, from there, I mean, what I, one thing that I do like about this movie is that they don’t waste a lot of time.

Jimmy immediately starts doing research because they’re not supposed to be any wolves in the Los Angeles area. So he starts doing some research and he finds, you know, unexplained. Animal attacks. And he basically right from the beginning comes to the conclusion that it was werewolves.

Todd: Yeah, he, it’s funny.

I love his, you know, he’s on an, uh, one of the early IMAX he’s clicking around websites. You remember when you just used to go to websites for information, there’s a website that’s like werewolf attacks in LA and then there’s another whole website about, you know, werewolf. Yeah. But yeah, that’s cool. And then she, there’s kind of a sequence where she’s at home and.

One thing that, you know, Craven does really well, I think is set up these scare sequences, right? You’re alone in the house and the wind blows in and the windows open mysteriously. And then you sneak through and the cuckoo clock scares you. And I had to roll my eyes that they happen to have this cuckoo clock on the wall.

That’s like little red riding wallet. Hood thing that has a little wool jumping down, as opposed to a cuckoo over a spinning, terrified a little red riding hood, which I thought, my God, which German workshop did this old, a cuckoo clock come from, I want one so badly. And then, uh, Jake surprised us her there.

And you know, this is kind of the beginning and really throughout the movie, he’s just creepy, I think, through the whole movie, because he’s so. Flat his effect is so flat. It feels like he’s hiding something or he lacks emotion somehow. And he just shows up Missy, just mysterious leader at our house. And the reason is dumb.

It’s just like, Hey, I just wanted to follow up on our conversation from before and tell you that I still love you. And she. And embraces with him and then almost vampire style. You suddenly see her grow these fangs and bites into his neck and a big spurt of blood comes out of it. And then we’re barraged with these images, just random, crazy freaky images and boom.

She wakes up. And she’s in bed and I’m thinking, did that really happen? Did it not happen? And when we see Jake later as though nothing ever happened, I thought, Oh, okay. I guess that was a dream sequence. And I’m still to this moment kind of puzzled as to when that dream sequence started. I don’t know if that was just,

Craig: I think it was a dream and in the dream, she turns.

Into a werewolf, of course. But I also read that a lot of those, you know, it’s just like flashes of various images. And I read that a lot of those images were taken from the various shoots that they did. Like those had been actual parts of scenes and some of the shoots and they just reuse them for the dream sequence or whatever.

Um, but right after that, Jimmy wakes up naked outside, which is classic werewolf. Yeah.

Todd: I love that actually, bunny, the neighbor’s watering his lawn and looks over and he gets them. He does an amazing job of like, he’s done it a thousand times of scaling. His house from the outside instead of just running in the front and getting up to a second story window leaps into the window without, without once showing his junk.

And that was a feat that, that probably required multiple retakes to get that one.

Craig: It was cute. It was, it was like he was naked and it was, it was too cute to even be hot, like, Aw, Yeah

Todd: like this, I think it’s the next scene where he, uh, he, you know, she wakes up she’s downstairs. They’re kind of, he comes back in and he kind of starts talking to her and telling her, uh, you know, I think this is about werewolf ism or something like that. She’s like, Oh, you’re crazy. And all this stuff, and they’re, they’re chatting back and forth in the whole time they’re talking, he has casually pulled a Tupperware container out of the.

Fridge, which clearly has raw meat in it, but he’s eating it as though it was just cold cuts and even sits down at the table at one point, dumped some salt on it. It’s just eating it. And I’m waiting for this moment where she’s going to look appalled or like, do you realize what you’re doing? Or, you know, this is going to be called attention to in the moral of the movie.

And not only does that not happen, but a couple of times she leans over and takes a couple of pieces and eats it before she ends up leaving. Like neither of them even notice that this is weird. And I thought that was such a, in a dumber movie that would, you know, again, that would have happened. What I predicted would have happened.

And instead of this movie, it’s just a funny bit, that’s allowed to continue.

Craig: I thought it was lunch meat, but whatever, either it was pretty funny that was Rami. All right. Then she’s at work, you know, at Craig Kilborn or whatever. And we meet Joanie, Judy Greer, who we’ve talked about before. We’ve recently talked about her.

