Haunt

Haunt

haunt screenshot

It’s time for our favorite season of the year! We kick off our annual series of Halloween-appropriate films with a movie about a haunted attraction gone very wrong.

At the same time they were writing the soon-to-be-hit-film, A Quiet Place, writer/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods were toiling away on this nasty thriller. Evocative of movies like Hostel and Saw, it’s no surprise that Eli Roth decided to nurture and produce Haunt. We’re looking forward to more horror in the future from this duo.

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Haunt (2019)

Episode 270, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: Todd, It is our favorite time of the year! October! I tell you what I swear. I look forward to this time of year, every single year. And like, I start gearing up for it, like September 1st, 

Todd: The only month that makes life worth living, eh?

Craig: Ah, it’s so good. Better than Christmas. I was going to say lots of normal people get like super stoked about Christmas and Christmas is lovely.

I like to be with my family and get gifts and things like that. That’s nice. It’s it’s quaint, but oh, October and a Halloween really are my absolute favorite time of the year. And uh, we have a tradition here at two guys of doing a month worth of. Halloween centered movies. And, uh, I don’t know. I think it was just one dude who sent us a message is like you guys, you don’t have to do a stupid theme.

Halloween muds. There are other good ones. Okay, sir. 

Todd: It was like for your input, it was a review when somebody was like, oh, they’re great. Oh, they’re awesome. I love listening to them, but why do they waste their time doing dumb movies around the holidays? Just because they feel like they have to. And I’m like, really?

Craig: It’s not because we feel like we have to because we’re big nerds and we love this shit 

Todd: all the time. Plus it gives us some direction, you know, sometimes. There only, what was it, your mom who was like, I didn’t even know. There were 200 horror movies and we’re like, God, there’s so many horror movies. Like what are we going to choose this week?

So it’s good to have like a framework within which to choose something. Some restrictions. It is. 

Craig: It’s nice. That being said, we always say every year, Probably going to run out. We’ve done so many at this point, but no, there are bazillions of them. I mean, we’ve got a whole list of Halloween movies. We’ve got probably at 20 or more on the list that we could do, and there are more and more coming out every year.

It seems like, especially there are a lot of Halloween and. Anthologies coming out every year and we love those. We’ve even thrown around the idea of doing a, an anthology month, you know, even just outside of the holidays, love those movies. But I w you know, we, we said, we think about it, and as always, we put it off until the last minute.

And, uh, I finally just, uh, Google. I was at work and had a minute. So I Googled Halloween movies and I came up with a whole list and it turns out the one that I picked was already on. We’re looking at hot from 2019, this was a Netflix exclusive film written and directed by a couple of guys, Scott Beck and Brian Woods, who would be best known for being the writers of a quiet place.

Uh, and, and I don’t know if they wrote a quiet place to, or if they just got writing credit because it was based on 

Todd: their character. But still A Quiet Place that was like a worldwide hit. Oh my 

Craig: gosh. It was huge. I loved it. I thought it was great. I thought it was a great movie. I saw the sequel. I thought it was okay.

I didn’t like it as much as I liked the first one, but it was still an entertaining movie. Um, and apparently these guys, uh, were writing haunt and a quiet place at the same time. He, you know, Thinking because they hadn’t had any major successes before. So they had no expectation that either one of these movies would sell or do well.

And, uh, a quiet place did exceptionally well. And this movie did pretty well. I mean, it didn’t make a ton of money. I think I’d only made a few million dollars. But it didn’t, uh, play, uh, in, it had a very limited release in theaters. That’s a shame, but when it premiered on Netflix at the time that it premiered, it was the most watched premiere that they had had, not that may have been surpassed.

It probably has, but at the time it was the most watched premiere. And it’s funny, cause I picked this, it sounded interesting to me. And then I put it on. And in the first 10 seconds, I realized that I had seen it before. Oh

yeah, I did. I realized I had seen it before and I was like, 

Todd: well, you realized it was on, in the background while you were grading papers one day. Yep. 

Craig: Most likely, most likely. I do. And honestly, because of that, I was glad to watch it again because you know, I’m, I’m doing, I put them on, in the background to keep myself stimulated, to motivate me, to continue grading because on the weekends, when I have to grade, I mean, that’s often like a six or eight hours stretch, which is, you know, a bummer.

But if I’ve got something on in the background that can kind of. Keep me stimulated. You’ve seen this kind of movie before these it’s about, it’s about an extreme haunt that, you know, these young people go to on Halloween and then it ends up being of course, far more extreme than they ever would have imagined.

And I’ve seen that movie, you know, at least three or four times probably. And that’s fine. 

Todd: And on often. They’re pretty bad to be honest, most of the time, this doesn’t work as well as you 

Craig: think. Right. And I had forgotten really. I kind of remembered it. In fact, I was talking to my partner and I was like, oh yeah, I remember this movie.

It’s kind of like, you know, they get into this haunted house and it’s all set up as a haunted house or whatever, but then it really becomes like, saw, like they just kind of start getting them. One by one in these interesting ways. Um, and that’s kind of true. Um, but I forgot that this movie has kind of an interesting twist at about the three quarters of the way through mark.

And so, uh, I was still, I had forgotten that, so I was still a little bit surprised by the movie over. I would say for a Halloween season movie. It’s good. Is it the greatest movie I’ve ever seen? Certainly not, you know, far from it, but, uh, it’s an enjoyable watch and I had a good time watching it. What did you think?

