Creepshow 2 (1987)

Episode 285, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Craig: Welcome to another edition of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Craig

Todd: and I’m Todd.

Craig: And here we are in our second week of our anthology month, I picked the movie this week. Uh, we’ve been talking about doing this theme for a long time and every time we’ve talked about it, there’s always been one movie on my list that I wanted to do.

And that movie is Creepshow 2 from 1987. Now we could have gone. With creep show one creep show. One is a good movie. I like it a lot. Um, but Creepshow 2 is a movie that I grew up on. Uh, I saw it when I was little and I saw it well before I saw creep show one. I don’t think I saw creeps show one until I was an adult.

And I just always, as a kid, I really liked this movie. There were, there was one segment in particular that always did and still does creep me. And so I decided to buck tradition and skip the first one goes straight to the second one, the horror, and here we are. Creepshow is basically George Romero and Stephen King’s answer to Tales from the Crypt.

Uh, in fact, initially they had considered remaking that film, but eventually they decided to go with original shorts of their own. The stories are written or at least outlined by Stephen King, the screenplay. Uh, is by Romero and this movie is directed by Michael Gornick. Like I said, I grew up with it. I have no idea when I saw it first, but I think I was very young and I don’t remember if it played on TV a lot.

We had HBO, maybe it played on HBO. I don’t know, but I’ve seen this movie many, many times. Um, and it’s also one that I just kind of go to if I can’t find anything else to watch. And I just want to put on something to have in the background. I love it. So what’s your history? 

Todd: Well, I, um, I saw Creepshow 1 first. I saw Creepshow one when I was a younger kid, that being said, I owned Creepshow 2 on videotape.

And so I think it was either shortly before high school. I think it was starting maybe in middle school or maybe it was during my high school years. Um, that creep show too was a regular watch for me. Uh, so we had creep show two and quite a bit. And so just like you, I’m definitely more familiar with Creepshow 2 in the memory banks than I am with the first Creepshow.

I’ve seen them many, many more times. I was actually shocked to find out how old this movie was. I did not think it was 1987. I thought for sure, this was like 91, 92, perhaps, but you don’t, you wouldn’t know it. I mean, it it’s more or less a holds up today. Really, there’s not a single episode in here that feels dated in any way.

And so, uh, it does really kind of stand the test of time and in, in that way, I, I, and that was my shocker when watching this, uh, this time around. So I hadn’t seen it for gosh, probably a decade or two. So I was really happy to revisit it this time. And I do forgive you for watching the second one and ahead of the first one, even though I will frankly admit that the first one is my favorite.

I think the first one is a little more fun. This one’s fun. Don’t get me wrong. I think the first one’s a little more fun, a little more playful has more stories. And, um, for some reason the stories in the first one really hit me a lot harder than they do in, in the second 

Craig: one. So, well, I think that, I think they both, each of them has three stories.

I think that both of them were,

Todd: no, that’s not true. First one has five.

Craig: Oh I see. And I thought that, uh, Intended to have five and only ended up with three. But anyway, this one was five stories were considered, but only three were filmed and we only get three. I think that all three of them, uh, are good. This, you know, it is an anthology film and much like tales from the crypt, which we did last week.

Uh, there’s a wraparound story and I, I don’t know. I just, there’s so many charming things about this movie. It opens on a dark wet street. I don’t know. It looks like small town America, but it’s dreary. Um, you see this, a big truck coming down the street being followed by, um, a kid, a little kid on a bike.

The truck stops in front of this general store, I guess, and this scary guy, uh, the creep, uh, Tom Savini and some major prosthetics is yeah. Is delivering these packages of Creepshow comics. And this little boy Billy is, is patiently waiting the creep kind of teases him and says, and he was so patient building your real life, depended on getting the first copy off the precedent for he throws the package down.

And then the movie switches from live action to cartoon, which I just, I love. And like it’s old school. Animation, um, like Scooby-Doo or something like that. 

Todd: TV animation. 

Craig: Yeah. But it’s fun. And, uh, then the, the, the opening credits roll over comic cells, uh, which actually preview all three of the stories from the movie.

Um, and then the creep addresses us directly welcome kitties to another edition of creep show. Um, and it really, it jumps right into the first story, um, which is old chief wouldn’t head

Todd: when this first opened up. Cause I, you know, I knew the story was coming. I knew it was the first one. And I was thinking, gosh, I wonder how. David, this is going to be, I wonder how offensive this story is going to turn out to be, you know, in 2022. And I was kind of surprised to find out, I mean, I think in my opinion, no, I don’t think it’s, uh, you know, even though we’re dealing with the native Americans here, um, I don’t think that the story is as, uh, offensive as I thought it might be towards native Americans.

Craig: No, it’s not. It doesn’t paint Native Americans in a bad light at all. 

Todd: Not 

Craig: at all. You know, what, what surprised me watching it this time around was how sweet this story is in the beginning. Yes. It, and even like the score is very, I don’t even know how to describe it. It, it, it feels more like an afterschool special kind of yeah.

In 

Todd: tone, very. Sweeping and dramatic for it, you know, actually a very small story. Right. But, um, but it, it, it goes in lots of places. It’s not your typical horror score where it’s just all synth and S and spooky right there. These moments. Niceness to it. I, it is, it kind of reminded me a little bit of, I remember being similarly shocked by the S the entro score on a house and sorority row, and just how sweeping and, and orchestral that score was.

And it just puts you in a happy place at the beginning of this horror movie. 

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. It’s, it’s simple. It feels like a touching small towns story, and that’s kind of what it is. There’s this, it’s a very, very small, um, town, uh, I guess at one point it was kind of an up and coming town, but I don’t know things haven’t gone well, and lots of people have moved away and there’s just not a lot of people left and the general.