Cause she was in Halloween 2018. I said it then, and I’ll say it now. Judy Greer is an underrated actress. She is in so much. She works all the time. I love her. I think she’s great to be fair. She often plays very similar characters. And in this movie, she’s very, very similar to her character in 13, going on 30, which is a very cute movie.

I don’t only watch horror movies. I also like cute girl.

Yeah. 13 going on 30 is adorable. And she’s really funny in it. But she’s a bitch and it’s, it’s like, that’s they just establish like, okay, hi, I’m Joanie, I’m a bitch. Um, and she basically tells Ellie that her boyfriend is a ho. I heard that you’re dating Jake Taylor. Is that true? I hope it’s nothing serious.

Why not? I guess it was only a matter of time before he got to you. He always did prefer the former role. Okay. Well, I’ll see you tonight, Johnny. I’m only saying this because I care. Is there anything else, Johnny? No. Tonight don’t be late. Who are you and why are you?

But then she’s just, she’s sitting there talking to somebody. I think she’s. Talking to nice guy, Kyle, there’s just this random, nice

Todd: guy. Kyle Kyle is, is great in the movie. He’s the guy, his face. He looks like he’s halfway through the transformation into being aware. Well, you know what I mean? It’s like a little tall, it’s kind of Bodie and a muscular and just very chiseled, but also just a little too tall and a little too wide.

His nose is a little prominent and he looks good. Don’t get me wrong. But yeah. He’s definitely a, I feel like I would see him working out in the gym more often than I’d see him running around the late, late with Craig Kilborne and it’s so cute because Craig, you know, the middle, he meets her, they have all this witty dialogue.

Right. Cause obviously he’s good friends with Ellie and the first thing he says as well. Uh, Scott bales publishes is coming by. She’s a bitch. And then Scott bales publicist comes by. And basically now that she’s a bitch, and then afterwards he pops in and says to her, well, she was a real bitch. Wasn’t she?

It feels like, yeah, she was a bit,

this really gets hammered home in case it wasn’t obvious, basically all Kyle has to do for most of the movie.

Craig: Um, but while she’s standing there talking to him, she’s like, okay, What smells so good. Oh, geez. Smell that. He’s like, no, I don’t smell anything. And she goes, literally sniffing around the office dogs.

So she’s like, Dog like, and I love Christina Ricci. And I actually think that this was like her, her body movements. Like she’s moving, like she’s sniffing something out. I loved it. And she ends up in the bathroom and I was so afraid that she was going to be smelling somebody period. Paint. Gotcha.

Todd: Shoving her nose up in some woman’s crotch.

Craig: It ends up being a girl’s nose bleed. So, you know, obviously she’s, you know, smelling blood things are changing. The movie does not make any effort to try to hide from us. What is happening, it’s directly in your face. They are turning into werewolves. We know this moving

Todd: on and on, honestly, this is one thing that for me actually made the movie a little tedious.

I wouldn’t say I ever got bored with the movie, but I would say that there were times when I was like, okay, like I got it right there. Turning into werewolves. Of course they smell of bloods bothering them. They’re feeling weird. Fingernails are growing, whatever like that, like yeah. This, this kind of stuff is so well trod before that.

I didn’t need to see it play out so deliberately and dramatically through this movie. And there were some ways in which it was cute and it was fun. Maybe a slightly new take on things, but there were other ways like this, you know, I was just like, Oh, okay. You know, I too much of it bogged down. I think the pace of the film,

Craig: I, I think that’s fair.

I actually kind of appreciated it because I feel like in other movies, Like an American werewolf in London, which by the way is no comparison. That that is a great, great. Movie. Um, but why toy with your audience? We know this is a werewolf movie. Like just, I understand what you’re saying. Maybe it was a little much, but I appreciated the fact that it wasn’t trying it wasn’t there was, there’s no mystery.

We know what’s happening. So why try to treat it like a mystery to me

Todd: that that is kind of toying with the audience a little bit. It’s not toying, but it’s it’s I don’t want to say I was insulted, but I was like, I wasn’t surprised at any of this. These weren’t big surprise moments for me. Oh, she smells.

Blood. Okay. Oh, they’re eating raw meat. Okay. She’s feeling sick and has to go to the bathroom. And there’s kind of this really long scene where she’s in there and she flashes werewolf eyes, you know, again, I’m glad they weren’t trying to hide it from us. Like we didn’t know, but in the other hand it was like, it felt like it was padding for time.