Todd: Yeah. I’m with you there. I’d never seen it before actually, but actually I didn’t realize that these were the writers of a quiet place until afterwards when I was doing research and I was like, oh, this comes from a rather impressive pedigree. And. Yeah. I mean, it w it was just shocked at, it was just a solid movie.

I think that’s the best way I could describe it. I was engaged throughout. I was never bored. It was predictable in the sense that, yeah, there’s not a lot. That’s new here, but far better than a number of these other takes place in a haunted house movies that I’ve seen. It actually had a lot of meat too.

It took me into some surprising places. Like, I wouldn’t say it was predictable. I mean, I kind of knew who was going to die and I pretty much knew what order they were going to tie in, you know? And I could see it coming, but what was the motivations behind the people doing this? Um, how was it all going to go down?

And it wasn’t just add as, as big trap in this haunted house. In fact, I was kind of surprised at how under utilized the aspect. Aside from the fact that they’re in a place that they can’t get out of easily and that they don’t really know how to navigate the haunted house itself. Wasn’t so much like saw in that there weren’t these like elaborate setups.

I mean, when people died, it was basically, ah, a guy comes out and like kills them. Right. So in a way, I wouldn’t say it’s a slasher movie. Like I’ve seen it’s online. It’s built as a slasher movie by a lot of people and know like a slasher movie is usually a killer, maybe two who are running around killing people.

And they’re kind of mysterious. You don’t know who they are. I mean, yeah, maybe, but this is, you know, Kind of a cult movie, I guess, or whatever, but 

Craig: yeah, there’s that interesting spin on it. And frankly, like I’m still not entirely sure what was going on now. 

Todd: I don’t think we’re supposed to know. I watched a little interview that was done by some guy on YouTube after watching the movie.

And he had both of the guys there and he was talking to them. And one thing that, one of them said, I don’t remember which of the two said what. Eli Roth as producer had helped them out a lot when they were conceiving this movie, when they were kind of finalizing it, putting it together. And one of the things that he said was look, the audience doesn’t need to know exactly why all this has had.

But they need to know that, you know, uh, they said they really took that to heart. So they have, they worked out a whole backstory for why this is going on, what’s happening and all that. And then they, they sprinkled little hints at that throughout the movie, but didn’t fully. And I had that confidence, you know, and I understand that direction because there’s nothing more annoying last there’s nothing more annoying than watching a movie or a TV series and realizing that they’re being.

Crazy and weird and trying to hint at things. And, and yeah. Even like, I think that was what pissed people off about the matrix too, by the time the trilogy was at the end, they, all people almost felt like none of this actually ends up making a lot of sense or it wasn’t as profound as we thought it would be.

And, or the writers and directors kind of. They had a half-baked concept that now they had to pretend that they’d fully baked. And so, you know, by the end of the movie, you don’t really feel like there was a point to it because you don’t feel like the writers themselves had a point, you know, they wanted to like cop out basically and go, Ooh, it’s whatever you want it to be.

Oh, we just want to keep it mysterious so the people can read what they want to read into it. And yeah. Okay at times, but a lot of times it’s just a cop-out well, yeah. W and we feel cheated and I didn’t feel that way watching this movie. I felt like, no, no, I don’t fully understand what’s happening. I’m fine with that because I get that there’s something happening here, you know what I mean?

And there’s a real reason behind it all. And that’s good enough for me. 

Craig: It’s funny that you brought up last, cause that was, I mean, I watched the whole series. I wouldn’t be of that. I know I was super into it, but the thing that was most infuriating. That is that fans predicted the end and they were adamant, no, no, that’s not what it is.

We swear it’s not. And then it was like, yeah, come on guys.

But, uh, I think that Eli Roth’s advice to the filmmakers was very good. And I think that it plays out in that way. We don’t have to understand everything. And the sad news is, you know, first of all, just say, I think that as far as cinematography goes, It’s good. Like, I can’t, I can’t come up with the right word, but it’s, it’s completely competent.

Like the cinematography is great. Like, I don’t have any complaints about it. It’s shot. Well, the acting is perfectly fine. In fact, I was surprised that I actually cared a little bit about these characters, especially since in the beginning, when they’re introduced, they felt kind of stereotypical, but as time went on, I actually came to like them as actual people and thought I might hang out with some of these.

Yeah. 

Todd: It’s funny that you say that because I was, as, as the movie was starting out, I was like, oh, this looks like a starting out to be another bunch of assholes who go out and I’ll get killed. You often describe it, which is totally actualized movies, but you’re right. It, after a very short period of time, you realize, oh no, they’re not the, actually some of these people have, well, the, one of the main characters, you know, the girl who was, I mean, from a mile away, you know, she’s going to be the final girl.

That’s one of the more predictable things about Harper, right? Actually she’s the only one with so much backstory. Right? Nobody else really has any backstory if I’m not mistaken. And then hers is laid on thick. It’s like, oh God, she clearly has. Poor home situation, possibly abusive father. Well, clearly abusive father as we get further into the movie.

But then like from the first scene is she’s in a club and she’s being texted and knowingly by her boyfriend. Who’s like, seems like just through the text to be the biggest douchebag, where are you? Why aren’t you calling me kind of thing. She’s got this backstory that keeps her compelling and interesting.

And that’s part of how, you know, she’s going to be the final girl. Didn’t really get much of a backstory on anybody else, but I. I thought they were cool. None of them were like, I can’t wait till that 

Craig: person dies. Yeah. I agree. The character is not, you know, like you said, the only, the one character really has a lot of backstory, but the other characters don’t just seem dumb.