Is run by a man named Ray played by George Kennedy. Most of the actors in this movie have had prolific careers. Yeah. Some of them were already really well established when they made this movie. Some of them went on, but like you, you look at the cast list and you look at their filmography fees. And so many of these actors, uh, have worked for forever and are still working.

Um, they may not be a list celebrities, but they are working actors. Um, George Kennedy is very recognizable. He was in airport. He was in the naked gun movies, sweet old guy. And when we find him, he’s touching up the war paint on like the cigar store, Indian outside his shop, his wife, Martha who’s played by Dorothy.

Kind of a starlet of the silver screen starting, I think in the thirties or forties and, um, worked all of her life. This was actually her last film. She wants Ray to close the store down because the town is dying and she says, you know, he’s, he did everything he could for this community. And it’s time for him to take time for himself and his grandkids and that type of stuff.

But he wants to hang on to it. This man shows up this native American man been white moon and he gives Ray this packet full of. Tribal Juul. And he says, these are all of my people’s most treasured heirlooms, uh, or whatever. And he says, we want you to hold these until our debt is repaid to you. Um, and you know, if our debt is not repaid to you in two years, then these things will belong to you.

And Ray is such a sweet guy. He doesn’t want to take it. He tries to give it back. But white moon says that it’s a matter of pride, that if he gives it back, that that puts them at the status of beggars and that’s shameful for them. So Ray keeps it and says that he’ll guard it with his life. 

Todd: And, you know, even before this, you know, there’s this nice moment where Ray and Martha are talking about the town and how the town used to be so alive and how it’s just sort of dead now.

Whereas Martha’s like 

Craig: Ray, it’s been four days since you’ve had a cash paying customer. It’s been four weeks since anyone has given you any money on a credit account. If you keep supporting these people, we won’t have anything to leave to the grand jury. Except good intentions. 

Todd: And he’s just cheerful.

Like, you know, I want to help this town, you know, the store put our kids through school, you know, it gave us savings. It gave us a home. And I want to give back to this community that, that now is struggling. And, and I, I felt like, you know, like that’s such a relatable. Right. I mean, even today, you know, we have the same, the same sense that maybe in some ways, things aren’t the way they used to be.

And, and you’re always looking back on sort of the glory days. And sometimes we look back on it with resentment, but this guy looks back on it with a hope that there’s going to be more in the future. And so Martha, in a very gentle way is sort of telling rate, you know, don’t be such a soccer, you got to kind of put your foot down at some point.

And it’s right after this conversation that he comes in and changes her mind. She said, wow, Ben white moon. You know, I was just telling Ray that he’s too kind and too generous, but you and your people have shown me that actually, you know, you have a lot of integrity and you’ve sort of proven me wrong.

And so that’s a nice little turn in the story, you know, it just makes you love these people 

Craig: very right. It is nice almost to the point of being saccharin, but especially George Kennedy, I think just plays this. Kind older gentlemen, so well that you kind of forgive the almost saccharin nature of it and just think, wow, you know, this is really sweet.

These are, these are good kind, decent people been the native American man also seems kind and honorable and he wants to do the right thing. And it just seems like up to this point, everybody wants to do the right thing and do right by one another. Um, and it’s just, it’s really nice, which sets it up nice then for the very swift change in tone.

Um, because as soon as, as soon as Ben leaves, um, the older couple goes back into their store 

Todd: and it’s night, all of a sudden, 

Craig: right. It is night. All of a sudden. And there are three thugs in there. One of them being Sam white moon, who has bins, nephew. Uh, so also a native American man not played by a native American actor that would probably be different today.

Uh, played by a Caucasian actor. You know, uh, I don’t know if they darkened his skin to, he’s got this long black hair, presumably a wig and they’re robbing the store. And all of a sudden, like you said, it is night all of a sudden, and it does just take this dark tone. And one of the things, you know, having seen this movie since I was a kid and having seen it so many times, I’ve never, and this happens a lot when we prepare for a show, you know, I sit down to watch these movies and I’m watching very closely and I’m trying to watch with a critical eye.

And so I notice things that I hadn’t noticed before. And one of the things that I noticed this time around that I really, really appreciated is that the cinematography is such that. Each shot looks like a cell from a comic book. Like it’s, it’s framed like a comic book, sell the lighting. Very dramatic. It is.

And it looks like an illustration. Like you, it looks like a comic book come to life. And just the composition, the composition of the scenes where you’ll see, um, You know, a person when we first see Sam white moon, he, he is in the center of the frame he’s lit kind of, so that shadow falls over the top of his face.

And it’s just him right there in the center. Then there’s another shot later on where I think all, if not most, if not, all of the characters are in frame and one is very near the camera and one is, you know, a few feet back and then you’ve got other characters back in the back, you know, kind of out of focus.

It looks like an illustration. And I was just really impressed with that attention to detail because these are supposed to be based on comics. They’re not really, I mean, these are original stories, um, but, uh, it looks really cool and they’re there to Rob the store and they’re just awful, like, you know, just terrible.

I mean, uh, Sam. Is just cruel, just nasty and cruel. The other two are kind of buffoons, you know, just your typical thugs. Um, Sam is just a jerk and they’re robbing the store and Sam is admiring his looks in, uh, there’s a photo booth and he goes in and he’s like talking about how good looking he is. And he’s going to be a movie star.

And with hair like this, he’ll be getting, you know, roles and women. And that’s his big dream. And to be fair, he is a very attractive man. He too, I didn’t write down his name, but he too went on to play very attractive. Many things it’s more. 