It didn’t really advance the plot as far as I’m concerned. I mean, by now, even they kind of realized that they’re werewolves or at least I think so. Right. It’s not at this point. That she’s convinced that she’s a werewolf, but I think a few more of these episodes go down after she knows, like she doesn’t need any further proof.

Right. But we still have to see these episodes happen

Craig: anyway. Yeah, I get it. I don’t know. It, it didn’t bother me. I thought it was fine. And that’s one of the things that I liked about the movie is that it’s, it’s fast paced. It doesn’t slow down. It moves. You know, I have a very limited attention span, so that’s.

Always good for me. Um, that my next note is Jimmy goes to Sunnydale because he attends the same high school that Buffy did and that all the nine Oh two one Oh kids did, and Beau’s addicted to him again and throws more homophobic shit at him again. And that girl

Todd: is. Making eyes at him that girls could see

Craig: Bob blah, that girl, whatever we get that rooftop party, which is like a pita benefit or something.

And that’s where LA talks to Scott bale and women are just dripping off of. Her boyfriend Jake. And one of those women is Jenny Maya, who we saw in the opening scene and she ends up getting attacked by a werewolf in the parking garage, uh, after she leaves, which was a great scene. It is a great scene except for the shitty, Oh man, I’m very Kersey today.

Sorry. Except for the crappy CGI. And I so desperately would love to see the practical stuff if it exists. But, um, she gets chased around. It is it’s a very tense scene and she’s very clever in this scene, like in the way that she hides from the werewolf far more clever than I would be. Well,

Todd: I like that.

And you know, that’s, again, that’s kind of a hallmark of West Craven’s movies in general. Female protagonists are not stupid. You know, I mean, she’s not a protagonist, she’s just a character in the way, but she’s not doing really stupid things. She actually has some smarts and is not just going to sit around and be a victim.

And that was fun. That that’s what made that scene interesting to me actually was I felt, I knew she’s going to get eaten. It was entirely predictable, but it was fun to see, you know, that go down and. I think some of these shots were actually practical, mostly close of, I think the werewolf’s face clock kind of reaches in.

You can kind of tell that, no, this isn’t CGI. This is, this is an actual practical thing, but then it goes full on full body. He’s leaping from car to car and it’s like, yeah,

Craig: it’s pretty bad. And it, you know, it’s early 2000 CGI, so it looks like a video game and there’s nothing wrong with video games, but it doesn’t look real.

In this motion picture. No,

Todd: but you know, ends up in an elevator. And I thought that elevator scene was staged. I mean, how many horror movie scenes have we seen in a, in an elevator? Right. But this one I thought was pretty unique. I mean, she makes it in there, the doors close, but because the creature as it’s kind of going up.

To the second floor bangs the elevator door from the other side, it deforms it enough that it won’t go up any further and it kind of stops and it opens a little bit at the bottom. And so there’s this opening where he can reach in and lunge at her, but he can’t get in all the way. And I think. I think that was all mostly practical.

You know, I think that was a guy in a suit, but it still looked pretty good, but then, you know, he disappears and then you realize he’s up there on the second floor and there’s a little crack that he can get through. I, I really liked that elevator scene a lot. I was impressed. And apparently this was one of these scenes that got cut from the R her death was going to be super gory.

I think her torso ripped in half. Stuff like that, that doesn’t even show up apparently on the R rated version. Uh, that’s on available on DVD, but you can see a shot of it, I think, from an old Fangoria magazine. So that’s how we kind of know that

Craig: existed. Jimmy does more research and finds that. People who are werewolves are cursed and they have the Mark of the beast on their hand.

And it’s just like five dots on their hand that can be connected to, to make a pentagram,

Todd: right. Which he does, which he plays with a

Craig: marker to make sure.

Ellie has them too. And like weird things are going on. Like dogs are gathering outside of their house and Jimmy howls at them and they run away. Blah-blah-blah the next scene that I really like is Jimmy goes into the gym and is flirting with. The girl that he likes, I don’t remember his name. Bo’s girlfriend and Bo confronts him.

I don’t remember who lays down the challenge, but challenges him to wrestle or try out for the team or whatever. And Jimmy, Russell’s another guy first and it’s like, it’s kind of like Spiderman. Like it takes him a little while to like, realize. What he, what he’s capable of, but eventually once he does, he kicks that guy’s butt.