One of them is a nurse or a medical student or something, and she doesn’t see none of them do. I mean, they seem like real people 

Todd: normal, 

Craig: right? Normal. There’s one guy, Nathan, they’re all dressed for Halloween because it is how. And Nathan leisurely dressed as a baseball player because he is a baseball player and he doesn’t really care about how Elouine.

And when I first met him, when we first met him, I thought he was going to be a total douche bag. He seemed like a douche bag in the beginning, but then he wasn’t, he seemed like a decent guy. Um, and there is one guy. Evan. He’s this heavier set guy who kind of is a Dick, but not so much that you can’t understand why these people would even hang out with them.

Like, I, it just seems like they kind of know his personality, um, but they don’t put up with his dickish Venus. So it’s fine. It’s 

Todd: not a night of the demons or spooky type situation where you’re looking at it going, why are these people even in the same car? 

Craig: Exactly exactly right. All of the girls are very pretty, but they are all, you know, capable, intelligent people.

I really liked the characters. I really did this. Sadly. I wasn’t able to find a whole lot. Interesting information about this behind the scenes. And that’s always a disappointment because I prefer to talk about those things. And I think that those things are more interesting, but the truth of the matter is this is a plot heavy movie.

So I kind of feel like we should get into it. I mean, it opens up the opening credits are very much like the opening credits of a nightmare on Elm street one, um, where it’s. Some shady figure, putting together, uh, this haunt and printing flyers to put out about it. And, and one of the primary things that is focused on in those opening credits is that he clearly sets a trap.

So you think that this is going to be trap heavy, but it’s not. The fact that trap that he sets and the opening credits doesn’t get sprung until the very end. And then in a really weird kind of anti-climactic way with a character who is completely inessential, 

Todd: who didn’t need to be there at all. Right.

There was no, 

Craig: there was no point for that character even being there. He, he didn’t do anything. Nothing, uh, you thought he might, but he didn’t. And it takes place in Illinois. Not that that’s important. Then we meet our main characters. There’s Harper, who is the girl next door. You know, she’s going to be the final girl, her roommate.

Uh, and she doesn’t really end up wearing a costume, but she’s wearing a red hoodie. So she’s kind of like little red riding hood, which is also suitable for her character. And then there’s her roommate Bailey who’s fricking gorgeous. Who’s just like, you know, in the typical sexy cat, you know, like not really a costume, just a sexy outfit and some cat ears.

And we get the whole set up that, uh, there’s a. Pumpkin smashed on their door. Did your boyfriend just throw a pumpkin at our door?

That’s not something he do. I, no, no. That’s bullshit. Bailey. You were breaking up with this bitch tonight. Bill, quit. Stop. Everything’s fine. She’s an alcoholic Harper. You want to know how I can get. Because he’s an alcoholic look, all I’m saying is that I came into your room last night is still some jewelry from a Halloween costume and you were passed out, but Harper is all, you know, obviously she’s for whatever reason, still connected to this guy in talking about it.

It’s super cliched. And really, because I didn’t even consider. In fact that her dad was an abuser. And now she’s with an abuser, which I understand is not uncommon, but it’s, uh, it’s a little heavy 

Todd: handed. The tagline of this movie. Some monsters are real

at all, 

Craig: I guess, whatever. And, uh, gosh, I mean, there’s just silly little details that ultimately aren’t that important, but hate, uh, Bailey borrowed Harper’s mom’s ring for her costume and harvest, like make sure you don’t lose that. Because it’s my mom’s, it’s really important. Me. And then we meet Angela who’s dressed as a nurse.

And I think she really is a healthcare worker because she has knowledge of that. Um, Evan is the douchey one who is dressed as the head of the human centipede, but the other people who are going to be his human centipede with them have ditched him. And so he’s all pissed. 

Todd: That’s actually pretty funny. It was kind 

Craig: of like one of the girls is like, uh, so they didn’t want to eat your ass all night.

So they ditched, 

Todd: it was a great line, which 

Craig: is hilarious. And I swear to God, if we ever. Doing human centipede on this podcast. I think that the viewers or listeners should let us know that it’s time when we’ve 

Todd: jumped.

Craig: I have, I have seen all three human set guides. My God, they are horrible. The first. The least horrible, but they are all just deprived and nasty and disgusting. They didn’t. Okay. So they’re all at a bar. They all meet up at a bar and Harper meets Nathan and he kind of, it seems like he kind of blows her off at first, but then they kind of start talking, but she goes outside to leave.

Cause she’s not really having a good time. And she’s somewhat approached by this man in a red robe. Like, like kind of a devil costume, but then she hears a noise and looks away and she looks back and he’s gone. And that’s when we find out randomly Nathan tells her about how Lee he’s a baseball player, but last season he took a pitch to the face and it totally shattered like half of his face.

So he’s like, you know, that was trauma for me. Has anything scary ever happened in your life? I just met you two minutes ago. Tell me about your drama. 

Todd: Uh it’s did instant flashbacks suddenly to, oh, well I was in a haunted house, you know? 

Craig: Yeah. Mysterious flashback. Like obviously I just have, in my notes, Harper has a past, like, we don’t know 

Todd: what it is yet.

Yeah, 

Craig: we’re going to find out the Nathan convinces her to stay and they decide at first they’re just going to go get something to eat and then go home. But then Evan finds one of those flyers that we saw being printed out. And so they decide some of them are really excited to go to a haunted house and they drive around.