Todd: Oh, my colony. Yeah. I was surprised to find out that he wasn’t native American.

I always just, as a kid, always assumed he was. So he, he, he passes well in the movie, like you said, I feel like there’s some makeup work going on there, but, uh, yeah, if you go to his IMDV profile, right. I mean, it’s, McCally, he’s clearly Irish somewhere. 

Craig: Right? Well, and he has striking blue eyes, which I think is atypical for native Americans, but that’s true.

That’s true. So, and, and they’re just awful, like they’re there, they’re destroying the store unnecessary. I mean, they’re stealing, but they’re also just destroying the store unnecessarily. Um, you can tell that Ray is trying to hide this satchel that, uh, he’s just been given. They hand over what little money they have.

Um, but then Sam demands the jewels. Um, and, and Ray’s trying to talk them out of it. He’s like Sam, these aren’t even mine. They belong to your people. You’re, you’re stealing from your own people, but Sam doesn’t care and he’s holding his shotgun. Um, at Martha’s side, threatening her, trying to get ready to hand over the Juul.

And then he shoots her, I think, accident. I don’t think that he meant to shoot her in this moment. I think that his finger just slipped on the trigger and she is shot through the side and you see blood coming out from under her dress and she falls over. And then I guess maybe it’s a point of no return.

He just lifts up his rifle and shoots Ray too. And they go outside and he shoots up the store and he shoots the chief wooden head, the statue and they leave. And as soon as they leave, you see the statue come to life. Now the statute. There are some great behind the scenes clips, uh, whatever you call them 

Todd: on.

I think it was probably on, uh, on the DVD 

Craig: or the DVD release. Right. And they detail, you know, all of the effects here and, and they did, they had a prop, they had a statue prop, but then they also had a guy in a suit. And, and the way that they made the suit is, is really interesting. And, and the guy in the suit was a.

And so this is a guy that studied movement, uh, and his movement is great. I mean, he moves like a statue, his movements kind of limited. It’s, it’s very intentional, but he comes to life and you know that, uh, I mean, you know where it’s going and that’s exactly where it goes. And it actually happens very quickly.

It does. The three guys decide that they’re going to split up just in, for long enough to go home and pack up their stuff before they get back together and head out to LA that’s their plan. But chief wouldn’t head has other plans.

Todd: It’s interesting because, uh, I always imagined in the watching of this as a kid, that I was seeing some kind of shoddy special effects work when I saw their moments that are close up on the statue where the statue has some slight movement. I thought as a kid, oh God, the guy acting like the statute in stand still enough.

Or they lingered a little too long on that shot and let some movements slip through. But actually they have a separate actual statue. Yeah. For this. It’s what he’s painting up in the beginning. It clearly have it, they have it. So it was an actual choice for early on to project. The statue moves, it can move and it, and it might Ben white moon when he comes in to the store, kind of looks up at the chief and you can kind of see a little slight movement.

And he kind of does a double take when these kids exit, uh, you can see it slightly frown a little bit like its eyebrows come down. And, uh, of course, as soon as they’re gone in the car, The music starts and the statue comes to life, basically in this very slow thing. As they’re leaving, Sam takes a shot with his shotgun at the statue and kind of misses and knocks over a can of that war, paint that red war.

And as soon as they speed away, uh, the statue slowly kind of lifts its foot. It moves its arm. It sets down its hatchet puts its fingers in that paint and puts its own war paint on and then looks up to the sky, opens its eyes and its mouth, and just lets out a yell. It’s just other worldly yell at it. It looks super scary.

And then like you said, yeah, each one of them go back to their. And, uh, fatso is in his trailer and he’s watching a TV show, the Cisco kid. And so that’s playing in the background. He sits down to watch that and he gets an arrow through his head and through his chest. A couple of times, the rich boy, which is what Sam calls him is trying to sneak out of his, uh, his parents’ place, I guess, where he lives.

And as he goes into the garage, he sees that his car has been smashed up and that’s the car there they’re going to get away in. And, uh, this is all done in shadow. I love that. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s done silhouette. You see the silhouette of the. Indian statue and it raises attach it and the catch it comes down and the, you see blood spray on the wall.

I had forgotten all these little details and I really liked them. I slept there so 

Todd: charming. It’s charming, you know, it’s got some variety. And like you said, you know, comic books that the good ones, you know, try to find these different ways of presenting things, right. And, and very dramatic angles and dramatic capture as much as you can, a one frame.

And that very effectively does that. Right. Then we’re back outside. And as the garage door lowers on the scene, we see that the chief is already outside because we see another shadow of him on the garage door as it comes down and then he walks away. It’s it’s so cool. Right. And it also gets. The cheesiness, maybe if you show too much of this statue walking around, it has the potential to look cheesy.

And so these first two kills, they do a pretty good job of kind of holding back the statue a little bit. Yeah. We don’t even see them with the arrows. Right. And then we just see his shadow with this one. Uh, but then when Sam comes home and he’s staring at himself in the mirror, he’s talking about how he’s going to go to Hollywood and his hair is going to save him, blah, blah, blah.

He hears a noise. He gets ready to go. And chief wouldn’t head breaks in the front door. And Sam has got his gun and he backs into a bathroom like an idiot. And, uh, you think the chief is going to come bursting through the door, but he surprises him by coming through the wall of the bathroom. And then it’s this great overhead shot where you see Sam get pulled through this hole in the wall, and then the camera, you know, through the wall and into the other room still overhead.

And you see the chief holding him by the hair. He raises his hatchet and comes down and you’d just know what’s going down right 

Craig: then. Yeah. Wakes up in the morning. Um, he seems like, it seems like something kind of startles him awake. And when he wakes up, he finds his people’s sad. In his bed with him. So he races over to the store where the statue has returned and is exactly where it’s supposed to be.