And then he wrestles bow and kicks his butt too. And he says something in front of the girlfriend. Oh, you really becoming transparent. We’ll have it a little identity intervention. Okay. Because all this is internalized homophobia is just giving you a way. But anyway, he wrestles bow and really a kind of silly scene.

Like he kind of turns into like a professional

Todd: wrestler WWF. Kind of

Craig: throwing them around and blah, blah, and basically cakes is, but that’s great. That’s cool. I liked it. It was funny. It felt like a Spiderman kinda thing. Ellie is at work and she’s very much on edge, but people are also. People are also making note of how hot both of them are getting the Ellie and the brother was cool, which is kind of funny, but she Tiffts with Joanie over.

Scott bale.

Todd: I can’t believe you’re saying these things. Right

Craig: know, and then she kind of wolfs out in the bathroom and just in the eyes, but one of her coworkers see

Todd: or whatever. Yeah. Well, don’t forget. There’s a, you know, as she walks into the office, apparently. Again, coincidentally and highly conveniently.

One of Craig Kilborn’s next sequences or whatever is going to be on psychics or something. And so there’s a bunch of, she walks in, says what’s with all the gypsies and it’s all these women dressed up as psychics. And of course, one of them is this same woman that we saw earlier at the boardwalk scene, who immediately looks up at her and runs towards her and chases her into a room.

Pulls up her hand and just says, you’re cursed by the beast and you need to be careful and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Kyle, nice guy, Kyle does his duty and comes in. All right. All right. Let’s pull you out of here. And Kyle says he goes away. One of the, one of the funniest lines in this whole movie, just it’s, it’s just in the background.

It’s kind of blink if you miss a lie, but he goes. Shouldn’t you psychically know when you’re annoying someone,

but I had forgotten about that. Also. It gets hilarious that, okay. First of all, it’s kinda dumb that that psychic happens to also be there. But the other thing is like Ellie just hears her say these things, which are so pertinent to her situation and what she’s going through right then that she’s. Not at all interested in chasing that woman down and learning more.

Craig: Yeah. She blows her off in a scene that they probably could have caught cut. Jimmy goes to talk to Jake. Like I don’t even get the sense that Jake and Ellie have been together that long. So why her little brother would have gone to talk to him. I’m not sure, but he goes and tells him. That he thinks they’re werewolves.

Todd: And what special knowledge would he think that he has just cause he’s setting up all four.

Craig: I mean, ultimately it is a set up, which is why I think that they kept it, but it’s, it’s stupid. Um, but Jake kind of blows them off zipper. The dog turns into a werewolf too, because he had bitten Jimmy that night prized

Todd: me.

I didn’t see that. I, it

Craig: surprised me too. And the CGI doesn’t look good, but I loved that sequence,

Todd: nonetheless, because I actually thought that Jimmy might eat the dog. Yeah. All about this meat and the dogs got it. And Jimmy’s kind of creeping under the table and he’s upset at the dog and having the meat.

And I thought, Oh dude, is he going to take a bite out of this dogs? But Craig is going to hate them.

Craig: I know. Cause it was a really. Sweet dog, but one of my favorite parts and it’s so cliche, Beau shows up on Jimmy’s doorstep and is like all of those things you said to me in the gym, how did you know?

It turns out that boat is gay and he tries to kiss. Jimmy and this, it should be so offensive and stupid, but Milo Ventimiglia is so cute. It’s delivery of it. I’m like I forgive you for being a. Dick. You’re cute. Let’s make out. Um, but they don’t and Jimmy’s like, no, you don’t get it. Like, I’m a werewolf.

And Bo’s like, okay, whatever. He’s like, seriously, like you’re, you’re not into me. It’s just because I’m the beast. And like, I’ve got this. Crazy sexual magnetism in bows, like EA you do

zipper the, the werewolf dog, like kind of attacks them. So they, they escape in a Bose car. I don’t remember where Ellie is. I think she’s at work, but she gets in her car and Jake confronts her and he smacks his hand on her window and we see that he has. The marks on his hands too, which

Todd: I knew. I mean, you could see that from a

Craig: mile away.

I know. Well, I feel like they tried to project it because like his character is worthless, otherwise like yeah, exactly has nothing else to do.