And Evan’s driving and there’s a gag about him wanting to charge them for rideshare. Cause he’s a ride share driver, something stupid, but, uh, Harper notices that there’s a red truck following them, which she doesn’t just outright say my abusive alcoholic boyfriend drives a red truck light. Come on, be forthcoming.

Todd: You turn left. And then they see, oh, okay. I guess I’ll turn left. Like what. Hey guys. I think somebody is following us. Let’s see if we can ditch them. 

Craig: Yeah. I think my douchey boyfriend is following us or whatever it will. And then this, this is really kind of the only part that I thought was really stupid.

So they, and at first, maybe this is why the characters in the filmmakers didn’t tell us who it was in the truck yet because they take this turn to. This guy is going to be following them or not. They pull over to the side of the road conveniently right in front. Of the haunted house that they had been planning on going to, but they hadn’t even really planning, been exclusively planning on going to that.

Like the girls were all on their phones, seeing where all of the haunted houses were like, so they were still deciding where they were going to go, but they conveniently just like. Right in front of this one and the sign comes on right behind them. They’re like, oh, cool. Here we are. 

Todd: That was by far the dumbest part of this movie.

Craig: Well, and so I thought that, you know, maybe the truck had been luring them trying to push them there. Right. But no, it’s just, it turns out it’s just coincidence, whatever. So they pull up to this, uh, haunted place and it actually looks pretty cool. Um, and there are other people. But another group of people standing outside in line, and as they’re walking up, the other group gets ushered in and they’re greeted by this scary clown who is only scary, because I know you don’t think clowns are scary, but because it’s a clown.

Um, and because he doesn’t talk and because they’re scary music, 

Todd: this is 

Craig: a formula. Yeah. I mean, it’s, you know, like he messes with them. Uh, he makes Bailey the PR. I keep saying the pretty one. They’re all pretty, but my God, I just thought she was just gorgeous. The, he like makes her pick which hand, like he’s got something in his hands, turns out he doesn’t have anything in either hand.

And then he pulls out a key from behind her ear, which could be totally innocent except for the very scary music in the back. Um, and the key is for this lock box and she opens the lock box and it’s got, what do you call is 

Todd: waiver. Absolve themselves 

Craig: of live the liability. That’s like a liability waiver.

Right. And not only that, but then they have to leave their phones in there, which I don’t know that I would do, but I also don’t know that I would be terribly surprised if I was asked to. 

Todd: I wish that every haunted house I walked through made people leave their phones at the front and or amusement park, dark rides.

Because the last time I went to an amusement park, like Disneyland or someplace like that. Oh yeah. Disneyland, Shanghai. And I was on the pirates of the Caribbean and there were like four people in front of me on this boat shining their cell phone lights everywhere, completely ruined. Fact of what was going on.

So I was actually, I saw that and I was like, oh God, yeah, that’s great. Make them lock their cell phones in this, in this box and then give them the key. Yeah. Then that’s fine. Right? Sure. 

Craig: In theory, I mean, in real life, it’s really not that big of a deal, but they’re going into a killing den. It would have been nice if they would add their fetal Craig.

Todd: I’m sure that if they had been pre-warned that they were going into a killing done, they would have said, ah, we’ll just take our phones with us. Thank you. 

Craig: That’s probably true. Probably chiro. Oh gosh. And so then they get in there and at first it’s standard, like it’s a very standard haunted house with like skeletons popping out at them.

Todd: Props 

Craig: and things. Yeah. Right. But then once they get through just like the very first hallway and it’s still standard, but it just feels like a really good haunted house. Like if they weren’t. Actually getting killed. This would be an awesome haunted house. I would so badly want to go there. Like it’s really cool.

It’s basically a series of rooms, but every room or a hallway has a different theme or obstacle or puzzle or something. And they’re all. They’re all like super creepy and Halloween-y and super 

Todd: cool. Yeah. I would love to go to this haunted house. It’s almost like, I mean, it’s not as sophisticated as an escape room, cause it’s not like they have to S literally solve a puzzle in every room, but they’ll get in one room and the door slams behind them.

And then they’re sort of forced to watch a scene or something. Right. I think it’s, is it before or after they crawl through the hallway? That one, one thing, one room that they’re locked in and then suddenly. A chain link fence basically is one of the walls and the curtain opens up and it’s sort of a witch scene where there’s this person dressed in a robe with a witch mask on and all of their masks look kind of old fashioned, right?

They look almost like out of the forties or fifties, she drags this body bag in and unzips it. And there’s this girl in there and she starts screaming. And the witch out of this cauldron pulls out a red, hot poker and goes down and brands her. Sort of on the cheek and then like the curtain closes and they’re disturbed by it.

But, you know, I don’t know if you and I were walking through this haunted house, we’d be like, yeah, clearly this is like a thing, 

Craig: right? This is an app. Oh yeah. And I would be like, oh my God, that was awesome. Realistic 

Todd: smoking off her cheek and stuff. They really, 

Craig: I see. If you have an Eagle eye. Now, I can’t say this with certainty, but I’m, I’m pretty sure that that girl was in line when they.

Approach. Um, but it does look very real, but it also just looks like a really good effect because as soon as the witch touches her with like this red, hot poker, like steam pops up, the curtain closes, you know, it just seems like a really good scene that they had planned out and the 

Todd: other door opens and they continue.

Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And then they’re, they’re faced with. And you can go one of two ways, one way says safe, one way says not safe. And they split up evenly. Evan Harper and Mallory Mallory is, uh, dressed as a flapper and who goes on and on and on about how she hates spiders. They take the not safe trail and they.