But now it is holding Sam’s scalp with his long beautiful hair. And, and then, uh, looks at the statue and says, may your spirit rest, uh, and again, the statute kind of moves a little bit and he kind of does a double take and, 

Todd: and tie tails it out of there. Right. I don’t know if this is actually true. Maybe thinking a little bit too much it reading a little bit too much into this, but the way he says, may your spirit finally be at peace old chief?

It makes. I just had a glimmer of a thought, like, do you think that that statue was given to them for protection? 

Craig: I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ll have any idea, but, uh, you know, I, again, the, the, the next segment is the one that I was most excited about, but I had forgotten how charming this one was and watching that feature at about the special effects.

I mean, everybody who worked on the special effects, there were bumps in the road, uh, especially on some of the other segments, but they were just so pleased with the way that this one turned out and they should be, oh yeah, I love practical effects. And all of the effects in this movie are practical. And if it were made today, Especially on a modest budget, it would all be digital and it would just not have the charm that this has, it just looks great.

Todd: Well, this was like Greg first rodeo. He and a buddy of his were kind of pulled into this. And a lot of ways we’re making things up as they went along and trying to figure out these special effects when one of the previous special effects guys wasn’t even delivering. And so, you know, they sort of quickly through the production, got elevated to being in charge of and supervising, uh, and actually making these things happen, especially in the rap scene.

And I mean, Greg Nicotero went on from here to do effects for so many films and probably most recently, and most famously the walking dead, all of that is from his shop. And so it really was, as you said earlier, a launching pad for a number of people’s careers, not the least of which special effects and therefore it’s kind of hard to believe that some of these.

You know, we’re cutting their teeth on this because it is still so good. And it really has, 

Craig: it was also just really cool to see that many of the same people were responsible for the effects on so many movies at this time. Like, um, I’m pretty sure that, uh, nicotine Pharaoh went directly from working on evil dead to, uh, like th like they weren’t even finished and he left to come work on this.

He had also worked on day of the dead with Tom Savini. You know, there was this handful of guys, and I say guys, because they were, they were men, this handful of men who were responsible for so many of the effects for movies that we love and. Uh, it’s just, it’s, it’s cool to get to see some of that behind the scenes stuff.

And it is, I encourage you to watch, you know, look for those things on YouTube. If you are interested, if you’re a fan of this movie, um, because it’s really neat to see the process. And it’s really neat to see the actors, you know, kind of in their makeup, but out of character and, um, see how these things were put together.

It’s, it’s very interesting. Um, we go back to the animated wraparound and all we really see in this one is that Billy receives a package in those old comics, and it wasn’t just the horror comics, but in those old comics, Back there would be all these ads that you could like, you know, send in, you know, this little clip from the magazine with a check and they would send you, it was, you know, it was cheap gag gift type stuff.

But, um, I never did. I never, I always wanted to 

Todd: Johnson Smith company and the back of those magazines and boys life, especially at boys life magazine, cause I was a boy scout and Johnson Smith ads were my favorite part of the boys life magazine was just to flip to the back and imagine what could I order?

Like it would just be all kinds of things like snapping gum and exp exploding cigarettes. And like that I did order a few times, you know, it’d be like 89 cents and pick three and then $3 for shipping and you’d get something back in the mail. And those were, those were fun times and they did, they sold stuff like Venus fly traps and.

That sounded really exotic and exciting. See monkeys. See you monkeys. 

Craig: I remember that. That’s funny. Yeah. And so, so Billy gets this package and he says that it’s a Venus fly trap bulb, and he’s all excited about it. It’s, it’s cute. And then the creep introduces the next tail, which is the raft and this one for whatever reason, just always stuck with me.

And, and I think it’s because I really like the water. I’ve always been a water person. Um, and so I don’t know, just this one spooks me out because, um, this was a, a very familiar setting to me. And this one is based on an existing Stephen King story. I think it was in . Skeleton crew. I think, I think so too.

And I have read it and the adaptation is very faithful. It’s a great story to these four young people, college kids, Deek, uh, Laverne. Randy and Rachel, um, and they’re kind of paired up in that way. Deacon Laverne seem like they’re kind of a couple and Randy and Rachel kind of seemed like they’re kind of a couple and it’s fall, but they’re headed to a lake 20 minutes from their campus for one last swim before winter.

They know of this lake where there’s a, they call it a raft. Um, it’s really like a small floating dock in the middle of a lake and they’re going to go out there and they know that nobody else is going to be out there because there are only summer homes out there and it’s past September. So before it gets too cold, it’s already cold before it gets too cold.

They’re going to go out for one last. They get their Deek jumps, re you know, strips down to his underwear Speedo or whatever he’s wearing and jumps right in. And, and, uh, Randy follows him and the girls are a little reluctant at first, but they go, and as they’re swimming out to this raft, Randy notices a bird like struggling on the surface, and then it kind of scream squawks and goes under.

So he’s kind of keeping his eye out over there. He notices that there’s like this big black, they refer to it as an oil slick, which it kind of looks like it also just kind of looks like a big hefty bag. 

Todd: It really does floating, floating on the water, 

Craig: but it, it seems to be approaching. And so he swims to the dock really fast and he’s screaming for the girls to hurry.

And Laverne really only just makes it, I mean, the, whatever this thing is, Inches from her when they pull her up on it. Randy is freaked out from the beginning and says 

Todd: I was going after the girls. 

Craig: Oh, come on, punch her. You said you sobered up, man. It looked like it was going after the girls. No one knows we’re here at all.