Todd: Like he keeps popping up and just in pointless scenes. Right,

Craig: right. And so, uh, she stabs him with a car key and runs away. And then it’s the night of the big open.

Beginning of the club, the horror themed club or whatever, and Bo and Jimmy sneak in as part of Lance bass,

2005

Todd: had to smile.

Craig: Jimmy Bo and Jake all end up in the mirror. Maze. Jake and Ellie ended up together and he’s trying to convince her that he’s not the bad guy. He says, there’s another one like me. I don’t know who it is, but it’s trying to get to me. He says I was born with this curse and I know how to control it.

And then in my notes, I have blah-blah-blah. I love you.

Todd: Exactly which has played out conveniently in this mirror, maze that you can pop into as part of this very packed nightclub conveniently at this moment only has the three of them in it.

Craig: But a werewolf breaks through the mirror and it’s going after Ellie Bo gets attacked. And I said, killed question Mark.

Wasn’t sure. And then the werewolf just busts out into the party in general and. Everybody runs away, but Ellie and Jimmy get trapped in there. Like they, somebody drops the security gate or something. And so they’re trapped in there. There’s a little fake out where they think that nice guy Kyle was the werewolf, but then he ends up getting killed.

Um, and then the reveal is that the real werewolf. Is bitchy Joanie.

Todd: I didn’t see that coming. She

Craig: caught werewolf ism from Jake because they had had a fling. And she said, I guess I got a little too rough. Okay. I’ll know what that means, but whatever. And there’s a cute one where Joanie and Ellie kind of catfight for a minute.

And, uh, Ellie peppers, Fraser, and runs away. Then Jake confronts, Joni. Um, but she can’t, her whole objective is that she wants him. So she’s taking out all of her comments  and she can’t kill him because it’s been established that if you break the bloodline right. Like everybody who’s been turned by that werewolf will be cured or whatever.

So she can’t attack him.

Todd: This was one of the biggest disappointments of the movie. Joanie goes to her transformation and it’s the first time we’ve ever seen a full werewolf transformation in this movie. And that is what these movies are about. You know, that’s. The centerpiece. That’s what we’re looking for.

And it’s all CGI and it looks like a fricking cartoon. It doesn’t look good. It’s just so disappointing. And I would love to have seen what that actually would have been like, you know, with under Rick Baker. And in this point, you know, they have this big battle sequence I think, running around, which is fun.

Yeah. It’s just what that CGI werewolf, most of the time, and then kind of bouncing around and stuff. I dunno. I was just kind of waiting for it to end. Really. I was surprised there were still almost. 20 minutes left in the movie. At this point, I thought we were coming up five. Right. And eventually it’s over the police show up

Craig: the police Burstyn they’re like, where’s the animal.

Jimmy is like, she’s up there somewhere. Cause she had jumped up on like to a second level balcony or something. He’s like it’s a werewolf and the cops look at them funny. They’re like, uh, okay, can you give us any other description? And Christina Ricci? It’s so funny. Funny, like, I think she’s intentionally doing it to try to taunt.

Oh yes. And fat thighs and bad skin.

Joanie is a werewolf full werewolf jumps out. It’s the open-end says liar and flips them off.

Oh, my God. I thought it was so funny and the cops shoot her like a bazillion times and she falls on the floor. Jimmy’s like, you have to cut off her head. And she pops up and a cop shoots her several times in the head. Christina Ricci’s like is she’s dead. And Jimmy’s like, well, her brain’s all over the floor.

So I’m guessing

Todd: that’s the end. That’s good enough.

Craig: And it turns out she is dead. Bo is alive in the maze we find out, but Jake is missing now, honestly like you, I thought, Oh, isn’t this over? Like, Joni’s the big, bad guy. They killed her kind of anticlimactically but it’s over right. New Ellie and Jimmy go home.

The house is all trashed because the werewolf dog tore it up or whatever, and they think it’s over, but it’s still the full moon and it’s nearing midnight. And we see like their veins kind of become dark and visible. And this silver PI server that Ellie tries to pick up from the floor burns her hands.

So. They’re not cured. They think they would be because they think that Joanie was the one that started all this. Right. But then Jake shows up and suddenly he’s a douche and suddenly he’s a douche. And this that’s why ski Dale rich rich left because he thought that it was too similar to the end of scream, where, you know, the heroine’s boyfriend in the very last moment and ends up being the bad guy.