Ironically in a hall full of spider webs with a lot of great big fake spiders. But when they look closely, there are also some very scary looking real spiders in there too. And when they get through that hallway, they come to a room with three coffins standing on end. That was awesome. It was, and again, very like had I been there?

Very cool. Yeah. The other three ended up in a hall. That’s like the walls are covered in oil and there are big like trash bags, full of oil, like hanging over the ceiling and they don’t get it. And I didn’t get it either. It pays off later, but I didn’t get it either, but the ones that are in the coffin room, they don’t know what to do, but they’re like maybe it’s some kind of like puzzle and it is, they, they open all of the doors to the coffins.

Thing in there, but then they close all of the doors and when they close the last one, they hear something like something mechanical. And so they think that there may be like a, a hatch or something, but it only opens if the door is closed and these coffins are the old fashioned like Pinewood box coffins.

So they’re very small, so they can really only go in one at a time. And Evan goes from. And they’re right. It opens a door in the back and he goes through and then Harper goes through next. No problem. Then Mallory goes in and closes the door behind her, but the hatch doesn’t open instead a hole in the top of it opens and spiders are poured all overhead

skeletons 

Todd: masks. 

Craig: Shit motherfuckers bought the shit at party city, like two days ago. Look, these look like tarantulas and they are moving and she freaks out. And then somehow. The people on the other side, opened the door and pull her out. Or if the door opens and she stumbles out, they grab her and she’s freaking out and they’re like, no, no, it’s all fake now.

Okay. For the purposes of the movie, that’s fine. But I have eyes and I saw those spiders were moving. Were indeed. These were not. Yeah. These were not spirit. Halloween cheap spiders.

Which now I didn’t really start to question this until later, but ultimately I did question it, is there anything supernatural going on here? And I still don’t know. And ultimately I think that probably not, but I’m not sure the 

Todd: fact that all those spiders kind of disappeared was. I did think about that for a brief, a brief second, but no, I don’t.

I don’t think so. Yeah. No, I don’t, I don’t think anything supernatural was happening, even though a few of those, those effects or whatever seemed, I don’t know the way it played out or maybe we were seeing more of what’s in her imagination or whatever, but. 

Craig: That could be. 

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think everything in there was very real.

Craig: A, yeah, I know. I’ve, I’ve debated it with myself and, and I’ll the moment where I really started to question comes later and obviously we’ll get there after that room. The next room is a small tunnel that they have to crawl through. And, and there are times when. I don’t want people to look at my face, but there are times when I wish that we could show people things, because it’s a ton, it’s just a small, like crawl space entrance.

But the way that it’s prepared, the way that it’s painted with like, just hundreds of arrows, like spray painted and go in here or something like that, it’s very spooky. The whole thing is very spooky. It just seems like a really good haunted house. Like we’re talking like, okay. So I live in a small town and we have haunted houses and the people around here, my town is also a university town and the university does a haunted houses.

And these are young people who clearly, you know, really are into it and want to do a good job. And they, and they do, but we’re talking more along the lines of like universal studios, haunted Halloween nights, you know, like they look fantastic, 

Todd: a little too fantastic for a random dirt road. You know, she turned off on that only a few people are in line for it to be honest.

And that was the only other beef I have with it is that, you know, and 

Craig: ultimately like this place is really big and really complicated. There’s a point later where we see, um, schematics. Of how it’s all laid out and how everything is connected. And it’s not as though it’s impossible. Like if this is a big abandoned factory, there would be plenty of room to do this.

It’s just that normally people wouldn’t go to such lengths. 

Todd: It does call into question, all kinds of things about the backstory and the people who are behind it and all that, which I guess this is intentional, right? Like we’re supposed to. Well, this random Backwoods place that does, this seems like they’re the after awhile.

They’re. At least it seems to be there. The only people in there, you know, you go through a haunted house and things start to get backed up. And eventually you’re going through a long line and all that. And, and this, this haunted house is completely impractical in that for all these things to be pulled off, you know, To separate people or res you know, timing wise, you’d have to find ways to usher them through.

You’d have to, it’s not 

Craig: realistic in that way. And it seemed right. And it seems like there are four or five employees. Right. You know, isn’t unreasonable, but you’re absolutely right in real life. This, you know, we saw it in a headline. No, I’ll see, it’s crowded. There’s a huge long line. And even when you get in there, you’re in there with dozens of other people, and this would be reliant on them only allowing five or six people in at a time for a couple of hours.

Todd: Yeah. Relying on only five or six people coming into the parking lot. Only every couple of that. 

Craig: Well, maybe that’s why they only turn the sign off. Randomly happened to pull over in front of the 

Todd: plate. They’ve reset finally. So they turn the sign on. 

Craig: Um, so they, so they go in the tunnels. Harper sees the red robe guy from the bar crawling around in there with them, which is kind of spooky, but, uh, Harper and Evan get out, but Mallory doesn’t come out.

And then the red guy, um, meanwhile, meanwhile, the other three are in the very typical. I guess the body part room where you have to, usually at your grade school, you stick your hand in a cardboard box and you feel the grapes or the wet gummy worms or whatever it is. But this of course being very elaborate looks great, but it is still just that basic premise.

Stick your hand in this hole and feel something. And they do a Nathan. Gosh, I don’t know the other girl, the nurse girl, they do. And it’s all very typical stuff. Um, but the third girl Bailey puts her hand in and she reaches in all the way up to her shoulder and she can’t find anything. But when she pulls her hand out, she realizes that she’s lost Harper’s mom’s ring in there.