It’s such a throwaway line, but I love it. Like that’s so scary. You find yourself in peril and you just realize offhandedly. Nobody knows we’re here. Like yeah, if we’re in trouble. No one’s coming to help. 

Todd: And you know, it neatly works out like this is of course before the age of cell phones. And I said, this movie is, is not, uh, dated.

And it still isn’t because if you’re going to go swimming, yeah. You would leave your cell phones at the car probably, or on the beach, you wouldn’t be swimming. So it still works. That’s you’re still, still, we’re still just as isolated. Great. 

Craig: And I like this story because it’s such a simple concept. And I also like that nothing has ever really explained, like they don’t know what this thing is and we don’t either.

Randy’s kind of freaked out about it, but nobody else is particularly concerned and you know, they’re smoking joints or whatever. And Rachel reaches down and is kind of just kind of running her fingers over the surface of the water over the top of this thing. And it shoots up like this black goo shoots up and grabs her arm and pulls her in.

And pulls her under and then she comes back up and she’s completely covered in this slime. Um, and you can tell that it’s eating away at her skin and she’s saying it hurts. It hurts, but there’s nothing they can do. And it just pulls her under and she’s gone. And that’s just, it again, you can watch stuff about the special effects here.

They use like the super slime type stuff, and, you know, they had a technical name for it, but it’s this really viscous, sticky stuff that apparently is a nightmare to get off. Like they said, you almost have to use bleach to, to scrub it off. Cause once it’s stuck to you, it’s just so adhesive. You just can’t get it off.

And, um, the, the, the girl who, uh, you know, gets eaten in a very gruesome fashion, it looks great. She kind of looks like the girl on the evil, dead poster reaching up for help, except she’s covered in this goo. That was actually a. Person. And, uh, I guess it was just a nightmare for her not to mention that they really did film this in the fall.

Now they were in Arizona, but apparently it was rainy season and the rain delayed the production and the temperatures were low, particularly the temperatures of the water, the guy who played Randy apparently almost died of hypothermia. 

Todd: The crew kept wanting to push them to go. And the director was finally like, you know, I actually think we need to get them to a hospital or else.

We might not be able to get him to finish everything else. And it turned out to be a really good idea. So. Right. They had a lot of problems, I guess, with, um, you know, this is sort of where nicotine Pharaoh and his, uh, guys had to step in because of 

Craig: the, yeah. Things kind of fell apart. The original, special effects guy walked, I think at this point, 

Todd: right?

Because the director didn’t want to hear from him anymore. He pointed, he looked at the others and said, you guys tell me what we need to do. I don’t want to hear from you 

Craig: anymore. You know, it’s funny to hear nicotine Pharaoh and his partner talk about this because they’re very understanding, you know, they say if we were in his position and somebody else came and you know, was overseeing us and overruling us, we probably would have done the same thing.

Um, we probably would have left too, so they don’t have any hard feelings, but, and so now they don’t know what to do. Deek, uh, keeps talking about, you know, maybe we should try to. Swim for it. Maybe we can out swim it. And they’re kind of still debating that when the blob works its way under the raft, and Dick says, he’s gonna do it.

He’s gonna, he’s gonna swim for it. And he starts to go, but then he starts screaming and the camera, you know, cuts to his feet and the blob is coming up through the planks of the dock and it’s got his leg and it continues to kind of work its way up his leg. And it pulls him down through the boards, as it pulls him down, it folds one of his legs up.

Onto his torso and just completely pulls them in. And the others, you know, have to keep their feet on the boards away from the cracks between them. So it can’t get them. And it was really cool to hear how they did this too. They lifted up the raft and they put these like gutters underneath it and filled the gutters with that black gooey stuff.

And then they could like push on the gutters in different places to make this stuff ooze up. It looks fantastic. It looks really good. It looks organic and it really looks like the thing is moving, but it gets him. And so the other two are stuck there and they keep watch. The thing goes out from under the raft.

They keep watching it’s nighttime and it goes all through the night and they’re super cold. And eventually they end up sitting down together and holding each other and uh, eventually they fall asleep. Both of them. Well, that’s right. Randy wakes up and he’s holding her and he lays her down. On the dock and proceeds to molest her.

So I, I had forgotten, or maybe I just didn’t know when I was a kid. Like, I remember it, like, I thought they like started making out, but no, he just assaults 

Todd: her in her sleep. That’s an odd thing. Like Randy lives up to his name. Right. And I think that when I watched this as a teenager, I won’t say I understood it more, but I think I was more in the mind of a teenager at that point, I thought it was horrifying, but I’m like, oh yeah, he sees an opportunity to take advantage of this girl.

He just wants to see her boobs. It’s just so odd. It’s very Stephen King though. He likes to do this kind of thing. I feel like, but yeah, I don’t know how I feel about this bit. It just, what I think the reason for it is and what he basically does is he, he lays her down on the raft while she’s asleep. And while she’s laying down in the raft, he likes slowly lifts her shirt up, exposes her breasts kind of runs his face, close to her body up there.

And it looks like he wants to like, you know, take a lick or a bite or something here. And I don’t know what his end game is because you get startled before he finishes and he pulls it down. But my thought for why this was included. In these stories, usually people get what’s coming to them. People get what they deserve, you know, sort of following the horror movie tropes.

None of these kids really got what they deserved, to be honest, but at least right, for this kid to die, you kind of had to lose a little bit of sympathy for him. And maybe that was the prejudice, you know, was to lose 

Craig: some sympathy for up until now. He really kind of seemed like the hero role. And, uh, you know, again, as a kid, I don’t know if I was desensitized by horror movies or, or what, but like I never gave it even a.