Um, and he’s right. It’s the same. It’s

Todd: exactly the same.

Craig: I don’t know that I would have left a movie over it, but I can understand why he would be irritated. You know, like this isn’t what I signed up for. I wouldn’t have signed up for it if I would’ve known that I was just going to be doing the same thing again.

But Ellie and Jimmy both kind of start to go through. The change. And so Ellie and Jake fight, they all fight.

Todd: Yeah. It’s kind of long.

Craig: Well, it is, but I kind of liked it. You know, Jake wants to be with Ellie, but he says he’s going to kill Jimmy because there can only be one alpha male. They all fight all three of them.

There’s a cool part where Jimmy crawls around on the ceiling using his werewolf claws. I liked that Ellie ends up stabbing Jake with the silver PI server in the heart. And then she. Cuts off his head with a shovel, which is another scene that they drastically cut, uh, for the PG 13, but then unexplainably his body combusts.

And that’s pretty much it. And then there’s this, the ending was dumped that that’s my biggest complaint about the movie is. The last five minutes or so stupid zipper comes home, which that made me happy. Doug’s but he comes home because Brooke brought him on Brooke is the lame girl who has no purpose in the movie.

And now like she’s enamored with Jimmy and she kisses him. Like they don’t even know each other, but all right, let’s kiss whatever. And Bo’s there too, as though he’s delivering his. Your

Todd: old friend, Jimmy, he’s handing her off like a father in a wedding. It’s so weird. And there’s been no romance. My God.

Why was the scene there?

Craig: Bo Bo hugs, Jimmy, like they’re bros now. Like, and again, if not for the actor, if not for Milo Ventimiglia. I would have hated this, but he’s just so cute and charming. I just couldn’t. I was like, good. I’m glad you’re friends now, but they, they all go off like, Oh, well we killed the werewolf.

Let’s go get some pizza or whatever. And Ellie’s like, that’s fine. I’ll stay home and clean. V. And

that, that, that last four or five minutes was so corn ball. I did not care for it at all. However, up to that part, I found it to be a fun ride. It was fast paced. The actors and characters were likable. It just had. I don’t know how to describe it. Those movies from. The early aughts, those horror movies from the early aughts scream.

I know what you did last summer, urban legend. They had a very distinct cinematic look. And this movie has that. Exactly. And maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it wouldn’t work today. I don’t know, but I enjoyed it and I enjoyed the movie

Todd: overall. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun too. And I, I basically agree with everything you said.

We sat all at the beginning of the podcast, to be honest, if you want to go back and you even want to read the original script, you can do that. You can just go online and search for it. Uh, and there are people out there who have also summarized it. So you can read through all of it. It’s very different from this.

And again, I don’t think it would have revolutionized the genre even in its original form, but it sounded so much more interesting and complex. And edgy and with more interesting characters. So I joined you and hoping that someday somebody is going to dig this up and put out there what we know exists so that we can see this in

Craig: its original form.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

Todd: But here we are on our 250th episode at the end. We just really are grateful of the fact that we’re able to do this every week and that you, our listeners, some of you have been with us from the very beginning and it’s super flattering. We started out doing this for ourselves, but we learned as we went through it that we really feed off of the feedback from our listeners.

We love getting requests. We love on our Facebook page and on our website hearing you guys. Just kind of shoot back your opinions about the movies that we’ve done and where you differed from us and where you agreed with us and just your enthusiasm keeps us going and has kept us going all these four or five years now.

And, uh, we just want to thank you so much for that and we hope we can continue to do it.

Craig: Yep. You stole my thunder. I was going to say the exact same thing, so I won’t say it again, but I concur very grateful to all of you. So, uh, thank you for listening and, uh, we’re going to be around. For awhile as always same old spiel, you can find us everywhere.

Google to guys in a chainsaw podcast. We’re on pretty much any platform you can think of. Visit our Facebook page, visit our website. Talk to us, leave the search review. If you feel so inclined. We always love to hear from you. And, you know, we are thinking about trying to incorporate some new stuff into our repertoire as well.

So maybe there’ll be some new stuff to look forward to, but until that time I’m Craig and I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.