And, um, so she reaches back in, um, to. I find it. And Nathan reaches in the hole next to her to try to help her find it, but something grabs onto her. And there are also, I will totally forgive these jump scares because they’re realistic. These guys it’s Halloween and they’re trying to scare each other. So Nathan has already done the, oh, somebody got my arm.

Like he’s already done that a couple of times. So when Bailey does it. At first, they don’t take her seriously, but she’s like, I’m serious and it hurts. And they, they pull her out and she turns over her arm. And at first it looks normal. I assume this was CGI, but it looked very real. She turns her arm over and all of a sudden her arm starts to bleed from these.

Then cuts. And later we see behind the curtain and there are razorblades there. Somebody had taken razorblades and sliced her arm, but obviously at this point, they know, um, that, that something isn’t right. The devil guy seems to kind of force the other two who were with mal. To continue forward with, without her, everybody ends up being reunited except for Mallory.

And this is when they start to decide that they need to get out. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s, it’s the same thing we saw earlier, which is smart actually, you know, to kind of play the same thing for us again, but Shane. Again, the curtains open. There’s a scene playing behind them. It’s very similar to that previous one where there’s the same, which character, and she’s got her red hot poker.

They pull a body bag out and they unzip it and Mallory’s in there. And they’re a little more disturbed now because a it’s their friend and be unlike the previous girl, she’s not screaming and yelling for help, but Mallory’s unconscious and her wrists are. With a zip tie and this woman pulls they’ll poke her out and we’re expecting her to brand her face again, but suddenly it just impales her in the head with that poker and then the curtains close and it all happens so fast that.

Oh, my God. Uh, that was pretty shocking. I actually didn’t expect it to get that crazy so quickly and in that way, so yeah, that was great. I mean, it’s like, you know, w classic brilliant filmmaking, you know, set up a scene. And so then the second time you think, you know what to expect and then boom, something different happens.

Uh, and they freak out. Right? So now they know they got to get out. And then there’s this kind of silly bit where they’re trying to pick the lock on a door that looks like an alternate escape door. And one of the guys apparently says he can pick locks and then. The nurse girl happens to conveniently have Bobby pins in her hair.

And, but yeah. Anyway, I think isn’t it. Um, that other character comes in. How do they come across that one, dude? 

Craig: It’s around native. Yeah, it is. And I liked this part. There was that whole thing with, um, the poker going through her head. Now we know we’re watching a horror movie, but even though I knew, I know, I know what I’m trying to say is.

There is a part of my head thinking. Maybe this is just really good. 

Todd: They think they grabbed her. They said, Hey, play along. You know, we’re going to do this thing in front of your friends and we’re going to freak them out. They could have just done that. I felt the same way we, we 

Craig: saw we, because we saw up close the poker, go through.

Faith, but it was going away and the curtain, it was very quick. It was very quick. So I was, I believed that she was really dead, but if I were in that situation, I think that I would be more likely to think that they were just playing. Then then I really just saw someone murdered in front of me. 

Todd: You do tend to want to not believe that sort of thing.

Yeah, exactly. 

Craig: Right. They’re freaking out. They can’t get the door unlocked. So they decided to send Nathan forward to move forward in the. So see if he can find something to break the lock and he ends up in this room. That’s lined with ghosts. Now it looks like mannequins with, uh, sheets over their heads.

But again, we’ve seen this a million times and you’ve seen it a million times in haunted houses. At least one of those sheets has a real person under it. That’s going to jump out and scare you or move or chase you or something. And that is what happens. But after the ghost moves and like walks away from it.

He calls out for help and the ghost turns the lights on and it’s like, you say, you need help.

Yeah. Holy shit. She bleeding to your head. Ah, we gotta get her out. I’m sorry, this, this isn’t supposed to happen ever, man. We just want to know. Okay. I don’t need to talk to your manager. I don’t have a suit. I haven’t seen anything. And I thought that this was really cool because it made me think, you know, it’s, it’s just a haunted house.

They’re scared. Yeah. Um, there, there, there had been a bit where, uh, the nurse girl was reaching under that chain link fence to try to get the witches poker and just as she had grabbed it, her hand had gotten stomped. And so if this really was just a hundred. They’re clearly going too far. Like they they’re potentially hurting people, but I still thought it could be, you know, like a rogue 

Todd: employee or two, you know, 

Craig: something right.

And, um, he offers to help, but he doesn’t take off his mask. This is where we also get Harper’s backstory, where she said that she grew up in a haunted house. Her father abused her mother. She hasn’t been home in four years because she’s. Her dad, but she has this recurring dream of going home. Um, and hoping that her mother will open the door and assure her that her dad has gone and the house isn’t haunted anymore.

And when she says the house is haunted, she means by her dad, like she doesn’t mean it’s literally haunted. We get that little exposition. Um, but then the go, they all get back together and the ghost is with them and he’s super apologetic, like, oh my gosh. Yeah. We’re super extreme that they’re not supposed to get hurt.

Yeah. There’s still safety protocols. Safety is a big deal. So we’re going to get you out of here, but he never takes off his mask. And from the beginning, I thought that was super shady. If you were real, I understand the whole, not wanting to ruin the illusion, but the illusion is ruined, like, take your mask off, but he won’t.

Um, but he does have keys and he does open a door and they all run to an emergency exit that Harper had seen. But. By a wall, but to go says you, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s all a show. They’re like, oh yeah. Well then where’s our friend Mallory. And he’s like, she’s waiting outside. He’s like we, we pulled her aside and made her part of the show to freak you guys out.