I thought, like, I thought she might wake up and they’d make out, but watching it this time, it was a little uncomfortable because she even seems to kind of be protesting even in her sleep. I think that’s why he pulls her shirt back down is because I think she’s moaning. Like, no. And there’s that like 

Todd: sort of sweet, romantic music playing behind it.

It’s all like a little cringy. I bang purposefully. So maybe 

Craig: right. Well, anyway, so she’s kind of protesting and, and moaning, but then her eyes open and she realizes, and we soon realized that the reason that she’s moaning is because she’s in pain because the blob has snuck back under and has come up and has gotten, is attached to her face.

Um, and then it gets all over her face and starts pulling her into. You know, reaching out to Randy for help. And, um, he’s just standing there and whore. And eventually, while the blob is occupied, he dives into the water and start swimming for sure. And it starts swimming after him. And there’s a great aerial shot where you see him swim through the frame, and then you see the blob coming behind you.

And he gets to shore and he crawls out on the shore about an inch away from the water and turns around and starts taunting. The thing is like a high beat. You, I don’t know what you are, but I beat you. And then the blob jumps out of the water and then Gulf SIM, it’s crazy. And I love it because it’s unexpected.

We think he’s made it. He thinks he’s made it. And then, you know, can, we don’t know what this thing is to say it can’t come out on land and it just jumps out and grabs him and drags him back in. And the camera cuts back to a wider shot with the car in the frame. And it pans away from the car to these weeds.

Uh, and you see a sign that says no swimming. Hilarious. I love that sentiment. I think it’s so good. 

Todd: It’s a wonderful segment. I think it’s the best segment of all three. It’s certainly the one that stuck with me the most as a kid, because it just horrified me a. The idea that you can be out there stranded and really pretty helpless when this unknown thing is coming at you as one thing, but B the fact that it’s systematically picks them off despite their best intentions, see that this guy is responsible for getting the girl he supposed to be protecting.

Killed by an act of pure selfishness was horrifying to me. And then of course, you know, he thinks he’s a, he he’s, he’s one and you kind of want him to win. Right. But then that thing swoops over and get some, and I was impressed with that special effect too. I was waiting, you know, To it. Now that we’re watching these with a critical eye leading up to it, I was so excited to see that shot.

Cause I remember that shot, but I don’t remember it well enough. I just know this was the age before computer effects. So I was really curious to see how they did it and it’s impossible to see how they did it. It’s just looks like a wave of this thing flopping over him. It’s really, really good. And uh, then in watching that feature at, they decide that, well, what they basically did was they just made this big folding frame that they attached to a big piece of this monster too.

And they, you know, pulled it back and had it on a tripwire. So it would spring forward kind of like a, um, a convertible car top comes forward. And I said, oh, that is so clever. And it works so well. 

Craig: And it’s shot really. Because it’s a split second. I mean, you know, it, it jumps out and you see him kind of try to get up to escape it and then it just kind of envelops him, but it happens so quickly.

Uh, it looks great, 

Todd: sort of perfect ending to, you know, it’s ending with a zinger. Like there’s the one bit of the ending, which is so. Cool and frustrating. It’s sorta like, um, the ruins, you know, where it’s like, this thing has been there for who knows how long. Right. And it will clearly continue to be there for who knows how long, you know, but it also seems like somebody knows about it because there’s a sign, but nature has overtaken that sign almost like it’s, it’s keeping that going.

You know, like it’s its own protection. It just raises so many questions that, like you said, it’s just so great that they don’t ever try to explain it. Right, 

Craig: right. Love it. Cut back to the wraparound. Um, Billy gets chased on his bike by some bullies and I love the animated parts. they remind me, they remind me of cartoons from when I was a kid.

And these bullies, you know, are, are so OneNote, but they’re just gleefully mean and wicked. This big fat, tough bully steals Billy’s package and throws it on the ground and stomps on it. And then he even pulls out the bulb, the Venus fly trap bald, and he’s like, we did the planning in Cromer panties, like, and I’m immediately thrown back into the eighties,

Todd: maybe a little too. Well, huh.

You know, for me, what, as a kid watching this too, again, a sign of the times, this was probably the first time I’d ever seen. This kind of story in cartoon form when we were kids, cartoons were pretty tame. Yeah. Never violent. And so to see these kids bullying this kid and being mean, and sort of the violence that ends up happening in this cartoon was novel for me at the time.

And I found the cartoon section almost as scandalous in the fact that it was a scary cartoon, you 

Craig: know, I loved it. And then we get the last story, um, which is the hitchhiker. And this is a story. Of a woman named Annie, um, a rich lady. She wakes up in bed with a man who is quickly established as not her husband.

In fact, he’s a gigolo that she’s paying. She woke up late and she needs to get home before her husband. Um, and it’s 20 miles away and she only has seven minutes to get there. So she’s racing and she’s talking to herself in the car trying to come up with some excuse, went to see a movie.

I went to get led George there’s this wonderful guy. He charges $150, but that’s for six count of six orgasms,

$25. And she ends up hitting and presumably killing. Uh, hitchhiker and she stops and she’s thrown, but when she sees the headlights of another car approaching, she turns off her lights and takes off. Now, I remember when I was a kid that this was my least favorite one, watching it again. I had more appreciation for it and I’m not really sure why.

Um, but I, I did think ultimately that this one is actually really scary. And this one is probably most like a tales from the crypt episode. Um, in that you’ve got somebody who has done something bad, who then is punished 

Todd: more so than the raft. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. 

Craig: The, uh, the thing that, um, I was most interested in finding out about this one was that this woman who’s, you know, your typical, rich 80.