But she’s just waiting outside. She’s probably wondering, what’s taking you so long. They ask his name and he says his name is Mitch, but he won’t give his last name. And he suggests to them that it would be quicker to move forward in the haunted house and get to the end that it would take longer to go back.

But he also says, I don’t care, do what you want go either way. And so they said that they would prefer to go back to the beginning, but to do that, they have to go back through that tunnel thing. And he says, you can only go one at a time because it’s rigged. If there’s too much weight in there, there’s a trap door.

That’s how we got Mallory. So you have to go one at a time. So. Tate. Evan says, I’m going to go first. Then ghost guy is going to go so I can keep an eye on him. Then Nathan then Bailey. Then the other two girls, Evan goes through, gets through ghost, goes through, gets through signals for Nathan to come in.

But as soon as Nathan comes in the ghost sky seals up the entrance slash exit that Nathan is heading towards. At which point, somebody. It starts trying to burst into the room that the girls are in and Harper is holding the door and she tells Bailey and the nurse to go in the, to go. And they’re like, we can’t both go.

We, you know, we’ll fall through or whatever. And she’s like, you have to. And so this, uh, the devil character bursts through both girls get into the tunnels, but Angela. It doesn’t get far enough in and he grabs her by the leg, pulls her out and puts a Pitchfork through her head. And at this point it ain’t a show.

Todd: No, without a doubt at this point, and this happens right in front of Bailey. Insane. And 

Craig: she stuck in there and then we don’t see her again for ever. And I knew that there was something going on because at this point, everybody else has separated. Nathan falls through the trap door in the tunnel. Evan gets outside, but the lock box with the phones is gone.

Um, and we see that the clown has it, like in this office, Evan is very creepily approached by the ghost outside. Um, And then this is the part where I was like, what is happening? A Harper runs away, but the devil. Chases her down into a room that she can’t get out of any takes off his mask. And what’s underneath his mask is far more horrifying than the mask itself.

Um, I wa that’s why I wish that there was behind the scenes stuff, because if this was makeup and prosthetics, it was amazing. 

Todd: You mean the tattoos and the. Yep. It is totally, it is totally makeup and prosthetics. I looked it up. Yeah. The actor, actually the actor who played this character, Damian who played the devil, the devil mask guy.

He was in the strangers and he was in the remake, the newest one of wrong turn. And actually in both of those movies, he’s got quite a bit of makeup effect on him to make him look pretty freaky. So he’s knows no stranger to this sort of thing apparently, but yeah, it looked great. Yeah. Awesome. And it’s totally prosthetics.

Craig: And that’s why I wondered if this was supposed to be in any way supernatural. Now I completely believe there are people who do modifications to their face and their bodies with, with see bikes 

coming, 

Todd: your heads and things like that. Right. Implant these things. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. It’s a real thing. And this looks real and eventually we find out that almost all of them are tattooed and, and have modifications in their.

And spikes and piercings and all kinds of crazy things. I don’t know if it was suggested that it was supernatural or if they were some kind of cult or if they just were tattoo and body modification enthusiastic. I don’t know, but it looks great and they’re clearly wicked. And at this point everything goes crazy and the ghost, uh, everybody takes off their mask.

Except for one, there’s a Skeletor type person that never takes off their mask. Um, but everybody else does, and they’re all like crazy modified and it looks fantastic. The ghost kills Evan. Um, and then. Uh, Nathan and Haley are getting chased around for a long time. Haley eventually gets to the end of the maze.

And it’s a room that ironically looks like a little girl’s bedroom. And of course there are all kinds of clues. This does feel very much like a escape room. There are all kinds of clues that she has to find, but she finds them all. And she ends up having to crawl under the bed where she gets this key to open the store, but the devil is coming in behind her.

And when she turns the key for the door, it sets into motion, this series of gears. And when the gears all lock in, it starts playing the Jack in the box music all around the Mulberry Bush. And when it gets to the pop goes, the weasel, the door explodes, and obviously a shotgun has been. On the other side of the door and shoots through it.

We see that she’s hit that. She’s okay. And so she falls to the floor and she starts crawling and the devil runs in and jumps on top of her and is trying to kill her. And she’s really smart. She had already stabbed him in the eyeball. Like again, it was a whole daddy issue thing. She was flashing back to her dad and her hiding under the bed, blah, blah, blah.

Conveniently. Yeah, she, so she pushes, she pushes her thumb into his, his already injured eye and pushes his him up because this Jack in the box music is going on repeat and every time it gets to that part, it fires, which I don’t understand. Cause that looked like a single shot shotguns. 

Todd: It couldn’t actually 

Craig: happen?

No, no, but she’s really smart. She pushes him up. His head gets blown off, but then she is so fucking stupid. She stands up and starts walking towards it while the countdown is happening. And like, as it gets to the part where the gun is supposed to virus, she like puts her hand up in front of you, like grow your hand is not going to stop that bullet.

Todd: But 

Craig: fortunately for her, I guess the single action shotgun after three or four rounds is now depleted. Nathan shows up and starts pulling her out. At some point, Nathan is able to get a hold of her phone. Like a Google maps texts to her abusive boyfriend who was the one in the red truck who’s already nearby.

Yeah. And so he he’s on his way in, they fight people, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Eventually they come to the vampire and the vampire is like, wait, wait, don’t hurt me. And he pulls off his mask and he’s not all weird. Yeah. And he’s like, I had no idea what I was getting into, you know, I just thought it was a job.