Bitch for lack of a better word. She was originally supposed to be played by Barbara Eden and I, and Barbara Eden only ended up dropping out because her mother passed away. And so she couldn’t film it. Um, but I can’t. Can you imagine Jeannie in this 

Todd: grave I would have been great. I 

Craig: know I would be really cute.

But anyway, the woman who ends up playing it as low as child who was Holly Goodhead in Moonraker. Um, so again, another, you know, well-established actress, 

Todd: uh, and, and I’ll, I’ll say too, like as a kid, this seemed very adult to me. Like I had to have, my dad explained to me the whole thing about the gigolo.

And, and, and in that case, it is very much like a tales from the crypt episode from HBO, because they always seem to insert some of it, like some nudity, some adult like heavy adult themes into these otherwise, you know, more traditionally kid fair, kind of, kind of anthology comic stuff. But for me, this one has more humor in it.

It’s a. Tone in a way, because, uh, while she’s talking to herself, as she’s going down the road and the whole concept of what’s going on as, as we’ll explain, as, as it continues is, is humorous. It’s funny. And I think that’s really what sets it apart from the previous two ones, which I sort of feel are pretty dead serious.

Chief wooden head is just depressing and the raft is pretty much to, you know, whereas this one, you’re almost laughing by the end of it. And, and that’s part of what hooks you in as like, how far is this going to go? You know? Cause it’s, it’s like an ongoing gag, basically 

Craig: it, and I would agree with you except for the effects in this one are so good.

That late. So basically what happens is she’s, she’s feeling guilty or she’s trying to decide whether or not she’s going to feel guilty. Like she keeps asking herself, can I live with this? Um, and she says, well, you know, I’ll just, I’ll go home. I’ll try to go on with my life. And if I can’t live with it, I’ll turn myself in later.

Um, but what ends up happening is she ends up passing the hitchhiker on the highway again, and she stops the car to make sure that she saw. Thinks that she saw and she did. And it’s the hitchhiker mangled from being hit. And he knocks on her, went like, you know, jump pops up at her window and says, thanks for the ride lady.

She, uh, takes off, but he’s like holding onto this side of the car and he gets up on top and he’s trying to get in the sunroof. And he just keeps saying it tags for their ride lady. 

Todd: That’s hilarious. I mean, 

Craig: but, but what kills me about it is that she keeps like, she drives into the forest to try to knock them off.

And she does, and she keeps like hitting him and running him over. And every time he just gets more and more gross, like. And by the end, he’s unrecognizable. I mean, he’s just a bloody blob, right. But he just keeps

even this guy. I, you showed me a clip where this guy was on like a reunion. Panel Tom, right? Yeah. And I recognized him and I’m like, why do I recognize him? Well, he’s been in a bazillion thing, but I, I recognized him from troop Beverly Hills. He was, he was the one black girls, dad and troop, Beverly Hills, me, he’s been in a bazillion things, TV 

Todd: and movies all over the place, 

Craig: again, still working.

And, um, she finally, after going through like two forests, you know, and she, at one point she smashes this, he’s sitting up against a tree and she smashes into him like two or three times. Like he’s just a bloody pulp. And she is, she finally gets home. She pulls into her garage. She’s. Like hysterically laughing, crying about all the damage to her car and how she’s got a concussion and how much money all of this is going to cut her.

Todd: Husband’s not even home 

Craig: yet. And her, yeah, her husband’s not home. He’s late for the only time ever. And she goes to get out of the car. She opens the door and the corpse thing slides out from underneath. Like he’s a mechanic and, and looks up at her extra, their ride lady. And he like gets up in the car and he’s like, you’ve got his face pressed up against hers.

And he doesn’t even have like a face. It’s just like a tongue, like rubbing up against her face. And they X for their ride 

Todd: lady. Those guys called that they’re Admiral Ackbar, Virgin of him. Because this bias or just bugging out and going different directions and the tongues just hanging in the face is just totally splayed open.

And it’s all a puppet and he’s just rubbing against her for like 15 seconds.

The special effects are as they’re just enjoying, torturing the actor. 

Craig: Oh yeah, it’s great. I really liked it. I, I can see how you like it is a running gag and I can see how it’s funny, but the effect is so gross. Like I still thought it was scary. So her husband comes home and opens the garage door and it’s filled with exhaust fumes and he opens the car door and she’s sitting in there dead and she’s holding the Hitchhiker’s sign.

And that’s, that’s the end of that one. And then we get the end of the wraparound, which is very satisfying. We cut right back to where we left off, where the bullies are chasing Billy. And he leads them onto this private property that says, you know, no trespassing or whatever. And he leads them into this big clearing and it looks like, you know, they surround him and they’re going to beat him up, but he’s got this sly smile on his face.

I really liked that too. Like, he’s supposed to be like this innocent kid. He’s this little blonde kid, but he’s got this really wicked. To then these giant Venus fly traps, pop out and eat all of the bullies and they get the great big one last and the great big one, like the thing gets it in his mouth and he kind of stands up, you know, like, I don’t know, Hercules or something and is like holding the jaws open, but then they snapped out swallows and Billy’s just standing there smiling slyly with his, you know, Fly traps are all around him.

They eat 

Todd: meat. He 

Craig: need, uh, uh, animated camera pans to the creep who is watching and laughing. And he climbs back into the back of his truck. It goes back to, uh, Live action. Again, Tom Savini and this, you know, these prosthetics and he just laughs and the truck starts driving away with him hanging out the back and he scatters copies of creeps show out the back as he’s driving away.