And then they, they started killing people and, uh, we’ll get out of here and I’ll take you to the cops and whatever. Um, but then he gets killed by one of the. The the abusive boyfriend gets in only to trigger that trap that we had seen set in the opening credits and get a bolt through the throat and then get sledgehammer to the head.

Like literally they should have cut that they should have cut the whole boyfriend thing. 

Todd: It was like all scat man Caruthers in the shining kind of moment, except not nearly as sophisticated. Right. Because at 

Craig: least with him, we cared about, you know, like he was a character we cared about. He had a role in the movie.

Yeah. This guy does not at all. And so he gets killed stupid. Nobody cares. They end up finding a hatch to get out. Harper is confronted by the witch, but she ends up killing the witch by smashing her head in the hatch door. Satisfying. Yeah, it was, it was good. I really enjoyed that. Until after them is the zombie and the zombie shoots Nathan.

But then Nathan is still able to kill him with his baseball bat. This drives me crazy. Nathan gets shot in the abdomen and then still has the strength and presence of mind to beat somebody to the baseball bat. That is not the way getting shot works. 

Todd: And then he can climb. By the way, yeah, 

Craig: a huge fence with the barbed wire top not to get morbid, but I had an uncle who was shot in the abdomen and was in the hospital for months before finally succumbing to his injuries and dying.

This is just not. And that way, and it happens in movies that way all the time. And I feel like it gives people a false sense of security around guns. No, if you get shot, you are in big trouble. Be careful with guns 

Todd: and now, you know, yeah. That’s our public service announcement on two guys in the chances 

Craig: they find.

Uh, the boyfriend’s truck, which is still running and they get in it and they drive away. The clown is the only one left. He sets the whole place on fire, which was the whole reason for the setup of the oil room, so that it could be burned very quickly and they get to the hospital and then. It’s like Harper goes home to her parents’ house.

It’s a recreation of the dream that she’s had several times and she opens the door and it’s her mom and her mom comes out and gives her a hug and it’s a beautiful ending. And then the club. The steps out from behind the mom and she wakes up in the hospital and it was a dream, but a nurse comes in and says, your friend is fine.

He’s in the room. Next door. He’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. We just need you to sign these releases. And upon hearing sign the releases, she remembers that. Filled out all of their personal information on those releases that the bad guys still have. And we see, we see the clown with those releases driving and he pulls up in front of Harper, his parents’ house, he bursts in and walks in, but he isn’t.

Stepping into a sticky trap, which Harper had gotten stuck in a sticky trap in the haunted house. And then the pop goes, the weasel music starts playing. And at the moment where, you know, pop goes, the weasel Harper shows up with a shotgun and says, let’s take off your mask and blows his head off. And that is the end of the 

movie.

Todd: I love how she had the presence of mind with him. I dunno a couple of hours, I guess, that she realized, but while he was driving to also get, like, I don’t know, like an MP3 of pop goes the weasel or whatever and make it right. Make it nice and ironic, but it was a very satisfying ending. It was satisfying.

So happy. And presumably everyone in that cult has been killed because that guy is the ringleader of the whole thing. At least that’s how he was portrayed. We didn’t really see anybody else and he burned the whole. Presumably to the ground. We don’t know any of this for sure, but I liked that bit of finality at the end, which we don’t always get the ironic, you know, usually in a horror movie, the ironic ending is, oh, maybe the bad guy will come back or, oh, maybe you never quite escaped or aha.

We’re setting you up for a sequel. And this one, the twist at the end was sort of like, ha ha ha. She got them back in the Nick of time at the end with his own. That was really nice. I really liked that 

Craig: ending well, and it reminds me it’s very Eli Roth. I feel like something very similar happens at the end of hostels.

Like I’m the main character in hostel is able to find the guy that paid, uh, kills him in a bathroom, like shoves his head in the toilet or something. So, yeah, I mean, it’s very apropos. I mean, I know Eli Ross didn’t direct this, but apropos of his type of stuff as is the whole movie. As is also the case with Eli Roth’s movies and the movies that he’s directed, except from the green Inferno, which I thought was a total turd.

But beyond that, I find his movies to be entertaining. They are brutal. And again, I know he didn’t direct this, but his influence is clearly there. Uh, ultimately. That this was a fun ride, you know, it was well-made it had interesting twists that I didn’t see coming. It had a really good set pieces. It had a totally awesome Halloween feel to it.

Um, I think especially, I mean, you could watch it whenever you want, but especially during the Halloween season, this is great. Put it on your list, give it a shot. Would you agree? 

Todd: Totally agree. And it made me want to go through haunted houses again. Uh, and this, it made me want to go through this haunted house, except for, you know, I don’t want to die aside from that, like this one.

A cool experience for Halloween. And so in that way, it was sorta like doing it. It was a really fun ride and I really liked the movie. 

Craig: Well, thank you for listening to another episode of two guys in the chainsaw. We hope that you are as ready as we are to enjoy this month. And, uh, we’re going to be back with a few, at least a few more Halloween themes episodes this month.

We’ve got some things in mind, but if you want to throw in a request real quick, we will certainly. And if we can’t get to it, this Halloween season, we’ll see what we can do throughout the year or next Halloween season. If you liked this episode as always, please feel free to share it on your social media or recommend us to a.

Just a Google Two Guys and a Chainsaw podcast, you can find us all over the place and we’d love to hear from you, but until next time I’m Craig and I’m talking with Two Guys and the Chainsaw.

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