And then, okay. So there was a knock at my door, right at the very end when the credit started. So I got up and I, I got the door and everything and I, I came back and I clicked the credits back on and thought, you know, I’ve, I don’t, I don’t think I’ve ever watched the credits before. Maybe there’s something at the end or something, and there’s not, there’s not a credit scene or anything, but I was glad I watched it because at the very end of the credits, there’s a note.

The very last thing you see is this quote from Colliers magazine from 1949. 

Todd: Did the comic scare? 

Craig: Yeah, it says juvenile delinquency is the product of pent up frustrations, stored up resentments and bottled up fears. It is not the product of cartoons and captions, but the comics are a handy, obvious, uncomplicated scapegoat.

If the adults who crusade against them would only get as steamed up over such basic causes of delinquency is parental ignorance, indifference and cruelty. They might discover that comic books are no more a menace than treasure island or Jack the giant killer. Um, and I just, I’d never seen that on here before, and I love it.

And I especially love that it’s a quote from 1949 because this debate, this debate was still going on in the eighties. And to some extent it’s still going on now. Like people are so desperate to find a root cause for the bad behavior of young people and things like comics or horror movies or rock and roll music or whatever are easy scapegoats and artist.

I’ve had to fight this battle for decades and it’s stupid. And, and, and now, you know, it’s, it’s video games, you know, it’s violent video games that inspire all of these terrible things. And it’s not like, I think that time has pretty clearly shown that it’s not, uh, any one particular thing. At least not the things that are most commonly blamed.

I just thought that was really. Really interesting. 

Todd: Yeah, it was cool. And it ties in, well, obviously with the theme of creep show, cause it’s based on those comics. And we talked about this a little bit last week when we talked about tales from the crypt, the whole comics code, you know, situation, just part of the never ending cycle.

You just keep revisiting the same argument over and over and over again. I just love, I love this movie. I really do. I loved it just as much this time around as I always did. Like I said, I really liked the first one better. Cause there’s a couple more stories. It has some bigger stars and I feel like the stories are tighter and they pack some punch.

Um, these stories pack punch and they, they do go by really quickly. I do feel like the last one was stretched out a little bit. I understand they were going for particular pacing and you know, I did feel like as tight as the other ones were, you know, the last one became such a running gag that it’s like, I get the gag, I get the gag.

Let’s get to the end. Let’s see eventually, you know how this is going to work out because we’ve figured out this guy isn’t going to die. He’s just going to get messy and more. You know, so, uh, that was my only that’s. That’s probably why I think the third one is the weakest, even though it’s a good one compared to the other two, but I can see kind of why they ordered things in the way that they did.

So it, it, it’s a shame that the other tube that, that they had planned for one reason or another, I think one was the budgetary reasons, or maybe both were budgetary reasons or they didn’t make it into the movie. One of those ended up in another movie. I believe in cats. I 

Craig: know it was, um, uh, tales from the dark side, tailspin dark 

Todd: side.

Or just an episode. Okay. 

Craig: The, the movie, the cat from hell and the other 

Todd: one. Um, apparently not too long ago, somebody had a Kickstarter going to try to actually film it. And I don’t know if that ever, and it was something about pinball, pinball, 

Craig: something or other? No, it’s a, it was it’s about, uh, ghostly rival bowling teams.

Oh 

Todd: yeah. Not pinballs something. That sounded weird. I read a little bit like what I want to change the tone of this movie quite a bit. Yeah. 

Craig: I think that technically there is a Creepshow 3 and maybe even a Creepshow 4, but King and Romero, I don’t think had anything to do with them. And by all accounts they’re really bad.

I don’t think I’ve seen them. I think they’re pretty obscure. Um, but Shudder right now is running a Creepshow streaming series. Have you seen it? I’ve watched a few of them. I haven’t watched many of them there. There’s been a couple of seasons and a couple of holiday specials. And the ones that I’ve watched, uh, are creative.

One of the ones that I watched was based on a Stephen King story about this kid who has to get his. He has to go buy his dad beer every day. And it turns out that his dad is turning into like this monster that ends up kind of taking over the world. I remember reading that story, the Stephen King story, and then, so I was pleased to see it when I watched that episode.

It’s pretty good. And I think that, uh, it’s been pretty well received critically, and it seems like it’s keeping going and not slowing down. And, and that’s great because I really do love anthology, horror. I love these short little. One-off stories for somebody like me with a short attention span. They’re perfect.

You know, it’s, you can sit down and get a whole story in like half an hour. That’s why I like reading short stories too. I’m a big fan of short story anthologies, just to be able to sit down and get a whole story in a short amount of time. Um, I really like it, so I hope that people keep making them and I think they will.

In fact, we see more and more anthologies, especially around the holidays every year. Um, and we’ve, and we’ve done several Halloween and Christmas anthologies, and we’ve done other anthologies too. And we’re still going to be back doing a couple more this month. It’s funny. We’ve kind of got planned. Kind of nebulously, we have planned what we’re going to do, but just, you know, in thinking about it over the last couple of weeks and thinking about it yesterday, there are so many, you know, and, and so many good ones and so many bad ones, but we could probably do.

Six months of anthology films, if we wanted to, because there are so many, um, but I really liked them and I hope that we continue to see them. Yeah, me too. Me too. Well, thank you for listening to another episode of two guys in a chainsaw. Of course. Uh, if you enjoy this episode, let us know if you have any insight into this movie that we missed.

We’d love to hear it. If you want to hear our other stuff, all you need to do is Google Two Guys and a Chainsaw podcast, and you’ll find us all over the place anywhere where you can find streaming podcasts. You’ll find us there. We’ll be back. Like I said, for the next couple of weeks with a couple more horror anthologies for you.

But until that time, I’m Craig and I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.